A Repsonse to The Honorable Viceroy Fizzlebottom

Dear Sir-bottom:

I write in response to your recent post “An Open Letter to Geneball.” I have done some research and conducted some critical experiments to address your question of luck, and its containment within fine American Lincoln pennies, amongst other objects.

I agree with you that we must foremost establish if such a thing as a good luck penny exists, and that we can then begin to discuss its degrees and ramifications. I addressed this question quite thoroughly.

I myself am a scientist of the genes, so my knowledge of luck and its containment within objects various and sundry is limited. In fact, aside from some rudimentary problems in Introductory Statistics, one could say that I am a veritable tenderfoot in the science of luck. (Sadly, no one has said that as it is a rather cumbersome statement and I hang out with people more inclined to the lowbrow) So, as a good scientist, I turned to the works of others. Namely, I performed a perfunctory literature search. Posting the inquiry “good luck” to my favorite scientific search engine, I found the following articles to be most pertinent. Salient portions from their abstracts, when available, are also included.

Ann Acad Med Singapore. 2007 Mar;36(3):217-20.
Take a bao if you are not superstitious.
Lim EC, Oh VM, Quek AM, Seet RC.

INTRODUCTION: Singaporeans are superstitious, and medical staff are no exception to the rule. We conducted a survey to determine the prevalence of superstitious beliefs and practices amongst doctors, nurses and medical students in Singapore. METHODS: Internet and face-to-face surveys of 68 respondents, all of whom completed the survey after being threatened with curses and hexes. RESULTS: Sixty-eight doctors, nurses and medical students responded to our survey. Only 11 admitted to being superstitious, yet 31 believed in the ill-fortune associated with eating bao or meat dumplings, 6 in the nefarious powers of black (5) or red (1) outfits on call, and 14 believed that bathing (6 insisting on the powers of the seven-flower bath) prior to the onset of a call portended good fortune, in terms of busy-ness of a call. Twenty-four believed in "black clouds", i.e. people who attracted bad luck whilst on call, and 32 refused to mouth the words "having a good call" until the day after the event. We discovered 2 hitherto undescribed and undiscovered superstitions, namely the benefits of eating bread and the need to avoid beef, for the good and ill fortune associated with their ingestion. DISCUSSION: Superstitious practices are alive and well in modern-day Singapore, the practice not necessarily being restricted to the poorly-educated or foolish.

I particularly enjoy hearing about the various types of ill-fortune Singapese believe in, and of course the concluding line is a real whopper. (Given the statements in the introduction, however, their findings don’t seem particularly astounding) However, no mention of pennies nor Singapese 1-cent pieces (they also call their $$ ‘dollars’; alas, no funny names there)

Harefuah. 2003 Nov;142(11):734-5, 807.Links
[Ingestion of an open safety pin--challenging treatment]
[Article in Hebrew]

DeRowe A, Fishman G, Avni H, Reider I, Ogorek D.

A 9 month old girl at the emergency room appeared with an acute onset of restlessness, drooling and suspected foreign body ingestion. An X-Ray revealed an open safety pin in the child's upper aero-digestive tract. The source of the safety pin was a "Hamsah" good luck charm that was attached to her bed. Open safety pins in the aero-digestive tract are difficult to manage and great care must be taken during removal to prevent further injury. Parents should be counseled regarding the presence of safety pins in the child's surroundings in order to prevent such hazards.

This is included simply as a public service: parents, please keep your Hamsah beads away from your children! One could say, however, that in this case the good luck token did not yield the intended result.

J Reprod Med. 1998 Mar;43(3):196-8.Links
Good luck rites in contemporary infertility.
Kemmann E, Cheron C, Bachmann G.

OBJECTIVE: To explore whether contemporary women use good luck rites in the infertility situation. STUDY DESIGN: Prospective study in a tertiary infertility center where women were asked to describe any type of good luck act performed on the day of critical medical intervention (either intrauterine insemination or embryo transfer) to achieve pregnancy. RESULTS: Four hundred thirty-eight consecutive infertile women participated. Good luck rituals, as defined by patients, included prayer, wearing of objects, fantasies and other acts performed specifically on the day of the medical intervention. While 40% of the study population reported engaging in a good luck act prior to intrauterine insemination of embryo transfer, there was no significant difference in pregnancy rates observed in women reporting utilization versus nonutilization of fertility rituals. CONCLUSION: This study indicated that good luck rites are commonly performed by women undergoing infertility procedures on the day of a critical intervention. The fact of their common presence attests to their importance for the well-being of the individual; however, there is no evidence of direct benefit in terms of higher pregnancy rates. The possibility of secondary benefits needs to be explored further.

In this study, rituals are found to have no statistical effect. They do not, however, provide the results for individual rites in this abstract; it is entirely possible that considered alone the totemic luck objects we are interested in would be seen to have an effect. Nevertheless, I would consider this a null result in that luck did not produce an outcome better than what was seen in the people who weren’t mildly delusional.

MD Comput. 1994 Sep-Oct;11(5):318-24.Links
Cables.
Cushing M Jr.

If you want to control your own computer installation, get the satisfaction of doing your own maintenance, and compensate for an inept or uninformed vendor, the information in this article will help you achieve these ends. Good luck and good cabling!

Another PSA: You can do it! Control your own installation! It’s not too hard! M Cushing Jr. Will show you how! Good cabling everyone!

Vet Hum Toxicol. 1981 Aug
Mexican good-luck charm potentially dangerous.
Sullivan G, Chavez PI.

I cannot access this article, but I’d say the title does not bode well for the presence of luck of this charm.

Med Hypotheses. 1979 Jul
The varieties of chance in scientific research.
Austin JH.

Four kinds of luck can be defined --- one that is pure "blind" luck, and three others that are influenced to some degree by certain behavioral characteristics. The term, altamirage is introduced to call attention to that special personal quality by which good luck is prompted as a result of personally distinctive actions (Chance IV). In contrast, serendipity involves finding valuable things as a result of happy accidents (Chance I), general exploratory behaviour (Chance II), or saga-city (Chance III). The most novel scientific discoveries occur when several varities of chance coincide.

In this report, Dr. Austin discourses about the various types of luck. He omitted Chance V: by carrying a bit of copper about in your pocket, but I reckon he might throw this in with Chance I.

Infirm Can. 1975 Aug
[The child as a good-luck object or the child as a burden]
[Article in French]
Vaillancourt-Wagner M.

I cannot access this article, and I fear this may be our best chance to address your issue directly. Note here, however, that both options are considered- basically pro-lucky or anti-lucky. Perhaps I should collaborate with this individual for further studies.

Tijdschr Gastroenterol. 1970
[Good luck letter to patients with an artificial anus]
[Article in Dutch]
Ceulemans G.

Huh. Yeah, I have to agree with the Dutch guy. Good luck with that.

So it appears that we have learned some interesting things about luck, but unfortunately the literature search was mostly for naught. First, not a single mention of pennies. Second, we have not reached any scientific conclusion on whether or not luck can be bestowed upon any object, penny or otherwise. I refined my search a bit, this time querying “lucky penny.” I obtain a singular hit.

Ulster Med J. 2004 Nov
"The lucky penny"--an incidental finding of hip dysplasia in a child with foreign body ingestion.
Hanratty BM, Thompson NW, Cowie GH, Thornberry GD.


CASE REPORT A two-year-old girl was brought to the emergency department following
the ingestion of a one pence coin. A thoracoabdominal radiograph demonstrated the presence of a coin within the first part of the duodenum.

This report contains two images: first, the X-ray showing the penny. Note also the young girl's bling (necklace and earring oddly left on during the scan).

And the important figure. The issues is that the child's right hip (left side of image) has less bone in the hip socket region than the left hip.

And finally, from the concluding paragraph of this very report:

In this case, a thoraco-abdominal radiograph which was taken to investigate an ingested coin, revealed a previously undiagnosed and asymptomatic dysplastic hip joint highlighting the fact that significant hip dysplasia can exist undetected until complications develop. A reconstructive pelvic osteotomy is planned in an attempt to minimise the associated risk of premature arthritis. The swallowed coin may prove to be this child's 'lucky penny'.

And so it appears that pennies can be lucky! Except, in this case, we are not actually dealing with a penny- this study was reported by a group from Belfast. So we have determined scientifically that the Irish one pence piece is lucky.

As a man of rigor, however, I cannot let this determination slide as a scientific truth. As noted, the result technically says nothing about lucky pennies. So I devised a brief experiment to test this in the confines of my own laboratory.

Design: I have included five subjects: left computer speaker (the left audio channel speaker for my desktop at work), right computer speaker (as above, but the right speaker), box of entropy (I cannot explain this properly in this parenthetical statement), Renaud (the only other member of my lab presently available), and myself. Multiple subjects are included to minimize individual effects. There are three test conditions: without a lucky penny, with a penny which is not lucky, and with a lucky penny. The first two conditions are controls for luck, the third is the experimental condition.

A brief description of the process by which five lucky pennies were come upon specifically for the purposes of this experiment: I set aside one moderately lustrous penny for each subject. Pennies were tossed until the second time they landed heads, as of course only pennies which are heads up should be picked up, as tails up do not give the picker luck. Pennies were then dipped into a fountain to endow with the fullest capacity of luck. As no actually fountain was available, pennies were dragged across my computer screen over five different fountains, depicted below.

Left speaker's lucky fountain:

Right speaker's lucky fountain:

Box of Entropy's lucky fountain:

Renaud's lucky fountain:

Geneball's lucky fountain:

The experiment: if a tail is thrown on a luck-neutral coin (shiny Oklahoma quarter), the subject is shot (flesh wound only). Five survived tosses suffice as thoroughly lucky. (For all objects not sufficiently animated to perform the toss, the coin must strike the object before hitting the desk to count.)

Results (no. of tosses until shot)

No penny/ ‘Neutral’ penny/ Lucky penny

Left speaker 0/ 1/ 2

Right Speaker 0/ 3/ 0

Box of Entropy 1/ 1/ 2

Renaud 0/ 1/ 0

Geneball 1/ 0/ 0

Results: It appears that having a penny at all is preferable to not having any sort of totem, as both ‘neutral’ and ‘lucky’ pennies result in more successful tosses. However, this experiment can say nothing to the end of the validity of lucky coins as of the five results, in two cases the lucky penny was actually lucky, in two cases it was unlucky, and in one case it was ineffective.

In conclusion, I suppose it would be perfectly reasonable for this man to believe his penny to be lucky, as this study shows that having a penny is preferable to not having a penny, if you want to avoid being shot. The significance attached to the individual penny, as opposed to the one he got from the Popeyes around the corner, is not scientifically verified, however.

And now, to philosophize, based on these studies and my highly scientific personal opinions. First, we have clearly seen that pennies can be lucky, as can low-monetary units in other currencies. I would argue that this concept is best left to the low-value units, because I’m sure the Hobo would be able to provide you a detailed luck/benefit analysis wherein the actual value of the currency will, in short order, outstrip its value as a bearer of good fortune. Such a financial analysis is hardly conclusive, however, as it is limited by the scope of the analysis as well as confounding factors such as “what made you actually get the raise, being more competent than high school students at taking movie tickets or carrying around a penny?”- some things just cannot be known, or take longer than his short-term analysis can adequately quantify. All the same, I bet your friend would be quite remiss to show you a lucky $100 bill, because if he’s showing you all the shit he’s got that’s lucky he probably doesn’t have too many c-notes at his ready disposal to not be disposed of.

I would feel confident in then taking this further and believing that other objects might also have money. I see no reason why an object would be more or less lucky just because it is not legal tender for all debts, public or private.

And of course things can carry as much bad luck as good. I cannot believe you did not consult the Johnny Depp epic Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl before inquiring. If Johnny Depp shares the screen with something, it must be true. Note: this does hold for scissor-handed people and cocaine. Yes, cocaine is true.

On your final point: it does seem that more lucky things would find their way to you upon acquisition of the first lucky item. However, this probably depends heavily on the type of luck the initial item bequeaths: if it is luck with acquiring more luck, then goody for you. If, however, it is luck with ladies, I am sorry but you will not be acquiring a rabbit’s foot anytime soon. Go cry to your new girlfriend about it.

I hope this correspondence finds you in good health, etc. etc. and I hope that I have scientifically put to rest some of your questions about lucky pennies and so forth by updating you on the current state of luck research in the scientific community.

Heigh ho!

Geneball

P.S. If you liked my trawling of scientific literature for purposes of entertainment, I suggest you check out this blog, where it is done with some regularity and a good amount of hilarity.

Reason No. 126 Why I Love Chicago

Last Saturday I had the incredible misfortune of having to work. Due to a string of logistics unnecessarily convoluted for this particular post, the Timeless Brigitte dropped me off at work and I planned to take the grand Chicago Transit Authority bus and rail service back to my humble abode in the much more righteous part of town.

The CTA is like any other public transit service: for a meager but not inconsequential fare you are allowed to ride one of their transports, which, pending your knowledge of the system, may or may not get you where you need to be. I tested in the 99th percentile in the critical "Maps" category on my ITBS, so it usually gets me where I need to be, or to a reasonable proximity thereof. (The one exception: the NY MTA, upon which I rode three stops before realizing I was going the wrong direction. I then spent fifteen minutes getting the drift of the system, and am fairly confident that when I return for the New Years occasion, the results will be much better.)

In order to not convey to any other passengers that you might be happier than they are, and thereby irreparably insult them, the custom is that upon boarding, you are to act droll and downplayed. Personal music players are encouraged. Conversations with any fellow riders, be they friends or strangers, are to be held at a strictly sub-audible level. If you have the misfortune of boarding a unit sufficiently full that there are no empty seats to hoard as your own, you are to make NO contact with the person next to you. Also, the buses/cars may or may not be dirty, may or may not have people selling DVDs in unlabeled cases, and may or may not have people passed out in party hats in them. Although the method of conveyance is convenient and reduces the impact of massive amounts of vehicular traffic in the city, the general rule can be simplified as: please do not feel good about life aboard mass transit.

However, for a couple weeks every year the CTA does a Really Great City Thing which flies in the face of typical mass transit etiquette. The story travels is, briefly, as such:

I finished a too long day of work-on-the-weekend at about 5. Reported to the westbound 55 Garfield bus stop at 55th and Ellis.

Watched three buses pass in the eastbound direction in the 25 minutes I waited for the bus. (This is typical. In order to hit their 'one bus every X minutes' mandate, on a X*N minute long route, they put N buses on the route, and they all show up in the span of 3 minutes. That is, if it's supposed to be every 10 mins, they have three buses show up within 3 minutes of each other every half hour. Averages out to a bus every ten minutes, but you end up waiting 27, 1, or 2 minutes for a bus.) While I was waiting, two not very good things happened: it was rainy and I was therefore getting wet, and a bunch of U of C undergrads showed up and pretentiously talked about comic books and other various political and pop-culture topics. The young people at this school drive me crazy very frequently. I am very glad I went to The State School Everyone Is Talking About Now Because Of How Poorly The New Auburn Coach Did There.

I finally boarded the bus in the appropriate asocial mood, thanks to the wait, the rain, and the pretentiousites.

I was rapidly dropped off at the Green Line, or as Chicago people would call it "The Line White People Shouldn't Ever Ride." My personal career rapings on the Green Line (both given and taken): 0. Likewise incidents witnessed: 0. Riders on the Green Line witnessed: maybe 75. Seems sparsely riden and rape-free enough for this honkey.

Wait twice for a net of fifteen minutes for various 'single track' stoppages.

Get to Adams & Wabash station, where I deboard to transfer to the Brown Line, or as Chicago people call it "The Yuppie Businessperson's Commute to Their Downtown Bank Job Line." Net rapings witnessed (including given and taken): 0. However, number of people seen on this train: roughly 25,076. And, more importantly: number of moderately obese people who don't squeeze up so you can sit next to them or people with bags on a seat, rudely taking a seat they don't need: 2,507.6. Verdict: a honkey-friendly but obnoxious transit choice.

Wait roughly five minutes for the appropriate train to show up.

During this period I was listening to my personal music device and reading a book, so I was completely unawares when a high-energy crowd started to basically jump up and down and clap their hands as the next train approached.

And why?

IT WAS THE OFFICIAL CTA HOLIDAY TRAIN!

YES THAT IS SANTA ON A TRAIN CAR! AND YES THOSE ARE REINDEERS TOO! AND A GUY IN A PARKA!
Every year for a month before Christmas the CTA rolls out a special train. One car isn't actually a car, its a flatbed on which Santa and some Elves ride around the rails (yes, even through the subways). All the cars are decked out with candy cane poles where it's usually buffed aluminum. All the nasty fluorescent white lights inside are switched out for red and green ones. Garland abounds. The outside of the car is covered in winter themed items and christmas lights. Each car has a person dressed like an elf handing out candy canes by the handful- when I asked for just one she said, "It's either a handful or none."

It was amazing to ride the Holiday Train. The mood of the passengers was sufficiently raised, in respect to that on the Green Line, so as to be palpable sitting in my seat by the door. Children were excited, adults were smiling. I took my earbuds out to listen to the seasonal music they had playing.

And it struck me: isn't it funny how this kind of little thing can make everyone so happy? It's pretty great that this simple thing makes all these people who would normally be quasi-miserable, or at least completely walled off, smile at each other and enjoy the ride?

And how would the world look if these kinds of little things happened for more than a scant few weeks a year? I get that part of the joy is the novelty of it, merely thinking of the Christmas season brings a lot of good memories to everyone. But there are other causes for some decorum. What if we used them more fully? There's plenty of awfulness and a lot of problems, but I couldn't help thinking as I got off the train that the slight incremental increase in the moods of everyone who rode or saw the train go by just might, if you played it right, improve the way society works.

But at the very least, I was happy walking home in the miserable rainy slush that night.

Sunday Funday

Part 1: In which mundane chores become entertaining

I carefully engineered my schedule yesterday to accomplish two tasks in the same window of time. Task 1 was laundry. This task takes some time, as you probably know, but there are a few points along the way where the laundry kind of does itself- long as you’re not using one of those boards which are used primarily as musical instruments nowadays, which, rest assured, I was not.

The first self-sufficient stage is the washing, but I had to be attentive because I wanted to be very fancy and add some fabric softener to my laundry to restore some measure of decency to my life. Why exactly do I need fabric softener to restore decency? Because my sink leaked all over my towels, making them stink perhaps permanently of Wet Towel. Also because my little cat, Panther, has decided for reasons unknown to smite us by peeing on any bag which is left on the floor. So, fabric softener not for spring-like freshness but just hopefully not smelling like mold and pee. Classy.

The second self-sufficient stage is the drying. Thanks to the wonderful laundromat dryers, this step only takes three quarters, or 24 minutes. This period is when I brilliantly engineered the inclusion of step 2: returning my redbox disc (Lost Season 1, Disc 5- my towels stink, my bags have pee on them, and I’m four years behind pop culture; in other words, yes, I am a scientist) to the most proximally available post drop. Thing is, I usually drop my redboxes in the box at Southport and George, so I had no clue in the world where I might be able to post the envelope in the vicinity of the laundromat. The race was on: twenty four minutes to find a mailbox in unfamiliar territory three blocks (!!) from my apartment. Cue dramatic digital clock overlay.

If this day was a very brief episode of ’24,’ and the time when the quarter went in the dryer was zero, then there would have been a dramatic split screen at about ‘5:00.08.’ The split screen would have had in one corner three people wearing Bears jerseys sitting on canvas camp chairs with two dogs in front of a bar that only insiders know as “Katie’s Place.” In another corner, a face-on angle shot of the lovely Brigitte and I walking down the street. In the third, a chalkboard sign advertising $1 burgers w/ purchase of an alcoholic beverage. And in the final corner, a wide shot from the side angle of Brigitte and I . Also visible: the chalkboard from corner three under an awning for “Patsy’s Place” with a solitary, incredibly bored-looking female bartender inside the joint. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Two ‘Of course...’ statements:
... I was very interested in $1 burgers.
... since we only had 24 minutes to find a mailbox in unfamiliar lands three blocks from my apartment, there was (cue Bauer voice) NO TIME TO STOP FOR BURGERS! WE’VE GOT TO GO! NOW!

However, during the next three minutes, which would certainly be the commercial time of this particular episode, it was decided by Brigitte and I that we would get burgers after, and only after, finishing tasks 1 & 2.

Minute 10 would appropriately be the climax, the moment that Brigitte spotted a mailbox across the street. Then, at minute 12 enters the conflict, wherein we see a large somewhat unkempt man sitting at a bus stop with three grocery bags at his feet. We will have to somehow get past the fat man, defensive of his groceries as a duck nesting in a hotel planter is of her eggs, in order to get to the mailbox. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Minute 13 is spent waiting for the lights to change. At minute 14, a bus drives through the intersection, just before the light changes. Brigitte and I pay no heed, but this riles up the fat man. Of course, he was waiting at the bus stop for the bus, which just blasted past him at 35 mph. At minute 15, I commiserate with the fellow about his unfortunate situation, gaining his acceptance and, at minute 16, a clear passage to the mailbox. Success! And the rest of the episode is spent walking back and taking care of all the emotional loose ends from the first part of the show. Also, a little is spent playing Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising. Again, yes, I am 4 years behind. However, it does rule.

After much folding and a couple more quarters to thoroughly dry the towels (verdict: fresh!), tasks 1 and 2 are completed. Burger time!

Part 2: In which a mundane dinner becomes bizarrely entertaining

Between taking care of task 2 and finishing task 1, three patrons had gone into Patsy’s to keep the bartender company. Patrons 1 and 2 sat at the end of the bar, two upper30somethingish men who never took their elbows off their bar so their arms would look really big. They drank Stella though, so net manliness: 0. Patron 3 sat alone on the main section of the bar. We’ll call him “Brian.” During the long wait for our burgers to arrive, Brian received a bowl of tomato soup and announced he was going to have some shots. He asked patrons 1 and 2 if they were interested. He proceeded at 5 p.m. on Sunday to order a round of jager bombs for patrons 1-3 and the bartender. Being a man of decency, he paused to toast before taking the shot. However, this is where I first sensed things going awry as two things happened. One, Brian asked patrons 1 and 2 what the shot should be to, and when they said ‘To you for buying the shot, buddy,’ he blew them off. You can’t ask someone else what to toast to then turn it down. The second misstep was his biggest, however, in that when he came up with a toast it was not “To Freedom” as the first shot always should be, but “To Sunday Funday.”

Shortly after our burgers arrived (bleu cheese, no onions, side of tots for Brigitte, jalapeno jack and bacon, side of tots; bacon omitted, tomato and onion omitted; bacon corrected, tomato and onion left off without making a fuss for me), a fourth patron of interest (another foursome had shown up but proved quite inconsequential), we’ll call him “Jeff” also arrived. Upon his arrival, another round of shots was in order. Round 2: five shots to I’m not sure what.

Following round 2, the wheels really came off of our very unassuming Sunday. First, Katie, proprietor of Katie’s Place, the place with the people sitting outside in corner 1 from part 1, could be seen through the open storefront of Patsy’s walking about her side of the street blowing a whistle. Not a long, hard whistle, but a few short, sharp shots. She walked out of the bar and whistled a few times, went back in, came back out, whistled some more, then walked down the street, tapping a closed green-and-white umbrella on the ground. When she returned she was still whistling, but with a yellow lab in tow. This was odd.

At approximately the same time, Jeff tried to convince Brian that, despite the steam rising off his bowl of tomato soup, it was in fact finally at an edible temperature. This was demonstrated first by wolfing down three spoonfuls in four seconds, much like how the Businessman eats cereal, and second by sticking the tip of his tongue directly into the middle of the soup. Being convinced and fond of his friend’s spit, Brian finally tried the soup. He promptly declared it too sugary and decided the remedy for sugary soup was more shots.

By this point Brian and Jeff were aware that we were paying some attention to them, as Jeff apologized to us after sucking up his friend’s soup. And so we were tapped to join them for round 3: four O-bombs and something brown for Jeff. Brian rudely toasted Brigitte and myself “To Sunday Funday” (again!) without Jeff, who was on his phone, and without the bartender, who was elsewhere, and then ridiculed me for finishing slowly when I was just trying to wait to get everyone involved.

After round 3, Jeff stepped outside of Patsy’s to talk on his phone. To be clear, across the street from Patsy’s in Katie’s Place. (Lest you think we have some kind of battling Places thing going on, Patsy’s is to Katie’s as Chicago is to Detroit- maybe not the most glorious but at least modern and at least it tries- so they clearly have different clientele.) There were still people in Bears jerseys outside of Katie’s, and Jeff got into some kind of exchange with them. This lead, not logically, but still somehow, into Jeff throwing one of his flip-flops across the very busy street after he was off his phone. One of these men, we’ll call him “John,” picked up the sandal which had somehow not hit a car on its flight over and brought it back across the street, walking right out in front of a cop car while doing so.

Before I introduce John, allow me to give him some inferred character.

Facts about Katie’s Place:

Numerous beer signs out front, but no signage indicating the name
May or may not have been mentioned in the book “There Are No Children Here:” the name is right but the location is wrong.
The human:dog ratio inside the bar may at times slip below 1.
It is inhabited by 6 types of people:

1. Katie, the somewhat older proprietor of her namesake establishment.
2. Grisly neighborhood social alcoholics with dogs.
3. Middle aged men who live above the bar.
4. Lawyers of the middle aged men who live above the bar.
5. Myself and my friends Chris and Rosie after we’ve been drinking for 8 hours and think stopping at the townie looking place with the Old Style and Kaliber signs will be fun.
6. Brigitte after meeting up with Chris, Rosie and I, but having not had anything to drink yet, who, when tasked with getting us pitchers for cheaper than $12, gets herself loaded on shots from the types 2-4 of people at the bar but does not manage to get free or discounted pitchers. (She then goes on to make friends with a table of people at the nearby greasy spoon because they haven’t seen Swingers but still like Vince Vaughan, a smart choice because she gets some of their chili spaghetti out of it. I cannot believe she ate someone else’s food. That is moderately uncharacteristic of her.)

John would be an awesome subtype the the third type of person who inhabits Katie’s: the British guy who lives above the bar subtype. For sake of honesty, he was not the type three who previously employed the services of type four.

After John returned Jeff’s sandal to him, Jeff treated him like a good dog by petting him on the head and saying “good boy.” John was too drunk and english to take insult at this, but it did confuse him. After making a small mockery of him Jeff invited John in to the bar for a drink, saying “We’ll show you a real good time in here.” What Jeff and Brian proceeded to show John was low-grade humiliation stemming entirely from the fact that John was drunk and British. For instance, John retold the story of running across the road to return Jeff’s shoe. Some might say, well, while that was kind of silly and running out in front of a car, let alone a cop, was downright reckless, that was a rather kind thing to do. I would agree. Jeff and Brian would not think this commendable, rather they would find it very entertaining for its dog-like ‘fetch’ attributes. Another for instance: John was clearly from England. I’ve made this point before. We all speak english, go us, but as everyone knows we don’t always call things by the same name. To some, this would be at most an interesting point of divergent cultures. To Jeff and Brian, they almost fell out of their seats laughing when John called the sandal a “slipper.” To be fair, however, he would not stop saying the word slipper, to the point that even I found it amusing, both for the repetition and also for the Higher Order comedy of being able to anticipate a) that he’d say it, b) that they’d laugh, and finally c) that he’d look bewildered by it.

This whole exchange then led to Brian reprimanding Jeff for being an idiot, and to show his disproval he took Jeff’s slippers and attempted to punt them across the street while standing in the bar. The bartender did not appreciate this very much. Eventually Brian bought John a drink and they talked about how drunk they all were, and they made fun of John for wearing a Cedric Benson jersey. At this point we acquired bill because this Sunday Funday was too much to handle.

We said our due thanks to Brian for getting us the O-bombs (Jeff was gone at this point to change out of what Brian deemed to be unacceptable attire), but not to be outdone by our departure or the John hijinx, however, Brian wanted to have a brief chat with us. He stood up and grabbed the one remaining shot on the bar (the bartender left her round 3 untaken). He touched each of us on the shoulder with his free hand and said “Ok, look at me both of you. Ok, now relax your eyes. Relax, all the way.” I was then momentarily engaged in a conversation with John, who said “Buckberry what’s that?” “Oh, it’s a band, Buckcherry.” (It was on my shirt) “Oh, well I’m a big fan of Oasis.” “Yeah, hey they haven’t done much lately have they.” “They have a new record actually.” We bantered back and forth a couple more lame lines, during which time Brian had time to ask Brigitte “Is this guy your boyfriend?” When I turned back to the group Brian raised his glass to make a toast.

I prepared to celebrate Sunday Funday once again as Brigitte and I watched empty-handed and relaxedly. “I hope someday I have what you two have.”

And then he took his shot while we had nothing to do but stand there veeeeeery uncomfortably.

citibank sharpie

True to my word, I appear again! This time, I deliver part 2 in the sharpie series. To set the stage here, there are two vital pieces of information: 1. the previous blog entry wherein I began the habit of writing modestly worded letters when in a scientific fugue; 2. A friend and co-worker of mine, along with about 75% of everyone on campus banks at the Citibank at the hospital. This leads to massive lines when everyone isn’t supposed to be ‘working’, i.e. at lunch. This correspondence stemmed from my co-worker complaining about some sort of incident at the local branch.

October 2, 2006

Dear Citibank,

I just talked to my friend and he says he doesn’t like you very much. You should change your business practices, because scientists are people too!

Although my friend doesn’t like you, I’m not here to start making enemies. Please accept the enclosed 1cent stamp as a goodwill offering.

Yours truly,
signature

The letter was sent to U.S. Service Center, Citi Inquiries, 100 Citibank Drive PO Box 769004 San Antonio, TX 78245-9004. Again, I have photocopygraphic evidence of such, this time including the fact that a First Class stamp was affixed to the envelope. Documentation can be provided upon request. Again, I never heard anything back from the good people at Citi.

The first paragraph contains a point that I think isn’t made often enough in this world. Be kind to your local scientist.