Karma Police
I believe there are mysterious forces at work in the universe that influence everyday occurrences in inexplicable ways. Call it karma, or luck, or even divine will. Whatever it is, I am pretty convinced it is there.
I'm not entirely sure what I did recently to trigger a good streak, but I do know that whatever the hell I did is paying off. For example, yesterday I purchased my first pair of jeans from a retailer other than J.C. Penney, Wal-Mart, or Target. When I was a kid, my dad got my jeans from J.C. Penney, and the latter two bargain stores were my own retailers of choice once I got to college. The jeans looked the same, and only cost about $19, plus whatever emotional costs there are in buying something that was likely a product of Chinese child prison labor.
However, once I got around to talking to girls - which should seriously be considered for inclusion in engineering programs across the country, seeing as how I didn't get a girlfriend until my senior year of college - I found out that my nonexistent sense of style was far too old-fashioned. However, only recently was I given a recipe for the remedy of the situation. A very recent girlfriend had planned to take me shopping, using my pale, awkward body as a canvas to try and transform me into someone who could fool people (read: girls) into thinking that I was up to date on what's cool.
Well, that chance never came, but we were talking about it recently. We decided that I should go to the mall with a mutual female friend and start looking for a new pair of jeans from the Gap or somewhere similar this weekend. But because I was feeling crushed by a boring work routine, I ducked out of the office early yesterday and ended up going to the mall by myself, on what I dubbed a "recon" mission, trying to find out prices and sizes that were available for a host of different vendors. At first I went to American Eagle, but didn't find anything close to my size. Then I went to the Gap.
I was greeted by a sales associate with the standard, "let me know if I can help you find anything," that tired refrain of people who work in retail. I must have really shocked her by saying that I actually could use her help instead of ignoring her, because for the next half-hour, I became her personal project. I threw out some of the words and phrases that I had been given as potential starting points, such as "boot cut," "wash," and "your fashion sense could qualify as torture under the Geneva Convention."
OK, I'll admit that last one I made up just to be witty. She made me try on about six different pairs and gave me her expert opinion. She qualified as an expert both because she gave me a brief history of fashion since the 1980's, which apparently I was stuck in, and because she was female. I ended up buying two pairs of good-looking jeans for the same price as maybe three pairs of my normal jeans. But if they actually make me look good (and both the sales associate and my former girlfriend claim they do), then I think I'm actually getting more for my money. And as a result, I'm starting to feel slightly better about myself.
Maybe that was a reward for my hard work last week finishing my literature review and enduring long drives to and from Penn State. Or maybe a result of trying to put forth more effort into maintaining healthy relationships with all my friends. But I knew that it was one of those aforementioned mysterious reward forces of the universe when I checked my e-mail this morning. To my surprise, fantasy baseball season is once again upon us.
My close friends and I love fantasy baseball. Accuse me of being the stereotypical male if you want, but it's truly an amazing part of the year - just like the celebration of Jesus' birthday. Fantasy baseball is comparable to having a beautiful woman walk up to you, mysteriously taking off her bra from underneath her shirt and handing it to you, though to your surprise, it has her phone number on it. They're both just about equally awesome. The only difference is that fantasy baseball is guaranteed to happen every year, and the bra-phone number scenario has never, ever happened to me. Though maybe it will now that I'm wearing decent pants.
I'm not entirely sure what I did recently to trigger a good streak, but I do know that whatever the hell I did is paying off. For example, yesterday I purchased my first pair of jeans from a retailer other than J.C. Penney, Wal-Mart, or Target. When I was a kid, my dad got my jeans from J.C. Penney, and the latter two bargain stores were my own retailers of choice once I got to college. The jeans looked the same, and only cost about $19, plus whatever emotional costs there are in buying something that was likely a product of Chinese child prison labor.
However, once I got around to talking to girls - which should seriously be considered for inclusion in engineering programs across the country, seeing as how I didn't get a girlfriend until my senior year of college - I found out that my nonexistent sense of style was far too old-fashioned. However, only recently was I given a recipe for the remedy of the situation. A very recent girlfriend had planned to take me shopping, using my pale, awkward body as a canvas to try and transform me into someone who could fool people (read: girls) into thinking that I was up to date on what's cool.
Well, that chance never came, but we were talking about it recently. We decided that I should go to the mall with a mutual female friend and start looking for a new pair of jeans from the Gap or somewhere similar this weekend. But because I was feeling crushed by a boring work routine, I ducked out of the office early yesterday and ended up going to the mall by myself, on what I dubbed a "recon" mission, trying to find out prices and sizes that were available for a host of different vendors. At first I went to American Eagle, but didn't find anything close to my size. Then I went to the Gap.
I was greeted by a sales associate with the standard, "let me know if I can help you find anything," that tired refrain of people who work in retail. I must have really shocked her by saying that I actually could use her help instead of ignoring her, because for the next half-hour, I became her personal project. I threw out some of the words and phrases that I had been given as potential starting points, such as "boot cut," "wash," and "your fashion sense could qualify as torture under the Geneva Convention."
OK, I'll admit that last one I made up just to be witty. She made me try on about six different pairs and gave me her expert opinion. She qualified as an expert both because she gave me a brief history of fashion since the 1980's, which apparently I was stuck in, and because she was female. I ended up buying two pairs of good-looking jeans for the same price as maybe three pairs of my normal jeans. But if they actually make me look good (and both the sales associate and my former girlfriend claim they do), then I think I'm actually getting more for my money. And as a result, I'm starting to feel slightly better about myself.
Maybe that was a reward for my hard work last week finishing my literature review and enduring long drives to and from Penn State. Or maybe a result of trying to put forth more effort into maintaining healthy relationships with all my friends. But I knew that it was one of those aforementioned mysterious reward forces of the universe when I checked my e-mail this morning. To my surprise, fantasy baseball season is once again upon us.
My close friends and I love fantasy baseball. Accuse me of being the stereotypical male if you want, but it's truly an amazing part of the year - just like the celebration of Jesus' birthday. Fantasy baseball is comparable to having a beautiful woman walk up to you, mysteriously taking off her bra from underneath her shirt and handing it to you, though to your surprise, it has her phone number on it. They're both just about equally awesome. The only difference is that fantasy baseball is guaranteed to happen every year, and the bra-phone number scenario has never, ever happened to me. Though maybe it will now that I'm wearing decent pants.
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