High-Fives Across The Dinner Table Are Totally Acceptable In Our House

With apologies to those of you not familiar with Dr. Who.

Last night at dinner, while reflecting upon my freshly-debearded face, my wife offered up an observation. “You know, if we found the right suit, you could maybe pull off the David Tennant Dr. Who next Halloween.”

“Oh yeah?” I said. I kind of love David Tennant, so I take this as something of a compliment, albeit perhaps an inaccurate one.

“Yeah,” she said. “And since all his companions dress pretty normal, I guess I could just go as any of them. I could be, uh, uh--”

“Nah, you don’t need to be one of his companions,” I said. Being one of the companions from the Dr. Who series, at least the modern version, would make for a pretty boring costume since they mostly dress in modern clothing, the only exception being when they choose to dress in accordance with the time and place in which they’ve landed, which they don’t always. I’m not sure what rule they follow to decide whether or not they should suit up. But I digress.

“You could be, uh, uh....” I continued, floundering for an idea for an appropriate match that would make a good costume.

“Oh, I know!” she shouted. “I could be the TARDIS!”

“Brilliant!”

“Which is perfect, you know, since you get to be inside me!”

Big guffaws. High-fives across the table. The boys seemed amused, if not a bit confused.

“Oh my god!” I said. “It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside! How is that possible?!”

More high-fives. Giggles all the way to bedtime.

And who am I speaking with?

As a rule, I typically don't write negative posts about people I know because you just never know who's reading, but fuckin' A people, sometimes ya gotta vent, and sometimes ya don't care who's reading. Hell, I might be doing somebody a favor.

Have you ever encountered someone with a really annoying habit that bears a damn close resemblance to a particularly annoying habit of your own, a habit that you're perfectly aware of, but never realized just how very irritating it was until you experienced the horror of being around this other person whilst they engaged in it? And in the midst of the agony of watching, listening, experiencing this person engage in their god-awful habit, you thought to yourself, "Surely I'm not this bad. I couldn't be as awful as this fucking clownfish, could I?" But somewhere deep down, you suspected that perhaps you were, and rather than claw your eyes out, you swore a sacred oath to take that habit of yours and break it over your knee like an insolent bat that refuses to send baseballs a-scurryin' for the bleachers, preferring instead to just swipe at the air, one, two, three, you're out.

Ever have that happen?

Me, I can't say that what I've experienced as of late is quite that bad, but it's close. See, I like movies. And plays. And TV. I like a good solid piece of well-written well-executed stagecraft, whatever medium the stage may actually be. And I have a particular fondness for strongly written dialogue. I don't really care if it sounds "the way people talk." I get enough of that every day. And while cleverness is great, too much cleverness, like too much spice, smacks of trying to cover up a lack of substance with something more easily accessible. No, what really grabs me is when bits of dialogue sound good coming out of an actor's mouth, ring with truth so profound it makes me tingle, and illuminate something deeper and bigger than perhaps they ever were intended to.

Which is a long way of saying that particular lines stick with me long after I've heard them uttered. And I have been known to toss out a line here or there in everyday conversation when it seemed appropriate. No big deal, right?

Except now I've sort of had this mirrored for me. I'm taking a deep breath as I prepare to dive into this. See there's this guy I work with who is an actor. I've never actually seen him in anything so I've no idea if he's any good, but he gets cast, so he can't be all that terrible. But the thing is, he has a penchant for slipping into actor mode at any given moment. One minute you're discussing a work-related question, the next, the guy's in fucking character right there in my cube. It's gotten to where I dread talking to him because I'm never quite sure who I'll be talking to. You know, like chatting with a possessed person. He'll say a line, maybe two, hell, he'll do an entire goddamn monologue. And sometimes, oh sweet Saturn's rings, sometimes he slips into an accent. An accent, people! And not a particularly good one. At least I didn't do accents!

*Catches breath*

Oh my god, I feel better. That was amazingly cathartic. So this was like confession and rant all in one, huh?

Dude, if you're reading this, no hard feelings. Hell, take it as a compliment that I'd rather talk to you than any of the characters you've got bouncing around in your head. And to anyone I've ever annoyed by engaging in this beating-worthy behavior, I apologize.