Everything you need to know...and some more, also
I am not sure why, but this week, I have been doing a lot of philsophizing about life, and random things. I came to some conclusions that I am just going to toss out for all y'all who actually care to read them to think about and/or be amused by...
I realized something really major last Thursday. There is a really basic concept that underlies everything about living in America, and once you grasp that concept, that really is all you need to know about living daily life here in 2007.
See, all of us, by nature, have stuff that is specifically ours. Some of it is actual literal stuff, like actual possessions, and some of it is things such as talents, abilities, etc., and some of it is just general stuff life gives to us all, such as time, sex etc. As you go about your daily business, you will encounter someone who really likes your stuff, and you will also encounter someone whose stuff you really like. The trick is, you give up some of the stuff you now possess in order to get the stuff you want to possess. Ideally, what you give up is of equal value to you as what you get in return, i.e. you have to give a little to get a little, and to get a lot, you have to give a lot.
Once you can grasp that basic concept, everything else about daily American life in 2007 is either somehow part of that dynamic, or mere windowdressing.
By random coincidence, I also heard a line in the movie Waitress Thursday night that I hope may end up changing my life. One of the characters, when asked if he was happy, said "I guess I am reasonably happy. I don't expect much. I don't get much. I don't give much...so yeah, I think so."
I think I need to try and live more like that...
I was kinda surprised that I got to see the movie Waitress. When I talked to Aaron this week, I had just found out that from the toicket girl at Showplace East in Evansville that Waitress had done so poorly at the Showplace theaters in Evansville that they weren't even going to show it in the ghetto theater they have where they show older "new" movies, usually right before the movie goes to DVD. But, weirdly enough, it was showing in Owensboro, which normally is not exactly the hotbed of non-mega movies like most of what shows in the summer.
I was telling Aaron how, my friends who have hung out with me for any length of time all rag on me because when they've let me choose the movie, all of them have had the experience of us walking into the theater where the movie I picked is showing...and we're the only two people in there, because I typically love really obscure indie films. Aaron made the intelligent comment that those films are seldom boring-they're either extremely good, or they're aggressively awful.
Sadly, Waitress was an aggresively awful movie overall. I don't know if I was just annoyed by how bad the movie was and irritable from my knee hurting that made me so mad when I saw something, or if I just over-reacted, but I saw something that really made me mad when I got really bored as I was watching the movie and so I went to go pee. When I got to the men's room, it was empty, and as I walked past the first urinal and the first toilet stall, I noticed that the urinal had a manual flusher, and the toilet flushed automatically, and that really irked me to no end, because I have a pet peeve about autoflushers in men's public restrooms.
See, autoflushers are nice on a urinal for a guy, but not on a toilet, because most men will not, except for extreme emergencies, take a dump in a public restroom, and so, the toilets in a men's room are pretty much seldom used for that. And when a man is peeing in an autoflush toilet, most of the time they never stand close enough that it flushes when they walk away, and pretty soon the bathroom is nasty smelling from all the unflushed urine, unless the guy sets off the autoflusher by waving his hand in front of it, and I never do wave the right way when I try it, and by the time it flushes, I've had to dance like James Brown at the Apollo just to get it to flush. It's either that, or there's always the over-enthusastic autoflush toilets that waste umpteen gallons of water because it's like you open the stall door and they flush. You unzip your pants, and they flush again. You breathe within the stall, and they flush. Horrid enviromentally. I've been told that there is a button of some type on some autoflushers, but they always camofluage it so well I usually can never find it, and I refuse to have pull out a magnifying glass and make like Sherlock Holmes just to flush a toilet.
So, to me at least, if there's autoflushers in a men's room, they need to just be on the urinals, not the urinals AND the toilets. And it's really, really, really freaking stupid to have autoflushers on just the toilets in a men's restroom. So, I got really ticked at seeing how stupid that was...but then I kept walking, and weirdly enough, the 3rd and 4th urinal DID have autoflushers...and then I was thinking why would half of the urinals flush manually and half the urinals and all the toilets flush automatically? So, I quickly went from mad to mystified.
In case any of the female readers I might still have at this point in my missive (if there are still any) are wondering why men usually avoid taking a dump in public bathrooms whenever they can, mostly, it's to avoid a fate best described by my old pal, Rob Brown, a great American, in one of his opinion columns he wrote for the Murray State News. I always loved Rob's column, and how he always riled up almost everyone with them. I remember one glorious time he managed to get several campus Christian organizations AND the Student Pagan Association infuriated with him over the same column-I thought that was awesome writing on his part that he could induce that much rage from such different ends of the spectrum. But, I digress...
Any way, Rob wrote a column about his Mardi Gras trip, and about how in one of the bars they went to on Bourbon St. there was so stalls around the toilets in the men's room, and Rob and his friends totally made fun of this poor smuck taking a dump. And a lot of us guys have seen that happen at one time or another, and we all vow not to become the butt end of that. (sorry for the atrocius pun...and spelling)
I've had my personal experience with that, one morning as I drove to Evansville, IN from Tunica, MS. For some reason, (I think it's called utter stupidity) despite knowing that I had to work from 6-10 p.m. in Evansville on Saturday night, I decided to go party in Memphis and Tunica on Friday night. For some odd reason, doing that seemed logical to me at that point in time. And then I found a casino in Tunica that awful night that would actually give me free beer as long I kept playing my slot machine. Well. You can probably imagine where things headed from there. I do remember at one point, I actually was singing "The Four Horsemen" by Metallica to my slot machine. So, I slept a while in my car, and then started hauling butt back to Evansville.
Sadly enough, as I rolled along I-40 between Jackson and Nashville, I suddenly felt the need to make a long bathoom break. So I stopped at the rest area, and while I was on the toilet, some kids from this church youth group started making fun of me. The more irritated I got, the more they kept it up. Finally, one of them was like "Mister, you better cheer up, or we'll send our friend Ashley in here because she can make anybody happy." I was like "I will kill you". Soon enough, I heard high heels on the tile floor, and Ashley knocked on my stall door. Our conversation went something like this
Ashley: Why are you in such a foul mood?
Me: I have a hangover.
Ashley: Why were you drinking?
Me: The casino gave me free beer as long as I played the slot machine.
Ashley: Maybe you shouldn't be gambling and drinking.
Me: Maybe you shouldn't be in the men's bathroom.
Ashley: Well, you need to smile, cheer up, and stop sinning. It's a beautiful day outside, and Jesus loves you.
Me: Look...I know you mean well....but if you're going to witness to me about Jesus, can you please not do it in here while I am taking a dump?
Ashley: Sure.
And things like that is why men don't do that, in case anyone wondered...
and wow, I just went off on a total tangent from start to finish of this blog...
I realized something really major last Thursday. There is a really basic concept that underlies everything about living in America, and once you grasp that concept, that really is all you need to know about living daily life here in 2007.
See, all of us, by nature, have stuff that is specifically ours. Some of it is actual literal stuff, like actual possessions, and some of it is things such as talents, abilities, etc., and some of it is just general stuff life gives to us all, such as time, sex etc. As you go about your daily business, you will encounter someone who really likes your stuff, and you will also encounter someone whose stuff you really like. The trick is, you give up some of the stuff you now possess in order to get the stuff you want to possess. Ideally, what you give up is of equal value to you as what you get in return, i.e. you have to give a little to get a little, and to get a lot, you have to give a lot.
Once you can grasp that basic concept, everything else about daily American life in 2007 is either somehow part of that dynamic, or mere windowdressing.
By random coincidence, I also heard a line in the movie Waitress Thursday night that I hope may end up changing my life. One of the characters, when asked if he was happy, said "I guess I am reasonably happy. I don't expect much. I don't get much. I don't give much...so yeah, I think so."
I think I need to try and live more like that...
I was kinda surprised that I got to see the movie Waitress. When I talked to Aaron this week, I had just found out that from the toicket girl at Showplace East in Evansville that Waitress had done so poorly at the Showplace theaters in Evansville that they weren't even going to show it in the ghetto theater they have where they show older "new" movies, usually right before the movie goes to DVD. But, weirdly enough, it was showing in Owensboro, which normally is not exactly the hotbed of non-mega movies like most of what shows in the summer.
I was telling Aaron how, my friends who have hung out with me for any length of time all rag on me because when they've let me choose the movie, all of them have had the experience of us walking into the theater where the movie I picked is showing...and we're the only two people in there, because I typically love really obscure indie films. Aaron made the intelligent comment that those films are seldom boring-they're either extremely good, or they're aggressively awful.
Sadly, Waitress was an aggresively awful movie overall. I don't know if I was just annoyed by how bad the movie was and irritable from my knee hurting that made me so mad when I saw something, or if I just over-reacted, but I saw something that really made me mad when I got really bored as I was watching the movie and so I went to go pee. When I got to the men's room, it was empty, and as I walked past the first urinal and the first toilet stall, I noticed that the urinal had a manual flusher, and the toilet flushed automatically, and that really irked me to no end, because I have a pet peeve about autoflushers in men's public restrooms.
See, autoflushers are nice on a urinal for a guy, but not on a toilet, because most men will not, except for extreme emergencies, take a dump in a public restroom, and so, the toilets in a men's room are pretty much seldom used for that. And when a man is peeing in an autoflush toilet, most of the time they never stand close enough that it flushes when they walk away, and pretty soon the bathroom is nasty smelling from all the unflushed urine, unless the guy sets off the autoflusher by waving his hand in front of it, and I never do wave the right way when I try it, and by the time it flushes, I've had to dance like James Brown at the Apollo just to get it to flush. It's either that, or there's always the over-enthusastic autoflush toilets that waste umpteen gallons of water because it's like you open the stall door and they flush. You unzip your pants, and they flush again. You breathe within the stall, and they flush. Horrid enviromentally. I've been told that there is a button of some type on some autoflushers, but they always camofluage it so well I usually can never find it, and I refuse to have pull out a magnifying glass and make like Sherlock Holmes just to flush a toilet.
So, to me at least, if there's autoflushers in a men's room, they need to just be on the urinals, not the urinals AND the toilets. And it's really, really, really freaking stupid to have autoflushers on just the toilets in a men's restroom. So, I got really ticked at seeing how stupid that was...but then I kept walking, and weirdly enough, the 3rd and 4th urinal DID have autoflushers...and then I was thinking why would half of the urinals flush manually and half the urinals and all the toilets flush automatically? So, I quickly went from mad to mystified.
In case any of the female readers I might still have at this point in my missive (if there are still any) are wondering why men usually avoid taking a dump in public bathrooms whenever they can, mostly, it's to avoid a fate best described by my old pal, Rob Brown, a great American, in one of his opinion columns he wrote for the Murray State News. I always loved Rob's column, and how he always riled up almost everyone with them. I remember one glorious time he managed to get several campus Christian organizations AND the Student Pagan Association infuriated with him over the same column-I thought that was awesome writing on his part that he could induce that much rage from such different ends of the spectrum. But, I digress...
Any way, Rob wrote a column about his Mardi Gras trip, and about how in one of the bars they went to on Bourbon St. there was so stalls around the toilets in the men's room, and Rob and his friends totally made fun of this poor smuck taking a dump. And a lot of us guys have seen that happen at one time or another, and we all vow not to become the butt end of that. (sorry for the atrocius pun...and spelling)
I've had my personal experience with that, one morning as I drove to Evansville, IN from Tunica, MS. For some reason, (I think it's called utter stupidity) despite knowing that I had to work from 6-10 p.m. in Evansville on Saturday night, I decided to go party in Memphis and Tunica on Friday night. For some odd reason, doing that seemed logical to me at that point in time. And then I found a casino in Tunica that awful night that would actually give me free beer as long I kept playing my slot machine. Well. You can probably imagine where things headed from there. I do remember at one point, I actually was singing "The Four Horsemen" by Metallica to my slot machine. So, I slept a while in my car, and then started hauling butt back to Evansville.
Sadly enough, as I rolled along I-40 between Jackson and Nashville, I suddenly felt the need to make a long bathoom break. So I stopped at the rest area, and while I was on the toilet, some kids from this church youth group started making fun of me. The more irritated I got, the more they kept it up. Finally, one of them was like "Mister, you better cheer up, or we'll send our friend Ashley in here because she can make anybody happy." I was like "I will kill you". Soon enough, I heard high heels on the tile floor, and Ashley knocked on my stall door. Our conversation went something like this
Ashley: Why are you in such a foul mood?
Me: I have a hangover.
Ashley: Why were you drinking?
Me: The casino gave me free beer as long as I played the slot machine.
Ashley: Maybe you shouldn't be gambling and drinking.
Me: Maybe you shouldn't be in the men's bathroom.
Ashley: Well, you need to smile, cheer up, and stop sinning. It's a beautiful day outside, and Jesus loves you.
Me: Look...I know you mean well....but if you're going to witness to me about Jesus, can you please not do it in here while I am taking a dump?
Ashley: Sure.
And things like that is why men don't do that, in case anyone wondered...
and wow, I just went off on a total tangent from start to finish of this blog...