friday, and how i'm thanking deities for it

On my way to work this morning, it definitely looked as though the apocalypse was nigh. The sky was green, the wind was a-whippin' and I was anticipating a spinning house in the distance at any moment. I made it to work dry, luckily, but since then it has rained non-stop. I'm considering swimming home.

But as I pulled off the exit toward our office at 7:38, when I'd left the house at 7:26, I couldn't help but wonder why the EFF the traffic is almost non-existent on Fridays. It's a quandary I've pondered on many-a-Friday, trust me, because I am beginning to believe that there's some magical four-day work week out there that 90 percent of Memphis knows about and I don't. And dammit, if it's real, I WANT TO KNOW.

And I'm sure people are also just more likely to take the day off on any given Friday. But so many people that the roads are totally clear? It just doesn't seem logical. And the worst part of the whole thing is that for the past two weeks, when I've been stuck in traffic for 30 solid minutes, I've had to spend three-fourths of it listening to the lovely people at WKNO beg for money as part of their spring pledge drive. And I say lovely in the most earnest way possible, because if I had any money to spare they would be the first to get it. And one day, when I do, I will pledge every year without fail, because I LOVE public radio. But I couldn't help but be just a teensy bit annoyed that the very first day in more than two weeks that I could listen to Morning Edition uninterrupted was also the shortest commute in the history of me commuting anywhere. Ever.

Did I just find a way to complain about a short commute? Pretty sure I did. Thank god it's Friday.


cheers,
elizabeth

bitch, all these rules!

So, tonight is date number two. I'm going over to his apartment, which feels a little bit intimate for a second date, but really? I have no idea. I feel like there are all these rules that people have about dating and what you should or shouldn't do when or where and I don't know how anyone keeps up with any of them.

Last night during my run (since the World Series is apparently more important than my new Wednesday night staple, "Glee") I watched this special on TLC called The 650-lb. Virgin. It's about this guy who weighed -- can you guess? -- 650 pounds, lost about 400 of it and is now dating for the first time in his life. And if I thought I was the Mayor of Akwardtown, than this guy must by the Viceroy of the sovereign nation of Awkwardland. Because DAMN.

But he's sweet. Because he used to be GINORMOUS and now he's not. And you just want to pull for him. And lucky for him, he's got this friend who was his personal trainer who has taught him everything he needs to know about socializing, including how to rock a spray-on tan.

So in the little bit of this special that I caught, our friend Former McFatty (I can't remember his actual name, and calling him that is way more fun than Googling the answer) is going out on a blind date with a gal who was selected for him by a local matchmaker. And before he goes out with this potential match -- which turns out to be a festival of awkward proportions, let me tell you -- they show him out at a bar with his buddy, asking his female friends for advice on his big date.

And no sooner does he ask than they start firing off rules. Bitch, all these RULES! (That is what I wanted to shout at the ladies on the TV, but I did know that they couldn't hear me, and also that it may earn me a reputation among my fellow gym-goers.) You can't do this on a first date, you have to do this on the second date and certainly no one ever does THIS until date four or five. Don't talk about this, just talk about that. Never approach this topic, this topic and that topic until date five, unless she's (fill in some qualifier here), in which case you'll want to talk about it on date two.

It just starts to feel like a mathematical word problem after a while and I hate math but I actually sort of like dating. So I'd prefer if they intersected as infrequently as possible.

It just makes me think that maybe all of these rules are the reason we're so awkward to begin with, or the reason we perceive ourselves that way. We all think there's a certain way we're supposed to behave or certain things we're not supposed to do on a date, and so when we cross those lines we feel ridiculous. When, really, the only thing ridiculous about the whole situation is that two people with flaws and quirks and messy things about their personalities are going to pains to hide ALL of it.

Why can't we just go with our guts? My guts rarely let me down. Except in cases of over-consumption of bean and queso dip, but I apologized for that, and we're moving past it. Besides, didn't those women who wrote that book of dating rules in the 80s both end up getting divorced? Now that's a ringing endorsement for throwing the rules directly out the window and never looking in the rearview.


cheers,
elizabeth

the art of the double entendre

A while back this wholesale furniture store opened up in a little shopping center near my parents' house, called Victorian. And underneath the big sign proclaiming the store's name was the store's Web address. Good internet branding, right? Well, unless someone has already taken Victorian.com and you feel compelled to name your site VictorianUS.com.

Or, if it's printed in all caps and reads as one big long word, VICTORIANUS. Yes, anus. ANUS! Why did no one think of this in the development process? Why? It's certainly an unfortunate thing for Victorian, but for just about everyone I know it's a daily source of amusement when driving by. Even now that I'm pretty sure it's closed, and is just a big empty space in that strip mall, I still often look.

So today, when I was behind a car headed to work who felt compelled to turn into the lot in front of Victori Anus, I was so miffed I said out loud, "What'd you wanna go in Victori Anus for?" Then, I looked to my left, where much to my surprise I saw a brand new tenant located next door to the Anus store.

Ram in the Bush Christian Center.

(If you're wondering, no, I managed not to wreck the car.)


cheers,
elizabeth

dating: the beginners' corner

I've talked a little bit here before about what the word "dating" has meant for me in the past. Excessive Facebook stalking, occasional name-Googling, maybe a few creeper night-time drive-bys of the house or apartment.

If you're now wondering if I've ever been on Dateline, the answer is no. At least not yet.

But to temper the psycho factor in all that just a little bit, this is how college-aged people interact romantically here in the great bright future, year of our lord 2009. Well, maybe everyone doesn't do the drive-by thing, but I was taught that by a very seasoned professional and sometimes the temptation to just swing through a guy's neighborhood and see if you can catch him taking his trash to the street in his underwear is just TOO great. But let's be honest, if you actually DID catch him, you'd hit the deck like you were in Kabul and that Hefty bag was an IED, and probably wreck your car into a ravine trying to make sure he didn't pick up on the fact that you were cruising his block for cheap thrills.

So we'll table that for now. But the Facebooking and the Googling? Very real. Very, very real. If you meet someone at a party and he even looks at you sideways, you're home that night, still half-drunk reading every insignificant WORD on his Facebook profile and dissecting his lists of favorite music and movies as if you were making a life commitment to one another tomorrow and you needed to choose the perfect wedding song. From the moment you meet, you're doing your research. So by the time the first date rolls around, you already know this guy up, down, backward and forward. You know his favorite TV shows, his likes and dislikes, his religious and political views and you've probably even examined all of his tagged photos (and tentatively pre-selected the one most appropriate to copy, save and e-mail to your parents should this thing get off the ground).

I guess what I'm getting at is that as a college student -- which I've been for most of my adult life, and with access to Facebook for most of those years -- you typically don't have the standard first date interactions. You don't have to play "getting to know you." You've got the vitals and you're ready to move into the next phase of testing: actual compatibility.

So, here I am on this crazy little blog making a whole lot of big bold statements here recently about grandiose sounding things like "diving into the dating pool" and then, even more recently, "not having the mental energy" to go quest out a mate. Let it be known that I have made these statements many-a-time in my life and nothing, NOTHING has ever happened. But this time? Something actually did.

I went to sleep one night and The Date Fairy left a Facebook message underneath my pillow! Or something like that. And next thing you know, it's last Friday night and I'm out on a date with a guy I don't really know from a ham sandwich, but I've asked around enough to be sure he's not an axe murderer.

We had sushi, we saw a play, we had wine and cheese afterward -- I had what I consider to be my very first "first" date. Through five relationships and a few little stops along the way I've never been privy to the traditional guy sees girl, guy asks girl out, guy and girl get cream sodas and talk about Ed Sullivan kind of dating routine. But I made it through the first date without doing anything too ridiculous, so maybe the second date (Eep!) will be just as easy.

Okay, I'm gonna need to back the train up for just a minute, because you know me well enough to guess that the last little bit about not doing anything too ridiculous was only partially true. See, when I say I didn't really know this guy, I mean it. I did this thing a while back called PowerPoint Karaoke (long story, Google it like you would a future boyfriend) and he was there, too. I saw him do his PowerPoint and he saw me do mine, he Facebooked me the next day and that pretty much brings you up to speed. We'd never even had a conversation before Friday night. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN TERRIFIED. But for whatever reason, I wasn't.

And maybe it was that oddly comfortable feeling, maybe it was NOT being completely nervous about the whole thing that did it. I got too relaxed. I didn't over-analyze my own potential to be awkward enough to circumvent any situations. And so, there was one. When I walked in the restaurant, he was sitting down and, like a good Southern gentleman, stood when I came in. That's when the terror struck.

I'm walking toward him, slow motion in my own mind, thinking, what do I do? Do I hand shake? Do we hug? Do I do a light arm touch? Do I just stand there smiling and fidget awkwardly because I AM PRETTY DAMN GOOD AT THAT. No. No, instead, I decide to go for the side hug. The weird, we're-not-hugging-but-we're-touching hug that really requires both people to be aware of the side hugging, only he wasn't really aware so basically I side-hug-attacked him and our arms just sort of touched and it was Welcome to Awkward Town, Population Two, I'M THE MAYOR.

Our next date is Thursday. Brace yourself.


cheers,
elizabeth

drawing parallels

Last year for Halloween, I was Cindy McCain. My friend Harry was John McCain, and our friend Katie was Sarah Palin. It was the perfect election-year theme, plus for the three of us there's a healthy amount of irony involved, which is always a bonus. I like to call it the Skank Dressed As A Nun theory -- irony is basically guaranteed to up the ante on any Halloween costume.

I had only been in New York for about two weeks on Halloween night, and that day I'd gone to see the apartment that would become my place of residence in good old Jersey City. When we forced ourselves out of bed the next morning, I had a voice mail waiting for me to let me know that the place was mine if I wanted it. November 1, 2008.

So we're coming up on exactly one year since that day, but there's a little more significance to the anniversary than just its arrival. This weekend I put a deposit down on an apartment in the Cooper-Young district of midtown, and if all goes smoothly with the credit check I'll be moving in on Sunday. That's right -- that'd be November 1.

Unlike my humble abode in Jersey City, this place is smack in the center of where I want to be, just a few blocks' walk from restaurants, bars, bookstores and coffee shops. It's got hardwood floors, French doors, 1100 square feet and a boatload of charm. Best of all, it is MINE, all mine, and will not have to be shared with a roommate of any description. Excepting of course for Otis Redding, when he waddles onto the scene. But he likely will not take 20 minute showers when I need to get in the bathroom to pee, mostly because he will have short hair and be quite low maintenance in the grooming department. His showers, I'm sure, will be very brief.

So (knock on credit check wood), I've got a place. I can't wait to post pictures for you to oogle because let me tell you, it is THE cutest effing thing that ever happened. EVER. For now, though, here's to being settled, and hopefully having found the place I'll love for many November firsts to come.


cheers,
elizabeth

adventures in puppy sitting

My parents left me all by lonesome this weekend to traipse off to New Orleans to eat at Commanders' Palace and shop in the French Quarter and do other things that all pretty much make you want to stick out your tongue and flip them the bird.

Of course, I wasn't exactly totally by my lonesome, because I had the resident poodle-suit-wearing fuzzball, Sadie, to keep me company. Sadie, who by about 10 a.m. Saturday morning had already had just about enough of this being left shit and walked around the first floor of the house whimpering to no one in particular. Once, she went to the bottom of the stairs and barked, looking at me as if to say, "When they're down here, you're usually up there, sooooooooo don't you think maybe THEY'RE up there now since YOU'RE down here with me? Don't you think? Maybe? PLEASE?" Then once she ran up there just to check and came down a few seconds later, visibly annoyed.

Unfortunately for Sadie this was quite a busy weekend for me, so she got left in her crate for many more hours than she would've preferred. Of course, her preferred amount would've probably been NO hours. Zero hours in the crate, please. I did feel guilty and I wish I could've just left her closed up in the den, but in the time I was gone she probably could've consumed an entire potted plant, roots and all, and I would not want to be a part of the cleaning crew on that disaster.

She behaved miraculously well for me, had no accidents in her crate or in the house and spooned and cuddled with me on demand. And she was only almost crushed under the weight of a falling piece of furniture ONCE. So I think we can consider puppy sitting a victory.

What, the furniture? Oh, it was only a card table, and she kicked it anyway, so it was her fault that it fell on her. Right? I can't be held responsible for the folded-up table that I propped up against the wall that she later kicked that then squished her and caused her to run away whimpering and crying AND, I'm pretty sure, be convinced for about half an hour that I'd done it to her and thus avoid me completely.

Luckily dogs' memories are not elephant-like, and now two days later she is still afraid of the card table, but not me. Although I guess that might have less to do with her memory of the event and more to do with the fact that card table (to date) has yet to feed her.


cheers,
elizabeth

what's in a name?

There used to be a joke in my house about kids who died of name poisoning. You'd see the obituary listing for little baby Scrambled Eggs Hashbrown Juanita Jones in the newspaper and you'd say, "Another one died of name poisoning." Are we all going to hell? Most definitely. But Memphis is the No. 1 city for infant mortality and we do have an abundance of exquisitely bad baby names, so the two were bound to intersect at some point. And hey, if you can't laugh about these things they'd just bring you down, and who wants to spend all their time being sad about the poor babies? When you can laugh at their ridiculous names?

I haven't convinced you that it's okay to laugh at dead babies yet, have I? I probably never will. Moving on.

I often hear that horrible names should be written off as being no fault of the child who bears them, because the child didn't choose that name and therefore it has nothing to do with their intellect or character. We can't really judge Scrambled Eggs by her name, these people would tell you, because Scrambled Eggs's crazy-ass mama is the one who named her that and little did SHE know that Scrambled Eggs would end up getting her G.E.D. and going on to Sally Struthers-endorsed paralegal school.

But here's the problem with that logic. Let's use the most recent example of bat-shit-crazy, Balloon Boy, whose name happens to be Falcon.

I think if you name your kid "Falcon" you're pretty much asking for a child that behaves like three-quarters of his blood is actually low-grade methamphetamines. Mostly I think this because if you're going to name your kid Falcon, you must have already achieved a certain level of crazy prior to procreating and have undoubtedly passed those chromosomes on to your offspring.

So it's not that I'm judging Scrambled Eggs based on her name alone. I'm judging her based on my estimations of how many of her mama's genetic malfunctions were passed directly on to her. I mean, if your Punnett Square is three-fourths capital C for CUH-RAZY to begin with, there really ain't a combo up in the joint that doesn't result in full to partial effed-on-up. That's a technical term.

And I'm not saying there aren't genetic anomalies. Because there are. I think the Zappa kids mostly turned out okay, or at least they haven't committed any federal offenses that I know of. But I guess we won't really have the answer to this question until this generation of celebrity babies, Apple and Moses and CocoButter and Rubbermaid Toaster Oven, grows up.

Of course by then it might've caught on and every woman who's any woman will want to name her baby after an inanimate object. Let's just hope the kid turns out smarter than one.


cheers,
elizabeth

becoming bridget jones

Nothing to make you feel like a spinster like a large Oreo Blast from Sonic and a marathon of Say Yes to the Dress on TLC. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to my Saturday night.

To be fair, I ran a 5K this morning (my very first!) and have spent the last, well, every weekend since I've been home comPLETEly covered up in stuff to do and errand running and this and that and seeing and doing and being and traveling and drinking and GAWD that shit is exhausting after a while. So I felt like I deserved a night of supreme laziness and cuddling with Sadie, the resident fuzzball.

But for whatever reason, and maybe it's just because I spend the vast majority of my time in that state of total over-extended-ness, even one evening of sitting on my ass makes me feel like a lonely old maid who will one day be grazed on by alpacas when I ultimately die a sad, sad solitary death of unmarried, unpregnant horror. And the worst part of it will be that it will all happen right here in this very spot because I will still be living with my parents.

Now, I know that none of this is true and frankly my biological clock has quieted down some in the past few months, probably due to me coming to terms with not having a flying clue what direction my life's headed in and accepting that maybe marriage and babies aren't such a wise addition to the formula at this stage. But everyone I know is getting married. And having babies. And TLC wants me to do both. Right now. Tomorrow, perhaps without even knowing either one was imminent. Perhaps even while on the toilet!

So then I think I should be out on the town trying to hook me a husband, not sitting in my pajamas shoveling ice cream into my mouth and oohing and aahing over wedding gowns. I should be dancing! And drinking! And flirting and wooing and roping in Mr. Right!

But damned if it all just sounds like it takes SO MUCH ENERGY. Energy that I just don't know that I have. Can't they just come to me? Literally, to my home? Maybe equipped with a dossier on likes, dislikes, annoying habits and facial ticks? And I know what you're thinking, you're thinking the only way for it to be that easy is to do it online. But I feel like even THAT requires too much energy, albeit more on the mental energy side of things rather than the make-up, hair-do, fingernails, high-heels, uncomfortable underwear side of things.

Maybe what I'm actually saying is that I just don't care any more. And isn't that when it's always supposed to happen? When you're not looking, right?

Or did I just jinx it by talking about it? Son of a bitch.



cheers,
elizabeth

down at the holler with tiny and bob jackson

I took this personality strength assessment test today for work and found out that I'm a competitive over achiever.

I kid. I mean, the test did tell me this. But it was not news. Also not news? The fact that I'm what the book calls a "Woo." This means that I'm adept at Winning others over. I like to meet new people and in fact thrive on situations where I will be thrust into rooms full of strangers and forced to get to know folks I don't know from a ham sandwich.

Case in point? This weekend, the legendary Super Secret Alumnae Party that has become the stuff of legends among my sorority sisters. The SSAP was sort of a rite of passage for us, the one thing that awaited us when we graduated - an invitation to attend a Homecoming party thrown by our chapter adviser.

We'd always heard tell of wild stuff going down at these parties and so naturally were chomping at the bit to be able to witness all of it, particularly if it involved our adviser, whom we only knew to be the absolute picture of lady-hood. Turns out, as we learned last year, that most everyone at these parties was about 25 years older than us. I guess that fact alone really wasn't so surprising, since the attendees were all friends of our adviser and her husband, but mostly the only wild thing about the festivities in 2008 was that we were there for the very first time and may have later taken a cab BACK to her house after drinking at a local bar for a few hours to drunkenly sing her a song on her front lawn.

These things, they happen.

But this year, there was something in the air. I don't know if it was the hand-painted 1994 Speaker of the Year mug that belonged to our adviser's husband that I drank beer out of all night (while continually referring to myself as the Speaker of the Year, NATURALLY) or if it was the piles of old scrapbook pages of Murray State fraternity life from the late 1970s that showed up in the living room and had everyone reminiscing about times they ran naked through various campus facilities, but this. THIS was a party.

Next thing you know I've made friends with a guy named Bob Jackson, who tells me a story about a guy named Tiny, who turns out to be a total womanizer and hits on all of us almost all night before revealing that he's not totally sure if any of us is over 18. He also shares with us that he's "hung like a gerbil," that the gerbil's name is Steve and that he is writing a book on good kissers and needs to do some research.

After sharing all this it might seem a bit incongruous to tell you that Tiny did have a lady friend with him, but you'll be relieved to know that we asked her if she knew anyone named Steve and she promptly turned eighteen shades of purple. We decided that she did in fact know Steve. Well.

When we first met Tiny's Lady, he had introduced us to her as the most beautiful woman in the world. To which one of my sisters promptly retorted, "If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it." Thank god for Beyonce, because Tiny's Lady's face was about as red as we thought a person could turn, though we were later proven wrong. See above, re: Steve.

He shared with us at some point that the reason he has not "put a ring on it" is because he is in the middle of a nasty divorce settlement and is paying his ex-wife $5,000 a month in alimony. Knowing of Tiny's deep, deep love for me and seeing a window of opportunity, I asked what I felt was the natural question. "Would you send me a check for $5,000 a month?"

To which Tiny replied, "What are you going to give me for it?"

"I'll send you a picture every month like those starving kids in Africa."


He didn't exactly say the check was in the mail, but I'll keep you posted.

Me and my old pal Bob Jackson (please note the speaker of the year mug).

Tiny loves me. Can you blame him?

cheers,
elizabeth

antsy pants

First Jim and Pam get married on The Office, then Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize perceivably just for being the president!? WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT?

Yes, y'all, this has been one wild couple of days. And it's only going to get better. I'm packing up The Green Bean and driving it to Murray, Kentucky, for a weekend of Homecoming festivities at my alma mater. Homecoming is something I look forward to all year, and with a ridiculous level of anticipation in the weeks immediately preceding. Needless to say I have MAJOR ants in every pair of pants I own, not to mention the ones I have on, about getting this show on the road.

There are all kinds of events that go on during the weekend, and I love every second of it -- from dressing up for the Greek events to dressing down and cuddling up in a Murray State blanket for the early morning parade. And as I told several people this week, it's an opportunity to pretend I'm in college again, at least for a few days.

When I said this to my dad last night, he retorted, "You just want to go get drunk with your friends."

And I said, uh, yeah. I think you'll recall that's exactly what I just said.


cheers,
elizabeth

sometimes you feel like a nut

I opined here at length while living in Jersey City about, well, how can I put this delicately?

Crazy people.

Crazies were a staple of life in the JC, whether you were getting flashed on the way home from the Goodwill or in the grocery store with a man whose inner voice ordered him to do a full week's shopping by purchasing one item at a time. They were just part of the tapestry, all those colorful characters seeming to exist for the sole purpose of reminding you that despite living in Jersey City, your life could in fact be MORE fucked up than it already is. And in this way, we took solace in the crazies.

Here the crazies have a slightly different effect on me, partly because I'm not clawing at the walls trying to get out of this place and looking for examples of people whose lives are significantly worse than my own, but also partly because some of the crazies are SO crazy that they've become local celebrities. And instead of being gawked at and ostracized -- well, okay, ALONG WITH being gawked at and ostracized -- they are fawned over and idolized like famous people.

Case in point? One Robert Hodges, better known to Memphians as Prince Mongo of the planet Zambodia.

Ahem.

Yeah, that's him to the left. Now, you might be wondering to yourself, "Is that the surprisingly clean-cut professional wrestler and commentator Jerry 'The King' Lawler seated next to him?" And if you are, you should know that this photo was taken during a candidates' debate for the upcoming mayoral election. For mayor. Of the city. Of Memphis. The 18th largest city in the United States. And in those 17 bigger cities, it might be news that a person who believes he's from another planet and a man who's been known on MANY ocassions to run around a ring in a unitard and body slam people are both running for the office of mayor. But in Memphis, it's just Tuesday.

Today I spotted Prince Mongo at the Memphis Rotary Club's mayoral forum, which compounded his general ridiculousness by juxtaposing his bare feet and reflective silver goggles with about 125 really well-dressed, stately, conservative people over the age of 55 in skirts and suits and comfort shoes and neatly printed name tags. The man's very existence is a sore thumb.

Sometimes I can't decide with Mongo whether he really is CRAZY crazy or if he's just a little bit crazy and smart enough to know how to milk it for all it's worth. He's run in every mayoral election I can remember for as long as I can remember, and I'd be floored to meet someone in Memphis who didn't know who he was. So he's got persistance and name recognition on his side, and even I have to admit that his ideas and opinions aren't all bad. Example? During the televised debate in the picture above, he talked about making personnel changes in city government by referring to "political turds that need to be FLUSHED."

Damn straight, Mongo. FLUSH 'EM.

cheers,
elizabeth

the dangers of the treadmill

I have this problem with Granny Smith apples. And I don't know if it's just me, if I'm just so excited at the tart-and-juicy goodness of the apple that I eat it way too fast, or if this happens to everybody but DAMN. Those suckers make me burp. And I'm talking multiple burps. Burp(S) plural. Big burps, little burps, long breathy ones that subsequently double the available space in my stomach in one fell swoop.

This situation is compacted, of course, when I decide to go for a four-mile jog almost immediately after scarfing said apple. And that, ladies and gentleman, brings us to today's episode of Looking Ridiculous in Public, starring Me as Myself.

So I'm on the treadmill, doing the first long stint of my run -- I break it up into chunks with short bits of walking in between -- and I'm watching the clock tick over to 22 minutes and I'm pushing the speed button to take it down from run to walk and as soon as I slow down, before I even know what's happened, I belch. It was so sudden that I didn't even realize I'd done it until I heard the noise and spent a good two or three seconds trying to figure out from whence that seismic rumble had just emerged. Turns out? From me. WHOOPS.

And I need to emphasize my use of the word 'belch' in this scenario. Because it was a loud one. And probably kind of gross. But I'd been running and running and running and my stomach had been churning and I guess as soon as my body stopped moving it had to exercise its demons. And exercise, it did.

Quickly enough I realize that this belch has just bested my massive sweat situation as reason Numero Uno that I will NEVER get hit on at the gym, and I am completely and totally mortified. But naturally, it only gets worse, because in my mortification I got a little case of the church giggles, let out a chuckle and then accidentally stepped onto the part of the treadmill where the belt meets the side of the machine. This caused my entire body to flail like I'd just been tasered and created a sound that lands somewhere between yanking the needle over a vinyl record and sucking up a sock in a vacuum cleaner.

So if they didn't hear the belch, they DEFINITELY saw the brief safety demonstration on the dangers of the treadmill. I also offer one on the dangers of public humiliation, but that's less of a one-time demonstration and more like a daily study.


cheers,
elizabeth