TEN JACK TEN

One of the great things about being a parent is getting to mess with kid stuff again.  For years, I solemnly declared that buying fireworks was like blowing up money and I wasn’t going to do it.  And then the kids came along and I ate those words, remembering how much fun I had blowing stuff up when I was young and that somebody had to buy those fireworks.  Now it’s me that’s doing the buying.

This year, I went over the $100 mark for the first time.  I let the kids pick a few and bought a variety pack of smaller stuff for them to mess with.  But I couldn’t resist the “Goliath” pack of 36 artillery-tube-style sky blasters.  And at my uncle’s lake house near Tulsa, I shot off every last damn one of them as soon as it turned dark.  Colored sprays, showers of crackling sparks, multiple blasts, this pack had it all.  It felt like a smaller-scale version of the professional stuff.  I was not ripped off.

After we were done, we watched the city’s fireworks over the treeline.  It was hot, late, and the bugs were eating me alive, but none of that matters when you’re having a perfect moment.

They’re waiting in there, ready to mess with your day when you don’t expect it.  The Pants That Are Too Tight In The Groin, or PTTITG for short.

They rely on your unwillingness to toss out an otherwise perfectly good pair of pants, or maybe they serve as “emergency” pants.  The PTTITG lurk on the rack waiting for you to use every other pair of pants and be too lazy to take them to the cleaners.  Or they use the disguise of being colored like other, non groin-binding, pants. 

And then they strike.  Often, you won’t even realize it until you’re in the car on the way to work – they’re fine standing pants, it’s the sitting that gets you.  A few miles down the road, you get that feeling that things just aren’t sitting right.

You’re nailed.  Prepare to spend the rest of the day handling your junk like a Major Leaguer.

You don’t own the house, the house owns you.  So when you see that the water heater is leaking, it’s time to fix it before things get even uglier.  The house doesn’t care how much stuff you replaced last year. 

Somehow, it irks me to spend that much money and end up with exactly what I had before — a 50-gallon hot water heater.  It would have felt better to have “upgraded” in some way, but it cost plenty without considering the on-demand water heaters that are getting so much advertising lately.

And then the garage fridge dies.  I caught it in time to evacuate the frozen food to the kitchen fridge or take it to the office with me.  But once you get used to having more storage for drinks & frozen food, you don’t want to give it up.  So we went to Sears to see what they had to offer.

Sears gave me no reason to do business with them.  The salesmen wanted nothing to do with us once they realized we were looking for a small & cheap fridge, and then they told us they couldn’t deliver anything for a couple of weeks.  What finally killed any interest was a catch-22 with the delivery charge.  There was free (after rebate) delivery if the fridge was over $399.  But they were running a sale, and every fridge they had in the price range would be less than $399 after discount.  Which meant that you would have to pay the full delivery charge and come out worse than you would after the rebate.  Pay more and get bad service?  Pass.

Lowes had the same post-delivery rebate deal, but could sell us a new model that was within the rebate coverage and get it to us the next day, even with a 10% discount for the floor model.  But the doors opened from the opposite side I wanted them to.  No problem, says the salesman, we can reverse them for you.  I ask at the check out whether I need to specify in advance that I want the doors reversed.  No problem, says the checkout guy, just ask the deliverymen to take care of that when they show up.

“We don’t have the tools to do that,” say the deliverymen when they show up.  I reflected on their lies as I worked for an hour in the hot garage reversing the doors.

Then, a few days later, I realized that there was no evidence that the promised delivery-fee rebate would occur.  I went back to Lowes and was told by customer service that, woops, they must have forgotten to give me the form.  (Actually, I was told by the second person at customer service because the first one interrupted our conversation to answer the phone and provided customer service to them instead of me as I stared at her in disbelief.)  Yeah, in all the frantic confusion caused by my politely paying for my purchase, I can see how that detail could escape you.  I can only guess how many times Lowes has “forgotten” to give people the rebate form. 

Lowes should be thankful that I went to Sears first or I’d think they were the worst bunch of lying screw-ups I could have found.

My cel phone starts ringing on the drive home the other day.  I answer it and it’s a recording telling me that this is my second notice that my car warranty is about to expire and I should hold on to talk to a representative. 

Which is particularly interesting since they don’t say who they are, what kind of car I drive, or what kind of warranty it is.  Just like the last three times they called my cel phone.

This time I press “one” for an operator.  I wait a while, and the guy asks me my car’s make, year, and model.  Still not identifying themselves.

“Yes, I drive a 1983 Quit Calling My FUCKING CELLPHONE.” 

I guess they don’t cover those, because he hung up.

One of the things you think you can take for granted in Texas is that you can usually find a good steak. You can, of course, but the question is how much you’re willing to pay for that piece of meat. Unfortunately, about half the time, you’ll end up burned — even at a steak house.

Steak One: Texas Land and Cattle. This one came with a side of cheese enchiladas, which could be a warning sign, but I’ve had it before. Or I thought I did. While I wasn’t looking, they changed the cut and I ended up with what looked like skirt steak. Skirt steak is what fajitas have been made out of for years, but that’s because it’s a cheap cut that wasn’t being used for anything better. And it’s cheap because it can be tough and full of gristle, which is what this one was. Fajitas are one thing, they’re cut up and marinated to take the chewy edge off of them. A skirt steak is just cheap. And a skirt steak for $12 is just insulting.

I’ve never taken as much chewed steak out of my mouth as I did that meal. I hate doing that, it makes me feel like a slob. But I also hate gristle. I ended up performing steak surgery on my food to excise what I believed to be a ligament. I didn’t confirm that, though– since that patient was already gone, I didn’t bother sending it to the lab.

Steak Two: Outback Steakhouse. I’ve had a few $30 steaks in my life. One was a New York Strip at Randy’s so good it was food pornography. Another was a Fillet Mignon so dry and tasteless I never went back to Three Forks and told everyone I knew about how bad the food was. One was a Porterhouse that someone else paid for, so I was going to enjoy that one anyway.

And then I’m at Outback, looking at the most expensive steak they have, a $30 New York Strip. A cut I know I like, and the waiter is selling it hard. He tells me it’s special Angus beef, specially handled and prepared. He tells me it’s “tested.”

You know, now that I think about it, I’d hate to eat a cow that got less than a 1200 on his SATs. So I take the risk and pay almost twice as much as I ordinarily would. And as life is fond of teaching us, some risks don’t pan out.  It’s not that it was bad as much as it was ordinary. A good steak shouldn’t require more than a knife, a fork, and a little salt. I should not feel the urge to put Heinz 57 on a $30 steak. But there I was, eating a steak the waiter told me was top of the line, but tasted like a C student at best.

I should have known better than to go with the top of the line at a chain restaurant. Their profit is my disappointment.

Last Thursday, I was at the office working and drinking the second of the three canned sodas I brought from home in my bag to save me from buying expensive retail soda pop. I picked up the can for a drink, revealing a garden slug hanging out on the coaster beneath the can.

What the Hell?

I shoveled the little creature into the trash and started looking around my office. Where would slugs be coming from? I checked the ceiling, the window sill, the floor. No slugs. I wiped off the top of the can of soda just to be sure.

I finished the can, got the next one and found another slug on the side of the can. And then I got it. When I got my newspaper this morning, the slugs must have been on the wrapper and got put into my work bag along with the sodas. The sodas were cool and damp, so they attracted the slugs.

I wiped off the last can and drank it anyway. Lust for caffeine beats the willies.

I watched Slap Shot on the plane back to DFW. It was one of those movies that everyone always talked about as one of the great sports films. It didn’t seem great in 2008, it felt downbeat and defeatist, with one of those tacked-on absurd endings they were so fond of in the 70’s. (Can’t figure out how to resolve all of the plot lines? How about a pie fight?)

When I got to the hospital just after noon, RJH was sill in surgery. I still didn’t know which one of his arms was broken.

Out of surgery, sleeping with three pins in his right arm and a cast over it, he looked older somehow. There were two broken bones, and they tried to set it conventionally, gave up, and used the pins to fix the bones. He’d been roughed up, and his pain was hard to control. It became clear that he wouldn’t be ready to go home that day, and I drew overnight duty.

I settled into the reclining visitor’s chair and watched TV with him. Cartoon Network had given way to Adult Swim, and I let him watch a usually-forbidden Family Guy. He needed to get away with something (and I knew that episode wasn’t too bad). I was exhausted, but I’d made the right decision to come home a day early.

We were both asleep by 8:30, waking every few hours for pain medications and vital signs checks, in the unique rhythm of the hospital.

The only thing worse than sitting through training would be writing about sitting through training. So it ain’t going to happen.

Lunch time was interesting in that the folks who organized the conference thought it would be a good idea to have a scavenger hunt in the inner harbor over an hour-and-a-half lunch. I disagreed, and wandered off on my own to have Chinese food. I fired up the iPod and walked around town, listening to an album I’d never listened to before — Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter. Obscure 70’s folk-pop, complete with appearances by pretentious string section and chorus of background singers. Cool and a bit distant, it worked as the soundtrack for walking around an unfamiliar city. I’ve listened to it several times since then, enjoying the pleasant rush of new musical discovery.

I was presenting at the conference in the first after-lunch session, which had to be delayed because there was no audience — people were still straggling in late due to the scavenger hunt. Women in particular were complaining because there was no warning about the activity and they hadn’t worn appropriate shoes. I finally got to talk about my topic and got a coffee mug for my trouble.

The evening activity was an Orioles game, $35 to sit on the second level in “all-you-can-eat” seats. That sounded like a good idea, but they managed to screw it up. The menu was hot dogs, nachos, cokes, and bagged peanuts. All I wanted of cold hot dogs, nachos with salsa that tasted like the inside of a tin can, and tasteless peanuts. And bad service. I stood waiting for a diet coke for almost a full minute while the girl behind the counter chatted with the boy behind the counter. I’d forgotten just how poor the quality of life can be on the east coast.

At 7:30, I got a call from my wife. RJH had just broken his arm and she was taking him to the hospital. The other boys were with a sitter. The baseball game went from uninteresting to unbearable. I went back to the hotel to wait for updates. At 10:00, she told me he was being admitted because there were no orthopedists available. Fortunately, I had asked for permission to leave the conference early before leaving the game. I changed the flight from Friday to Monday and set the alarm for 5am.

In the morning, I realized one more thing I didn’t like about the Sheraton City Center — the restaurants don’t serve any breakfast. Sure, there was a “continental” breakfast for the conference, but that just means coffee and sweets. If you wanted some protein, tough.

The morning was an awards ceremony, at which I got the highest honor my particular branch of the Agency had to offer (sorry to be non-specific, but I’ve been Googlephobic since Googlephobia wasn’t cool). It was nice, but I’m still not exactly sure what I did to rate it. In my mind, I chalk it up to “general ass-kicking of superior quality” and leave it at that.

The afternoon was a presentation on balancing work and life, which ended up to be yet another damn variation of the power of positive thinking and the importance of a good attitude. A bit short on practical advice, and a room full of lawyers is not necessarily the place for a bunch of fuzzy talk. Or lectures about attitudes. Based on the look on her face near the end, I think we may have been emitting negative energy.

Ending the day, dinner for over 60 people at an Italian restaurant in Little Italy. Despite everyone paying and ordering weeks in advance, they seemed surprised that we were there. Dinner was supposed to start at 6pm, and we weren’t seated until 6:30. If I hadn’t paid $40 in advance, I’d have ditched.

It’s probably better that I didn’t. I picked a nice out of the way table and sat down. The next person who sat at my table was the national boss, appointed about six months ago. Go figure. The rest of the table filled up quickly, but he was at my elbow. I got some face time with the big guy and bent his ear about what I thought about the job. Since I have no ability to tell what kind of impression I make on other people, I figure it’ll either go one way or the other. In the event my (hypothetical at this point) promotion package hits his desk, it’ll either be “screw that guy, he’s a jackass” or “let’s give it to this guy.” I suppose either one is better than “who the hell is this guy?”

The restaurant failed to impress (I’d name names, but I can’t remember it, starts with a “V”). Actually, it just failed. Food came out sporadically, and I know of at least one person who never got what he ordered. An hour would go by between the salad and the entree. Others complained that the marinara sauce tasted like an ashtray. The big boss got his steak about 9:15. The desserts didn’t even have the same size spoons — mine was a dinky coffee spoon suitable for serving Baby Alive.

Later, someone told me that when the cab driver dropped them off at the restaurant, he asked them “who told you this place was good?”

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it until I get tired of it:  I hate flying out of DFW.  After years of getting away with no more than one business trip a year, I’m hit with three in two months.  First Seattle, the Albuquerque, now Baltimore.  The last couple of trips have been made better by using off-airport parking.  I’m amazed that the $17/day spaces at DFW are constantly full, to the point where I’ve run the risk of missing a flight looking for a space near the terminal.  Now I realize trying to use a close-in space is complete folly because American will likely deliver you to a completely different terminal than you left from.  If there’s a shuttle ride at the end of your trip anyway, you might as well have the shuttle bring you right to your car.

Arriving an hour early did the trick this time, unlike last month’s Albuquerque trip that left me waiting for over 45 minutes for an agent and got me to the gate just in time to see them give my seat away despite cutting in line for the security checkpoint.  There was time for a steak & egg bagel at the airport McDonald’s, which surprisingly, is the tastiest thing that’s ever been on their menu.  Some franchises have gotten wise to this unauthorized insurgency of flavor and dropped breakfast bagels entirely, as I found out in Tulsa a while back.

I am a horrible overpacker of entertainment.  For a flight of less than 3 hours, I brought a bag with the following amusements:

Robert Novak’s “The Prince of Darkness” in hardcover.
An 80gig iPod Video fully loaded, about half music and half videos.
2 issues of Wired.
A PSP with 6 games and a 4 gig Memory Stick with 7 movies ripped to it.
1 issue of Esquire.
A Nintendo DS.
A Phillips portable DVD player that also docks the iPod Video for playback.
Sony noise-cancelling headphones.
A 1 gig Sansa express MP3 player loaded with podcasts.

I ended up reading the book and watching a few Family Guy episodes.  I don’t know why I do this other than it’s some form of boredom insurance.

I was starved when I got to the hotel, and went out looking for something to eat.  The only thing I found within a few blocks was a McDonald’s.  Against my better judgment, I ate there.  I soon figured out that I had discovered the McDonald’s That’s Not Comfortable For Anyone But Black Folks.  The counter help could hardly stop arguing with each other about who was supposed to show up for work later in the week long enough to take orders.  Once one of the girls broke loose from the conversation, the flat affect and lack of eye contact made it clear that I was an interloper.  Fortunately for her, the next person in line cheered her up considerably.  For the rest of the meal, not 30 seconds went by without some shouted conversation between the staff and the patrons.  I used the opportunity to bone up on my ignoring skills.

The hotel (the Sheraton City Center) ended up being an example of everything I hate about hotels with the exception of the staff, which was unfailingly polite.  The Sheraton was all about squeezing a few more dollars out of you every time you turned around.  I didn’t pack a laptop because I don’t like the complications it brings to travel and I’d had good experiences with the business centers in the last couple of hotels.  Not here – internet access to the business center PCs was $7 per 15-minute block of time, charged to your credit card.

Then there was the TV in the room.  They went to the trouble of hooking up a 32-inch LCD widescreen HDTV and then used it to show stretched standard-def content.  That just offended me.  I also had the option of internet access in my room on the HD set, I nosed around with it and discovered that they wanted $10/day for that service.  I decided that wasn’t worth it, especially due to the half-assed speed of the connection, and tried to turn it off.  The hotel remote didn’t have an exit button, and the screen said use the “esc” key on the keyboard in your room.  But my room didn’t have a keyboard.  I searched all the drawers and closets and couldn’t find a keyboard.  I turned the set off, thinking that it might reset, but it was still on the net when it came back up.  Finally, directly entering a TV channel on the remote did the trick.  I would have felt like a complete jackass calling the hotel staff to my room to turn off the internet access channel I was too cheap to buy.

On to the pay-per-view.  The hotel advertised a service to let you see favorite TV shows you might have missed, so I went to that screen to see if I could watch a 30 Rock that I missed due to storm coverage a while back.  They had it, but wanted $5 to show me a 22-minute show.  That I could watch on the internet for free (if I had free internet access, that is).  More menu-diving told me I could pay $7 to watch an episode of Mythbusters.  Yes, the same show that’s on 8 times a week on basic cable.  Damn money-grubbers.

I don’t like walking around Baltimore much after dark.  (And now that I think about it, it’s not that great during the day either.)  So, it’s down to the hotel restaurant so see what’s available.  And it looks like what’s available is a choice of screwjobs.  There’s two options:  Shula’s and Shula’s 2.  The first is a high-priced steak restaurant named after the retired Dolphins coach, as you learned from the signs posted in the elevator claiming that the taste is “still undefeated.”  (DAMN how I wish the Patriots had won so everybody could STFU about the Dolphins).  The second is an indifferent little sports bar in the lobby with absolutely no entree less than $10. 

I’d never previously made the association between Don Shula and quality dining, and his sports bar didn’t change things.  I got a $9 appetizer with mini buffalo chicken sandwiches and fries, identified in the menu as shoestring fries, but appearing on the plate as steak fries.  The sandwiches were chicken nuggets splashed with a little sauce on tiny, stale buns.  I’d be willing to bet everything I was served came out of a bag in the freezer. 

Congratulations, Don.  You made the Uncomfortable McDonald’s look good by comparison.

I hate flying American Airlines out of DFW.  They control too much of the airport for their own good.  As a result of them using three huge, non-connected terminals, there’s pretty much no chance of your arriving near the gate where you left.

This means that the close-in parking which they charge $7 extra a day for, is mostly useless as a convenience.  If you leave from terminal C, you’ll end up having to take a shuttle from terminal A or B and wasting any time you might have saved on the front end.  I know from experience that A and C are in fact connected, but there’s no way to go from one to the other on foot outside of the security area, which you have to leave to get your checked baggage.  I found that out the long and annoying way.

Not that you will save any time on the front end, the close-in covered parking is jammed and slowed down even more with the latest DFW craze:  valet parking.  Because leaving your car keys with somebody else while you’re out of town is such a great idea.  Especially some random twentysomething who knows you’re unlikely to ever see him again.  Here’s to off-airport parking, I promise to find your exit next time.

—

On the taxi ride from downtown Seattle to the airport, the driver pointed to the side of the road, where there were tracks under construction.  “In two years, you’ll be able to have the hotel shuttle you to the light rail station to get to the airport.” 

I asked him what he thought of that.  He didn’t care because he was getting the heck out of the taxi business with gas at $3.50 a gallon.  He didn’t care if the whole damn taxi industry, particularly his competitors, was doomed, God willing.  It seems that you can wish all kinds of bad things on people as long as you qualify it with “God willing,” since that takes the focus off your selfish wishes and makes it more of a cosmic justice thing.

—

I haven’t used a hotel phone for an outgoing call in years, since I can use my cell phone more cheaply.  Serves the hotels right for screwing everyone for phone use for years, up to and including “access” charges when people used their own prepaid calling cards.  Now they usually don’t even bother charging for wired internet access.

—

When the airports start selling ad space on the bottoms of the bins you have to put your shoes and other personal items in for x-raying, it’s a safe bet that Americans have completely internalized the security checkpoint mentality.

Last May, I spent over $800 on shelves from Ikea, and then spent another hundred or so buying the pieces they didn’t have in stock the first time. I eventually got all but one of the pieces: a stand to use for my consoles. It was the ironically-named “Lack” stand, which was available in stock with every finish but Beech, the color I had used for the shelves.

In the meantime, I was using a table I’d swiped from the kids room, but there were all kinds of wires and transformers showing and I knew My Lovely Wife hated all the clutter.

So I checked back. First weekly, then monthly, then bimonthly. Every time I asked for help from the Ikea employees, I was assured that the table was not permanently out of stock and was not discontinued. I just needed to keep checking back. The empty slot on Row 20 was there every time I came back, for more than half a year.

Until last week, when I checked back and there was no place on the shelf anymore. I’d have complained, but it’s pretty obvious that Ikea doesn’t trust its local employees with anything other than stocking the shelves with what they are given. So one last time:

Screw Ikea for not keeping their products in stock.
Screw Ikea for pretending the Beech-finished Lack table would ever come back in stock by maintaining an empty space for it on the shelf.
Screw Ikea for either keeping their employees too ignorant to help or instructing them to lie to customers like me.
Screw Ikea for discontinuing an item for months without telling anyone that it was discontinued.
Screw Ikea for wasting my time.

Oh, and one more:

Screw me for buying a bookshelf at Ikea to fill the space. Hey, it was Beech-finish and hid the wires.

One December day last year, I was picking the kids up at the daycare. As I was going back to their rooms, this woman asks me to move my car from the front drive. I was not feeling particularly cooperative that day, especially since the parents park their cars all over the place and getting blocked in goes with the territory. Plus, I was aware of the issue when I parked, and I made sure to leave enough space for other cars when I parked.

I told her that, and she said there wasn’t enough space and I should move my car. I told her I’d be out there as soon as I had my kids. I rounded up my three kids in a hurry, rushed them up front, and was out to the drive in less than a minute.

I saw the woman pulling out of the drive in her silver sedan. Guess I was right after all. As I was seating the kids, I saw a double five-inch key scratch on my driver’s side door. A thin trail of clear coat was still hanging off the scratch.

That silly bitch keyed my car.

My wife tells me I scared the hell out of the daycare staff when I walked back in there and demanded to know who this person was. I called the police and reported the vandalism that night.

Over a week later, I get a call from a detective. Let’s just say he didn’t seem very worked up about cracking the case. I gave him the name and he asked if I’d actually seen her do it. Of course I hadn’t, or she wouldn’t have made it back to her car (I didn’t say that last part to the detective). Later, he calls back and says he can’t find this person, and maybe I could get a license plate number or something?

I drive home pretty disgusted with the whole system. Apparently, unless there’s a witness, law enforcement thinks its job is over once the report is filed.

And then when I pull up to the daycare, guess who’s in the parking lot. Yup, the Keymaster herself. I get out of the car and write down the license plate number. Her husband walks up to me and asks if he can help me.

“Nope.” Then he asks me what I’m doing. I thought that was obvious, but I tell him I’m not talking to him unless he tells me who he is. We go around for a while and he finally gives up his name. Turns out the last name I told the police was one letter off. Then the Keymaster shows up and pretends she doesn’t know what my big problem is. I tell her I could give a damn what she says, she can talk to the detective about it.

I sincerely hope I pissed all over her Christmas, but she didn’t strike me as the sort of person who has a conscience, or who can even make the connection to her own behavior and negative consequences.

In the meantime, I spent about $450 having the door repainted and renting a car for a couple of days. Now the sight of my car does not remind me of silly bitches, and that has a certain value. Unsurprisingly, the detective hasn’t called back. Now I have to decide whether to spend the money on the filing fee to sue her in small claims court. At least the burden of proof would be lower than “did you see her do it?”

Letting the system work ends up being fairly unsatisfying.

I use a wireless mouse at the office.  As much as I harangue Microsoft, I think their optical mice are some of the best you can buy.  So, when we moved offices, I set up my Intellimouse Explorer up in the new space with the wireless reciever on my newly-relocated PC under the desk.  All seemed well for a while.

Then, the mouse would be slow to repond, or button clicks wouldn’t register.  I changed the batteries, with no improvement.  I noticed that the missed clicks often occurred when I was also moving the mouse.  I developed the theory that my mouse pad had become too slick for the laser to read properly.  Somehow, the mouse was getting confused by the tracking and was too busy to transmit the clicks.  To test this, I got a legal pad, set it next to the mouse pad, and moused on it for a while.  It worked perfectly.

This was not an ideal solution, though.  I missed the wrist rest built into the mouse pad.  I tried rearranging things, but I couldn’t find anything satisfactory.  I finally rummaged around in the storage room and found a nice big desk pad.  The wrapper said it worked for writing, mousing, whatever.  And it was a pleasant deep red color.  So, on the assumption that anything in the storeroom is OK to use, I brought it into my office.  Removing the wrist rest from the pad, I placed it right where the old mouse pad was, ready for action.

And it didn’t work.

My complicated theory about the mouse pad going bad was completely wrong.  I just needed to move the receiever and the mouse closer together, just like I had unwittingly done when I was using the legal pad as a mousing surface on the center of my desk.  Three feet and a desktop is apparently too much to ask for MS’s wireless mouse.  A day or two of feeling dumb serves me right for ignoring the simplest solution for the problem.

I’ve wondered for a long time what kind of idiot would buy pills and put them into his own body based on an unsolicited email from some shady spammer. Or buy a replica watch, which seems to have overtaken mortgage re-fi’s and near-instant weight loss as the major secondary spam topic.

But I sift through them, because sometimes the spam filter snags something I care about. So, I get to see at least the sender and subject lines of dozens of spam mailings a week. Sometimes the sender is a person, sometimes the sender is some other noun, activity, or part of speech. Such as “Colon Cleanse,” which has been sending me mail from the year 2037, where apparently everyone has clean colons and the only marketing opportunities left are in the past. If you’ll buy something from a spammer to stick up your own ass, then you probably do need all the cleansing you can get.

I got an email from “Ejaculation” the other day. Which surprised me, since you would think that’s one distracted sender. Then, later, I got an email from “Penis.” But you know, so soon after Ejaculation, I just couldn’t work up much interest.