The Magical Mysterious Toothpick Story and other Anecdotes

Nobody in my apartment uses toothpicks. In fact, I can't recall ever even seeing a toothpick in our apartment until yesterday, and I really wish I'd seen it first.

I went home for lunch and while getting up from the couch stumbled and caught myself on my right foot. There was apparently a toothpick sticking out of the carpet at an angle and I came down on it perfectly so that it lodged the toothpick halfway through my foot. At first I thought I stepped on a tack but realized that it hurt way too much for that and nearly ripped my sock off to get a look. Seeing the broken off stub of a toothpick sticking out of the sole of my foot was terrifying. I immediately tried to pull it out but I couldn't get it to budge so I hopped into my room and started clawing things off my desk looking for my leatherman. When I found it I whipped it open and used the pliers to pull the toothpick out of my foot. That hurt bad. Really bad. It seems like a situation where I'd start swearing but I wasn't even coherent enough to form words--I think I just made grunting noises. I washed it out, put a bandaid on the wound, and took a trip to student health.

I was admitted after a surprisingly short wait and had to explain how it was even possible to stick a toothpick into my foot. When the doctor came in he looked at it and told me that they'd give me a tetanus shot and he didn't think I'd need antibiotics. He then launched into a story about how back at the lumber mill he and his coworkers would pick their splinters out at the end of the week, and sometimes one would be big enough that they'd have to use pliers. I think the story was meant to reassure me that I was fine but it really just filled me with doubt. Back at the lumber mill? Are you sure you're a doctor? I guess that's student health for you.

Well, October is upon us which can mean only one thing: it is time for me to increase my intake of bratwurst and beer. Last week I drank an Avery Brewing “Imperial Oktoberfest” beer, which had the comically inflated stats typical of Avery beers—something like 10 percent alcohol and it came in a 22 ounce bottle. Drinking that was like getting raped. In stark contrast, I tried a Sam Adams regular Oktoberfest today and if the Imperial Oktoberfest was like getting raped, this one was like engaging in consensual sex. Or at least what I imagine that would feel like. And come to think of it, if I think sex is like a bottle of Sam Adams beer, I probably have a surprise in store for me at some point in my life.

One of my hobbies is to listen to the radio and speculate on the hotness of the female DJs. Is there any correlation between hotness of the voice and hotness of the body? I think there might be because I think both the rock station female DJs sound hot and the hotness of their voices is directly proportional to the hotness of their pictures on the station website.

Here at that the endlessly replenishing spring of ideas that is 240 Baker Apt 5, we have developed the latest in innovative drinking games. I call it, Champagne: The Drinking Game. There's a dumpster at the edge of the parking lot which is adjacent to our corner of the building and is probably 100 feet or so from our third floor porch. The rules of the game are as follows. 1) You automatically win if you shoot the cork off a bottle of champagne from our porch and it lands in the dumpster. 2) You are not allowed another try until you have completely finished the bottle used for your previous try. We have no winners so far, but I've got a good feeling about this weekend. The other acceptable name for this activity is to say, "We're having a Champagne Jam!" We have also been lucky so far that this has not yet devolved into "Beer: The Drinking Game," which I imagine would be us chucking empty beer bottles off our porch at the dumpster--lucky this hasn't happened yet because there are always cars parked near the dumpster.

The television show Blind Date ruined my dating career by catastrophically undermining my confidence. The problem is that 90% of the time, the guy is boring his date but is also oblivious to it and thinks he's doing well and that she's into him. At the end they always interview each person separately and the guy's like, "Oh yeah, it was great. I'd definitely go out with her again," and the girl's like, "Oh no, that was awful. I am not going out with him again." Watching that made a pretty big impression on me in terms of setting a standard for what dating is like and as a result I'm always reasonably sure that I'm being the stereotypical chump from that show. Just kidding, I never go on dates. I do, however, hold the dubious distinction of being one girl's worst date ever. You know, if she's ever in a situation where people are telling stories about awful dates and it's her turn to talk, I'm sure she talks about me. In a sick way I'm proud of it because at least it's a distinction of some sort. Like I always say, last place is something; second to last place is nothing. If you're going to fail, fail spectacularly.

So anyway, I've really only gone on one what I would call "actual date" where I asked the girl out and she said yes. It was terrible; it was somehow even more pathetic than my typical state of unrequited yearning. It was like if you had a brainstorming session of everything that could go wrong and make for an absolutely miserable evening you'd never come up with such a potent and perfect combination for disaster. I still don't think I've emotionally recovered from that experience. The funny part about it is that I had vaguely mentioned it to one of my brother's friends who was at the time an english major at WSU. I agreed to relate the whole story to her in exchange for Safeway chicken strips and some Kokanee. She ended up writing a story that was pretty much a factual description of the evening and it was the first piece of writing she ever had published. I don't want to discuss any of the details here, but if you really want to know you should contact the author of the published story.

What's the deal with the asthmatic, blood-crying villain in Casino Royale? They somehow made a guy with asthma into a completely unsympathetic character and the way they staged it almost made you hate him for it: something about the expression on his face and the context in the plotline when he takes a puff just invites the audience to mutter, "That Bastard!" It's like every time he whips out his inhaler I hate him even more and I'm not sure why. I even have asthma and I still hated that guy for his asthma! It was very confusing how they portrayed it in a light to make him look more evil; maybe I was just jealous of his fancy, stainless steel inhaler while I have some crappy plastic one.