Kleptomania

I never really thought of myself as a criminal. When I glance around my apartment and see piles of pens, plastic silverware, paper, and a couple towels with a company logo on them I consider it more evidence of employment than anything else. It gave me a moment to think. Clearly, insignificant sundry items are of great value to me. The very thought of going out and buying 200 pieces of my own plastic cutlery for 3 dollars is abhorrent enough to merit lifting some from gym "Merry Wife." (The name has been heavily encoded for super secret protection) If two companies were recruiting me and one offered me a free lunch every Friday, I can guarantee which company I would choose. If ever I set down the shackles of apathy and start my own gym or business, first on the docket will be to give everyone a pen with a unique color and their name engraved on it. Likely it will cut down on 'missing pens' by a factor of 7000. It will also allow me to track whoever has been jamming my suggestion box with comment cards claiming 'everyone in the gym wants a ping pong table.'

I have been conducting a small experiment at work. When I see a hot girl working out (between the ages of 18 and 30) I reroute my 'talking to customer' circuit to include her. I then begin a harmless and noninvasive conversation and take note of how much time elapses before she brings up the fact that she has a boyfriend. Mixed results so far. Two women have gone out of their way to bring it up in the first sentence. Others have been a little more tactful but so far every one of my 10 or so encounters have ended with some mention of a significant other. (Ended might be the wrong choice of words. I don't leave as soon as I hear the word boyfriend. I simply stop paying attention...you know...since SCIENTIFICALLY the conversation is over)

Now granted, I need to broaden my sample size but the initial results have me believing that every hot girl in that age group has a boyfriend. Theoretically, that is possible. Also possible, they are lying. Why would they lie? Do they think that I stole a "Merry Wife" uniform? Do they honestly believe I just talked to 5 other people as a ruse, trying to lull them into a false sense of security? If at a bar, fine, i'll grant that as an acceptable defense mechanism. But while i'm at work?! Come on. Clearly I am missing something here. It would be fun to spend a day inside the head of a hot girl. Life must be so....real. Getting free food, smiles, waves, tons of facebook friend invites for 'seemingly no reason' must make life wonderful. Then the terrifying moment when someone over 200 lbs approaches. It must be similar to a deer looking up and seeing a bear lurch drunkenly into a clearing. Danger is afoot and they need to get out. Quick, mention a bear you are currently dating. The strange new bear slowly loses interest and backs away. Crisis averted.

Undirected thoughts

1. My process of completely assimilating a song has nearly formulaic in nature. I'll be living my life, as normally as I usually do, when I see something very obscure that reminds me of a song I heard on the radio. Or it will be something overt like a todaysbigthing video of a bunch of tough guys singing Savage Garden. Most recently it was Savage Garden. The stimulus is now planted. This song will be in my head for the next two days and I won't mind much...it's a catchy song. A few days pass. The song is still in my head and I have started to hate it until I want to bulldog the next person that says any variation of the words "truly, madly, deeply". A few more days pass. The anger fades. I hear the song on the radio and realize I have acted rashly. I now "buy" it on limewire and Savage Garden comes to their final resting place on the "good singles" playlist in my itunes.

2. If life operated as a mortal kombat tournament in a parallel universe Mike would be that universe's equivalent to Shang Tsung. The caveat being instead of killing your opponent you had to defeat them a pointless argument. There wouldn't be health bars, but 'soul bars.' You would lose when your will was crushed. Mike-Shang Tsung's fatality would be causing his opponent to break down into tears and then yell uncontrollably as he/she rushes into oncoming traffic.

3. Kudos to facebook for finally making it easier to delete friends. Double kudos to Megan for showing me how to do it. Too long have these freeloaders I met one time been claiming to be my friend. An internet rapture is looming and all those unworthy will be left behind in an apocalypse of chaos.