My Greatest Fear #41: Cutting Off Circulation in My Finger While Flossing and Losing the Finger
I’ve flossed my teeth every day for the last 14 years. You could drive a Hummer over my gums and they wouldn’t bleed (okay, not the best choice of words there, but I’m sticking with it). I use the same thick Glide floss that James Bond uses to strangle villains. It doesn’t take me long [...]
My Greatest Fear #40: Having 21 Items in the “20 Items or Fewer” Checkout Lane
Yesterday I hurried through the grocery store on my way home, checking off items on my list like a professional shopper. When I arrived at the front of the store to check out, I discovered that most of the lanes were crowded, with one exception: The 20 Items or Fewer aisle. I scanned my cart, [...]
My Greatest Fear #39: Doing the One Thing You Absolutely Must Not Do
The cup of urine stared at me. I stared back. I knew I was moments away from drinking it. Let’s back up a little. On my recent post about beautiful places in the world, I mentioned the sensation you get when you’re on top of a tall building or cliff and you know that the [...]
My Greatest Fear #38: Staining My Dress Pants the Day After I Get Them Back from the Dry Cleaners
Confession: I don’t go to the dry cleaners all that often. I wash my other clothes on a regular basis, but for some reason it rarely occurs to me that my dress pants–which I wear several times a week–can get dirty. But they do. And then they smell of farts. Despite knowing that, usually the [...]
My Greatest Fear #37: Passing Out from Exhaust Fumes While Cleaning Snow Off My Car
Last Saturday night, it snowed in St. Louis. I woke up Sunday morning to find my car covered with about 4 inches of powder. As I was brushing snow off my car (I brush ALL of the snow off my car, even the hood and roof. I’m always worried that if I leave any of [...]
My Greatest Fear #36: That the Awesome Guest Star Won’t Become a Series Regular
Recently, something terrible happened on New Girl. Olivia Munn left the show. Granted, she was only in three episodes, but I love me some Olivia Munn, so to add her to one of my favorite shows made me a very, very happy man. But I was also a nervous wreck during those episodes, because I [...]
My Greatest Fear #35: That the Laptop Is Still on After You Close It
The way laptops should work (and 99% of the time, this is how theydo work) is when you close them, they go to sleep, and when you shut them down and close them, they do indeed shut down. But every once in a while, that’s not what happens. Instead, the screen stays on and overheats the whole machine. [...]
My Greatest Fear #34: Getting Stuck with a Full Bladder
A few years ago, I was on a flight back to St. Louis. I kind of had to go to the bathroom just before we started our descent, but I was in a good plane-coma state, so I decided to wait until we arrived to use the more spacious airport bathrooms. Big mistake. We ended [...]
My Greatest Fear #33: That I Can Smell Toxic Odorless Gases and I’M SMELLING ONE RIGHT NOW
Sorry about the all-caps in the title there, folks. I can’t bold or italicize in the entry title. I have what scientists call a “fairly keen sense of smell.” I wonder if people who get migraines have heightened senses, because when I used to get migraines, the slightest foul odor from 50+ feet away would [...]
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 [...]
My Greatest Fear #32: Drowning in My Sleep
People do weird things in their sleep, don’t they? When I was a young boy, I used to sleepwalk when I had to go to the bathroom. My parents once found me climbing up a bookshelf; they always asked me what I was doing. I think that time I explained to them that I was [...]
My Greatest Fear #31: Causing a Car Accident with a Sneeze
I’m surprised the human race has survived despite the bodily function we call sneezing. When you sneeze, you project your innards at 100 mph into the surrounding air. We’re talking about a force so strong that it’s physically impossible to keep your eyes open when it happens. How are there not more sneezing-related injuries? And I’m [...]
My Greatest Fear #30: Spraying Myself in the Eyes with PAM
Every two weeks, I make chocolate-chip pancakes on the weekend. I’ve done this every 2-3 weekends for the past 4 years. I love chocolate-chip pancakes (semi-sweet chips, mind you), but I don’t want to burn myself out on them by having them every week. And I never want to go more than 3 weeks without [...]
Best Blog Comments of July 2012
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the conversation that is this blog with their thoughts and insights this month. We are very, very close to our 10,000th comment here on jameystegmaier.com. We’re going to commemorate that comment (wait, why am I speaking in plural) with an in-depth analysis–yes, a full entry devoted to that one [...]
My Greatest Fear #29: Accidentally Dialing 9-1-1
I’m not sure if other people had the 911 talk with their parents when they were kids. Nor am I sure that my talk went anything like the following. In fact, I’m pretty sure it didn’t. But this is the impression it made on me: Dad: Jamey, your mom and I need to talk to [...]
My Greatest Fear #28: Spitting My Drink All Over a Date
I’ll start off by saying that like all of my greatest fears, this has never happened. I’m sorry to disappoint. But it COULD happen. On a date the other day, it occurred to me that this fear has come to mind on many dates. I’ll be taking a sip of water or beer, and suddenly [...]
Best Blog Comments of June 2012
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the conversation that is this blog with their thoughts and insights this month. Here are some of my favorite comments from June: Let’s lead off with a great customer service story from Dawn on my entry about notaries: Every Sunday I get a bagel and tea for breakfast. I [...]
Best Blog Comments of May 2012
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the conversation that is this blog with their thoughts and insights this month. Here are some of my favorite comments from May: Josh wins the Taking Science Fiction Seriously Award for this comment on my entry about how backwards time travel doesn’t work: You seem to know an awful [...]
Your Greatest Fear #27: Trash-Talking After Butt-Dialing
Today’s guest blog is brought to you by blog visitor, beta reader extraordinaire, and Blank Slate Press selection committee member Ansley. She has a very specific fear to share with you today that I’m going to add to my coda of greatest fears. I have some pretty wacky fears. (Insert horse picture here.) (Insert clown [...]
Best Blog Comments of April 2012
Thank you all who took the time to join the conversation this month, whether it was on the blog or in your personal life. I don’t track comments that you make about the blog in your personal life, though, so as always, I’ll be using comments from the blog to determine my favorites of April. [...]
The Best Hour of Television I’ve Ever Seen
I’ve seen every episode of The Sopranos, Lost, The Wire, Dexter, The Walking Dead, and Game of Thrones, some of the most polished hour-long television dramas ever. That said, last night’s episode of Mad Men was the best-written scripted hour of television I’ve ever seen. Those shows all have much in common. Sure, each one [...]
My Greatest Fear #26: Pulling a “Memento”
If you haven’t seen the movie Memento, please stop reading and watch the movie. Back already? Good. In Memento, a character has a memory disorder that causes memories to fade after a few minutes. His wife realizes that he’s not faking the disorder when she asks him to administer her daily insulin shot time every few [...]
My Greatest Fear #25: The Key Breaking Off in the Lock
I have never had a key break off in the lock, and yet the possibility of it happening crosses my mind at least once a week. I’m not even sure why I think this is a thing that can happen. I’m sure it happened once in a movie I saw in my formative years (ages [...]
My Greatest Fear #24: Dropping a Baby
Over Christmas break, I went to see my good friend Bryce, his wife Jody, and their adorable baby Claire. At least, I think their baby is named Claire. At my age, everyone has a baby, and their names all run together. Let’s go with Claire, but it could just as easily be Felicity, Emily, or [...]
