Laff of the Day #6

I share an office phone with Joe the Banker. It's a pretty ghetto setup. One office, two phone lines, five people.

Also, our phones are just phones. They don't have speaker phone, mute, hold, voicemail or volume control. They look like this:

Technically if you turn the phone upside down there is a knob that you can slide to adjust the receiver volume. Or maybe it's the ringer volume.

Either way, the knob doesn't work.

Why don't we have modern day phone technology? It has something to do with the grinding bureaucracy we work for at NYU, and how it's also woven into the grinding bureaucracy of Bellevue Hospital.

Today someone called for me, and Joe the Banker picked up.

"Hello, Peds I.D.," he said. We work in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, or peds I.D. for short. And it's pronounced "peeds I.D."

"Sure, one moment," J-the-B said, and motioned for me to pick up the line on my phone. Yes, the old-fashioned one-phone, two-lines setup.

"This is Justina," I said. It was the other project coordinator, the Noob. She was giggling.

"Just...wanted...to...let...you...know," she gasped between giggles, "...you...forgot...to...include...an...attachment...with...your...last...email."

"I know, I'm sending it out again," I said. "And stop laughing at me. It's not funny."

"I'm...not...laughing...at...you," the Noob said, still giggling.

"Whatever. I'm resending the attachment," I said. I was sort of annoyed that she thought it was so funny that I had forgotten to attach a file to my email.

A few minutes later she emailed me the following note:

Sorry, I wasn't laughing about the attachment; I've done that a million times. I was laughing because the person who answered the phone said, 'Hello, this is P. Diddy.' 

Don't you have your own phone line?

---
And that's how Joe the Banker became P. Diddy.

Midwestern Hospitality

Spent the weekend in St Paul, MN for a Peace Corps friend’s wedding, mostly marveling at how nice all the people working in the service industry were. I expected everyone to be rude and abusive to me, and no one was, except this one lady at the open bar who growled, “NEXT ORDER!” without looking at me.

“Can I get another glass of the zin?” I said, pushing through the nasty the way I always do in New York.

She looked at me, startled, and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, honey. I was talking to my assistant back there. But here, let me go ahead and get that wine for you.”

Brad was standing next to me and said, “Well, in New York she would have been talking to you.”

I was also amazed at how many trees and other green things were growing all over the place, and how all the empty spaces in front of houses were real parking spots that no one needed because they had already found a parking spot.

And, I was amazed at how many fake blonde women there were, mainly middle-aged, using the same honey blonde shade of hair dye.

“I even noticed it on my flight into St. Paul,” I said. “All the flight attendants had the same color hair.”

“The fake blonde is not a Minnesota thing,” Tim said. “It’s a most of the rest of the country thing, except for New York and certain parts of California.”

“Really? Where have I been all this time?” I said.

“In New York and certain parts of California,” he said.

“I do remember bleached blonde hair being all the rage in Chicago back in the 90s,” I said. “But now it seems like the thing to do is be a dyed brunette with long straight hair.”

“Well, you’ll probably start seeing the brunette thing in the rest of the country in another 15 years, because that’s how long it takes for everyone else to catch on,” he said.

Fashion predictions from a water and sanitation engineer from Phoenix, ladies and gentlemen.

Having every single service industry person be totally nice, helpful and competent towards me, and every other person I met be friendly, made me realize that many New Yorkers are just not nice people. I mean, there’s really no excuse for that level of nasty, hateful abuse towards everyone around you when you don’t even know them. In fact, there’s no excuse for it when you do know someone. It doesn’t take any more brain cells or calories to be courteous, although most people who are distasteful are also able to spare a few thousand calories and not need a snack afterwards.

It is true, according to my Minnesotan friends, that Minnesotans and Midwesterners in general tend to be non-confrontational and polite, which I’m told leads to passive aggressiveness since it’s not natural to be that nice all the time.

It was my first trip to Minnesota and I definitely arrived with certain expectations of back-woodsiness. I’m not even sure why I came toting such strong biases. It might be because I’ve befriended quite a few Minnesotans and adopted-Minnesotans in the last five years or so. I felt a bit impatient with the lack of fresh vegetables and non-fried options on the menus, and assumed that the only beer on tap anywhere would be American mass-distributed brands like Bud and Coors. And well, those were on tap, but there were a few local microbrews as well.

I also noticed that so far Minneapolis has been spared the scourge of the skinny jeans fashion craze that is tragically sweeping New York City and traumatizing me and my disturbingly flat ass these days. And I’m referring to the women’s fashion. I doubt skinny jeans for men will ever make it to the Twin Cities, since the entire weekend I didn’t see a single gay man, which is only to say that I didn’t get out that much while I was there. But if I had traveled the same social trajectory in New York, more than half of them would have been gay and/or wearing skinny jeans.

So, thank you, Minnesota, for a wholesome Midwestern weekend full of reminders that the entire world is not New York, for good (mostly) and for bad (a teeny tiny bit).

New York Moments and Laff of the Day #5

Jetting over the amber waves of grain on my way to St Paul, MN.

Today has been a constant stream of examples of why New Yorkers should be banned from working in the service industry: They possess the evolutionarily impossible combination of incompetence and a nasty attitude, which you’d expect to eradicate itself from the gene pool by virtue of having no social or biological value. And yet, here we decent people are, putting up with this crap while Nature laughs in our face and spends eons trying to get it right.

I went to check in for my flight and there was no line at all. In fact, all of Terminal 4 at JFK was eerily empty except for rent-a-cops and a few people traveling to a Carribean destination. I had my choice of two equally bored-looking check-in counter staff, and chose the woman because she was young and pretty. Or maybe because the dude was young and ugly. How’s that for successful marketing by Sun Country Airlines?

Any evidence of prudent hiring ended there because the woman rolled her eyes at me when I approached, presumably because it meant she had to do her job. No smile, no fake greeting or fake wishes for a nice flight.

“How many bags are you checking today?” was the only thing she said to me, in the same voice that someone would use to say, “My brain seeped out of my ears years ago, and then I used it to make muffins for my neighbors so I’m incapable of feeling anything but entitlement and disdain.”

Peet’s Coffee in Terminal 4: I ordered a regular Earl Grey from two reasonably friendly baristas. My tea came in a paper cup placed inside another cup placed inside a third cup, which seemed like overkill protection against my burning my hands. She had also put one of those paper rings around the last cup, which sent the burn-fearing buffalo over the cliff's edge.

Then I realized that she had given me two teabags, which made me happy until I started sipping the bitter, tannic, acidic hot drink that would never burn my hands.

For a company that prides itself on being green, Peet's Coffee sure knows how to hire employees who mindlessly ignore their corporate values.

I passed a second Peet’s Coffee on the way to the gate, and stopped to ask for more hot water in my tea because it was too strong.

“Can I get a little more hot water in here?” I asked the barista, pointing to my cup. She stared at me with no smile, no reply, and no firing synapses. Then she dragged her inexplicably heavy yet empty soul to the pastry case, heaved her 1 lb arm with all her spiritual might, and pulled out a pastry for another customer.

After ringing up the other customer as fast as a snail might, she stared at me with the same slack-jawed, mouth-breathing look of hatred, which I had earlier mistaken for low IQ. I still didn’t know whether the answer to my question was yes or no, even after she took my cup from me.

“I’m too lazy and entitled to muster the brain cells to answer your question,” she pantomimed with her lack of a will to live.

After all this, I was left thinking, “Aren’t there health codes that say you’re not supposed to refill a customer’s already-used cup?”

Who knows. I could start an entire blog of stories of dismal customer service in New York. I could call it New York Moments.

There was the one time I was at that sock store on St. Marks Place. They have a huge variety of socks and other apparel for your feet, but everything is overpriced.

I asked the cashier if there were any discounts for buying several pairs at once.

The answer choices are:
a. Yes, or
b. No.

The cashier was a big, ugly, hairy bridge-and-tunnel-type, which is odd considering he works at a sock store on St. Marks, a block packed with touristy tattoo parlors, head shops and Japanese restaurants.

Anyway, the ugly cashier’s butt crack said, “GRUNT HSSSSSSSS.”

Then his ugly face got uglier as he scowled at me and said, “There are people who come in here and buy ten pairs of socks and never ask for a discount.”

So now a customer doesn’t even have the right to ask if a store policy exists that might encourage her to develop a favorable opinion of the business and perhaps come back and spend more money.

Instead, she gets grunted at by an ugly guy’s ass crack and then told to shut the hell up for trying to be a savvy customer in a store whose existence depends on people who are willing to shamelessly consume unnecessary products like overpriced socks.

Apparently this moronic business model works in New York.
---

Wow, I just came across this story:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/01/29/2009-01-29_nastiest_retailer_in_new_york_barks_at_c.html

Based on the article, this could be the same guy. But I'm not sure because I swear the one I talked to was older, fatter and even uglier than Marty Rosen. You'd have to show me a picture of his ugly grunting butt crack, then I could tell you.

Imagine, two nasty people working at one sock shop.
---

Laff of the Day #5, from Cindy with an S. "I was flying with a friend once and she fell asleep. They came by with snacks and left hers on her tray table. The cookies were so good that I decided to try to eat hers while she was sleeping. She’d never know the difference. But when I started reaching for her cookies she woke up.

Darn it! I wanted those cookies!”
---

Gypsy Cab Charm. “Where you come from, honey?” he asked.

“Texas,” I said. “You?”

“Bangladesh,” he said.

“Oh, where everyone got arsenic poisoning from contaminated wells all over the country thanks to the worst public health disaster in history,” I almost said, calling up the only thing I know about Bangladesh.

Instead I said, “Oh, nice.”

“I want move to Texas, start good business. My friend have gas station in Texas, make so much money,” he said.

“You don’t make good money driving cabs?”

“Ha! No, no money from this. I work so long, then go home and sleep, then go back to work,” he said. “No good money. You married?”

“No,” I said.

“Let’s go to Texas, you and me, start a business,” he said. ‘I’m not married, no girlfriend, no wife. Let’s go to Texas.”

“Oh, no that’s okay,” I said. I had better things to do, like slit my wrists.

“Think about it, honey,” he said.

I already had.

A Plug For My Friend On Savage Love

My friend Francisco co-hosted the relationship and dating advice show, Savage Love, today! He was so so so amazing. Check it out so you can say you knew someone who knew him when.

Listen to the show here (you'll need Quicktime).

Learn more about Francisco and his free advice Saturdays in Washington Square Park.

The blurb from host Dan Savage's website:

Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Episode 184

Today, Dan is joined by special guest expert Francisco Ramirez! Francisco dishes out free sex advice in Washington Square Park. Hear Dan and Fran double-team on your weekly dose of smut.

Click Here If You're Homophobic

I was posting some hepatitis screening events to a community calendar at work today, and came across a website for a program in Minneapolis that provides sexual health education and services for men who have sex with men.

The messages on the site are straightforward, sex positive and appropriately tailored to the target audience. But, there are notes all over the site implicitly apologizing for this content.

This site contains HIV and STD prevention messages, safer sex strategies, information about gay and bisexual men's health, harm reduction strategies around meth, and images that may not be appropriate for all audiences. Not seeking such information? [Click here to] exit this site.

"They just mean, exit here if you're homophobic," my officemate Joe the Banker said.

And I think J-the-B pretty  much summed it up. The people who designed the site were so worried about offending the sensibilities of intolerant hetero-centrics that they felt compelled to put up signs all over the place.

Why disguise it? They should write something like, "Warning: This website will remind you how terrified you are of gay people."

The program is in Minneapolis, which (I'm told by Minnesotans) is an oasis of liberal white thought in an otherwise conservative, windswept Midwestern wasteland. So maybe that warning could say: "This website will remind you that you are blissfully engulfed in a world of white heterosexuals who think they're tolerant about diversity because they've never actually encountered diversity."

But that's just me being judgmental and sanctimonious. Back to the rant at hand.

The site, and the program itself, delivers fact-based messages that de-stigmatize non-boring, non-Biblically-defined, non sexually-repressed-WASPs-in-missionary-position sex. It candidly discusses the risks of sexually transmitted diseases for people who practice any type of interesting sex. For example:

HIV isn't magical (thankfully)... we know exactly how it is spread! Unprotected anal sex (both top and bottom) and sharing needles continue to fuel the HIV epidemic in our community.

But then they undo all their normalization by putting up a bunch of links that let you exit the site while you still have the chance to save your soul. To me, it says that they're not really that comfortable with their own messaging.

This is in the footer on every page: This site contains HIV prevention messages, strategies around safer sex, and information about gay and bisexual men's health. If you are not seeking this information, click here to exit this site. 

On another page they write: DISCLAIMER: If you are not seeking information or images about safer sex, gay and bisexual men's health and other material that may not be suitable for all audiences, please exit this site.

A disclaimer is a statement renouncing responsibility for something. In this case they seem to be saying, look, we're giving you all these chances to avoid seeing things that will potentially offend you, so don't blame us, because we told you so.

By acknowledging that the content is offensive to some people, even if those people are prudish bigots, they are implying that yes, pictures of hot men showing affection for each other, or a shirtless dude with a six-pack pulling on his pants waist to look down his boxers, should be considered offensive.

Hold up, cowboy. Let's do a Find and Replace on that last paragraph.

"By acknowledging that the content is offensive to some people, even if those people are prudish bigots, they are implying that yes, pictures of hot women showing affection for each other, or a topless woman with a gigantic rack pulling down her pants to reveal her hot pink thong, should be considered offensive."

What? That made no sense whatsoever. Certainly no one would ever disclaim that it may not be suitable for all audiences. Audiences have to put up with that stuff all the time. So stop apologizing for images that a few frat boys are going to find too homoerotic to handle.

---
Click here if you're homophobic: http://www.himprogram.org. Hell, click here even if you're not.

Duped, New York Style

This is the last time I'll talk about Megan and the douchebag in Madison Square Park. Why? Because my friend's theory is that the whole thing was a viral marketing stunt. It makes sense. She said she saw him yesterday too, but during lunch. As she pointed out, there was something just a little too polished about the guy. And something a little too big about the sign. Plus, who stands outside ALL DAY in a suit like that?

Well, I fell for it. I told at least three people about it, and I blogged about it. Fortunately less than ten people read my blog.

Glad I didn't take a picture.

The Scarlet Letter, New York Style

I saw this dude standing in front of Madison Square Park today, wearing a giant handwritten sign that said, "I WAS VERBALLY ABUSIVE. I'M SORRY, MEGAN." He was a total Wall Street suit, about 30 years old, probably Ivy League educated, and had a grim look on his face.

I'm totally kicking myself for not snapping a picture of him with my camera phone. In fact, half a block later I had already reconstructed the conversation I would have had if I had pulled out my camera.

"No, bitch, you can't take my picture."

"You were verbally abusive. You don't get to choose."

"Don't take my picture."

"Whatever, douchebag. Say cheese!"

Instead, I tried not to make eye contact and kept walking. This Hispanic dude walking in front of me turned to his female companion and was like, "Hahahahaha! That guy's a fucking pussy!"

I told my friend about the suit with the sign, and she said, "I sort of like his girlfriend."

Then she thought about it and said, "His girlfriend sounds abusive too, for making him stand there with that sign."

Who can say how that numbnut ended up there on a Friday evening wearing that giant sign? Maybe his girlfriend forced him to do it. Maybe he decided to do it as a surprise for her, to prove how sorry he really is.

I've been in abusive relationships. Standing in Madison Square Park like Hester Prynne doesn't cure an abuser of his abusive behavior. It's just part of the cycle of violence.

He was probably like, "**!#$$!! YOU #!!**$$ MOTHER#@$$!@#@!! IF YOU EVER #@@$!!!** I'LL @#$@!!! YOUR $##@$$!***#@ #@**!! LIKE !@**#@@@#!! SO DON'T YOU EVER @@*&#&$%%!! AGAIN @!**#@@%#$!"

And in the next breath, after she stormed out and slammed the door, he probably pulled out the permanent market and poster board and started hatching a plan to win her back and prove that this time he's really sorry.

For a few seconds I felt embarrassed for him, that he was willing to humiliate himself to win back this Megan person. Then I hated him, for being so ignorant and lazy that he thought he all it took was a shallow stunt.

Changing abusive behaviors is a lifelong commitment to self-awareness, humility and personal improvement. Most people fail.

Certainly in my lifetime I will never stop being a hopeless procrastinator. And that is so much less complicated than the terror, insecurity and desperate need to control others that abusers contend with.

I hope Megan knows better. I hope Megan dumps his retarded ass. Even in New York, there are better men out there.

Food Porn Chronicles: Tour of Asia

It was a long weekend of fun and sun, cherry blossoms and Brooklyn Bridge strolls, and battles between winter and spring wardrobes. Mostly it was out of doors and out of the house, in a warm restaurant or in someone else's house.

Now Tuesday so soon? I decided to take it easy tonight, stick my head in the fridge and get reacquainted with the inhabitants. Urgently seeking care: one large chicken breast and a pound of okra, starting to bruise.

I whipped up a Thai basil chicken recipe I learned from Noi, my language teacher in Mahachai. I still can't get it to stop tasting more Chinese than Thai, though. See the recipe below.

Gra-Pow Gai (Thai basil chicken)

1 large chicken breast, sliced thin OR 1/2 lb ground chicken
1 1/2 T fish sauce
1/4 t baking soda
corn oil OR peanut oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1-2 Thai chili peppers, finely chopped 
1 small onion, chopped OR 3 shallots, chopped
1/2 bunch basil leaves, coarsely chopped (I used sweet basil but holy basil or Thai basil is more authentic)
1 T soy sauce

Marinate chicken in baking soda and 1 T fish sauce. Mix well and set aside for 10-30 minutes, or cover and store overnight in fridge. In a large pan, heat oil. Add garlic and stir for 1 minute. Add chili and onions, cook until onions begin to turn clear. Add chicken. Cook until almost done. Add basil, cook for 1 minute. Add soy sauce and fish sauce, cook for another minute. Serve over rice.

Here is a very similar recipe with better pictures: http://rasamalaysia.com/thai-basil-chicken-recipe-gai-pad-krapow/. "Gai pad gra-pow" just means stir fried chicken with basil, same thing as saying "gra-pow gai" when ordering it from a street cart.
----

Next food resuscitation: Okra. A few months ago I discovered this lovely Pakistani hole in the wall called Haandi on Lexington and 28th, near work. Someone told me it's where all the cab drivers eat lunch. I'm not sure about that, but the food is great and the Bollywood videos are always ridiculous, even if sometimes you'll catch a customer using the communal spoon to eat straight out of the bowl of mukhwas.

Anyway, their okra curry is amazing, and I was inspired to try to replicate it at home. Unfortunately, the inspiration had dwindled to almost nothing by today, and my greatest accomplishment was rounding up every Indian spice I could find in my pantry to throw into the dish. Voila! Meet my recipe for Okra With Insufficient Combinations of Indian Spices, which is nothing like the okra curry at Haandi.

Okra With Insufficient Combinations of Indian Spices

1/2 lb fresh okra
1 T whole mustard seeds
1 small onion, diced
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 in piece of ginger, minced
1 fresh chili, sliced
1 tomato, sliced
1 T curry powder
1 T roommate's mystery yellow powder (Justina's diagnosis: coriander powder)
salt
black pepper

The secret to cooking okra, I learned after googling 20 bhindi masala (okra curry) recipes, is to pat them dry with a paper towel after washing them. They need to be really dry before slicing and cooking, because water makes the gooey stuff inside even gooier. And now, off we go, a-currying okra.

Wash okra and pat dry. Even better, lay them on a dishtowel and allow to air dry for 30 minutes. Trim off the top, then slice each piece of okra lengthwise. Heat oil in a large pan. Add mustard seeds and cook on high for 1 minute. Add garlic, ginger, onion and chili. Cook until onion begins to turn clear. Add okra. Cook uncovered for 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Add tomato, salt and pepper. Stir and cover for 2 minutes. Stir again and cover for another 3 minutes. Add curry and coriander powder. Stir and cover. Allow to simmer another 5 minutes or until okra reaches desired consistency. Serve with rice or naan (you're on your own for that recipe).

---
And finally, Vietnamese spring rolls, artfully and awkwardly hand rolled by yours truly and my friend Kumiko last week, after we finished our taxes. All I can tell you without a video is what to put inside.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

2 lbs shrimp, peeled, deveined and boiled
1 pkg rice stick, soaked in warm water until soft
1 lb bean sprouts
1 head green or red leaf lettuce
1 small bunch chinese chives
mint leaves
1 pkg rice paper wrappers

Dipping sauce:
Mix together 2 parts hoisin sauce to 1 part peanut butter. Serve separately with Vietnamese chili sauce (sambal oelek).

Take your pick of spring roll Youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfI1wMeDXhg&feature=related, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw-7pYq7wSc

Facebook Flashback

A Kenyan friend found me on Facebook last week. His name is Paul and he was my tour guide when I went on safari in the Masai Mara in 2006. A Finnish travel writer friend had introduced us before I arrived in Kenya, and at the time I thought Paul was the last Kenyan tour guide on earth. So I promised that I would hire him as a guide during my stay in Kenya.

Anyway, I accepted Paul's Facebook friend request last week, and posted a message on his wall a few days ago. I wrote it in Swahili because I still like to be an annoying showoff sometimes.

"How are you, Bwana? It has been a long time. Greetings from New York. Have you been getting lots of work? I'm sure you will, God willing. Greet your family for me."

A few days later I got a reply from him. It was written in English.

"Am expecting you to give me some businees.I dont have much work to do.Recomend me to your friends.Am doing well though .What of you?"

Normally I'd be happy to hear that a friend from the past is doing well. But all I could think was, he's expecting me to give him business? And not just any business, but "businees." I have not been in contact with this person in over 3 years and the first thing he says to me is, "You owe me something, and I'm entitled to it."

Everything irritating about being a foreigner in Kenya came rushing back to me, especially those 2 seconds after hearing something like, "You give me your laptop when you leave Kenya," or "What did you bring me from Nairobi?," or "Mzungu, why can't you give us something?"

I started banging out a pissy reply to Paul. "The reason you don't have business is because you expect other people to give it to you instead of getting it for yourself. Your business is in Kenya, not in the US, so go out and find it."

I read it over about 15 times. Then I canceled it. Was it really worth getting the last word and putting him in his place? Not to mention sounding like a complete colonialist pig. I wasn't going to singlehandedly reverse decades of a culture of donor mentality that is still being reinforced daily.

Who knows, maybe in Kenyan English, the phrase "Am expecting you to..." has a less entitled and bossy tone than in American English. What point was I trying to make, anyway? That I'm not like every other foreigner who is too nice or too soft-hearted to say no, or too rich to care? That he needs to learn about the naive Protestant myth that hard work, honesty and determination always leads to success, because Kenya is actually a meritocracy?

I've made it all the way to the three-year memory-softening mark in my post-Kenya life, but the crazy-making brain spinning has managed to start all over again. This stuff never leaves you. I have made peace with much of the anger and sadness that Kenya painted on my heart, and have embraced the densely imperfect beauty of the country, the culture and the people. I love that part of me that is Kenya and all the experiences and malaria meds that made me the slightly dizzy person with spotty short term memory that I am today.

But this. Damn you, Paul.
---

After the Masai Mara trip, I met Paul in a cafe in Nairobi to sort out some residual business. We ran into some other Peace Corps volunteers at the cafe, and they joined us at our table. They were two women, whom I will call Jay and May.

Paul tried to make small talk but they weren't interested in having a Kenyan conversation. "Where do you come from? What crops do you grow in your country? Have you eaten our ugali? Jambo. This means hello in our language."

Jay and May rolled their eyes and barely acknowledged Paul's elementary tutorial that seemed so inane and patronizing to us after 18 months in Kenya. I understood where they were coming from, but I was annoyed that they were being rude and short with him.

"Have you climbed Mt. Kenya?" Paul asked. "It's very difficult. You will lose a lot of weight."

He turned to May and said, "At least 2 kilos."

Then he turned to overweight Jay, looked her up and down, and said with a kindly smile, "And you -- you will lose at least 4 kilos."

I had to laugh. Jay's head bloated with anger like a balloon, but didn't explode. We all knew that being told that you were fat by a Kenyan was a compliment, but it didn't matter to her that day. Jay had all the information she needed to hate him.
---

A few months later I got an email from Paul. He said that he had noticed that my friends were angry with him that day at the cafe, and asked if it was rude in American culture to tell a woman that she's fat. And, more importantly, he wanted to learn more about our strange cultural norms surrounding body weight so that he wouldn't offend other foreigners.

It was one of the most culturally insightful observations that any Kenyan friend had ever made to me. I wasn't particularly impressed with Paul as a tour guide. One night during our safari, he disappeared without explanation for an entire evening, and we suspected he had been drinking at another safari lodge -- one that we couldn't afford on our travel budget. Nothing inherently wrong with unwinding after a long day, but why weren't we told his whereabouts and how to reach him if we needed something? You can't leave delicious foreigners unattended on the carnivorous African savannah.

And I'm still irritated that Paul's most recent Facebook message couldn't do better than play into my negative stereotypes of Kenyans.

It was only when I sat down to write this post today that I remembered Paul's email asking about American ideas on obesity. It's a good reminder that while I may be repeatedly disappointed when my own stereotypes about people reside in truth, no stereotype is the full picture.

Obvious, and yet still humbling.
---
"I've always wanted to have a dog and name it Bear. Because then I'd make it watch the Discovery Channel and see if it had an identity crisis from hearing stuff like, 'The bear eats mainly berries and other fruits of the forest. It does not eat meat, but will become aggressive towards humans if threatened.' " - Cindy with an S

Laff of the Day #4

"It really annoys me when someone snores," said my officemate Cindy with an S. "One time my ex-boyfriend was lying on his back snoring next to me, and I was so annoyed about it that I shoved his head to get him to stop."

"Except that I pushed really hard, and his whole head flopped to the side."

"He didn't wake up."

"I thought I had snapped his neck."

"So I got really worried that maybe I had killed him."

"And I started checking his neck for a pulse."

"And I couldn't find one!"

"So I checked his wrists."

"And finally found one."

"I guess I didn't kill my boyfriend after all."
----

Another story by Cindy with an S

"I love the end pieces on a loaf of bread."

"Yesterday I was at the store buying bread. I was hungry so I opened the bag and ate the end piece, then closed the bag and put the rest in my cart."

"I kept shopping for awhile and forgot about it."

"Then I was going to check out, and I looked down at my cart and realized that my bread had no end piece."

"I was like, that's weird, there's no end piece on this bread. I better go back and get another one."

"So I went back to the bread aisle and put my defective loaf back and got one with an end piece."


"Then I got home and I was like, oh, I ate that end piece!"
----

How to spell Cindy with an S

"When I'm on the phone with customer service or whatever and they ask for my name, I say Cindy with an S."

"And people are always like, where does the S go?"