The subject is really what cracks me up, because in reading it, I pronounce it, and invariably, it sounds like this.

Also, I like how you can buy online ear infections. Didn’t know that was a thing.

“I just want one,” he tells me, like that somehow is more persuasive than saying “I want eighty.”

Parenthood is not defined by how many children you have, so much as the fact that you have children. One or fifteen, it doesn’t matter. You’re already a broken shell of a person. After one kid, what does it matter how many more you have?

“What if we have twins?” I asked, as I squeezed toothpaste onto my toothbrush.
“We’ll throw one of them off a cliff,” he replied sarcastically from the bedroom.
“Oh, I get it. You want to ensure that we always hold the majority votes.”

Inexplicably, he found that hilarious.

“So if we have a kid, you realize that one day this conversation will come up, right?” I studied him gravely. “You had a twin, but daddy only wanted one child.”

So I had an eye doctor appointment today. I have terrible eyes – poor vision, and I am high risk for severe vision problems. Consequently, it is critical that I see a doctor annually to ensure tragic things do not happen. Inexplicably, I developed a cold sense of dread around this particular appointment. Logically, it would make more sense to fear not seeing a doctor, as the risk of the unknown was inherently more threatening. Fear doesn’t respond well to logic, it just gets more absurd.

My malevolent subconscious had me convinced that not only was my (new) eye doctor trafficking in black market body parts and organs, but that he has designs on my eyes, despite never having met me. I was convinced that he was working in collusion with my other eye doctor (who had referred me), and that they were going to cut out my eyes and sell them for a mint on the black market.

I would either, invariably, end up with soulless empty eye sockets, destined to poverty and self pity, or my mutilated corpse would be discovered slowly, in unidentifiable pieces around the city. I then went on to think that if I had a small dog, that would somehow protect me from this fate, because the tiny, tiny dog, would somehow be clever enough to foil these villainous doctors.

Now, because you’re not completely insane, you’ve already identified the largest logical failure in a sea full of them. Yes, given your knowledge of my horrendously awful vision, what would these nefarious characters possibly hope to gain from stealing my eyes?

In actuality, not only was my doctor awesome, he told me to relay a message to manfriend:

“Stop being a dick. Don’t make fun of your girlfriend when she sneezes in sunlight.” It’s not an allergy. It’s a real condition called Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome (ACHOO), or Photic Sneeze Reflex. Suck it, baby.

Another example of this is if I were to buy a gallon of milk, and the manufacturer went out of their way to tell me it was cow’s milk, I would be a little disturbed. What else would it be?

For this reason, Live Chat by LivePerson, a chat software program used by large online retailers, immediately raises a red flag. Is it a live chat? With a live person? How liberal are they with that phrasing? Is it a reanimated corpse equipped with a program for “real-time intelligent customer engagement?”

I ask because I recently had the following conversation with one of the representatives:

[Representative]: Welcome to [retailer]. How may I assist you today?
[Me]: I have a question about refrigerators – we do not have a waterline, and it’s unlikely our condo will permit us to hook one up. Do we need to buy only fridges that do not have water/ice makers, or can we opt not to use that functionality without harming the unit?
[Representative]: To give you the best possible service, I need to refer you to an Appliance Specialist. Please call 800-xxx-xxxx. I apologize for the inconvenience, but a specially trained representative will be glad to assist you.
[Representative]: Their hours of operation are (all eastern time):
[Representative]: 6am – 2am, every day but Christmas.
[Me]: Thanks
[Representative]: A specialist will be able to help you in determining the value of the ice maker.
[Representative]: Is there anything else I may assist you with today?
[Me]: Are you actually a real person or an automated response?
[Representative]: It is a real person.

Chilling.

Or I could tell you how I’d been telling Manfriend that next week was going to be sad, because I’m the only one in our family who’s working on Monday and a lot of people are probably going to be out of the office, so I’ll be sad and arbitrary, and probably spin around in my chair in a lonely fashion. Manfriend suggested he come and take me out to lunch since he won’t be working on Monday. So we run into Blank and her mom in the lobby as we all return from our various dining adventures.

“What’s all this stuff,” Manfriend asks Blank, who’s carrying lots of bags and toys and so forth.
“Oh, this is for Toast,” Toast is her niece and before anyone knew what Toast was, (niece or nephew), everyone just called her Toast, rather than “it.”
“Okay…” Manfriend pretends to understand.
“I’m flying out to Portland on Wednesday and I’m going to be gone for two weeks.”
“Oh, so that’s why Alex is so sad about being alone in the office on Monday!”

Okay, so obviously Blank is not a sufficient alias for this person. I will have to come up with random, semi-arbitrary nicknames for people or just refer to them as colors or numbers. So I could tell you that I’ll need to consult Purple and Ten about what to call Blank on my blog. CAN YOU SEE HOW CONFUSING THIS WILL GET??

Of course Purple will read this and send me an IM tomorrow going, “dude, I’m totally Purple, aren’t I. I know it. I know I am.”

Edit: Manfriend is totally supportive of “Blank.”

“I can’t call her Blank.”
“Of course you can. Blank is perfect. Or you could call her Pixie.”
“Why Pixie?”
“Because she has short hair.”
“But that’s a semi-identifiable thing. People will know who she is if I do that,”
“EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS WHO SHE IS! She lives in the building! It’s your best and only friend, BLANK!”

Oh my GOD, do you see what I have to live with all the time? All. The. Time. Also, Purple, just remember when the time comes, and you are rationing out your apocalypse water, remember that Manfriend thought that Purple was a) a stupid name for you, and b) that you weren’t worth mentioning as one of my friends. Just remember those cold facts. (I love you).

“HEY, that’s not true. Purple is everybody’s friend.” In his defense, that is sort of true. Except for that one dude on the bus who  saw all the evil inside her.

Every quarter my company has a giant meeting to discuss how fantastic we are and how much ass we kick. We compare lists of names with one another, (this is especially important for team building with other offices, as we don’t see them often), and share tips on the most effective ass-kicking footwear.

That was a slight exaggeration. Here’s a fact:

We all pretend to be superheroes and we have an ongoing contest to come up with theme songs for everyone in our office. We will burn a CD and taunt the other offices with it, challenging them to guess which song corresponds to which person. We laugh smugly as we plan this, confident they are too stodgy and witless to figure it out, (obviously, we don’t see them enough. if we did, we would know how completely wrong we are).

Every quarter, we alternate where the meeting is held, ensuring that each office only has to drive out of state once in a while. This week it was our turn to make the epic road trip. I will spare you the details of the meeting for two reasons: 1) the details are not relevant to this story and 2) it’s frowned upon.

So the point is that we woke up crazy early, drove out of state for a meeting, drove back, and walked directly to the bar. Why did we do this on a Monday, you may ask yourself. Well, because there was a pumpkin carving contest, and one of our favorite servers of drinks at said bar had enticed us to attend and slice up a pumpkin to teach all the other pumpkins a lesson. Brutal, perhaps, but effective. Pumpkin attacks have been at a record low for decades.

Anyway, we decided to go get a few drinks and carve a pumpkin. So we sat down and ordered a few drinks and began sketching. Our ideas ranged from the classic jack o’lantern to the grossly inappropriate (yes, we did figure out how to make pumpkin carving offensive and overtly sexual).

Finally, we settled on tipping our pumpkin over, giving him a drunken leer, and shoving an empty beer bottle in his mouth. We called him our drunken punkin:

And that’s pretty much how we came to carve a pumpkin, while inebriated, in an Irish pub.

One of the ladies gasped, and I looked around to try and discern what the source of her alarm was. I saw what looked like a giant roach in the floor of the elevator in front of her, its little antenna waving. I gasped as well, prepared to cling to the nearest tall person and climb my way up to their face.

“What’s wrong?” One of the ladies asked.
“I forgot my purse upstairs!”
“Oh no!”

I looked at the roach and I realized it was just a giant fuzzy ball of lint. I tried to yawn gaspily to make it seem like I had just been tired.

1. Why do I hear a knock in the bathroom door?
Because you’ve been in there for over two hours now, and people are beginning to worry.

2. dreaming about being the last person left
Is natural and healthy.

3. drend pa fuk mom
I… I don’t know.

4. flesh literally ripped
Reasons why you should suck it up and see a doctor.

5. i don’t care because i’m alex and i am awesome
Fantastic.

6. live sexyes fuck piony
I’ve never known anyone else to have strong feelings on the subject of peonies, but apparently some people do.

7. what food can i fuck?
No.

8. sexy food names
In light of the previous question, a host of unsettling contexts come to mind.

9. is alex awesome?
Yes.

10. i love you, alex. i really do he whispered
People who speak in the third person are a little creepy.

11. lily allen – not fair discus
I can’t speak from personal experience, but this isn’t the first time I’ve heard about Lily cheating at discus throwing.

12. oh no the bathroom door is locked
I just like that someone typed this into a search engine, found my site, and clicked a link to discover insights and tips on what to do in this situation.

13. sexy things you should not do
See #7 and #8.

14. who was the smartest god?
The verdict is out, but again, I am entertained that I’m seemingly the authority on this subject.

25. yay technology
Yay indeed!

They so accurately reflect my work ethic. I plan on peppering these slogans into my work emails.