where have you been
AND I HAVE COME TO DESTROY THE WORLD
Yesterday I couldn't stop saying the phrase “evil robot from the future.” I mostly managed to keep it in inside my head, fortunately. You look nice today. Do I look like an evil robot from the future? I'll get the updated list to you later today. Evil robot from the future says fuck your updated list! What do you want for Christmas? An evil robot from the future…wait, no! That's a terrible idea!
QUALITY EAVESDROPPING
1. A guy on the train was loudly telling his friend all about how he somehow ended up with two girlfriends, neither one of whom is exactly clear about the status of the other one, and then this third girl has started calling him out of the blue, and they talked for two hours last night and she is pretty cool too, etc. He wasn't being all PIMP PLAYA about it either, he seemed genuinely distressed and befuddled and amazed. As I waited by the door for my stop I could not resist saying, “Dude, you got problems” and he said, “I KNOW!” and then jokingly yelled, “Hey, are you single?” as I exited. It was pretty funny.
2. Then at Nora's karate class I nearly dislocated my neck vertebrae while straining to hear one mom tell another about how her son got kicked out of preschool. I never was able to hear the whole story, damn it. Her son is kind of a hyperactive spaz but that is not enough to get expelled, right? Unless that is one uptight preschool.
3. Noticing what people are reading doesn't exactly qualify as “eavesdropping,” but on the train this morning I saw a guy reading a book called The Shack, another reading a book titled Vodka, and a third reading On The Road. My brain could not resist putting the books all together and creating a new fake genre called Hobo Lit.
DRIED FRUIT = EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL
Reading the dried-cranberry package while I snack and the ingredients are: cranberries, sugar, sunflower oil,* natural orange flavor. The asterisk next to “sunflower oil” maps to a corresponding asterisk that explains: “Adds a trivial amount of fat.” Note the editorializing there. Not the scientific “trace amount.” “Trivial amount” is all hand-wavingly pshaw, go on, you can't REALLY be worried about this sunflower oil! Well no, dried cranberries, I am not. BUT DON'T TELL ME HOW TO FEEL.
—mimi smartypants adds a trivial amount of fat.