Various idiocies, committed by me

Pynchon read my last post, and suggested I had possibly inadvertently adopted professor tone: "I liked your post ... it was a little, um, heavy at the beginning but the picture was nice."

In case you get the idea that I'm some rarefied genius, I'm going to share with you today two stories that reveal me in my much more mundane incompetence and social awkwardness.

Episode 1: Unintended sexual innuendo, double-double

Remember the daycare dis? I asked if any of you had said anything stupid while distracted by children. You were not forthcoming (I'm still happy to hear if you've got stories ...). So I open with this conversation, with the part of the fool being played by me.

The scene: Tim Horton's coffee shop. Six-year-old nephew and I are just dashing in from a full car of family after a snow-playing excursion in a big park. We need hot chocolate.

The players: Me and some random dad dude, supported by two hyperactive snow-suited children pulling at our pants and running around like maniacs. R, my nephew, opens the scene by running directly into this man's butt, catching both unawares.

The conversation:

R: "Bonk!"

Me: "Omigod, I'm so sorry." [to nephew] "R! Watch what you're doing." [to man] "I'm so sorry, we're just all hyper from going sliding."

R: "Bonk!"

Other child: [runs into R] "Bonk!"

Man: "Don't worry about it--I've got five kids."

Me: "Oh! Well, then, you must get bonked all the time."

[end scene]

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Episode 2: Hearing voices

I tried to go to the track last night--it's at the local hockey arena, which, as it turns out, is closed to the public for a special event. So, all decked out in my track suit and runners, and with my water bottle and iPod at the ready, I came home. I checked my email, filed some bills, and then picked up the phone to call the babysitter to arrange for tonight's parental escape.

As I lifted the cordless phone from its base, I could hear, very faintly, a man's voice, talking. I brought the phone to my ear. Nothing. I turned the phone on. Dial tone. I turned the phone off. I don't hear anything any more. I turned in my chair to check the date on the wall calendar. I heard a very faint man's voice, talking, in a kind of 'public voice'. I put my head down near the computer. Nothing. I rolled my chair away from the computer. Nothing. Then, suddenly, the faint voice. I rolled over to the stereo: it was not on, and I couldn't hear the voice. Then I could.

I freaked out.

I called Pynchon over from the living room, where he had been sitting on the couch watching, bemusedly, my crazy behaviour, rolling and leaning and listening and poking at the electronics. "I hear a voice," I told him. "I can't figure out where it's coming from."

Pynchon investigated. He could hear it too, intermittently, but not as clearly as me. I have great hearing, and he, well, he worked in a glass recycling plant without hearing protection. "Hey!" he offered, "this happened to me last night--I was in the guest room and I could hear it, too."

We freak out quietly for a moment. We contemplate sharing our house with ghosts, or, possibly, needing to have all of our old mercury dental fillings replaced with the newer, non-broadcast models. We wonder if we are insane.

Then suddenly Pynchon burst out laughing and pointed at me. "You moron! That's your iPod in your pocket!"

And it was. I had bumped it and turned it on, and Bob Garfield of NPR's On the Media was expounding on the most recent torture scandal and how it was (under)reported on network television. It was faint, obviously, because the sound was coming through the earphones, in the pocket of my hoodie.

Pynchon had just remembered that his phantom voice came out of the earphones plugged into the laptop where he had been watching a DVD, but had put it aside go get a snack without first pausing the playback.

I think that makes us both dummies, don't you?