Recent Effluvia:

Remember when your parents gave you wholly unscientific superstitions and warnings, such as “Don’t swallow gum; it will stay in your stomach for seven years!” or, “If you make a face like that, it will stick that way forever.” Nikki and I were discussing those this afternoon when I had the idea to write up some new ones.

1. Step on a crack, break your mother’s Internet connection.
2. If you don’t eat your broccoli, you will starve in Ethiopia when you grow up.
3. If you don’t stop talking on the cell phone, your ears will grow over it.
4. If you wear Uggs with miniskirts, your knees will swell up like balloons and no one will marry you.
5. Break an iPod and get seven years of bad music.
6. If a black cat crosses your path during World of Warcraft, you will lose.
7. If your nose itches, it means your boyfriend is wearing too much Axe body spray.
8. Blackout at night, hackers’ delight;
   Blackout at morning, bloggers take warning
9. If you sneeze too hard, your chances of appearing on American Idol are zero.
10. Which superstitions and taboos would you like to teach your children?

Last night’s flight home was not uneventful. We were still in the air—nearly a half hour late—when the pilot said, “I’m sure you may have noticed that we’ve just been flying around in circles. We can’t land due to strong thunderstorms over Detroit, but we’ll need to or we’ll run out of fuel soon.”

Not the type of message that inspires confidence.

People started panicking and biting their nails. He might as well have said, “I am in ur airplane, crashing ur passengers.” While waiting to die land, I thought of some cruel things flight attendants could say:

1. “We’re running low on oxygen. Could you try not to breathe for the remainder of the trip?”
2. “So! Who knows how to land a plane? Hands, please.”
3. “Does anyone know how to check a pulse? The pilots aren’t moving.”
4. “I know there’s no smoking onboard aircraft, but this might be a really good time to light up.”
5. “I hope you were paying attention when I told you how to use your seat as a life preserver.”
6. “Those of you in exit rows might want to notify next of kin.”
7. “Now if I were a bomb, what suitcase would I be hiding in?”
8. “I don’t think you’ll need to worry about making your connecting flights.”
9. “OK. Who’s the wise guy that stuck pins in this pilot-shaped doll?”
10. “Tonight’s movie is Gigli.”

Seriously. We checked.

1. Barfz, as in, “He barfz a lot”.
2. Uepoxy, as in, “Can uepoxy this together?”
3. Uquité, which Natalie insists is a Spanish word yet to be invented.
4. Taintzo, as in, “Say it t’aintzo.”
5. Z-Slap, 3 bitch-slaps in a Zorro pattern
6. Rootzen, Natalie insists this is German. Apparently my German dictionary is out of date.
7. iLarge, New, from Apple.
8. Eau de U.S., the smell of the United States
9. Got any other words we should have tried?

While I’m a bit of a multi-tasker myself, I find that many combinations are simply not suitable together. For example:

1. Putting in contact lenses while bull-fighting
2. Bikini waxing while practicing the luge
3. Ransacking a city while baby-sitting
4. Performing testicular surgery while driving in NASCAR
5. Committing hari kiri while toasting the bride and groom
6. Raking leaves while pursuing a criminal
7. Grooming a pet while eating spaghetti
8. Training a dog to sit while jogging
9. Talking to Davezilla while dressed as a clown
10. What combinations would you avoid?