My father's generation could ask each other "Where were you when you heard JFK had been shot?". We get to ask each other "Where were you when you heard the second plane had hit the WTC?"
I was right here:
Driving to work, listening to BBC World News. It was about 9:10AM, or so, when they reported it. They didn't know the size of the planes. But when the second one hit, there was no doubt that it wasn't an accident.
At work, I like my tea cup to be clean; I thoroughly wash it out every day or so. But, we ran out of dish detergent in the break room, and the office management people never brought in a new bottle. So, a few weeks ago I bought a little bottle of dish detergent on my own, brought it in, and left it on the counter so everyone could use it. No big deal, $1.50 worth of karma.
After a couple of days, it disappeared. Did someone swipe it? Did the office management not want us to have dish detergent (is that why they didn't replace the old bottle)? Questions. But, I found it, up in one of the cabinets above the sink. Someone must want the sink are to stay un-cluttered, I assumed. So, out of courtesy, I started putting it back in the cupboard when I was done.
A week or so later, it wasn't in its usual spot. Did someone take it? Etc.? No, it was on a different shelf, behind a box. Must've just been pushed back there when someone moved the box, I assumed, and put it back where I had been putting it. But, no. The next day, it was back behind the box. And the day after that, and the day after that. Hmm. And then I figured it out: Someone was hiding the dish detergent I brought in for everyone to use!
So, I started leaving it out on the counter next to the sink, where everyone can see it. And then the other person started hiding it in increasingly-inaccessible spots: top shelves, back corners; behind multiple boxes; under the sink; etc..
And now, every time I have to search for it, I chuckle to myself: someone has adopted this little bottle of orange detergent and is trying to hide it from everyone else!
But why? Does this person think he/she bought it and brought it in for their own personal use? Is he/she hoarding it, knowing the office people won't replace it ? (though how could the office people know it's run out, if they can't see the bottle?) What could possibly motivate someone to hide a bottle of dish detergent that they didn't even buy, that they have to assume was provided by the company for everyone else to use ?
The Re-education Of The Female, by first-time author Dante Moore, advises women to follow their man's orders.
Despite the chauvinist opinions, copies have been flying off the shelves in the US.
One piece of advice reads: "Here's a little secret, ladies. Men never really ask for anything. They command. And believe me, what you won't do, ten broads around the corner will."
Mr Moore, a 33-year-old computer engineer, who has never married, continues: "The fatter you get, the more you decrease your potential single-man pool. Let me give you an example.
"When you go to the grocery store to shop, do you pick out the nastiest-looking, most rotten, smelliest fruit or meat you can find?
"Oh you don't? Why not? It's the same with men when they see baby-elephant-sized, out-of-shape women."
There aren't enough other ways for women to get that message that they need to pay a geek to insult them with it ?