Effluvia

Hey, my mom is a co-star in a major internet venture!

Actually, I did Crittenden Memorial's first web site a few years ago. Then my contact guy quit and it was offline for a while. I don't know who did the one that's online now, but they used some of the graphics I made. I may have to sue.

This is sad. Converse may go under any day now. You may want to stock up on All-Stars right now.

Interestingly enough, New Orleans has a Converse outlet store, where they sell the wonderful solid black All-Star, and All-Stars in every color of the rainbow. And cool Converse accessories. Maybe they'll have a going out of business sale!

Journals

• Bad Hair Days
• Plaintive Wail
• Humidity and Hebephrenia
• Randomly Ever After
• U9
• Fukushu
• Nature of life...
• DNA Sequencing

We were leaving the Superdome Sunday after the Saints game. Every time the Saints got a sack (that would be eight times, buddy) they played that ridiculous Who Let the Dogs Out? song over the sound system. Eight times, they played that stupid song.

Sonya and I were making our way towards the door, and several times the "who let the dogs out?" call and response would start up around us. Finally, we were almost out the door when some guy right behind me yelled, "who cut them dogs loose?"

Dude, it's a dumb little song. When you get it wrong - after it was played all afternoon and people all around you are yelling it - it makes you a big dumb guy.

My friend Shelley has a rule: never get your hair cut at a place with the word "hair" in the name. This tickles me and Sonya to no end, since we both used to get our hair cut at a place called The Hair Port.

For your further amusement, then, places with "hair" in the name, courtesy of the New Orleans phone book:

So I'm walking out of the bathroom at work today and some guy at the urinal yells, "you didn't flush the toilet!"

My first thought was, "duh, this is a men's room, dude."

There were other people in the bathroom, too, so my second thought was he was trying to shame me into going back and flushing the toilet. Fortunately I have very little sense of shame and I have a real problem with people telling me what to do. I walked on out and ignored him.

But the more I think about it the more I realize this guy committed a major men's room etiquette faux pas.

Now, if you're a guy and you share a bathroom with a woman you're going to make an effort to keep the seat down and flush, or your life will be a living hell. Men were always in the minority in my house growing up; therefore this is a lesson I learned early.

But I don't think men like to flush. I believe this goes back to something primal and caveman-ish in every man: the urge to mark territory, and to mark it proudly and prominently. Every time we flush some small yet savage voice at the bottom of our collective brain says, "what? Why did you do that? No one will know you've been here!"

But let me enlighten my female readers and any male readers I might have who don't actually use public restrooms. Men's bathrooms are filthy. We don't flush, we don't aim, half the time we don't raise the seat. This is the rule at all men's public restrooms everywhere. Why? 'Cause it's not our bathroom, it's just a bathroom. Somebody else will clean it up. And if they don't? Well, how clean does it have to be to unzip your pants and let 'er fly? This is a literal truth: men can pee anywhere. Believe it.

I've got years of experience to back me up on this. What you do in the men's room is no one's business but yours. And for god's sake, you don't talk to each other in the toilet. Maybe, maybe if you're good friends with the other guy you can make a little small talk, but I frown on that. You would no more say "you didn't flush" to another man than you would say "whew, droppin' a big one in there, aren't ya?" or "what's the matter, you pee shy?" It's just not done.

See? I'm right about this. That guy was way out of line. Right, guys?

Wow, that's a real George Costanza type situation there, isn't it?