We Didn’t Start the Fire (but we cleaned up after it)

The smoke alarm system in my house is quite the temperamental machine. I learned that about 70% of the times it went off, it was because someone was cooking, and that the other 30% of the time, it was because the battery in one of the alarms was dying, which meant that all of them would make a loud, annoying blip every minute. The one that needed a new battery also flashed a red light during the loud, annoying blip, but there was no way of knowing which alarm needed the battery without watching the alarms for the blip/light combination.

(Blip doesn’t accurately represent the sound my smoke alarm makes. The sound it actually makes is better represented by “a giant mosquito doing opera warm-ups in Klingon.” But I don’t know the onomatopoeia for that, so let’s just go with blip.)

This, of course, meant that the smoke alarm was 0% of the time responding to an actual fire. This coupled with the fact that fire alarms in high school were nearly always drills and were infrequently a response to an actual emergency made it very easy for me to become desensitized to fire alarms. According to classical conditioning, I never had a chance.

When I’m confronted with a fire alarm, there are only a few basic options:

1. If it’s the middle of the night, I wake up (sometimes—I have been known to sleep through the siren), groan, roll over and go back to sleep. Often, I’m later awoken so that I can help my family check which one needs the new battery. Our smoke alarms never run out of battery during the day.

2. If it’s during my waking hours, I shout “Is the house on fire?” to whoever’s cooking, and once they say no, I continue with what I was doing before.

3. If I’m the person who’s cooking, I shout an expletive, turn the stove fan on, open the windows, grab a kitchen towel, and jump up and down while swinging the towel wildly at the smoke alarm until it stops screeching.

Wow it has been a while since I’ve drawn. I formally apologize to myself for this picture.

4. If I’m at school, I roll my eyes, grab my building keys, and leave through the back door of the dorm so that no one will notice me leave the crowd. I have better things to do than wait for the fire department to figure out why my century-old dorm is so flammable.

The most memorable fire drill of my freshman year of college occurred at about 5 in the morning—three hours before I was supposed to get up. Hoping that the home principle applied, I rolled over and put my head under my pillow, thinking that if I just ignored it long enough, the alarm would stop. 

My roommate Summer was a little bit more responsible/less lazy than I was, and she made sure I got out of the building, where we rendezvoused with everyone. “Everyone” in this case included Theo, who for reasons we all made assumptions about was wearing no shirt and a towel around his waist.

He later explained that he had done that because he was just wearing boxers and grabbed the towel (I guess?) to preserve his modesty (honestly, I’m still not clear on what part of this made sense). We told him that since half the guys who evacuated were also shirtless, and since it was five in the morning we would all have been too tired not to assume he was just wearing shorts.

Well, it was either not draw this picture or delay the post again.

Later we all found out that the “fire” had likely been caused by burnt toast, just like the last two fire drills. Later still I noticed a wikihow article posted on every floor’s bulletin board. I don’t think we had any toast-triggered fire alarms after that.

At the beginning of the summer, my sister was heating up a Lean Cuisine for lunch. Lean Cuisine is her standard fare, although since she’s thirteen and weighs about sixty pounds when soaking wet, she should probably be eating Get Really Really Fat Cuisine. I was in my room internetting (definitely a word) when I heard my mom call up the stairs, “Marina, can you come here? We need your help.”

There was absolutely no urgency in her voice, so I finished my game of Mahjong Titans and sauntered down the stairs. I was on the landing when I noticed a sort of grayish haze hovering in front of me. Then I smelled smoke and decided that it probably wouldn’t hurt to run the rest of the way down.

It smelled a lot worse in the kitchen. Mom said something to the effect of “The microwave went crazy,” and then I saw this (please note that all black/brown parts are ash, not shadows, and that this microwave was originally white):

Essentially, our microwave did a reverse Michael Jackson.

Me: What happened?

Sister: I don’t know! I put the Lean Cuisine in for the right amount of time…

Me: Where is it?

Mom: We put it out on the porch. Where are you going?

Me (halfway up the stairs): I need my camera to take pictures so I can blog about this!

This is the most depressing food picture I will ever put on this blog. It might also be the only one.

And when we tried to clean out the microwave with water/soap/paper towels, this happened and barely made a dent in the soot:

It’s like the part of 101 Dalmatians where they make themselves look like Labradors. But worse in many ways.

We managed to restore its original color with one of those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, which do indeed work like magic. Amazingly, the microwave came back to life and (after three months) the kitchen doesn’t smell like burning and death. Mr. Clean: for all your microwavemageddon needs.

Liar, Liar, Sorry I Defenestrated Your Dr. Pepper

My mom always says that lying is bad and will never help in the long run. I didn’t believe it but after eighteen years I have now found a perfect example of her being right.

Just saying.

La-a walked into the lounge where the majority of us were pretending that we didn’t actually have work to do. She was holding a CD and Felix was quick to teasingly ask if it was a Big Time Rush CD; La-a had been lauding the band’s music for days, which Felix didn’t understand because he doesn’t have ovaries.

La-a: No, it isn’t—but oh my god, you need to listen to the Beatles covers that they did.

She proceeded to commandeer Felix’s computer and, after figuring out how to operate a Mac, brought up a song. Felix and I sufferingly rolled our eyes and agreed that yes, the music was fine. As soon as she walked out of the room, Felix happily announced “She’s gone” and closed the window…

…only to have La-a charge back into the room and cry “I can hear you turn it off!”

While she was distracted, Felix stole the CD from her hand and passed it off to me. La-a yelled “Noooooooo!” before I could indicate that I was going to give it back to her.

Me: What did you think I was going to do?

La-a: I don’t know. Throw it out the window?

Me: That would be so mean.

Felix: We wouldn’t do that.

Me: That would be r000000000000de. It would be “rude” spelled with twelve zeroes.

Felix: Why would I do that?

La-a: I don’t know. You’re better people than I am. I would totally throw Felix’s Dr. Pepper out the window.

Felix: It’s empty…

I’m not sure what Felix hoped to accomplish by saying this, but I am absolutely certain that it was not what happened next.

As you read the following dialogue, bear in mind that at this point I was laughing too hard to stand up and had to sit on the floor.

Felix: IT WASN’T EMPTY!

Me: Then why did you say it was empty!?

Felix: I DIDN’T THINK YOU WOULD DO THAT!

Me: Have you MET me?

Felix: Apparently I don’t know you well enough!!

Me: Felix, there is literally nothing about our friendship that suggests that I wouldn’t do that!

And then everyone laughed so hard they almost cried.

If the story didn’t give you the idea of what my college friends are like, we’ve also been described as Big Bang Theory meets Friends. We’re also the kind of people who are likely to take stupid internet challenges.

At William and Mary, a "tribe choice" is a healthy choice. The Cinnamon Challenge was not a tribe choice.

Jules and Theo also did this. Both of them got headaches immediately after, so I consider myself the winner of this challenge even though I had to frantically imbibe seemingly the entire contents of the hall water fountain. Although seeing Theo breathe clouds of cinnamon like some kind of spice cabinet dragon was kind of worthwhile.

The video is here. I tried to do something cool and embed it here, but the internet decided that that wasn't going to happen today.
Each and every one of you who enjoyed that…I dare you to try it.

Thirty minutes after this video was taken, my mouth still tasted like the floor of a Cinnabon factory. I’m not sure if that means I still win, or if I’m now part cinnamonster.

An Improper Use of Physics

I remember that when I was little, I wanted to be an interior designer. Before that I wanted to be a vet, I think, and before that (when I was three), I told my parents that when I grew up I wanted to be a billy goat.

My mom is so supportive of me in all of my endeavors.

This morning, however, I was accidentally introduced to a field that I never knew existed. I was in Victoria’s Secret, which is one of those stores that treats everyone shopping there like a criminal and locks all their dressing rooms. This is more than a problem for socially awkward people like me, who normally would rather go buy their bras at Sears—which doesn’t believe in security—than ask someone to open up the room for them.

But I had a coupon for $10 off any Victoria’s Secret purchase and I was damn well going to use it because they make fabulous bras (even when they put padding in sizes that really don’t need it, because there is no room for the bra to actually be used if you pad a DD), so I stealthily tracked down one of the sales associates and asked her to open up a room for me. She picked the room that said “Sexy” on the door, so I was pretty okay with that.

As I was walking into the dressing room, she pointed at one of the bras I’d picked out and said “Oh, I really recommend that. We’re promoting that one right now. It has some new technology.”

There were three problems with these statements—the first, of course, being please just stop looking at the bras I am going to try on, holy crapmuffins, I am uncomfortable enough without you trying to discuss my lingerie. The second was that in-store advertising doesn’t work if you tell me you are specifically trying to get me to buy a particular item. It makes me want to be subversive and not buy it just to prove I am not a sheeple.

The third and most baffling problem was the use of the phrase “new technology” while referring to bras.

I honestly can’t say I know a whole lot about the subject, but I didn’t realize that bras were such a dynamic field of expertise that they were constantly developing new technology. New styles? Okay, fine, I believe that. New designs? That also sounds reasonable if you are describing clothing. New models? Makes it sound kind of like a car, but I see where you’re coming from, fine. But if you tell me that my bra has new technology, I’m expecting it to be able to transform me into a Sailor Scout or something.

Victoria’s Secret prism power, make up!

Maybe the salesgirl just had a slip of the tongue and was kicking herself for it later. I’m the kind of person who does that, so I can perfectly imagine her sitting in the back room of Victoria’s Secret thinking “ ‘New technology’? What the hell, past me?”

Or maybe—just maybe—there is a job for that. Maybe you could be a bra technology designer. I started to think about this, and the kind of qualifications that you’d need to design good bras. Being a woman is probably a vital skill set. How else would you know what’s comfortable? A background in anatomy and knowing how gravity works on specific anatomy probably wouldn’t hurt.

In other words, that would definitely make you a tits physicist.

(I’ll wait while you all go change your major.)

In moderately unrelated news, I recently made more passive-aggressive pictures for Felix.

And then I was trying to think of an ending for this post, so I took one of them and made it BETTER… with Felix’s help.

Me: This might be the weirdest question you ever get asked. If you were a tits physicist, which equations do you think you would use?

Felix: Oh god.

Me: This is a serious business question that the world needs the answer to.

Felix: mg = Tcos(theta), where theta is the angle of the tit in relation to a vertical straight line, m is the mass of the tit, g is the gravitational acceleration, and T is the tension as the—Marina this is really awkward!

Me: Oh my god.

Felix: And then it would be Fsubf = Tsin(theta), where Ff is the force of friction in the horizontal direction…okay I am done, this is weirding me out.

Me: Can I blog all this?

Felix: Fine.

Felix is probably the best sport ever.

My passive-aggressiveness is too damn high

I recently got a tumblr account.

If you clicked that link, you may have noticed that the tumblr is pretty much exactly the same as this blog, except probably a little less funny to everyone else. (Making it was extremely funny to me, as evidenced by my sitting on a couch and uncontrollably laughing and saying “I am so funny.”)

This mostly started with Felix obsessively stalking the Lord of the Flies fanfiction archive until he found my fanfiction account. I mostly ignored that because even though it was kind of weird, all the boys on our dorm floor have this bizarre preoccupation with the terrible fanfiction that we girls read and write.

He “decided not to read any of it” because he “wasn’t into any of the fandoms” I wrote about, but I’m pretty sure that just meant he was waiting until I left the room to do so.

(It’s okay Felix, you can totally read my awful tenth-grade fanfiction. I know you’re curious.)

Then I helped him make a picture by lending him my gel pens and showing him how to draw a fez, because I am a generally awesome human being and also he doesn’t know how to draw fezzes. Everyone should know how to draw a fez, because fezzes are cool.

Despite my teaching him an important life skill, Felix continued to pester me about getting a tumblr account so that I could like the picture on tumblr. He even made a post calling me “despicable” for not getting a tumblr to like his drawing.

Me: What are you, four?

(Pro tip: The word “despicable” does not convey anger to me. It just makes me think of Daffy Duck.)

He’s been tumbugging me about tumblr for a while now (see what I did there?), so I finally set up a tumblr account just so I could not like the picture.

Artist’s rendering of his drawing.

Let me inform all of you: setting up a tumblr for passive-aggressive reasons is way more difficult than it sounds.

Me: Okay, wait, how do I do this tumblr business? I mean I made a name but… now what?

Felix: I’m going to follow you before you post anything.

Me: What? You’re weird. Seriously, everything is blue.

Felix: You can change that. Click on—

Me: No! I got it. I’m a goddamn genius. Look, I can design it to look just like my blog.

Reginald: Wait. If it’s going to look just like your blog, then why do you need to make a—?

Me: So I can not like the picture he made.

Felix: You’re crazy.

Me: Ooh, I get to choose an avatar! I can use the same one from my blog.

Felix: You know what? I’m gonna unfollow you until you write the first post, and then I’m gonna follow you.

Me: I’m totally blogging all of this later.

Felix: …

Me: *happily renames “Pages Description” as “Free meth and puppies”*

Then he made a tumblr post about me being passive-aggressive and also I think he cried a little. And then he tattled on me to my boyfriend about my passive-aggressiveness. Because Felix is like four. It was really hard to make a rebuttal, since I was cackling too hard for comebacks. Reginald had something to say on the matter:

Reginald: Can you imagine Marina doing a stand-up act? Every other joke she would just be rolling on the floor, laughing at how funny she is.

Felix took this idea and ran a marathon with it, resulting in a lovely aspirational picture on my door. I passive-aggressively moved it to the dorm fridge.

Real name edited out (but I bet you can't even tell).

I was very amused, but I pretended to be not amused.

Me: You jerk! I was going to make you a cake for your birthday tomorrow.

We both instantly had the same idea, but I don’t think he actually expected me to go through with it.

Considering that I made this using only toothpicks and Betty Crocker canned frosting, I’d call this the freakin’ Creation of Adam.

He later conceded “Oh my god, Marina, this cake is delicious; you win.” The cake actually turned out better than I expected, because I am so goddamn talented. Obviously, there are a lot of things to take away from this:

1) I can’t be out-passive-aggressive’d. I take it to an art form.

2) Felix should learn to pick his battles.

3) Photoshop programs make life hilarious.

Munch has nothing on us.

Anyway, happy birthday, Felix. I made you this post as a present. Also, my tumblr is now dedicated to you. If I understand tumblr protocol now, I believe this is the highest honor.

Diary of a Displaced College Student

Day 1, 5:45 pm: Mom came to pick me up for winter break. Theo, Felix, Jules and Leonard carried all of my stuff downstairs. Being friends with strong boys kind of rocks, because otherwise I just would have kicked my suitcase down three flights of stairs.

Day 1, 5:50 pm: We are riding in a car. It’s really weird to be in it instead of dodging it. I am getting the sneaking suspicion that I used to be able to drive one of these. That, too, involved dodging other cars.

Day 1, 6:00 pm: Went to a “restaurant” and Mom is paying, so I can get whatever I want. I think I used to like ribs before I had the ones that the campus makes. Maybe I will try those.

Day 1, 6:30 pm: RIBS ARE THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

Day 1, 7:00 pm: On the way home. I am now almost definitely sure I used to drive cars.

Day 1, 9:30 pm: Car rides are sooooooooooo boringggggggggggg.

Day 1, 9:45 pm: Cars move so fast!! We’re home!

Day 1, 9:48 pm: At school you have to flush the toilet rapidly 3 times to make it work. At home, if you do that, the plumbing gets really angry.

Day 1, 11:01 pm: Wow. Today was exhausting. Good night.

Day 2, 3:47 am: Just kidding, the internet happened.

Day 2, 11:39 am: It is really nice to wake up at a time that is pretty close to noon.

Day 2, 1:37 pm: Even in leftovers, my mom’s cooking rocks. She must be some kind of wizard.

Day 2, 1:38 pm: Or witch, I guess.

Day 2, 5:30 pm: I used to eat dinner at like nine at night, but my college friends eat at 5:30 and now I’m hungry. Damn it, you guys.

Day 2, 6:10 pm: Holy crow, I made spaghetti! I must be some kind of wizard.

I guess it runs in the family.

Day 2, 9:08 pm: Apparently I am in trouble for not “loading and running” the “dishwasher”. Extremely confused. What is a dishwasher? What am I supposed to do to make him work? At school the dishes just magically disappear when you put them on the comically slow conveyor belt to the kitchen. Is that not how this works in the rest of the world? I thought college was supposed to prepare me for shenanigans like this.

Day 4, 11:09 am: Another late morning!

Day 4, 2:21 pm: Holy crapmuffins, wait, I just noticed this. What happened to Day 3? I was definitely awake, I just forgot to write it down. Let’s all just assume nothing interesting happened and move on with this frequently-updated and well-documented study.

Day 7, 10:47 am: DAMN IT.

Day 7, 10:51 am: I’m just going to write off the whole day right now and try this again tomorrow.

Day 8, 2:35 pm: My real friends are coming over today! So excited to see everyone from high school.

Day 8, 4:04 pm: Oh, crap. Just realized I’ve been referring to my home friends as “real friends”. As in, my college friends are therefore either fake or imaginary. Should probably stop doing that.

Day 8, 4:05 pm: My real good longtime hometown better high school friends are coming over today! REALLY frickin’ excited to see them, is what I’m trying to say.

Day 9, 12:09 pm: I have to do laundry today because Mom asked me to because I am a good daughter because honestly I ran out of pants—but that’s okay, because I definitely remember how to do that! Unlike these mystical dishwashers, we have washing machines and dryers at college. To the laundry room!

Day 9, 12:10 pm: Whoops, forgot my ID.

Day 9, 12:11 pm: Oh, wait, I don’t need to pay for laundry here.

Day 9, 12:15 pm: The machine is making grumbly noises, so I’m gonna go ahead and assumed that everything’s in order here.

Day 9, 12:52 pm: Do you hear… beeping?

Day 9, 1:07 pm: Okay, I almost definitely hear beeping.

Day 9, 1:22 pm: Where is this infernal noise coming from?

Day 9, 1:37 pm: When I find the source of this wretched high-pitched beeping, I swear to Aslan I’ll

Day 9, 1:38 pm: Oh, wait, I figured it out. It was just the laundry. Got it all under control (in the dryer) now.

Day 9, 2:38 pm: EEEEEAAHHH! Why is the dryer so angry at me?

It’s like the air conditioning unit from Brave Little Toaster.

Day 9, 2:58 pm: Oh. Usually I’m not around when the dryer at school goes off; I just come back an hour or four after I put the laundry in and pick it up. Now I guess I have to fold the clothes—this might take a while.

Day 9, 8:58 pm: All done!

Day 9, 9:03 pm: Stop judging me. Okay, so I’m not domestic. At least I can maintain a diary/blog/thing.

Day 24, 1:34 pm: CRAPMUFFINS.

Day 24, 1:48 pm: I give up.

***

Anyway, guys, clearly I missed the timing, but Merry Christmas. Look, I even designed you a sweater for next year!

Courtesy of this rockin' website.