Tag: humor

It’s a “date”

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When they say that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, I always assumed that it was a symbol assignment (men being assigned to the god of War and woman being assigned to the goddess of love). Apparently it means something else.

I have recently learned for instance, that there are at least three kinds of dates.

1. A “sort-of” date

2. A date

3. A date date (always pronounced with emphasis on the first word)

When I type “date date” my spell-checker always underlines the second “date” because it thinks I am being redundant. I have yet to be given a definition of “sort-of” date and “date date” that makes any sense to me at all. Kelly has tried. Jess has tried. I’ve asked other people and gotten answers which I find as incomprehensible as macro economics.

Maybe its me.

Each time it comes up, I am reminded of the scene from the first season of The West Wing when Mallory asks Sam to the opera. Sam says, “You’re asking me on a date!” Mallory insists that she isn’t. Sam asks what distinguishes this from a date. To which Mallory response, “There will, under no circumstance, be sex for you at the end of the evening.”

While I don’t necessarily understand the definitions I have been given, I have a somewhat retentive memory and I can spit them back out verbatim. I therefore offer these definitions to anyone who might find them in a situation where they think they are on a date only to discover it was a “sort-of” date. Etc.

Sort-of date
(1) A date in which one of the two parties (usually not the one that is you) feels that the event is much less formal than an actual date; (2) A date in which one of the two parties (usually you), tell the other party that you’ll happen to be at Such and Such Bar at 9 PM, and if you (the other party) happen to show up there for a drink “that’d be cool”; (3) when one or both parties involved find out upon meeting that they are somehow related.
Date
(1) A pre-arrange event in which two people agree to meet at a particular time and place to enjoy one another’s company and explore the possibility of future encounters; (2) a “fix-up” (see also “sort-of date”)
Date date
(1) a one-night stand; (2) a one-hour stand; (3) a 15-minute stand (see also “He/she is so hot”)

These are the definitions that I was given. I repeat them word-for-word as they were given to me. Hopefully, this clears up a lot for you and provides you with an enlightened picture of the world.

Office humor

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Moments ago, one of the office assistants came up to me in order to schedule a meeting with me next week. We went through the usual dance, and I finally told her any time on May 1, 2, or 3 was fine.

A few minutes later I received an email that said:

How about May 1 at 9 am?

I could simply not resist replying with:

“May-day, may-day, I’ve got a meeting at 9 o’clock, I repeat, I’ve got a meeting at 9 o’clock!”

Fortunately, she thought it was as funny as I did.

Little (reading) voices

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I have a few questions for all my fellow readers out there about how you go about reading something? I ask these questions mainly to see if I am the same as everyone else or if I am very different?

1. When reading something that has footnotes, do you (a) read the footnote as soon as you come to it in the text; (b) wait until you finish the sentence in which the footnote appears; (c) wait until you finish the paragraph in which the footnote appears; (d) wait until you finish the page on which the footnote appears; (e) skip the footnote all together?

For me, the answer is (c). I wait until I’ve finished the paragraph in which the footnote appears and then jump down to the bottom of the page to read the note. Strangely, I can never remember being taught a proper “method” for doing this in school.

2. When reading something in parentheses, does your internal reading voice change in any way?

For me, the tone of my internal reading voice changes when I read something in parentheses. It’s almost as if the volume of the voice gets a bit lower, as if whatever is being said in parentheses is being stage-whispered. I don’t know why the voice does it. It is subconscious and I have no control over it. Is that unusual?

3. When reading a quoted word, or phrase that is intended to call out the phrase, but does not represent dialog, does your internal reading voice change? For example: He wore those crazy-colored shoes in order to act like he was “with it”.

When I come to quotes like this in a passage, my reading voice pauses ever-so-slightly before and after the quote. During that pause, I imagine the person behind the disembodied voice holding up his hands and making quote marks with his fingers.

4. Does your internal reading voice sound like you?

For reasons I have never fully been able to explain, my internal reading voice sounds within my head like someone who has lived their entire life in Brooklyn. I never lived in Brooklyn and I don’t know too many people who have, but the voice has always sounded like this to me, as far back as I can remember.

5. Does your internal reading voice ever add its own criticism and comments to what you are reading?

Mine does, only if I am reading something particularly bad. I’ll be reading along at a good clip, come across something hideously written, and without the words ever appearing on the page, my internal reading voice will sigh and say, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!”

Your answers to these questions will help me to feel more or less normal, so leave a comment when you have a moment and let me know what you think.

Epcot: the future of gas and wet willies

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Andy, Mandy, Lisa and I caught a shuttle bus from Animal Kingdom to Epcot and if the day hadn’t already been fun, and funny, it was about to get funner and funnier. It all started with Andy’s comment, “Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us.” Wait, let me back up, I’m telling this slightly out of order.

There we sat on the bus and sitting in front of us was a woman holding a sleepy little boy. So sleepy was he, in fact, that just before the bus left, the boy peed his pants, much to the surprise of his mother. Andy, in an effort to make light of anything at all, pointed this out to Mandy, at which point the mother looked up at Andy in sad, soaking desperation. And that’s when Andy said, “Don’t worry it happens to the best of us.”

It was Mandy who jumped in and said that it had happened to “Ands” last night.

The four of us arrived at Epcot (dry, thankfully) and proceeded directly onto the Spaceship Earth attraction, which allowed us to sit down and relax for a little while. From there we headed to “Soaring” but discovered that all of the fast-passes for that ride had been given out for the day, which meant we’d have to stand in line for it. So we went ahead and grabbed some food and then got into what ended up being a 55 minute line.

Two things happened in the line that had us in stitches.

Halfway through the line, Mandy was getting tired. It was a wide line with lots of people packed in pretty tightly. Mandy had been leaning her head against Andy’s back, half asleep, when all of a sudden, she said, “Oh, Ands, that’s terrible!” and walks away from him. Apparently, Andy had let one go much to the dismay of everyone around him, but to Andy’s great delight. He was laughing so hard he was shaking, which made me laugh so hard that I was shaking. We probably laughed for five minutes barely breathing. It was hysterical.

Flash-forward about ten minutes later, surrounded by kids (and their parents) who have been standing in line for 45 minutes. Andy was leaning up against the wall, asleep. Lisa, with a devilish look in her eye, licks her finger and promptly sticks it in Andy’s ear. Andy instantly wakes up, and shouts, “That’s fuh–” and then freezes because he realizes we are surrounded by kids. I went to pieces, though, and so did Lisa, and so did the two girls who’d been in line in front of us all this time. I was laughing so hard there were tears in my eyes.

Oh, we finally did get on the ride and it was awesome. You really felt as though you were hang-gliding over all of these places. The funniest thing about the ride, however, were the sounds Lisa made everytime we swooped over a ridge and suddenly appeared to be very high up in the air. I can’t quite describe the sound. It’s a sound that I wouldn’t think a human voice could produce, but clearly she made it.

After Soaring, we decided to stay grounded for a while and take a walk all the way around the International Plaza and lake. The weather was perfect. We walked around and I managed to have myself not one but two ice cream sandwiches. People thought this was funny for some reason. We got some good pictures here too, including one of Andy performing a rather un-Disney like act on a ice-pop. (For that matter, we got one of Mandy doing the same.)

We took a boat back to the hotel. Andy and Mandy had to get ready for the rehearsal dinner and Lisa and I headed up to the room to relax for a few hours. We planned to have a late dinner on the boardwalk and then head over to Jellyrolls that evening to meet up with everyone.