Cerebrate Good Times

I’m kind of an all-or-nothing person. If there’s one piece of pie left, Id rather have it all or give the whole thing to someone else than split it. I can remember being the same way about dating. If someone didn’t want to date me, and we weren’t friends originally, I had no desire to try to be friends. I had enough friends; the last thing I wanted was to hang around someone, pining away after her. I’m not saying compromise is bad. There are many situations in which it’s the only sensible solution, especially in big, important issues. But when it comes to the little things, compromise just tends to leave everyone feeling unsatisfied. At least if one of you gives in, the other will be satisfied. This is part of the idea of recognizing that you can’t expect to get your own way all the time.

I love Halloween. I love that it doesn’t have the cutesy feeling of other holidays. I love dressing up. I love that nobody talks about “the true spirit of Halloween.” I love that you don’t have to give and receive presents and cards, which eliminates a lot of stress. You don’t have to feel guilty if you just have a good time, or even if you do nothing at all. It’s just a holiday that’s there to be enjoyed. So go forth and find the Great Pumpkin!

So I was wondering about the origin of the term “brownie points.” It looks like it relates to the term “brown nose,” which derived from the girl-scout-type group Brownies. Apparently it used to have a more negative connotation that I think it does now. Think about all the times you’ve done something that earned you brownie points with someone. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could somehow cash in all your points? What’s the point of earning these hypothetical points if there’s no way to redeem them? You can sometimes get a favor in return, but they seem to expire if you save them until you really need them. So, from now on, whenever I do anything that’s worth brownie points, I’m going to ask the person how many points I get so I can keep track of them. Then I’ll create some kind of brownie points catalog so I know what I can redeem them for. Hmm, this is starting to sound like a lot of work. If anyone wants to do that for me, it would be worth 640 points.

Have you seen any commercials lately for hair products? They seem less like shampoo commercials and more like advertisements for Dole. The claim is that by “infusing” their products with “natural essences” it will help your hair be shiny and, presumably, ready to munch on before the main course. Why does anybody think that your hair needs vitamins? Vitamins nourish your body when they are absorbed through your digestive system. Your hair is not alive. That’s why it doesn’t hurt when you cut it. You might as well pour milk on a skeleton, hoping it will keep the bones strong. Frankly, I’d rather trust unpronounceable chemicals to keep my hair clean. At least they’ve been developed and tested in some lab. Let’s not shop for hair products at Jamba Juice.

There’s no doubt that fall is a beautiful season. The moon is beautiful too, but that doesn’t mean I ever want to live there. The problem with fall is that when I leave the house in the morning I have to wear a jacket and scrape the frost from my windshield. Then, at the end of the day, it’s warm enough out that my car interior could be used as a slow cooker. Since I have no desire for a daily vehicle-prepared pot roast, I find the swing in temperatures uncomfortable. Fall is the ultimate indecisive season. It can’t decide if it’s trying to be summer or winter. Now, I don’t mind the summer lingering (sorry, Jen, but 80 degrees is still preferable to 20 degrees); the problem is the wild swing in temperatures, which a less enlightened guy might liken to female mood swings. So we might as well launch ourselves headlong into the dark, dreary winter. Let’s go, already! Get it over with—rip off that bandage in one swift motion!

This is a drawing of a box elder beetle. We get a lot of these beetles in the house. They don’t bite and they don’t get into our food or anything. They just walk around, looking for decaying plant matter to eat. It’s sort of like having a bunch of little pets that you don’t have to take care of. They do occasionally fly around inside (which makes my two-year-old point and say “Whoa! Bug!”), but they really don’t bother us. This life, however, is apparently not always fulfilling enough. And so, at about 10:00 last night, one of these little critters decided to climb up into a halogen floor lamp and take his own life. The immediate result of this, aside from the poor thing’s demise, was that we wondered if our house was on fire. Let me tell you, the smell of frying insects is probably something to avoid whenever possible.

I’m a fast walker. It’s true. I admit it. It all started in junior high school when I suddenly had to make it to several different classrooms every day with only five minutes in between and oh I bumped into that guy and almost dropped my trapper-keeper! The problem didn’t get any better in high school. Now I was in a bigger school with more students. I did become skilled at moving through a crowd (here’s where being rail-thin paid off), but I retained the fast walk. In college the distances grew even greater, and despite a longer break between classes, there was little opportunity to slow down. So now when my wife and I go to the store, I feel compelled to get from the car to the store as fast as possible, as if I’m hurrying to a bomb shelter before the Luftwaffe arrives. Meanwhile, my wife is walking at a normal pace, probably even a little slower to avoid being seen with me. If I go to the mall by myself, I move at least three times as fast as anybody else in the place. I know ...