Dear Facebook,

You are making people into liars.

Well, maybe that's too strong. You're more enabling people who are prone to lying to do so more freely.

You know that personality type that is always trying to one-up you? The person that, when you cook dinner for your family, they just cooked dinner for a soup kitchen? Or when you're excited because you just became an aunt for the first time, they're more excited about the fact that their Godchild was just nominated Soldier of the Year. And its exponential, and they can't stop. They have a problem. Well, thanks a lot, Facebook, because you just made that person a thousand times more annoying.

I'll admit that I post what I'm doing on facebook-- almost daily. Where I'm going, what room in my house I'm cleaning; but that annoying one-upper is posting hourly. And much like real life, they're posting about stuff that never really happened.

Other than one time where I outright asked one of my friends how the 5-K went, and they admitted they slept in, I don't exactly have proof-- but I feel I have the makings of solid evidence. For example: You are not doing your grad-school homework. You're on Facebook. I'm not even convinced that the Community College of Vermont offers a long-distance grad program, but thats a different issue. And I have an unrealistic number of friends who go to the gym, and THEN go running. Really? You're at the gym, then running?-- Funny, because 12 minutes after you posted "Running" you posted "Whipping up some homemade hummus. YUM! ;)".
And then there's the 'super woman' post. The: "Just got home for work: crockpot boiling, cookies baking!! Cleaned the bathroom, finished my core thesis, and about to go for a 3 mile run before starting another knitting project tonight!! I <3 Life "

I think you love Lie.

A few things I've noticed about observational humor...

According to Wikipedia, the source of all unscholarly knowledge, Observational Comedy is described as, "a style of humor based on making remarks about commonplace aspects of everyday life." And following that description, the website gives a list of both American and British comedians that have made that style of comedy popular. I hold those comedians directly responsible for much of my adolescent awkwardness, and the misery I have to endure every time I am rhetorically asked "whats with" a utilitarian object.

I think Observational Comedy, or OC as it will from now on be referred to, has been done. Its been overused, and needs to be retired, or at least put on vacation for an undetermined amount of time, along with 'That's what she said'; 'Wasn't that your nickname in high school?'; 'Oh, burn'; 'Zing'; 'No Homo'; and many other expressions that could have been used for good, but instead were quickly overused for evil.

While I'm at it, let me just point out that I also include Lady Gaga in that list.

I focus mainly on Observational Comedy because despite being used primarily to note commonly shared experiences, at this point OC almost always misses it's mark. Because, when someone starts an observation with "Have you ever noticed..." someone else will, without fail, say "No." For two reasons. One: because all the really obvious OC has been done: all social situations, all types of people, all condiments, all restaurant chains, everything. So by the time OC got down to the 'everyman' it sounded something like, "Ever notice how rich housewives from Connecticut lose their shit over cranberry mayonnaise?". The second reason people will say "No" is because people are fed-up with OC, and would prefer to be unnecessarily argumentative with a humor based on the listeners compliance with a common idea.

OC has made everyone a comedian, the problem being: not everyone is a comedian. It is not a universal human trait. I had a girl say to me, while playing a game of twenty questions, "What is a breadbox anyway? And who uses a box for bread. I mean, really." Long story short-- the game became a half hour conversation about shit no one cares about only to end with everyone feeling slightly bitter, and on top of it all, no one ever figured out what she was thinking of.

At the risk of using one of the should-be banned over-used phrases, we have all become 'That Guy'. We're all becoming the guy in your office that wont stop 'Thats what she said'ing side conversations. And if 'That Guy' 'Zing's you one more time you'll stab him with a pen--'No Homo'.

Its gotten to the point where we've figured out how to act like lofty yet pointless pontificating drunks without the drinking. Way to beat the system, us.

To conclude, it's no longer funny and it needs to stop.

Giving Thanks for Microsoft Paint

I think I may have a future in marketing.

Did we ever find out what was eating Gilbert Grape?

It has been brought to my attention that I may be a retard.

I can't say that there weren't signs: People calling me adorable, or patting me in the head like a child, when in reality I'm an average sized human being and lack any adorable traits. Or My boss congratulated me on a job well done when the job I did wasn't done very well. Or My boyfriend constantly calling me a retard.

What if everyone is in on it? My parents, and my 'friends'; I graduated college a semester early-- but what if I didn't actually graduate at all? What if I'm not actually getting paid money at my job right now, but sparkly stickers? What if I'm not even typing right now, but instead drawing pictures of kitty cats on an old white board?

But, of course, if I was retarded, I would know. Wouldn't I? But then, That girl in my high school, the one with downs syndrome who thought my female friend was a boy and would call her 'handsome' and give her pictures of them holding hands-- she didn't know. She thought she was Normal.

But... All that being considered... things are going pretty well for good ol' RetardKim, so, I'm not about to rock the boat.

I love my job.

Today:

An old man with Parkinson's yelled at me to go get him some common sense. In all seriousness.

I was looking through a patient's chart after one of the tests came back a little strange, and I found out he had Glaucoma. And then he found out he had Glaucoma by my saying "Does anyone else in your family have Glaucoma?"

A patient shit themselves during an exam. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED.

A co-worked harassed me about how I don't respect the tradition and sanctity of marriage because I'm not married. Because I'm twenty-three years old and STILL not married. Darn me, and my liberal spinster ways. Its not my fault you knocked up your girlfriend in college.

Lets Make a Deal...

So, CBS re-made the show 'Let's Make a Deal', which was a show I loved when I was younger, because it was retro, and the costumes were cool, and I've always wanted to dress up like little-bo-peep and win a brand new gas range.

But I'm a little disenchanted with the remake. Because now I see that the reality of the show is a bunch of adults who have enough time on their hands to dress up like the village people and get 'zonk'ed in the middle of the day. Who carries around two hard boiled eggs in their purse anyway? Gross me out.

Feels like a good day to get Murdered...

Recent events in my life have had me thinking. Thinking about getting murdered. And how its a decidedly negative thing to get killed-- or is it? I mean, people always focus on the negative; all the life lost, all the things the person who died will never get to do, but whose to say they would have done any of that anyway? I've made a list of all the things I wouldn't have to do:

Wake up early, go to work.
Shave my legs, worry about holiday weight gain.
Pay my student loans back.
Pay for a house, or a wedding, or have a kid who grows up to be a teenager who hates me.
I would never get caught speeding
I would never be audited.
I would never get old (This is the big one people usually mourn about. 'So-and-so never got a chance to grow old!' Right. An opportunity to sag, ache, wrinkle, and become increasingly embittered by the youth generation. Tragic.)

People would remember me as this young, smart, smiling person-- who I never was, but I didn't have enough time to make a really strong impression on most people, so they'd fabricate these great memories of me.

Just a thought.

Thanks for the input

Today was "Tell the tech how to do her job" day at the office. If I had known in advance, I would have called in sick.

An old man says to me, "I think you're getting entirely too close to my eye. But I'm not trying to tell you how to do you job..." Only... I think he was trying to tell me how to do my job.

See, and the thing that really rings me out is that I was testing the pressure inside of his eye, which requires me to touch his eye. So yes. I was extremely close to his eye. So close that I was touching it. But you've got to touch it to test the pressure. So shut up.

I didn't know I had this much time on my hands...

I was at home this Halloween, waiting for trick-or-treaters, and I caught part of TLC's Halloween Marathon of the show 'I didn't know I was pregnant'. (very scary)


I quickly realized that the show would more accurately be titled 'I refused to entertain the idea that I might be pregnant' as I watched woman after woman recall the horrifying story of how they didn't realize that their cravings, weight gain, missed periods, and mood swings were all signs of.. SHOCKER-- pregnancy.



But that wasn't the best part of the show. It was dramatic reenactments of the woman's stories that made it. They had actresses who looked exactly like the women, except pretty and thin. At one point a nearly toothless, squat woman with a bad dye job and a southern drawl was played by a tall, thin model with no accent. I'd like to believe that the woman themselves were involved in casting.

There was very little variety in the monologues read by the woman who retold their story. Every woman made the same two statements.
One: "My weight always fluctuated a little, so I didn't think much of it..." Quickly followed up by many recounts from family members who stated they didn't think she looked pregnant. Which translates strongly into 'this girl has always been dumpy'.
Two: "I was concerned about the health of the baby, because of the lack of pre-natal care." Which is a thinly vailed "I smoked and drank A LOT."


The show was designed, I think, to scare women into thinking that they too might be pregnant, to what end I'm not sure. But it didn't really accomplish that for me. Because I'm not a retard.