Unless you have an aura of scary/shadiness, a complete stranger has probably asked you to watch his stuff him while he ran a quick errand:

I call this type of favor Stuff-Watching Duty because I am clever, and because when you’re on Stuff-Watching Duty, you’re watching someone else’s stuff while that person is away.

Those of you who have been approached by a stranger have probably said “yes” at least once. I would say “yes” too—and I have on a number of occasions. But my willingness to go on Stuff-Watching Duty has changed. It happened when I was at the Taipei airport waiting for my flight to board. As a result of my crappy packing skills, I wound up carrying two bags of stuff along with my pillow, purse, and laptop.

Twenty minutes before boarding, I had to go to the bathroom. But I didn’t want to lug all my things around because (1) it was a pain in the ass, and (2) I knew some of my stuff was going to end up on the floor—something I was totally opposed to. Putting things anywhere on a bathroom floor is disgusting enough, but the toilets at this airport were all squatter-types. That meant there was a good chance the floor had layer of dried pee. Placing my bag of snack cakes would effectively turn them into urinal cakes.

So instead of bringing everything with me, I put the pillow and bags on some seats located outside the restroom. There was a woman sitting there, and I was tempted to ask her for a Stuff-Watching Duty favor, but something suddenly occurred to me: if someone actually stole my items, could I really expect the woman to do anything about it? She was doing a favor for me, a person she’d never met before and will probably never see again. Aside from maybe reacting in horror, what more could I expect her to do if a thief ran off with my laptop?

That train of thought led me to realize this: when someone asks you to watch her things, she doesn’t mean she wants you to literally keep an eye on them. What she’s asking you to do is make sure no one tries to take her stuff while she’s off squatting over a smelly urinal or whatever. But what if, in your attempt to keep suspicious-looking people away, someone actually takes the very thing you agreed to watch?

I’ll use an example. Let’s say I’m at school 45 minutes early because I have miscalculated how long it would take me to travel 3 miles (note to self: I do not have to leave my place an hour early) am super enthusiastic about my education. I end up sitting in the classroom by myself for about 20 minutes before a fellow student shows up. I have never spoken to this person before, and yet she asks me if I would watch her purse for her while she is away. I agree to do help her out because I figure: it’s not like I’m doing anything or going anywhere anytime soon, so what’s the harm in watching her purse for her? Plus, it’ll give me something to do to with the 25 minutes left before class starts. Damn my super-enthusiasm!

Being on Stuff-Watching Duty, I’m required to keep this purse safe from being stolen. If a suspicious-looking person gets too close for comfort, however, the most I’d probably do is give a verbal warning.

Yes, I imagine suspicious-looking individuals to look like Mayor McCheese.

But what if Mayor McCheese ignores my warning and runs off with the purse? Am I supposed to chase after him and get it back? I wouldn’t expect anyone to do that for me but, for all I know, I could be the only person who feels that way. And then I’d be held responsible for letting a scary, walking cheeseburger steal someone’s purse.

To avoid the possibility of confusion, I’ve decided to make strangers who want me to be on Stuff-Watching Duty sign disclaimer forms. The form will let them know that I am limiting my duty to verbal warnings, and will not be responsible if any Mayor McCheeses choose not to pay attention to my existence.

Let’s see how many times I can talk about pubic hairs without actually calling them “pubic hairs.”

There was a time when I had no interest in any form of pubic landscaping…but then I got my period. Ah yes, there is nothing in this world that will jumpstart your anti-pube movement like the experience of finding a menstrual clot hiding in your forest. And you won’t even know it’s there until you take a shower, when the water washes a dark red Man O’ War-like mass out of your pubes.

I started out by shaving off my bush, but upgraded to waxing when I noticed that not only did more hairs start growing out of my pants, they were thicker too. I don’t know why people say the shaving/thicker hairs thing is a myth because I’ve seen it happen, and there is a huge difference between pre- and post-shaving pubes. The strands from my bush were so thick you could use one to pry open a window.

The moment I strayed from the path of the Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia Pussy, however, I knew there was no return. None. I know because I’ve tried to live with a beaver a number of times. Each attempt ended with me sitting in awkward positions, trying to tear out any strand of hair I could see being reflected in a mirror that was practically up my butt.

The problem stems from the thick hairs that now plague my va-jay-jay area. They are extremely prickly, and if I get lazy and let them grow to a quarter of an inch, they become too long to fit under my panties. At the same time, they are too thick to break through the fabric, so they instead are bent downwards, where they stab at me in protest.

They only attack when I’m moving around—you know, because of friction and stuff—and it can become extremely itchy. Can’t scratch your pubic area without looking like a pervert with some disease, so I end up having to deal with it by walking bow-legged in an attempt to minimize the hairs’ movements as much as I can. This solution, however, also has a negative attribute:

But at least it’s not so damn itchy!

So, until I save enough money to get laser treatments, I’m pretty much stuck with waxing—it’s either that or I learn to get used to looking like a pervert with some disease. Hmm…I choose waxing. I give myself a Brazilian bikini wax every 6 weeks or so, and am constantly on the lookout for any suspicious underbrush that might try to take root on my private plot. Any wayward pube I find is going to get torn out one way or another because my garden is a no-pubes zone.

The downsides to waxing: it is a time consuming process that is generally messy and painful, and which has resulted in occasional skin and blood loss. When this happens, I have to go back to walking bow-legged to keep my tore-up va-jay-jay from stinging me.

Argh! Why can’t I win? Why? Why? Why?

I actually do visit other websites besides Xanga, and one of my favorite ones is www.foundmagazine.com. Found Magazine is an online collection of random pieces of paper people have, well, found. Visitors are encouraged to submit things like, “love letters, birthday cards, kids’ homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles,”—basically any interesting paper scraps they just happen to come across. The site takes these submissions and posts a “Find of the Day,” which will easily be the most entertaining thing you will read that day.

My favorite submission, and which I think is the funniest one ever posted on the website, is a piece of paper that looks like it was part of a high school test or something. I would seriously consider becoming a teacher just so I could see things like this:

Not sure if you can decipher the handwriting, but the student wrote:

It’s curvy, with a higher bit at the end and a rather aesthetically pleasing slope downwards towards a pretty flat [straight] bit. The actual graph itself consists of 2 [straight] lines meeting at the lower left hand corner of the graph, and moving away at a 90° angle. Each line has an arrowhead on the end.

Hahahahahahahaha^{1 trillion}!

At first glance, I thought this kid was just trying to BS his way through a question he had no idea how to answer. And judging by the red marks, the teacher seemed to think the same thing. The more I read (and laughed) at the answer, however, the more I thought he was a brilliant genius who deserved full credit. Although he spelled “straight” wrong twice—which is amazing since he was able to correctly spell the word “aesthetically”—he did answer the question, i.e., he described the slope of the graph. Sure, it would have been better if he had used the words “mass” and “time” in his answer, given that they were part of the graph’s description. And yes, at the very least he could have written something like, “mass decreases as time increases until it reaches equilibrium.” But the funniness of his response—and the pleasure of laughing yourself to death at the thought of this student actually turning in his exam with that ridiculous answer—makes him worthy of an A+.

While I was in Taiwan, I saw a lot of commercials for those fancy toilets that have butt rinsing functions. The toilets have water jets built into them, and sort of look like this:

When someone activates the function, the jet appears under the person’s butt and cleans it off with a stream of water. I’ve used a peach to illustrate this feature because a piece of fruit is undeniably cuter than a crusty butt hole.

I know, I know, the stem and leaf are at the wrong end, but drawing them in their correct places would have made my peach look like it had a twig pee-pee and a ghetto ass leaf loin cloth.

Anyway, since my butt doesn’t drink water, and I’m sure yours doesn’t either, my question is this:

Where does the water end up after it rinses someone clean?

I know it ends up in the toilet, but what about that water jet? It’s still underneath the person’s butt, isn’t it? Doesn’t that mean some poop wash ends up on the spout? If so, then the next person who takes a dump and activates the rinse function would end up getting washed off by water that has been tainted by someone else’s doodoo bits.

That can’t be how those toilets work!

I’ve had the pleasure of receiving a “first!” comment on a few of my posts. I’ve only ever seen them on websites with very high-traffic, and have thus always regarded them as a sort of prestigious honor given only to the elite. So to have someone care enough about my blog to actually leave a “first!” comment is seriously an honor that I appreciate immensely. I even feel a bit guilty sometimes because I don’t think I deserve such an accolade. It’s like giving me an Oscar for successfully lying to my parents, or awarding me with the Nobel Peace Prize for breaking up a tussle between two angry sea cucumbers—I feel so unworthy! 

If you’ve ever been in a name-calling battle, then you know that the key to beating your opponent is having a talent for quick and reflexive thinking. And if you’ve been regularly reading my blog, then you also know that I have no talent whatsoever for such quick or reflexive thinking.

Ah well, the satisfaction of winning a name-calling battle is definitely something you should experience at least once in your lifetime.

The 3 battles I’ve won were those where I was clearly the victor. The outcome of the last one, however, is not as clear. I think it should count as a win towards my record, but others have disagreed. You be the judge:

Personally, I think calling someone a kraken kicks total ass. First of all, it’s completely original. Most people go with the oh-so-typical arsenal of cuss words, and then try to mix-and-match them as if that will somehow make up a new word and garner them more points. At least by calling someone a kraken, the sea monster of yore, I’m showing that creativity exists in my thought process.

Secondly, krakens look like this:

I’m so sorry about the delay in posting, but I’ve been in Taiwan for the past few days and haven’t been able to access the Internet. And some Typhoon Morakot has been looming nearby and is making a real mess of things. Anyway, I’ll try to post as soon as possible–been writing something on bits of scratch paper, and hopefully it’ll be done by the time the weather calms down.