A Friend in Need

"A good friend tells you these things," Steve told me. I was still nervously laughing, weighing just how I was supposed to respond to his last comment.

He led me over to where Michael was standing and virtually commanded of him to pull something out of his pocket. They were Listerine strips.

"You have bad breath," Steve repeated. "Pop one of these."



I popped one, still nervously laughing and still not having had the presence of mind to actually articulate any witty retort. Steve popped one too.

"Now," he said, "do this." He exhaled like Zeus expelling a new child, showing off his new clean, fresh Listerine breath.

I declined. Steve just laughed at me and repeated: "Really, you had to be told. Friends tell each other these things."

I guess that means that I was supposed to tell him that the smell of his breath telling me I had halitosis was pretty damn bad too. But I didn't.

We Love Tara Reid

We here at MTML (I'm using the royal "we" now -- cool, huh?) love Tara Reid.

Is It Wrong....

... to want to pinch a priest's butt?

I went out for drinks tonight with some people whose common bond was that they all attended the same Catholic church. "Father" made an appearance to wish two of his congregants a happy birthday.

At one point in the night, he was standing talking to some people while I was seated on a couch right behind him. He was much cuter than I would ever have expected from a Catholic priest.

The temptation to pinch his butt was incredible.

But I resisted. Go me.

Marriage vs. Voting

So the White House has spoken on the recent momentum toward giving the District of Columbia a vote in Congress: it think such a vote would be unconstitutional. Uh, okay.

Putting aside the question of whether the law will actually be unconstitutional -- that is a debate for far wiser legal minds than mine -- here's my solution: Amend the freaking Constitution, if need be.

Seriously, this administration has clamored for constitutional amendments geared toward nothing but denying gay men and lesbians equal access to state (secular) marriage laws. They would love to make flag-burning unconstitutional.

But grant 500,000 taxpaying American citizens the right to voting representation in Congress? Heaven forbid! The Constitution would be highly offended!

The battles these people choose to pick is absolutely staggering.

Woke Up, Got Out of Bed, Hung Up On a Telemarketer

Dear Campaign Telemarketer Person:

Do you remember our phone call this morning? I'm sure you don't, because I'm sure you make tons of calls like this every single day. It's not your fault, but you called me just around the time I was getting ready for work (I start later than most). I don't blame you; I do blame myself for answering the phone at all (I usually don't).

But what happened after I answered the phone intrigues me. You identified me by name and started speaking to me. That's great. You're excited about your candidate. Also great. You wanted to explain to me why you're so ecstatic that your candidate has tossed his hat into the White House 2008 race. I'm happy for you.

You told me all this in about one and a half breaths. You told me all of this in approximately 45 seconds of non-stop talking. At this point I had literally uttered two syllables since picking up the phone. But again, I figured it was partly my fault, so I waited for a reasonable break in your stride, a logical stopping point in your speech, a place where I could my word in edgewise.

As you'll recall, once you took your break in breath, I pounced -- and I pounced politely. I told you very nicely, without raised voice or hint of aggravation, that while I appreciated your enthusiasm, you caught me at a bad time; that I was busy; that I had work to do. You know: a job. Note that I did not disparage your candidate, call you a bad name (some people do that with unsolicited telephone calls), or even get upset. I politely told you that I have no time to listen to you, and that was all.

As I prepared for a cordial ending to this call, though, you piped back up in your cheery falsetto and continued into your script (I can only assume you had a printed script in front of you). You paid no attention whatsoever to what I had just told you: that I was busy and that there were others things I needed to be doing with my time. Well, either that or you just didn't care about my time.

You may or may not realize it (since you were apparently talking without regard to me, the person on the end of the phone, by this point), but it was at this point that I hung up on you.

Let me be clear: I do not rudely hang up on telemarketers. Nor do I verbally abuse them. That's just not my thing. You have a job to do, and much as it's a job which inconveniences those people who answer their phones, it's your job and I won't begrudge your doing it. But when I've tried to politely get your off the phone and you prove yourself un-receptive to these efforts -- well, it's at that point that I feel justified in rudely ceasing our "conversation," to the extent that what you and I had was a "conversation."

So, uh, sorry. Kinda. But I think you're used to being hung up on by now.

Oh, and for the record: You are promoting a politician. You are not selling timeshares or home air purifiers or vacuum cleaners (although I know politicians have a lot of hot air). Your job is to get people to vote for your candidate. And a pretty important step to getting people to vote for your candidate is getting people to like your candidate. Helpful hint: not letting people get off the phone with you when they've clearly expressed a desire to do so does not endear you to the hearts and minds of potential voters. Also, when someone tries to disengage from you by telling you they're going to work, you're not helping your case with the common worker when you effectively suggest to them that they can put their job on hold while you ask for money -- money that they're trying to get out the door to go earn.

Just some thoughts. Carry on.

Sincerely,
Dennis!

Random News Items

From the Department of Unsurprising Headlines ("DUH"), the Washington Post brings us this: "Bush Iraq Strategy Has No Option for Failure." You don't say. Seriously, though, what they also don't say is precisely what defines "victory" either.

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This article is just heartbreaking in its ignorance and stupidity. A man who had been performing his job competently for 14 years suddenly becomes wholly incapable of doing his job -- just because decided to become a woman. Seriously, as a guy he was great for the job. As a woman, she's suddenly untrustworthy. Do her opponents at all figure that their reaction is the exact reason she didn't say anything sooner? You can't argue "untrustworthy" when it's you who inspires people to keep secrets.