A description of my blog. http://www.my-site.com 9155104787718068058 Self-Consciousness 2006/12/#9155104787718068058 2006-12-07 Note: I was a little under the weather yesterday, and too foggy to come up with a Thursday Shout-Out. So I'm posting this little gem instead. I wrote it a couple of weeks ago, before The Lamest Contest Ever started. I tell you this so that you won't scold me for straying from my Reading List. Rest assured that I'm still slogging through Eragon.

So today my boss cancels the lunch we were supposed to have together, and I decide to take a long lunch by myself. I figure I'll grab a bite at a fast food place and read the newspaper. Except I have no newspaper, so I stop at a used book store near where I work. I find a book called Fierce Pajamas, an anthology of humor from The New Yorker. I sit and page through it for long enough that I will feel vaguely guilty if I walk out without buying anything. I satisfy myself that I am buying the book for that reason and because it is only $7.95, and not because I like the idea of being seen buying, carrying and/or reading an anthology of essays from The New Yorker.

I take my book to lunch at Taco Bell, not because I enjoy the irony of reading high-brow humor at the lowest-brow eating establishment yet invented by man, but because it is nearby, I am hungry, and you can get lunch there for $6.22 with tax. I order a #5 and am given a slip with the number 314 on it. I sit and read most of one of the essays, refusing to accept the fact that either it isn't funny or I just don't get it. Someone behind the counter calls out "Number 166!" I check my slip, which still says 314. I read some more, and still don't understand why the essay is funny. They call number 166 again, and I check my slip again. Still 314. More reading, more not getting it. 166 again. I check my slip a third time, wondering if 166 is hidden on it somewhere. It isn't. I wonder if everyone else who doesn't have number 166 is obsessively checking their slip, or if I am a particularly troubled individual.

They finally call 314, and I almost miss it because I am admiring the jawline of a rugged looking young man who resembles that guy who played the DJ on Northern Exposure. I wonder if that makes me a little bit gay.

I get my food and sit back down at the table where I had been reading. I realize, however, that my left side is flush against a wall, and being left-handed, this will make it awkward for me to eat my Taco Supremes. I wonder how weird it will look if I suddenly get up and move to the chair opposite me. I decide I don't care that much, and make the move.

I eat my Taco Supremes and then finish reading the essay. I still don't get it. I wonder how stupid I will look if I return the book.

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