Friday, February 23, 2007
Husband "humor"
(In quotes because, as any wife could tell you, it's not like normal humor-it's either puerile or gross or both... don't say I didn't warn you.)
My part of the city has recently been inundated with Vietnamese restaurants, and they all have "Pho" in their names, which I was disappointed to learn meant that they mostly had soup, which I don't care for; my husband, although also un-thrilled about the avalanche of soup places, had too much fun with the word "pho" to care. The correct pronunciation of "pho" is "fuh" (or more like "fuh?" because it's "tonal"), but it LOOKS like it should be pronounced "foh," and that's how we said it amongst ourselves before I looked it up; you should pretend it's pronounced that way for the duration of this story, so that it'll all make sense... because, like most men, my husband has a passion for puns, the stinkier the better, and thus he came up with:
Him: Do you know what they call fake pho?
Me: What?
Him: Faux pho!!
Me: Oh honestly, lol!!
Him: How about someone who's the enemy of pho?
Me: HUH?
Him: A pho foe!!
Me: Sigh.
Him: How about someone who's against the existence of fake pho?
Me: Come on, this is getting...
Him: A faux pho foe!!
Me: AARRGGHHHH!!
Him: How about someone who pretended to hate fake pho but really didn't?
Me: Don't you have something better to...
Him: A faux faux pho foe!!
Me: GO AWAY, YOU'RE MAKING ME CRAZY!!
Him: LOL!!!!!!!!!!!
He was devastated to discover that "pho" isn't pronounced "foh," but after a moment's thought he declared that it was his right as an American to mispronounce foreign words, and for the sake of humor he'd keep pronouncing it "foh."
He came home very excited last night, to reveal that the "g" in the Black Angus sign was burned out... and speculated as to whether there were special rules about how quickly that particular letter had to be fixed compared to the other ones, given that it kind of changed one's idea about what sort of business it might be. He's hoping that they didn't fix it today so that he can go back tonight and get a photo.
Last weekend, he finally dragged his lazy carcass outside to do a few chores, and to encourage him I started doing the "Rocky theme" as he went through the door; he joined in for a few notes, then paused and FARTED the next note. He closed the door on my shrieks of revulsion, and his laughter was clearly audible as he went about his tasks.
I'm trying to train him to not touch his "informal areas" when I'm around him, both so that I won't have to see him being disgusting and because he's bound to do it at a friend's house if he gets too used to not refraining from pawing those places until he's alone. The most recent time I scolded him about this, he made a big production about protractedly scratching both of his armpits, his groin, and his butt crack, after which he bunched up his fingertips under his nose and began inhaling loudly and repeatedly, proclaiming "Good stuff, man!!" while I howled "You filthy, repulsive creature!!"
Today, he announced a foolproof gender test; if someone smelled their dirty socks and said something like "These aren't too bad, I can wear them again," you'd know it was a man. He added that if the person in question smelled their socks and then didn't wake up until the next day, I'd know it was HIM. (This isn't that much of an exaggeration-I can tell if he takes his shoes off in another room because the smell is so strong it permeates the house... and the maggots gagging out in the street are also a clue.)
He DOES occasionally provide some wholesome humor, though; he found the Flickr site of a guy who'd had the brilliant idea of photographing wild squirrels that he'd trained to stand up and grab cameras placed on the ground, such that a certain % of the pics would look like the squirrels are actually using the cameras (allegedly, one of the squirrels DID accidentally take a photo, which is included on the site). Check it out, it's beyond cute:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photosquirrels/sets/72057594128554742/
My part of the city has recently been inundated with Vietnamese restaurants, and they all have "Pho" in their names, which I was disappointed to learn meant that they mostly had soup, which I don't care for; my husband, although also un-thrilled about the avalanche of soup places, had too much fun with the word "pho" to care. The correct pronunciation of "pho" is "fuh" (or more like "fuh?" because it's "tonal"), but it LOOKS like it should be pronounced "foh," and that's how we said it amongst ourselves before I looked it up; you should pretend it's pronounced that way for the duration of this story, so that it'll all make sense... because, like most men, my husband has a passion for puns, the stinkier the better, and thus he came up with:
Him: Do you know what they call fake pho?
Me: What?
Him: Faux pho!!
Me: Oh honestly, lol!!
Him: How about someone who's the enemy of pho?
Me: HUH?
Him: A pho foe!!
Me: Sigh.
Him: How about someone who's against the existence of fake pho?
Me: Come on, this is getting...
Him: A faux pho foe!!
Me: AARRGGHHHH!!
Him: How about someone who pretended to hate fake pho but really didn't?
Me: Don't you have something better to...
Him: A faux faux pho foe!!
Me: GO AWAY, YOU'RE MAKING ME CRAZY!!
Him: LOL!!!!!!!!!!!
He was devastated to discover that "pho" isn't pronounced "foh," but after a moment's thought he declared that it was his right as an American to mispronounce foreign words, and for the sake of humor he'd keep pronouncing it "foh."
He came home very excited last night, to reveal that the "g" in the Black Angus sign was burned out... and speculated as to whether there were special rules about how quickly that particular letter had to be fixed compared to the other ones, given that it kind of changed one's idea about what sort of business it might be. He's hoping that they didn't fix it today so that he can go back tonight and get a photo.
Last weekend, he finally dragged his lazy carcass outside to do a few chores, and to encourage him I started doing the "Rocky theme" as he went through the door; he joined in for a few notes, then paused and FARTED the next note. He closed the door on my shrieks of revulsion, and his laughter was clearly audible as he went about his tasks.
I'm trying to train him to not touch his "informal areas" when I'm around him, both so that I won't have to see him being disgusting and because he's bound to do it at a friend's house if he gets too used to not refraining from pawing those places until he's alone. The most recent time I scolded him about this, he made a big production about protractedly scratching both of his armpits, his groin, and his butt crack, after which he bunched up his fingertips under his nose and began inhaling loudly and repeatedly, proclaiming "Good stuff, man!!" while I howled "You filthy, repulsive creature!!"
Today, he announced a foolproof gender test; if someone smelled their dirty socks and said something like "These aren't too bad, I can wear them again," you'd know it was a man. He added that if the person in question smelled their socks and then didn't wake up until the next day, I'd know it was HIM. (This isn't that much of an exaggeration-I can tell if he takes his shoes off in another room because the smell is so strong it permeates the house... and the maggots gagging out in the street are also a clue.)
He DOES occasionally provide some wholesome humor, though; he found the Flickr site of a guy who'd had the brilliant idea of photographing wild squirrels that he'd trained to stand up and grab cameras placed on the ground, such that a certain % of the pics would look like the squirrels are actually using the cameras (allegedly, one of the squirrels DID accidentally take a photo, which is included on the site). Check it out, it's beyond cute:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photosquirrels/sets/72057594128554742/
Monday, February 19, 2007
Borrowing a pen = friendship and sexual attraction?
(Did you notice the nifty "animation" I've installed in my title bar (BlogMad visitors will have to open my blog in a new window to see it)? Cool, huh?)
When I was in 2nd grade, my mother found out that I'd loaned someone a pencil or given them a sheet of paper (I can no longer recall which), and astonished me by raving on and on about how evil this was; everyone ELSE passed pencils and paper around, so why was it wrong for ME to do so? She informed me that paper and pencils were very expensive, and this was why I wasn't allowed, it turned out, to give or loan such things; she told me that when I was asked to I was supposed to respond "My mommy paid for that, and your mommy is supposed to pay for your paper/pencils, not my mommy, so you tell your mommy to buy what you need for school, because my mommy won't pay for your paper/pencils." Yes, my mother was THAT twisted; you can imagine the shock and contempt with which my schoolmates responded to these speeches, and the damage it did to me, already the class pariah for being smart and totally without social skills.
Fast forward to high school: Although I'd long since dropped the "my mommy" speech, I'd still been following orders and declining to hand over school supplies. I KNEW that everyone had plenty of paper and pens of their own, but they continued to do a dance of borrowing and lending, and it FINALLY become clear to me that it was, for reasons that escaped me, socially IMPORTANT to loan/give the stuff. So, despite every aspect of my life still hinging on my mother's whims (I had no $, no transportation other than being driven, and no freedom of action or choice), I dug my heels in and told her that I would no longer deny "loan requests"; I'd learned that paper and pens were CHEAP, contrary to her claims, and she was just going to have to sacrifice a few cents a year to keep me from looking like a turd to my peers.
She hammered me relentlessly, but I held firm; I was THROUGH being the only person in school who wouldn't so much as loan a pencil to a classmate. Her sick mind devised one final attempt to trip me up; this cheapest of all women spent $ on a custom stamp with my initials on it, and I was instructed to stamp every sheet of paper in my notebook with it, so that the other kids "would remember who the paper had come from"... arguments that this wouldn't save her a penny, and would be a complete waste of time and effort, cut zero ice. Mercifully, this insanity didn't last long; someone *I* borrowed a piece of paper from (for by this time I was a full participant in the bizarre game) took it back and inked her initials on it in imitation of my stamps before returning it to me, much to the mean-spirited amusement of the class. The realization that no one was confused as to the meaning of the stamps, and that it was destroying my ability to gain any points for lending, gave me the impetus to refuse to keep stamping... and from then on I loaned things out like a normal human being, and that, aside from my mother's periodic rants on the subject, was that.
Fast forward to an episode of "Queer as Folk" I saw a couple of years ago, in which a boy has been ostracized at school (because it was revealed that he's HIV+), and the next day a girl asks to borrow a pen from him; in response, he asks her why she's being NICE to him. HUH?!! She wasn't offering to GIVE him a pen, she was asking to TAKE one... how was that being NICE? I understood the necessity of kids all doing the same dumb things to fit in, but was it really possible that part of why this particular behavior pattern was so popular was because kids had the illogical idea that TAKING something from someone was being nice to them? What was the psychology behind that? The writers of QAF repeatedly demonstrated a brilliant grasp of both human nature and American culture, so there MUST have been a rational reason for that plot element, but I couldn't pin it down, so I let it go.
Until last night, when I saw an odd movie called "The Shape of Things"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308878/
in which a woman describes how she was supposedly indicating to man she liked that she was interested and wanted him to take her out; she kept asking to BORROW A PEN. How in the world is asking for a pen supposed to indicate romantic desire? :-O
Clearly, I can't dismiss this asking-for deal anymore; I'm not confusing TV series or movies with real life, but the writers thereof strive to have the psychology of all their characters' actions make sense, and I can't imagine they'd have pen-borrowing representing friendliness of both platonic and sexual varieties if it wasn't based in real human behavior, so...? I can see asking to borrow a pen as being a way to approach a stranger you want to talk to, or someone you know but are a little intimidated by, and I think most of us would understand, if we were on the receiving end of such a request, that it was probably the prelude to a conversation, so there IS a basis for pen-borrowing having "hidden meanings"; isn't that WEIRD, when you think about it?
Ok, so what if the prospective lender is neither a stranger nor intimidating? Well... who do you pick to lend you something if you actually NEED it? Probably the one you can feel most comfortable taking something from; whoever's your best buddy in the group. Is that the answer? If you pretend that you need a pen from someone, you're telling them... that you have, or perhaps are offering, a higher level of liking or trust for them than you have for other members of the peer group? Since we humans are social creatures, an offer of this type would be valuable to us... and thus, we can construe the offer to take OUR pen rather than another person's as "being nice" to us. And, if you do the unneeded-borrowing bit from someone you're attracted to, it tells them... that you "LIKE-like" them more than anyone else in the group? Has everyone but ME understood this instinctively?
Can you imagine how I feel now as I look back and realize that throughout my school career a bunch of different pen/pencil/paper-requesting kids offered me the chance to get a social foothold with them despite my pariah-ness, and thanks to my mother's training I essentially spit in their faces rather than accepting? grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
When I was in 2nd grade, my mother found out that I'd loaned someone a pencil or given them a sheet of paper (I can no longer recall which), and astonished me by raving on and on about how evil this was; everyone ELSE passed pencils and paper around, so why was it wrong for ME to do so? She informed me that paper and pencils were very expensive, and this was why I wasn't allowed, it turned out, to give or loan such things; she told me that when I was asked to I was supposed to respond "My mommy paid for that, and your mommy is supposed to pay for your paper/pencils, not my mommy, so you tell your mommy to buy what you need for school, because my mommy won't pay for your paper/pencils." Yes, my mother was THAT twisted; you can imagine the shock and contempt with which my schoolmates responded to these speeches, and the damage it did to me, already the class pariah for being smart and totally without social skills.
Fast forward to high school: Although I'd long since dropped the "my mommy" speech, I'd still been following orders and declining to hand over school supplies. I KNEW that everyone had plenty of paper and pens of their own, but they continued to do a dance of borrowing and lending, and it FINALLY become clear to me that it was, for reasons that escaped me, socially IMPORTANT to loan/give the stuff. So, despite every aspect of my life still hinging on my mother's whims (I had no $, no transportation other than being driven, and no freedom of action or choice), I dug my heels in and told her that I would no longer deny "loan requests"; I'd learned that paper and pens were CHEAP, contrary to her claims, and she was just going to have to sacrifice a few cents a year to keep me from looking like a turd to my peers.
She hammered me relentlessly, but I held firm; I was THROUGH being the only person in school who wouldn't so much as loan a pencil to a classmate. Her sick mind devised one final attempt to trip me up; this cheapest of all women spent $ on a custom stamp with my initials on it, and I was instructed to stamp every sheet of paper in my notebook with it, so that the other kids "would remember who the paper had come from"... arguments that this wouldn't save her a penny, and would be a complete waste of time and effort, cut zero ice. Mercifully, this insanity didn't last long; someone *I* borrowed a piece of paper from (for by this time I was a full participant in the bizarre game) took it back and inked her initials on it in imitation of my stamps before returning it to me, much to the mean-spirited amusement of the class. The realization that no one was confused as to the meaning of the stamps, and that it was destroying my ability to gain any points for lending, gave me the impetus to refuse to keep stamping... and from then on I loaned things out like a normal human being, and that, aside from my mother's periodic rants on the subject, was that.
Fast forward to an episode of "Queer as Folk" I saw a couple of years ago, in which a boy has been ostracized at school (because it was revealed that he's HIV+), and the next day a girl asks to borrow a pen from him; in response, he asks her why she's being NICE to him. HUH?!! She wasn't offering to GIVE him a pen, she was asking to TAKE one... how was that being NICE? I understood the necessity of kids all doing the same dumb things to fit in, but was it really possible that part of why this particular behavior pattern was so popular was because kids had the illogical idea that TAKING something from someone was being nice to them? What was the psychology behind that? The writers of QAF repeatedly demonstrated a brilliant grasp of both human nature and American culture, so there MUST have been a rational reason for that plot element, but I couldn't pin it down, so I let it go.
Until last night, when I saw an odd movie called "The Shape of Things"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308878/
in which a woman describes how she was supposedly indicating to man she liked that she was interested and wanted him to take her out; she kept asking to BORROW A PEN. How in the world is asking for a pen supposed to indicate romantic desire? :-O
Clearly, I can't dismiss this asking-for deal anymore; I'm not confusing TV series or movies with real life, but the writers thereof strive to have the psychology of all their characters' actions make sense, and I can't imagine they'd have pen-borrowing representing friendliness of both platonic and sexual varieties if it wasn't based in real human behavior, so...? I can see asking to borrow a pen as being a way to approach a stranger you want to talk to, or someone you know but are a little intimidated by, and I think most of us would understand, if we were on the receiving end of such a request, that it was probably the prelude to a conversation, so there IS a basis for pen-borrowing having "hidden meanings"; isn't that WEIRD, when you think about it?
Ok, so what if the prospective lender is neither a stranger nor intimidating? Well... who do you pick to lend you something if you actually NEED it? Probably the one you can feel most comfortable taking something from; whoever's your best buddy in the group. Is that the answer? If you pretend that you need a pen from someone, you're telling them... that you have, or perhaps are offering, a higher level of liking or trust for them than you have for other members of the peer group? Since we humans are social creatures, an offer of this type would be valuable to us... and thus, we can construe the offer to take OUR pen rather than another person's as "being nice" to us. And, if you do the unneeded-borrowing bit from someone you're attracted to, it tells them... that you "LIKE-like" them more than anyone else in the group? Has everyone but ME understood this instinctively?
Can you imagine how I feel now as I look back and realize that throughout my school career a bunch of different pen/pencil/paper-requesting kids offered me the chance to get a social foothold with them despite my pariah-ness, and thanks to my mother's training I essentially spit in their faces rather than accepting? grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
