Go Away. Unless You Have Some Hot Cocoa For Me

Really, I should have a ton to talk about. I received homework assignments from two awesome fellow bloggers, I survived my second annual hiking trip with Foggy, I nearly gave a Target cashier a heart attack last night, and my dad arrives in D.C. around 8:00.

The problem is that I am cold. I can’t think proper unless I am warm. During my Sarajevo year, I became too stupid to operate telephones, buy milk, or even realize that I shouldn't have been there in the first place.

See, the heat hasn’t been turned on in either my apartment or my office. I spent much of my weekend in flannel pajamas, under a pile of blankets, chugging coffee. My work space heater shorted out and temporarily took my computer with it. I am wearing a winter coat and am still cold. I am seriously considering breaking my ears off and setting fire to them. I have lost my will to live, and, even worse, I've lost my will to mock.

I got nothin’. So, in the comments, ask me anything. Want my advice? Want to know something about me? Trivia quiz, anyone? I’ll answer, if only because the typing keeps my fingers from clamping together.

Self-Indulgent Long-Ass Travelogue: College Edition

Riding a unicorn pony on a chocolate rainbow? Nope, not better than drunken jackassery in your college town. - The Foggy Dew

I spent my weekend in North Carolina, attempting to drive, embracing my collegiate guyness and engaging in bad ideas and drunken jackassery with this guy, who was kind enough to invite me to stay with him.

In case any of you were wondering, this is what it’s like to have me around for forty-two straight hours:

Friday:

Hey, where do you live? Really? I had an internship there, I totally know where that is. Whee, it’s fun to drive! Vroom! Beep beep! And I’m playing the awesome road game, “How Big Is Your Penis,” where I’m estimating size in reverse proportion to the macho idiocy I’m seeing all over the road. That guy puttering along in the Chevette? His little buddy's so big it's riding shotgun.

On second thought, where do you live?

How about if I just call you when I get to Durham, put you on speakerphone, and you can be like my Ghetto GPS? What if I figure it out on my own, get to your apartment, and call you asking why you haven’t answered the door?

What if it’s because you’re across town and had no idea I was there yet? But your door is unlocked? Really? We totally wouldn’t do that back in DC. Somebody would steal my crack pipe.

Of course I have a crack pipe.

Dinner? Mexican food? We need our Third Amigo for this one. Margarita, on the rocks, salt. Rinse. Repeat. Then beer. And Wii bowling. And drunken Spongebob Squarepants Operation. Wow, the beer isn’t doing much for my motor skills.

I’m losing, badly. Why yes, I do have an appendectomy scar. (Please God nobody ask in the comments why that statement is relevant.)

Saturday

What a lovely day! Well, except for the pounding hangover. Sure, let’s go visit our friend Heath at work. He manages a pizza restaurant? I like pizza!

You know what else I like? Rum! I’m so glad you brought a flask to the game. Yay, football! OK, so, if I know we’re playing badly, then it must be really bad. Man, that Virginia Tech guy is annoying. Can I beat him with my crack pipe?

At the bar, should I be a cougar and troll for college boys, or get in barfights instead?

Sure, let’s go to Ham’s and have beer for dinner! We really ought to take a cab home instead of driving. That way, we can both have beer!

Aw, you bought me a blue cup at He’s Not Here! Best present ever. Thanks! You rock.

You want food food, not beer as food? OK, Peppers Pizza it is! Hooray! Pizza two meals in a row. Huh. Maybe we really ought to be hailing that cab.

Sunday:

It’s 3:00 am. We’re on the sofa and the only things left on TV are infomercials and Skinimax.

Could you please tell me why you passed out on me? As in, ON ME? I’m squished and immobilized. Dude. What do you weigh? You weigh more than you look like you weigh. You sleep like a rock and weigh the same as a boulder.

Seven hours later…

Good morning! No, I don’t remember if we paid the tab at Ham’s. Call Cridge, tell him we’re drunken jackasses. He says I paid the tab? Go, me! I’m a feminist with finely honed math skills.

Do I even want to know what the tab was?

Of course we paid the tab at He’s Not. Right? You paid cash.

We paid cash at Pepper’s.

I’ll give you a ride back to your car. Can we stop at Waffle House first? What if I don’t want to turn left? I’m sick of turning left! Why can’t I go right?

What if I yell, “RAMMING SPEED!” every time I accelerate? Hey, what would happen if I hit the brakes and the accelerator really hard at the same time? Think I could take that white Subaru in a fight? How about that minivan?

Here’s your car! Bye!

OK, the open road, just me and my rental car. Man, I hate this car.

I totally forgot the Mexican leftovers! I could have had a chicken burrito for company. And I bet the burrito has better pickup and handling than a Chevy Cobalt.

The penis game has gotten dull. Let’s figure out which idiots could impregnate me with their stupid macho driving. Oh, this guy who cut me off in the Canyonero totally just knocked me up with triplets. Sure, it’ll be rough, raising three babies on my own in a studio apartment on a secretary's wages, but I can totally do it.

What I can’t do? Figure out where the rental car drop-off is in National Airport. I swear I’ve done two laps, cut off four hotel vans, and used up the whole tank of gas.

OK, I’m home. Here’s the Home Arrival Verification Text! Have fun in Dublin, and I am going to sleep for the next fourteen hours and hate anyone who ever suggested I should go to Chapel Hill for a low-key relaxing visit.

No Stroller Left Behind

One of my favorite Metro announcements is the one that goes, “Train doors are not like elevator doors.” Usually, I wonder if it’s some sort of riddle, and from there I’m figuring out how a raven is like a writing desk. The vagaries of my brain can really make a commute fly by.

Of course, what they’re really saying is, “Hey! Dumbass! When the doors are closing, don’t jam your briefcase in there! The doors won’t spring back open!” People being people, and stupidity being tragically intractable, folks routinely jam their briefcases, purses, arms and legs into the closing doors. Usually, the train operator re-opens the doors and the offender bullies his way onboard. Less often, the doors surround a backpack in a loving embrace and the train lurches out of the station, leaving behind a confused and angry passenger on the platform.

This sort of thing bugs me to no end. Jamming the doors is rude. It delays the hundreds of people already on the train, all of whom are just trying to get to their pathetic little cubicle jobs. It damages the train doors, leading to further delays (…so thousands of people can’t get home from their pathetic little cubicle jobs). And it’s ridiculously pointless. Another train will be along in a minute or two.

But I’ll live. Part of living in a city is learning how to deal with people. Even the dimmest bulbs on God’s own Christmas tree deserve a little bit of my love. But some people create the sort of situation that makes me wish I carried a baseball bat and kept Child Services on speed dial. This morning, at L’Enfant Plaza, a woman ignored the “Doors Closing” chime, and decided to jam open the doors.

With a stroller. A stroller containing a small child. People, I am not making this up.

This woman used her baby as a doorstop. Now, I am all for finding useful tasks for children. My own (imaginary) children will have their names licensed to major corporations, and work in a Nike factory by age five. But endangering your kid so you can get somewhere two minutes faster is just...I don't know. I lack the words for it.

The doors began squashing the stroller, and everyone on the train gasped. Luckily, the Metro operator saw the situation and popped the doors back open, and nearby passengers were able to drag the stroller onboard. I spent the rest of the ride wondering if I should tell that woman off or not. She was pretty far away, so I couldn’t see her reaction to the drama. Was she relieved? Ashamed? Or was she stupid enough to be glad she got on the train, her child’s safety be damned?

What would you have done?

Programming Note

Y'all can live without me for a little while, you're strong and wise. Plus, there's a whole blogroll and more than five years of archives to dig through. So I'm going to take a brief and refreshing blog-cation. I'll be back in a week or so.

Unless y'all want me to blog about writer's block. Fate worse than death, people. Worse. Than. Death.

PS: Ah, the self-indulgence of a hiatus post, how I love thee!

Among the Biker Babe Yuppies

Tim and I spent last weekend in the Laurel Highlands region of Pennsylvania, where we stayed in a groovy historic hotel, toured Fallingwater, visited a winery, and did all those other sorts of things white couples in their thirties do on vacation. Except I think we may have forgotten to shop for antiques. Sorry!

One of our most entertaining stops was Laurel Caverns. If you peruse the website, you'll notice lots of photos of people in acid wash, with big hair. And you might think that the photos are just really, really old. But, no, people who visit Laurel Caverns really look like that. It was a slightly different (and, frankly, far more likable) demographic than all those perma-pressed Frank Lloyd Wright groupies.

So we paid our ten bucks, worked our way underground, and joined our enormous tour group. The men had ponytails and were all decked out in Harley-Davidson t-shirts, leather vests (yes, in June), and boots (yes, in June). Their wives wore standard-issue Mom Shorts and flip-flops. Their kids, one of whom rocked an awesome mullet and trucker cap combo, dashed about, pointed at things, and screamed their heads off, as kids are wont to do in enclosed, echo-y spaces. Oh, except for one kid that whinged the entire time we were there. Her feet hurt, she didn't like the dark, and from there it was just sort of an incoherent whimpering for the next 55 minutes of our tour. I know it's child abuse, but couldn't we have fashioned a muzzle for her?

So, the tour. We looked at rocks. We touched stuff. Our zippy tour guide cracked corny jokes (one of the biker dads grinned and told me, "I want three of what she's on.") Then the tour guide flipped off the lights so we could experience total darkness, and the little ones immediately set to hollering. Awesomely, the guide continued her spiel over the din. Suffer the little munchkins.

And then I noticed what was weird about the whole experience. Not that the moms were all younger than me and had an average of four children apiece. Nope, I had sort of expected that. What I noticed was what they named their children.

"Devon, get back here!"

"Madison, please slow down!"

"Amelia, stop that!"

"Cheyenne, share the flashlight with your brother!"

Yes, suburban yuppie names have penetrated rural Pennsylvania. I don't know why, but that makes me sort of sad.

PS: No, we didn't go to Kavernputt, which I imagine I will regret for the rest of my life.

Photo Credit: Tim

Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Dumb

Sometimes, I miss Sarajevo. I miss having a functioning vocabulary of six words ("tomato," "beer," "half," "pleasure," "embassy," and "sh***y"). I miss not having the slightest clue as to what is happening or why.

Sunday, I relived the Bosnia magic by going sailing with Tim and his dad. It was worth it for the lingo alone. I swiped the Rigging Checklist Rainbow (no relation to Reading Rainbow) for your enjoyment. It's like the IRS wrote it, with the assistance of drunken NSA codebreaker monkeys:

One anchor and rode in lazarette
Lead outhaul back through grommet in clew of sail
Uncleat and clear main halyard
Locate luff wire or rope sewn in front edge of jib
Appaloosa

Whuh? So, while they put the boat together, I went off in search of a life jacket that wouldn't suffocate me. When you're about the size of a hiking boot, an "adult universal" life jacket feels like a full-body condom. No luck with finding a smaller jacket, but the captain guy was nice enough to apologize before he asked for my weight and age (he prefaced the whole thing by saying he normally knew better than to ask those things of a lady...uh, I'm no lady).

Fortunately, the guys had put the boat together (my scientific term) and pretty much had things under control. Once we got out on the water, my job consisted of:

Handing people things
Staying out of the way
Not pitching myself overboard
Not barfing

That last part was tricky. I've been known to get motion sickness just walking down the street. I take Dramamine like most people take vitamins. Most of my childhood family vacation memories involve roadside sagebrush, my mom holding my hair, and full-on heaving. In short, I don't travel well.

So I chose to focus on a horizon point: something on land, that wasn't moving, to allow my inner ear to adjust. Unfortunately, most of the "white houses" I chose to focus on, were, in fact, abnormally large boats. They were moving, I was moving, my breakfast was ready to move as well.

But it was OK. In fact, it was really fun. I should take this sailing thing more seriously. It's an excuse, after all, to try out a new look. Should I go pirate wench, and spend my weekends wearing corsets and forcibly boarding the yachts of Annapolis? Or should I wear cute little Sailor Moon getups like an anime freak? Or maybe I should wear yuppie Nautica clothes with anchors on them.

In the comments, tell me whether you'd rather be a pirate, an anime character, or a yuppie. Or tell me about a time you almost threw up, preferably in the presence of your significant other and at least one parental unit.

FAQ/About

Who are you?

I'm Shannon, I'm 33 years old, and I live in D.C. My sister and I form a two-person ethnic group, the Austrokees. I was born in Australia and grew up in assorted sections of America. I got most of my schooling in the redneck gangsta paradise of Woodbridge, Virginia, where I was a hot sauce salesgirl.

Perhaps the best description of me came from a recovering alcoholic/bipolar guy who tried to pick me up in a bar: "You're cute. But you're a force of nature and have a 50/50 chance of winding up in rehab."

Spot on, dude.

Anything I should know about commenting?

I love my commenters! They're the best part of having a blog, and I respond to as many comments as I possibly can.

I have a few ground rules: You are welcome to disagree with me, you are welcome to offer criticism, you can debate with other posters. You can even hit on me, be insane, or act a little bit creepy. However, you can't trade in personal insults and hostilities, you cannot assert that people who disagree with you are dumb and/or ignorant, and you really, really can't be rude to other commenters. Not in my house.

Also, as many of my commenters are fellow bloggers: Please don't pimp your blogs in the comment thread. If you wrote on a related topic, feel free to post a link. Straight-out directing people to your site is gauche, and it's not the way to build a readership. That comes from finding your voice, which takes time, talent and discipline.

When and why did you start blogging?

I started this site in December of 2002. I used to send snarky reviews of 7th Heaven to my sister, she used to send them to her friends, and somehow this site was born. Phase Two was a blow-by-blow account of my existence as a diplomat's wife, and my audience was made up mostly of the Foreign Service community, plus some lumberyard spammers.

Phase 3 began in 2006 and has been mostly social commentary, sarcasm and humor. I figure nobody cares about my innermost feelings, heck, I don't even care about my innermost feelings. We'd all much rather hear me riff about that time a bird pooped on my head.

What's a scanner jockey?

My first job when I came home from Sarajevo was as a temp file clerk at a government agency. I put documents through a scanner all day, followed by some hole punching.

I'm your friend. Hey....was that post about me?

Probably not. Sorry. I write a lot about social interactions, entertaining, and modern manners, and, yes, my friends are a big inspiration for me. But I only write about friends as a collective group, not as individuals. In other words, I didn't write about bad fashion because Suzy wore clogs last week. So please don't parse my blog for things to be offended about.

This is a humor blog? But you're not funny.

If this blog isn't to your taste, that's OK. I'm not much for meanness or fart jokes, and I'm sure not everyone wants to hear about that time I tried to get a job as a flight attendant.

You aren't mean? What are you, some kind of hippie?

I think there's a continuum of humor: irreverent, offensive, and cruel. Irreverent is tongue-in-cheek, where it's plain you're just kidding. Offensive would be picking on a group as a whole, like Mormons or women over 30. Cruel would be singling out individuals for ridicule. I stay away from offensive or cruel on this site, because I think it's lazy writing and a particularly cowardly form of bullying.

What's your real name?
Shannon Lee Stamey. Really. Other folks can be anonymous all they want, but that's not for me. I think Internet anonymity can bring out the Inner Meanie faster than the Metro during tourist season. I don't like my Inner Meanie, and I don't think she deserves a platform.

You were a diplomat's wife?

Yes. I was posted in Bogota, Colombia, and Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. We divorced amicably in 2006. All I'll say about that is that it's very difficult to live as an appendage of someone else, and coming home to start over was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Also, I would advise against lurching straight from a quarterlife crisis into a starter marriage.

Can we see a photo? What do you look like?

I hate having my picture taken, so, actually, very few photos of me exist. If it helps, sober guys tell me I look like Jennifer Jason Leigh, and drunk guys say I remind them of Juliette Lewis. So take a Breathalyzer and adjust your expectations accordingly.

You suck! Or, I love you! How do I tell you that?

Email scannerjockey@gmail.com. As part of my general "Don't Be a Jerk" philosophy of blogging, all emails are confidential unless you grant me permission to post them.

The Annual Running of the Tourists

Dear Tourists,

Hi!

Cherry Blossom season is just around the corner, and with it comes the annual Running of the Tourists. Which is more accurately called the "The Slow Disorganized Waddling of the Tourists." Or, "That Time That All Locals Hate."

Locals don't like you. You don't charm us with your sweet small-town ways or enthusiastic grins. We hate your fanny packs, your stupid clothes, your spoiled fidgety children, and your tendency to grind to a halt and throw sidewalks into chaos just so you can take a photo or adjust little Madison's FBI t-shirt. Do you really need the whole sidewalk? You can't move a few feet to the side so others can pass? No, of course not.

You destroy the already precarious Metro equilibrium with your total inability to take a freakin' hint. You just can't pay attention to your surroundings, can you? You can't blend in? You stand on the left side of the escalators, you herd the entire extended family onboard during rush hour, and you wheel school-age kids around in pony-sized strollers (can't they walk by now?).

Then you putter from museum to memorial to Spy Museum, complaining about the heat and the fact that you can't just pull right up and park like you do at the local Cracker Barrel. You take most of your meals at McDonald's and Quizno's. Your near-hysteria about urban environments precludes you from experiencing cheese fries at Ben's Chili Bowl, a Sunday afternoon at Eastern Market, non-chain restaurants, or anything else that might stink of "local color."

But we need you. We loathe you, we don't want you, but we need you. We count on tourism dollars to keep our city alive. Tourists and Washington are locked in a demented and unhealthy symbiosis. We must break the pattern and be free.

So, here's my suggestion. Long ago, this guy suggested that all tourists skip the visit and just send a check. You don't experience our city, anyway. Don't bother packing the kids into the Suburban, paying outrageous amounts for parking and hotels, and don't stress about herding the family from one blandly inspiring location to the next. Just send a check, and I'll send you a packet of postcards and a "Female Body Inspector" sweatshirt with coordinating "CIA" trucker cap.

Can we make this work?

Another One Blogs the Dust

We've lost another blogger, the sweet and insightful FreckledK. This is a tweaking of some comments I left on her site.

Over the last few years, I've read a lot about the coarsening of public discourse, particularly over the Internet. If you're an angry spluttering pile of froth with a keyboard, you can convince yourself you're God.

Sometimes the result is funny, sometimes it's mean-spirited, and sometimes it just makes no sense at all. I've abandoned Wonkette because it's gotten more mean than funny (plus I get sick of them highlighting the same 5-6 local bloggers day after day). There’s a lack of civility and good sense coming from all directions. But I like to think of the Internet as a crowded bar on a Friday night. Some of us want to make trouble, but most of us just want to have a good time.

I've taken a few hits myself. One anonymous commenter told me that, "limited intelligence has a habit of flapping its gob." I was accused of being the sort of person who tells others how to operate toasters. And, in December, a local blogger linked to one of my posts, and began her response with “it seems like my good posts are all correcting other people’s shitty posts.” I don’t think it would ever occur to me to call a fellow blogger’s work “shitty,” whether or not it was meant as a joke. I thought out various responses, but in the end decided to laugh it off. I posted a link to her blog, with the tag, “No such thing as bad publicity.” You can't help what other people do, but you can control how you react. It's easier to just let things roll off my back.

It seems unfair that to write a good blog, you have to put a lot of yourself into it, and at the same time, you have to have a hide like an elephant’s. Those two requirements pull me in opposite directions. I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. I choose to write this thing, I choose to put my name on it, and I'll take the hits as they come.

And, yet, sometimes I think about pulling the plug. Having a blog probably doesn't help my job search, it doesn't make my life any easier, and it doesn't really make the world a better place. But I like to make people laugh, and I enjoy my little community of commenters and lurkers. What would I do without Kristen to correct my erroneous political assumptions, or my mystery reader in Berlin that stops in every day? Sometimes this place feels a bit like Cheers for Weirdos.

So I'll be flapping my unintelligent little feminist gob for as long as y'all can stand it. And once you're sick of me, I'll flap my gob in the darkness.

Blog by Google

Like many bloggers, I marvel at the Google searches that bring folks to my corner of the Internet. A quick glance at my stats tells me:

I'm the Number 3 Google destination for "non confrontational Wikipedia."

I'm the Number 8 Google destination for "wedding trends 2009."

I'm the world capital, top Google destination for "Shannon Bex boyfriend."

And my absolute favorite: I'm the Number 2 Google destination for "my boyfriend thinks I'm high maintenance."

Maybe the Google Gods are trying to tell me something. Perhaps I need to devote more energy to weddings, combative online encyclopedias, and contestants from the ill-fated revival of Fame. Or worse, maybe my boyfriend really DOES think I'm high maintenance.

Dial-a-Blog

The dreary weather has given me a bit of writer's block. So, you, readers, get to guide this blog until I get myself in gear. Got something you want me to write about? Want my advice? Send it in!

Obligatory Baby Name Mockery Post, 2008 Edition

Lately, I've been participating in baby name brainstorming sessions. (No, I am not pregnant, so don't get yourselves in a lather).

I think some names qualify as child abuse, others qualify as lofty expectations, and others are just weird. Destiny? Child abuse. Patience, Constance, Faith, or any other positive personality attribute? Lofty expectations. Pilot Inspektor? Just weird.

I hereby declare myself in charge of all future baby names. There will be no naming without my direct involvement and approval. Because I have no kids and am therefore an expert in all things child-related.

First, say these two sentences:

1. "Presenting the next President of the United States, (blank blank)!"
2. "Performing live at the main stage of the Stripper Shack, (blank blank)!"

If sentence 2 is more accurate than sentence 1, it's back to the drawing board. We'll never have a woman president if we keep naming our girls things like Madysonn Misty Sunshine. (Which sounds like a My Little Pony.)

On the other hand, maybe you want to be cruel. Let's say that you don't like kids. And yet, you're thumbing your nose at the Irony Gods and spawning a few. Here are a few ideas for baby names that are fun for you and hell for them:

1. Name you children for the form of birth control that failed you.

Example: "These are my kids, Patch, Ortho-Cyclen, and Trojan."

2. License your children's names to multinational corporations.

Example: "This is Nike, Adidas, and Coca-Cola."

3. The cruelest option is to name your child after where he or she was conceived. It's painful enough to think about your parents doing the funky monkey, just imagine having to imagine it every time someone says your name.

Example: "I'd like you to meet Paris, New York, and Backseat of a Chevy."

Or, you could get mesmerized by the Name Voyager and suss out names based on the prettiest patterns. Say so long to your productivity, suckers!

Sliding Scale of Breakup Suckitude

Even when a relationship doesn’t fit or isn’t for the best, breakups suck. Nobody enjoys being rejected. So, here are a variety of ways in which you can experience having your ass kicked to the curb. I’ve ranked them from least to most painful:

The Mutual Breakup: Yeah, right. Now let me hop on my purple unicorn, ride through this wardrobe over here, and spend the afternoon in Narnia. There’s no such creature – often, both parties want to break up, but there’s always one person who wants out more than the other.

The Preemptive Breakup: Your partner senses the giant cartoon anvil hovering over his head, and decides to bolt before it drops.

The So Very Mature Breakup: Both of you make a herculean effort to be happy about everything, when secretly you want to kill each other.

The Epiphany Breakup: Your partner dumps you, and you feel a (perhaps unexpected) surge of relief.

The “What Just Happened There?” Breakup: The conversation is so incredibly vague that you have no idea whether you got dumped or just bought swampland in Florida.

The Neverending Breakup: They. Just. Won’t. Stop. Calling. In an attempt to assuage his/her own guilt, your ex will call, ask for coffee, check in, and hook you in every time you’re just about to get back to normal.

The Breakup Sex Breakup: On the surface, this looks like a Neverending Breakup. The difference is that your ex is looking for a bit more than absolution: they want ex sex.

The Backdoor Breakup: Your partner acts like such a you-know-what until you finally dump him or her, thereby sparing them the pain of actually speaking up for once.

The Hypocrisy Breakup: You get dumped for having an annoying habit, not being attractive or not being ambitious enough. The funny part is that the very sort of person who does this is usually an annoying toad who lives at home.

The Double Standard Breakup: This is a particularly insidious form of the Hypocrisy Breakup, mostly conducted by men. The naked parts happen, and then you get dumped because your partner believes you are not up to his moral standards. Never mind that, uh, he was there too. Knuckle-dragging alpha males call this a “pump and dump” and beat their hairy chests in pride. Women respond by posting said male’s photo on Don’t Date Him Girl.

The Custody Battle Breakup: Before you know it, friends, hangouts and possessions are being carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

The Trade-Up Breakup: You’re swapped for someone younger, more attractive, richer, more successful, etc. You’ve been traded in for a newer model.

The Trade-Down Breakup: This is worse than the Trade-Up, because you’ve been replaced by someone truly dire. Cackling laugh? Stupid hair? You’ll spend hours trying to figure out what in hell this person has that you don’t. The most likely answer: they’re not as threatening and your ex has a fragile ego.

The Amelia Earhart Breakup: This is a specialty among the nonconfrontational (cowardly) type. The phone calls and emails dwindle to zero, plans become fuzzy, and, eventually, you’re single by default.

The Radio Silence Breakup: This is the most painful kind of breakup. Instead of dwindling contact, there is simply no contact at all. Eventually, you file a missing persons report and look like a total idiot for doing so. This is also the kind of breakup where your spouse goes out for a quart of orange juice…ten years ago.

In the comments section, tell me a breakup story.

Here, Fishy Fishy...

...I've got a barrel and a rifle!

This week has been noteworthy for the posts I didn't write. Sometimes, it's just way too easy. Like the invitation I received from Date Lab that misspelled my last name (S-T-A-M-E-Y, people!). The obvious form letter told me they would allot $125, pick a restaurant and "wait for sparks to fly." As my friend Sudhir pointed out, this must mean they're hooking me up with a blacksmith or a welder. (No, I'm not doing Date Lab, mostly because the idea of getting paid to go on a date makes me feel like Deborah Jeane Palfrey's Employee of the Month.)

The Date Lab legal release is another fish-meet-barrel essay. It incoherently informs me that my participation may expose me to public ridicule. This would totally be my fault because the Post doesn't have to adhere to standards of ethical journalism or balanced reporting or anything silly like that. It's a hoot, but not quite as fun as the Amazing Race release. That one says that if you get decapitated or eaten by cannibals, the dog ate their homework and a temp must have been answering phones that day.

The third fish in the barrel is the guy in the bar who asked if he could "throw my cat" in the washroom. As I am no longer hip to the lingo, it took me a while to figure out that we were NOT talking about an actual feline. I could devote an entire blog to That Guy, The King of That Guys.

The fourth fish is my torrid and occasionally unfortunate love affair with bourbon. The fifth is my new haircut, the sixth is my hatred of BlackBerrys and all things beepy and shiny, and the seventh is my formula for winding up in the BlogLog.

So, instead I'm being coy. Have a great weekend, folks.

P.S. Didja get what "throw the cat" means yet? Good. If you're ready to douse yourself in bleach, the line forms to the right.