The Junk Drawer

My pal Lee from Tar Heel Ramblings tagged me for the Seven Weird Things About Me meme. I’m not a meme person so much as I’m a weird person. Putting this list together will take all of five minutes.

The rules: Cite and link to your source (me), then enjoy writing about 7 Weird Things About Yourself, then tag some people and help spread the weirdness.

Here we go:

1. I once took my cat, Calvin (RIP), to a therapist for his anger “issues” and paid $200 for the pleasure. He almost bit her and I was secretly happy because she should have known better than to stick her hand in his carrier.

2. I microwave salads and ice cream before eating them. Twenty seconds for the salad, fifteen for the ice cream.

3. I purposely keep snack bags open so chips or cheese curls go stale. Mmmmm…..stale snacks!

4. I’m physically unable to burp. Not even after drinking a carbonated beverage. It’s not fun. It hurts. And it leaves me bloated.

5. I enjoy the most intense of amusement park rides, but I can’t cross a bridge by foot because I know I’ll pass out from being up so high.

6. To finish my bachelors degree, I voluntarily took the last 12 courses in 12 months, while starting a new job. It almost killed me.

7. As a kid, I almost threw up after eating homemade strawberry ice cream. I only ate it because it was served to me at a friend’s house and I thought it would be bad manners to decline. Later that night, I talked in my sleep and hallucinated a movie on the walls of my bedroom. My sister and I shared the room and she thought I was the devil.

Now, I’m not one to thrust a meme on anyone, but if any of my fellow bloggy friends want to join in the weirdness, consider yourself tagged. Hop to it!

One would reasonably expect that if you entered a restroom at work that your private activities would be between only you and the toilet bowl. Not in our building.

A couple of months ago our restrooms were outfitted with the Kimberley-Clark Professional Toilet Paper Dispenser. It’s a fine toilet paper dispenser. Except for one thing.

Every time someone pulls paper from the rolls, something inside the dispenser shakes and shimmies so loudly, it sounds like machine-gun fire. How do we know? Our suite is located on the other side of the wall and the walls are paper thin.

What does this mean for us? Well, we get to hear every single time someone is about to …. er …. take care of the cleaning end of business. Once or twice a day wouldn’t bother me and my office mates, but our office is located next to a very popular, conveniently-located bathroom. Everybody uses it.

Yesterday I counted how many times we got to hear someone …. er …. get spring fresh. Thirty one times.

If you’re a regular reader here, you know I have issues with annoying noises and this is no different.  In fact, it’s worse than any of the other annoying noises because those aren’t attached to a private bodily function.

We’ve considered hanging a sign on the dispenser that reads: “Please pull paper gently. We can hear you.” But that will only serve to freak people out and we’re not that cruel. I decided the best thing to do is ask our Facilities Services staff to send someone over to either remove it and replace it with a quieter model.

Here’s the request I submitted:

The mens (Rm336) and ladies restroom (Rm334) toilet paper dispensers are incredibly loud. Everyone in our suite can hear whenever someone is in there. We never heard anything with the old type dispenser. It’s embarrassing to hear it all day, and so loud it disturbs our work. Hanging a sign “Please be quiet. We can hear you.” is not an option. Can they be removed, or fixed to be silenced? Thanks.

What happened today? A service repairman showed up in my office and asked “You the woman who reported a loud toilet paper dispenser?” Responding the only way I knew how to the most ridiculous question ever uttered in the English language, I said “Um. Yeah. Sorry.”

He and I then proceeded to discuss the problem at hand. I made him walk over to the kitchenette which is opposite the restrooms. I told him if he stood there for five minutes, he was sure to hear it. Every single time someone is in the bathroom, without fail, we get the noise.

I was really glad that one of my office mates, Jason, showed up to confirm to the nice man that indeed we are subjected to loud toilet paper rolling. We both explained that not only were we jarred by this loud noise, but that I could actually feel the vibrations from it under my feet if I stood near the shared wall.

That’s when he looked at us and said “It’s highly doubtful it’s the TP dispenser then.” Though it did just occur to us that it would be beyond bizarre to actually feel its vibration through the floor, we insisted we test our theory about the dispenser and MAKE it make the noise.

So off Jason went to the men’s room. “I’ll go nuts on the thing and I know you’ll hear it.”  The serviceman and I stood and waited as I grew increasingly embarrassed at having drug this guy over to our office to listen to our bathroom noise. I asked him if this was the stupidest job he ever got assigned and he said “Yeah, pretty much.”

Jason did like he said and went ballistic on the dispenser. The only problem was it didn’t sound like the noise we’ve been hearing. He ran back over and reported that it wasn’t the right noise. So I suggested it was the ladies room dispenser. Off I went to “fake pee” and do a number on the toilet paper. What I fast realized is it cannot possibly be this dispenser because you can barely get two good sheets out of the thing, much less pull down real hard so that the rollers shake and shimmy. I returned to the office deflated. “That’s not it!”

The serviceman who’d been humoring us all this time gave his assessment: “I think there’s air in the water lines. I’ll take a look.” He suspected that every time someone turned on the faucet to wash their hands, water and air ran through the lines and caused the noise. Just as we were getting over our embarrassment, we all heard THE noise. “Yep. It’s your water lines.” He rooted around in the maintenance closet, while I returned to my office with my tail between my legs. Whatever he worked on silenced the noise.

So it turns out our co-workers are not violent toilet paper grabbers after all, and we are the stupidest people on the planet. Thank God I never hung that note.

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Other humor bloggers are way smarter than me.

After digging through box after box of old photos, I finally found both of my high school prom pictures. So can everyone stop harassing me now? The funny thing about these pictures is that I’m not prepared to say that I look like the Bride of Frankenstein. I actually think I look fairly hot, in a trampy, Little House on the Prairie kind of way. I don’t know. You be the judge.

Note: I have blacked out my date’s eyes, you know, to avoid getting sued and all that. He’s an oral surgeon now and could probably buy me ten times over. Please God, don’t let him find my blog.

First up, the junior prom (click to enlarge)

This is the gown that my Dad didn’t want me leaving the house in. Why? Because under that tiny tulle shawl covered an embarrassing amount of cleavage. Without the shawl, the gown looked and felt like lingerie from Fredericks of Hollywood and now, as a mature woman, I can understand why my Dad was having a coronary. Sorry, Dad.

Memorable moment: When some jerk slam-danced onto my toe and made it bleed. I got blood on my gown and when I told my date what happened, he went over to they guy’s table and had a few words. A few loud words. There may have been a punch involved. Not sure. Then he made him come over and apologize to me. The poor guy didn’t mean it, but he never spoke to me again as long as I was still hooked up with my prom date. Ahhh, fear. The Great Motivator.

Next up, the senior prom. The pendulum clearly swung in the other direction a year later because I zipped myself up so good, only my hands and face were exposed, and just barely. This gown says “Don’t look at me. Don’t touch me. And where’d I put my butter churner?” I don’t recall lace being so “in” that year. I might have just been trying to undo my hooker look from the year before.

Memorable moment: I don’t actually remember anything from this prom, since my brain cells were being fried up in the heat of this gown. Despite its being lacy, there were layers and layers of it, all conspiring to envelope me in a sauna of my own doing. The day was hot. The day was humid. I couldn’t breathe and I’m pretty sure I ripped this thing off and stuffed it in the garbage when the night was over.

So what’s the consensus, people? Bride of Frankenstein or hot, hot hottie? Go ahead. I can take it.

Some of my favorite blogs are designed with white (or light) text on a dark background. There’s only one problem. I can’t read them.

Evidently I’m one of those people who finds the contrast straining on the eye. It’s OK for a minute or so, but if I’m reading a lengthy article, after a while my eyes get very tired and I have to stop.

Also, when I click onto another page, the image from the light-on-dark page remains, sort of like a picture negative.

So what do I do to keep reading those blogs? I created a little bookmarklet in my Firefox web browser that contains java script to swap the color contrast. When I click the button, light goes dark, and dark goes light. Ahhh! Much better.

The only problem is that I can’t find a way to do the same thing for my readers who use Internet Explorer. Believe me, I’ve tried. If anyone knows how to create a bookmarklet for java script, let me know and I’ll post it.

To create this bookmarklet in Firefox, make sure you have an active Bookmarks Toolbar. Click View > Toolbars and make sure Bookmarks Toolbar has a checkmark next to it. If not, click it and it’ll be activated.

Drag this link up to your Bookmark Toolbar and drop it there. It’ll create a button that you can rename if you want. Right-click the button, left-click Properties and in the Name field enter something like Switch Contrast or whatever you want to call it. Click OK.

Now when you visit a blog or web site that uses light text on a dark background, click that button and the colors will be inverted!

If you don’t have Firefox, you can get it here. I’m not a fan of Internet Explorer, so I take every chance I get to sing Firefox’s praises. If you need some help with this tip, drop a comment in the drawer or email me at kathyblog07 [at] gmail [dot] com and I’ll be happy to help you!

Post addendum: Whoops! I need to clarify that I did not write the java script. I created the bookmarklet from script I found on the web. I cannot properly credit the person who wrote it because there is no linkback to his site. All I know is his name is Robert. That’s all I could find at the site I found the script on. So, thanks Awesome Java Script-writing Robert Somebody. You’re saving our eyes!

Potato salad anyone? Today we have two new additions to the Food That Looks Like Stuff collection, submitted by a colleague whose husband thought she was nuts for photographing a heart-shaped potato. Until he found another one just like it and wanted to get in the game.

Here we have the first ever husband-and-wife team submission called Two of Hearts. Thanks Maryann and Frank!

When I saw I was getting potatoes that looked like stuff, I dusted off a potato picture of my own that I’ve been holding onto since Christmas. I wanted to submit it to the collection but couldn’t figure out what it looked like. I know it looks like something, but can’t place it.

Maybe my readers can help. Here it is.

I’m convinced this peeled potato resembles someone from children’s literature. It may be an animal. It may be a person. I enlisted the help of a librarian where I work, who also believes it looks like a character from literature. Along with the photo, I emailed her my description of who I think it is:

I believe it’s from a classic book and that the character I’m thinking of wears glasses. I see a short, stocky male character who is possibly also dim-witted.

Another colleague who reviewed the photo believes that the character is British and has small animal-like hands.

We have ruled out characters from Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit, as well as Mole from The Wind in the Willows. It helps to view this picture as a face that is gazing upward to your left and that its right eye is out of view.

In my mind’s eye, I see the character as having little or no neck. He speaks softly and may or may not wax philosophical. He is not the protagonist in the story, nor a foil. Although he may be of little brain, he is wise in a Winnie-the-Pooh kind of way.

If anyone recognizes who this might be, please cast your vote in the comments section. If you think I’ve finally lost my marbles, don’t bother telling me because I already know I have.

p.s. He was cut up into cubes and made a fine addition to our Christmas dinner. He didn’t scream at all.

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Humor-bloggers prefer french-fried potatoes.