Underpants On The Outside

As a child, I spent long hours in doctors’ offices, reading Highlights magazine. One of their features compared snapshots of two brothers, Goofus and Gallant, whose names suggest that their parents were fans of alliteration and gin. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the bit, but just in case, Gallant was the charming, well-mannered son, while Goofus was incompetent with obvious sociopathic tendencies, (which you’re asking for when you name your kid after a synonym of “moron.”) Gallant helped old ladies across the street while Goofus was too busy having unprotected sex, so kids could learn that it’s better to help old ladies across the street because unintended pregnancies cost money.

But let’s face it: Gallant was a square. This blog and its (small) community are dedicated to the saying of inappropriate things; when there’s nothing inappropriate to say, something stupid will suffice. And as I’ve learned from many of the Underpants commenters, nothing improves drivel like drivel expressed in a unusually grandiose fashion - it’s like putting butter on an Oreo. (For the record, OG’s prowess at grandiose nonsense is nothing short of masterful.)

In that spirit, I am proud to present the following quotes.  I hope they would be amusing outside of any context, but I think it adds a little oomph to point out that these were IM’s I sent to two different co-workers in less than a 24 hour span. 

“GODDAMNIT I DON’T WANT EXCUSES, I WANT HIGH-VELOCITY PLASTIC ANTHROPOMORPHIZED POTATOES!” (I wanted him to throw a Ms. Potatohead at another colleague sitting nearby, and I wasn’t going to take No for an answer.)

“Maintaining bi-species anal virginity is life’s version of a high score.” (It’s a long story.  Nevertheless, I believe it’s a sentiment we can all agree on.)

My “Employee of the Month” plaque should be arriving any minute now…

I can’t tell yet, but I either met a fraud or a miracle the other night. We took some clients out, and like a lot of advertising people they were a bunch hip-looking people in their early to mid twenties. In particular, there was one girl among them, who I would describe as “quite hot”. (Just above “pretty hot”, but not quite “excuse me for a minute I need to be alone.”)

We took them bowling, having a pretty good time, and over the course of the evening, she and I found ourselves chatting, because that’s my job, and for no other possible reason. The problem was that I had had a couple drinks, and when that happens, well, sometimes I say things that aren’t appropriate in mixed company.

That’s right: I started talking math.

Now, to most readers of this blog, “talking math” involves phrases like “X as a function of Y” and “as t approaches infinity,” so in that respect, I wasn’t talking math. But I work in advertising, where people who aren’t from the South will leave a meeting and say that they got some really good “learnings.” Any mathematical degree of difficulty higher than division and they glaze over, so when I start getting my nerd on a co-worker usually apologizes for me and tries to get me into a cab.

Sometimes I’ll shrug and mention that I used to be an engineer as some kind of excuse. In NYC, that makes me a complete novelty, and usually I receive a bemused, condescending look that I imagine calligraphers are very familiar with. But to my surprise, Quite Hot said, “Oh, I was an engineer too!” Incredulous, I asked her what kind, and she said, “Electrical!”

Like I said…a goddamn fraud.

I’m convinced this woman is a compulsive liar. Others in my office don’t exactly agree, based on two compelling arguments:

1) People typically lie to improve their image. Even a podiatrist gets the question: “What ever got you so interested in feet?” but when you tell someone you’re an electrical engineer, they’ll usually complain about some problem they’re having with their iPod.* There’s only one place on Earth where being an EE makes a girl hotter, and that’s wherever a bunch of male EE’s are hanging around. Which brings me to the second argument…

2) People usually lie to people they want to impress. Amaze a bunch of computer dorks and you join the elite ranks of the double-sided Light Saber and Linux. Congrats. I’m also not good-looking, so I don’t understand what her motivation could have been.

Nevertheless, just because I can’t figure out why she would lie doesn’t mean she wasn’t.  After all, everyone knows that there’s no such thing as a hot female electrical engineer.

Fact: I have taken a great deal of Engineering classes and I have never seen more than 10 women in the room. I’m being generous.

Fact: None of them were hot, let alone attractive, let alone what I would call “womanly.” Again, I’m being generous. (To be fair, us men didn’t exactly qualify as “manly,” either.)

School life as an EE was so female-free that in one lab the guys figured out how to work the projector. Some nights I’d walk in and find them playing Nintendo, but more often than not there would be ten to twelve guys doing lab work while hard-core pornography played on the wall. There was no way anyone with a uterus was showing up unless we ordered her from an escort service. (By the by, nothing says “awkward” like trying to design a microchip layout with a hard-on in a room full of dudes.)

I’m not saying that women aren’t smart enough for EE; my personal theory is that they just have better things to do, particularly the ones with nice asses. If I had the time and a whiteboard I could come up with a more accurate figure, but I estimate that the odds of a hot female EE are equal to what we men of science call “no-fucking-way.” You can’t argue with the math.

That’s not all. Even I can admit that I was fooled at first; I tend to believe everything attractive women say. I wasn’t convinced until we were saying our goodbyes, and everyone started doing the obligatory “we should do this again sometime” bit. I turned to her and said “yeah, we should all get together and wire some shit up; build some robots.” As she stared back at me, her face blank, I felt the cold shock of reality sink in.

See, “wiring shit up” is far different than wiring up, say, a motherboard. “Wiring shit up” means sitting around and discussing how to turn household items into a rail gun that could get a soda can up to mach 3 while taking a drink every time someone mentions Maxwell’s equations. Similarly, “build some robots” is code for “brainstorm ideas for android sex slaves, then watch Predator.” In other words, if Quite Hot had been a real EE, then there would only be two things she would enjoy more than wiring some shit up and building robots, and the other one’s a grilled cheese sandwich, if you know what I mean.

QED, people. QED.

So if you’re out there reading this, Quite Hot, say hi to the Tooth Fairy, my full head of hair, and every other myth I’ve wanted so desperately to believe in.

*Ten minutes after I wrote this, Co-Worker Jill** told me about some problem with her iPod.

**Excuse me; “Really Pretty Co-Worker Jill”***

***Doesn’t hold a candle to you, WW.