Maybe This One Is Stretchy

No, random person at the gas station.  That pump’s hose isn’t longer than the other one


Well, depends on your margin for measurement error.  It's entirely possible that those types of things are not measured much down below the nearest centimeter or so.  With that, it's pretty much a guarantee that one is longer than the other...just not significantly so.  


While that's all very true, it certainly would not have helped with the situation I had the pleasure of witnessing recently.

So, not long ago, I needed to get gas for my car.  As I often do, I stopped off at the gas station that's on my way home from work.  It's convenient, the prices are usually totally decent, and they don't charge more for using a credit card, which is a rare and special gift in the Greater Jeremy Area.  It was also rush hour.  This means that the place was jam packed and I had to wait in line for a fuel pump.  No big deal.  I should mention at this point that in this station there are four fueling stations, roughly arranged in a square pattern, each of which can be accessed from either side, for a total of 8 available pumps. 

One of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind is that little arrow next to the fuel indicator in your car that tells you which side of the car the fuel door is on.  No matter how familiar you are with the car you happen to be driving at that particular time, you can very easily discern which side of a fuel pump you should be on in order to put gas in the car. 

Nobody explained this concept to the person in front of me in line for the fuel pump. 

This person pulls up to the pump and gets out of the car to begin pumping gas.  She takes the hose out of the holder and turns around to look at her car...unfortunately noticing that the inlet is on the other side.  Undeterred, she begins to walk around the back of the car, fuel hose in hand, attempting to reach the hose across the entire width of the car and dispense the gas on the opposite side.  Unfortunately for her, the hose was not long enough, and she was out of luck.  Putting the hose back into the pump's holder, she reenters the car to begin again. 

The following 30 seconds were the greatest moment of my week. 

She pulls her car directly forward to the more forward pump in the same line, with the car's gas cap STILL facing away from the pump.  She then exits the vehicle and takes the hose out of the second pump.  Walking across the back of the car, she attempts to reach the hose across the entire width of the car and dispense gas on the opposite side.  Shockingly enough, she failed the second time as well. 

HOW COULD YOU THINK THIS WAS GOING TO WORK?!  YOU'RE DRIVING THE SAME CAR, THE HOSE IS THE SAME, AND YOU'RE STILL FACING THE WRONG WAY!  OF COURSE IT WAS GOING TO BE TOO SHORT!  WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!?! 

Sadly, many of mankind's greatest inventions go unused due to people being unaware of their existence, stubbornness to admit that they did something wrong, and/or sheer rampant stupidity.  The poor little white arrow in this woman's car which faithfully shows which side the gas cap is on could only hopelessly point to the right while silently weeping.

It Was Early, Okay?

It’s remarkably difficult to find your ID badge when you’re holding your ID badge  

Those things are always in the last place you look.  

Very true...and when you've fooled yourself into not looking there, it turns into a problem.  

So, like many companies nowadays, to get into the building where I work, you need to scan a digital ID badge to unlock the door.  It's not a big deal, and it keeps things secure, so I'm okay with it.  I tend to keep my ID badge locked safely in the car so that it's always there for me when I get to work.  I take it out along with my laptop bag and I'm ready to start my workday.  See, if you forget your badge at home, you have to go to the security office, hope somebody is working there that day, show them your regular ID, get a temporary sticker badge that says you're allowed to go to work today, then stand by the door waiting for somebody to open it for you.  It's embarrassing, and people tend to make fun of your "badge of shame" throughout the day to add to the embarrassment.  It's the way things are.  

Not long ago, I had to run some errands after work, and in all of this fuss, I neglected to take my badge off and tuck it safely into the car.  So here I am, walking around a local store which carries supplies for your bedroom, bathroom, and perhaps other rooms of your house wearing my ID badge, my smiling face and company ID number looking back at everyone walking by.  I immediately became self-conscious about it and pulled off the lanyard to tuck it into the pocket of my jacket and saying to myself, "okay, self...remember to take it out of your pocket when you get back to the car."  I made two other stops on my journey that day, and after each one, to nobody's surprise whatsoever, I reminded myself that my badge was still in my pocket and not in the car.  I had to give myself at least three reminders to put my badge in the car.  

At some point, I did...and it was not memorable.  

Fast forward to today (which probably tells you all you need to know about when these errand adventures happened, but that's beside the point entirely), and here I am in the parking lot at work, getting ready to go into the office.  I grab my badge out of the car, retrieve my breakfast apple from the car's cup holder, pick the laptop bag off of the passenger's seat, and decide that I need to check my phone...I guess it beeped or something.  Badge and apple in one hand, I pull out my phone and scroll through phone stuff to my satisfaction, so now it's time to go inside.  

Badge and apple in one hand, I remember that the previous night, I had told myself to take my badge out of my jacket and put it in the car, ergo my badge must be in some unusual place.  Badge and apple in one hand, I search my jacket pocket for my badge to no avail.  Badge and apple in one hand, I search my car's storage location for my badge to no avail.  Badge and apple in one hand, I begin to wonder where I ended up putting my badge the previous night, pondering if I left it at home on the ledge where I tend to keep my keys and other gubbins.  Badge and apple in one hand, I begin to think about going over to the security office to collect my badge of shame so I can get into work.  Badge and apple in one hand, I set my laptop bag back down into the passenger seat.  Badge and apple in one hand, I start to put the apple back into the car's cup holder and notice that I have had my badge in my hand throughout this entire episode.  I decide I'm an idiot, collect the rest of my belongings and make my way inside. 

See Also: Lewis Black Horse Story

Ask me about my Slinky


I will do no such thing.  This sounds horrifying.  


It's really not.  It's just a whimsical story that I was reminded of recently.  Also, it's your job to set up these stories for me.


Fine, fine.  What's the deal with your Slinky?  Also, when do I get a raise?  


Well, strictly speaking, there's nothing all that noteworthy about my Slinky.  It's your standard issue metal Slinky...not like those crappy plastic ones that don't work...real old-fashioned Slinky.  But before I can tell you that story, I need to tell you this story:

I got ice cream. 

I originally asked for a strawberry sundae with chocolate chip ice cream.  Sounds delicious, right?  Of course it does.  The server goes to create my sundae and comes back a few moments later.  She says that they don't have any chocolate chip ice cream, but she can give me vanilla ice cream and put chocolate chips on it, asking if that would be okay. 

My brain completely shut down.

It's certainly a perfectly acceptable compromise (and one that I ultimately approved, by the way) but at the time it was proposed to me, I just couldn't deal with it.  It just made no sense that I would have to be asked this question since that's all that chocolate chip ice cream is...ice cream with chocolate chips in it.  It makes no difference if the chocolate chips are added at the factory, or at the ice cream stand.  At the same time, I understand that this is not strictly speaking what I had asked for, so the server wanted to clarify with me that I would be amenable.  Both of these thoughts were going through my head at the same moment, and I completely short-circuited...standing with a vacant look on my face for a second or two before mumbling something possibly resembling English with a head nod of affirmation.  My ice cream was ultimately delightful, and I even left my change in the tip jar. 

I had to then explain this story to the other folks I was with that day, and it reminded me of the Slinky story which is in the same vein, but far more amusing.

A while back, I decided that my office needed a Slinky.  I have no idea why I decided this, but that's what needed to happen.  As one is wont to do when in need of a Slinky, I went to the toy store in the local mall.  After wandering the store aimlessly in search of Slinkies, I finally notice a small box of them directly next to the cash register.  As in, the display was touching the cash register...could not fit a slinky in between the box of Slinkies and the physical box that is the cash register.  This point is important.  I walk up to the counter with arms 100% empty...I take a single Slinky from the display, move it no more than 9 inches to the side to place it on the counter for the cashier to ring it up.  The cashier picked up the Slinky, scanned it using the bar code reader on the cash register, looked me square in the eye and said the most amazing thing I've ever heard come out of a human being.  The cashier asked me, "Do you need any batteries?" 

My brain completely shut down. 

I spent time clarifying the location of the Slinky display to illustrate the point that my entire interaction with the cashier took place in the span of less than 12 inches, and involved a single motion of picking up a Slinky and placing it on the counter.  I had nothing else in my hands, was making no other purchases in the store, and had shown no interest whatsoever in any item other than the Slinky.  Why the cashier could have POSSIBLY thought I needed batteries to power a Slinky was a puzzle that my brain stumbled to piece together for, I am not making this up, a full five seconds. 

I'm normally at least fairly quick-witted, and have fun and sarcastic things to say when I'm presented an opportunity, but not in this case.  I completely forgot how to human right then as I contemplated the events that led to this question.  I stood there, with my mouth agape and probably drooling a little as I tried to formulate the correct answer to a question this mind-boggling.  Should I ask the cashier to check to the box to see what size battery the Slinky needed?  Should I explain wave physics and how it applies to Slinkies?  Should I ask why in the name of all things good and plenty I would need batteries for a Slinky?  Should I simply ask if the cashier even knew what the Slinky was, and why the question they had just asked was so unfathomable?  Or should I stand there for a full 5 seconds looking stupid, then mumble, "uhh....n...n...no?" before paying and walking out of the store, brain matter oozing from my ears? 

I'll let you decide which ending actually happened. 


On that note, Jeremy Is Is The Office will be Out Of The Office next week, returning on monday, August 8th with all new Instant Messenger goodness.  See you all then! 

Look! Down In The Pond! It's A Fish!

Apparently, birds and planes are noteworthy in Metropolis 

Today, Jeremy takes on the Man of Steel himself, Superman!  I don't know if he has kryptonite in his pants or something, but we'll all find out together.  

I don't really have a problem with Superman.  I mean, once you accept the fact that there's an alien who crash landed in middle America who derives great physical powers simply by virtue of the fact that the earth's sun is yellow, then you're already most of the way there.  Sure, there's some suspension of disbelief there, but it's a comic book, so we as a whole can be largely okay with that.  My problem lies with the people of Metropolis. 

Say it with me, folks..."Look!  Up in the sky!  It's a bird!  It's a plane!  It's SUPERMAN!"  

So, this phrase has become fairly quintessential Superman lore.  It originated in 1939 as the introduction to the radio program "The Adventures of Superman."  You've all heard it before, and didn't pay much attention to it because you knew full well it was merely a way to introduce Superman.  But let's actually think about what's being said here, shall we?  

"Look!  Up in the sky!  It's a bird!"  

Let's stop there, which is what the first speaking person did before being corrected by somebody else saying that it's a plane.  This is a remarkably stupid thing to say.  This person stopped whatever it was they were doing to force other people to stop whatever they were doing to look up into the sky because they saw a bird.  THAT'S WHERE BIRDS GO, IMBECILE!  Of course there are birds in the sky.  Where else are you supposed to put them?  They're birds...they fly.  Why is it so noteworthy that the skies over Metropolis contain a bird that somebody feels the need to point it out to me?  

"It's a plane!"  While also looking up at the sky.  This one may have made a little more sense in 1939, but not that much.  It's basically the same concept.  Planes go in the sky.  If you look up and see a plane, that's probably pretty standard fare these days, but flight was still somewhat newish in 1939.  Let's look at aviation in that age.  

The Wright Brothers' first flight was in 1903, so it's not as if airplanes were completely novel concepts.  Cell phones were first introduced to North America in 1983, so they've been around for around the same amount of time that air travel had been in 1939.  In 1983, if you saw somebody carrying around one of those Big Stupid-Looking Car Phones, it was a novelty.  Now, 33 years later, the only people who get a raised eyebrow out of you are people who don't have their own mobile phone with them at all times.  Similarly, if you saw an airplane in 1903, it was an experience.  36 years later, planes were more commonplace.  Commercial air travel had begun, Boeing introduced flight attendants in 1930, The DC made its debut in 1936, and 1.2 Million people per year flew on a commercial airliner by 1938.  So, in 1939, when Superman first hit the radio airwaves (Yes, the first comic book featuring Superman was in 1938, but we're not dealing with that right now, nor the fact that Superman's ability to actually fly didn't come about until later in the 1940s...he just jumped really high), it could not have been all that special to look up into the sky and see a plane.  

The people of Metropolis suck.

Don't Get Me Started On The Stupid Elf

If you ran a popular chain of coffee houses, would you pay somebody to fake lame outrage against you on social media?  

For those of you who have been living in a hole, over the last week or so, Facebook has erupted with people complaining about a popular chain of coffee restaurants who shall remain nameless until they decide to sponsor us.  The source of the consternation: Red cups.  

Yes, the simple fact that the coffee chain, who supplies millions upon millions of people of all races, genders, creeds, and intelligence levels has decided to use red cups made people throw a fit.  The reasoning, of course, is that the cups do not specifically call out Christmas during the "Holiday Season."  The whining has been incessant, with some national public figures even calling for a boycott of the popular java joint in protest of their "War on Christmas."  

This is lunacy.  

Part of the problem here is "Christmas Creep."  That the aforementioned "Holiday Season" now stretches from Mid-October until sometime in late January.  Christmas Proper takes up precisely one of these days, while other holidays, including (but certainly not limited to) Halloween, Thanksgiving, Veterans Day, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Years Eve, and New Years Day are also available within the time window.  For anyone to expect the world to appreciate Christmas, and exclusively Christmas, during this entire time is not only selfish, it's short-sighted, missing out on all the other wonderful holiday days that are included.  When the "Christmas Season" was confined to actually Christmas, Christmas Eve, and maybe 10 other days (According to the song), it would be a little more justified to decry the lack of "Christmas" references during that time.  But now that Christmas is three months long, it somewhat deserves to lose a little bit of its cachet.  It's a full quarter of the year, for crying in the sink.  You don't get to be that special.  

Yes, people are upset about the red cups that don't say "Merry Christmas."   I have a theory, which makes a lot more sense than somebody actually being offended by this perceived slight.  I believe that the popular coffee chain paid some person or small group of scattered people a mildly generous sum of money to go onto their social media and throw a world-class hissy over the lack of specific Christmas-related imagery on a piece of cardboard that will last about 30 seconds longer than the coffee that is placed into it.  Almost immediately, in the digital age, the outrage spreads like wildfire, with people vowing to start boycotting the coffee chain (which there's no way they'll actually do), and many many more rising to the defense of the coffee chain and taking up the coffee mantle by supporting the chain and buying their wares.  Millions of Facebook and Twitter messages, coverage in the media, non-stop publicity, millions more cups of coffee, and all for a small fee of paying a few people to pretend to care about the color of their cups.