In Other News...

• This underwear advertised itself as "No More Wedgies". Hanes is writing checks my ass can’t cash.

• You know you have good coworkers when you can give directions like “Whatever it is, it needs to be the other thing.” And they can turn that into action. You also know that maybe instead of teaching ESL you should have been taking it.

Professor Charlesley T. Wetbeard III

Monday night I sent the Mister off to the Jets game with his brother. He was out getting soaked in a torrential downpour, so it was just me and the Professor and the cast of Jersey Shore all night. Hooray for Fios DVR! I was totally engrossed in the Snookie/Angelina brawl and the Professor, having no respect whatsoever for whether or not Snookie really was "Done", was pacing around the apartment in the Time-To-Pee pattern. Not to be confused with the Take-Me-To-The-Dog-Park pattern or the I'm-Eating-Q-Tips-From-The-Bathroom-Garbage pattern. Gross Charlie.

I was watching him pace and also watching the monsoon outside and just hoping he could hold it for a few more minutes until the storm died. But he came over to me and put his head in my lap and whined a little high pitched whine which is the Charlie version of crossing his legs and grabbing his crotch with both hands and saying "I gotta go nooooooow!" So I got up and put on my rain boots and my coat and put on his leash and gave him my best stern look to let him know this is Business Time, and not Smell Every Blade of Grass on the Planet Individually Time and out we went into the monsoon.

Charlie needs complete silence to poop. He's easily distracted so he can only poop in the backyard in an atmosphere of reverent concentration. God forbid the neighbor is in his yard mowing the lawn, or the lab behind our house is outside. He cannot possibly poop because OH MY GOD DID YOU SEE THAT LEAF IT'S SO INTERESTING I MUST SMELL IT FOR 20 MINUTES!!! I never use that many exclamation points but Charlie has no restraint. He can't spell for shit either.

The monsoon was not providing the church-like environment necessary to facilitate a Charlie poop, not by a long shot. There was rain tap-tap-tapping on the tin roof of the shed and acorns falling from the tree and leaves blowing everywhere begging to be chased or at least stared at and willed to leap into his mouth. After 10 freezing soaking minutes of begging the dog to poop... just one poop? I know you have to go you're the one who begged to come out in this you bastard WHY WON'T YOU POOP?! I finally gave up and brought him back inside where he immediately resumed pacing and whining. This continued for 3 HOURS. 3 hours, and not a single poop was had. And by then it was past my bedtime and folks, let me tell you you don't want to know me past my bedtime.

When the Mister finally came home, I believe my head spun around 2 or 3 times as I thrust the leash at him and the voice of satan came out of my mouth and said "Make him POOP!" as a chorus of demons swelled behind me. It was intense. And that sulfur smell is still in the curtains.

The next morning Charlie was up bright and early as usual. Totally unfazed by the marathon of not pooping and climbing the back stairs until 2am. I dragged myself out of bed after letting him scratch-scratch at the floor of the crate until my brains started to leak from my ears and took him out. And he pooped! Like it was not big deal. Like I hadn't been begging him to do it for hours the day before. WHATEVER CHARLIE. I brought him back in and went straight back to bed. I was just falling back into a delicious warm sleep when I heard a huge commotion downstairs and someone called my name.

I poked my head out of the bedroom and there, on the back stairs, was my landlord holding the Professor by the neck with one of the cats following close behind. She was decidedly Not Happy. Charlie, however, was SO EXCITED OH MY GOD! He was making new friends! He had claimed the uncharted land of the basement for puppies! As I was putting the pieces together I realized that in my haze I must not have shut the door completely behind me when I brought him inside.

My dog then yanked the door open and committed a B&E through the landlord's cat door, terrorized her cat, rifled through her garbage, and leapt into her bed. My landlord's bed. At my apartment where the lease specifically states NO DOGS. My landlord who, after we came home with a dog and promised "You won't even know he's here!", kindly allowed him to stay.

I guess this was his attempt at gratitude.

In other news, if anyone has a room for rent and their lease allows dogs and cats and madness, I think we might be looking.

Wedding Weekend

Commuter Chan is the Matron of Honor in a wedding next week. I hate that term, Matron of Honor. Why don't they just call it Old Hag of Honor or Hideous Sexless Beast of Honor?

Anyihateanyonesweddingthatisntmine, there was some confusion over beds and who was sleeping where and sharing hotel rooms, so I e-mailed the Maid of Honor (such a superior title, BTW. Maybe I'll get a divorce before the wedding so no one calls me matron.) to see what the sharing situation would be like.

CC (or HSBoH) - Is there room for the Mister or are there other girls staying with us?

MoH - We can all share on Friday night. The room has two double beds. Just as long as I don't hear gross sounds...

CC - We're married so by law we can't make gross sounds anymore. Except for the farting. MY GOD THE FARTING!

MoH - That's what I was referring to. Also, the quiet weeping.


Well I can't make any promises about that.
 

Commuter Chan Travels: Konnichiwa, Kommuters

When I lived in Japan I was constantly amazed at the speed and efficiency with which the whole country seemed to operate. Everything was always precisely on time. Never early, never late. Especially the trains. People had told me about this, but to see it in person… you could literally set your watch by the trains in Japan. Every day at the train or subway station people would get to the platform and line up in neat rows at the spot where the doors were going to open (marked with cheerful pink squares on the ground) and wait silently. Then the train would pull up to the exact right spot – to the centimeter! Everyone would walk onto the immaculate train cars in their straight lines, and the trains would whisk everyone away in a speedy (but not too speedy – there’s a schedule here, people!) and orderly fashion.

When I first started I was always incredibly nervous about being late. Japan is a society of On Time People and I’ve been a Thirty Minutes Late Person my entire life. In the beginning I would leave 20 minutes early to make the 4 minute bike ride and 3 minute walk into the subway station. This might not seem like a big deal to you. You’re probably saying, “Well duh – of course you’d leave in a few minutes more than it actually takes to get to a place.” But for a Thirty Minutes Late Person, this is pretty much the most difficult thing on the planet.

So every Friday I’d leave my apartment at 3:00. I’d ride my bike to Dobutsuen-Mae station to jump on the Midosuji line to Nakamozu where I taught. I’d wave and say “Konnichiwa!” to the trannys on my block, and maybe even stop at AM/PM for a delicious rice ball filled with… what is that? I thought this was tuna! And I’d ride the long escalator down into the train station. I’d buy my little ticket and stroll onto the platform to stand in a straight line like those little French girls in the Madeline stories. And at exactly 3:19, just like it was supposed to, the train would show up and we’d all file on as I tried to look as inconspicuous as possible even though I was a head taller than every other woman there.

That lasted for about a month. And slowly my 30 Minutes Lateness began to creep up. I started leaving the house at 3:03. And then 3:07. And then 3:11. And finally I wasn’t riding my bike through town waving to the trannys anymore. I was flying like a banshee, pushing that creaky little bike with the basket to speeds approaching the sound barrier. Mowing down oba-sans and narrowly avoiding getting smashed by cars as I looked the wrong way AGAIN when I crossed the street. I would run down the long escalator, taking the stairs two at a time, crash into the ticket machine and shout at it impatiently as I paid my 290 yen. I would run frantically to the platform flailing and cursing as I heard the train pull up at 3:19 like it did every day and leap spectacularly through the doors just as they were closing only to collapse in a very un-Japanese heap, wheezing, spluttering, but safe! I call that year my Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Lateness. 

On the Train: Day 614

This morning I sat down behind a guy who was reading the dictionary. A big red hard cover dictionary. Not Webster’s even – some no-name store brand dictionary he probably bought at Target that claims to have all the same ingredients as Webster’s, but leaves out words like “baleen” and “herculean” because it figures if you couldn’t be bothered to buy a real name brand dictionary you probably won’t even notice. I could understand if he was writing or reading something and using the dictionary for help, or if he was 7 and about to compete in a spelling bee, but instead he was a 30-something guy in a suit on an NJ Transit commuter train reading a DICTIONARY.