A Tale of Two Animals

All women have snakes in their heads and all men are dogs. OK, that's a broad generalization but let's look deeper into the situation. The basic premise of the assumption is that women are crazy and men only care about sex. Go ahead and think about it.

Think about that ex-girlfriend who went nutty on you. Think about what she did - all the little things. When you start to piece all the tiny bits together, you realize that she was crazy, don't you? That chick had snakes in her head! Maybe you're married to a crazy lady. Are you allowed to have friends who are females? Can you still hang out with your friends? Nope? Snakes in her head!

Now ladies, don't think I'm biased. I know that most of us guys are dogs. All we're interested in is food, sex, and sleep and not necessarily in that order. Hell, if we had a fur coat and a tail, most of us would be barking at the moon! I'm sure most guys will readily admit to this so that's not exactly breaking news.

There is somewhat of a bleed over though. Roughly 10 - 15% of women are dogs and about the same amount of men have snakes in their heads. These are the folk you really want to stay away from. The bitches will stab you in the back and the crazies will just stab you...repeatedly.

However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is about 10% of the population that the rules don't apply to. There are actually a few good, decent people left on this rock. Sure no one is perfect. We all have carnal urges sometimes and we all need to be just a little bit crazy to put up with the rest of the world.

90% of all of the people on earth are either snakes or dogs. The other 10% are those who float to the top and that's who you should strive to surround yourself with.

Migrating Soap

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a germaphobe. I like to keep things at a certain level of cleanliness and wash my hands often. For years, I never used public restrooms and even to this day, I still have my problems.

Generally, I trust the people I work with so when I'm on the job, I get over most of my idiosyncrasies and take care of business. At the office where I work now, there is a row of five sinks in the mens' room. Because we men as a collective are lazy, the sinks across from the urinals are the ones most often used. Therefore, these are the sinks I tend to stay away from. When I see them, I cringe because the chrome handle is always either wet or smeared where the last person has used it. So, I use the sinks on the other end of the counter. However, the solution is not that simple.

When I first started working here, there were only two soap dispensers in the mens' room. Now, you would think that a peaceful solution could be reached by placing the soap between sinks 1&2 and sinks 3&4. I know this leaves sink 5 out in the cold, but honestly I don't think that many people other than myself use sinks 4&5. So yes, I'm willing to give up some ground to get what I want. Well, every day I would go in there and the soap dispenser that I had previously placed between 3&4 would have always inexplicably migrated to either between sinks 2&3 or the one between 1&2 would be placed to the left of 1 while the one between 3&4 was now to the right of 1. Every day I would move the soap back to a decent position and every day it would be moved closer to the urinal sinks. I tried a few variations, even extreme ones like putting both soaps between 4&5 to display my general displeasure and then both to the left of 1 to show how silly keeping soap in that position would be. Alas, the battle was long and the battle was hard.

Finally, after months of playing musical soap, a third dispenser was brought in as a peace offering. On the whole, this has worked. But imagine my surprise when I witnessed the scene pictured below. This arrangement is perfect for the person with two left hands, one right hand and no shits left to give for anyone else wanting to wash their hands. Oh, and the one on the wall? It doesn't work.

The clue x 4

Over the years I've done a lot of stupid things, but overall I really do try to not be that much of a douche bag. I didn't do the whole popped collar, pink shirt thing, never got into the emo junk and skipped out on the whole tricked out import car movement a la the Fast and the Furious. Hell, I've never even created a real myspace page. But, every once in a while, I do succumb to one of the latest fashion trends, or at least what I perceive to be a fashion trend.

Today I'm talking about that thin, scraggly beard look which was thrust into the pop culture limelight by the emergence of 'Lost'. That's right, the TV show where the plane crashes and people are marooned on an island where after weeks and even months of life without modern day amenities, the girls still look hot and the guys' facial hair never hits the Grizzly Adams stage or even the shorter, yet still very manly, Chuck Norris length. While some thought that this ragtag group of haphazard gentlemen could somehow take a page from Gilligan's book and MacGyver themselves some sort of crude razor to stay clean and tidy, others lauded the look as bold, edgy and hip and hence adopted it for themselves. After three seasons, I finally gave in. I stopped formally shaving, only picking up a trimmer once every few days to keep the short stubble look going. Then I went home.

This past Christmas, I went to stay with my parents for a week. We were all glad to see each other and many pleasantries were exchanged. For the first few days, absolutely nothing was said of my new facial hair, not that I minded. But then from nowhere as I was driving my parents around town, my mother looks up at a billboard and says, "Oh, there's Dr. Eisner! I see he shaved his beard. I think he looks so much better that way." I rolled my eyes. "I don't think a beard looks good on anyone."

::sigh::

"Subtle, mom," I said. She pretended like she didn't hear me and nothing more was said on the subject. The next day, I shaved. So the rule here is: No matter how cool you think you are, your mom knows you're not.