Snow of the South

Despite having lived in the Southeastern United States my entire life, I am still unable to fathom the level of panic generated by the threat of frozen precipitation. Schools are closed, businesses are shuttered, and traffic slows to a glacial pace at the very mention of “accumulation.” While I understand the danger posed by icy road conditions and would categorize myself as a fan of safety, what is this unrelenting terror that causes educated men and women to cower in their homes and search the skies for an errant flake of snow?

When faced with impending arctic doom, the first order of business is to make your way to a grocery and stockpile bread, milk, and eggs as if your only hope of survival depends on your ability to make French toast on short notice. The store’s interior quickly becomes a heaving tumult of anxious patrons gnawing at the very boundaries of civilized behavior while silently cursing the senior citizen who chose today as their first foray into the world of self-checkout. 

Once in the parking lot your survival depends on your ability to avoid being flattened by oblivious motorists whose panic has long since rendered them incapable of safely operating an automobile. Upon reaching the relative haven of your own car, you will now face the daunting challenge of pulling into traffic while evading the army of municipal trucks preemptively saturating the asphalt with enough salt to relocate an entire deer population.

Having successfully merged into traffic, you will undoubtedly feel the urge to top off your gas tank in the event that the coming blizzard cripples the town’s petroleum infrastructure and you suddenly feel the urge to drive to Kansas. Prudency suggests that you also purchase two lottery tickets and an overpriced quart of orange juice to prevent scurvy.

Realizing that you could be isolated indoors for days, you stop at a Redbox DVD rental kiosk and select one of the only movies still available which means you will either be watching the latest installment of Resident Evil or Gary Busey’s directorial debut. Having made your choice, you head toward home content in the knowledge that you are fully prepared to ride out the storm of the century.

After finally arriving at your residence and putting away your survival supplies you will begin the arduous task of calling/texting/Facebooking your indignation at being forced to deal with all of the “panicky morons” at Kroger and Exxon. This sentiment will be immediately echoed by every other person who stopped by Kroger / Exxon and also felt the number of people there was excessive.

Once you have finished commiserating with friends and family, you will tune into your local television channel so as not to miss the nearly uninterrupted weather updates. For the next several hours you watch with anticipation as the Neapolitan hues of the weather-map inch closer to your barricaded home while terms like “Wintery Mix” are lobbed about like meteorological grenades. 

Even once the broadcast is returned to regularly scheduled programming the entire bottom third of the screen will be festooned by a scrolling marquee listing each and every daycare fight-club and Seventh - Day Adventist luncheon that has been forced to reschedule.

The culmination of all this pageantry will manifest itself in one of two ways:

1.It will simply rain enough to wash away the deployed salt and you will spend the rest of your evening choking down a ham sandwich and a hard-boiled egg while trying to understand why anyone would underwrite a 7^th Resident Evil film.

2. The roads will actually become as treacherous as everyone had feared which means you will immediately make plans with your friends to drive around and take pictures of cars that have careened off the road. You will later upload these photos to Facebook with the caption, “What an idiot!”

The Mustache Donor

There are many elective medical procedures that I do not understand (cosmetic nipple removal comes to mind) but one of the strangest has taken hold in the Middle East: mustache transplantation. One Turkish surgeon, who claims to perform 50-60 of these a month, says that the majority of his clients are unhappy with their anemic facial hair and wish to project more masculinity. Many of the clients are politicians who believe that a thicker mustache will assist them in appealing to voters.

The procedure, which costs around $7,000, uses a technique called follicular unit extraction to remove hair from a “donor site” and implant it on the patient’s top lip. They cannot shave for several weeks and it generally takes about six months to see the full results. Once enough time has passed, practitioners insist that the relocated hair is indistinguishable from cookie-duster natives. The trend appears to be growing and is now being performed in France as well.

I am privileged to have a mustachioed co-worker who takes great pride in his soup-strainer and is even a member of the American Mustache Association (AMA). While I admire his dedication, I am not willing to separate myself from $7,000 in order to replicate it. Genetically speaking, I am predisposed to an asymmetrical “dirty stache” which does nothing to enhance my masculinity. Fortunately, my wife is not a fan of facial hair (or masculinity) so we are perfectly suited for one another.

My main concern would be the surgeon’s ambiguity concerning the “donor site.” If the hair was harvested from the patient’s scalp I can only assume they would have revealed that in the article. This leaves precious few other areas from which to deport the needed man-fur and given the coarse nature of male facial hair I fear the entire discussion would go south very quickly. Is there a contingency plan if the newly-created mustache begins to curl uncontrollably?

While Americans also associate facial hair with masculinity, some social scientists have argued that a clean-shaven political candidate in America has a better shot than their fuzzy counterparts because people associate facial hair with deception. This is ironic given Abraham Lincoln’s reputation and the fact that we have elected several mustachioed presidents. Furthermore, Chester Arthur rocked the mutton chops and rumor has it that Harry Truman sported a short-lived goatee while relaxing in Key West in 1948.

The real breakthrough will come when they can fully transplant someone else’s facial hair onto your body. If God didn’t see fit to put attractive hair on your face, chances are there is nothing better hiding behind the curtains. In cases such as this, the person could walk into the surgeon’s office and ask for the “Chuck Norris” or the “Sam Elliott” confident that they were receiving the finest in facial accoutrements. The patient could even be given large doses of testosterone and un-tenderized beef to prevent post-operative rejection.   

Like most things men do, this craze is probably related to money, power, or potential mates. I just do not see how spending money to relocate a half-acre of back-hair to your lip makes you electable or dateable. I imagine that there are several attributes women (and voters) find more attractive than a fauxstauche and I'll bet the ability to wisely spend $7,000 is one of them.

Dr. Feelgood

An interesting legal case has surfaced in Fort Dodge, Iowa and concerns a dentist named James Knight and his assistant of ten years Melissa Nelson. Despite her stellar work record, Mr. Knight fired Mrs. Nelson because he found her “irresistibly attractive” and feared that her continued employment posed a significant threat to his marriage. The termination came after Dr. Knight’s wife (also employed at his office) found text messages between the two she felt would lead to her husband’s infidelity. After receiving the blessing of his pastor, Dr. Knight fired Mrs. Nelson and provided her with a 1-month severance package.

Mrs. Nelson, who denies any flirting or impropriety of any kind, filed suit against Knight for gender discrimination and it went to the Iowa Supreme Court where the all-male panel unanimously upheld her firing. They reasoned that since Nelson was replaced by another female employee, no gender discrimination took place. They found that Dr. Knight’s actions were motivated by the preservation of his marriage and this, in and of itself, does not violate state law.

Dr. Knight

During the proceedings, Dr. Knight accused Mrs. Nelson of wearing clothing that was “too tight” but she insists she only ever wore standard scrubs. Dr. Knight also admitted to remarking that Mrs. Nelson would know her outfit was too tight when she noticed that his “pants were bulging.” Court documents also revealed that the doctor had sent her a sexually-themed text message and allegedly advised her that an infrequent sex life for her would be “like having a Lamborghini in the garage and never driving it.”

Despite the case details, Nelson did not allege sexually harassment because she did not feel like his comments had particularly offended her. Her attorney sees the decision as a setback for women in the workplace, remarking that the implications of the ruling are that women should somehow be held responsible for their male employer’s sexual desires. Since her termination, Mrs. Nelson has been working as a waitress and has no plans to pursue her lawsuit any further.

There are many things wrong with this picture, and while I applaud Mr. Knight’s commitment to monogamy, I do not think it would have been too much to ask for him to secure her another job with a colleague since she had been a stellar employee for over a decade. She wasn’t fired because she was hot; she was fired because his wife discovered that he thought she was hot. Say what you will about the pharmaceutical industry, but no one has ever accused them of letting a representative go for being overwhelmingly comely.

What I cannot understand is why she did not allege sexual harassment. There can only be two explanations for this and both of them are disturbing:

1.      Dr. Knight had created a workplace so saturated with sexual innuendos and double entendres that by comparison his comments and text messages to Mrs. Nelson were borderline respectful.

2.       Mrs. Nelson at least passively reciprocated his interest.

While it is possible that Mrs. Nelson enjoyed and perhaps even encouraged these advances, my bet is on the former possibility. She probably viewed him as a harmless flirt who stood between her and a career in waitressing and therefore was willing to overlook the occasional automobile metaphor. If this is true, her biggest mistake was giving him too much leeway.

Let me tell you something,  if your workplace dress code is solely contingent upon the prominence of your supervisor’s “trouser bulge” it could be time to retain legal counsel and update your resume. Furthermore, I don’t know that any of his female patients will feel comfortable with Dr. Protrusion putting them under for a root canal after hearing this.

I can sympathize with Dr. Knight’s wife for acting in the best interest of her marriage, but if your husband feels that comfortable discussing the current status of his crotch with a female subordinate, trading one young woman for another may just be treating the symptom.  Also, if it took ten years of workplace gestation for a colleague to become suddenly “irresistible” to your husband, it either takes a really long time for her to come out of her shell or it had taken nine and a half years for him to work his way through the entire hygienist rotation and start hitting on her.

This is also a reason I do not envy pastors. Can you imagine this conversation?

“Reverend, my wife and I feel it would be best for our marriage if I fire a loyal, hardworking employee simply because she has the misfortune of looking attractive in a set of neutrally-colored scrubs. This attribute could conceivably lead to an extramarital affair if there was any reason to believe she shared my sentiments. Therefore, I am afraid the only prudent course of action would be to abruptly terminate her family’s source of income. What do you think?”

“Did you address your concerns with the employee in question in order to provide her an opportunity to alter her wardrobe to something less appealing or arrange for a transfer to another dental practitioner?”

“Well father, I did tell her she made me happy in my pants.”

“I see……..”

This must be quite a mixed bag for Mr. Nelson. Their household income was significantly reduced by her termination but he is also one of the few guys at work who can tell his friends that his wife was let go due to “excessive hotness.” At least working as a waitress will keep her safe from the unwanted advances of older men....

The Bieber Threat

In a world fraught with senseless violence and a callous disregard for the suffering of our fellow man, I was reassured by a glimmer of hope when I read about the foiling of a murder plot against Justin Bieber. According to published reports the homicide was masterminded from behind bars by Dana Martin, who is currently serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of a 15 year old girl in Vermont and has a tattoo of Justin Bieber on his leg. Once his plan had taken shape, Dana recruited former prison alumnus Mark Staake who in turn recruited his nephew Tanner Ruane.

The plot was for Mark and Tanner to gain access to Bieber at his Madison Square Garden concert, strangle the singer and his bodyguard with a “paisley neck-tie,” and then castrate both of them with a set of pruning shears. After experiencing an apparent change of heart, Dana turned in his accomplices to the authorities who managed to apprehend both of them before they made an attempt on Bieber’s life (or man-bits).

Bieber & Canada's Prime Minister

While I am sure Mark and Tanner feel blindsided by the betrayal of their ringleader there were a few subtle clues that he might not be a picture of mental stability, not the least of which is the fact that he is serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of an underage girl. Maybe it’s how I was raised, but when a person asks you to neutralize someone they have tattooed on their leg it is always best to walk away. How did Dana bring this up? Did Mark come during visiting hours to shoot the breeze?

“Hey man, how’s the outside?”

“Good brother, how are you holdin’ up?”

“Pretty good I guess. Listen Mark, I was wondering if you would be willing to utilize your newfound freedom to facilitate the murder and castration of a Canadian pop-star for no reason other than my own cyclical feelings of repulsion / adoration.”

“Go on…….”

It appears that the use of the necktie was as symbolic as it was fashionable. Apparently Mr. Martin had used it in the commission of previous crimes and wished to continue his legacy. Some would argue that there is only one other way this story could have ended and the headline would have read: Two creepy grown men beaten unconscious while attempting to present Justin Bieber with a retro tie. The only conversation more perplexing that the initial Dana / Mark conversation it would have to be when Mark recruited his nephew and convinced him to participate:

“Hey Tanner! It’s your Uncle Mark!”

“Hey Uncle, what’s going on?”

“I was wondering if you mind helping me out with a project for a buddy of mine. He would do it himself but he is currently serving time for a violent felony perpetrated against a minor and a caveat of his mental state involves an unhealthy fascination with Justin Bieber whom he wishes us to assault, murder, and castrate armed with nothing more than a garden tool and a used necktie.”

“Go on……”

I was also unable to understand why the bodyguard had to be castrated too. I can only assume that the point of the castration was to degrade and humiliate the guard. This goal would have been easily accomplished by managing to isolate and strangle his employer with an article of clothing at Madison Square Garden. The disfiguring of his corpse would just seem superfluous at that point. 

All joking aside, this is the second credible threat against Mr. Bieber’s life in as many years, and in the interest of his own safety I feel the most prudent course of action would be a comprehensive retreat from public life. I realize such a drastic step would make it impossible to release music, conduct interviews, or star in self-promotional compilations disguised as “motion picture events,” but nothing is worth the compromise of his personal safety. Don’t be a hero Justin, you have already provided the world with more than enough material and the time has come for you to take a knee and let your admirers rest easy in the knowledge that their beloved Canadian icon did not allow himself to be transformed into a meticulously-coiffed martyr.