Wife: Here’s your new credit card. It just came in the mail.
Husband: Great. Let me call up a stranger and read him my credit card number and PIN.
Wife: Good idea. That way if you forget, he can remind you.
Husband: Oh, and I’d better conference in an offshore backup stranger in Estonia. Can’t be too careful.
***
Father (to teenage daughter): We need to talk. I just got off the phone with your principal. She saw a picture of you sitting in the quarterback’s lap drinking Smirnoff Ice wearing nothing but your underwear and a marching band hat.
Teen daughter: What? How did she see that?
Father: It was painted on that hot air balloon you flew over town.
Teen daughter: Why did she look up at it? Stalker.
***
A dark and stormy night. A ship is tossed in the ink-black waves. An ensign spots a lighthouse blinking on the horizon in morse code.
Ensign: Look, captain! A message from the shore!
Captain: What say they, Ensign?
Ensign: D-O-E-S-N-T T-H-I-S M-O-L-E L-O-O-K L-I-K-E T-I-N-A F-E-Y?
Captain: What mole?
At that moment, an exhausted carrier pigeon fights its way through the howling winds to land exhausted on deck. The ensign unrolls a message taped to its leg and brings it to the captain. It is an extremely detailed charcoal drawing of the mole on the lighthouse master’s thigh.
Captain: A bit, I guess.
***
Radio DJ: Caller 5, you’re on the air.
Caller: Hi, Dave. I’m a big fan of the show. I just want to let all your listeners know that I’m downtown at Lanagan’s Pub.
DJ: By the train station?
Caller: Exactly. To repeat: I, Jimmy Quigley, am at Lanagan’s, not at home, which, frequent listeners will remember from my previous calls to your show, is at 54 Elm Street and contains a large flat screen TV and several computers.
DJ: And why are you telling us this?
Caller: I’m hoping someone will be impressed by how often I’m at this bar.
Hi Chris! Sorry I acted like a Walmart greeter just now.
[Edited to add: I feel like I should explain that Chris was very nice and polite, if clearly confused, when I yelled cryptic greetings at him. All strangeness in our interaction is due to my decision not to introduce myself.]
So I’m working in the lobby of the Ace Hotel today. Chris Gethard came in and sat down across from me a few minutes ago. Chris and I have crossed paths once or twice in the UCB teacher’s lounge and such, but we’ve never really been introduced. I, for some reason, thought I should yell “Hi!” like we were best friends. He, understandably, did not recognize me, and perhaps wondered if I was some sort of Ace Hotel equivalent of a Wal Mart greeter. “We’ve never really been introduced,” I went on, “I’m Melinda,” doing nothing to dispel that Wal-Mart-greeter impression.
Why didn’t I just go “Hey, good to see you again, I’m a UCB sketch writer, we were both at that meeting yesterday,” instead of sitting here creeping him out for the past 45 minutes? I don’t know. It feels too late for that. I guess my solution is just to put this whole interaction on the internet. That should heal all wounds.
I asked my sister Manda, who is sitting next to me, what to do. This is the IM conversation we’ve been having.