Internet Comment Perfection Has Been Reached. Now Closed to New Submissions.

Generally speaking, I can't stand people who comment on news articles online. It seems like the same cabal of idiots post their comments on CNN, the Guardian, the Telegraph,...and God help you if you accidentally go to a local news site. In case you are a million times smarter than I am, and have never read such comments, here's how they usually break down:

• 3% Spam telling you how to WIN AN IPAD2 or MARRY A HOT MILLIONAIRE or WORK FROM HOME...
• 30% People blaming Obama for whatever the article was about, including but not limited to: the economy sucking, natural disasters, Lady Gaga, and the high price of beef jerky
• 30% People blaming Bush for whatever the article was about, including but not limited to: the economy sucking, natural disasters, Kate Gosselin, and the high price of tofu
• 7% Bush-blamers calling Obama-blamers "inbred morons" and Obama-blamers calling Bush-blamers "gay"
• 5% People who are either commenting on the wrong article or have gone off their meds
• 5% People who use ANY news article as an excuse to malign their ex-spouse
• 20% Trolls (n): People who say the MOST offensive thing they could POSSIBLY say, then repeat it until a moderator kicks them out, at which point they invent a new screen name and start over. If we could identify the people who think trolling is the best use of their time, we could make a lot of progress toward stemming our national tide of wasteful, vindictive stupidity. I don't know why this is not priority #1 for the Department of Homeland Security.

I usually try to avoid reading the comments at all, but of course I fail miserably. Sometimes I genuinely wonder what other people thought of the article, but that still doesn't explain why I read the comments. If you review the list above, you'll notice there was no category for "People who have a literate, well-formed opinion they wanted to share in the spirit of open discussion". I guess it's just morbid curiosity that drives me to sit there, sometimes for an hour or more, and subject myself to the horrors of the internet comment board.

But one day in January of this year, it paid off. In fact, it was glorious. I will screenshot the comment below, but if you want to see it in its original context, you can go read this very sad CNN article (NOT RECOMMENDED - VERY SAD) and then click through to page 14 of the comments. There, you will find this text:

As you can see, jerry falls into the 5% of commenters who use news articles to malign their ex-spouse. I feel for jerry; it's clear he's going through a lot of pain. I hope he got everything resolved and managed to move on.

Although to be honest, I rather doubt he did manage to get everything resolved. Because, you see, it should not take you 5 lines of text to realize your Caps Lock is on. And even if it does escape your notice for that long, you can re-type your comment with minimal effort, correcting the Caps Lock error. But jerry didn't do that. jerry typed with furious abandon, not even looking up at the screen to see what he had written until he was done. And when he saw his mistake, did he fix it? No! But he did acknowledge it, with the aid of a brilliantly original sentence construction that has made me laugh out loud every time I've thought of it for the past 8 months and counting. God bless you, jerry, and your locked caps.

If anyone was wondering what to get me for Christmas this year, I would pretty much love a decent-quality t-shirt, preferably in an angry shade of red, that simply reads "DANG MY CAPS WAS LOCKED." Size M. Thank you.

The Case of the Jolly Green Giant Marital Aid

Tonight we start a new recurring feature. While the other recurring features such as John of the Week, Not Very Nice Quizzes, and Kwerky Poetry Corner are all pleasant, fun, and/or life-affirming, this particular feature will be in a separate category altogether. And this category will be known as "Recurring Features I Wish Didn't Exist At All, But I Am Powerless to Prevent Their Existence Because Other People Have No Consideration Whatsoever". Allow me to paint you a picture:

You buy a home. One of the things you like most about your new home is the lovely view. In fact, this gorgeously landscaped pool view is so pretty that your home was ever so slightly pricier than its neighbors, owing to its lovely view. But shortly after you move in, you come home from work, go to enjoy your lovely view, and find that your window looks out over...a landfill. 

Welcome to my life.

You see, the average American household generates over 13 tons of trash every week, according to a wildly exaggerated© statistic I just made up. Those of us that are civilized human beings generally pack our trash into specially designed "trash bags", which we then convey to the nearest dumpster, or to the curb to be picked up by specially trained trash-disposing professionals. But my upstairs neighbors are no ordinary civilized human beings! They don't have TIME for "trash bags" and "dumpsters" and "doing anything with their trash other than hurling it over their balcony so it lands on mine". I mean, I estimate that it takes me *maybe* 5 minutes to bag my trash and walk it to the dumpster, so the fact that they don't have that kind of time leads me to the inevitable conclusion that these people are mere seconds away from curing HIV, or making contact with extraterrestrials, or inventing a calorie-free sweetener that doesn't dry your mouth out. They are IMPORTANT, dammit! Let someone ELSE worry about their trash! Someone like ME! 

I've let this go on for quite some time. I really don't want to confront these people, as the sounds I hear coming from their home lead me to believe that in addition to whatever life-saving research they do, they are also either Olympic shot-putters, expert meth chefs, or some combination of those. I want no part of that exchange. Over the months, some of their refuse, such as the beef blood-stained paper towel, have been cleared away by Mother Nature. But the rest hasn't. And today I walked through my door, looked out the window, saw the most ridiculously egregious thing yet, and said, "Right. It's all going in the trash." I waited til nightfall, dashed out under cover of darkness, and recovered it. Is this insanity? Yes. Is this my job/responsibility? Absolutely not. But if I have to do it (and I clearly do, because I'm not going to keep looking out my window at someone else's trash, and no one else is going to come get it), then I'm going to have some fun at their expense.

Random Trash My Upstairs Neighbors Saw Fit to Throw Over Their Balcony So I Have to Look at It

Exhibit A: The Big Green Dildo

This thing appeared just outside my balcony about a year ago. A long, green, hollow plastic cylinder. The first time I saw it, I was horrified. It was the biggest, greenest, most oddly shaped marital aid I'd ever seen in my life. I shuddered to think what weird Kermit fantasies were being indulged just above my head.

Now that I've brought it inside, I can see that it says "DOGSAVERS", and is therefore probably (hopefully) just a dog toy. Still, there are a few standard-issue questions we need to ask.
#1: How did it get tossed over the balcony?
This dog barks incessantly. I don't think it's a particularly bad dog, but I don't get the impression that they like it very much. Thus do we logically conclude that they threw the dildo dog toy over the balcony in the hope that the dog would chase it and fall to its death. Inconsiderate AND evil.

#2: Why did it get tossed over the balcony?
This has basically already been answered in #1, but we could also consider some other possibilities. For example, maybe it was just old and they didn't want it anymore. Maybe they did use it as a sex toy and were so disgusted with themselves that they couldn't look at it anymore. Maybe it was shot-putting practice and someone didn't know their own strength. Or maybe they just didn't know the strength of gravity. Or maybe - just maybe - they were too damn lazy to dispose of it appropriately.

#3: Why haven't they tried to get it back?
I always wonder about this one. Do they wander through like periodically saying, "Hey - has anybody seen the DOGSAVERS dildo? I swear I haven't been able to find it in months!"? Or did they stand there, watch it go tumbling over the railing, shrug their shoulders, and go back to bubbling hydrogen chloride gas through their liquid meth mixture?


They have to know it's gone; they just don't want it back. It's clearly been used in a homicide, and they had to ditch the evidence. Somewhere out there is a John Doe in a county morgue, riddled with 1-inch diameter circular welts, stinking of dog spit, covered in bludgeon marks embossed with the word DOGSAVERS. These people are not messing around. That's the kind of person who throws their trash over their balcony and walks away. DON'T BE LIKE THAT.

Dear Internet: Call Me

I am a total dork about the internet. I LOVE the internet. I love that I can order food in my PJs - without talking to a person - then have it magically appear at my door. I love shopping online, I love social media, I love Words With Friends, I love that I'm rarely more than one Netflix/Hulu/YouTube search away from any movie or TV show I feel like watching.  I love the BBC iPlayer! I love email and IMs! I love blogs! I love online check-in for flights and having seen the hotel room from EVERY angle before I even get there! Yessir, the internet is amazing. And I love to see more and more businesses maximizing its potential to make my life awesome, so I was stoked to discover that my doctor's office is now doing Online Appointment Scheduling! SCORE! I assumed it would work just like the Online Appointment Scheduling at my favorite salon. As follows:

1. Set up account/log in
2. Fill in a few fields indicating services needed
3. Search available appointments for one that coincides with a free spot in my calendar
4. Reserve one of said appointments
5. Receive confirmation. Hooray!

But I had forgotten that this was a medical practice, and medical practices, unlike hair salons, know I need them more than they need me. This is not about customer service. This is about holding my time hostage. Here's how their process works, apparently:

1. Set up account/log in
2. Fill in a few fields indicating services needed
3. List 3 dates and rough times ("rough" as in AM vs PM) when you might be available
4. Leave website and go about your business
(24 hour delay)
5. Receive voicemail from "scheduler" who is "calling to schedule your appointment"
6. Return call. Leave voicemail.
7. Receive voicemail.
8. Return call. Leave voicemail.
(24 hour delay)
9. Receive voicemail.
10. Return call. Speak to "scheduler", who has no idea which doctor you wanted to see, when, or why, even though you spent 10 minutes giving the internet all of that information.
11. Schedule appointment over the phone
12. Be accidentally put on hold for 3 minutes in the middle of appointment confirmation
13. Receive confirmation

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this whole fiasco is the way I stumbled on the "Online Appointment Scheduling" in the first place: I had gone to the website to get the phone number so I could call and make an appointment. And had I just done that instead of falling for the "Online Appointment Scheduling", we would've been done three days earlier. Because that was not "Online Appointment Scheduling". That was "A Form to Request a Phone Call". And anything that happens on the phone did not happen online. FAIL.

I'd Rather Win Julian Lennon's Suitcase

Friends, my eye has been caught yet again by a bizarre and unfortunate internet ad.

Um, the what now?

I haven't eaten meat in 19 years, but even I have to admit that the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile may be one of the greatest promotional tools of the 20th century. How the hell did their ad department get from the Wienermobile to Jewel's purse? Then there's Jewel. I've never felt like she clearly defined her brand. First she was a rags-to-riches hobo folk singer from Alaska who could yodel. I felt like she had the market pretty well cornered there. But then she decided to be a poet, and then she decided that "casualty" was a synonym for "indifference", and then she wrote a song and sang it about a razor...there was a lot going on. I couldn't keep up, and the only time I've thought about Jewel since was about a year ago, when I got drunk and sang "Foolish Games" at karaoke night. So I'm surprised to see her popping up on my screen again. But then I also don't have cable or listen to the radio. Maybe in my time away from pop culture, the rest of the country has collectively arrived at the conclusion that when you think of wieners and bologna, you think of Jewel. She's finally found THE thing with which she'd like to be associated, and that thing is processed mystery meat bits. Good for her.

And then we come to the purse. If you want to win something involving Jewel, surely that something is a private concert, right? Or maybe a special one-on-one wiener-eating competition? Where the hell did the purse come from? In a stunning display of unhealthy behavior, I actually went to the sweepstakes site (enter today!) and checked out the prize, which is as follows:


**One (1) Grand Prize:  Jewel's purse and select items in it: Brynn Capella HandBag, Blackberry Bold or Blackberry Curve, Too Faced® GLAMOUR to GO II™ make-up and case, Koh Gen Do Cleansing Spa Water Cloths, Comptoir Sud Pacifique Vanilla Apricot Perfume, EO Lavender Hand Sanitizer, Face Place Collagen Elastin Treatment and Ultimate Eye repair products, two American Airlines Roundtrip Coach Class Travel Authorization Certificates. 

As you know by now, I like to envision how these things come about. This time, I think the ad people had a variety of pitches, but couldn't figure out which way to go for the prize - give people a cell phone? What does that have to do with meat products? A bunch of random makeup? Nah, that's just a Sephora sample bag. The airline tickets are nice, but you want to pep 'em up a little bit.... It was the promotional equivalent of a random assortment of meat-pieces. And what do you do with random assortments of meat-pieces? You cram them into a casing (like a purse) and slap a pretty wrapper (like Jewel) on it. Done and done.

Remain Calm: The World Is Ending

I'm getting increasingly fascinated by all the weird ways websites use their error messages to set themselves apart - from the Twitter FAIL whale to the Superpoke FAIL message I got one time, webmasters are doing a much better job of keeping the mood light when things go wrong and we want to punch our monitors.

From cheezburger.com

But I have now come across a highly customized FAIL message that opts to terrify the living crap out of me rather than amuse me. I don't know why. Have a look:

AAAAAAAAHHH!

I grabbed this screenshot while trying to listen to the Radio 4 Afternoon Play on the iPlayer at the exact moment that a huge press conference was going down about the News of the World scandal. So it's not surprising that the servers were overwhelmed. But why did they have to show me that nightmare-inducing picture?!?! The disturbing fair-game clown doll would've been bad enough, but why is it sitting in front of some God-forsaken apocalyptic blaze? And what's with the blackboard that says "500"? Is that how many points you score for hitting the doll in this ball toss in the Bowels of Hell Fun Fair? It all looks even weirder when set beside such normal, non-horrifying explanatory text.

This why the UK rocks. NPR would never put an apocalyptic clown ball toss game on their 404 error page. Never.

Couples Game Night [is BS]

The following is an email I wrote to my Best Friend in the Whole Entire Universe the last time I had a boyfriend. Won't be making THAT mistake again anytime soon.


Um, having a boyfriend is a pain in the ass. Why didn't you remind me of that? We're going over to one of his friends' places for game night tonight! Yay!

Except that I've just heard what game we're playing. It's called Settlers of Catan. Have a quick glance over Amazon's borderline indecipherable description below:

Exploring and Developing Catan
The board consists of 19 terrain hexes surrounded by the ocean. Each type of terrain produces a different type of resource: brick, wool, ore, grain or lumber. There's also a desert hex that produces no resources. As the game progresses, players use resources to build roads along the edges of these hexes and settlements or cities on the intersections where three hexes meet. Each player begins the game with two settlements and two roads.

Each player's roll of the dice causes certain hexes to produce resources, which you collect if you have a settlement on one of them. On your turn, you'll use various combinations of the resources you've acquired to build new roads and settlements, upgrade settlements to cities, or purchase development cards. The ability to trade resources with other players adds a new level of strategy and ensures that the game includes lots of interaction between players. You can also trade without worrying about other players using an unfavorable maritime trade rate. Elements including a robber piece that lets you steal from other players and a variety of development cards add intrigue to the game.
The objective of The Settlers of Catan is to be the first one who collects 10 victory points. Each settlement is worth one victory point and each city is worth two victory points. You can also earn victory points by holding the "Longest Road" card, the "Largest Army" card, or special victory point development cards.


As of right now, my boyfriend has spent three hours playing the Xbox version, and he wants me to come over early so he can give me a one-hour tutorial before we go head-to-head with his friends. He "thinks he understands it now". THIS IS COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL.

The argument in favor of this ridiculous nonsense is that it's a "strategy game". Apparently Scrabble, Monopoly, Uno, Clue, Risk, and Chess are no longer considered to be sufficient, strategy-wise. What annoys me is that the only real strategy involved is as follows: find a game so obscure that you and your significant other are the only people on Earth who have EVER heard of it --> learn it inside and out --> invite your couple friends over --> humiliate them with your mad skillz --> pretend you legitimately won because of "strategy", rather than "because no one else could ever hope to grasp what's going on".

Which reminds me: we were wondering if you and your husband want to come over sometime to play "3,765 Alien Tribes Invade Siberia and Ancient Jerusalem PS You Lose". The rule book is 15,000 pages long and there are 35 different decks of cards, each of which has its own unique language, all of which are written using the cyrillic alphabet (but I'm sure you'll pick it up quickly). You have to roll four 12-sided dice and two 15-sided dice, then decipher the cryptic symbols on them to determine which tribe you are for every turn. And the game board is based on a birthmark I have on my left thigh. And all the currency values are expressed as hectares of martian land as valued by Donald Trump. If you get really stumped, you can phone a friend, but it won't do you any good, because my boyfriend and I are the only people in the world who have ever heard of this game. Let me know when you're free!

Also A Good Plan if You Insist on Paying $7 for Junior Mints

As I sat sipping coffee outside a movie theater last week, I saw one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever seen.

An old, half-wrecked car pulled up to the curb in front of the theater between showtimes, and a woman in a t-shirt and shorts got out.

She went directly into the theater without buying a ticket.

The car pulled away.

Two minutes later, she reemerged carrying a ginormous tub of popcorn.

The car reappeared, she got in, and they drove away.

I only wish I’d had the presence of mind to stand and applaud, because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down to watch a DVD with some of that crappy low-fat air-popped fake-butter nonsense they sell at the grocery store, thinking, “This is pretty good, but it’s not as good as real popcorn.” And in all my years of half-enjoying movie night, I’ve never thought to get in my car, drive to a movie theater, buy some properly fatted-up popcorn, and bring it back home. What a disappointing failure of imagination on my part.

Don't Panic!

I've recently learned that in 2012, Comet Elenin will reverse polarity on Earth and also cause some earthquakes. Or was it a giant tidal wave? The details were a little fuzzy, so I googled it. Of the results, I figured a site called Above Top Secret sounded the most promising. Unfortunately, it didn’t load properly. Fortunately, it had the most amazingly customized 404 error page I have ever seen:

C'mon, that's fantastic. It's worth looking at the whole site too, because...well, you're not going to get better entertainment than that. Not for free, anyway.

Viagra Ads Go Straight Over My Head

On a news website today, I was intrigued by the first frame of a Viagra ad:

I stared at it for a while, completely baffled as to what this had to do with Viagra. As a person who spent the first part of my adult life buried deep in academia, I can't turn down a good quiz, and this whole thing felt like a puzzle. How the hell is this related to ED? "You've installed windows before" = "You've gotten an erection before"; "But never on the roof" = "But now you can't anymore"? I didn't see the connection. At all. I reasoned that if indeed there was any metaphor to be found, it would surely be meant to convey that this is a problem the man cannot solve alone, and he should turn to his doctor. So the correct answer is obviously "call a professional"...

FAIL!

I was wrong. The Viagra people did NOT want these men calling professionals to solve their problems! They want these men to clamor onto the metaphorical rainy roof of their sexual dysfunction and confront it on their own! Sure, they might fall to their deaths trying to install the skylight of their virility, but by God they should climb the ladder of stoic self-sufficiency to the non-apex of their genitals and get to work! I clicked "install the skylight"...

YEAH! Why start now? You have a medical condition that could indicate anything from depression to dangerously clogged arteries, and it's nobody's damn business but your own! So fix it yourself! Get up there and, um, install that metaphorical skylight in your junk! Or something! Maybe get some sort of pump? Though I don't see how that helps the Viagra people. Is it me or is this metaphor just not working AT ALL?

...wait, so now the message is "Fix it yourself! Call your doctor!"? The "call a professional" option was right all along? Help me out here, people. This makes no sense.

I guess this is one of those cases where no one in the marketing department is bothering anymore. It's not like there's anyone in the Western world who doesn't already know what Viagra is for, and the market for it certainly isn't going anywhere. The head of the advertising department came into the meeting and said, "OK, so we'll open with an image of a roof and some text that says 'You've installed windows before. But never on the roof'..." And then the CEO said, "Whatever, Bob, sounds great. Just make sure it says VIAGRA all over the internet. I don't really care how you do it."

The REAL Zombie Virus

I don't get the fascination with zombies. I just don't. I don't necessarily have anything against zombies; I just don't think they're the greatest thing in the world and there is nothing cooler and there should be zombies in everything and I'm gonna be a zombie for Halloween and I love zombies because OMG ZOMBIES!!!!!

Once upon a time (2006ish), zombies had a certain counter-culture cool to them - the market wasn't oversaturated with zombie movies, being a zombie enthusiast was unique, and zombies were just about the ONLY product of popular imagination that didn't feature in a Harry Potter plot (unless you count Voldemort as a zombie, and who would do that?). But now zombies are EVERYWHERE! There's a new big-budget movie or TV show about zombies every freaking week! Everyone from Wil Wheaton to Charlie Brooker has churned out a zombie-related story, often with the zeal of someone who genuinely loves his subject matter (rather than that of a hanger-on capitalizing on the zeitgeist). The CDC even managed to get its blog to go viral (no pun intended) by disguising a basic list of emergency kit necessities as a "Zombie Preparedness Guide". Be honest: did you know the CDC even had a blog before you heard about that? Of course you didn't. But they were banking on the #1 rule of publicity that I just made up: use the word "zombie" often enough, and you WILL find an audience. That's certainly the theory behind this blog post, anyway.

I have a lot of dear friends who adore the whole zombie culture and genuinely think anything involving zombies is fantastic. I naturally assumed it was because they were single people in their early 30s, and most of us have had days so dark that having their brain eaten right out of their heads sounded downright appealing. But then I discovered that these people don't actually want to be attacked by zombies - they just like the idea.

So I'm lost.

In the end, I figured I didn't need to understand. The zombie takeover of pop culture had no adverse effect on me...until now. You see, in the past week, I've found various so-called "news sites" smattered with headlines like:
"Zombies Headed from North Henry County to Cobb" (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
"Zombies Take Over Henry County Highway" (also AJC)
"Cobb Co. Authorities Warn of Zombie Mayhem" (wsbtv.com)*

Here's the deal: the TV series "Walking Dead" is filming in and around Atlanta. In a hugely original twist, they apparently feature images of highways strewn with cars crashed by zombies or abandoned by survivors. In order to get these shots, they've had to close stretches of highways in the Atlanta suburbs. So really, this is a traffic story about how you have to take alternate routes around certain areas for a day or two. And in a city with a GINORMOUS traffic problem, that has probably been a serious concern for a lot of people, who could use some information on how best to navigate their daily commute in spite of the closures. Instead, they've been treated to a bunch of news editors/headline writers who are over the moon at the idea that they get to write pretend-zombie-apocalypse headlines. The implied dialogue goes something like this:
PUBLIC: I have 45 minutes to get to work and a major highway on my commute is closed. I know! I'll check the local news for information and advice!
NEWS SOURCE: Zombies! *laugh* HA HA! There are ZOMBIES on the road! Oh nooooo! *snort*
PUBLIC: Well, that headline is ridiculous, but maybe there will be some relevant information in the story...
NEWS SOURCE: A zombie alert - that's right: a ZOMBIE alert! *snort* *giggle* - has been issued for...
PUBLIC: Oh for the love of...

Not that I'm surprised; local newsmedia has always had a knack for ruining everything. But now we've reached a point where the local public is so desensitized that we don't even notice the word "zombie" in the headline anymore. We see "Zombie Apocalypse" and think it's either a traffic closure or a publicity stunt by a government agency. So now, when the REAL zombie apocalypse comes, this will happen:
NEWS SOURCE: THIS JUST IN! ZOMBIES ALERTS HAVE BEEN ISSUED FOR THE FOLLOWING COUNTIES:...
PUBLIC: Yeah yeah, zombies blah blah blah. Why do they hire 12-year old boys to write their headlines? Oh well, I guess I'll click through to see which restaurants had their flat screens stolen last night. I don't want to show up at Taco Mac and find I can't watch the game!
NEWS SOURCE: NO SERIOUSLY!!!

And then we all die. Thanks a lot, local news. Thanks. A. Lot.

*NOTE: I'd like to compliment 11Alive on not only not having a zombie-related headline, but also on featuring the headline "Athens Woman Admits to Sexting With Weiner". It almost makes up for the Wizometer.

I Don't Scream at Every Car That Passes Me

I hate exercise. The one and only form of exercise I can stand is walking. I can walk for hours, usually because I got caught up thinking about something and subsequently got lost. And over my many many years of recreational walking on the roads and sidewalks of the Southeast, I've come across a phenomenon I cannot begin to understand. I'm hoping someone out there can help me out:

Why do some drivers honk when they pass someone walking on the sidewalk? WHY?

This has happened to me about a billion times (see green blog title at top of page), and the only message I've gleaned from it is: "I AM DRIVING AND YOU ARE WALKING ON THE SIDEWALK SO I THOUGHT I'D HONK!" I've thought about this off and on for years (literally), and I've tried to imagine what these people are trying to communicate. Here are the ideas I've had so far, as well as my arguments as to why they weren't worth saying (or rather, honking):

- "Hello!" To the driver, this is perhaps the equivalent of the friendly nod and smile they would've given me had we crossed paths while both walking on the sidewalk. Except of course that car horns are designed to express either warning or anger, therefore draining a "greeting" attempt of any warmth or friendliness and imbuing it instead with the abject terror of a completely unexpected/unnecessary car horn SCREAMING at me. As an added bonus, it interrupts any useful thought process in which I might've been engaged, and leaves me trying to walk off the shakes of an adrenaline rush for the next 20 minutes.

- "Hey baby, you're hot!" Well, no. No I'm not. And even if the driver had the strangest taste on Earth and did find me hot, this still wouldn't be a viable message, as I've found that the driver is never - EVER - looking at me, much less making eye contact. Their eyes are always fixed on the road and their faces expressionless. So that option's out. Dammit.

- "You have toilet paper on your shoe/your underwear is showing/there's a dead bird on your back/etc." I always check right after the incident, and have yet to discover any embarrassing aspect of my appearance that might have prompted a honk. And even if I had, this would be the equivalent of making a jumbotron announcement when a whisper would've been more appropriate. So the driver would still be a jerk.

- "My horn works!" My family moved to the icy, lifeless tundra of Illinois for a year when I was 12. On the first day of school, my mother's car horn went off and wouldn't stop. The cold had affected the fuse somehow, and nothing would shut it up. Exasperated, and with 2 anxious, freezing kids in the car, my mom cut the wires to the horn (a feat that impresses me to this day, as I would have NO CLUE where to find said wires in any car, ever). Just as she got in to drive away, our helpful neighbor the state trooper came out and informed her that it's illegal to drive with a non-functional horn. I like to imagine that these drivers have picked up on my natural aura of authority and mystery, determined that I might be an undercover agent verifying that people's horns work, and therefore honk whenever they see me. It's their misfortune that I'm not an undercover agent of any kind, and my response to "My horn works!" is simply "So does this rock! And my finger!"

- "WARNING: THERE IS A CAR NEARBY" Honestly, this seems like the most useful thing the driver in question could mean (and that's still not saying much). For one thing, it puts the horn to its intended use as a warning. And the matter-of-fact-ness of the message would explain the expressionless, focused faces of the drivers in question. BUT! It's also kind of an incredibly stupid thing to do. Like I didn't hear the engine? (It's never an electric car, so shut up about that.) I didn't see the shadow, feel the rumble in the ground, hear the blaring radio? And even if I were that oblivious, as long as they intend to stay on the road, and I intend to stay on the sidewalk, we weren't really in any danger, now were we? Maybe there's something about my stride that makes me seem always on the point of dashing out into the street for no reason, arms akimbo, just looking for a car to kill me. Maybe what they mean is more like "SWEET JESUS WOMAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?! STAY ON THE SIDEWALK." But really? I don't think so.

- "JUMP!" I generally assume this is what the d-bag in question means to say. "You seem to be having a nice relaxing walk on a sunny day, engrossed in your thoughts and enjoying some peace and quiet. HEY! I bet if I sounded my horn really loudly and abruptly as I came up behind you, you'd jump three feet in the air! AWESOME! [HOOOOOONK!!!!]" Assholes.

Like I said: I don't get it. And I know I don't have many readers, but if you've happened upon this post and you know why people honk - or if you yourself are a walker-honker - PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD leave a comment and tell me why. And also make a note that however well-intentioned the honking may be, it is not appreciated. So STOP. NOW.