Hey! Did You Know?

Nibble & Spew has a Facebook page!  I suspect that most of you are aware of this, because you get here via Facebook.  But in case you didn't, and would like to show extra support for the blog, and would like N&S posts to show up in your Facebook Newsfeed, kindly trot yourself over to here:

or enter it yourself:  https://www.facebook.com/nibbleandspew

and "Like" the page!

Thank you!

The Dog Who Cried Wolf

My family has a dog named Fang.  This is her real name.  I feel quite safe releasing her name on the Internet, because Fang has never responded to it.  (So if you're going to kidnap her and hold her for ransom, I have two pieces of advice:  1) read the rest of this post before deciding if you really want to do that, and 2) calling "Here Fang!" will get you nowhere.)  

Our relationship with Fang makes the onlooker question who is master of whom.  We think she's pretty smart, but she does not sit on command.  She refuses to do tricks.  She sheds fur so profusely that armies of fluffballs roll around our house like tumbleweeds.  Whenever she hears the orrrrp of foil tearing on a yogurt container, she's there, immediately, glaring at us until we share.  And of course we can't turn her down.  Puppy-dog eyes are the most persuasive cliché there is.

Fang has many adorable qualities, but her annoying ones just might outnumber them.  She often barks to be let out with such agitation that we fear imminent dog explosion--but when she gets outside, it's all, "Oh, what a nice day, let me sniff this leaf and perhaps gaze into the distance for half an hour."  Fang pulls this trick four or five times a day.  We have to leash her up and walk with her each time because if we let her off leash, she'll bolt for the woods in search of something stinky to roll in.

One day, my parents got tired of this charade and bought a dog run.  This is a wire stretching between two trees in the backyard, with a line that comes down and attaches to the dog's collar.  The line rolls back and forth on the wire as the dog frolics to and fro in the yard.  What a great idea! we all thought.  Instead of wasting hours wandering outside with the Dog Who Cried Wolf, we could simply attach her to the run and let her relieve herself on her own schedule.  Following are some drawings of our expectations:

Yes, these were our expectations.  But this is what happened when we set up the run, attached Fang, and stepped back, brimming with pride at our own ingenuity:

She didn't get it.  Even after my mother tenderly led the dog back and forth by hand, even after my gleeful father shot some film of the poor animal's confusion, Fang could not understand the basic purpose of the run:  that, once attached, SHE COULD STILL MOVE AROUND.  Was she afraid of the line hanging over her head?  Did she think we'd fixed her to the spot with dark magic?  Unless we find out, it's false-alarm walkies for the rest of eternity.

Runner Problems #1

I am a runner.  I run some miles almost every day.  This means that I wear at least two sets of clothes every day: school clothes (à la Clark Kent) and running clothes (Superman).  Since you're all quick-witted and observant readers, you'll notice that this is twice as much clothing as the average non-athlete.  And twice as much laundry.  

I am constantly doing laundry.  Whenever I have a sufficient amount of free time, the siren song of the washer calls to me.  Swish bump clang! it croons.  Swish bump clang!  In the manner of gangsters at strip clubs, I make it rain on those sweet square machines.  I am constantly leaping up or down the stairs (where I found that errant pizza crust) to the laundry room, folding laundry, doing homework while waiting for the laundry to be done, or simply letting clean, damp laundry infuse my dorm room with the ambience of a detergent-scented greenhouse.

One helpful gift my parents gave me when I left for college was a wooden drying rack.  This is pretty much a permanent fixture in my small room; it fits together neatly with the bed, desk, bookshelf and dresser in such a way as to obliterate the notion of floorspace.  It's a good thing that I have a hovercraft.

There is also no vertical space in my room because of laundry.  I pride myself on the unnecessary complexity of my sartorial organization.  Clean clothing goes in the dresser or "closet".  (A wimpy, open-faced sandwich of a closet.)  Not-clean-at-all goes in the laundry basket or, if I'm feeling spontaneous, the dresser. 

Clean-but-drying.

No, for real, in the laundry basket.

Then there are finer gradations.  Clean-but-drying goes on the drying rack, the wall hooks, the sprinkler pipe (this is illegal), the hallway pegs, the bed, the back of the door, and visitors who stand still long enough.  Probably-clean-after-airing-out goes on the drying rack (if there's space).  Clean-enough-to-wear-post-run is hung on any edges that are edgy enough.  Bored yet?  Confused?  I thought so.


I can't overestimate the importance of laundry in my college life.  Even my suitemates are affected by its pervasiveness.  Skyler actually had an upsetting dream the other night about me hanging up laundry in his room.  Somewhat nonplussed, real-life Merp apologized.  I guess that's what you're supposed to do when you're mean to someone in their dream.  (But I can't help wondering:  which category of clean did the laundry fall under?)

What it feels like to have a headache

When I call home

Three Diagrams of Interactions with Food

How to Be Rude to a Runner

Man vs. Homework

In which a Printer does not get along with others

I wrote the following over a year ago, when I kindly allowed a stray printer to share my dorm room with me. This was a naive and hopeful time in my life.

Me: "Print this 16-page document, double-sided."

Printer: "WHOA. That's too many pages. I am freezing now."

Me: "No! No! I take it back! Cancel Print! Stop!"

Printer: *baleful stare*

Me: "Okay, I restarted the computer."

Printer: "Printing test page."

Me: "I don't want a test page!"

Printer: "La la la."

Me: "Okay. You're working fine. That was a good test page. Now print just the odd pages of this document."

Printer: "Okay. I'll give you 15, 13, 11, and 9, and then tell you that I want to put 1, 3, 5, and 7 on the backs--in that order."

Me: "No. That is what you did to my Enviro Studies syllabus and I keep doing the wrong homework assignment. Please just print page 1."

Printer: "Okay. Actually, I'm kind of tired. How about half of page 1?"

Me: "No. That is not what I want."

Printer: "How about pages 16 and 15, and they will be smudged?"

Me: "No. Look, here's the preset double-sided option. Couldn't be easier."

Printer: "Fine. Here are the odd-numbered pages. Turn 'em around and put 'em back in and I'll give you the rest."

Me: "Sounds good...wait. You tend to print from last page to first page. I'd better reorder them so that they'll match up correctly."

Printer: "Whatever you want. Printing from first page to last page!"

Me: "No! NO! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHHHHH!"

Printer: "SUCKA!!!!!"

The usual five stressors

This image is from last year, but the stressors described (save the foot pain) are, unfortunately, timeless.