Friday, January 06, 2012
Vacation Recap, plus amusing ethics quiz!
Tuesday afternoon (non-Moody Blues version):
According to my seat-back altimeter, I’m at 37,322 feet above sea level, 402 miles from my home landing strip, and traveling nearly 500 miles an hour. Seems like a good time for an update, because god knows that without semi-regular news reports from the Chucklehut, the internet would just curl up and die, and I can’t handle that kind of responsibility. Plus, I need your help with an ethical dilemma. But you’ll have to read through to find out what it is.
(BTW this was all written in flight but I had no way to post it till now. I’m safely on the ground again, and sorely missing the ability to order a drink by pressing a button over my head.)
We arrived in WA on a Thursday evening, and it took barely 30 hours before we got to visit the brand spanking new emergency room down at the bottom of the hill. That’s how long it took before Z got his finger caught in the hinge-side of a slamming door. Now he’s fine, adjusting admirably to life with a big-ass splint on the delicate middle digit of his dominant hand. He’s been brave and resilient as only the rare six-year-old can be. I’d still be bitching and moaning about it if it had been me. To cheer him up, six members of the east-coast side of the family sent solidarity photos of each of them wearing identical middle-digit splints, including Belle the springer spaniel. It’s nice to know that they’ve got Z’s back, even if they show it by giving him the middle finger.
Other hi-lites of the trip: Railstock museum, stomp-rocket madness, brewpub lunch with full-sized muffeletta, xbox/wii hootenanny, museum of aviation (with tours of Air Force 1 and the Concorde), viewing of massive waterfall, late night campfire s’mores with bonus fingertip ravelight action, seven-head shower stall, meatpie! and applecake!, numerous malt and hop based beverages, Phineas-and-Ferb-athon, New Year’s pizza, 1/2/12 Indian food feast, hailstorm snowball freakout, teeny farm adorableness, woodland trail strolls, and geocaching. Plus other stuff, I’m sure, that I’m just forgetting.
(Non-lights, being things we did not get to do at all, included: Visiting snowfields for sledding ((no snow!)), Quirkle tournament ((we ran out of energy)), listen-through of the entire Lamb Lies Down album ((man-cave unavailable due to excessive storage needs)), daily exercise ((treadmill is in garage and garage is out of commission due to drywalling project)). Had all that happened as well, I’d still be sleeping it all off. You can decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.)
Let us also give special notice to our three hour gate delay at SeaTac. Plus side: The guy making announcements at the gate, “Captain” Paul, was funny and entertaining and held a paper airplane contest and trivia contest to keep us from killing everybody in swinging range of our carryon bags, and as it turns out, when the plane arrived he went on board, put on a snappy cap, and actually piloted the damn thing himself. Minus side: while waiting, I took J to a kiddie play area to see if I could get him to blow off some steam in a socially sanctioned way. Among the other parents biding thier time there as their kids went ape, were two amply-framed women with short hair, comfortable jeans, no-fuss hair styles and baggy sweatshirts, sitting together as their boys ran madly up the slides and over the occasional toddler. They spoke together animatedly about vegetarian recipes they still had to make ("we’re gonna need some full on root veggie pie, for shizzle” - I kid you not). Then one made an off-hand comment about the other not having gotten anything done during their trip, to which the other took immediate and grave offense. So for the next ten minutes I was an involuntary audience to an intense discussion about feelings, language choices, and how to be respectful in a relationship. When I finally got a text from K calling me back to the gate to help Z to a bathroom, my relief was palpable. Fo’ shizzle indeed.
And now, my ethics quiz. Don’t worry, there are no wrong answers. Mostly because there are no right answers. Let’s set the scene: you’re vacationing at the gracious home of a tech wizard and his lovely family. A delivery is made by a commercial delivery-making company - some mechanical parts for an auto repair job. A few hours later, a tiny mini-SD card is found lying near the front door. Do you test it to see if it’s yours? Of course you do, that’s not even quiz-worthy - it’s like finding money on the ground (as I actually did, in Snoqualmie) and testing it to see if it fits in your wallet (which by odd coincidence it did).
It becomes immediately obvious that the SD card doesn’t belong to anyone in the house, as it’s full of photos of stuff nobody even remotely recognizes. The most likely conclusion here is that the delivery man dropped it accidentally. So, do you look at the rest of the photos?
That’s a quiz, but not a fair one: of course you look at the photos. It’s like listening to the lesbian couple bickering at the airport - you can’t deny your curiosity even if you wish you could with every fiber of your being. And this is how it comes to pass that you see, amidst a stranger’s many photos of Pop Warner football teams and random household goods, several shots of said stranger posing in a mirror, trying out a variety of sultry poses such as might be suitable for one of those find-a-soulmate websites.
And among those putatively-intriguing images, you find two photos featuring this stranger’s unclad manhood, brazenly exposed though amusingly under-impressive.
Hundreds of photos, several of which are a stranger’s self-portraits, two of which are his self-portraits of his personal naked Johnson. So here’s the actual quiz:
a) Do you return the SD card to the delivery company that likely employs the man who owns it and is pictured, occasionally explicitly, on it?
b) If so, do you print out a small photo of the man’s face to accompany it so his co-workers know who to give it to and don’t accidentally discover his denuded wang? Or -
c) Is the prong-shot the photo you print out to accompany the card on its return? Or -
d) Do you just re-format the card, destroying all those precious memories of family gatherings and blenders and sofas and come-hither looks and dick, and score yourself a free SD card?
Mail your responses to the Chucklehut, care of the internet, or feel free to abuse our comment function. Your prize will be the nebulous benefit of self-satisfaction. O hell I’ll even buy you a beer if you ask for it in person. It’s a brand new year and I’m feeling generous. So don’t ruin it for everybody. Your SASE gets mine.