Sebbylite

That’s how I like it evidently.

Anyway, I recently signed up for a new cell phone package with Verizon. I had their service before for two + years, so I got a cheaper phone with the rebate and all that, and I was relatively happy with their service, so it seemed to be a good idea to stick with them. Plus my parents have Verizon, and my girlfriend, and so it made sense to stick with the whole In-calling thing. Plus, all the problems that I did have I attributed to my phone, which was a piece of junk, to say the least.

Now that is the back-story to this story: I got my bill the other day, and it was about $25 more than it should be. I printed it out, looked it over, and had no idea why this was. Along with my 400 minutes (which I didn’t go over) I had gotten a 250 text and/or picture messaging package that I had been using quite a bit. I thought that maybe I had gone over my allotted text messages, which was why they were charging me, but I didn’t think that I had gone that far over.

So I call my friendly neighborhood Verizon customer service agent who agrees to help me out. She tells me that I don’t have a 250 text and/or picture messaging package, but only picture messaging. Which means that all the text messages that I’ve sent and received cost me 10 cents a pop. And that adds up. But this doesn’t make sense to me, since I wouldn’t knowingly sign up for this plan, because I knew that I wasn’t going to send picture messages, but that I was going to send text messages. Which to me means that the guy at the kiosk signed me up for the wrong plan.

After I mention this to the friendly neighborhood customer service agent, she tells me that there is no such plan.

Have I mentioned that I’m starting to get a little pissed off? Because I am. Especially since this whole time she is trying to upsell me to the $10 a month, unlimted in-network text/picture messages and 500 out of network messages plan. Which I am not going to get. So I try to bring her attention to the fact that, on my bill that I have printed out and it is in my hand, it says that I can get the plan I want for the price I want. To which she replies: “Na-unh”. And I’m starting to think that instead of making some upsell, she needs to start worrying about keeping the customers that she already has.

At this point in time, I start thinking about my options. I can think of two of them that come immediately to mind (which means that there are probably quite a few more, but I’m d-u-m so I don’t think of those): 1) get her supervisor on the phone and bitch her/him out about the incompetence of their employees and the fact that my bill is wrong. 2) go to the place that I originally got my phone from and explain the problem to them, and maybe they’ll be more helpful. I opt for number 2, since I’m already getting close to being late for a lunch meeting, and I just don’t have it in my to be as bitchy as I should be to the woman’s manager. So I tell her that I’ll take care of everything online, and goodbye. To which she responds with her rehearsed (and heartfelt, I’m sure) “We’d like to thank you for choosing Verizon Wireless, and if there is anything else that you may need please feel free to call” speech. I hung up about half way through.

As it turns out, the customer service agent was even dumber than I originally thought. After talking to someone at the kiosk where I got the phone, we figured out the real situation. 1) I do have the plan that is both text and picture messaging. 2) It is the $5 a month plan that I told her about, and that plan is still valid and open for people to get on board with. 3) The charges occurred for two reasons, first because I was charged for a full month and for a portion of a month to get my billing cycle to start on the exact date that I went in and got my new phone, and second because I went over my allotted amount of text messages for that portion of the month. No big deal on either part, but when you add it together with stupid customer service agents who don’t answer my question correctly, it became a pain in my ass.

All in all, not a shining moment for the Verizon Customer Service department.

First off, I want to say that the pictures are up. Enjoy. Second, I want to reiterate something: ten hours of drinking. I don’t work that long. I don’t even sleep that long. Ten hours of drinking is also why I don’t feel so bad about losing those aforementioned three hours during the 6th to 9th hours of drinking (somewhere between 11pm and 2am, give or take). I am a little disappointed, as I feel like I missed out on a lot of the fun of the evening, and possibly a lot of the stories that other people will be telling for years/days to come. Oh well.

After some inter-squadal mixing, hanging out, barbequeing, Basil’s Clubbing (the first rule of Basil’s Club is you don’t tell anyone about the Basil’s pizza in the basement of Evans), etc-ing, we started the raffle, intergenerational boat race, underwear-ing, and the dancing. I will say that my favorite pictures so far are the boat race series (pictures 83-93), where Hummer makes Phil take off his shirt, talks shit, then loses the boat race (and I think that he had to wear the thong on his head the rest of the night. Then again, that may have just been for fun).

Some more of my favorite moments (aka, the things that I actually recall happening):

1. Buying my first drink at the Reub with the $5.75 that had been deposited in my cup from “nickels”.
2. Urban foursquare (of course).
3. Getting shoved into the basement of Paige house by Ben Hahn, and then playing Spike Game with Mark Dunn and Ronny.

All in all, I think that it was a successful weekend. Much fun was had, many shenanigans were completed, even more were attempted and failed, the young’uns had a good time, the old’uns got drunk and remembered their “old college try”. I am glad that there is only one alumni game each year, because my liver can’t take many nights like that.

Anyway, take a look at the pictures, and enjoy. Don’t ask where or why some of them happened, because I don’t know.

I have something to admit: I’m pretty sure that I lost about 3 1/2 hours of my evening last Saturday.

That’s right, it is completely gone from my memory. I blacked it out so much that I wasn’t even aware that it was gone until the following Wednesday, when a friend in Seattle asked why I called him at 11:30/1:30 on Saturday night. My response - “I did what?”

Of course, this prompted me to check my cell phone, to see who else I may have called. As it turns out, I made a couple calls that I had no idea I had made. Most of them seem to have been messages, since they were only about 35-45 seconds long. But at least one was over a minute, making me think that I may have actually spoken with someone. Which is news to me, let me tell you.

Regardless, back to the story of the weekend. After finally hitting the futon at Tall’s at around 4:30am on Friday evening, we woke up at 8:30 to make the annual golf game on campus. Rainy and grey as it was on Saturday, it was still a fun event, even though only one person got nekid this year (probably due to the chill in the weather).

Alums: “Ok, it looks like Greg and Broughton’s discs are the furthest in. You two decide who needs to get the rest of them.”
Broughton: “I’m not going in.”
Greg: (says nothing, but gives Broughton a considering glance)
Broughton: “I’m not going in.”
Greg: (still says nothing, giggles a little)
Broughton: (says nothing, but is very obviously not going to get in the water)
Alums: (from the island) “C’mon Greg!”
Greg: (strips and jumps into the water).

I’m still not quite sure what kind of mind control Broughton was exhibiting to make the alums on the island (about 30 yards away) actually heckle Greg, but it worked. It was an amazing display of the Force, if I’ve ever seen one. I just hope Greg found a shower after jumping in Lyman Lake.

After the golf game we had the requisite Hogan Bros. stop for lunch, and then off to the actual game. (Seng didn’t play, but he took some awesome pictures of the game, so you should check them out) The game started off pretty good for the alums, including an almost perfectly played stealth play, in which I snuck down the sideline while the young’uns set up the zone at the brick, and then walked into the middle of the endzone without another person within 35 yards. Stupid Peaches, shoulda thrown the hammer.

After peaking early (at around 2-0), the alums started fading. CUT took half at something like 10-4 or 10-5. The alums tried to fight back, and I think that the young’uns felt a little bad, as they let us walk back to a final score of 19-14. Way to go CUT, nice game.

Once the game was over, all 45 or so of the alums and the whole team got into a big love-fest circle on the field. A couple of messages were relayed about the events of the evening, and then it was brought to everyone’s attention that the three bachelors were soon to be married. This, of course, prompted a spank tunnel (pretty much exactly what it sounds like-everyone stands in a line with their legs spread wide, and the bachelors crawl through the “tunnel” getting spanked along the way. Hummer, after the tunnel, said it was nice that P-bo’s ass and his index finger had gotten reacquainted after such a long time).

I’m not sure how many spank tunnels you have been a part of, but I’ve been involved in quite a few. This one brought in a few “firsts” for me though. To begin, it was the first time I’ve seen not one, but two people get passed in the tunnel. PAB, who was the last one to start, passed both P-bo and Peaches to finish well in front of them. Truly a skill. Next, not only did PAB pass the other two, but he actually beat the tunnel. What this means is this-the tunnel continuously grows as the people in front run back to join the end of the line to get in another shot. Usually along the way the spank tunnelee gives up and collapses somewhere in the middle. This time, PAB beat the people running from the front to the back to the end of the tunnel, and crawled out the end alone and unscathed. Now that is some fast crawling.

Alright, after many ramblings, rants and raves, and general procrastination, I’ll start talking about what actually happened this past weekend.

To begin, Peaches, P-Bo, and PAB are all engaged to be married (as opposed to the other type of engaged). Being good quality former teammates, a bunch of us decided that it was up to us to ensure a quality bachelor party at the expense of these poor saps…er, lucky individuals. For my part, I chose Peaches as my target, and made him a shirt. The shirt was a baseball 3/4 tee on which I sewed a name tag (with Peaches actual name on it). On the back, I titled the shirt “Advice For The Groom”, and then brought along a few permanent markers for everyone we ran across to leave him advice. I think that we finally ended up with 11 entries on the shirt, and I wish that I could remember them all to share with you (I’ve got my people talking to the bachelor to see if we can get the final list from him, in which case I will post it as soon as I get it). Here’s a little taste though:

1. You’ve got to lick it, before you stick it.
2. Sometimes you have to sleep in the wet spot.
3. Don’t marry someone who won’t let you go to a stripclub.
4. Have fun on your honeymoon, because it’s the last time you’re getting laid.
5. Learn how to lie.

Now as you can see, the advice ranges from the practical (number 3), to the outrageous (number 1), to the downright dirty (2). Peaches was a champ, and wore the shirt all night long, and even put up with the multitude of drunk and nubile women we encouraged to write all over him. This happened during dinner (a pretty nice restaurant called Nochee [?], which transformed from an upscale eatery to a salsa dance party to a hip-hop club all during the course of our meal), during urban kickball, at the after-party, during four-square, and more.

All in all, a great evening. I’m a little disappointed that Hummer couldn’t make it up, as he always makes things more interesting (yes, I do know a man named Hummer, you don’t?!?). It was fun to call Plasmoner Industries, and have him ask Clay: “Are you the myth?” I’m not quite sure that he was all the way awake at that point in the evening, but it made for some good hilarity at our end.

More to come about Saturday…

Despite the fact that I just quoted a horrible ad campaign by Outback, the Steakhouse, I’m sticking with my title on this one (honestly, if you are an AUstralian styled restaurant and you want to give yourself an Aussie image, don’t grab the first schmoe you find off the street that has a semi-crappy accent. Subaru did it right, when they wanted Aussie, they went with Crocodile Dundee. Did you know that Paul Hogan was Australian of the Year in 1985? I bet that Outback dude can’t put that on his resume…).

Because what I have to talk about is Urban Kickball, or alternately the life and times of a bachelor party in Minneapolis last Friday, May 12th. Tall said it right, when he described the depths of the game that is Urban Kickball. In essence, it is a cross between Dodgeball (the movie), Calvinball (the game), and Revenge of the Nerds (when the Frat Boys at Alpha Beta burn their house down by blowing Myers 151 at a torch, and Ogre is drinking beer out of a trophy). And even though the Kaiser made a very decent and respectable effort at describing the rules of the game, I’m still sticking with my theory: no rules, only right.

To tell the truth, I think that the real winner is the kickball itself, which managed to make it through the whole beer-spattered weekened intact and in good form. Oh, and the fact that despite repeated forrays into the streets of downtown Minneapolis, no one was hit by a car. And the taxi that pulled up to the bar we were at and immediately joined in our game of foursquare (who needs drinks when you have foursquare?). And the lack of puking throughout the night. And little Carr, for arranging many repeated writings on Peaches shirt.

As the tallest table tennis player ever so aptly put it, the weekend was very definitely summed up with one word: “Crazy”. And I’m pretty sure that my part of the story doesn’t even begin to describe the whole iceburg vs.Titanic carnage that is alumni weekend (for example, I’ve heard rumors and mumblings about someone who was covered in their own vomit but still managed to talk themselves out of an underage drinking ticket [this site does not willfully endorse nor intentionally unendorse underage drinking]. Color me a little bit interested in that whole scenario).

Suffice to say that even with 14 hours of sleep from Thursday through Sunday evenings, even with more lemon drops/jaeger bombs/whiskey shots than I’ve had previous to this point in my life (not to mention the beer chasers, the Boone’s Farm wine, etc), even with only two Basil’s gyro pizza’s under my belt, I had an amazing time. I had a great conversation at 4 in the morning with someone that I’m pretty sure doesn’t remember what was said at all, but in which I learned a lot about myself that I hadn’t known yet. I sprained Tall’s finger with a kickball in downtown Minneapolis late Friday night. I’m pretty sure that I’ve developed a good little crush on someone that is 7 years different in age. I spent more money in one night than I usually do in one month.
And I’d do it all again in a second (well maybe not those last few drinks on Saturday night which made Sunday morning so uncomfortable).

But, also because of the aforementioned lack of sleep, I’m about to crash and it is only 7 bells. I’ll tackle the rest of the weekend in installments, which will include but not be limited to: Urban Kickball, the Reub, and Foursquare.

Extra-medium, out.

ps-oh, and I should have a ton of pictures for y’all sometime soon. Well, as soon as I get the time to go through them all and edit out the ones I can’t share (and the ones that are crap-which happens when you take pictures while drinking). I’ll let you know, so keep in touch.

Wow. And I do mean wow.

The evening started at 5:30, when we got picked up at a Park N Ride by a luxury bus. This bus had three flat panel tv’s with digital cable, two coolers full of beer (which wasn’t nearly enough, but we stopped to refill them), leather couches all around, a table, and a kitchen full of munchies. We piled on the whole crew (about 25 people in all), and started the festivities right away. By festitivies, of course, I mean drunkeness.

Two hours later we pull into the Skagit Valley Casino, with our bankroll of $100 and whatever we personally decide to spend. I, of course, decide to spend nothing, so I’m hoping to hit a streak of luck at my first gambling experience. It turns out that they only have two craps tables, and one of them they won’t open for 45 minutes after we are planning to leave. Luckily, I manage to sneak into a spot next to the one guy that actually knows how to gamble, and has been teaching everyone how to play craps over our lunch hours. Unluckily, the table is ice cold, and 45 minutes later I’m down to my last $15.

But, it’s time to get back on the bus, and then we are heading to the Tulalip casino a little closer to Seattle, and which is also quite a bit bigger. And once on the bus, the drinks start flowing again. Let me tell you, I haven’t seen so much man on man action since the outtakes of Brokeback Mount’n (my theory is: man on man is funny and everyone will laugh. Man on woman is sexual harrassment and very uncomfortable at a work function). But we finally settle down (we ran out of beer again), and then hit the Tulalip casino.

The Tulalip is a lot bigger than the first casino that we hit, and they had four craps tables rolling pretty strong. Since they were pretty busy, we sat around and shot the shit (aka, sobered up enough to gamble) for a while until a spot opened up. Again, I ended up next to the guy that knew what he was doing, and this time we hit a warm table. I say warm, because with my original $15 (and the $60 I got from the ATM even though I promised myself I wouldn’t), I ended up about $300 ahead.

Not bad for my first time.

Plus all the free alcohol, the uncomfortable silences at work after the pictures from the evening were sent out, etc, etc.

And to cap it all off, the bus driver stopped at Dick’s on the way back to our cars. If you aren’t from Seattle, you wouldn’t understand. But if you are, you know exaclty how nice this was of the driver.

I’ve been sleeping like shit lately, which sucks. I don’t know what it is either; I haven’t been drinking, I’ve been exercising regularly, I’ve been eating alright, etc, etc, etc. There isn’t anything that I can think of that would be a warning sign for a restless night.

And even though I wake up every morning achey and tired, there is an upside: I’ve been dreaming a lot.

I also don’t know why I normally don’t dream (or to be more correct, why I normally don’t remember my dreams. As far as I’m concerned, everyone dreams all the time, we just don’t remember them), but whenever I do I wake up thinking some crazy things.

Last night, I had some good ones.

Although now I’m pulling what my brother and I refer to as “a Patty”. You see, that is my mom’s name, and whenver she starts to tell a story you can pretty much guarantee that she will either forget the ending, or at least one key point to the story that makes it relevant in any way, shape, or form. What I’m saying is that I remember having some awesomely weird dreams last night that made me wake up and go “WTF?!?”, I just don’t remember what they were.

I kick ass.

This happened last weekend, and I’m still not sure exactly what to make of it. But I’ll tell you, and then you can decide.

Last Sunday, I was jarred out of sleep by someone knocking on my door at 6 am in the morning. Now I’m the type of person that believes that if someone wakes you up, then they can go to Hell. So I stayed in bed, and tried to calm down the dog, who was barking (as is his job). The problem was that they kept knocking on the door, and then they started pounding on the door. Finally, I got up and went over to look out the peephole in my door. There were two people outside my door, and I got there in time to hear “Well, just put’em in the laundry room.” The laundry room is next to my door, and is unlocked.

After this, they left, and I went back to sleep. When I woke up, I took my dog out for his morning walk. Being a little curious, I looked into the laundry room. Lo and behold, there was a dog staring up at me. WTF?

I took him out of the laundry room, and it was obvious that he was very scared. When I finally got him calmed down enough and trusting me, he let me look at his tags. It turns out that Sebastian (that’s the dog), had a phone number and a Pet ID tag. I called the number, and it was a cell phone that was turned off, so I left a message saying that I had that person’s dog, and when could they come get it? Then I called the Pet ID tag number, and they confirmed that I was close to where the person had registered the dog, but they couldn’t reach them either.

So I’m stuck with a strange dog on a Sunday morning, and I’m not too happy about leaving him alone in my apartment with my dog since I know nothing about him at all.

About an hour later, as I’m sitting at my computer doing some work (and hoping that the phone would ring), Sebastian starts twitching in the kitchen. When I get up to see what’s going on, it’s obvious that he is having some sort of seizure. He was on the ground twitching and jerking, shaking uncontrollably, frothing at the mouth, and pissing all over himself and my kitchen.

I don’t know if you have ever encountered a person or a dog having a seizure, but it isn’t a comfortable thing to watch. I had no idea what to do for the dog, and I felt horrible because there wasn’t anything that I could do. Finally, Sebastian stopped seizing, and came back to normal. By normal, I mean that he was now covered in urine and froth, and hanging out on my kitchen floor.

I took him outside and hosed him down (and also let my dog outside, since he was scared shitless of this whole event too). Then I went back inside to clean out my kitchen. You have to realize that I have a yard that is almost fully enclosed, and I have no problems with letting my dog out unsupervised. Evidently this wasn’t the case with Sebastian, because the next time I looked outside, he was gone. I walked around the block a couple of times, to no avail. As far as I knew, he may have been in the bushes next to my house, dead or dying, or he could have walked right up to his own house and walked in the dog door.

Now of course I run into a little dilemma. On one hand, the dog was obviously sick (or at least not healthy enough to be out on his own). On the other, he did piss all over my kitchen and scare the crap out of my dog. Do I search around the neighborhood more for a dog that I don’t really want to find? Or do I just let it go, and get on about my day? I did both. I walked around the block a few more times throughout the day when I was home, but never ran into him again.

I think that the worst part about this whole ordeal is that the woman never called me about her dog. WTF? What kind of dog owner doesn’t want to know where her dog is when it is missing? Or at the very least, she should have called to bitch me out for finding her dog and then letting him get away again. But nothing.

I think that there is a special place in Hell for those that neglect their pets, and she’ll be there for sure.

Evidently people like it when I tell stories/post pictures of my retard dog. I’m not so sure how I feel about this, since it is my retard dog, and not your retard dog, and I should be able to do what I will with my retard dog.

But, since I realized that I was the number one hit on Google for retard dog, I figured that I should do something to stay there. Hence this post, my retard dog.

I do have plenty of stories about him though, so I guess I may as well tell one of those to kick things off:

My Retard Dog

My dog once faked an injury so that he wouldn’t have to run home in the rain.

No, I’m not kidding. I’ll tell you what happened, and then you decide.

We were out walking on our daily constitutional (where I walk him until he craps, then I pick it up and either fling it somewhere no one will find it, or throw it away in someone else’s trash can), when it started to rain a little. Now I live in Seattle, so this isn’t something that is any sort of anomoly. But it happened that this time, I hadn’t brought any sort of coat, and wasn’t in the mood to get wet. So I started jogging with the dog (we were only about three blocks from home). Evidently, he didn’t like this, as he started to drag ass even more than usual (he’s an 85 pound dog. Let’s just say that he isn’t built for speed or stamina, but that he plays an amazing game of tug). After a half block of dragging him along, he just stopped and sat down.

At this point in time Esky (that’s my retard dog, by the by) had been in my life for about 4 years, and he had never done anything like this. So I was a little concerned about him, and thought that maybe something was wrong. I walked back to him and checked his paws to see if maybe he had stepped on something sharp. Nothing.

After this little rest break, I tried to get him up and moving again, as it had started to rain a little harder by now. Again, he wouldn’t move. By now I was more than a little worried about him, and the possibility that maybe something was really wrong. So I tied him to a railing near an apartment building, ran home and got my car, and then drove back and picked him up.

Suffice to say that I drove back just in time to see him jumping at the end of his leash as he was barking and snapping at another passing dog. When I untied him and opened the back door, he jumped into the car, pleased as punch.

The only thing that I can think of is that the little fucker faked an injury so that he didn’t have to run anymore.

That’s just a little taste of the idiocy of the retard that is my dog. I’ll tell more later, as soon as my Google ratings for “”Retard Dog” start dropping again.

I have a problem at work.

Well, that isn’t really true, I have multiple problems at work, but I am only going to talk about one of those problems right now.

The main problem that I have is that I am an hourly employee. But I only have between 4 and 6 hours of work that I actually want to do at work each day. The other 2-4 hours would be taken up by meaningless “busy work” that I absolutely hate to do, and that I think is stealing little bits of my soul away from me. To counter this, I have undertaken a study in the effective use of inefficiency to make my 4 hours of work turn into 8.

You may be thinking to yourself: “What the eff?” And I agree, especially since it is completely against my nature to try and make repetetive tasks inefficient. I’m more the type of guy that wants to get things done, and done quickly (I would be a horrible government employee). If I could find it, I would love to have a job that pays me to do a certain amount of work each day/week/month, regardless of how much time I take to complete that work. I guess that is what it means to be salaried, but I like my version better.

Here’s an example of what I will do at work to make the more pleasant tasks take longer. When I start pulling files-instead of lining up the files I have to pull in alpha-numeric order (ie, first pull the file from aisle 10 row 3a, then 3b, then row 4, then aisle 7 row 6, then aisle 42 row 4, then row 13, etc), I will create a new system of pulling files. Like strictly alphabetical, which means that aisle 42 row 4 comes before row 13 (f before t), then walk right by aisle 10 to aisle 7 row 6, and then go back to aisly 10, row 4 then row 3, etc. Or some other ridiculous methodological order, just so that I can take an extra 10-20 minutes per order pulled.

Some of you many now be thinking that this is just a quick way to get fired, or at the very least yelled at for such slow and crappy work. Untrue. I constantly get applauded for the speed with which I do my work. Even those days where I will start to pull an order, go drop a deuce, take a “smoke break” (I don’t smoke, so this involves me going outside and wandering around the parking lot for a while), eat a midday snack, and then finish the order. I still get lauded for the work ethic in which I go about my day.

Suffice to say that I get pretty bored at work. Unfortunately I don’t have access to a computer for more than an occasional email check, because I could get a lot of blogging done in that time.

Originally posted at Tall Guy’s Blog.

Welcome to The Tall Quiz, or How to Tell if You Are Really a Tall Person. Please take a couple of minutes and think about your answers to the following questions, and then tally your score to find out how tall you really are.

The Quiz

1. Who hits their head more on low-hanging objects, someone who is over 6′4″ or someone who is under?

1. The tall person
2. The short person

2. If you are exactly 6′10 3/8″, how tall do you say that you are when asked?

1. Six foot, ten and three eighths inches.
2. 6′2″
3. Bigger than a breadbox
4. About 7-ish
5. It depends on what gas station I am entering or exiting at the time

3. After you tell someone how tall you are, the next question they ask is if you have ever played basketball. Your answer is:

1. What is this “basketball” that you speak of?
2. Yes (and then give them a detailed history)
3. No, it got in the way of my career as a jockey
4. I wanted a bigger challenge, so I took up miniature golfing instead

4. Who is taller, Mugsy Bogues (5′3″) or Spud Webb (5′7″)?

1. Spudd Webb, obviously
2. Mugsy Bogues plays so much taller despite his smaller stature
3. Who? or who?
4. Does it matter? They are both chihuahuas

5. When someone on the street that you have never seen before comes up to you and says: “Hey, you’re really tall”, your response is:

1. And you’re really smart
2. What!? Holy shit, that must have just happened overnight!
3. Well thank you. You’re quite…medium-sized, I would say. Extra-medium even
4. Ah shucks. Hey, if you ever want the first word on the weather, come talk to me

Ok, now that you have had time to think about your answers and write them down, it’s time for the answers. After this, you will be able to tell everyone you know what your personal Tall Quotient is…

Answers:
Question 1: despite the obvious theory that tall people will invariably find more things that are head height to them, and that they could possibly run into, the answer is the shorter person. Tall people learn very quickly that they are tall, and thus they are inevitably bound to find things to run their heads into. Let me rephrase that, tall people learn very quickly, or suffer from multiple concussions and are required to wear padded helmets everywhere they go. Tall people always have their “headar” on (thats ‘head radar’ for all the pormanteauly challenged people out there), because they don’t like hitting their head on the multitude of low-hanging objects (on a totally different subject, has anyone else noticed that most cities trim the trees along sidewalks to a constant height of 6′2″? So, if you are taller, you’re on your own). Shorter people don’t learn this at the early age necessary for it to become second nature, and are thus more likely to smack into things that hang down that low. If you chose answer A, you get 0 points. If you picked answer B, give yourself 2 points.

Question 2: I’ll let you in on a secret, this was a bit of a trick question. The only wrong answer is option A. A tall person never tells someone to the exact 1/8th of an inch how tall they are. More than likely, they don’t even know. After you reach six feet tall when you are still in middle school, you start to think of height in relative terms. Like bigger than a breadbox (it’s true, you are). Only when you are short do you strain for every little piece of the pie that you can reach, and the shorter you are the less pie you get. So if you answered A, give yourself -2. If you answered B, give yourself 5 points. If you picked E, give yourself 3 points because I like Ron White. If you chose C or D, you get 2 points.

Question 3: Sorry, but another trick question. Everyone who has ever been considered tall at some point in their life has heard this question: “So, have you ever played ball?” Or, if the person is old and trying to be hip: “Hey there sonny boy, do you ever hoop it up?” Honestly, this is the most ridiculous question to ask someone. Tall people don’t walk up to women who are more than normally endowed (ie, big breasted) and ask “How’s life at the strip club?” or “Man, I bet you get a lot of milk out of those puppies!” even though we may really want to ask those very questions. Just because someone is tall doesn’t necessarily mean that they are in any way physically competent enough to play basketball. So, if you answered B, sorry but you get another -2 points. If you answered A, give yourself 1 point for sidestepping the question, but a lack of creativity. If you answered C you get 3 points, and if you chose D you get 4 points (any time you can add “miniature” into a conversation about tall people, you get bonus points).

Question 4: Lo and behold! Yet another trick question. These are mostly tricks because it is easy to lie on the internet and say you are tall. This quiz could have consisted of one question (How tall are you?), but it’s too easy to lie to boost your fragile height-based ego when you are short. Anywho, if you are female and chose answer C, give yourself 1 bonus point for having a good sense of humor. If you are a guy and chose answer C, you get another -2 points. Even short guys should know and revere these two guys for having beat the NBA system, and having pretty good careers despite the obvious fact. If you picked A, you get 1 point. Because technically it is true, 5′7″ is taller than 5′3″. If you picked B or D, you get 2 points (I hope you are keeping track).

Question 5: The trickiest of the tricky questions, because it requires that you have read 6′2″ before now, specifically the beginnings of 6′2″. Basically, since all tall people run into this situation multiple times that they are out in public, they get tired of it. Honestly, it is a statement, so there is no response required. But obviously the person that walks up to you wants to start a conversation, otherwise they wouldn’t have said anything at all. So the taller the person, the more creative the responses are to this invasiveness (again, tall people don’t walk up to fat people and yell out things like “350! No wait, 375!” It’s just rude). If you answered B or D, give yourself 1 point for coming up with something (although not that creative. The “how’s the weather up there” is just about as old and tired as the “ever played ball” question). If you picked A, you get 2 points for the sheer pluck of it. And if you answered C, you get 4 points for not only the most creative (extra-medium is genius), but the bonus points of being a 6′2″ faithful.

Ok, tally up your score, and here are the results.

• 0 or below to 5: you are obviously well under 6 feet tall. More than likely, you are so short that you would have looked up to Napoleon.
• 6 to 10: your Tall Quotient is 6′1″ to 6′5″. You’re tall, but not that tall.
• 11 to 15: now we are getting somewhere. Your TQ is 6′6″ to 6′10″ (Hey, did you ever play any college ball?).
• 16 to 17: your TQ is 6′11″ and above (because the sky is the limit tall guy). Or, you have the option of saying that you are 6′2″ and proud of it.

Hopefully this answered some questions about how tall you really are.

Editor’s Note: I have a new one for when someone comes up to you and says, “Wow, you’re really tall.” My response (in perfect English with heavy midwest acdcent): “What? Oh! You mean ‘alto’. Sorry, I only speak Spanish.”

Editor’s Note #2: This past weekend at a local Golf Show (you haven’t lived until you’ve jacked a bucket full of range balls into the upper deck of a domed stadium) I had the following conversation with, yes, that’s right….a certain Ms. Minnesota (didn’t catch her first name).
Her: “Wow, you’re really tall.”
Me (thinking): (”Crap. She’s hot. AND Ms. Minnesota. Should I try any of my usual smart ass lines? Will she even get them? She’s hot.”)
Me: “Thank you very much! I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Me: “You’re very medium.”
(long pause)
Her (with confused look): “Hunh?”
Her (same confused look, or worse): “What do you mean?”

You win some, you lose some.

Other editor’s note: Kaiser might remember this story the too, in which case he can back me up. On our way from Boulder, CO to Northfield, MN after college nationals (frisbee), I was in the back of the plane with Josh and my then gf. Now I’m 6′4″-ish, and he’s 6′10-ish, giving us a combined 13 and 1/2 ish feet of person in two seats. Right in front of us was the exit row, and about 5′8″ of whiny, must-be-a-trust-fund-child, PMS-ing, annoying man who couldn’t stop complaining about the lack of leg room the whole flight long.

In. The. Exit. Row.

Finally, at the end of the flight, when he stood up (hardly even having to bend his neck to fit under the overhead compartment), he noticed me bent over at the waist to stand up behind him. The kicker, and the thing that really shut him up, was him then looking next to me to see Kaiser in the fetal position in the seat. Yes, with his feet on the ground, and yes, with his knees up by his nose. The look on his face was pretty priceless.