Idiot Robot Vacuums and Caffeine in My Shampoo
And other weird things we may never talk about
My wife got me some new shampoo last week. It has menthol and caffeine in it. Every time I use it I picture my hair hunched over looking haggard at 6am with a Marlboro and cup of black coffee. Why does my hair need caffeine and menthol? And I have to be careful not to let it wash down onto my junk or it gets uncomfortable. Yes, of course it was an accident.
Speaking of the ol’ melon, does anyone else get symmetrical pimples? I had an itch on my head the other day so I scratched it. A little sore spot made itself known on the side of my head. A day or so later, one appears opposite of it on the other side. This isn’t an isolated incident. Is this only me, or does this happen to other people?
Because my mind is now aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention*, here are a few other weird things we don’t talk about enough.
Ducking while driving into a parking garage. Are you going to be decapitated if the roof of your car rubs the warning bar? Probably not. But we all do this instinctually anyway.
Holding your breath after going up the stairs. Do we all hold our breath at the top of the stairs so strangers don’t hear you fighting for your life? I’m going to stop doing this. Maybe I should start wheezing and pretending I’m gonna die. Maybe I’ll throw myself on the ground at the top and see how long before someone notices. Nobody cares anyway.
Instead of taking the stairs and appearing out of shape, you can take the elevator. Nobody wants to make conversation on an elevator either. Sometimes we stare at our phones, but most of the time we stare at the numbers, willing them to move faster. My father-in-law is a tall, opposing figure. He likes to stand facing the people just to make it weird. No wonder we get along so well.
Calling the Roomba stupid because it gets stuck somewhere. In the battle for supremacy in the war against our robot overlords, this feels like a victory. Last weekend it beat me to a potato chip — the first in a long line of losses, I fear. The war is just beginning, but as long as I can point and call my Roomba a fucking idiot because it got stuck on a rug flap in the corner I’ll feel like there’s still hope for humanity.
Click-testing the grill tongs. You know you do this. It’s a requirement.
Pretending we’re sober when we drink. Why do we drink just to pretend we’re sober? After a bunch of drinks we pretend like we’ve had none, as if you’re gonna win a prize for drinking the most but acting the soberest. The funny part is the drunk who’s trying to act sober never pulls it off. We all know you’re hammered, dude.
Lip Picking. Picking that dead skin off of your lips is one of the most satisfying things to do. Until you end up with that little piece of skin that’s not dead still sticking up, and you can’t help but tear it off even though it’s attached to your brain stem and you will bleed out.
It’s not unlike a hangnail. If you pull on that sucker you better be prepared to cry.
Hovering outside a conversation. Have you ever stood just outside a circle of conversation hoping to quietly worm your way in? But then you don’t ever make a move and get closed off. So you stand there in the periphery for a few minutes but nobody notices you and you pretend you were looking at something else. You fade into oblivion when nobody sees you and go back under your lonely bridge where you belong.
Other noteworthy oddities:
— Staring at our own stupid faces in Zoom meetings — Doing a 4-minute task then resting for three hours — Bitching about having to get up to get your wallet to check out — Where is your birth certificate? — Looking over a bridge/building and wondering if you’ll randomly throw yourself off of it
Maybe this weird stuff is just me. Probably not, though. We’re all weird, but some of us are more in touch with our weirdness.
Welcome to Costco — I love you.
*If you know where the line above came from, you get extra bonus points.