Very Brief Conversation with Mom: Favorite Star Wars Characters

Mom:  I like the green guy the best.  Yogi is cute.

Me:  Yoda, Mom.  His name is Yoda.

Mom:  I like calling him Yogi better.  He is the best except when he hits Artie Doody with a stick.  That's not nice.

Me: R2D2, Mom.  He doesn't even look like an Artie.

Mom:  Look, you put a big, light-up Doody in our yard, so I can call him whatever I want!

Five Analogies for What It's Like to Be a Cubs Fan

Ah, gentle readers, it is October, and I know that for some of you, sweet barbarians, you are following the game of football.  But not only is it still baseball season, but my beloved Chicago Cubs are in a playoff game against the vexatious Pittsburgh Pirates.

In fact, I tell you all now, the season is already a great victory for us, even if those nasty ones win and keep us from further post-season play, for our record has been remarkable and tragedy-free.  While we Cubs fans live in unending hope of seeing our team return to the World Series one day, our hope is fragile and inconsistent, rather like our fielding and relief pitching.

So accustomed are we to failure, in fact, that my fellow Cubs fans are all braced for a loss, if not to the Pirates, then to the Evil Ones of St. Louis or the Not Quite As Evil Ones Whom We Have Not Forgiven for 1969.

Rare is the sports fan who understands what it is to be a fan of the Cubs, so I, loyal friends, have endeavored to explain it through a few analogies:

Five Analogies for What It's Like to Be a Cubs Fan

1. It's like knowing that if you eat this candy bar, you will vomit.  But it's made of chocolate.  And it's the best candy bar in the world.  And maybe if you eat it really slowly and try not to get excited, then you can savor it.  Obviously, you ate the last one too fast.  And on an empty stomach.  But this time will be different.  So you take a bite.  It's wonderful!  So sweet, so rich!  This is the best candy bar in the world!  But then half way through, you start to feel sick.  But you can't stop because...chocolate.  So you keep eating, and you keep feeling sicker and sicker... And then you throw up.  Again.
2. It's like you worked hard in school and got good grades and didn't drink or do drugs or get yourself or someone else pregnant.  Then, on graduation day, it rains, your school burns down, and your parents give you socks as a graduation gift.  Brown socks. 
3. It's like April is the kindest month.  In April you fall in love.  You sing songs.  You wave flags.  You write passionate poetry.  And in August, your lover gets hit by a city bus with a big ugly red bird on it.
4. It's like dropping your ice cream cone in a mud puddle, begging your mom for more change, chasing down the ice cream truck, and getting a replacement cone, only to have someone knock the new cone out of your hands by doing a racially insensitive hand gesture.  Again.
5. It's like one hundred years ago, your great grandparents won a tidy sum in a local raffle.  Your grandparents, your parents and you have bought a lottery ticket every single week since then.   In 1945, your grandparents won one dollar, but a goat ate it.

 

Master of the Tech!

Well, beloved readers, once again I have humiliated (as opposed to “humidified”—ahem! Please take note, phone) myself technologically.

You see, I did something I never do and ordered the new iphone as soon as it came out.   I did this because the old iphone had become a bane, a bane, I tell you in my existence.  Not only had it refused to learn any new words (resulting in many, many inappropriate uses of the word “duck”), but it somehow embedded a signature file in my outgoing texts, so that every message I sent ended in the word “bubbles.”

The AT&T people were quite inappropriately amused.

So I figured that if I was too incompetent to work my present phone, the obvious solution was to get a new and more advanced phone.  Because that one would have to be easier to use, right?

Stop laughing right now!

Anyway, after my phone came, and I got most of the things working, I sent several successful, error-free texts.  Then I played with Siri, and discovered that if you say, “Hey Siri” at it, she will follow commands like sending texts or opening facebook.

“I like this Siri!” said I to myself.  “She is like the computer on Star Trek!  And she’s even willing to call me, ‘Timelord’!”  And I thought my days of being a darned embarrassment to my family were all in the past.  

Alas, my declaration of victory came all too soon.

 

Advising Meetings of the Science Fictional Variety

I am on faculty development leave this semester, beloved readers, which means that I am reading and writing and writing and reading and writing, but I am not teaching again until January.  One does not, however, merely switch off the teaching brain, and I have been having some dreams about meeting with advisees to discuss their fall schedules.  In my dream, none of my advisees are typical Wofford students.  Most of them have too many tentacles.

Never let it be said that nightmares cannot be inspiring; to allow myself the joys of pleasant slumber once again, I have, in the scenarios below, replaced Cthulhu-the-sophomore-accounting-major-who-refuses-to-take-stats with other persons from the sci fi world and imagined them as my advisees.  

This is a psychologically healthy way to deal with one's nightmares.  I promise. 

Advising Meeting #1

Me:  Please come in and take a seat, Mr. Worf.  How was your summer?

Worf: I killed sixteen Romulans in battle and spent a week at Daytona Beach where I conducted myself with honor.

Me:  That sounds lovely.

Worf: Klingon sharks are not so easy to disembowel.

Me: Of course not.  Well, let’s see what you’re planning to take this fall.  Hmmm…well, I see that you are signed up for Coach Ayers’s karate class again.  You realize that you’ve already fulfilled your PE requirement, yes?

Worf: I am planning to audit only.  Coach Ayers says that I am an inspiration to the others.

Me:  I have no doubt that’s true.  Alright, now it seems to me that you are planning to major in chemistry, and you’ve signed up for the appropriate courses, but you really haven’t fulfilled your gen ed requirements in the humanities.  What happened to philosophy?

Worf:  Dr. Henkel gave me a D on my last essay.  He did not accept my bat’leth-based counter argument. 

Me: Well, your grandfather was an ambassador as well as a warrior.  Why not take history or government?

Worf:  Is that the schedule of a warrior?

Me:  It is if you take Dr. Byrnes.

Worf:  Very well. 

Advising Meeting #2

Me:  Good morning, Ms. Song.

River Song:  Hello, Sweetie.

Me: I’ve asked you not to call me that.

River: Oh dear.  Am I making you uncomfortable?  It’s just because I’m mildly psychotic.

Me: Right.  Well, are you still planning to major in sociology?

River: Actually, I already have a Ph.D.  I’m just here because my husband is about to show up so that we can defeat an alien threat to this campus.

Me: Ohhh-kay.  When is your “husband” supposed to arrive?

River: Oh that’s the question, isn’t it?  You see, time is not linear.  In fact, it’s…

Me:  Right! Off to Professor Zides’s class.  You can explain about non-linear time and oscillation overthrusters in Physics 121.

River:   Buckaroo Banzai is a fictional character, dear.  But I’ll get out of your hair.  Just one piece of advice before I head to the bookstore…

Me: Yes?

River: Don’t spend too much time on moodle.  It’s become…interesting. 

Me: Wonderful.

Advising Meeting #3

Me: Alright, gentlemen, just what is this about?

Batman:  There is only one space left in Dr. Rostan’s English 203 class, and it belongs to me!

Me:  Why is that!

Batman:  I’m Batman.

Groot: I am Groot.  

Batman:  I’m Batman.

Groot: I am Groot.  

Batman:  I’m Batman!

Groot: I am Groot!  

Batman:  I’m Batman!

Groot: I am Groot!  

Batman:  I’M BATMAN!

Groot: I. Am. GGRROOOTTT!

Me: My office hours are over, and I still have to meet with Cthulhu.  Go away.

More Texts Errant

Well, gentle readers, this has been an extremely productive week for me.  But I must say that when I am writing and reading really intensely, some of my other skills are diminished.  Hence the text messages you see below you.  I thought about captioning them, but I think they speak for themselves.  Mostly, they say that I have extremely tolerant friends and relatives.

Short Conversation with Mom: The Bag in the Backseat

Mom:  What is in that big bag in the backseat?

Me:  Oh!  Extra wrapping papers that Cate let me keep!  I can wrap pottery in them.  She just gave them to me.  I like this Cate.

Mom:  Papers?

Me:  Wrapping papers. 

Mom:  Oh.  I thought it was a person's head.

Me:  A what?

Mom:  I thought you might have cut off someone's head and wrapped it up on the backseat.

Me:  I do not know what to say to that.

Mom:  Well, I was going to warn you that if it's a head, it's going to start to smell, especially in this heat, so you should get it out of the car pretty soon.

Me:  I appreciate the advice.

Mom:  You know that if it was a head, you'd let it stink up the car.  And I will not allow that.

Me:  That's a pretty big bag for just a head.

Mom:  It could be other body parts.  You never know with you.

Me:  I have never put any severed body parts of any kind in this car, Mom.

Mom:  Well, you never know.   Just remember what I said about the smell.

Me:  I don't believe that I will ever forget.

Mom:  That's a good girl.

Real Conversation with Mom: The Mail Is, Possibly, Here

Mom:  The mail came early today.

Me:  Was there anything important in it.

Mom:  There was a package yesterday.

Me:  Was there anything important in the mail today?

Mom:  I do not know that.

Me:  Did you check the mail?

Mom:  I brought in the package.

Me:  There was a package today?

Mom:  There was a package yesterday.  It had that computer thingy in it.

Me:  But the mail has already come today.

Mom:  It came early.

Me:  What was in it?

Mom:  How would I know?

Me:  Okay, I am very confused.  You say that the mail came early today.

Mom:  Yes.

Me:  Did you check the mail?

Mom:  I brought in the package.

Me:  The package from yesterday or today?

Mom:  Yesterday.

Me:  But I am asking about the mail today.

Mom:  It came early.

Me:  Are you doing this to me on purpose?

Mom:  No.  [pause] Maybe.

Me:  Mom, what was in the mail today?

Mom: I do not know. 

Me:  Then how do you know that it came early?

Mom:  You should check and see.

Me: I am going to check into a looney bin, is what I'm going to do!

Mom:  I saw the mail person put something in the box.

Me:  Okay.  What was in the box?

Mom:  Yesterday it was a package.

Me:  What was it today?

Mom:  Today we had a substitute.

Me:  A substitute what?

Mom:  A substitute mailman.  He was early.

Me: What did he put in the mailbox, Mom?

Mom:  Actually, it was a woman.

Me:  There is a woman in the mailbox?!

Mom: What are you talking about?

Me: I don't remember.

[5 minute pause involving the fetching of iced tea]

Mom:  Is there anything important in the mail today?

Me:  I don't know.   You're the one who brought it in.

Mom:  No I didn't.  It came early.

Me:  Are you trying to say that you watched the mail delivered, but didn't go find out what is in the mailbox?

Mom:  No, I checked it.  I brought in the package.

Me: The package yesterday.

Mom:  Yes.

[ten minute pause]

Mom:  So are you going to get the mail or not?

Me:  When I recover from this conversation, I will bring in the mail.

Mom:  You are so weird.