Hacking

Hacks at home

• When quietly smoking a jay at home, your wife will invariably ask if that was marijuana. Tell her no, it’s just a cigarette. BAM - life hack!
• Made too much cookie dough for the amount of trays you have? Eat the cookie dough from the bowl. BAM – life hack!

• 

  Thank you, Captain Sulu

  from Star Trek.

  Is it too far to the kitchen to find a glass? Take a gulp from a can of soft drink to make room and then pour your choice of spirit directly into the can. Pre-mix for half the price! BAM – life hack!
• Want to go camping but there is rain expected over the weekend? No issues - drape all the sheets and blankets from the linen cupboard over the lounges and you have your own camping area in front of the TV (It also doubles as a fort but you will need to protect it from jealous womenfolk who inexplicably seek to destroy your grand work). BAM - life hack!

Hacks in the workplace

• Always running out of staples? Think the walk to the stationary cupboard is too far and possibly constitutes a war crime? Next time take four seven twelve boxes and store then at your desk. BAM – work hack!
• Someone pissing you off at work? Like for example their very existence insults you in ways you can barely comprehend? Take the scissors from the binding area and put them in that persons desk drawer. The admin ladies will hunt her down and gut her like a trout. BAM – work hack!

• 

  I'm working here, Gladys.

  Learn to knock.

  Your employer has just asked if you have finished something you haven’t even started yet? Just tell him, yes. BAM – work hack!
• An afternoon nap is often hard with all the distractions at work. Try having a large hot lunch and then chase that with seven bourbons, you’ll be asleep in no time. BAM – work hack!
• Crippling anxiety or the unreasoning desire to leave this place of misery? Spend an hour in the bathroom masturbating. BAM – work hack!

This is an abridged list because I started drinking and then wasted four hours looking at memes while my wife went to look at the graves of relatives and visit someone in a nursing home.

Stay in school, kids.

Christ, meme.

Where were you 15 years ago?

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Sometimes I Get Nice Things

Saturday was a day of rest, relaxation but also a day of debauchery and hedonistic pleasures. If this was on TV there would have been a warning about frequent coarse language, sex scenes, drug use and adult themes. Of course I am talking about the freedom gifted by grandparents looking after our offspring. Free from parenting, we took off our badges and joined the throngs of people who have an unhealthy (and very limited) combination of money, time, and an inclination to waste what little there was of both.

The wife only had one rule for the day: We were not to turn this into a pub-crawl. Luckily an official crawl appears to need six different establishments. We got to five and retired to a friend’s house.

Anyone rolling their eyes and wondering why I appear to be running through what sounds like a normal mundane weekend for them, firstly, fuck your excess time and money, secondly I have no intention of relating the minor aspects of the day so calm down. To other parents hopeful of perhaps living vicariously through the journey, sorry, it just wasn’t enthralling enough to list again here. Sure, we drank too much, we ate all the wrong foods and then spoke adulty stuff with other adults. We had become people again. This isn’t about any of that though.

Just add cats.

Also more wine.

My wife wasn’t too drunk, she could walk straight but was really festive and at one point during the day had messaged our land-lord to ask if we could get a cat. So if we were labelling it, I would say singing-cat-lady drunk. This was setting the tone and if it helps, imagine reading that using the Wonder Years voiceover.

I’m picking this story up right after I ordered a Uber and then almost immediately received a phone call. Lots of static and then a woman screaming that she was at church or in her words, “I church. You wait some?”. I was about to agree that was fine, I wasn’t in a hurry anyway, when she qualified, “This second time. I do for laughs.” And then hung up. I didn’t know how to take this, should I order another? How does this even work? We watched the status in the Uber app anxiously but within five minutes the little car symbol began moving towards us, so win.

A 40ish year old Asian lady greeted us as we got into the BMW SUV. “This is second time, “ she told us and then she gave us a big smile and because of that big smile but probably more because I was in a real happy place right then, I thought we had a connection. “We going here?” she asked and pointed at her phone, connected to the dash.

“Sure, follow the little voice. “, I advised, noting that she had not started her phone app and my wife had opened Spotify and was in the early stages of drunkenly rocking out. Before I could back that off a little we had reached an intersection. “Which way?”, was her predictable question. I told her left and then we proceeded to have long conversation (loudly because my wife had found Sir Mix-a-lot and was singing happily about enjoying big butts) about which side of the car was left. Because apparently, “Yes”, “That way” and “No, the other way” are all synonyms for “Turn right”.

At least she had told the phone app to start directing her at that point. Which it did, loudly and in another language. But apparently was unrelated chatter because she never used or listened to it any further in the trip.

“You give stars?”, she asked during a break in the singing from the back, referring to her Uber rating I assume. “Two times.” She added proudly, holding up two fingers and looking back at us and thereby veering down the centre of the four lane road.

“Sure, all of the stars”, I returned, gesturing intently at the road in front of us and also struggling with the wife who had got bored with the original song and was looking for a new one. Which is annoying, pick a song and stick with it.

“Which way?” she queried a little further along, continuing to ignore the voice from her phone which obviously wasn’t giving directions home. I found her question strange as we were along a straight strip of road without any turns required for some time. In any case, forgetting her question she proceeded into a long monologue that I found hard to understand and even harder to hear because the wife was now into a Sting, Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams anthem.

No, no.

You sing like an angel.

When the incessant babbling stopped, I took a moment to process and it seems our driver was a working mother and was using her time and her BMW to reconnect with the world. Having sort of done the same thing today myself, I felt we had a special bond. The wife turned her phone up louder and tried to drown our conversation with a new song, “I’m going oooooooout!” she sang, not quietly.

“Go out?” our driver interjected, now agitated and pointing at the screen of her phone.

“No, that was Bon Jovi.” I tried to calm her and then poked my wife who ignored me and stepped up her rendition of Blaze of Glory. Our driver, obviously confused with that response, turned in her seat and asked again, “Going here?”, once again pointing at her phone screen.

“Yes, right there. You’re doing great!”, I lied but gave her a thumbs-up and she turned back.

Now sitting at a set of lights, in a car taking up two lanes (because fuck the road I suppose) I got to thinking. A stereotype in the front, beside me someone who was now covering the first verse into Right Said Fred’s ‘I’m too Sexy’, I could only assume I was being punked. This was some sort of gameshow and I got the impression I was losing.

Bugger it, may as well enjoy the ride. “Put Bon Jovi back on” I told my wife, then leaned back and let nature, karma and a middle aged Asian lady direct me the rest of the way home.

“Yes,” I interrupted our driver before she got too far into her next question, “All of the stars."

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Web Challenge

Is that a thing?

That can't be a real thing.

At the best of times I have been baffled by societies’ interpretation of what is appropriate. However even I feel this new Dick Pic Challenge is crossing a line. Obviously this line is imaginary, arbitrary and evolves over time but as of right now? Crossed.

So I’m joining in, challenge accepted.

As far as I can figure, the challenge involves firstly writing up a list of real world scenarios that select moments your partner will receive a picture of your junk on their phone. A bucket list of penis if you will. I prefer to understand a game before I begin, it is one of my many quirks and I have so many questions of this one. However it kind of feels you just need to roll with this challenge and not overthink it. Or underthink it. Or put in any thought at all really.

My personal scenario challenges for those perfect moments:

• While talking with the other dance mums at dance practice
• At the Adele concert
• The next time she goes shopping with her mother
• At a restaurant the next time we go out for dinner (after excusing self to go to bathroom)
• During the next parent & teacher interview at school

Oh, Lord.

It is a thing.

I’m going to be honest, I’m not sure if I’m going to improve as a person simply by ticking these off. On the other hand I don’t really understand the point of the challenge in the first place so that may not even be a goal. What is important is that in some strange and possibly twisted fashion I am spending quality time with my partner and isn’t that all that matters?

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Guest Editor: School Dropoff

[At times various friends, family and well-wishers want to express a point but lack the inclination to write up a scathing diatribe on the subject. I graciously offer to paraphrase their views into a concise summary. Occasionally without telling them. My wife raised this during one of her wine-bottle-and-a-half benders. -JR]

We got a memo (followed by several more over the years) from the school before the kids even started. A courteous letter asking us not to get out of the car while using the drop off zone. At first my husband thought this zone was like some universal location where you could leave your children when the novelty wore off. Which to be fair to the school and him, generally happens to parents around the 5 year old mark. And then every following year until I die.

Regardless of the universal imperative to procreate (I type while glaring at my loins), the kids are at school now and there needs to be an efficient method of delivery and pickup. [Unlike my husband I don’t view school as free day-care because that is just wrong; it’s not free at all.] I want them to arrive and leave in a manner that keeps them safe and not do the exact opposite of what we have been instructed to do. Several times. I love rules.

Yet people persist in getting out of the car. I don’t even.

I’ve found an efficient beep on the horn suitably chastises the miscreant, reminding them that they are personally giving a middle finger to the nice people who have asked them not to do whatever they were doing, common decency in generally and more importantly me. I may not have emphasised the part about me enough so I will follow up with two exclamation marks.  !!

How hard is it to get your kids sorted so they have their bags ready and to jump out of them car on the appropriate side? Efficiency is a thingy of beauty. Watching someone get out of the car to open the car boot, get bags out and needlessly wish their children a good day is an affront to good sense, generally efficiency and Jesus probably hates it too.

Anthropologists have studied loads of extinct and declining cultures and got a good handle on their whatnot. Yet ask one to understand the ritual of daily school entry and exodus they throw up their hands and just mouth what the fuck. These are scientists, people, they generally have their shit together and even coked out I imagine if they don’t understand what you are doing it probably means you need to start thinking a little more about what that is and not about your morning coffee.

As always, I say this with love and because I want you to grow I’ll leave this on a positive note; everything you are doing is wrong but you can fix it by changing.

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Social Skills (Lack of:)

Paleo is good, sugar is bad and so is the crippling emotional trauma of living with someone who is awkward and dysfunctional in social settings. Arguably all these things are myths - irrational, biased and almost certainly wrong. However, they are still things we need to deal with and I’m going to work you through them. Well not the paleo or the sugarfree ones (because they ARE irrational, biased and wrong). The living with someone who is social awkward one. Because I’m an expert.

To start we need to do a little roleplay to establish the difference between the social and the socially awkward. I’ll throw you a common situation that in a figurative sense happens literally hundreds of times a day. To setup the situation, suppose two people meet….

Person: “Good morning!”

Socially competent Person Response: “Hello random stranger or possibly slight acquaintance, how about that weather?”

You will notice the back and forth in the conversation, many people will acknowledge this as appropriate. You may also notice that the two are now well into a long winded discussion about FUCKING NOTHING. Let’s see how someone from the other side of the fence would respond to the same.

Socially inept Response: “Ummm”
Inner inept: Holy shit, was that even a response? Help!
Inner inept inner monologue: Hell, I don’t know. Try addressing your concerns about the status of the weather.
Inner inept: What for? Do people really like parroting the obvious? Isn’t that kind of meaningless?
Inner inept inner monologue: Seem to and yes, also if they are female avoid staring at their chest.
Inner inept: Nope, male. Also, I can’t stop staring at HIS chest now. Thanks for that.
Inner inept inner monologue: I was afraid of this. Have you tried baring your teeth and hissing?
Inner inept: I’m not going to do that. Anyway they seem to be backing away and carefully herding their children around me. Whatever we did appears to be wrong again.
Inner inept inner monologue: You should dwell on the conversation for 15 minutes, think of everything you could have done better and proceed to never utilise any of these anguished improvements.
Inner inept: Done!

To breakdown the roleplay, the competent wordsmith firmly believes that society hinges on inane conversations that have no practical or ongoing benefit. From the socially awkward perspective any interaction is about as fathomable as the female orgasm. You can’t help the depressed by telling them to “snap out of it”, likewise you can’t fix the social inept by engaging them further in conversation. This just increases their inner self-flagellation as they work out how a simple conversation turned so awkward without ever comprehending why.

By now you probably have identified if your partner, friend or colleague is suffering from social ineptitude. Future instalments of this instructional guide will lead you step by step through understanding and treatment of this condition. In next week’s instalment we will go over the tools the sufferers use to avoid social situations entitled “Is Cracked.com, TheChive or Reddit more interesting than you? In a way no, of course not. In another more accurate way, yes of course they are”.

This author is available for personal skype ‘help’ sessions with your loved one where we don’t talk about feelings and play DOTA. They better be able to play a carry.

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