At the lunch table the other day, my coworker Raymond, who appears to be a fairly heterosexual guy, mentioned his "List", which referred to his list of men that he'd be willing to have sex with. Apparently he had revealed the members of his list sometime in the past when I wasn't around, and he was unwilling to do so again.

Liz decided to give him a little grief:

Liz: So, you don't want us making fun of the people on your list? Ridiculing George Clooney? Hmmmm?
Raymond: Apparently you don't remember who's on my list.
Liz: Oh... wait... I DO remember. Edward James Olmos!!

I stopped in mid-chew and began to laugh uncontrollably. I laughed and laughed and laughed until I wept. After about 30 seconds, I caught some air and managed to utter, "Edward James Olmos? Nice choice."

Then I convulsed back into laughter and was out of commission for another 30 seconds or so. Tears were streaming down my face. This was maybe the funniest thing I had ever heard while not on drugs.

Let me stop at this point and say that I think making such a list is a worthy exercise. I'm not eager to start grabbing all the peen I can get, but there are some pretty handsome dudes out there. George Clooney, for example, is a pretty defensible choice to be on anybody's list.

Edward James Olmos, however.... Here's a picture of him:


Ok, ok. Maybe you're thinking that he was a hotter man in his youth. Here's a picture of him from the 80s:


Uhhhh, I have no idea what would make a dude put him on his list. I guess if you've got a gravitas fetish, or maybe a facial-crater fetish. Unreal.

Who's on my list? I'm not sure. Although I do think that George Clooney is dreamy, I'm not really interested in his penis. I guess if I had to start populating my list, I'd start with the tiniest dudes possible. The less penis the better. So, uh, the first guy would probably be....


Peter Dinklage, the dude on the right.

Dear kettle,

It's been over six months since term-limits prevented me from running for another year of being Secretary of the PTA. Apparently, I must really miss those PTA Board meetings (where people prattled on in the least linear form possible in wildly successful attempts to put as much distance as possible between their opening remarks and their ultimate points), because I found myself this week at a neighborhood community meeting.

I had never gone to one of these meetings before, but it's the place where our police captain shows up, and our city supervisor shows up, and the general state of the neighborhood is discussed. This sounds pretty reasonable and informative, but in practice something very different occurs. These quarterly meetings appear to be the social club for the oldest people in the neighborhood. And what do old people like to do more than anything else? Complain and eat very bland crackers. Mostly complain.

There were lots of interactions like this:

Police Captain: blah blah blah.... and that's our plan to address the graffiti problem we've been having
Old Person: WE HAVE A TERRIBLE GRAFFITI PROBLEM! blah blah blah WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO ABOUT IT?!?
Police Captain: You raise an excellent point about our graffiti problem. Here's our plan: blah blah blah

If I had been the police captain, I would have just arrested or maybe shot anyone asking stupid and redundant questions. It was painfully obvious that people came into the meeting with their long-winded complaints all prepared and pre-winded and nothing was going to stop them from letting us all see the depth of their indignation. We heard useless diatribes against graffiti, totally misplaced complaints against other neighbors, and a series of deeply pained laments about the state of sidewalk policy.

This meeting was a complete validation of Rule #1 of Social Interactions. That rule states: Complaints expand to fill the size of any public forum.

I'm seeing the same thing at work. My company produces a couple of browser plugins and has a medium-sized website. There are a couple of places on the website where users can add comments, and there's also a support forum where customers can ask questions.

Although we get plenty of people filling in the fields with relevant comments and questions, we get a surprising amount of people complaining about totally random stuff. One guy wrote in to the support site complaining about the asparagus in his Stouffer's dinner. Another dude was missing part of his circuit board. Some lady didn't like the jeans she got.

Huh? Jeans? Circuit boards? Aparagus?!?! Dude, you're preaching to the choir here about mushy asparagus, but my company is as involved in your TV Dinner as... well, as nothing. We have absolutely nothing to do with your goddamn asparagus. Apparently, however, if you put a form on the internet, and let people type into it, THEY WILL FILL IT WITH RANDOM COMPLAINTS. The internet is just chock-filled with old people, desperately hunting and pecking their dissatisfaction into every text box they can find.

I don't know that there's a solution to this, aside from maybe trying to distract internet users with bland crackers, but I think it's just very odd.

So very odd.

Respectfully,
pot

If there was one thing I could teach Daisy and have it really stick in her brain, it would be to question authority. I'd have her question her teachers, question the law, question religion, and question me. Turns out, that's not the way she's wired. I don't think I've ever met anyone who was so completely mesmerized by even the hint of a rule.

Our return trip from Kauai featured prime examples of Daisy's lawfulness.

It started at breakfast the morning we were due to leave. We had been staying in a condo and had overbought a bunch of groceries for the week. Sitting at the breakfast table, I contemplated all the food we'd need to eat in order not to waste it.

Me: Daisy, we bought way too much sugar. Here, eat a sugar cube.

I offered her a tasty tasty sugar cube. She stared at me like I was from Mars, an unhealthy scofflaw from Mars.

Daisy: (stunned) Dad! I'm not supposed to eat sugar cubes!
Me: I know they're not healthy, which is why I don't offer you one very often, but here's your big chance to eat one. I'm just going to throw them away otherwise.
Daisy: But... but... they're not good for me!
Me: I KNOW! Look, having one sugar cube isn't going to kill you, but if you don't want it, that's fine.

She contemplated this.

Daisy: Wellllllll, SHOULD I eat the sugar cube?
Me: Should you? There's no should or shouldn't here. I offered you a sugar cube. Eat it or don't.
Daisy: Do you WANT me to eat the sugar cube?

At this point Daisy was desperate for any tiny shred of authority she could use to justify eating the sugar cube. I didn't take the bait.

Me: Daisy, I neither want you to eat it nor not eat it. This is entirely your decision. It's just you and the cube.
Daisy: What if I don't like it?

I laughed at this line of questioning, and the rest of the table occupants soon moved on to more pressing issues, planning our departure from Kauai. I quickly forgot all about the sugar cube. About five minutes later...

Daisy: Well, if I don't like it, I can always spit it out, right?

Daisy beamed at me with this conclusion while I marveled at the fact that she had been sitting at the table for the last five minutes in silence while still contemplating the magical sugar cube. Amazingly, she did eat it. It was, hands down, the most ballsy thing she'd do for the rest of the trip.

Later, when we were checking our bags at the airport, I took some crumpled paper out of my pocket and asked Daisy to throw it away for me. I pointed out a trash can about 15 yards away.

In between us and the trash can were a couple of those ribboned line-dividers. There was no one currently in line, so it was a straight shot to the trash can, especially for a short 10 year-old who could easily scoot under the ribbons.

Daisy: But, Dad, that's where the line goes.
Me: That's fine. No one is there. It's just ribbons and an empty line. No one will mind.
Daisy: But...
Me: It's RIGHT there. Trust me that it's fine. Just go!

Daisy froze, and then sprinted off in the opposite direction, going the extra 100 yards AROUND the empty line. I stood in amazement, wondering if it was too late to DNA test my daughter.

30 minutes later we stood in the security line. We took off our shoes, just like we had every other time during the trip, and we placed the very same carry-ons we'd had the whole trip onto the TSA conveyor belt.

The TSA Automaton walked back and forth on the other side of the conveyor belt, asking if anyone had any liquids or gels in their carry-ons. Daisy's arm shot up.

Daisy: I have my medicine.
Me: Don't worry. Your medicine is fine. It's just a few drops of liquid. They're looking for...

The TSAutomaton cut me off and demanded to see inside Daisy's bag. I opened it up and rifled around for Daisy's inhaler. Along the way, I pulled out Daisy's toothpaste, the very same tube we had been successfully carrying all week WITHOUT BLOWING UP ANY AIRPLANES.

TSAbot: Sir, would you like to check this?
Me: The toothpaste?
TSAbot: Would you like to check it?
Me: You're asking me if I want to go stand in line for an hour to check a tube of toothpaste?
TSAbot: Either that or I throw it away.
Me: Yes, please throw away my daughter's toothpaste.

And with that we moved on. I suggested to Daisy in the future that she not be so adamant about having TSA inspect every inch of her life.

Daisy: But, Dad, they said liquids and GELS! My toothpaste is a gel!

Me, I'm just proud of her for not guiltily puking up the sugarcube when we went through the agricultural inspection.

So, our good friends Liz and Larry, who inherited a timeshare a few years ago, invited our family to come join them for a week in Kauai. Armed with the lessons learned from the same trip we took two years ago (no goddamn surfing, and bring an arsenal of sonic weapons for the goddamn roosters), we crossed the mighty Pacific and spent a week in lovely Kauai together.

The beaches were marvelous, the late night card games were fun, and we skirted any major tragedies by employing copious quantities of sunscreen, ketchup, vodka, and a box named Lynn. Hell, most of us even came home with ocean-tested Boogie Boarding nicknames:

Hank: The Maple Wave (See, she's from Vermont)
Daisy: The Reading Rider (Uh, because she likes to read?)
Larry: The Oceanic Six Footer (He's tall! He's in the ocean! We're on the island where Lost was filmed!)
Me: The Gefilte Fish (I'm Jewish! Hilarious!)

Liz is apparently unnicknameable.

Anyway, the trip went pretty well. We had our 6 days o' fun and then climbed onto our airplane and were promptly informed by the United pilot that we'd even be arriving back in San Francisco a little early. Hoo hoo! Smoothest travel day EVER!

We rolled down to the runway and then....

Well, we just kind of stopped there for a long while. Then the pilot came back on the intercom and explained that they had found some mechanical issues and we'd be heading back to the gate for some repairs. No prob though, after an hour or so, we were ready to depart again.

We rolled down to the runway and then....

Well, har har, darned if that plane wasn't still having pesky mechanical problems. We went back to the gate and hung out there for a good while longer, while United put their top head-scratchers and elbow-greasers on the issue. After approximately 2.99 hours of this game, we were informed that we could get off the airplane temporarily. Meanwhile the mechanics continued to read the maintenance manuals, whack on the engine with hammers, and download all the Windows 95 virus checkers they could fit on their floppy disks.

We hung out at the gate while various United employees got up and made speeches about how we'd have more information in another 20 minutes. This went on for a couple hours. Many of the passengers hopped on their cellphones looking for other ways off the island, but flights out of Kauai are infrequent and solidly packed. Meanwhile, various passengers began to exhibit their stress personas.

Angry Activist Man yelled out the email address of the United CEO, exhorting us all to complain online as his wife literally dragged him out of the room. Panicky Interrupter Woman demanded her luggage NOW as United employees explained the state of the airplane. Various other men loudly grumbled their displeasure as their wives nagged them to shut up. I, of course, just made smart ass comments barely softly enough to evade the notice of anyone official.

More than seven hours after we arrived at the airport, the crew finally gave up on the idea of flying out of there that Sunday evening and sent all hundreds of us out of the airport, with vouchers for a one night stay at the nearest Marriott hotel. Everyone hopped on our phones and tried to book flights later that week. I got a red-eye on Tuesday night, ensuring Daisy and I would miss at least two days of work and school. (Hank, due to other logistical issues, was on a different flight) Liz and Larry didn't get anything until Thursday. All of these new arrangements were booked with United with the understanding that if our airplane magically got fixed on Monday morning, we'd fly home on it instead.

Being stranded in Hawaii doesn't really sound that bad, but considering that I spent virtually all of my "extra" time there on the phone with United or in various lines, it was really an outstandingly crappy day.

The capper was the next morning when Larry called me to tell me that our plane had been fixed and that they had been automatically booked back on it. I excitedly called into United, confirmed that our original plane had indeed been fixed, would indeed be flying back to San Francisco that afternoon, but that the plane was full and did not have room for me and Daisy. I calmly explained to Steve in India that a mistake had been made and that clearly there was room for Daisy and I since we had been sitting on that exact damn airplane the previous day. Steve said there was nothing he could do. So, I waited for 30 minutes while he transferred me to his supervisor.

I spoke not so calmly to Supervisor Betty in India, explaining that the pilot had told us all that if the plane got fixed that we'd be able to take that flight. Betty made sure to speak very slowly to me so that I could clearly understand that the flight was full and that there was nothing she could do. My arguments that a mistake had been made were neither acknowledged nor appreciated. Betty finally agreed to call someone at the airport and then call me right back. That apparently is customer service supervisor code for "goodbye angry American".

I decided that yelling is something best done in person, so I grabbed Daisy and all our luggage, and headed back down to the Lihue airport, which was now my least favorite place in the world. Even though I had already been told by two levels of United employees that the flight was booked, I thought maybe if I just yelled loud enough at someone in person, perhaps that would merit a couple of boarding passes.

Turns our, har har, there WAS room for us on the plane. Steve from Bangalore had had his head up his sphincter as had his patience-less supervisor Betty from Bangalore. The ticket agent at the airport handed us our boarding passes and we flew back to San Francisco later that afternoon, merely one day late.

So, apologies for boring you all with a travel-gone-awry story, but I like to get these things down on "paper" so that I never forget what a horrible experience airline travel is, and especially what an incompetent airline United is.

United Airlines, this was your second strike. Details on United's first epic fail can be found here.