megfowler.com

I kill plants. Without fail. Even salad wilts a little when I’m around. And I just bought two more for the window behind my desk at work: a philodendron named Lola, and a baby jasmine named Mary Catherine.

I’m hoping that naming them increases their will to live.

Or at least gives me something to call them at their funeral in about a week.

My website is the #2 hit on Google.com for “ben affleck tighty whities.” I’m going for the top spot, but I’m not totally sure what that involves.

I think I would have fun being an exhibit at Sea World. I enjoy swimming and sunning, I love eating raw fish, and I definitely don’t care if people stare at me.

The only thing I’m worried about is one of the trainers trying to hop on my back.

I once received a phone call from a friend who needed some help with editing a paragraph in a project. He didn’t have internet access, though, so he couldn’t email it to me.

He asked if he could fax it, so I could then critique it and fax it back to him. I did, in fact, have access to a fax machine at the office — despite the fact that I feel they’re on the same technology plane as boxed chardonnay — so I agreed to do it when I had some time.

He said this would be fine. After all, he knew I was busy.

Five minutes later, the fax came through. The paragraph was a complete nightmare. I didn’t have time to drill into it right then, so I decided I’d work on it after lunch when my blood sugar was higher. He phoned five minutes later.

“Did you send it back?”

“No, I haven’t done it yet.”

“When are you going to do it?”

“Well, after lunch. You said I could do it when I had time.”

“Oh… really? After lunch? Really?”

“Yeah… are you in a hurry now?”

“I’d just like to get it done. It’s weighing on me.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll do it right now.”

So I dug into the feeble text, trying to wrest coherent sentences from the comma-less mess. Five minutes later, he phoned.

“Hey! Done yet?”

“No! You just called me five minutes ago!”

“Well, it’s not like it was a LONG paragraph.”

“No, you’re right. It’s just really BAD.”

“It’s not that bad… it just needs a bit of tweaking!”

“A bit of tweaking? I wasn’t even sure it was in English!”

“Okay, you don’t have to be mean about it.”

“Then stop harassing me!”

I hung up the phone, and got back to work. I couldn’t really figure out what the paragraph was trying to say, but at least the grammar was approaching a solid state. The content was HIS issue. Then the phone rang.

“Did you send it?”

“Holy cow.”

“Meg, I want to get out of here soon. I don’t want to be stuck sitting by the fax machine.” At this point, I was about ready to rip his face off through the phone.

“I’ll send it in five minutes. You just stand right there, ok?”

The paragraph had sixty-two words.

I sent them one per page.

The phone started to ring almost immediately.

I didn’t answer it.