A Bottled Devil

I am sleeping deeply in all the blessed oblivion I have earned by long, late hours of watching movies. My dreams are as captivating as they are surreal; they even have butterflies in them. My blankets are warm, my mattress is soft, and my pillow is just cushy enough. In a word, I am in paradise.

Suddenly, every ounce of serenity is gone. In a magnificent jolt, my toes go taut, my hair raises, and my eyes spring wide open. On the table, not a foot from my bed, is a shrieking ghoul that I am powerless to stop. Shriek! Brinnnnngggg! It’s the kind of high-pitched cross between a wildcat’s scream and the cranking of broken machinery that every diabolical two-year-old longs for. It sounds exactly like (forgive me, gentle readers) a bottled devil.

Perhaps you have heard such phones. Sometimes, on more peaceful occasions, I like to daydream about maniac geniuses who sit around in antiseptic, sound-proof labs and concoct rings. I am sure there are some humane, intelligent, sensitive creatures among them. They are the ones who make sissy rings like “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” (Try saying that three times fast. Heck, try saying it one time slow!) or “Für Elise.” But there are other brawny giants who grin evil smiles through broken teeth, pull their ear-muffs tighter, and apply themselves gustily to creating instruments of torture.

“Well Todd, what do you think of this one?”

“I don’t know Bill. The little white rat in the box can still walk. Why don’t you add a few more jolts of that really dissonant tone?”

“Great idea. The fella can’t even open its eyes anymore!” Todd's evil laugh sits dead in the air like an insensitive remark.

You would think, in a day when cell phones are ubiquitous and new ring tones rarely cost more than seventy dollars or so apiece, that there would be no need to endure such aural agonies. After all, there's always a sissy tone available. But that, dear reader, would be an underestimation of human innovation. There are raving lunatics in the world who find every misery they deserve and heap it upon not only themselves, but their friends as well. They connive in back rooms and plot methods to torture the human ear. Yes, these misanthropes are a wretched lot, and you should do your best to avoid us. Yes, us.

Take, for example, me and a recent conference: I attend a conference with my parents and friends. The friends decide to do uncool things. The parents leave to watch boring workshops. I go to look at exciting vendor displays. The friends wouldn’t notice if I got eaten by a vendor monster, but the parents like to keep in touch. They call to check on me. I, having carefully set the phone’s mode to “normal,” ought to hear the ringer, but I don’t. They call again, I miss the call, and they conclude that I have been eaten by a vendor monster. Pretty soon I hear my name on the loudspeakers, on the list of casualties. Apparently, I am dead to the public address announcer.

So I do what any moron would do. I scroll through my ringtones and choose the loudest, most obnoxious ring I can find, one of those metallic nightmares that sound like a phone from the thirties. (People in the thirties must have been rather deaf, both as a cause and an effect of such ringtones.) Now when my phone rings, I feel like the frazzled executive in Spiderman 3 whose wife had a secretary vibrate his desk with a buzzer every time he got excited. A call comes in and—Brinnggg!—there is a bottled devil in my own pocket. I smile nonchalantly and check the caller ID. My friends gape wide-eyed and smooth their hair back down from its newly acquired upright posture. At this point, my friends would notice if I got eaten by a vendor monster. In fact, they would probably hold a party of celebration—provided the phone got eaten as well.

Caffeinated Pyramid

Starbucks coffee shops are always bustling with activity during the morning rush. Upper to middle class Americans and the college students who are consumption smoothing on little or no income and hope to someday be upper class Americans run in and out of the store picking up their wake-up Joe.

Generally you can predict a patron's beverage choice before they order. The older woman in the Christmas sweater gets a cappuccino and the too-thin tech geek grabs a tea with an oriental name. A young woman in modest but zippy attire gets a skinny latte and a burly man with rough hands orders his mug refilled with black or "unleaded" coffee.

The other day I was one of those people. Life was moving along a little too quickly and Starbucks seemed like just the thing to slow it down. I left home a few minutes early and stopped in at the Java stop that never stops.

I found my place in line in front of an overeducated and overworked Latina woman and behind a slightly overweight gentlemen who wore too tight pants and an orange leather jacket that could best be described as foppish. The Latina woman would get an iced doubleshot and a scone; the fop was a wildcard since he never ordered the same drink twice. The day's "suggestion" - a cranberry mocha beverage that was blood read in its menu representation - was a likely bet.

My turn came and I placed my order. If you've ever been to Starbucks with me you probably know what it was since my coffee tastes have changed little in two years of regular consumption. Feel free to guess in the comment section if that toots your flute.

Receipt in hand, I marched over to a second line to await my drink. That's when I noticed The Pyramid.

I've heard mention of different body types. In one of the not-to-recently passed decades, it was in vogue to debate and label people's shapes: she's a pear; she's an apple. We've probably at least heard that before, even if we didn't understand it or approve. The woman in front of me in the to-receive line broke all of those stereotypes. She was not a pear...and she was certainly not an apple. Tall, triangular and a giant three-dimensional arrow, I think she could best be described as a pyramid.

But what would this monster of a woman drink? My eyes searched the menu quickly, looking for any Mrs. size drinks or a taste that would appeal to the plus size. Starbucks prides itself on a svelte and posh appearance and none of the drink titles seemed to appeal to "bigger" appetites.

That's just another of the many differences between Starbucks and Burger King.

When the drink arrived and was announced by the green-aproned employee, a shocked quiet came over the hustle of blenders and quiet chatting of busy people. Even the music seemed more hushed. Her order: A venti (no surprise) Java Chip Frappuccino (okay...) with six shots.

Six shots.

Mille milliards de mille sabords! That would keep me up 'till Christmas, but it was her morning fix? How had she acquired such a resistance? What did she do when she needed to stay awake at night?

The Pyramid shuffled over to the drink table and picked up her order. Then she took a sip. As the liquid demise poured through her being, her imposing figure palpitated and I could actually see her heart beating more quickly beneath her stylish blouse. Her poor heart!

Then it hit me like those Gatorade showers players give their coach after a championship: that would be me in a few years. Sure, I could maintain some semblance of expected human form for a little while, but my poor alimentary and physical habits will eventually catch up to me and I will be the sniveling intellectual waiting in line to treat my addiction. I might even be a pyramid. For a moment I was worried. Then my drink was called and all thoughts of the line were erased by the cool refreshing taste of my favorite beverage.

Good Morning!

I don't have any right to complain. My misery is entirely self-imposed and it would be disingenuous to wax sentimental about my plight. Did I just use the conditional? Let me rephrase with more accurate grammar: I will be disingenuous as I wax sentimental about my plight.

Evenings are a soft landing. You can miss your bedtime by an hour or two and pay no immediate price. Sleep isn't like mom in that it forgives easily when you don't call. Mornings, on the other hand, are harsh. Commitments made at a less sober time can be pressing and the snooze button only provides so much relief. The light outside only gets brighter as the reality of life's travails dawn with the new day. Mornings are a daily Monday; a regular reminder of the curse of time.

Then there is the bed. Beds are like relationships in that they are really easy to get into but terribly hard to get out of. I've invested quite a bit into making my bed a hospitable place to rest and recharge. I've got a firm mattress, a pillow and I even washed my sheets once. Getting out means leaving behind a cardinal comfort. If you're a heavy guy like me, your body creates a form-fitting mold in the mattress that is so inviting, you'd listen to Nancy Pelosi if it meant curling up inside.

Anyone who is cheerful in the morning be cursed. Smiling within two hours of waking up is like cracking a joke at a funeral. Coup de don't do that. Whilst the normal world is wiping the sleepies out of our eyes, you have to be a danged whippoorwill. Why weren't you so much fun last night?

But mornings can be cheated. At least, that's what I told myself three days ago, when made a soft landing on my evening and stayed up past the godly bedtime. I had to be at work for the early shift at General Mills the next day, but that didn't keep me from fooling away the early morning hours, answering email, surfing the net and doing pretty much what you're doing now.

When I finally cashed it in, my face had the tired rigidity of a corpse. I didn't worry about it; that's why they call it beauty sleep, right?

You know in the movies, when the main character gets out of bed, how the only thing that is at all out of place is a few wisps of their otherwise perfectly coiffed hair? That morning I woke up looking like The Joker. Or maybe it was Sienna Miller without her makeup (you don't want to know). My alarm buzzed and my radio turned on to my favorite sports analysts, who seemed much to chipper for 6:00.

I have an old person problem. When I wake up, I can't get back to sleep. Some of my friends can snore away hours and hours of their lives one morning at a time, but not me. The buzzing alarm is the finale to all my sweet dreams.

Thanks to the miracles of modern chemistry, I managed to survive the day. It actually turned out pretty normal - or as normal a day as a proud derelict with a humor blog can have. So encouraged was I by the feat, that I tried it again the next night.

If I was Sienna Miller without makeup the first morning, I was Queen Latifah on day two. This morning was day three and I am beginning to see why you can't cheat mornings. I have this amazing new skill. I can stare at a clock and watch time pass and actually be entertained by it. My new favorite facial expression is the slack jaw and I have some severe contact lens problems, but the biggest problem is what I'm going to do tomorrow.

My friends now await their 1 AM GTalk messages and I am reconnecting with the night owls in my life. I can't pull the plug on all of them now. I have a big cyber meeting with my new buddies at World of Warcraft tonight, but if I attend I'll be Dick Clark tomorrow morning. Time can be so cruel!

In Defense of Moronitude

I recently took an online IQ test. You know the type: 40 questions to determine the taker's Intelligence Quotient. The test I took had an introduction that correlated IQ with "success" in life and a final page that completely contradicted the opening by disclaiming any accuracy of the test and pointing out that dumb people can be successful as well. Incidentally the disclaimer was about six times as long as the introduction.

They say you can't fail an IQ test, but I think I came mighty close. My intellect puts me among the company of the smart domesticated animals and retarded children of the world. The short blurb offered at the end of the quiz advised me not to have children so I wouldn't pollute the gene pool and presented several examples of "famous" people with a score like mine, the most notable of which were Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton and Harpo Marx.

I scored a 41 (click on the image for a larger view).

But 41 out of what?

Being (apparently) dumb and unfamiliar with the IQ scoring system, I went back to the internet and located this snazzy webpage which gives a thorough if not succinct explanation. The first chart of details that anyone scoring below seventy suffers from "Definite Feeble Mindedness."

The website also says that only 2.2% of the population falls into this "defective" category, putting me in what I like to call elite company.

In search of a finer classification of my mental capabilities, I continued my trek further down the page and found a graph which breaks up Definite Feeble Mindedness into four distinct categories.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am a moron.

But I am a proud moron. I take pride in the fact that I am not an imbecile and I most definitely am not an idiot; I am a medically classified moron and there is a certain rest that comes with being a peace with one's mental deficiency.

Some years ago, after the rabble of society hijacked terms like idiot and imbecile for use as pedestrian insults, the psychiatric community resolved to use more suave terms to describe my condition, or inability to pense as the case might be. They must have been concerned about my feelings and how I would react to school yard taunts being handed me in triplicate by a licensed shrink. Regardless of their intention, people like me were relabeled as "Moderately Mentally Deficient" and, with the exception of the new title, treated with the same disregard as before.

I know, turn on the violins and begin feeling sorry for me. I am slightly mentally retarded and well below the intellectual capacity of most of my peers. I will never live a truly normal life and will always wonder what my existence could have been - or would wonder if my brain allowed the activity.

Look at the bright side: my score qualifies me for a long list of educational and financial advantages, most of which will be paid by smarter people like you. I can go through life ignorant of many evils and enjoy the fact without ever paining to ask why. I can be simple - in every way - and never have to worry about things getting complicated, because they can't.

You are probably scoffing right now; maybe even considering a comment that pokes fun at my retardation. And, as long as you aren't a beautiful celebrity or a sports star, you can probably get away with such a wisecrack. That's something your intelligence let's you do better then me.

But before you get too self confident in your own abilities, I want to remind you that the great intellects of history, the true brilliant minds of the past, all lived miserable lives marked by more suffering than morons like me can imagine. Intellects like David Hume, John Belushi and Ernest Hemmingway were just too smart for their own good. Their lives would have been much nicer and much longer had they not overthought their own existences.

Mental ability makes life so much more complicated, so much more intense. God above has spared me the horrors of that kind of existence by giving me a 41.

So go on living your smart life. I'll just be the moron; happy, simple and alive.