Commuter Communication

I have a forty-minute commute to teach.  Forty minutes.  That's one way, against the flow of traffic, assuming there are no major sporting events happening downtown.  Needless to say, I have lots of time to think in the car.

Sure, sometimes I think about my lesson plans and what we're going to do in class that day.  Sometimes I might think of blog posts or other pieces of brilliance.  But most of the time, it's pretty random.  I've even startled myself with some of the randomness of it all.

For example, what started out as thinking of class discussions...

Lysistrata ==> wordplay, sexual puns ==> double entrendre ==> entendre is French for "listen," so a "double entendre" means to listen twice ==> J'entends, tu entends, il/elle/on entend, nous entendons, vous entendez, ils entendent.

Holy crap, I remember how to conjugate entendre!  I haven't had French since high school.

The rest of the time it's not nearly as interesting; more along the lines of

Traffic.
Traffic.
Traffic.
I'm hungry. Do I have snacks in the car? Fuck, are we stopping? What happens if my blood sugar drops on the highway. Does that count as a medical emergency? "Cause of crash: lack of snacks."
Traffic.
Traffic.
Traffic.
I have to pee. I have to pee really badly. Why didn't I pee before I left??
Fuck you, other car!
I REALLY have to pee. Maybe I should wear Depends in the car like that crazy NASA woman who went on the stalker road trip. I don't understand how people can do that. I REALLY have to pee, but I don't think I could just make myself pee in the car, even if I was wearing Depends.
Traffic.
Traffic.
Like that one time we were at the lake and -- FUCK YOU!
I really had to pee then, too, but it was hard to make myself pee in the lake while treading water so I didn't drown. How many times have I almost drowned? Two, I think. Maybe three.  Is it any wonder I don't go swimming?
Traffic.
Are we seriously stopping again? Why can't I just fly home? Like in a tiny --
DOUCHEBAG!
Douchebag. Douchebag. Douchebag.
-- airplane. 

I've also been lucky enough to see some strange and interesting sights on my daily commutes, including but not limited to:

• A bright green Ford Mustang with the license plate G-LNTERN
• An SUV with the license plate TA2D UP
• A sobriety test happening at 2:30 in the afternoon -- well done, madam!
• What I thought were two people having sex on a motorcycle (they weren't).
•  The shadow of an airplane overhead during which time I had a Skyrim flashback, and I seriously thought it was a dragon (it wasn't).

And just think:  I get to do this approximately ninety more times before the end of the semester.  Yay me!

(Image courtesy of ICanHasCheezburger.com)

Throwback Thursday: A History Lesson

From the blog annals comes one of my favorite pieces, "The True Story Behind the Pyramids."

(Tiny ugly baby kitty picture courtesy of Wikipedia)

From the people who brought you "Smutty Kitchen Talk" and "Suggestive Non-Sequitor Day*," we present "The True History of the Egyptian Pyramids."

The Unit and I were lying in bed one evening when she started "angry humping" my leg. "Angry humping" devolved out of a completely different conversation, but involves fast ("angry") pelvic thrusts against an object one would not normally "hump," such as my leg or a chair, unless one were a dog. She then put a very cold hand under my shirt on my bare skin, at which point I complained: "I don't recall ordering any angry humping, let alone cold angry humping."

Unit: "That's what my receipt says."

Me: "Really."

Unit: "Yes. 'Please deliver one angry humping. P.S. Please add cold.'"

Me: "And who signed this alleged receipt?"

Unit: "Jack-Jack and Poe."

Me: "And may I see this alleged receipt signed by the cats?"

Unit: "Well, you could, but you wouldn't be able to read it. They wrote it in their old language, a combination of pawprints and symbols."

Me: "Like hieroglyphics?"

Unit: "Well, cat-a-glyphics, yes. Because you know that the Egyptian pyramids weren't built by humans."

Me: "Of course not. They were built by aliens. Everyone knows that. Didn't you watch Stargate?"

Unit: "No, they were built by cats. Well, by slave-cats. The royal cats (from whom Jack-Jack is descended) ordered the slave-cats to build the pyramids. Slave-cats were the hairless cats; they were hairless because they were out in the sun in the desert all the time."

Me: "Slave-cats...?"

Unit: "And all the mice were slaves, too. Of course."

Me: "Of course. So there were some royal cats, and some slave-cats, and some slave-mice. And the slave-cats and slave-mice dragged the blocks out in the desert to build the pyramids. Were there any free mice?"

Unit: "No, but that does bring up the subject of the Micesons."

Me: "The (snicker) Free Micesons?"

Unit: "Exactly. But most cats don't believe in them."

Me: "It's just a cat-spiracy theory."

What you have to know is about the time we got to "the Free Micesons," we were both laughing so hard (in bed) that we were crying. After that we started coming up with definitions for words, along the lines of "cat-spiracy." I can't remember what the definitions were, but I believe we had "catapult," "catalogue," and "catastrophe."

So there you have it. The TRUE history of the Egyptian pyramids. The recent unrest in Egypt has, of course, been very upsetting for Jack-Jack since it's her country of origin, being descended from royal cats as she is. She's very grateful that Mubarak has stepped down. Poe-Poe, being the black cat of the family, does believe in the Free Micesons (did you know you can find evidence of them in the hundred dollar bill??), much to the shame of his mother. It's a very sore subject, so please don't bring it up.

*SN-S Day went something like this: "Dammit, a spice jar just broke! There's cumin all over the counter."
"That's what you get for putting on underwear!"

Follow up:  The original "History" was posted in February of 2011, and sadly, the facts about Egyptian unrest, riots, and political problems are still relevant over two years later.