Best Friends

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You've Screwed Me Again, DST

Daylight Savings Time and I have a love/hate relationship. She's prissy and flaky, always changing the time of sunrise and sunset; I'm grouchy and inflexible, always wanting my daylight consistent.

In theory, though, I love Daylight Savings. I can play basketball with my friends later, and studies generally agree that there is less crime and fewer traffic accidents. Plus, DST means that the perfume of spring has finally put a sleeper hold on the chills of winter. We're that pathetic couple who can never break up because the sex is too good.

But all practical reasons aside, DST is like any other woman: devious.

Back in April, when Spring Forward was still new to 2010, I was having a drink with a friend after work. We met up around 6 when, and thanks to DST, the sky was still "afternoon bright." Time passed quickly as we sat sipping our beverages and laughing. And because our conversation was so engrossing, I didn't mentally recalibrate my mind that "twilight" equaled 9 pm.

Losing track of time, and DST being a harpy of timekeeping, I arrived at home to my dog shamefully apologizing for dropping a bomb on my bed. And like any other woman, DST laughed at my having to wash poop off my white duvet.

DST is a beauty, but every end of March/beginning of April, it's like I'm on a business trip to the East Coast. I love the summer warmth of 8 o'clock at night, but I always feel slightly restless knowing that sunset is that much closer to midnight.

Tyrannosaurus Cookie

At first, I just assumed the outline on the display was misprinted. But then I found tyranno after tyranno with the weird proportions and confusing appendages.

Is that his jaw? His arm? And what about the larger protuberance near his other leg? I am so confused. And of course, the Sur La Table sales person thought I was being a jerk when I asked, "Can you describe this cookie cutter to me?"

Maybe a baker with frosting and imagination could salvage the basic shape into something recognizable. But for me, laymen baker, this tyrannosaurus cookie is simply strange.

What a shame. The king of the dinosaurs deserves much better cookie representation.

Airport Driver

While at the airport, I saw this well-to-do gentleman with his sign. He cradled it in one arm and patiently presented himself towards the escalators leading from the terminal.

I watched him for a moment or two. He never shuffled his feet or fidgeted his hands, and the only time he checked his watch was to make sure his client wasn't going to miss their appointment. Stoic and classy to the end.

I hope that one day, I'm important enough to necessitate a driver. Nothing will ever replace the smile of a friend or loved one at the baggage claim. That after hours confined in a pressurized tube, someone is waiting just for you, waiting just to give you a hug and talk to you even though your breath stinks from the nap on the plane.

But the next best thing would be an airport driver, a hired friend. I imagine it would be quite thrilling to walk around the corner of a foreign city and see my own name in bold Sharpie writing. I imagine the driver taking my carry-on bag and providing witty banter to pass the interminable wait for my checked luggage. In the lonely cities of the business trips, the airport driver would be the welcome party, the guide, and the friend.

Yes, if an old friend can't greet me, a salutational handshake with a driver would be the next best thing.

Dead Frogs

I'm not exactly sure why, but there is a box of dead frogs in my classroom. In my storage cabinet, on the shelf just below the American-Literature anthologies rests a cardboard coffin holding 10 plastic-wrapped frogs.

"We think the students will be too excited and eager to see the frogs, so we thought it best to hide the frogs until Friday, the day of the dissection." Of course. That sounds logical: Hide the formaldehyde pickled frogs in my Literature cabinets.

I stood outside my cabinets, imagining the frogs belly up with "X" marks instead of eyes. I had to look at them. There was some force compelling me to look at the corpses. Even though I knew it would be unpleasant, I pushed forward, opened the cabinet, and removed the Fedex frog box.

I unfolded the cardboard flaps and peered in over the edge. My body was tense, preparing for a possible strike from a zombie frog breaking for freedom.

But there was no escape attempt: just speckled frogs vacuum packed and stiff from latex injected into the veins. I got close to one of the frog's faces. The lids were closed over the dehydrated pebble-sized eyes, and his head seemed flatter than I thought it would be.

I feared the idea of the dead frogs at first. But sharing a moment with them, alone in my classroom, I felt somewhat like an accessory to murder. Though their blood was replaced with chemicals, and their lives probably taken months ago, the dissection seemed more like an execution.

My cabinet feels like death row.

I Hate Protractors

I'm not a math fellow, but I think even math teachers will agree with me that protractors are ridiculous. They are useless!

Now before all you SOHCAHTOA lovers write me hate mail, let me clarify that I know protractors are immensely useful in real world situations like architecture and astronomy...but in middle school?

Protractors are just weirdly shaped. They don't really fit in pencil boxes and they end up cluttering backpack pouches. Seriously, who has a semicircular slot just for their protractor?

And though I haven't verified this with one of my math teacher colleagues, I'm fairly certain protractors are only used for, at most, half a textbook math chapter, hardly necessitating a specific tool for angle drawing. I graduated 8th grade: I don't remember using my protractor for anything academic related.

Through this school year, I've had to confiscate over five protractors. Boys are using them as fake brass knuckles. Girls are using the raised tick marks to file their nails. Aspiring circus folk are spinning them on their pencils.

I got so mad at a protractor/Frisbee distraction today that, when I was alone, I snapped that thin plastic in half. I did it slowly. The blue protractor discolored along the lines where I folded it. And the moment I brought its two opposite edges together, I heard and felt its spine crack. Then I imagined its angle-measuring voice screaming. One of the blue shards almost hit me in the eye, but, even with that, it was damn worth it.

Afraid of Sharon Stone

I was a zombie most of yesterday. Two days ago, I went to sleep at 4 am only to wake at 6 am. I was planning on going back into my deep sleep, but a minor emergency (my video game order from Amazon.com got messed up) and anger and frustration jolted me out of the sleepy phase.

So there I was, awake on Wednesday with only 2 hours of sleep. Of course, at about 7 pm, I crashed and took a two hour nap. Now, I'm one of those guys that a nap ruins my chances of falling asleep. Even a 30-minute nap will amp me up so high, I'll toss and turn all night.

So now, with my sleep cycle haphazardly shifted and my dog totally confused, I desperately searched for something on TV.

And that's when I came to Basic Instinct. I've heard good things about it, and I know there are countless references to this movie. So I took the plunge: My dog and I started watching this movie at 2:45 am.

That's when I started freaking out. Sharon Stone and Jean Tripplehorn are CRAZY in this movie. First off, they're naked for about half the movie and the other half they may, or may not, be stabbing people with an ice pick. This kind of psychological thriller totally freaked out the zombie version of me.

After the movie, all I could was imagine the killer jumping out of my closet, out of my bathroom, out from under my bed. I could feel the tingle of their ice pick piercing my neck. I felt helpless and unaware in my sleep-deprived state. So I did the only logical thing: I tied my all my doors shut with rope, and I cleared out under my bed and piled the junk in a corner. Even though I usually sleep fairly naked, I strapped on a sweatshirt like armor protecting from Sharon's potential attacks.

I slept on my side, hugging my dog close to my chest. Even though he had seen the movie, he wasn't afraid. He was as brave as ever. Sharon Stone didn't have shit on Pancake. He was my rock, my hero last night. And in an imagination where Sharon Stone was stalking me, my dog, unafraid of a murderer, guarded me.

I woke up this morning, and thought to myself, "Why the hell is the pantry tied shut with my good, blue neck tie?"