Harrowing Halloween

I didn’t always hate Halloween.

Up until the time I was eight, it was one of the few social activities I enjoyed. This was rather to the chagrin of my mother who was faced with the chore of coming up with an plus-sign costume when I was six, the pi-symbol costume when I was seven, and finally a ruler costume when I was eight.

Mayhem at the Museum

There is a museum six blocks away from my house. I like it. Unlike what I have seen of most of the world, the museum is a place of order. The windows are always washed, the doors are all either open or automatic so you don’t have to touch them, and no one pays attention to you.

Being in a museum is a powerful feeling, like being invisible or a ninja or both.

One day, however, there was a new traveling display and the collection’s centerpiece-- a huge and garish modern painting-- was slightly askew.

Double Date Trouble

The English language is rife with problems, but there is one in particular that I think causes us all regular pain: the ability to state things that should be questions in a non-question form.

This wasn’t too much of a problem throughout high school as I wasn’t very social. However, my first college roommate was extremely peppy and put this linguistic flaw to good use in our first week together by informing-- not asking-- me that I was going on a double date with her and her boyfriend the next Friday to the ice cream place in the campus bookstore.

Not having yet learned the social skill of answering question-statements, I did nothing to prevent this catastrophe but rather, bewildered, went along with it.

Cold Season and the Zombie Apocolypse

I am a good employee, I swear. However, I did incidentally create a mini zombie apocalypse in my office last year.

The problem was the new cold and flu season. This year is my first year out of college. I am working at an accounting firm. When November rolled around, a memo was sent out to all the employees telling them to stay at home if they started having flu or cold symptoms. This went largely ignored. The number of snot-ridden hands touching doorknobs, sneezes blowing germs halfway across the office and hacking coughs skyrocketed to unbearable levels within a matter of days.

When, someone finally coughed right over my desk, I snapped. I couldn’t take it any longer. Either I would have to quit my job and become a veritable hermit, or I would have to take a stand. The next day I stepped into the office, prepared.