And the manager, too.

Tonight is our agency holiday party. That means I'll be spending three hours this evening trying to convince a constant stream of adults with excited children to stand in an astoundingly long registration line instead of just bolting for the arcade and the roller rink, which will be their natural instinct. My fellow employees and I were instructed to either eat dinner before the event, or we could buy food (yes, they're going to let us buy food!) at the event venue. Being familiar with both the prices and quality of this venue's food, I immediately began planning to find food somewhere off-site.

I Googled McDonald's restaurants near the venue (does that tell you how bad the venue's food is? Because it should), and found one just about a mile down the street. So I think that's my place. However, I did the responsible thing and read the Google user reviews for that particular restaurant, and was very troubled to read:

"All the employees n, manager 2 never smile bored people ...I never back"

If I am understanding this comment correctly, this McDonald's is not a fun place to work. Not only that, but  the employees' stupor somehow is passed to the customers, making the entire experience so awful that they are vowing never to return. At least, I think that's what this guy is saying. I won't get a chance to ask him tonight, though, because he never back. I noticed that he did rate the establishment's decor as "very good", though.

To prove I did my due diligence, I will quickly dissect the other two Google user reviews for this McDonald's:

1. User Luis Montanez rated the food, decor and service as "poor to fair", adding "Service sucks." He did, however, note that he liked "Karina young gal." So that's weird. Here is a picture of Luis.

 "Food hmmm good" wrote Luis, in a Google

user review for a different McDonald's.

According to his Google user profile, he is a frequent patron of a variety of restaurants, and as of last month was "Going to register for school" at The Barber School in Midvale, Utah. The internet is a ridiculous place.

2. User "A Google user" gave the restaurant a "good" overall rating, and liked "Food, I told them to make that s*** right or my husband who is in the air force would beat the s*** out of him." I hope I run into this lady tonight, because she sounds lovely. As does her husband.

Suburban bear trap.

A suburban bear trap is when you leave a soiled diaper open and face up on the floor, where someone walking by can step on it.

The great dessert.

The following is an excerpt from a post on an online discussion board for an environmental policy class I'm taking. The discussion was centered around Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire - specifically, what aspects of the novel affected the way class members view the environment:

"Abbey seriously opened my eyes to the value of the great dessert we live in."

If I could choose to live in any dessert, I think I might go with apple pie. I like the variety of climate it offers. In the winter, I could burrow down into the pie filling and hibernate, kept warm and fully sustained by the apples and sugary goop. Then in the summer, to escape the heat, I could climb up to the outer edge of the crust, and enjoy the breeze coming through the window whose windowsill my pie was perched upon to cool. And since we're talking about value, I could slice my pie up, and rent out the slices I wasn't living in to help cover my mortgage. I've got this.

That guy.

You know how some people are relentlessly fastidious about spelling, grammar and punctuation, even on homemade "lost cat" signs and fourth graders' homework assignments? That's me. I'm that guy. Don't believe me? Ask my wife. She will probably react to your query the same way she reacts when we walk past a notice that says "please enter through side door's" and I freak out.

It is a gift, and a curse. The gift part is the sense of intellectual superiority that I carry around with me, everywhere I go. The curse part is the potential that sense of intellectual superiority has to damage my relationships. But I did not choose this burden. You think I want to cringe when I read a text message that says "we r still @ home. well drive there 2gther"? (Yes, I do want to cringe when I read that, actually.) But someone has to be the guy whose friends slowly lose the desire to correspond with him. And I have shouldered that load, and shall continue to do so. So you're welcome.

Leviticus 12:3

If you're attending a bris, it's probably a bad idea to shout out, at the last possible moment, "Cut him!" I don't know very much about that culture, but I imagine that sort of thing would be considered rude, or at least distracting.

The rule.

Growing up, my family had one big, unspoken rule that we were all expected to abide by. It was that none of us would ever stab anyone else with a fork at the dinner table. And the unspoken consequence for breaking this rule was that Mom and Dad would take your bed outside and light it on fire. "Hope you like sleeping in a big pile of ashes, outside with the raccoons," Mom would say as your bed burned down.

But, luckily, no one ever broke the unspoken rule. We had our fair share of dinnertime incidents, like shouting perched atop a chair, or biting off part of a drinking glass, and once my brother stuffed a piece of Kix cereal up his nose and had to go to the hospital (I guess that was at breakfast - never mind). But the fear of our beds getting torched helped us keep our forks to ourselves.

In retrospect, it might have been nice to have had that rule clarified during a family meeting, so that we kids knew exactly what the definition of "stab" was. Because think about how many friendly dinnertime fork fights we missed out on.

Chin up, buddy!

Hey pal, what's wrong? You haven't seemed yourself since I saw you this morning, right after you thoughtfully packed me that bag lunch and accidentally put it in your own backpack. Don't worry, I got it - and the surprise twenty dollar bill was such a sweet touch! And last week I heard you complaining to your mom on the phone about the ineptitude and inflexibility of the student housing office, when it was they who randomly paired us as roommates three semesters ago. (Has it really been so long? It seems it was just yesterday that I snuck my dirty gym clothes into your clean laundry as a best friends prank for the first time!)

I know the last month has been stressful for both of us. We both worked so hard to land that internship; be glad I got it instead of you, because it is seriously boring there. And it only pays nine dollars an hour. When I asked for a raise they tried to sell me some load about "getting college credit and work experience", as if those things could somehow be magically converted into my share of the rent (which I will get to you soon, but only if all of my eBay bids fall through).

Saturday night you acted like you didn't want to talk when I got home from going out with that girl - you know, the girl from your biology class who you've been working up the courage to ask out? Lana, or whatever? Well, it's lucky you finally invited her over for a study session, and that she immediately agreed to go grab dinner with me instead, because I was able to really talk you up while we were eating. I told her about your computer screensaver with all the different sea shells on it, and about how you make that awesome fake gagging noise when you brush your teeth. You know what? It was like that Keanu Reeves movie, "Much Ado About Nothing", the one where Denzel Washington talks to Kate Beckinsale about how great the guy from "Dead Poets Society" is, so that she'll want to marry him. At least I think that's what's going on, they wrote that movie in like old English or something.

Anyway, I told her your deal. And she's way cool - you have chosen well. She even has our same sense of humor! For example, when I was telling her about you, she kept asking if you were gay! Hilarious! I gave her your number and told her to call you, but she said she'd rather just call me, which I totally get because I'm kind of like the matchmaker for you two. So listen for my phone! I just changed my ringtone to that clip I recorded of you singing that song from "Carousel" in the shower. That was so funny when you did that.

I'm really worried about you. Last night when I came into your room around 3:00 and played that rap I recorded for you on my computer, as a best friends surprise, you pretended to be asleep, but I thought I could hear you crying. I hope you know that you are the stone-cold puppy-loving death angel I was rapping about in all twelve verses of that song. It's all about you!

Tomorrow morning, let's go for a run, and you'll feel better once you get your heart rate up (can I borrow your running shoes? Or, you know what, I wore them all last week, so you can wear them. Never mind.) I'll even go slow for you, because I know you hurt your ankle when we did that awesome best friends trick the other day, the one where I tripped you in front of the women's volleyball team and you acted like you had no idea it was happening. Great job, by the way, they totally bought it!

I want you to know that I talked to the student housing office, and (drumroll!) they've approved our housing arrangements for next semester! My cousin will be moving in with us, which means you and I get to share the room with the bunk beds in it (my cousin is really bipolar, so he needs his own room)! Summer won't be able to pass quickly enough!

Well, I'm going to meet Lana for lunch. How much you want to bet she has a million questions about you to ask me? Sorry this voice mail is kind of short - I'll just turn on this new rap I've been working on and leave my phone in front of the speaker. This one's for you, roomie!