Pet Please #84: When a Real Doctor Confirms Your Self-Diagnosis
Let me start off by saying that earwax, albeit gross, is a good thing. Your body produces earwax to prevent bad stuff from ruining your inner ear–the wax flushes out the bad stuff. Like little spiders that crawl into your ears at night to lay eggs. We’re all on the same page, right? Earwax = [...]
Pet Please #83: Animals with Three Legs
Okay, to be clear, the fact that any four-legged animal should end up with three legs is heartbreaking to me. The deformity or accident that caused the animal to lose its leg is absolutely tragic. What I’m talking about is the hope and happiness I see in three-legged animals. There is a dog–a German Shepherd [...]
Pet Please/Pet Peeve: Stunt and Butt Doubles
Pet Please #82: Actors and Actresses Who Do Their Own Stunts Do you ever read a movie review or synopsis that reveals the main actor or actress did his or her own stunts? Whenever I read that, my excitement for the movie jumps. I think part of it is that I feel like the actor [...]
Pet Please #81: Discovering the Perfect Salsa
Sometimes the greatest loves of our lives have been there all along. I’ve tried many a canned salsa in my day. There’s a whole shelf of them at the grocery store, not to mention the home-brew varieties in the fresh veggies section. I’ll say it–I’ve been around the block when it comes to salsas. With so many [...]
Festivus 2012 Pet Pleases
I haven’t received the Festivus rankings from my impartial voters yet, but I do have something to share with you today. By Trev’s suggestion, I added a slim column to my Festivus grievance whiteboards for pet pleases. I know, it goes against the spirit of Festivus, but I like the idea that even on a [...]
Pet Please #80: George Lucas No Longer Owns Star Wars
Sweet baby Skywalker. The day has finally, finally come. Nay–I didn’t think this day would ever come. I really didn’t even think it was a possibility. Which makes it all the more sweet. Disney bought Lucasfilm from George Lucas so that they could own Star Wars. And they’ve already said that Star Wars VII is [...]
Pet Please #79: When You Learn That Something You Assumed Was Terrible Isn’t Actually All That Bad
This might be the most vague pet please yet, but bear with me–I think you’ll understand why I left it open-ended. The other day at work, a coworker came into my office to get some Tums (people have to walk through my office to get to the bathroom). She said that she had really bad [...]
Pet Please #78: Any Costume Can Be Sexy on Halloween
I’ve written about Halloween on the blog in the past, even touching upon this subject. But it deserves its own pet please. There were a number of years when I thought that I’d never enjoy Halloween as much as I did when I was a kid. Back then, the costumes–despite how incredible they were, thanks [...]
Pet Please #77: Learning That an Innocent-Sounding Song Is Actually Quite Naughty
Have you caught yourself bobbing your head to “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes lately? It’s that peppy song with the whistling. Just an innocent little ditty about coming home with someone you care about, right? “Bobbing” might be the only accurate modifier for that song, because apparently that song is about oral [...]
Pet Please #76: Animal Photobombs
Thanks to alert reader and friend Amanda, I was recently treated to this image from Buzzfeed: It took me a second to realize what the girls were so distraught about. And then I saw the gleeful sting ray behind them. Absolutely spectacular. It’s one thing when a human photobombs other humans, but animal photobombs are [...]
Pet Please #75: Suggestive E-mail Subject Lines
I love a good e-mail subject line. This is especially the case if it applies to fun content within the e-mail itself, but it doesn’t have to be. Sometimes it’s just a nice start to an unrelated conversation. Specifically, I’m talking about suggestive subject lines. Not to limit this to one gender, but sorry guys, [...]
Pet Please #74: That Moment When Your Pet Decides Out of the Blue That Everything Needs to Stop and You Need to Snuggle NOW
People who have dogs may not be able to relate to this entry. My experience with dogs is that they’re okay–if not outright excited–to snuggle at pretty much any time. Sure, there are exceptions, but that’s most dogs. Cats are a whole other animal (obviously). I can’t speak for all cats, but I can speak [...]
Pet Please #73: Remembering Exactly Where You Saved an Elusive File
When I started my job about 5 years ago, I was astonished to find that the main hub folder on our fileserver had hundreds of files in it. There were a number of folders, many of them redundant, and then a poop-ton of Word, Excel, and PDF documents. It was as if at some point [...]
Pet Please #72: When Scientists Decide That Something Delicious Is Good for You
You know the moment. You’re flipping through the news or the paper or Google Reader when you see the headline: Scientists Declare That Small Doses of Dark Chocolate Are Good for You Your heart skips a beat. Hallelujah, the day has come! You can now take your coveted 3:00 dark chocolate break without feeling guilty. Heck, [...]
Pet Please #71: When Something Is Too Beautiful for Your Brain to Comprehend
When I was 14, my family went on a cross-country train trip. We went up to Chicago to see a Frank Lloyd Wright house, across Utah, up to Oregon, back across Glacier National Park, and eventually we ended up back home in Virginia. It was a great trip, and I’m glad I took it when [...]
Pet Please #70: Keeping Your Favorite Stuffed Animal Through Adulthood
I haven’t seen the recent movie Ted, but the premise is so simply brilliant that I’m sure I will. A boy wishes that his stuffed teddy bear will come alive and talk to him, and he does…and then the bear grows up with the boy. I’m not sure if teddy bears go through puberty, but [...]
3 Quick Pet Pleases
#67: That moment at a wedding or formal event when you can finally loosen your tie (or, for the ladies, when you can take off your heels). #68: When you realize that the worrisome smell that you thought was coming from your car is actually coming from the car in front of you. #69: Needing [...]
Pet Please #66: The Moment When Two Voices Join in a Duet
I’ve been surprised by the recent popularity of the Gotye song “Somebody That I Used to Know.” It came out almost a year ago, and yet it gained traction sometime this winter and has been at the top of the charts since then. It’s a catchy song, easy to remember, and full of emotion, but [...]
Pet Please #65: Good Cop/Bad Cop
There are few things I love more in this world than good cop/bad cop. This classic cop movie move is best applied in real life in situations where it is in no way necessary (or appropriate) for one person to be overly kind and compassionate and the other overly angry and aggressive. In fact, I [...]
Pet Please #64: When You Get to Make Someone’s Dream Come True
Originally this pet please was going to be “when your expectations are exceeded.” But then I realized that this isn’t about me–it’s about a man named Steve Wiegenstein. Steve is a professor at Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri. Last year, he sent a completed manuscript of a novel he had written to my publishing company [...]
Pet Please #63: 1000 Awesome Things
For the past 4 years, I’ve been following a blog called 1000 Awesome Things. The author of the blog publishes once every weekday, just like me, and he even posts around the same time, so often I see my blog right next to his in Google Reader. 1000 Awesome Things is essentially my Pet Please [...]
Pet Please #62: People Who Don’t Talk on Their Cell Phones While Walking Their Dogs
In all honesty, this post is about women who don’t talk on their cell phones while walking their dogs, but I wanted to make it open to people of all genders and sexual orientations. Two things contribute to this pet please: I look at women WAY too much when I’m driving. I’ve recently realized that [...]
Pet Please #61: Animals Snuggling with Stuffed Animals
The other day I was driving over to a friend’s house when it hit me: animals snuggling with stuffed animals is pretty much the cutest thing ever. (Yes, this is the type of thought that randomly pops into my head.) Immediately my mind started spinning. I could start a Tumblr. People could submit photos of [...]
Pet Please #60: Unexpected Free Things
Today I ran over to The Cup for some cupcakes after work. I was worried about parking as I pulled into Maryland Plaza, but then pleasantly surprised to find a yellow-zone parking spot right in front of the building. I figured I’d jump inside, order some cupcakes, and be back within a few minutes. But [...]
