ἐπὶ τῶν τραπεζῶν
I’m a big fan of this new phrase I created. When something is really clean, you describe it as “cleaner than Jayna’s stove.” For example:
“David, I want you to make your room cleaner than Jayna’s stove.”
Did you notice that I managed to make fun of both of my siblings in one post? That’s what they get for going to Europe without me.
As I was driving to work yesterday, I saw a car pulling out of a parking lot on my right side to turn left. Since I obviously had the right of way, I didn’t worry too much. But as I kept on getting closer, the nose of the car would keep on inching out and I saw the driver completely focused on the traffic in the other direction. Finally, as I almost reached the point of impact, the car pulls out in front of me, causing me to simultaneously slam on the brakes and hit the horn.
It was at that point when I realized I had never used a car horn for its intended purpose. In my entire career of driving, if another driver were to anger me, my immediate response would be to yell or grumble at the offender, leaving my windows rolled up. This was usually accompanied by a shaking of the fist.
Having learned to drive in Santa Barbara, where right of way is often a matter of courtesy (“You go first.” “No, you go first.”), sounding a car horn is usually a offensive action. It doesn’t matter what the other guy was doing–if you honk your horn, he takes offense. “What did I do that merited a honk? Sure, I endangered both of our lives by cutting you off, but there was no reason to honk!”
My theoretical solution to this problem is to carry around a giant bulb horn which sounds like it belongs in a cartoon. When I honk it at people, they take offense until they see that the horn looks silly. They laugh, take pictures, and we all go out for a bite to eat. Unfortunately, this process involves grabbing the horn from underneath the passenger’s seat, rolling down the window, and balancing the horn so as to honk it with one hand–all while driving with the anger that someone did something to merit a honk. This was not my immediate reaction yesterday.
Instead, I threw my hand at the center of the steering wheel. After that, my first instinct was to look around and think, “I hope nobody is mad at me.”
Last night, I was having a conversation with my friend Amy in the Cosmetics department about law school when another girl walked up and introduced herself.
Amy: This is Jeff. He goes to UC Davis.
Girl #2: Oh, are you Jewish?
Me: No… why?
Girl #2: Isn’t that a Jewish school?
Me: No, it’s a UC. University of California.
Amy: Like UCSB. It’s a public school.
Girl #2: Oh, I don’t know much about schools.
It amused me.
I normally detest advertising or linking to the work of other people, but as most of my readers were originally her friends, I thought it might be nice to mention that Jayna started a blog. I know, crazy. Here is the email she sent out:
The swiss saz hello. Thez also saz that their kezboards are retarded. but onlz slightlz.
We made it to yurich in good form… now weäre just aching for some showers and some sleep. As teased before we left, we have actuallz started a blog. I canät promise much, as we will probablz be doing most of our writing when we are incrediblz tired and pressed for time. So i apologiye in advance. I think mz commenting skills are much better than mz original writing skills.
Anzwaz, if zou want to check it out, this is the URLé
http://swensonsatlarge.wordpress.com/
See zou all soon+
Jazna
P.S. Whz on earth would zou switch the Y with the Z?!?!?
As my roommate Brandon was wheeling his suitcase out of his room early this evening, I realized that today would be the last day I could ever say that I live with Brandon Leen. It was such a significant realization, I decided to post something I wrote a few months ago but have yet to have a good enough time to share with others. In honor of the parting of our lives, I give you:
THE TOP TEN REASONS WHY BRANDON LEEN IS AN OLD MAN
10. He golfs. He currently has a giant box of golf balls next to his desk and keeps his clubs in his car. Occasionally, he goes to the golf course alone to work on his swing. This past quarter, he was enrolled in a golf class through the PE department.
9. He’s easily amused. If Brandon finds himself with extra time, he usually ends up watching questionable TV shows on his computer. Because they’re on his computer, this means he actually spent the time finding the torrents and downloading such quality programs as “How I Met Your Mother” and “Married with Children.”
8. He’s in a long term relationship that’s seemingly going nowhere. Contrary to the popular trend of getting married before even committing the partner’s birthday to memory, Brandon has been taking his sweet little time with that lovely lady of his. For a fun show, ask him when he’s planning on taking that next step. You might want to bring extra padding and earplugs.
7. His entire wardrobe. Imagine a 70′s retirement home is having a rummage sale. Take all the clothes, put them in Brandon’s closet, and that’s pretty what I’ll see if I walk about 20 feet. He owns shoes I’m pretty sure were made out of old furniture.
6. Early bedtime. This guy will usually shut his bedroom door for sleepy time around 10pm. I suppose he wants to get in line with the early breakfast crowd at Denny’s.
5. He likes to talk. If you ask him a question, be prepared to wait a good 10 minutes for your turn to come again.
4. He likes to talk loudly. If Brandon is on the phone in his room with the door shut, I can generally understand his part of the conversation from the living room. He claims it’s because he’s hard of hearing. I guess that would be number 3.5
3. He has trouble urinating. When I once was waiting for him to finish using the one urinal in the bathroom of a restaurant, I passed the time by talking to him and patting him on the shoulder. He later confessed that he’s ‘gunshy’ and had to pack things up early. I claim it’s prostate problems.
2. He enjoys playing cribbage. With his girlfriend. I don’t think anymore needs to be said.
1. He actually purchase Sugar-Free Werther’s Originals. This is the clincher. I make fun of him ceaselessly for this one. In order to buy Werther’s Originals, I think you have to be at least 65 years old. Children are only allowed to eat Werther’s Originals given to them by their grandparents. Sugar-Free Werther’s Originals (I suppose they’re no longer original, wouldn’t you say?), raises the age limit to at least 80. The best part is that Brandon acknowledged the social stigma associated with the candies, yet went ahead and purchased them in shame. It wasn’t untl he got home that he realized they were sugar free (and quite nasty). Nevertheless, he still made the purchase.
In short, Brandon Leen is by far the oldest roommate I have ever had–quite literally as well as mentally. I know for sure that next year won’t be the same without Grandpa Brandon hanging around.
My new favorite drawing:
I drew this in a very limited Facebook program painstakingly using a mouse. My favorite part is how Linus speaks in cursive.
At least, I think it’s day 99. I was going to title this, “Happy Birthday, Maria,” but I opted for something a little less obscure. Anyway…
Before:
After:
My face wasn’t too happy. Why are you holding a razor? I thought we stopped that a long time ago!
Since Brandon is in Boston escaping finals week, I had to drive to meeting alone. I had dinner at Dos Coyotes, as always, then drove to the Greenway’s. I got there around 7:10, so I planned on reading a bit in my car so as not to show up 20 minutes early. For some reason, it seemed appropriate in my mind to leave the keys in the ignition. In retrospect, this was not appropriate.
I parked right behind the Woods, who, upon noticing me, made faces. Their doors opened, so mine did as well. I poked my head out and exclaimed, “You’re early!” to which they replied in a likewise manner. Assuming we were now going inside, I grabbed my bible, locked the door, and closed it.
Grabbed my bible, locked the door, and closed it.
The instant the door clicked shut, my hand slowly lifted the handle, confirming that it was indeed locked. With a sigh, I stuck my hand in my pocket, confirming that there were indeed no keys in it. I looked at Dave, who put together the slow motion actions in his head and said, “You locked your keys inside your car?”
At that moment, Amy pulled up. I walked over to her car and said, “Amy, would you mind doing me a really big favor?”
“That depends on what it is.”
“Could you perhaps drive me home after meeting and then drive me back here?”
It turns out she had a chem study group right after, so that wasn’t really an option. We quickly went over the other options and decided to go back to my place in the 18 or so minutes we had before meeting.
Just our luck, we managed to hit every single red light on the way there. This gave me plenty of time to explain our purpose of the before-meeting adventure. I know I keep a spare set of keys in my desk, so my purpose was to get them as quickly as possible. She made me make sure I knew where the keys were. “In my desk, right hand side, drawer number two. Wait, I think they might be in the top one.” Amy was dying with anticipation as to which drawer they were in. She claimed that my initial gut instinct would be right, but I claimed that my logical reasoning and memory would be right.
When we finally got to my apartment, she slowed down and I jumped out of the car. Looking around the parking lot, I remembered a conversation between AJ and his friend Stephanie right before I left:
“So, are you hungry?” I had a bag of Corn Nuts and an energy drink before I left Chico. “Corn Nuts? You must have monster breath.” No, I had the unflavored kind. But yeah, I’m pretty hungry. Where do you want to go? “That was the point of me asking.”
The conversation quickly having flashed through my head, I looked around the parking lot and failed to find the vehicles that belong to Joe or AJ. Amy noticed my hesitation and asked what was wrong. I turned around and said, “I don’t think any of my roommates are home.”
As she turned around, I ran to the third floor and confirmed my suspicion with the sound of the deadbolt being rattled in the small but sturdy hole. I returned to Amy empty handed.
Continuing our trend of luck, we hit every red light on the way back. We walked into meeting at 7:30 exactly.
After meeting, I explained the story to Lois, a willing chauffeur. Unfortunately, as she was also the owner of the house, it meant that I would have to wait until everyone had left. Twenty minutes later, Dave asked what I was going to do, then offered to take me back to my place. It’s a good thing, too, since I’m blaming the whole incident on him. If he hadn’t gotten out of the car so soon, none of this would have happened. Actually, I think he was the one who brought that concept up, so I’m keeping with it.
I tried calling both Joe and AJ to confirm their presence, but neither picked up the first try. Since they are usually at home with some friends over on Wednesday nights, I assumed they would be there, my assumptions confirmed with a returned call.
I finally ran up to my apartment, grabbed the keys (top drawer), a basket of blackberries I picked a few hours earlier, and returned to Dave’s car. I offered the berries as a thank you for driving me, yet since he was officially the guilty one, I didn’t mind snacking on a few during the drive back.
When we returned to the Greenways, I pulled the keys out of my pocket, unlocked the door, then frustratedly threw them inside the car. It took me nearly two hours and two trips home in order to make a small hole turn about 45 degrees.
The main thing keeping me amused throughout the process was the thought, Well, at least this will make a good blog post.
This is part 6 of a series. It begins here.
As I was cleaning in the kitchen last night, I received a phone call from our favorite number, (877) 200-9000. I poked my head out of the hall and yelled to AJ, “The Mormons are calling me!”
I answered the phone and hurried the polite young man through the spiel of all the information I already knew. He noticed I requested a visit from two of their representatives and wanted to know if I had the chance to meet with them.
“Yeah, that happened a few months ago.”
“Oh? Did they set up a second meeting?”
“No, I haven’t heard from them since.” Instead of having him try and fix what he would probably think of as a problem, I quickly added, “But I have their number, so I was going to call them and see if I could attend a service.” It wasn’t actually a lie–I’m still curious to see if their services are as ridiculous as I imagine.
“Well, that’s great. You have their number if you have any more questions or want to attend a service. Is there anything I can help you with?”
“No, that would be it.” And we hung up.
Seriously? Three and a half months after we had our little discussion/debate, they call me to talk about it? I suppose the long delay of calling was reasonable when I got the Book of Mormon, allowing time to read it and come back to it. But a meeting? Maybe they knew I fully documented the incident and would come back to my post to remember the events and be converted. Rarely do I know what the Mormons are thinking.
Continue reading here.
For our Classics Day yesterday, I somehow got suckered into being the victim of a stoning. Fortunately, they decided to use water balloons instead of rocks, but some were at such close range they were rather painful.
When there was a pause in the attack, I looked up to see one of my professors excitedly throwing a pink water balloon at me but missing me completely. She then took another one and tried again.
Once they were running low on balloons, I decided I was getting a little bored of simply taking all their hits. When I saw one coming at me, I turned quickly and caught it, my hands still tied. I then flung it back at the crowd and managed to hit one of my friends directly in the chest, splashing several people in effect. Greatest part of the day.