Social Tip #117 - TOUCH UP YOUR ROOTS

Tomorrow I visit Philadelphia, best known to me as being the city that was romantic enough for my parents to conceive me, but disgusting enough for them to need to move all the way to Arizona before finding an environment suitable for birth.

*I searched 'hair" and "Philadelphia" hoping to find a picture of embarrassingly teased out hair, but the first thing that came up was for a picture entitled "Found: Hair Track/ Weave, on South Street." Congratulations, Philadelphia, you are even trashier than I hoped. Thanks for taking pictures of your hair before leaving it on the sidewalk.

Social Tip #111 - WISH YOURSELF A HAPPY BIRTHDAY

I am a cheap person who prefers to remain mostly detached from society, and as such use a no-commitment Virgin Mobile cell phone on which I spend the majority of my minutes explaining to callers that "Jazzy" no longer deals drugs from this number, but if they do get a hold of him, I would appreciate the connection. This week I am in Canada where it turns out that Virgin Mobile does not provide any service at any cost. Ordinarily, no problem, I hate to talk on the phone, but today is my birthday, and I am obliged to answer or return phone calls from my family who are obliged to call me. In an attempt to alert them of the impossibility of receiving their birthday wishes I sent them an email explaining the situation, and promised I would conduct the following imaginary (read: inflammatory) conversation in place of a real connection:


:Ring Ring:

You: Happy Birthday!

Me: Thanks! You too! (Josh only*)

You: You know what time it is?

Me: 3:43pm, the exact time of my birth. How thoughtful of you to remember. (Mom only**)

You: Right! And guess what else?

Me: As a present you are sending me a new cell phone and service that reaches all the way to Canada?

You: Right again!

Me: Wow, that is really too much. I can't accept.

You: I insist!

Me: No.

You: Yes!

Me: It's too nice, but I really appreciate the sentiment.

You: You are keeping it. Don't make me fight with you on your birthday.

Me: Okay, okay. Thank you so much, you really shouldn't have.

You: My pleasure. What do you plan to do to celebrate?

Me: I'm going to try heroin for the first time.

You: You've never tried it before?

Me: Never.

You: Oh man, it's awesome! (Heather only***). Have a great time with it!

Me: How could I not?

You: Good point.

Me: How is everything with you?

You: My life is working out perfectly, thanks.****

Me: Wow, really?

You: I am currently dating many women who are young enough to not expect anything out of me. (Dad only)

Me: Great! Well, thanks for calling. I have to get going, I promised Cosby I would help him out with a couple punchlines before his big show Saturday night. You know how it is.

You: Not really. Happy birthday! I love you!

Me: I love you too! Bye!

You: Bye!

Me: .....

You:....

Me: You're supposed to hang up.

You: I was waiting for you to hang up.

:Click:

*Josh is my twin brother. It is weird to call my twin on our birthday. It feels like I am being more self-indulgent than nice, like I am forcing him to wish me a happy birthday. Being a twin is strange. When we were little my mom used to dress us up the same to amplify our cuteness factor, only we are a boy and girl, so people didn't get that we were twins. They just thought we were part of a dance team.

** My mom always calls at the exact time of our births. Yes, this is corny, but the upside is I always know exactly when she will call and will not be taken by surprise. Also I know the call can only last seven minutes before she will have to hang up to call my brother at the exact time of his birth. Ahh, the privilege of being born first.

***Heather is my older sister. She is not a drug addict, but instead is the "good" child, and I thought I would convince the rest of my family that she does heroin as a birthday present to myself. I, on the other hand, would do heroin all the time if I could figure out Jazzy's new number.

**** No one in anyone's family ever has their life work out perfectly. This was another birthday gift to myself. Thanks, me. I'm welcome.

Social Tip #102 - GET WHAT'S COMING TO YOU

When I was a kid my mom didn’t want me playing video games, she insisted that they were going to give me Attention Deficit Disorder. She bought me a boomerang instead and told me to go be healthy and play outside. One minute later I was back inside the house with a bruise on my eye because by the time the boomerang came back around I had forgotten it. My mom was happy anyway because she loves to be right.

Social Tip #82 - SPICE THINGS UP

After dating the same guy for over a year, it is important to keep things fresh and exciting in the bedroom. Me and my boyfriend play role-paying games. Does anyone else... want to?

This is what we do: I make my boyfriend pretend that he is a rapist. Then I pretend to be the rapist's mother.

Example:

ME: Honey, have you brushed your teeth yet?

BOYFRIEND: Leave me alone, mom! I'm raping!

ME: What have I told you about raping before you brush your teeth? And don't forget to clean up your room when you're done!

BOYFRIEND: God, mom, I know!

ME: I don't like your tone, mister. Just wait until your father gets home, no rape for a week!

Social Tip #24 - Parenting

My mom was always worried about getting my friends to like her, and I thought, why don't you worry about getting me to like you first, and we'll go from there.

Social Tip #20 - The Holocaust

I'm not saying the holocaust didn't suck ass...

but I don't think it should have been used to terrify me on a daily basis at nine years old. In my house the holocaust was discussed as though it could happen again at any second.

My Mom: Clean your room!

Me: I will later, leave me alone.

My Mom: Clean your room this instant! In the holocaust Jewish children would have loved to clean their rooms instead of having to pick up their brother's and sister's bone shards.

This was not the only time in my youth that I was held hostage by the holocaust. Growing up I was forced to go to Hebrew School three days a week so that I could be unpopular with an entirely different group of children. The school was held in the West Bank region of Phoenix, and all the the upper middle class Juden of Scottsdale were herded on to a giant blue bus with an Isreali flag bullseye painted on it.

Being a group of Jews, our nerves were allready wracked as we were herded onto the bus. It was like, "Uh-oh. Where are you taking us? We've all read the diary!" Worse was that the bus was driven by an actual holocaust survivor. It was like a theme park ride, "Holocaust Sam's Wild Ride." Which would be fine, except that Holocaust Sam had never gotten his driver's liscence. It was like the Rabbi decided that if you could survive that holocaust then you could probably do anything. Naturally all of us kids were terrified because he would run over curbs and drive down wrong lanes, so we screamed bloody murder. Holocaust Sam wasn't having it. He would scream back at us in his heavy German accent, "Quiet! Quiet on zee back of zee bus! I cannot concentrate! Quiet! Augghhhh!" When that wouldn't work he would resort to terror.

"You see ziss?" He would yell as he turned around, back to the road, and shook his fist at us,

"You see ziss?"

He was pointing to his concentration camp numbers. We screamed louder as we hurtled at fifty miles-an-hour down the shoulder of the freeway,

"See ziss?! I can never get rid of ziss! Never!"

It was horrifying. I don't want to say that what happened to him wasn't an abomination, but we were little kids. And besides.... he could get rid of "ziss." It's called tattoo lazer removal. Or at least have it turned into a daisy. C'mon, Holocaust Sam, turn that frown upside-down.

Social Tip #1: Starting a Conversation with Strangers

I have always had a lot of trouble talking to strangers. What should I say to ensure they don't hate me right away? I decided to start my social progress by talking to women because they tend to be the people I have the most trouble with. Probably because I hate my mom. I read in a book (I will not say which because I don't want you to read it and become better at making friends than me) that a great way to start a conversation with a stranger is to give them a sincere compliment. This is a direct transcript of my first conversation with a stranger:

Me: Hey, those are some snazzy boots.
Woman: These aren't boots, they're leg braces.

Woops. Now she thinks I am stupid.

Me: I knew that. I just didn't want to bring up your depressing, depressing leg braces.
Woman: (No response)

Recovery not successful. Abort mission and leave.

Me: Get out of my way, I have a marathon to finish.

Off to a bad start but learned an important lesson: Sincere compliments do not work when they are not accurate. Later, I tried again:

Me: Those are some really ugly leg braces.
Woman: These aren't leg braces. This is a wheelchair.

Final Thought: Sincere compliments are not helpful when strangers are disabled.