Get My Line Straight

Back in middle school we had a PE teacher, Coach Washington - or Carwch Warshintin as he would have pronounced it - who would not stand for any nonsense. He was a Vietnam vet, had a steel plate in his head and bridgework he would remove when he wanted to demonstrate proper blocking techniques. I remember him ranting during football practice with a mouth full of popcorn, bridgework in his pocket, and little yellow flecks escaping the space where he teeth should have been, raining down on Joey Guererro's white helmet. There were many things Carwch Washintin would not abide, but if he had to pick one thing he absolutely would not tolerate it would have to be sloppy line-standing. I can still see him now, hands raised to shoulder-height, gesturing like he was directing a plane on a runway, bellowing his catch phrase 'Get my line straight, get my line straight.'
   If he's still alive today, Cawrch Warshintin must be positively beside himself. People just don't know how to line up any more.
   In cars, for instance, I've noticed a definite tendency for people to stop well back of the white stripe on the pavement. This goes for stop signs or stop lights. I just don't understand what they're saving that space for, the white stripe is there for a reason, to tell you where to put the nose of your car.
   Or the people behind those people. When did it become the rule of the road to leave a complete car length between you and the car in front of you? In LA we need to squeeze as many cars as possible into a small space, and if some douchebag is keeping a 'safety zone' of twenty feet in front of him, that means I'm not going to make this light. And I really need to make this light.
   What about in line at the convenience store? Since when when does ten feet away from the person in front of you constitute being in line? Are people that socially awkward that they're afraid of offending a stranger by properly lining up? Maybe they all have ugly wallets. If I had an ugly wallet I wouldn't want anyone to see it either.
   We need to take lessons from the Russians. And not today's Russians, Soviet-era Russians. Those folks knew how to line up.

Doctors Don't Know

So I was thinking about stuff the other day, as I usually do, when a puzzle presented itself. I pulled out a few hairs on my leg - because that's what I do when I'm thinking - and I wondered how long it would take those hairs to grow back. Then I thought the whole thing through a little more and a question arose.
   When someone shaves their legs, how does the hair know it's been shaved so that it can grow again?
   If you're wondering how the hair knows when to stop growing you could always cop out and say 'genetics' and you'd probably be right. The hair on your legs is different from the hair on your head, and it only grows so long. But that still doesn't answer the first question, how does the hair know it's been shaved in the first place?
   If you think about pulling the hair out that's different, there's nothing where there used to be something, so that's simple enough for the follicle to figure out. But if you just cut it off at the skin, how does the follicle realize the hair isn't as long as your genes say it should be? Something's gotta tell it, right? And then something has to tell it to start growing again.
   Ask your doctor that one, I'll bet he doesn't know. You could also ask him why the human body still has an appendix, when keeping a vestigial organ that can get inflamed and burst and kill us seems like a negative evolutionary adaptation. Or ask him how Himalayan monks can raise their body temperature voluntarily to dry out soaking wet sheets that they've been wrapped in.
   It's like a big game of Jeopardy without Alex Trebek, but nobody gets to know the answers.

I Thought Halloween Was Over

I went to deposit my unemployment check yesterday, which you have to do the old-fashioned way by going into the bank. No direct deposit with the EDD.
   This is a trip I make on foot, another excuse to get out and see my neighborhood, enjoy the semi-clean SoCal air and refamiliarize myself with what sunlight is. Usually it's a pleasant half hour. Usually.
   So as I was walking back yesterday, down Green St., I heard crows squawking overhead. Now, for my Texas friends familiar with grackles, crows are not them. Grackles are small, kind of brown-black birds that generally speaking behave themselves and know their place in the man-bird hierarchy. Crows are big, jet black, and think they're better than you. They lumber along the sidewalk, only grudgingly getting out of the way at the last minute.
   They're also loud. They were overhead in these berry-dropping trees that line Green St., about three or four of them, having a regular conversation amongst themselves. So far nothing out of the ordinary.
   I made it to the next block, and the crows were still loud as ever. I couldn't see them up in the trees but I could absolutely hear them. Were they following me?
   I reached the next block, no more berry-dropping trees, and I saw the crows at last. Four of them, two Heckles and two Jeckles, squawking at each other, and probably at me. But I thought they couldn't possibly be following me. What do I have that crows could want?
   But they were following me. I turned down Oak Knoll, and two of them plopped on the ground in front of me. They ambled along, talking to their buddies in the trees as I got more and more creeped out.
   When I got to the Lutheran Church they disappeared. And I thought I was home free. But when I rounded the corner, they were back, moving from tree to tree and making enough noise to raise the dead. I imagine. I walked quicker, trying to make it home before whatever the crows were planning came about.

Was I reading too much into it? Possibly. Was I being a bit of a sissy? Perhaps. Was I giving crows too much credit? Not at all. Let a bunch of cawing crows follow you for four blocks, disappearing only when you pass a church, and see how crazy you get. Creepy.

Smooth Operator

A few weeks back I had the opportunity (?) to hear and then record a smoove operator as he tried to pick up a chick. I seized that chance because being witness to ickiness like that doesn't happen every day. Turns out, though, that it does happen every few weeks. At least to me.
    I was in the gym this morning, engaging in my earnest yet futile efforts to lose twenty pounds, when I heard the following conversation in the locker room. Don't worry, it's not graphic, but it is cringe-worthy. The two gentlemen in question were at the sinks, towels wrapped around their waists. Evidently one or both of them was deaf because they were practically yelling at each other even though they were side-by-side.

Dude 1: What kind of razor do you use?
    Dude 2: Gilette, dude. Sensor 3.
What about shaving cream?
   Don't use cream, use gel, it's better. Shaving cream sucks.
What about just soap? That would work right?
   If you use one of those chick soaps, the kind with moisturizer in it. That would work.
Do you go against the grain or with the grain?
    Both, dude. First you go with the grain, then you go against. Extra smooth.
Really? That works?
   Oh yeah. But you gotta be careful around your nipples and your bellybutton.

Yup... they were talking about shaving their chests.
   I almost laughed out loud but I covered it with a cough. Usually the men's locker room is a no-eye-contact zone, but there were about four of us puzzled, amused, and disturbed by this. Seriously, what do you do? Tell them they're talking too loud, and, oh, by the way, if we were in prison you'd be my bitch? Some stuff you just don't talk about in public, and you especially don't yell it out in an echoing men's locker room.
   But at least if I ever decide to 'mow the field' I have notes for technique.

Pretentious Coffee Jerks

Pretentious coffee jerks: Where have they gone?
    I don't drink coffee - never developed a taste for it - but that didn't stop me from going into Starbuck's from time to time, mostly with other people who also didn't drink coffee but who did drink NonFat Chai Tea, Double-Half-Caf Caramel Latte, Venti Mocha No Foam, or things like that.
    So just this morning I decided to go into a Starbuck's again after quite a while, and I was surprised by the lack of pretentious coffee jerks. You know the guy, sunglasses hooked around his ears backwards like he doesn't own a shirt pocket, Utne Reader tucked under one arm with his laptop, free-trade hurache sandals on his feet, and pants made of that marvelous, underrated fabric - hemp.
    I looked hard for him, swear to God, I even waited for the dude to come out of the bathroom, but he never showed up. Time was Starbuck's was crawling with these assholes, barking out their special order coffee-style beverages like they were Danny DeVito in "Get Shorty." But not now. They're gone, at least from the Starbucks closest to my house, disappeared like the carrier pigeon or competent corporate executives.
    Did the shrinking economy finally do them in? Did they finally wake up one day, look into a mirror, and realize they were parodies of themselves?
   My friends who know coffee prefer Peet's.