I had a little accident this morning. I was eating a hard-boiled egg for breakfast and the salt shaker tipped. A little salt spilled on the table. Without thinking, I immediately, without pause, grabbed a pinch of the salt and threw it over my shoulder.
I have no idea why.
Yes, I threw salt over my shoulder, because � I threw salt over my shoulder because � uumm, you can be for damn sure no evil shall befall the ann-frank house for at least a fortnight as a result of split salt?
Clearly, I don�t know how to explain. It just felt right.
Yeah, I know. Trust me, I had never tried that before. I do not believe I have ever had the occasion.
Anyway, I had no idea I had such a superstitious streak. It�s a wonder I left the house on Friday the 13th. But do me a favor - if I start harvesting four leaf clovers or freak out when a black cat breaks a mirror while walking under a ladder, just point me to the nearest Old Wives Tale 12 step program and let�s take care of it, already.
But I am still not gonna open an umbrella in your house, okay?
Hey, know what?
I was planning on writing about several things and I wrote them down to remind me but it seems as though I left my crib sheet at work.
That is, somewhere on my desk, just waiting to be seen but curious coworkers who like to nose, is a tiny post it note with something like the following scribbled on it:
1. I never realized I spent so much time nekkid
2. What�s with all the Mohawks?
3. Can I get a damn sharpie?
4. Shit shingles
5. Dangling testes
Okay, so I know what #1 and #4 are in reference to. You know that construction on the awning outside my apartment I was talking about earlier this week? You know, the dudes with tools in my window? Well, let me tell you � one who lives alone doesn�t realize how much time one really does spend nekkid while getting ready in the morning until one walks nekkid into one�s living room and sees strange shapes outlined in one�s blinds and hears �hey Bob, where�s the extra hammer?� as the ladder shuffles outside the window sending one to run into the closet where there are no windows.
I mean, when one lives alone, why bother putting on clothes to grab something out of the next room when one exits the shower? I mean, really.
#4 is in reference to the ugly-ass shingles they are now tacking onto the once-a-nice-shade-of-green awning outside. They are apparently cedar, but look more like, redwood, these shingles. Which I am sure are very nice and sturdy and hold some sort of aesthetic value in Appalachia, but good grief, collectively, nailed to a roof? Ugly, ugly.
Earlier today, I bumped into the lady who runs the frou-frou chi-chi boutique below my apartment. She was outside enjoying the fresh air, having a smoke. We talked for a few minutes and the entire time an ash the size of Texas dangled dangerously from her cigarette and it made me extremely nervous as I wondered how long until that sucker broke free and set the stray cedar chips littering the street a blaze.
But I carried on.
�So, what do you think of the shingles?� I asked. �Gives the place a touch of the backwoods, no?�
�Looks better than before. It�s about time Larry [the property manager] took care of that shit. I�m not paying for it.�
So much the aura of the chi-chi frou-frou boutique manager mystique.
#2 on my list is simple: an odd Mohawk trend has started within my department at work. That is, one of the fellas shaved himself a Mohawk, and another fella has since followed. It�s only a matter of days �til we see another.
Look, I have nothing against Mohawks, but being 30 years old and spending your days working the 9-5 and your nights playing Tony Hawke on your PS2 does not a punk make.
I am sorry if this is you and I seem harsh as you are reading this. Go ahead and make fun of my old lady superstitions and me and whatever things you dig up in my archives and let�s call it even, ok?
#3: Can I get a damn sharpie? is also work related as I spent a good portion of my afternoon in meetings as my department discussed capital expenditures for the year [fancy-ass talk about how much money will be allotted for new work-toys]. Which means all of the video editors who work all day on their super-fancy-video-editing computers spent the time rallying for the super-expensive super quick multi-this and that illusion-fx-pack-image stabilization-plug- filmmaker's toolkit- mega-huge-byte-ram-memory-speed-thing-a-ma-bob system upgrades.
Which left me and my friend/boss/cube-mate Matt (yeah, officially, our business cards say we are �writers� which is totally open to interpretation, but means the standard Microsoft Word is like, our main software) trying to speak up over the cacophony of tech-talk with, �uum, yeaaah, our sharpies are getting really dull � can we order up a few dozen?� and the occasional, �Am I gonna get my Itoya Paper Skater Rolling Ball Pens, Extra fine, silver barrel black ink for, like, $12.95 a dozen or what? �
Which leads me to numma 5 on my list of topics: dangling testes. It has to do with my beermates, actually - the 12% crew and some ideas that have been bandied back and forth about the �buttons� to put on our pages. So, it�s not all that important, but herein lies the fruit of my labor (because if anything - I have microsoft PAINT and image manager on my computer, bay-bee):
Those people are much fun.