The Stories We Tell

So as I will probably do very often, I'm going to plug the radio show This American Life. It's awesome. I stream the old shows when I'm at work on the weekends and there isn't anybody else on the entire floor. I was listening to this show about reruns. There's a whole segment on the stories we tell over and over and it made me think of the stories I tell and the stories my family never hesitates to tell me.

Here's one of my own and perhaps tomorrow I will write about one my family tells:
One story I love to tell and have perhaps told every person I've ever talked to is what I reminiscently call the pie story. So it goes like this: My girlfriend at the time just got a Pampered Chef stoneware pie plate for some occasion from her cousin's wife. She'd be the first to tell you she wasn't really much of a cook but she was excited to try out her new pie dish.

[aside]Thinking back, she probably thought it was magic because pies are hard to make, even after years of practice. Plus she was making it in an electric oven which usually let the temperature sort of float around where you set it. Kind of the like the oven said "eh...close enough."[/aside]

Anyway, she puts the crust in and the filling, it was a cherry pie, and puts it in the oven when she gets a call from a friend who asks her to come over.

[aside]I think they had to round up some kittens that got loose.[/aside]

I was messing around on the computer which was in the living room, adjacent to the kitchen. She asked me to watch the pie and said "the only thing you need to do is take it out when the timer goes off." This was apparently beyond the scope of my job description as will soon become clear. She heads off.

Minutes go by and the timer goes off. I take the pie out of the oven and lay it gingerly on the top of the stove, proud that I was able to accomplish this most basic of tasks and noting to myself how delicious the pie looked and how impressed I was she was able to make such a picture perfect pie on her first attempt.

Time goes by and she's not back so I start to make dinner on my own. I think the plan was for lemon and dill salmon with broccoli. Anyway, I preheat the oven and start the water boiling for the broccoli then go back to the computer. More time passes and I hear a *pop* sound from the kitchen. I lean back in my chair and figure maybe some water had gotten out of the pot or something like that and went back to what I was doing. More time passes and I hear *CRACK* Not good...

I run into the kitchen to find I turned the wrong burner on and broke the pie dish, the contents of which were seeping ever so slowly beneath the electric burner. I shut the burner off and began to contemplate a reasonable excuse for having been so incredibly stupid. While I debate this in my mind, reality interrupts when the pie ignites. The burner didn't cool down fast enough and the ever-so-sugary filling of the cherry pie leaking through the gaping crack in the pie plate combined to produce a stunning display of culinary fireworks. Being the level-headed guy that I am, I panicked and began to spray water on the flaming pie. Brilliant. So the once picturesque pie was reduced to a sweet brown charred and soggy mess.

Needless to say, she didn't think it was funny.

So if you have a story you always tell or one your family always repeats about you respond to this post with it. Could it really be worse than the pie story!?

How to know if the guy you're dating is a bachelor...

I have been remiss in my blogging duties. I've had many things to talk about but just haven't had the time. Anyway, the following is a list of things bachelors do. Now don't assume these are all about me, they might be my roommate...

In no particular order, he's probably a bachelor if:

• -his bathroom doubles as a library with an extensive array of periodicals
• -there is no toilet paper...anywhere
• -the only things in the shower are a bottle of suave and a bar of irish spring
• -clothes are neatly arranged by level of smelliness in piles on the floor (Hmm, I could wear this at least once more...)
• -the garbage can is huge yet somehow always full
• -the living room couch has been handed down so many times no one remembers who actually bought it
• -mail can be found almost anywhere, on a counter, on the stove, on the stairs, in a tree, in a box, with a fox...
• -things like peanut butter and cereal become "dinner" foods
• -cereal boxes invariable feature cartoon characters which are perhaps the reason they were purchased
• -there is always beer but there is never any milk...ever
• -the wireless phone is always mysteriously missing and never finds its way back to the charger
• -no one knocks before entering the house
• -there's a PS2 is in the living room
• -the only furniture in the house is the previously mentioned couch from bachelors past, a coffee table so old, scratched, and stained it sits incognito under a tablecloth, and a recliner
• -every light is always on, even in the daytime or during a supernova
• -he can get dressed in any room including the kitchen and the sun room
• -none of the windows have blinds, shutters, shades, or any other man-made device to keep people from seeing in
• -he has his own blog he updates often

This is just a short list. Please feel free to add as you see fit.

The Religion Paradox

Happy Easter!! Today being Easter and all, I thought it would be appropriate for the day's diatribe to involve religion. I have noticed a trend in dating over the last year paralleling a similarly motivated shift in political rhetoric over the past 6 years, namely the role of religion in each. Certainly there has been a thorough discussion of the role of religion and its impact on politics but I have yet to see a single story on religion and dating. (I apologize for those of you reading this who have heard this story, just move on to another post)

It is certainly possible my string of recent experiences with religion and dating are coincidental but I think not. Different guys like different sorts of girls. It just so happens I prefer nice girls who have a certain amount of self-respect and treat other people with a modicum of respect and appreciation (among many other qualities less relevant to this discussion). I blame it on the The Religion Paradox: Not-so-religious guy likes nice girls. Nice girls are religious. Religious girls like religious guys. And round and round we go.

Sure it's a stereotype and I would like to be proven wrong but that's just not the trend I'm seeing.

[Aside]A saying of my great-grandmother's sums it up nicely: "Watch how she treats service people because one day, that will be how she treats you." Since hearing that I've found nice girls do treat service people like human beings and it really does reflect their general character. Girls take note.[/Aside]

Alright so how bad could it be?
Story 1: Worked with a nice girl. Very smart, pretty. Very fun to work with. So one day I ask her out. We catch a movie, grab something to eat. I think it's going good. A few days later I talk to her and she says "I really had a great time but you're not muslim." Which wasn't news to me but for her it was a deal-breaker.

Story 2: Another girl I work with. (If you have the impression there are all these great girls running around where I work you're just wrong. With 30,0000 employees roaming the cubicle mazes there's bound to be one or two nice girls who got lost though.) I'd talk to her on the phone for work stuff a lot and we'd talk about other things too. One day I asked her to lunch. We talked for a while and it was going well, I thought. So I ask her if she'd want to hang out, I can't remember what it was though, something fun. She said she didn't date people who didn't go to her church.

[Aside] The interesting thing to note is there are apparently only like 7 people who go to her church making the pickins awfully slim. I know this only because my roommate is actually seeing her...and going to her church, though I can tell you, he has no interest in her religion and has much less savory intentions than I had. [/Aside]

So there you have it. The nice girls I've met all happen to be pretty religious, which to me is fine. That's great and I accept and appreciate their beliefs but I'm not terribly religious. What I've found is that mutual acceptance of belief systems doesn't run both ways, as is the case with so many issues unfortunately.
(Update: A strangely applicable Meet the Press you can watch online)