#20 Drooling Grimace Face

I learned something new the other day. Not sure how true it is, but seems plausible. I learned that how you sleep (physically...as in what position you sleep in) affects how well you age (physical appearance...as in how you look in your 30's, 40's 50's). Meaning: if you sleep on your stomach where your face is mashed sideways into your pillow causing 8 hours of drooling grimace face to be etched into your skin, there is a better chance of those lines becoming more and more permanent as you get older. This would explain how come the bitter beer face guy has so many lines and wrinkles in his face.

I sleep on my stomach, and I am pretty sure my face is pressed into my pillow drooling grimace style. So, I tried falling asleep on my back, with my face relaxed and smoothed as much as possible.

Not sure that it is working because I always wake up with my face mashed into my pillow. All of this to say that I am slightly concerned that I will turn into the bitter beer face guy, and I don't like it.

19) A Date Update

Friday night we accompanied Stephen and Krystal to an Italian food restaurant in Tyler called Fiore. I am sorry to report that nothing interesting or humorous occurred during the evening. We ate pasta and talked about work, movies, food, family, and all manner of other things people talk about while eating a meal. Stephen played it cool, which was smart for a first meeting. And at the end of the night he set himself up nicely for a second date...this time alone. When I know more, you will know more.

18) A Date

One thing married life affords me is the fact I no longer have to date. Instead of working up the courage to ask a girl out and then trying to impressive her with my creative, seductive charm, I now only have to accompany friends and family on double dates...where I get to watch them impress girls with their creative and seductive charm. So far, my resume consists only of Britt putting the moves on a local reporter here by the name of Danielle, not to mention a couple of years back hooking him up with a young girl from the ad agency I worked at. I think I also set him up on a date with the lead singer of the band I played in. Not sure if anyone knew Tiffany had gone out with him, but she did. None of the experiences went well for him, though I got drunk and had fun all three nights.

Well, I am going on another date tomorrow night and am excited about it. My brother, Stephen, moved to Tyler and is going to meet a young woman who works at the station. I will watch closely as he molds typical conversation into humorous anecdotes, or perhaps executes a well timed wink, point and smile. I am going to sit back and drink whiskey drinks, occasionally making note of a particular gesture or phrase so that later I can say, "Remember when Stephen did that!"

So, wish Stephen luck. Not only must he meet this girl for the first time and hope to impress her, he must do these things with his goofy, inebriated, older brother watching him.

17) Tyler Obama Love

Here are a couple of the ridiculous things I have heard from people in Tyler recently concerning the President Elect:

* Hide your guns!
* He is going to change the American Flag and the National Anthem.
* He wants to turn our country into a socialist regime where everyone is equal, even if they are too lazy to work for themselves.
* Our terrorist enemies are going to see that he is weak and will thus attack our country within a year.

Obviously these claims are ridiculous and it is impossible to argue with people who cannot see how crazy these statements are. Politics are complex and confusing, and sometimes it is difficult to make sense of all the information fired at us. I also accept the fact that democrats are guilty of ridiculous comments too (Whoopi arguing with McCain that he is pro-slavery because he is a constitutionalist), but here in Tyler I do not hear those, so do not have examples to mention here.

At lunch on Monday three people at our table complained that Obama plans to address all of America's problems and by so doing will spread his efforts too thin to do any good. Essentially their complaint was that he wants to do too much good for our country, and he is not yet in office. I told them to give the man a chance before condemning his efforts. They froze and one of them said, "Oh my God! Did you vote for Obama?!"

The entire table (14 people) stopped talking and looked at me. I explained that the odds were unfair for a political discussion, but that I did in fact vote for Obama. So many people at the table started yelling at me from different angles that I could not defend myself. I took it all in and wondered how so many people could be so against something that would help them. The people yelling at me, except 1, make less than $50,000 a year and have chilren. They would benefit from tax breaks to the middle class and their children would benefit from new schools and hospitals. Yet they claimed that all of their money was going to be taken from them and given to bums too lazy to work for themselves.

I explained that Obama is not in favor of increasing taxes so that he can give free money to bums. They shook their heads and told me that is what socialism is: taking money from the hard working people and giving it to the lazy people. I told them that Obama is not in favor of socialism and they laughed at me. They called me brainwashed by the Democratic machine.

Only 1 person at the table made sense. He was the one who makes 6 figures. He said, "Hardy, one of these days you are going to be making a lot of money and you will not want the government to tax you extra."

This is at the heart of all the issues. People who make a lot of money do not want anymore taxed from them. I get that. But there are changes that need to be made. The longer things are ignored or kept at status quo, the more difficult it will be to fix them. And no matter how many problems we have, I would rather our president hope to fix them all and run the risk of spreading his efforts too thin, than have a president who does not attempt at all.

Sorry for the rant, even though this one is pretty harmless.

16) The Coolest Superhero

Dorky people argue endlessly about which of the many superheroes is the coolest. Superman can fly, but is rendered completely useless by kryptonite, which seems to be readily available. Spiderman can shoot cool webs but has been lamely protrayed by Tobey Maguire. The Wolverine is cool and tough, but he must feel intense pain each time his claws come out. There are many superheroes to choose from and just as many arguements supporting or declining their respective rights to that coveted "Coolest Superhero" award.

I have the answer. I know who the coolest superhero is, and I have undeniable proof. Last Friday was Halloween and we prepared by purchasing much candy to give out. We parked in a straight line so that children would have easy access to our front door. We turned on our porch light and opened all our blinds. We dressed in our costumes and put Polly in the backyard. Ultimately...we waited.

No trick-or-treaters came to our house. We checked every few minutes for kids walking down the street. We paced around our front door munching on Reece's Peanut Butter cups and Twixs. We walked out to the street to see if we mught expect any kids eventually. Finally we put on a scary movie all but giving up hope that children would visit our house for candy.

And then the doorbell rang. L. jumped from the couch and adjusted her ladybug wings. I grabbed the dog. She grabbed the bowl of candy and opened the front door to find Batman standing on our front porch. Batman said, "Trick or Treat", holding out an orange pumpkin container.

Batman was the only superhero and only trick-or-treater who cared enough to visit our home for Halloween, and has thus been crowned "The Coolest Superhero".

15) A Gamble

I walked into the office bathroom to take care of some business and noticed the roll of toilet paper to be considerably thin. I glanced around for backup rolls and discovered there to be none. I eyed the roll more closely, gauging whether or not there was enough TP for me to make a commitment, or if I needed to walk to the upstairs bathroom. I decided quickly there was enough and locked the door behind me.

I sat down and started reading my Cowboy's article (discussing whether or not to bench Johnson). The meager roll of TP caught my attention and I started second guessing my decision to commit to this bathroom. I realized what I had done. I had decided to gamble. On one side things would go smooth and I could leave the bathroom unscarred, leaving the problem of no TP for the next person to deal with. On the other side, however, I could have put myself into a world of hurt.

Imagine, what if there was not enough TP. I would have been forced to do something no man should ever do:

1) Use my hand, washing after every wipe. That would have caused me to throw up and every hand I shook afterward would have been mean and unforgiving.

2) Use the cheap paper towels. This would have been no bueno para me culo.

3) Knock on the wall and ask Jai (the girl who can hear everything in the bathroom) if she can get some TP and throw it to me. This would have been embarassing and I am not sure I know anyone at the station well enough to call for TP.

4) After the last sheet of paper, regardless of how clean I was, I pull up my pants and drive home to take a shower and change my clothes.

The whole point of this story is to ask why would I put myself in that situation? I could just as easily walked to the upstairs bathroom. Why make this sort of gamble? Gambling money is one thing. Gambling sanity, embarassment and disgust...that is something else.

14) Auto Repair Presentation

During these rough economic times we, as TV Account Executives at KLTV, have been given categories for which we must become experts. Our goal is to learn as much as possible about a particular business so that we can present to the team tips on closing similar businesses. We are also supposed to make ourselves available to accompany other execs on pitches within our realm of expertise. I am an expert in 2 categories(so they tell me), Automotive Repair & Plumbing.

I delivered my presentation on Automotive Repair last week. As I learned in high school speech, it is good to begin a presentation with an attention getter. Considering myself a humorous and witty individual, I usually choose a joke of some kind. Now, I stay away from silly riddles or dirty jokes. Instead, I use subtle humor that is often missed by individuals not interested in paying attention to a presentation.

For my Automotive Repair presentation I began by saying a line similar to, "The automotive repair industry is complex due to the increasing technology used to design and build today's cars. So, I have decided to start with the engine." I clicked my power point presentation to slide number 2 where I had a diagram of an engine. The diagram explained the basic physics of internal combustion. I continued my presentation, "The gasoline travels into this chamber here, where it mixes with oxygen. As the spark plug fires a great deal of pressure is released..."

At this point in the presentation I looked up, expecting to see the pleasant expressions of our execs who understood my fake presentation into the mechanics of an automobile. However, this is not what I saw. Instead, I saw: My bosses confused face. Three execs not even paying attention. One exec with a smile and an understanding nod. And a couple of others from our support staff reluctantly waiting for more information on the pistons causing the drive shaft to spin. I said, "Just kidding," and mumbled something about that being my attention getter before starting on my marketing presentation.

The attention getter was a complete failure and did nothing but make me look dumb. The presentation was a good one, and afterward my boss said, "That was extremely informative. I liked it all, except for the crap at the beginning."

Incidentally, our presentations are forwarded to our VP of Regional Marketing, who used to be the GM of our station. He presents it to all the other sales teams within our corporate umbrella (in this case something like 53 stations). I did not know this happened until he came in my office and said, "Your presentation was very good. Except I did not understand the slide with the engine on it. Can you explain to me what that was?"

This failure reminds me of a class I took at Baylor on Robert Browning. Our professor centered our grades on 2 presentations we gave throughout the semester. One of those presentations I gave with Chris. Using my high school speech once again, Chris and I put together a small skit which was to be used as our attention getter. I cannot remember the specifics of the skit, but I remember one guy in our class getting the subtle humor and laughing. His name is Cliff and he has a high pitched laugh. Everyone else just ignored it, forcing me to mumble, "that was our attention getter..."

Anyway, now I am wondering what sort of attention getter I will prepare for my Plumber Presentation.

13) Sicko

Watched Sicko last night. I know many people do not like Michael Moore because he is somewhat of an ass and manipulates his documentaries to strengthen his side of a particular issue. However, this documentary is worth watching. Michael Moore asks some interesting questions and follows many compeling stories as he explores the problems with America's current Health Care system.

The film hit me so hard because of my family situation. My mom has been fighting with her insurance company for more than ten years. She has been diagnosed a manic depressive and as a result requires constant medication and consistent therapy. It took 7 years for her to get properly diagnosed, and we still aren't sure if her medications are correct.

My brother Cody is Autistic, and has not been properly diagnosed. My step father's denial kept him from seeking proper medical attention for Cody, a problem that would have been addressed if Health Care were free and provided by the government.

My step mother Jeanne suffers from seperation anxiety and cabin fever, due to the long hours my father works. Her anxiety has within the last couple of years begun to manifest itself physically with bumps and sores all over her face, neck and arms. My father was hurt on the job (blue collar) and now must work with the pain because his insurance only covers so much medication.

My youngest brother David has learning disabilities and extreme ADHD, but cannot get properly treated because my father is the cheapest man in Texas. I feel myself being awfully preachy, and I did not want to do that. So basically, check the movie out and relate these issues to your own life and see how it affects you.

On a different note, I noticed Obama is up in the polls. I see that as a good thing. I just hope there is not another mysterious ballot counting error in Florida...

12) Cody Trouble

Cody graduated high school in May and my family was eager for him to get to college. Joe (his father) settled on Schreiner University in Kerrville because it advertised programs for students with learning disabilities. Cody struggled with his classes. His anxiety manifested into a physical form, the inability to speak. He woke with the inability to speak on test days.

The school called the family and Beverly (Cody's step-mother) visited the school. She discovered he was stressed because of his Research Writing class. After much thought the family okayed him dropping the class.

Cody continued to struggle with his other three classes. He failed his exams and lied about it (first time he has lied to anyone in the family).

On Friday while hanging out in the common room another student approached Cody and his roommate Will. Both are religious people. This student challenged them into a religious discussion. The discussion turned to an argument, which eventually turned into a name calling catastrophe. Cody left the room and returned to his dorm with Will.

It was at this time that Will noticed a change in Cody's demeanor. His face took on a different expression, as did the tone and inflections of his voice. Will asked Cody what was wrong. Cody replied, "I am not Cody. I am Victor Snow."

Cody experienced a disassociative identity crisis of some kind. While being Victor Snow he explained to Will how he planned to kill the student who they argued with earlier. Will then went to the RA and turned Cody in (which was the right thing to do). The RA called the hospital and the school expelled Cody.

Joe picked Cody up from Kerrville at 4 in the morning and took him back home. Stephen and I drove to Livingston to help and support in any way we could. Nothing much has been decided. There is much going on here that I will go into later. The first step is getting Cody to a professional who can properly diagnose and prescribe medication for the problems Cody is experiencing.

I will go more into this later...

11) Domesticated Man

I realized last night that I have been domesticated. At one point in my life the little things in life did not matter too much to me. As long as I had a bottle of whiskey, a TV, a soft pillow and toilet paper, I could survive anywhere. This is no longer the case. I have become a domesticated man. Here are a few of the products I have in my house that I can no longer live without. Please post any I may have forgotten, or do not know about, as I would be happy to buy more crap for my house.

* Electrosal Powerball- This chalky cube of chemicals works magic in the dishwasher. Much better than normal or even liquid dish soap. If you have not tried it, go buy it. The gel pouch is even better!

* Lysol wraps- I use these cleansing moist towelettes for everything: the kitchen counter, the oven top, the bar, our TV trays, cat vomit, cat shit smeared on the walls (yes this happens...and you wonder why I want to get rid of them), wine droplets on the tile floor. Everything.

* Magic Sizing- This can of spray is used to iron shape into your clothes. Not as strong or as chemical as Starch, but works well on wrinkled clothes.

* Bath and Body Works Hand Soap- I love this stuff. I wash my hands and the fragrance stays with me for hours. I don't even care what other people think when I come out of the bathroom and happily sniff my own hands.

10) Movie Quote Game

The station held a sales retreat Friday lasting all day. On Thursday at 4:45 my boss asked that I come up with a game using movie quotes (I have a dry erase board in my office where I post movie quotes for people to guess. As a result I have developed the reputation for being a movie quote guy... aka loser).

The format of the game is easy. I have three quotes per film ranging from obscure to obvious. I reveal the quotes one at a time. I got the GM of the station (the big dog) to do his best impressions of each quote as I revealed them and people could guess the movie at any time. Here are some funny tidbits.

* The GM of the station/Quote Reader had not seen Dumb and Dumber. The quote was, "Big Gulps, huh? All right. Well, see you later." Jim Carrey says this outside a quicky mart in a dorky sounding voice. Our GM read the thing in a brooklyn tough guy accent, thinking it was a gangster movie. No one could guess the movie.

* The sweetest woman working for the station remarked after the third movie, "I don't understand this game." I explained it to her again. She said, "well, I don't watch any movies, so I guess I can't win, can I?" I shrugged and said I included a movie she would definitely get (The movie was the Wizard of Oz). She smiled and said, "Okay." The next movie quote to be revealed was, "Well, actually a pretty nice little Saturday. We're gonna go to Home Depot. Buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring stuff..." The sweetest woman jumped from her chair and screamed, "Old School!" She was very excited.

* Another woman announced that she did not like this game. She said, "Who remembers the crappy lines from crappy movies, anyway?" Everyone looked at me and I raised my hand. She said, "I'm not trying to be rude, but this game is dumb." Three quotes later she got Wizard of Oz and announced that she liked the game, she just needed to understand the point better.

9) A Nice Hug From A Stranger

Our station partnered with The Boys and Girls Club of Tyler to host an event this past weekend called A Day For Kids. I worked our Kid's Cast booth where we allowed kids to act out 30 seconds of a news cast and we recorded it onto a DVD for them to take home. Craig called during the day to ask me which good books I'd recently read because he was at a bookstore and wanted something good to read. I suggested Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted and Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, both of which are interesting and different, and worth reading. He settled on a book called Apathy and Other Small Victories because it was shorter than the others and he wanted to increase his chances of finishing the thing. That is what I call realistic expectations.

While on the phone with Craig a familiar looking woman passed within my view with a young child. She seemed to recognize me and I could not place how I knew her. She approached the booth and began talking to Cory, a young man and a friend of mine, working the booth with the rest of us. As Cory took the child into his arms I realized the woman was his new fiancee, who I know fairly well, and that I had not congratulated her on her recent engagement.

I hung up with Craig and put my arm around Cory's Fiancee and said, "Meredith, I haven't seen you in awhile. Congratulations."
The young girl turned around and said, "I'm not Meredith." When she turned I could see that she was not Meredith, but she looked a lot like Meredith and she had with her Meredith's child, who she brought for Cory. I was confused. I froze.

Before I could think of anything to say or do Adam approached the group with a big smile on his face. Adam is our Operations Manager and close friend to Cory. He pulled the girl into a hug and said, "Man, it's great to see you. How have things been?"

The girl let herself be hugged. She said, "Things have been good. But I'm not Meredith." Adam stepped away and laughed, thinking this was some kind of joke. He took a good look at her and realized it was not Meredith, that it was in fact someone different. However, the girl looked so much like Meredith he did not know what to say. He froze.

The young girl understood the problem and said, "My name is Allison. I am Meredith's twin sister." Adam and I nodded our heads calmly as if that were the obvious answer. Adam said, "I'm sorry I hugged you." She said it was okay, that it was a nice hug from a stranger.

8) Little Boy and Fat Man

I watched a documentary on the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The film focused on the testimony of survivors, all of which were children at the time of the blast. The film depressed me in many ways, but two things remained with me almost a week later. The bombs deformed the children so badly that they were discriminated by the rest of the country. Not only did they lose their families, were permanently deformed and stricken with medical problems the rest of their lives, but they were labeled freaks by their own countrymen.

The second thing that stayed with me is how the survivors blamed themselves for what happened. They did not feel vengeful. They felt shame and regret. Breaks my heart to think about it.

7) Girl On The Corner

I pulled up to an obscure 4-way stop intersection behind my office building this morning. A young girl stood on the corner talking on her cell phone. When I came to a complete stop and looked to the right I noticed she was about 10 feet away from my car and she was visibly upset. I needed to turn left so I was watching as a line of cars came from that direction, waiting for my chance to pull into traffic. The girl thought I was staring at her, which I was not. She took the phone from her ear and started yelling at me. I could not exactly hear her, but she said something like, "What the hell are you looking at! Get out of here!"

At first I was not certain she was talking to me. I kept my attention focused past her at the traffic so I could make my turn. Then it became obvious she was talking to me. She approached my window crying and cussing.

I was not sure what to do. I could not pull out into traffic and I was not going to back up. I did not want her to start hitting my car, but I was also not going to get out and explain to her that I was monitoring traffic for a safe entrance into the street, not staring at her emotionally distressed phone conversation.

I pointed to the traffic and yelled, "I'm just trying to drive here! Chill the f--- out!" She did not hear me. She yelled at me for a few moments until I had an opening and I drove off. I looked into my rearview mirror and she had the phone back up to her ear, no doubt explaining to the person on the other end what a piece of sh-t I was.

6) Basketball Memory

In junior high Craig, Chris and I tried out for the basketball team. I cannot remember if Dugat did or not. Anyway, during one of the drill's Craig shot the ball and it went clean over the backboard. Everyone laughed. Later we shot free throws and Craig shot an airball. Everyone laughed. After the first day of tryouts Craig decided not to come back, even though we told him he should. He recognized his lack of basketball talent and cut his losses early. Chris and I stayed through the rest of tryouts and had to learn the hard way that we were not going to make the team.

After the teams were posted on the coaches door Chris and I discovered that Bill Going made the team. This is ridiculous because Bill Going was not a good basketball player and only made the team because of his twin brother. The unfairness was difficult to endure.

Speaking of Bill, he contacted Chris through facebook. He requested to be his friend. I think this is funny. It is our junior high dances all over again. He always seems to find us. So, fair warning for all who read this. Be careful of Facebook. You may reveal yourself to the likes of Bill Going.

5) Bathroom Trouble

At a work party a couple of weeks ago an employee joked about how she shares a wall with the men's bathroom, and how much of a problem that is. She basically determined that men are gross and she hates that throughout her day she is forced to hear the worst possible noises. We laughed at her and I said something gross about how I was going to yeehaw next time I went to the bathroom so that she would know it was me.

I was in the bathroom today (#1, not #2) and I sneezed. I heard her say through the wall, "Bless you."

Here is the dilemma: There is a phenomenon that occurs for men in public bathrooms. When someone else is within earshot of a man's exrecmentation, that man's ass makes a lot of noise. If a man is alone at home, there is silence. I am not sure why this is the case, but it is truth. I was fine using the bathroom before because my ass did not know there was someone within earshot. Now I know and I worry that I will be forced to yeehaw next time I go to the bathroom.

4) Idiot's Luggage

"1,2,3,4,5? That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard. That's the sort of combination an idiot would have on his luggage!"

Every morning I pull into our gated parking lot and type in our code: 1,2,3,4. As the gate slowly opens I hear the words of Dark Helmet in the back of my mind. It is a great way to start my morning.

3) Memory Floyd

I want to add a feature to this catalog of worthlessness that I think will be interesting. I do not have a name for it but it is going to be a small list of memories I have from Childhood that you guys may or may not remember. It is possible I remember stuff slightly differently than it really happened, and if this is the case feel free to chime in and let me know what you remember:

* In junior high Chris, Dugat, Chris Dupree and I played tag in the hallway between classes. Anytime we saw each other we were forced to run, just in case that person was it and trying to tag you. I am pretty sure we looked stupid running from each other in the hallways and I am also sure we got a detention or two as a result (All the detentions I got in Junior High were because of Dugat by the way)

* Speaking of Detention, in our 6th grade yearbook Craig is only in 1 picture other than his mug shot. It is a pic of detention with an article about bad kids and punishments. Craig is the largest figure in the picture sitting at a table by himself in the lunchroom.

* I remember the day Craig and I learned to play quarters. Mark arrived home with a friend (I cannot remember his name but he bit a hole in a beer can) and played quarters with us until they left to go out. This was the first night of drinking games in my life. We made silly rules, like the run around the couch before drinking rule, which incidentally did not work too well. We did not like the taste of beer so we brought pieces of bread to chase the beer down with. I can't remember who, but one of us threw up after drinking a sip of beer and eating a piece of bread. I think it may have been me. Later that same night we rigged a ping pong table out of of the dining room table and we used children's books as our paddles.

2) The Leisel Laugh

I went into a business today and the woman I spoke with had a funny sounding laugh. Reminded me of this girl I went on a date with in college named Leisel. The laugh sounds oddly similar to the noise Wesley and Buttercup make when they emerge from the lightning sand in the Fire Swamp. Instead of being a long drawn out inhaled breath of air, the laugh is more choppy and rhythmic. It is not a pleasant sound.

This caused a particular problem for me and Leisel because I am so funny. With each joke I smoothly delivered she inflicted her terrible laughter on everyone in the restaurant. Finally, enough was enough.

She called me after a few days and insisted that we go out. I reluctantly agreed. On her way over Chris suggested that I tell her I cannot hang out with someone who sounds like they are gasping freakishly for air every time I say something funny (which is frequently). I decided to end it before it could get started. I sat her down on our porch amidst the broken glass and cigarette butts. She wore a nice, black dress. I told her I could not see her anymore. She asked me why..that she thought we had fun together. I looked her square in the eyes and told her I was not ready to see anyone seriously, that I was too fragile over my last break up. I could not tell her about the laugh. I was weak. She left confused and upset. I went inside, made a drink and probably watched a crappy movie with Chris.

1) The Mutant X Gene

I recently watched all of the X-Men movies and like most people enjoyed the superpower aspect of the story, even though I thought some of the mutant genes were strange (for instance Cyclops, or Gay-ser Beam as I like to call him, has a strange eye laser that shoots from his face). The movie got me thinking about mutations and I have a theory that humans today have mutant genes present in their DNA. If we were to mate with someone with similar powers, the resulting children would have a stronger form of that gene. The powers are not as interesting and far-fetched as the comic, and 99% of people's mutant gene would not warrant a superhero name or even a better life. But I believe these genes are present within each of us, and the trick is to identify it and embrace it.

For instance (and I am going to get shit for bringing this up), I have a mutant gene that I am not sure you guys are aware of. I do not wear, or need to wear deodorant. My body does not react the same to sweat under my arms as it does for other people. The bacteria that cause the BO smell for most people do not thrive in my armpits. I have not worn deodorant consistently since high school, and that was because in 4th period soccer class I had to put some on otherwise my power would be revealed and I would have been labeled a disgusting freak.

I have embraced my power, and realize that I am special. I can see how if I reproduced with the right people, and our kids reproduced with the right people, our offspring would one day (in a million years or so) might actually evolve so far as to have pleasant smelling farts. And wouldn't that be an interesting superpower...

I believe everyone has a mutant X gene. I do not want to presume to know what your specific mutant power is, though for some of you I have an idea, (Chris: an unusually large threshold for bad TV. Craig: Third or Fourth generation Snoring Monster. Tiffany: Her body can transform beer into working nutrients and lose weight at the same time).

The morale of this is to embrace your strange gene and to have offspring with someone who has a similar gene (assuming it is one you want to evolve).