I need some serious advice about social etiquette. Here’s the scenario: 

You’re walking down a hallway or sidewalk, and someone is coming towards you from the opposite direction. There isn’t anyone else nearby–it’s just you and this person whom you’ve never met before, and may never see again.

Question: are you supposed to say “hi” to this person? That sounds like a dumb thing to ask, but I’m genuinely lost as to this bit of social etiquette. The thought of greeting every person I pass by seems really cheesy, but completely ignoring someone when we’re the only two people walking about seems really crappy, you know?

Since I don’t know what the proper formalities are, I’ve been relying on several measures to help me avoid having to deal with the conundrum of deciding whether I should grace a stranger with a salutation, or walk by without acknowledging his existence. The methods vary, but they are all based on the same principle: notice prevention. You can’t debate saying “hi” to someone you don’t notice, right? So I figured all I have to do is make it seem as if I am too preoccupied with something else to notice the person who is walking towards me–that way, if I don’t give a greeting, I won’t come off as an impolite douche because the other person will see I’m too busy with whatever it is I’m doing. And if the social norm is to not require a greeting at all, well, then I just left the impression that I am a super busy person.

Anyway, here are my methods:

The Fake Cell Phone Call

One of the methods I’ve used is the Fake Cell Phone Call routine. That’s pretty self-explanatory, right? You just put your phone up to your ear and start talking as if there’s someone on the other end of the line, when you’re really just having a conversation with yourself.

Pulling off a successful fake cell phone call under these circumstances requires 2 things, the first one being dependent upon the type of conversation you’re pretending to have. The fake conversation has to be one that takes up your entire attention span; you have to act as if you’re totally engaged in the topic, with no room for distractions.

A conversation you should not fake having is one where all you say is “uh huh” and “yeah.” Think about when you’re on the phone with someone who does all the talking: she’s talking the entire time, and the most you can do is say “uh huh” and “yeah,” when she takes the brief pause to breathe. If you’re lucky, you might even sneak in variations like, “uh huh, you’re right,” and “yeah, I understand,” but other than that, you’re just listening to the other person talk–which isn’t easy after the first hour or so. Your mind starts to wander…you might start playing “Spider Solitaire” or dusting your CD racks…

The point is, when you’re having this type of conversation, your mind is still aware of what’s going on around you. And that means you’re still stuck possibly having to at least nod or smile at the person as he passes by–i.e., failure! And if you insist on pretending as if you don’t notice the other person, he’ll figure out that you’re having a fake phone conversation–i.e., more failure!

So you have to have an active fake conversation–one that seems to take up your entire attention span. I like to use quotes from “Wall Street.” I’ve never seen the movie, but I’ve memorized a few lines specifically for the purpose of having a successful fake phone call.

You’d be surprised at how long I’ve been able to get away with the “Wall Street” quotes, but I don’t think my luck will last much longer. Once “Wall Street 2″ comes out, more people will probably want to watch or re-watch the first one. And then I’ll have to pick lines from another movie…maybe “Gigli,” because no one on Earth has seen that gem.

Oh, as for the second requirement for pulling off a successful fake cell phone call–you should turn your phone off. Don’t be like me and think that just because you get one or two phone calls a week, you’re going to be safe when you’re doing the fake call. Someone will call you right then and there. Trust me on this one. It has happened to me before…twice.

You know what’s worse? Neither of the phone calls were for me! One was a wrong number, the other was a telemarketing recording about debt financing.

The Averted Eyes

The second method I use is to keep my eyes from looking ahead. Can’t see if anyone is walking from the opposite direction if your eyes are trained elsewhere! I usually look at the ground.

I haven’t used this one in awhile though, because I tend to walk in a slant when I’m not looking ahead. That has resulted in very unfortunate moments…

I do not recommend this strategy for any of you who have the same tendencies.

Fake Text Messaging

It’s a slight variation on the Fake Cell Phone Call. I use this one the most because (1) I won’t look like a dumbass if someone suddenly calls, and (2) I am less likely to walk into a wall, or slip off the sidewalk, or bump into the person I’m trying to avoid noticing.

You just have to look intently at your cell phone and press random keys. That’s it. It’s simple, painless, almost fool-proof…

I said “almost,” didn’t I? Here’s another lesson from my ever-growing catalogue of awkward moments.

So I was on this little walkway that connects my apartment complex’s fitness room to the main building. As I’m heading back, I notice someone was walking towards the fitness room…and thus, towards me, since I had just come from there. I didn’t have my cell phone on me, but I did have this crumpled tissue in my pocket. I didn’t know what else to do, so I took the tissue and started to stare at it.

I kept telling myself “this tissue is really interesting” because I thought it would help make my crap acting abilities seem more genuine. And I guess it worked well…really well…because the next thing I know, the guy stops and asks:

Maybe he knew I was trying to avoid noticing him, and was thus calling me out by asking me what I had in my hand–I don’t know. All I know is that I was suddenly stuck in an awkward situation, and that could only mean 1 thing: my sh*tty thinking-on-my-feet skills were going to kick in.

I start trying to come up with an answer:

A tip for those of you who struggle with finding a fake answer to a “what do you have there?” question: start with “I have this…” because starting with “I have a…” pigeon-holes you into coming up with an answer that starts with an “a.” And there aren’t very many good ones you can come up with on the fly.

I’m standing there, stammering and stuttering, and suddenly my gut told me to say:

Sh*t! That wasn’t a gut feeling–that was a butt feeling!

During those brief seconds between opening my mouth and saying those words, I somehow managed to rationalize telling this complete stranger I had AIDS: “If I tell him I have this incurable disease, he probably won’t know what to say and will end the conversation right there!” What didn’t occur to me was the fact that I would be telling someone that I had AIDS. Who lies about having AIDS?! I should have just said “hi”!

Anyway, the guy yelled “Holy hell!” and I speed-walked away.

Please, please, please tell me: what’s the social etiquette rule for this?!

I used to think that whoever came up with the “5 Second Rule” was an ass monger. Thanks to him, parents who were working hard to make sure there was food on the table were coming home to find their kids voluntarily eating stuff off the floor. And these weren’t the type of kids you’d find in a sponsor-a-child infomercial–you know, the ones who are shown living in squalid conditions and eating rocks. No, the kids who were sucked into believing the ridiculous “5 Second Rule” were those who were raised in non-Third World countries. I don’t know why, but that’s how it has always been. Impoverished nation with little food = unlikely to hear about the rule;  wealthy nation with lots of food = impossible not to hear of the rule before the age of 10.

The thought of this guy’s stupid rule turning our future generations into garage eaters certainly warranted the title of “World’s Assiest Ass Monger,” but then I realized something: as young and impressionable as kids may be, only a small number of them actually believe the “5 Second Rule” is true. These are kids who believe in Santa Claus, and want to pursue a career as Spiderman; they can be tricked into going to the dentist (say he learned dentistry at Hogwarts) and eating vegetables (“eat your peas or else Pikachu will die!”), and have tried drinking gasoline after watching the “Transformers” movies. And yet, as innocent and unknowing as these children are, they aren’t gullible enough to believe that the “5 Second Rule” makes it okay to eat sh*t off the ground.

Do you know this means? It means the “5 Second Rule” is really an ingenious way of testing a child’s intelligence! And the guy who came up with it isn’t just an ass monger–he’s a smart-ass ass monger!

Children are typically exposed to the “5 Second Rule” like this:

What separates the smart kids from the dumb ones is the fact that the dumb ones need to see that the ground is actually filthy. They have to see the giant mucus ball someone spewed on the sidewalk, and the dog poop a jogger tracked in while on his morning run. These kids have to actually see how nasty the ground is before they realize the food they just dropped has become too tainted for consumption.

The smart kids don’t need any visual evidence to know that the ground is a toxic cess pool. Once that cookie hits the floor, it’s over–and that’s not going to change no matter how quickly you were able to pick it up.

If you have a dumb kid, do not despair: there is a way to save him from a life of retardedness, and it all starts with shaking up his belief system–the core of which is the “5 Second Rule.” Remember: the dumb kid believes in the rule because he has to see the ground is dirty before he figures out that the dropped food item is also dirty, so you will have to give him that visual.

Step 1: Get some poop. Horse poop, dog poop–it doesn’t matter as long as it’s really stank and nasty. Oh, and make sure it’s peanut butter poopish–you know, a little squishy, but still solid enough to hold itself up in a pile.

Step 2: Get something the kid really loves to eat. Make sure the color contrasts from the color of the poop–e.g., don’t use a chocolate cupcake if the poop pile is also dark brown.

Step 3: Drop the food onto the poop pile, and let the lesson run its course.

That’s the best case scenario. In the off-chance that this should instead occur:

…Then you’ve got bigger things to worry about than the “5 Second Rule.”

I had the opportunity to do something super amazing last week. It’s something I am sure very few people will ever get the chance to experience in their lives, and you’re all going to be so jealous of me by the end of this post!

I was at home studying for the bar exam–yes, I am doing that sh*t again, but this time it’s for the California bar. Passing the Hawaii exam isn’t enough to get me a job right now–in fact, it actually limits me because I am restricted to whatever options are available in one state, and there aren’t that many. But while I do like having all the free time that comes with being unemployed, my parents are not as thrilled, so I’ll have to get a job eventually. After all, I probably owe them that much…you know, in return for giving me life and stuff.

As I was saying: I was studying for the bar exam when the gallons of coffee I had consumed suddenly decided it was time to be free. I headed to the bathroom, and right before I sat down on the toilet, I noticed something on the seat. I couldn’t really tell what it was because my eyes were still blurry from reading pages and pages of tiny text, but it kind of looked like a small piece of thread.

As I leaned in for a closer look, however, what I thought was a piece of thread turned out to be a giant silverfish!

I don’t know how it got there, or why it decided to hang out on a toilet seat, but it was nasty as all hell and had to be destroyed.

Luckily, I didn’t have to do much to get rid of it because the silverfish sensed my presence, freaked out, and ran into the toilet bowl.

Since that was taken care of, I was able to get back to business…

Who’s in danger? Urine danger!

Note: I had told a friend this story earlier, and he was like, “Ugh, I can’t believe you peed on it! You should have flushed the toilet first.” But why wouldn’t I pee on it? It was in the bowl, which just so happened to be where I needed to deposit my pee. And it wasn’t going to jump up and bite me on the ass, so there was no need for me to flush it down first. That’d just be a waste of water.

Once I was done, I flushed my waste and the silverfish away.

What hadn’t been flushed away, however, was this mystery: why was the silverfish on the toilet seat, and how did it even get there in the first place?

I thought about these questions for two days–even putting my studies on hold because there was no way I was going to be able to focus on anything other than that damn silverfish. Did it fall from the vent? It’s right above the toilet, but there is no way it would have been able to get through the filter. Had it crawled out from the back of the toilet? Did one of the cats put it there?

Just when it started to seem as if the hours I’d spent wracking my brain for answers would be in vain, I remembered something that happened about a year and a half ago. I was just about to go to sleep one night…

I can’t draw perspectives for crap, and this is the closest I got to in terms of giving you an overhead view of the tub:

Indeed, the thing that I saw in the tub was a huge brown spider! I mean, it was just huge! Its legs were all…ugh…and its bulbous body…! It was so vile!

I wasn’t going to let that monstrous creature stay there–hell no! But I wasn’t going to rely on the catch-it-in-some-toilet-paper-and-crush-it-to-death method my parents use when dealing with insects because I was not that brave.

I instead took the easy way out and washed it down the drain with hot water.

Problem solved? Not quite. You see, the next morning…

No way…no freakin’ way…!

It was back in my bathtub, even when I’d washed it away with hot water! It was back again, in all its disgusting glory! Its legs were all…ugh…its bulbous body…*barf*! This wasn’t an ordinary spider–this was the itsy-bitsy spider on ‘roids!

If hot water wasn’t enough to kill it, I knew I had to resort to extreme measures:

I went to the kitchen and came back with a pot of boiling water.

Uwee hee! That thing turned into a crunchy ball the second the water touched its body.

How is this relevant to the silverfish being on my toilet seat? It’s so obvious!

Thanks to my superior analytical skills, I’ve clearly solved the “why” question! Now all that’s left is the “how”!

Hey, look! We’re at the end of this post! I bet you’re just dying of jealousy, aren’t you? Aren’t you? I pissed on a silverfish! Wouldn’t that make anyone jealous?

I hope Xanga’s server issues get resolved soon. I’ve been sitting on 18 pictures I drew for my post, and they are starting to get stale.

The only thing I have that is even remotely close to being a drawing is some old-school text art:

BEHOLD!

(oYo)

Umm…it’s an owl’s eyes!