Violent Sleep

My girlfriend sleeps over at my place a couple times a week. When she goes to bed, she likes to have a glass of water next to her because she gets thirsty as she falls asleep and when she wakes up. Normally I keep my cup several feet from my bed, but on these nights, I move it within arms reach.

When you're tired, anything out of arm's reach is as good as doesn't exist because there's no way you're gonna get to it.

Even if that suitcase will disappear in five minutes, you're just not gonna get it cause it's too far.

Anyway, so I have the water next to the bed so that it's in arm's reach - accessible for my girlfriend.

Well, one night, she forgets that it's there. She swings her legs out and plants her feet next to the bed. She stands up and heads for the door, but not before taking a swing at the cup.

Her foot makes contact and the water spills all over the floor. I wake up and grudgingly clean it up with a towel.

I figure this is a fluke thing. She's slept over a number of times without knocking over the water, chances are she won't do it again. To be safe, I put the cup on the bed-side table so that she doesn't run the risk of kicking it.

I figure, it's elevated, the only problem she could  have is dropping it and I doubt that would happen. Well, I was wrong, dropping it was not the only way she could take care of it.

She sleeps over again another night and I set up the cup next to her on the bedside table. She doesn't have any problems with it and eventually we fall asleep.

At some point in the night, some latent need to knock it off the bedside table builds up in her. In her sleep, she punches the cup.

The cup goes flying and water covers the room. She wakes up, probably from hurting her hand in the aggressive cup attacking escapade and gets me to clean it up.

I've learned my lesson at this point. She still needs the water there but now I cover everything near it with cloth to absorb the liquid before anything else can.

Now that her mind understands that it can't knock over the water and cause my sleepy self any grief, she hasn't knocked the water over again. I still cover everything in cloth just in case.

As I look at her now, she's probably plotting her next mode of attack.

Note: She'd like to point out that parts of this were dramatized - she did clean up the water when she falcon punched it, but I don't know if that necessarily precludes her attacking more of my stuff.

Christmas Picture Was a Real Downer

Poke Me

I own a shirt, in fact I own many shirts, but there's one specifically I want to focus on. It's blue, similar in color to jeans (dark wash), but soft. On it is the Pillsbury doughboy in a classic pose. If you can't remember what the Pillsbury doughboy is, he's that little white animated figure with a chef's hat, a big grin and a bit of a tummy - in short, look at this picture:

He's the one getting poked if you couldn't put that together.

Anyway, the shirt reads, in big white letters above the picture, "Poke Me" and so we get to the crux of our story. Last year I lived in dorms at another school and one day I wore this shirt.

I am fond of the shirt, I enjoy the fit, the feel and the fabric's colors (blue and white). Since I'm fond of it, I wear it often. I have a number of shirts, many with clever slogans or something or other written on them and so as the days blend and carry on, I always forget what shirt I am wearing. It is crucial to remember that I always forget the shirt that I'm wearing.

On this particular day I'm wearing the shirt and I'm in my dorm, hungry. Next door there is a mini-store/dining hall where I can get $7.50 worth of stuff at each meal, except breakfast ($5.50 at breakfast). It was nearing the end of the lunch time so I wanted to get over next door and get my money's worth before I lost the opportunity and it became dinner time and I'd miss out on the $7.50 for lunch.

It was a bit of a dreary day, it had rained earlier, but even so I went out, in my shirt, a pair of jeans or possibly pajama bottoms, flip flops and socks (I know that they don't go together but darn it I like warm feet!). 

My feet look kinda like that except the flip flops are white with a blue design on it and the green thing on that is black on mine. I know what you're thinking: that's definitely the next trend in fashion.

As I walk in next door I get a compliment on my shoes, I thank the person and go to the room where all the food is. I pick out a half personal pie of pizza, a bag of Baked Dorito chips and a drink, probably Fuze. I go to the checkout and since I always have the same combo, I know that it comes out to $7.43 or something in that ballpark. 

The food service lady compliments me on my incredible power of picking out four items to total so closely to my limit (as happens every day, with that same lady) and I head back out of the building.

I'm holding my food and push open the door as I leave and a group of three guys is standing off a little to my left, on the grass. As I pass by one of them looks up.

Suddenly he charges me.

I'm cradling a bunch of food in my hands and I don't know what to do. I tell myself that I'll always be prepared if someone tries to mug me and that I'll miraculously be endowed with incredible strength, agility and reflexes and easily take care of the attacker, but in this instance I stood completely petrified.

I didn't budge, I just watched my assailant fly at me with his arm extended. In the blur of action I didn't notice but he had a finger extended towards me which soon finds contact with my stomach, near my solar plexus (ie pain).

I cringe and he jumps back laughing. 

"I had to do it," he says, "man."

Had to do it? Had to do what? Inflict pain and bestow terror on a random guy who passes him?

I didn't know what to think. In my confusion I looked down and remembered the shirt I was wearing.

"Poke Me" - apparently I had asked for this. I brought this on myself.

Now whenever there are "poking" wars on facebook, all I can think of is that crazy kid, I didn't know, charging at me arm extended, jabbing me right in the stomach.

By the way, when I realized, I gave him the trademark giggle of the Pillsbury doughboy, got a laugh out of them and then I retreated to my room to nurse my battle wound and eat. I still wear this shirt, often and get pokes (get confused at first), but nothing so drastic - fortunately.

Automatic Toilets

Ever get an automatic toilet flush on you a bunch of times before you were ready? My girlfriend had it flush on her six times once before she made it out of the stall. Share your stories in the comments!

When A Video Store Goes Out Of Business

Blockbuster was going out of business and everyone flocked to their outlets. Large posters announced the sale and nobody could resist the temptation of DVDs for three bucks (dollars - they don't take mules... unfortunately), five bucks, sometimes even just a dollar.

I of course got around to it, about two or three days before they totally closed shop. The sales were as low as they were gonna get, the pickings were slim because many people had already taken what they could and I was there to reap whatever gems might've remained.

The thing is, when things get really cheap, like 80 or 90% off original price, quality of a product doesn't even matter that much.

I bought movies that now weeks later - and plenty of opportunities have offered themselves - I haven't seen any but one that I got. Meanwhile I bought about six.

I didn't start off getting six, at first I got two movies and a lot of popcorn. I'll explain just how much in a moment. At first I only wanted a couple movies because I didn't want to spend too much money, but when I had my wallet open I found a gift card.

Gift cards are awesome. As often as gift cards are, they are even more awesome when you realize you have one and you didn't know before. It's like finding a million dollars except usually it only means $10, maybe $25.

Well I had a $25 gift card so the two movies weren't going to use it all up. The cashier told me that the card wasn't going to be good in two days so I figured it was best to just get more movies.

What I had already gotten was 2 DVDs (total of $4) and 16 things of popcorn - 16! And my total was something in the ballpark of $13.

The following day I returned to use the other half of my gift card. This time I got 4 DVDs, more popcorn, as if 16 wasn't enough and it ended up costing me like fifty cents extra.

I felt like I just spent 50 cents on half a dozen DVDs and a mountain pile of popcorn and I was gonna face weeks of stuffing my face with popcorn and watching movies.

Little did I know that I wasn't going to spend almost any time do that. Life got in the way. I watched one movie and had one popcorn and now I have a closet full of popcorn and movies (and chocolate from Easter and detergent).

Anyway, be wary of the lore of cheap stuff. Sometimes I'll be in a store and just because an item is five cents cheaper, (this sentence is a dramatic exaggeration (it's gotta be at least 10 cents)) I'll get it and then re-discover it months later and eat(or watch) it's deliciousness(deliciousness).

Allergy Season

Food Palate

I have a limited palate, so to speak. By most people's standards, the types of food I enjoy eating is limited. I like hamburgers, pizza, pasta, cereal and any meat sandwich. Before you read much further, by meat sandwich, I mean most breads with any meat, American cheese (can be cheddar or a few others) and some mayo - that's it.

People consider this limited because I exclude essentially all vegetables and a number of fruit from my palate (with the exception of banana (technically an herb), apples (technically a non-fruit - look it up) and oranges).

For anyone who's read this far and doesn't know what palate means: a person's food preferences.

You may call it limited, but I call it knowing what I like. Just because you can't enjoy having burgers for every meal, weeks in a row, doesn't mean I can't. I enjoy it and I know how to keep healthy with it.

The key is vitamins and good drinks (ie Naked Juice (not a euphemism)) and not overdoing it. Although I've done it a number of times, a double, but especially a triple whopper for one meal is overdoing it.

With moderation and supplements, chances are you'll be just as good as everyone else even with a so-called "limited palate".

Forcing kids to eat vegetables is just gonna give them fuel to resent you later. I don't resent my parents so maybe you can make up for it in other areas but better safe than sorry, eh?

Now, don't get me wrong, I can go beyond my main palate in a few ways - I enjoy grapes and fish and eggs on occasion but mainly I stick to the aforementioned selections.

So, if you're planning on having kids some day or if you've already got some: either train 'em young to love vegetables (ie brainwash them) or figure out a way to get them the healthy stuff (ie vitamins).

Now some people will claim that vitamins aren't gonna get you everything because it's synthetic. You got options; try a smoothie so that the healthy stuff can be mixed in or try a non-synthetic vitamin.

Nutrilite is partially synthetic and partially non-synthetic (http://www.nutrilite.com/en-us/General/faq-products.aspx) and so you'll get everything your body needs so that you can have a diet that doesn't consist of vile tasting foods (I'm looking at you broccoli).

For a video by a great YouTuber who shares my sentiments, watch here (Warning, not necessarily safe for younger kids - I'd give it a PG-13 but if you're concerned, have an adult(18+) watch before the kid does).