dreadcrumbs

Friday Fives

Top 5 Best Things to Find Embedded in Your Waste

5. Unwrapped, undigested chocolate bar
4. Nothing
3. Wrapped chocolate bar
2. Gold nuggets
1. Live Ascaris worms (Better out than, in, right? Right?)

The Long Dark Shadow of Quality Control

Bah. My boss just made me take out the phrase "Practitioner has feline rabies" from the presentation I'm making for him to give at a medical conference next week.

I guess that means "Modifer D01: Dogs present in the operating room" has to go, too.

They Walk Among Us

Today while I was in line at my lunchtime food-o-mat of choice, I saw, from a distance, a kid I knew from fourth grade.

Yes, you're right to be skeptical. How could I be sure? Fourth grade was like 25 years ago for me. I have a hard time remembering people and things 25 days ago, much less years.

So how did I recognize him? Well, apart from his having unique features (his face is sort of "nonstandard"), he hadn't changed. At all. In a quarter century. He was identical to his fourth grade self. He was maybe taller, but only in the same proportions that I have grown, and so, subjectively, he was exactly the same.

As someone who physically transmogrifies every eight years, I find that incredibly odd. I remember seeing someone in the grocery store at 24 who I knew quite well at 17 who didn't recognize me at all. I stopped and waved, and she gave me the "go away creepy guy I don't know you" look and hurried away with her cart full of doritos.

If my wife and I run into mutual acquaintences that we haven't seen for 7 years or more, they will start talking to her at length, ignoring me, until finally she says, "You remember Dean, don't you?" At which point they usually just stare at me, confused. Usually they come around and acknowledge that I might actually be the person they remember from 1998, but I don't think they're completely convinced.

So, my friend from the fourth grade. I always kind of thought he was a freak, even back then, but I had just moved into the big city from the farms, and couldn't be too choosy about who was willing to spend time with me. But now, now that I see with my own eyes that he hasn't changed at all in 25 years, well, I can be sure that he is in fact an Unnatural Thing.

And to think I've been carrying around all that guilt from his nasty head vs. brick wall incident that I facilitated while in a fit of rage. What a relief.

Microstory Monday

Spawning Ground
My farm jerks his head to one side and begins to cough on the gag.
Trying to be patient, I advance to the next slide.
"The larvae will then spread underneath your skin," I begin, but now he's screwed his eyes shut.
With a sigh, I walk to his chair and pry up one of his eyelids. "I'm trying to educate you," I say, looking into what I can see of the iris, "wouldn't not knowing be worse?"

Friday Fives

The top five reasons why I think I might actually be dead

1. A 20 foot fall from a tree onto a barbed wire fence
2. My experiment to see if the human body can pass through plate glass given sufficient force
3. The Bus vs. Me incident
4. The soulless gaze I see in the mirror
5. The result of (motorcycle + locked throttle + bad brakes)*teenager

Threat Level Orange

Because I've had quite a lot to do at work lately, I've been trying to analyze my responses to augmenting stress in an effort to understand why I find blood on my hands at 3:00 AM might behave differently than normal.

I've divided stress into four escalating categories: Light, Medium, Heavy, and "Get dressed, we're going to the ball tonight."

Light stress is exemplified by work and home responsibilities getting in the way of my playing video games and watching people shoot each other with lasers. Most would probably call this "good" stress. I usually react to it by not playing video games. I may also be heard grumbling.

Medium stress probably means people are coming by my desk at work or calling me on the phone more than once every two hours. Apart from the aformentioned grumbling, my eyes will start to narrow and I will avoid responding to or looking at anyone talking to me for at least 45 seconds in hopes they will go away.

Heavy stress usually involves my being in any building that isn't my home for 10 or more hours per day. I will carry headaches around for long periods and can be seen "accidentally" ramming my shoulder, arm, or elbow into the corners of walls as I pass them.

"Get dressed, we're going to the ball tonight" probably contains all of the above, plus the added requirement of having to get dressed to go to a ball. I know. It's almost too horrible to imagine, but that sort of thing does happen to me. They may not be balls, per se, but they are places where there are hordes of people gathered together. So basically the same thing. Too much of this, and I start to twitch angrily at any unexpected sensory input (like sudden light breezes or an odor of avocado), make poorly veiled sarcastic comments, and be plagued with a constant desire for good boots and a nicely-weighted bludgeon. After about an hour or two I also begin to bleed from my eyes, so I usually find an excuse to lope away into the woods, a cave, or other dark and quiet place before that (or worse) happens.

I know, I know. I sound like the perfect party guest. My wife can attest.

Secret Lives

Here's a quick one. Three bits of odd phone conversation I overheard in the office today. I'll let you imagine the scenarios that drove them.

"Dude, only if you pull your groin."

"Well, did you let her out of the cage?"

"I'll eat it! I swear! Get off me. I'll eat it!"

Microstory Monday

Bad Shoes in the Burn Ward
Uncle Brad is screaming, and the nurse that came to give him more painkillers is looking at me like I'm Satan. Like it was my fault. Like I slipped and fell on him on purpose.
I close my eyes and cover my face with my hands. They still smell like gauze. Like gauze and bacon.

Friday Fives

My Top Five Favorite Insulting Euphemisms for Crazy People

5. Louse Farm
4. An Accountant for Mr. Dali
3. Turd Nibbler
2. People Person
1. Nut Bugger

Viva La Moda!

In the matter of fashion, as in many other things, I am stuck in the 80s. Pick your century, I'm stuck there. It's simply by virtue of the timely intervention of my wife and the general unavailability of zippered parachute pants and bowler hats that I'm not a complete throwback.

That being the case, I tend to second-guess my evaluation of whatever someone happens to be wearing as odd, since my own perceptions are somewhat suspect.

Case in point: the Vato shirt. In my opinion, to be able to effectively get away with wearing any button-down shirt, sweater, etc., with only the topmost button fastened, you must be a street-smart Chicano, probably living between the years 1978 and 1992. If you fail to meet these criteria, you look silly.

But, like I said, my fashion-sense is suspect, so I need second-party validation on this. When I see an otherwise fashionably sensible person in the workplace sport an overshirt in such a manner, am I justified in an eyebrow raise? Or is my genial mockery simply sad in light of my own disastrous ensembles? I cannot say.

Now those sweet painfully long chains that connect your belt loop to an unknown mass in your pocket? Awesome.