One Lonely Lame-ass

Dear Reid,

My best friend is graduating early. Now, she probably doesn’t think of herself as my best friend, and certainly she has many friends who she’s closer to than she is to me, but, well, I don’t. I’ve always been a bit of an introvert, and have never been able to handle having more than a few good friends at a time. I try to make a show at being outgoing or whatever—I go to parties and hang out occasionally with a lot of different people.

I tend to keep myself very busy, and whether this is cause or effect, I don’t find it easy to get close to people. There have only ever been a very few people in my life with whom I felt good enough to talk about anything. I don’t think that my friend really realizes just how much she means to me. I have tried to let her know a couple of times, though even then I had to do it in a kind of corny joking manner, like “Oh, what will I ever do without you?” or something. And she always replies with something like “Yeah, whatever. You’re not even going to know I’m gone.” But the thing is, I will know she’s gone, and I’m even starting to miss her already. How am I going to deal with being separated from my friend? And if this is so hard, what’s it going to be like when I graduate, and have to be separated from everyone else in Morris of whom I have become so fond?

Yours truly,
One Lonely Lame-ass

I know how you feel. It’s hard to watch a friend leave, but come on. I mean, jeez, how sappy can you get? Anyway, I think there are a few current events which will provide some insight into your situation.

I heard this song on KUMM the other day, on the venerable radio program “Unhindered By Talent,” and its lyrics went as such: “I started drinking. I started drinking Friday night. Well I woke up on Sunday, still ain’t nothing right. What good can drinking do? What good can drinking do? Well I drank all night, next day I feel so blue. Yes I drink I drink all night, next day I’m feeling so blue.”

Never has a song spoken to me so deeply. The songwriter has succeeded in capturing the essence of loss and depression. She sought comfort in a bottle, but the bottle had teeth. The next day, her drinking, which seemed such a comfort at the time, had her feeling nothing but blue. Has her turning to alcohol helped her in the long run? No, still ain’t nothing right.

Last week this girl told me she had been stood up by eight guys. Now, at first it may seem like she’s an extremely popular girl to have had eight dates to be stood up by, but everything isn’t as it seems. It gets even more interesting. These eight dates were not one at a time, but all on the same night. And half of them already had girlfriends or ex-girlfriends who were trying to get back together with them. When the girlfriends heard about the Super Date, they all ganged up on the girl, hurling accusations and threats of violence. Why can’t we all just get along? Still ain’t nothing right.

In a related incident, Bill Gates, victim of a ruthless pie-throwing conspiracy, testified in front of Congress this week. I caught a little of his questioning on C-SPAN. When asked a simple “yes” or “no” question about whether Microsoft was using monopoly power to prevent its business partners from advocating a rival product, this guy squirmed like a nightcrawler trying to get away from a fisherman’s hook. I thought he was going to fall out of his chair he was wiggling around so much; and his question dodging: superb! Maybe he had just wet his pants. Still ain’t nothing right.

Also on a related topic, the Olympics are over and the only event I watched was Ice Dancing. I don’t like Ice Dancing much. But I was in Alexandria for the weekend, and the only station we could get was the one playing Ice Dancing. So, I watched Ice Dancing, and one of the couples totally biffed. I laughed. But then, last weekend I was walking out of the Unisense concert—which by some freakish mistake of the normally infallible editorial staff of the UR was not mentioned in the paper—and I totally biffed. It kinda hurt, and now I have this big bruise on my leg. I don’t think biffing’s so funny anymore. Still ain’t nothing right.

So what’s the moral of this group of stories? Well, it’s probably got something to do with appreciating what you have while you have it, and when it’s gone, just deal with it. Carpe diem and all that jazz. But if you’re looking for some real words of wisdom, remember the old saying: “You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose, unless of course your friend asks you to.” Still ain’t nothing right.

Spooky & Red

Dear Reid,

Recently I’ve been having a dilemma with this woman I work with. We have a very close relationship, you could even say we work as partners, but it is a strange relationship nonetheless. We frequently work on projects together, and we both have our areas of expertise. I tend to be the more imaginative of the two of us, coming up with creative and often unconventional solutions to problems, while she takes a hard-edged scientific approach to life.

The result is a rather frustrating combination, where she constantly shoots down my theories in favor of the more rational solution. Last weekend, for example, we were working on this file that had something to do with unexpected cattle deaths in Stevens County—I’m afraid revealing more would allow our competitors to gain an advantage. I noticed that one of the cows had its shoelaces untied, and immediately assumed it to be the work of vampires. She, being more scientific, thought it the work of satanists simply emulating vampirism. Still, I can’t change the way I feel about her. Tell me, is it possible for two such different people to get along in a romantic partnership when their professional partnership is so rocky?

Ooga booga,
Spooky

I know how you feel. I had a similar experience a few weeks ago when discussing the recent attempt to assassinate Bill Gates, chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corp. Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly an assassination attempt, but it was certainly an attempt to destroy the mega-ego of the world’s richest nerd. If you still don’t know what I’m talking about, a few weeks ago Mr. Gates was on his way to a meeting somewhere in Europe, when he was hit in the face by a cream pie.

It was reported in the news, and is believed by a large portion of the Windows-using world, that the attack on Mr. Gates was isolated—the act of a lone, crazed, paranoid pie-thrower. However, I believe this story to be a cover-up for a much larger plot, possibly organized by high-ranking officials at Apple Computer, the Department of Justice, and the Resident Advisors in Spooner Hall. As I will show, unequivocally, there is no way that this assault could have been perpetrated by a lone pie-thrower.

When one looks at a videotaped dramatization of the choppy newsreel footage of the incident which has been painstakingly assembled—from speculations on what eye witnesses might have seen on that fateful day—by the technicians at Media Services, with actors portraying the parties involved drawn from the Theatre department, some very interesting observations can be made.

The tape begins with Mr. Gates (portrayed by Jamie Gappa) walking hand-in-hand with an unidentified Microsoft henchman (portrayed by Alex Barrett) down a long, red-carpeted aisle lined with news reporters and flashing cameras. Bill’s wife is currently out of site, walking several feet behind. Suddenly, without warning, a mysterious figure appears in front of the camera (portrayed by Chris Roufs) and hurls a cream pie at Mr. Gates’ head. The camera jerks, and the next few moments are very fuzzy, but when it is refocused, both Mr. Gates, his henchman, and Mrs. Gates (portrayed by Sarah Jo Wojciechowski) are covered in whipped cream and a delightfully flaky graham-cracker crust.

The official report would have us believe that Jerry Lee Osmond acted alone in his pie throwing. However, this would have to be one magic cream pie, to have splattered whipped cream in the places it did. In fact, the pie, upon leaving Osmond’s hand would have to have sailed towards Mr. Gates’ head, doing a loopty-loop in mid-air, and then hit his head. From there, whipping cream would have had to spray off his face, ricochet off his oversized glasses, hover in mid air for 42 nanoseconds, dance the Macarena, and then make a sharp left turn, in order to splatter on the tie of Mr. Gates henchman. After hitting the henchman’s tie, this magic whipping cream would have had to drip to the floor, mold itself into a rough approximation of the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and run giggling back to Mrs. Gates. When the Whipping Cream Boy arrived at Mrs. Gates’ feet, he would have had to then stick his thumb in his mouth and blow so hard that he exploded, splashing the gooey fragments of his body all over her sequined dress. Again, that’s one fancy pie.

I can only judge from this irrefutable evidence that there must have been a second pie-thrower, perhaps on the grassy knoll next to the elevator in Microsoft’s Belgium office. The friend I was talking to thought my theory was a load of crap. We’re not in a romantic relationship. That probably answers your question well enough.