matthearn.com

I’m going to stop listening to people who recommend movies to me, because apparently the only side of me they see is the cursing, farting, beer-guzzling fat man that enjoys nothing more than wet t-shirt contests and animated gifs of men getting kicked in the junk. Not that any of these things are false; but people, I’m a multi-layer dude. I’ve got an intellectual layer, not to mention a sensitive, emotional layer. I’ve got more layers than the OSI Network Model!

I can’t believe I just said that.

Anyway, on Sunday evening, having spent all morning trying to climb mountains on a pedal-less bicycle, I wanted to relax with a beer and some Fritos and watch TV. Sarah suggested, “Hey, we should rent a movie!” So we check out the various pay-per-view options, and decided on two: “Ocean’s Twelve,” and “Team America: World Police.” Unfortunately, it was just about 6:15 when we sat down to make our selection, and Ocean’s Twelve is apparently 125 minutes long. This would impinge on our ability to watch The Simpsons at 8pm. So we went with Team America.

Many of my friends had highly recommended it, particularly the uncut version. “Oh man Hearn, you have to see it, the puppets are hilarious, and the songs are freaking awesome.” “Okay, okay, I’ll rent it one of these days, let me out of this headlock before I pass out.”

I’m not listening to my friends any more. From here on out it’s all noir and Merchant-Ivory films, because “Team America,” dear reader, was the stupidest piece of film dreck since I swiped Sarah’s digital camera and made a short video of her eating pie.

Hearnwife was never able to get past the puppet thing. I think it works in situations like the Muppets, where there’s never any question that they’re puppets, and they embrace the fact that Jim Henson’s hand was wrist deep in their patooties. In Team America, it sort of works, mainly because you could never accept actual humans saying the things these puppets say without throwing up on your lap. Also it does make the sex scene between Gary and Lisa particularly amusing, since few human actors would be willing to do the stuff that they can do to the puppets (see: Golden Shower, and Hot Lunch).

I can certainly respect the screenwriters’ idea to parody action movies, and rip on a few political and Hollywood figures. The dialogue was meant to be very over-the-top. Unfortunately, “over-the-top” does not always mean funny (as Tom Green has discovered, to his great dismay), and it certainly doesn’t here. By the second half-hour, I was getting up and retrieving more food and beverages from the kitchen without even bothering to pause it.

I have to admit, I did enjoy the songs. “America: F#*$ Yeah!” was entertaining, particularly in the second iteration when it turned into a minor key depressing Ani DiFranco ballad. “The AIDS Song” made me giggle, mostly because it made me think of a truly horrible joke that I will not share in this public space because there’s still a strong chance one of my grandparents will happen upon it.

At the end of the movie, HW and I had the same thought: We just spent $3.99 and 90 minutes on that piece of crap. And then we cried.

Since I’m sure so many of you spent Sunday morning at your respective places of worship, fervently praying that I would get through my mountain bike race without injury, I thought I would do you a solid and give you the rundown of the pain that I went through this weekend, in the form of a short (as if!) diary:

Saturday, 10pm – Other Matt arrived at our crib so’s he could sleep over and we could just get up and head straight to the race on Sunday morning. Well, not STRAIGHT to the race; we’d have to stop off at his apartment and pick up his bike, because it was raining when he came over, and his bike doesn’t entirely fit into his car, and he didn’t want it getting all wet.

11pm – We go to spleep.

Sunday, 6am – I awake and set to inhaling as many carbohydrates as I can, in the form of Corn Pops. (I also had taken in a lot of carbs the previous evening in the form of beer.)

6:30am – I wake up Matt and start loading my bicycle into the truck, along with the water-carrying backpacks that Sarah bought us, plus helmets and gloves.

7:10am – Matt and I leave for his apartment to pick up his bike. I realize, about halfway there, that I forgot both my camera and the ratchet tool I need to keep my left bike pedal from falling off. (Due to banging the hell out of it on a large log last week, the pedal tends to loosen up a lot during rides.) No big deal; I leave a message on Brian‘s phone to get him to bring his camera (he was planning to come and watch me injure myself in the hopes that he could laugh until he cried), and I figured there would be tools and things at the race facility so someone could tighten the pedal up for me if it loosened.

7:25 – Matt and I arrive at his apartment, and he realizes that he left the keys in his car, which is back at Casa De Hearn. We head back home.

7:40 – We arrive back at the house, so I take the opportunity to grab my ratchet wrench and look for my camera, which I could not find. Matt retrieves his housekeys.

7:55 – We get back to Matt’s place, he throws the bike in the bed of the truck and we drive rapidly to the Fair Hill Natural Resource Area.

8:00 – We unpack the bikes and get ourselves registered for the race, and head over to the starting location. Here was where several mistakes, due to getting unpacked in such a wild hurry, were made:

1. We decided to leave our water-backpacks in the truck. We’d never ridden with them before and were worried that they would annoy us, and we figured hell, there’s probably a water stop every mile or so. We’ll be able to drink our fill and be just fine. For the same reason, I didn’t bother filling my bike-mounted water bottle at the registration area, because I was frantically trying to get to the start location so we didn’t miss the racer’s meeting. As it turned out, there were water stops at 2 locations: mile 5, and mile 9. (The race was 15 miles.) Things were not shaping up well for Team Matt.
2. Since I wasn’t going to carry my backpack, I had no place to store my ratchet tool (it was too long for my under-the-seat bag), and my pedal didn’t feel loose, so I left it in the truck.

8:15 – We arrive at the starting location, where a man with a megaphone gets us lined up by age and skill, and explains where the various water stops and hazards are. Matt and I are going off with the first group, which is, except for Team Matt, filled with people who share the following characteristics:

• They are all in astoundingly good shape, with thin legs and waists and chests that seem to be entirely made of lung. Matt and I are, of course, wider in the middle than anywhere else.
• They are all extremely well equipped; everybody has “camelback” water backpacks (the extremely expensive version of the cheapo $10 things that Sarah bought for us that we stupidly left in the truck), expensive padded biking shorts and thin biking shirts, not to mention bikes that cost anywhere from $800 to $3000. (As you may remember, I got my bike at Walmart for $135.)

We were clearly in over our heads.

8:25 – Our group lines up at the start line in one long row, which somehow they expect to condense into a straight line of riders by the time we enter the “single track” about 200 yards away. This does not bode well. Also, Brian shows up, with his son Zachary, to laugh at us.

8:30 – We’re off! I accelerate hard off the line, which later struck me as the stupidest possible thing I could have done, since by the time we reached the single-track I was ahead of half the field, who then had to pass me on a race course barely four feet wide. Matt won the award for “first off the bike” when he took the first turn at a high rate of speed and realized too late that it was entirely mud. He slid off into a bush, which made me giggle greatly.

8:40 – Mile 1 – Hm. My pedal feels like it’s getting wobbly. This isn’t very good. Meanwhile, the better racers are flying by me like I’m standing still (which I was, some of the time; I’m averse to getting in the way of other people that know what they’re doing, so a few times I just got off my bike and stood out of the way to let the speedier racers go by).

8:50 – Mile 2 – Matt falls off his bike yet again. In a creek, this time. My pedal is getting worse and worse, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to die of exhaustion. The groups that went off 5-10 minutes after us are flying by me, particularly uphill, where I end up having to get off and walk the bike because I can’t pedal properly.

9:00 – Mile 3 – I get off and tighten the bolt a bit with my finger, cursing my decision to leave my ratchet tool back in the truck. By this time I’m walking the bike any time I’m going uphill, and only getting back on for the downhill portions.

9:10 – Mile 4 – We come across some kind of weird Army reservist picnic and ask a Sergeant if they have any tools. They do not.

9:20 – Mile 5 – Finally, the pedal falls off while I’m trying to meander through a field. I go back to retrieve it and the bolt that holds it on, and notice that most of the threads are stripped and the whole apparatus is coated in small metal shavings. At this point I realize I’ve done enough damage to the bike that I’d be hard pressed to ever get it fixed, let alone get it back together enough to finish the race. I come across two gentleman taking pictures of the riders as they go by; they furnish a pair of pliers and help me put the pedal back on enough so that I can get back to the parking lot. Matt rides on ahead and says he’ll meet me at the water station, but the photographers tell me the best way back to my truck is a different route; I ride off in that direction instead.

9:30 – I’m still half riding, half walking my bike on asphalt roads, following the directions given to me by the helpful photographers. Apparently, also at this time, Matt comes back looking for me and rides a mile or two after me before giving up and reentering the race. This waste of about 3-4 miles of energy and hydration becomes very pertinent later on.

10am – I make it back to the truck, load my bike in, and drink an entire 20-25 oz. backpack of water. I then drink some of the other bag as well, and also eat two powerbars, and I go to find Brian and Zachary and see if I can figure out what happened to Matt. Some of the faster riders are already crossing the line at this point. Very impressed am I.

11am – Zachary’s getting tired and hot and hungry, so he and Brian skedaddle. I wander down towards where the riders come flying out of the woods for the last couple hundred yards of climb to the finish line. I notice a young man of about 12 that clearly is in far better shape than I will ever be, pedalling up the hill without any apparent exhaustion. I hate him.

11:30 – Matt calls me on his cellphone, having had to bail out of the race not long after the 2nd water station. He got about 11 miles or so, which is annoying since he was 3-4 miles short, just about the same distance he wasted looking for my dumb ass. I feel guilty. He doesn’t care. We gather our stuff up and get out of there.

noon – We begin eating Boston Market.

So I have to say, it was a somewhat fun, very educational experience. Things I have learned:

1. Get plenty of sleep the night before. 7 hours isn’t really enough. Go for like 10.
2. If you have the means to carry water, carry it. Buttloads of it. Don’t worry about the weight. At least two full water bottles or a backpack full of H2O is minimum, and that’s assuming you can refill everything at water stops every 5 miles.
3. Don’t cheap out on equipment. Bikes purchased at Walmart for $135 are not going to stand up to real mountain biking very long. I’m not sure what I’m going to do now; I can probably bolt the pedal back on with a hellacious amount of superglue and see if that holds it a bit better, but it’s probably still going to have an ugly wobble. I really need to get my road bike back together and do more of that, since I’m planning on Bike to the Bay in October. Anyway, before I do another mountain bike race, I plan to get a decent mountain bike costing at least $400. Which means it’ll be a while before I get another mountain bike.
4. Intake as much crystal meth before you start as you can.

Tomorrow: I take the advice of some friends again, and watch “Team America.” Great disappointment ensues.

Caption this, please, in the comments:

(My first suggestion is in the comments.)

Two things you should see:

My 2 minutes of fame this week.

Milo‘s latest creation.

That is all.

No, I’m not dead. No, I didn’t give up on the website or something. Y’all punks need to CHILLAX. I’m here, I’m weird, get used to it.

I just went on vacation, yo. I would have announced that I was leaving before I actually left, but that struck me as a singularly bad idea, since you’d all break into my house and steal my priceless collection of used condom wrappers picked up on lengthy bike rides. So I figured I’d just disappear for a week, freak everybody out, make y’all think that perhaps I had been shiv’d (aka shank’d) at work or something.

But now I’m back, so remain calm, and I shall share with you a daily blow by blow of my week on Le Vacay:

Saturday (7/2)
We couldn’t get into the house until after 2pm, so we decided to just take a leisurely morning and get packed and ready to go. We finally got on the road around 3, as I recall, and headed south in Sarah’s car, stacked to the freakin’ brim with clothes, CDs, and bicycles. We hit town around 5, got our stuff into the house, and began sitting around watching TV. Then the people from whom we rented the place showed up with leftover crabs, of which I ate something like 347. Then we got Dairy Queen.

Sunday
I woke to the smell of deliciousness, and discovered that my mom and my sister had made some hella grood Eggs Benedict, which is named after Benedict Arnold, who I believe was a character on “Good Times.” So I ate me some of that, and then we meandered over to the beach, where I darkened my skin for a bit and flung my flimsy body into the ocean over and over until the guards came down and asked if I might stop, as I was affecting the tide.

That evening Sarah and Liz (my lil sistah) and I went to the Rusty Rudder to meet some of our friends, and partake of a seafood buffet that left me fatter than a tick on a dead guy’s eyeball.

(What did that mean?)

Monday (Teh 1ndependenz D@y!!11!1!1 lol)
Things were a little cloudy, and Sarah and I wanted to relax, so we skipped out on the beach and sat around the house reading, watching TV, playing video games. In the evening we headed over to my father’s cousin’s house for some beers and some stuffing our faces. That was a good time; I saw some family I don’t believe I’ve run into in probably 10 years, and got to play with their explosives. We wanted to watch the fireworks, but unfortunately the clouds and fog obscured most of them. We could hear them, but listening to fireworks is like hearing someone else fart: not as much fun.

Tuesday
Tuesday morning, my father had to drive home and go to work, which was sad and depressing. Not long after he skedaddled, my aunt and cousin arrived to help keep us entertained for the week. That was the good times, right there.

Sarah and I drove up towards Bethany Beach to visit Todd and Jodi and Conner (collectively known as Jodder) at Jodi’s mom’s house. We went to the pool for a little while, and sat around their house chit-chatting. All around, it was good times. Conner, at roughly 18 months, speaks English better than my wife.

That evening we drove up into Dewey so we could go see Chorduroy play at the “Lighthouse,” only to discover that we had been misinformed: Chorduroy was to appear on Wednesday, and we were out of luck. So we traipsed back home and had ourselves a nice sob and a nap.

Wednesday
We decided to go to Rehoboth to do some shopping and sightseeing and plenty of eating, so I put on my rainbow polo shirt and headed north. We made some purchases of books and other trinkets, had Nic-o-Bolis (like a stromboli but balicious), and then headed back down to Fenwick. We hung around a bit, and then Sarah and I drove back to the Lighthouse to see Chorduroy and have Orange Crushes.

Thursday
Sadly, Thursday was cloudy, so our short trip to the beach was cold and windy. We came back to the house and concentrated on stuffing our faces with anything that would hold still long enough. My father returned to the party that afternoon as well.

Friday
After having rained all night, my dad and I were worried about our 10 am tee time, so I called the golf course to check on them. Three holes were flooded, so I cancelled and told them I’d call back in the afternoon. When I did so, they said not to bother making a tee time, just come on out and start swinging.

I planned to get there and hit a bunch of balls on the driving range to get into my groove, having not swung a club all summer, but sadly the driving range was under water. So I had to play without a warmup.

I shot a 59 on the “front” (we started on the 10th), and then found a bit of a groove and hit something around a 48 on the “back.” Good times. Plus it was a public non-governmental course so they had beer. Can’t argue with frosty cold ones when you want to cure your slice.

Saturday
We had to be out of the house by 11, so Sarah and I got up, showered, helped clean the place, and headed to Dewey. Some of our various comrades were expected to get into town that afternoon, so we found a quiet bar or 8 and whiled away the day until we could get into their house at about 3.

Having been up since 8, I figured I’d better get a strong nap in or else I’d never be able to stay up through all the partying, I went down for a nap around 5pm, and awoke at 9 when Sarah came in to jostle me. We got dressed and went to the Lighthouse again, where I lasted for about a half an hour before I realized I still needed more sleep, so I went back to the house and slept for about 9 more hours. (It was awesome.)

Apparently some things occurred while I was asleep. I didn’t witness any of it, but I’m told the stomach juices flowed with great gusto.

Sunday
We had time to get up, have some breakfast, and head to the beach for a few hours before we went home. On the way back we stopped at Texas Roadhouse and had so much food I couldn’t breathe properly for about 8 hours. Salad, steak, mashed potatoes, bread, fried onion thing, soup, potato skins…I think I gained 17 pounds in one day, to go on top of the 30+ I may have gained during the week.

If my poop could tell stories, man. Seriously.

Bless you, Emily V. It had been too long since I’d received a chain mail quiz doodad that I could respond to online and mock with my words. Here we go:

1. What is your full name?
Matt “The Grinding Apparatus” Hearn

2. What color pants are you wearing?
Khaki, with a few booger stains on the left thigh.

3. What are you listening to right now?
A very loud coworker yelling into his phone. I hate him.

4. What was the last thing you ate?
A small bag of Bugles and a bottle of Diet Coke.

5. Do you wish on stars?
Who has time for that? I wish on food. Every time I finish eating something, I wish there was more of it. (Rarely works.)

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
I’m gonna go with Chartreuse. (Is that a kind of purple? Or is it green? I guess I don’t really know what Chartreuse is. What does that indicate about my self-awareness? Whatever it is, it can’t be good.)

7. How is the weather right now?
Well, it’s kinda hot and humid, and we’re expecting rain later. Not great times. I’m glad I cut off all my hair.

8. Last person you spoke to on the phone?
A friendly customer representative that did not yell at me YAY. (I’m pretty incompetent.)

9. Do you like the person who sent this to you?
Yeah, I guess. She’s, uh, cool, or something.

10. How old are you today?
Same as I was yesterday. 27. Hell of elderly.

11. Favorite drink?
I’d have to go with beer. I’m not picky about brand or style, although a good cask ale is definitely very ::drools::

12. Favorite sport?
To watch? Hm. Probably football. To play? Hm. Probably softball, if only because I’m too slow to play football, and too horribly ungainly to play much of anything else.

13. Hair color?
This is a topic of great angst. For many years, I was blond; I have had to accept that now I have become a light brunette. This displeases me. I’m hoping to go prematurely gray. Also, since I got my hair cut, my wife says I appear to be thinning a bit on the top. So I plan to take my own life.

14. Siblings?
One sister, who is rad.

15. Favorite food?
Dead animal of any kind. Seriously. I’ll eat anything that once moved around on its own.

16. What was the last movie you watched? The whole thing?
Eek. I dunno, I watch very few movies, particularly from beginning to end. I’m more of a “flipping channels…flipping channels…OOH Major League is on!” kind of movie-watcher. I’m sure I’ve watched something more recently than “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,” which I rented about 3 months ago, but I can’t remember what it might be.

Within the past week I’ve watched roughly 47 episodes of “Law & Order: SVU;” those are movie-like, right?

17. Favorite day of the year?
That’s a toughie. Probably Christmas. I love Christmas. Only 6 months left!!!

18. What was your favorite toy as a child?
I am uncertain. I had a lot of toys, and my favorite depended largely on what happened to be in my hands. I got a great deal of enjoyment out of my Construx, though. What with me being an engineering genius and whatnot.

19. Summer or winter?
That depends largely on which I’m currently suffering through. By about July, I’ll be ready for another lengthy winter with lots of snow and cold weather. By about February of 2006, I’ll be moaning about the cold and openly advocating global warming. Clearly, I’m a jerk.

20. Hugs or kisses?
Depends on the gender of the hugger or kisser.

21. Chocolate or Vanilla?
Chocolate. And anybody that said Vanilla: you need to stop drinking bong water. Because you talk of madness.

22. Do you want your friends to email you back?
Hells yeah. Nothing’s more fun than a good lengthy email conversation in which I can ridicule the grammatical errors of others.

23. Who is most likely to respond?
Well, technically I’m not sending this to anyone. I guess the best I can hope for is it’ll turn into a meme and some of my friends will cut and paste and respond and we can learn about each other ’cause that’s what it’s all about my friends learning about each other and achieving lasting peace through knowledge and love and WHAP

Sorry.

24. Who is least likely to respond?
Instapundit. Or the New York Times editorial section.

25. Living arrangements?
I share a house with my wife and four obese cats that insist upon sleeping on my head.

26. When was the last time you cried?
I did get a little bit choked up on Sunday while watching “A Perfect Storm.” That part at the end, where they’re rescuing the helicopter crew, and they just won’t let each other give up, and the captain won’t give up trying to get them aboard . . . I always seem to get something in my eye at that point.

27. What is under your bed?
A crapload of dust bunnies and a shoe or two. Also probably a cat.

28. Who is the friend you have had the longest?
Hm. I guess I’ve been friends with Josh since about the 7th grade, so that’s something like 15 years now. I should send him an email or something.

29. What did you do last night?
Went to rehearsal for South Pacific, then came home and crashed.

30. Favorite smell?
French armpit.

31. Clean?
Well, personally yes, I suppose, as I did shower this morning and made sure to exfoliate all my crevices. The house? No. My desk at work? HAHA HELLS no.

32. What are you afraid of?
Islamic fundamentalism; God, or His representative; my wife; change.

33. Plain, buttered or salted popcorn?
Buttered, with salt. Awesome. Now I’m hungry. Thanks. (Jerk.)

34. Favorite car?
This question is extremely complex, as there are a number of automobiles I would like to own:

• 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS with the 454 cubic inch big block engine. That car has 450 horsepower and can light pedestrians on fire with its flaming exhaust.
• 1987 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS Aerocoupe. The little 305 Chevy small block only puts out about 180 HP, but I’d just replace that with a souped up 350 and go for the monstrous power. Plus a manual transmission. Plus I’d rip out all the seats ’cause of the unnecessary weight. Plus I’d install a roll cage. Plus I’d . . . I’d better stop now.
• 1972 Pontiac Grand Ville. This was my first car, which I drove through most of the second half of high school. In a fit of childish idiocy, I told my father to sell it. (In my defense, it’s not like it actually ran.) I still have dreams about this car.

I would also accept any car built before 1987 with a massive V8 engine in it.

35. Favorite Flower?
I’m not terribly knowledgeable about flowers, but I don’t want to just say “roses,” ’cause that’s lame, and in reality I don’t much care for roses anyway. I’m gonna go with Tulips.

36. Number of keys on your key ring?
At the moment I’m carrying two key rings; one of them has four keys on it, and the other has something like 5. (I need access to a lot of stuff, yo.)

37. How many years at your current job?
About 4 years. WOOHOO FULLY VESTED IN COMPANY MATCHING!

38. Favorite day of the week?
I could say Wednesday, just to freak you out, but I’d be lying. I’m a big fan of Friday, personally.

39. What did you do on your last birthday?
Had a wild party at the house, much of which is very blurry.

40. How many states have you lived in?
Thuh-ree. Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. I am not exactly a well-travelled mofo.

41. Have many cities have you lived in?
I’m gonna go with 5: Media, PA; Wilmington, DE; Baltimore, MD; Newark, DE; and New Castle, DE.

Well how about that. We’re done! Although I gotta be honest with you, some of these questions were pretty week. And ending on such a lame one…whoever wrote this has no sense of pride in their work. And they probably were high on paint thinner.

I’ve hemmed and hawed on this before, I’m sure, but I can’t help but notice that, despite my best efforts, spelling and grammar in America have gotten even WORSE. I was on the internet this morning (I know, it’s very out of character for me) and surfed over to the website of a major company that will remain nameless to examine a home theater system about which I had heard good things, when I was presented with the following sentence:

To see content that’s relevent to where you are select your country from the drop down below.

Are they kidding me? This is a major company, and the fact that it is owned by nice Japanese businessmen should not change the fact that a company employing thousands of Americans should be able to find somebody that knows how to spell “relevant.” Am I right? Is it too much to ask? How is it that no one has commented on this? AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO CARES?

Apparently so.

When I was going through school, it seemed like every time I took a breath, someone was telling me how important it was that I be able to write. Even if I took a job in computers, they said, I’d better be able to communicate via the written word. In college, I had a professor get into a screaming match with one of my snide classmates who didn’t believe that writing was at all important in the real world.

Now that I do indeed work in the computer industry, I’ve discovered that the ability to write, or at least spell and use correct grammar, isn’t nearly as important as I’d been led to believe. Few people in my line of work seem to really care about it, which of course makes me freaking INSANE, but I’ve long gotten over the urge to correct people. (They already think I’m a jerk. No need to make them want to kill me.) So I’ve learned to take it in stride.

But that doesn’t mean I’m letting the above-quoted company off the hook. Oh man, the emails they’re gonna get. I figure I’ll start with a nice, polite tone, like this:

To whom it may concern: have you been lobotomized, or are you just retarded?

If that doesn’t have any effect, I’ll move up to the more pointed criticism:

Dear Sir: I am going to drive to your house and pee in your linen closet.

Hey, I’m fighting for the English language here. There’s no line that I won’t cross.

Before:

After:

MY GOD. I AM SO PRETTY.

Holy crap! Something happened yesterday afternoon that NEVER. EVER. HAPPENS. A woman walking by me as I took my daily constitutional asked me directions, and I actually knew where to tell her to go!

Normally, the only time people ask me directions is when I’m visiting a town that is completely foreign to me. This is due to my spectacular ability to fit in and look like a “local,” wherever I might be. It’s particularly noticeable in stores that I visit on the way home from work, because my security badge for my office looks pretty much the same as the ones that employees at major chain warehouses have; I’ll be wandering around aimlessly, looking for grommets or spinakers or whatever, and some poor soul will wander up to me and say, “Hi! Can you tell me where to find marital aids?” It’s a serious problem, I’m telling you.

Even more amusing is when I’m visiting a foreign country, say, Hungary, and someone comes up and says something to me in Hungarian, to which I respond, “Um…do you, uh, speak English?” And then they switch to English and ask me if I know where such-and-such museum is, DESPITE THE FACT THAT I CLEARLY DO NOT SPEAK THE LOCAL LANGUAGE AND THEREFORE AM UNLIKELY TO KNOW A GREAT DEAL OF DETAIL ABOUT MY SURROUNDINGS. (It’s worth noting that this has never actually happened to me, but then, I’ve never been to Hungary. I’m pretty sure that if I were to visit there, it would happen.)

Yesterday, I was wandering down Chapel Street, enjoying the sun, and developing some really superb blisters on my feet (my shoe selection was not very good), when a rather portly latin-looking woman asked me if I knew where Matt Slap Subaru was. I bet this poor woman had never bothered someone on the street before whose eyes lit up like mine must have.

“Keep going that way, make a right, and you’ll see it!” I was almost jumping for joy. “It’s about a hundred yards down the street, on the right.”

“Uh . . . thanks,” she said, and strode away briskly, while I danced down the sidewalk with glee. I had done a good deed, and no one was going to take it away from me.

(Oh! Before you go, click this. Don’t worry, it’s not pr0n or anything; it’s something Brian made for me in his Flash class today, and it made me giggle a lot a lot.)