A Quickie

Me: Happy Earth Day! I got you dirt.

Him: Thank you! It's also Good Friday. I got you a dead messiah.

Me: Ooo! I hope it fits in with the living room colors.

"May you find some comfort here" --Sarah McLachlan

As long as we're discussing bathroom-related stuff... I'd thought I'd share these recent bathroom oddities:

In a conference facility bathroom, I saw this.*


What's this? A standard flush toilet. But there's a sign...


Huh? Like an idiot, I looked around. No button anywhere. Guess I was lucky, there was that high-tech handle.

And in a local restaurant, I found a toilet with guest seating:


How... *perplexed look* ...gracious?

Despite the stereotype, I do not need girlfriends to accompany me to the Ladies Room.*** Especially, not into the same stall. Call me un-share-y if you must. I guess the chair comes in handy if you need to take a child in with you and you don't have one of these...

[Brilliant, right?!]


But I've never known a child to just wait patiently in a chair while Mom uses the facilities. Most toddlers spend their time stooping down to play "peek-a-boo" with the person in the next stall. Which brings me to the question du jour:

What is the protocol for responding to this? Is a discrete kick out of the question?




* I almost wrote "In a conference facility bathroom, I came upon this." but thought better of it.**

** In other news, I'm eight.

***What do these ladies do when they're alone? Hold it?

"Oo--oo, that smell... Can't you smell that smell?" --Lynyrd Skynyrd

Can we talk towels?* (Anyone can talk turkey, amIright?)

I have had the experience of being in a guy's bathroom and smelling an odor. And, because sometimes I am too curious for my own good, I tracked that odor to its source: the towels. Ever smell someone's towels and think "Ew!"? This particular Ew! smell was of the musty, moldy sort. And, since everything else appeared to be reasonably clean/non-smelly, I realized this person must have been using these towels, sans washing, since Balki was telling cousin Larry, "Well, of courz nut, don be reedeeculous!"

I wondered if I got close to this reusing towel guy**, would he also have that smell? (Ew!) Did he not smell the smell? Did he smell it and like it? Did he just not care? None of these were good options so I never broached the subject with him. I, also, gratefully never found need to stay at his place. On rare visits that included a bathroom break, I dried my hands on my pants.

On the other end of the towelly spectrum, we have sometimes stayed with folks who provided us with fresh towels every day. EVERY. DAY. Even the fancy hotels try to avoid that nowadays, citing environmental concerns.

My folks never covered this topic with me and I don't really want to learn it on the streets. So, I'm asking you (answers to any or all are appreciated):

1. How often do you change your own bath towel?
2. Do you have separate "guest" towels?
3. When you are in a bathroom and there are paper "guest" towels (aka printed napkins) and regular (terry) hand towels, which do you go for?
4. What's your clean towel frequency expectation when staying with someone else?
   
5. Am I the only one that loves those new public restroom high-powered hand dryers that nearly blow your skin off?
   

* Because you count on me to take on the important topics of the day. Tomorrow... Butterfinger versus Chunky Singles: Which candy has the best porn name?

** And, no, he was not Vince, of ShamWow! fame.

Assorted Flotsam

• I don't see myself ziplining. I'm not afraid of heights or even hurtling along a narrow wire. But I am afraid of looking bunchy. Okay, make that even more bunchy than usual. Have you seen pictures of people in those zipline harnesses? Definitely NOT a fashion statement. If you've always wondered how you'd look in Depends, have at it.

• Over the last coupla weeks, I've been hearing about the horror playing out in Japan and, of late, the comment that the US will stop importing fruits, vegetables and milk from Japan. Um, were we really getting a lot of our fruits and vegetables all the way from Japan, anyway? Really? And MILK? From Japan?! Color me skeptical. Now, if you want to cut off the Kobe beef, that I can swallow. Wait...

• I have a confession. I don't like Bill Maher. I think I should like Bill Maher since I think he's brilliant and I agree with 99% of his positions. But I don't like him. He's mean. Not just snarky, but mean. He delights in trampling on people's dearly held beliefs and that bothers me. I know a key part of his shtick is to be controversial but he seems angry and nasty and condescending. And, let's face it, that's what blogging's for.

• We saw District 9 a few nights ago and it's really stayed with me. It goes way beyond sci-fi. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it as a very impressive technical achievement but also from a "get you thinking about the way we treat each other" viewpoint.

• ObligatoryCharlieSheenReference: Charlie Sheen.

Question du jour: Is there a famous person you think you should like and don't?

"Photograph... I don't want your photograph" --Def Leppard

Back in the dark ages, I was invited to the house of a friend (let's call her Mildred) for dinner and to view pictures of her and her husband (let's call him Ernesto)'s honeymoon. Honeymoon pictures... wouldn't you go?

It was a free gourmet dinner with pleasant people. And, yeah, I was curious what I was in for, picture-wise. For better or worse, it didn't play out as you might imagine. And, really, I'm having a hard time thinking of friends I'd want to see in flagrante. This was perhaps especially true of Mildred and Ernesto. So, I guess I got lucky... not seeing them get lucky.

But seeing other people's vacation photos? Usually, anywhere from incredibly dull to depressing, right? Post them on Facebook and move on. Alas, this was pre-Facebook.

We had a perfectly pleasant dinner and then Ernesto set up the slide show and we settled in.

*click* (picture of sign)

Mildred: Here's a shot of the "Welcome to Maine" sign.

Me: Ah.

Mildred: We just loved Maine!

*click* (picture of cabin)

Mildred: This is the cabin we rented for the week. It was so great!

Me: That looks nice...

*click* (picture of living room)

Mildred: Here's the living room in the cabin.

Me, thinking it's going to be a loooong evening: Pretty...

*click* (picture of vista)

Mildred: Here's the view from the cabin.

Me: OOOooo, very nice.

Mildred: Yeah, it was pretty amazing.

*click* (picture of Ernesto in a Captain Morgan-like pose on boulders with a scarf tied pirate style on his head)

Me: Hahaha! Look at you, Ernesto! A pirate! Hahaha! That's great!

Mildred: *pause* We went hiking. It was really nice there. Some great trails.

*click* (picture of Ernesto still with the same scarf on, in front of a rocky bluff)


[Ernesto may or may not have looked exactly like this]

Me: Arrr, Matey! Hahaha!

Mildred:

Ernesto:

Me: Hahaha!

Mildred:

Ernesto:

*click* (Yet another picture of Ernesto in the scarf.)

Me: Ha...ha...*cough*

It was at this point that it occurred to me that Ernesto was not trying to be a pirate so much as cover his balding head in what he perceived as a fashion forward way.

Awkward. With a capital AWK.

Which brings us to the question du jour: Is it appropriate to show other people your vacation photos?