The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

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Weekly Wacko (65)

Do These Glasses Make Me Look Stupid?

It turns out that people get glasses for a reason. I don’t know, though, I’m still testing this.

In high school I was involved in you-name-it-I’m-in-it club. This was for the almighty get into a good college nonsense. One of these clubs involved volunteering.

At some point I was signed up to go bag groceries at a grocery store. It was for the March of Dimes. After bagging someone’s groceries I would smilingly say, “I’m bagging groceries for the March of Dimes, if you have any spare change …” Or something along those lines.

I figured bagging groceries didn’t require 20-20 vision, so I left my glasses in my car.

A good friend and I head to the grocery store, it is close to where he lives and he was just as involved in clubs so he figured why not. I am assigned an aisle and I am ready to rumble!

Let’s bring this mess on so I can BAG IT UP!

Unfortunately it is slow-moving that day – hardly anybody is coming through. When people do come through they give me nothing. I may as well have been saying, “I’m bagging groceries for my crack addiction, if you have any spare change …”

During the lulls I debate talking to the clerk. She is a pretty cute girl, I think. Again, not wearing my glasses. But I can be awfully shy and instead look around during the lulls, pretending to be deep in thought.

With about fifteen minutes left a woman comes along and asks for a pack of cigarettes. I stare at her. The clerk stares at me. The woman stares at me. The clerk asks if I will go get the cigarettes (they were behind some counter). I gladly comply – why didn’t they just ask in the first place instead of staring at me! (Like I’m not already awkward enough.)

After I get the cigarettes I come back and hand them to the clerk. She says, “thanks, Brad.”

What?

How does she know my name?

I …

Oh …

Oh no …

OH MAN YOU GOTTA BE FREAKING KIDDING ME!

I dated one girl in high school. It was an odd relationship that ended on a weird note. This clerk, as luck would have it, happened to be my one ex-girlfriend.

I had just been standing FIVE FEET AWAY FROM MY EX-GIRLFRIEND for about … oh … an hour and forty-five minutes … and I didn’t say a word.

I sincerely hope she caught the surprised look on my face and remembered that I ordinarily wore glasses. If it was me I would’ve assumed the worst and thought I was just some horribly mean person who couldn’t even say hello.

Thankfully I left very soon after that.

I don’t think I said anything before I left – too busy yelling at myself for not wearing glasses and doing that community service in the first place and then for walking away without saying goodbye (I started yelling at myself for this as soon as I turned my back and started to walk).

Glasses, huh? They are a tricky friend.

Want another example of a glasses-free bit of idiocy? Click here.

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Weekly Wacko (61)

Sink Technology Innovations

My dorm room my freshman year of college had a sink and mirror in it. This was nice because my roommate and I could brush our teeth and shave in the room if we wanted (any time spent not wearing shower shoes is time well spent).

One day I decided I looked scruffy enough and decided to shave.

I got out my shaving stuff, put on some shaving cream, turned on the hot water and started. After one stroke with the blade I ‘cleaned’ it. I did this again. And again.

Without realizing it, I was tapping the blade on the stopper in the sink.

I realized that soon enough when water starting filling up.

Uh oh.

I had completely closed the stopper (one of those metal ones that push up or down, simple enough).

I tried to get my fingers between the stopper and the metal around it to pry it up. No dice. I got out a penny – not thin enough. Eventually I dug out my Swiss Army knife (I really have no idea why I thought I would need this, but it turns out I did use it. Once. Definitely worth it.). I was able to get the blade in to pry open the stopper.

That’s when I noticed, between the cold and hot water taps was the metal part that you simply push or pull to open or close the stopper.

It’s not that I had never used a sink like this before, it’s just that I’m a moron.

And if you need further proof – I did the SAME EXACT THING about a month later.

(The second time I did that I told my English class about it and my professor told me that’s not the sort of thing I should tell people. I told her, in my head, ‘yeah? well you’re ugly.’)

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Weekly Wacko (51)

I’m A Jerk

Yes. It’s true. I’m a jerk. Sometimes deliberately, more often without knowing it (I am a very stereotypical boy/engineer/moron).

There was one time I was a jerk with a publishing effort though. It’s pretty bad.

When I was living in California I saw a book called In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot. I picked it up and glanced at it and it struck me as very quirky humor that I loved. Fantastic.

A book I read about trying to get published recommended that, when I see a book I like or that I find similar to my style (whatever that is), I should look at the publisher and try to find the author’s agent in the acknowledgements section.

I looked and this book was published by Manic D Press, which was, gasp!, in San Francisco! This, I thought, is a sign. Seriously, I really thought this was a good omen. It’s a good thing I don’t live outside New York City (where there are about 5 billion publishers and literary agents) because I’d constantly be getting my hopes dashed.

Anyhow. I looked up Manic D Press’s site and I noticed that the quirky/fun/humor books were in the minority of their publications. Nevertheless, I thought I had a good chance with a small publishing house. I could write a sincere query letter that would get me noticed and they’d invite me up for an interview and find my awkward, nervous, rambling self charming for God knows what reason and … wha-la. Dream accomplished.

Manic D recommended people to read some of their published works, and talk about them in their query letter. They wanted to make sure your work jives with their overall style. Can do, I thought. I was in downtown Mountain View and I noticed Fears of Your Life by Michael Bernard Loggins.

If you know about this book you can go ahead and cringe.

I picked up the book, glanced through it, and loved it. It was yet another quirky, charming, oddball bit of humor. The author had, in his own handwriting, written fears he had for just about everything. I identified with a few of them, and it cracked me up. I bought the book and was crafting the query letter to Manic D in my head.

A few weeks later I finally got around to writing and sending the query letter. I wrote to Manic D about my haiku collection. I am proud of the haiku set, and I have a few that are San Francisco-specific, which I thought would be neat. Again, daydreams flowed about readings in weird little book stores in San Francisco.

Months after that I was at some sort of outdoor art and book festival in San Francisco near the De Young Museum. One of the tables was for Manic D, and my friend urged me to go talk with them. I declined and pulled her aside, telling her about my query letter and my big gaffe.

A month or so after I sent the query letter I was still waiting for a response. I was wondering if I’d made some obvious mistake on my query letter, so I re-read it. It seemed ok to me. I pulled out the books to make sure they were both from Manic D Press. For the first time I looked at the back of Fears of Your Life.

On the back of the book, in plain sight (whoops), is this: “Michael Bernard Loggins, an adult with developmental disabilities, battles his fears by listing more than one hundred of them.”

I change my mind, I’m promoting myself to an ass-hole.

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