I totally just won the U.K. Lottery. SEE YOU LATER LOSERS.

Confession: I got suckered recently.

My dad told me a story the not-too-long-ago on the phone. It was funny in a kind of weird, distressing way, so I passed it along to someone.

The story my dad told me?

“This woman who works with your aunt has an autistic son. One day, after he’d gotten home from school, he called her at work. ‘I caught a troll,’ he said. ‘I’ve got him locked in the closet.’ She thought he was making things up, but he was very insistent, so she called her husband at work and asked him to go home and check on their son. He did, and heard banging coming from inside a closet. When he opened the closet, over his son’s protests, he found a very indignant little person, who had been going door-to-door working for the Census bureau. The son had thought he was a troll, overpowered him, and locked him in the closet.”

Sound familiar?

It should. It probably happened to a friend of a friend of yours, or your brother-in-law’s cousin, or your hairdresser’s son.

It’s a goddamn urban legend. 

Now, you’re reading this and thinking I’m a complete dumbass. And honestly, I have no idea why this didn’t raise a red flag to me. I think because it was my father telling it to me, and my father doesn’t usually fall for garbage. And he heard it from my uncle, who is very serious about things. As is my aunt. They are not the usual people who are suckered into crap.

It didn’t even hit me until a week later, when the person I’d passed the story along to said, “You know what’s funny? I told that story to my aunt, and she told me it also happened to a friend of a friend of hers! She must be friends with your aunt’s co-worker!” Ding ding ding! FRIEND OF A FRIEND. Shit shit shit. I’d passed along an urban legend. I’d become THAT GIRL. I was one step away from forwarding chain emails WRITTEN ALL IN CAPS WITH EMBARRASSING TYPOS and LOTS OF LOLS and HEARTS and CARTOONS OF FLAGS telling people that Obama is a terrorist because I’d read it somewhere on the interwebs. I might as well start wearing kittycat sweaters and getting a blue rinse in my tight old-lady perm.

What’s even more embarrassing is that I’m a huge fan of urban legends. I love to debunk those stupid emails. I’ve read books on the genesis of urban legends. I used to be obsessed with that awful show Jonathan Frakes hosted, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction. Did anyone else ever used to watch this? Apparently it aired from 1997 to 2002, but I caught it on reruns years later. It was horrendous. It had about six segments per episode, and you watched each segment (the segments were about ghosts, psychic phenomena, urban legends, and various other odd occurrences) and decided if it was a fact or fiction. Then at the end, Jonathan Frakes told you if you were right. Only, sometimes the show was wrong, and it would tell you that an urban legend was a fact, and that was off-putting. What can you expect, it was on FOX. The reenactments were horrendously produced, too. They were about as low-budget as they come. Like, people would run across a “set” and the walls would shake because they were made of cardboard. That bad. I LOVED IT. It was one of those shows that aired in repeats on Sunday afternoons when there was nothing else on and I’d get suckered in and I’d yell at the television. “THAT IS NOT A TRUE STORY JONATHAN FRAKES!” I would gleefully shout, as my roommate shook her head and wondered why I watched something that was obviously incorrect and awful.

I like urban legends because they are our generation’s version of fairy tales, passed from person to person, like back in the day when our ancestors would sit around the campfire telling stories to one another. Only they’re usually pretty stupid. But the ones that aren’t entertain me to no end. I love the creativity involved in them! The good old fashioned storytelling!

My favorites are the scary ones – like the gang initation/headlight thing (which many people I know ARE CONVINCED IS TOTALLY TRUE!!!) – or the really stupid ones, like the woman who dried her poodle in the microwave. I’m easily amused.

I get a lot of urban legend email forwards from people, which I like to forward back to them, with the Snopes article debunking their claim attached. The top ones they send are that Facebook is going to make us start paying for content (no they’re not), that Obama is a terrorist for so many reasons (I get this one because I’m one of those goddamn liberals and I live in the most goddamn liberal town full of goddamn liberals who are goddamn brainwashing me using their goddamn liberal brainwashing tactics – since I’m originally from a bastion of conservatism, people there think it is their duty to educate me that my beliefs are WRONG and I am SUPPORTING TERRORISTS) (and Obama isn’t a terrorist, so STOP IT PEOPLE),  and a million of those chain letters telling me that if I don’t forward them, everyone I love is going to die in a horrible bloody chainsaw tractor accident and then get hit by a meteorite sent by a  vengeful God.

STOP SENDING ME GARBAGE.

I even get them at work. It’s gotten so bad that my IT department had to send out a memo earlier in the month telling people the signs to look for that what you’re forwarding to people is probably an urban legend and not a very hot tip that your friends need to know in order to survive and not die screaming.

The tips from the IT department:

It suggests tragic consequences for not performing some action.

It promises money or gift certificates for performing some action.

It claims it's not a hoax.

There are multiple spelling or grammatical errors, or the logic is contradictory.

There is a statement urging you to forward the message.

It has already been forwarded multiple times (evident from the trail of email headers in the body of the message).

These are good tips, IT department. However, people don’t pay attention to them. They read these tips, they think, “Hey! Good tips!” and then forward the next damn hoax that comes along, because they think that the tips don’t apply to them. People think they are exempt from the rules of urban legends. Much like me and my stupid passing along of the troll story, they think “but this will not happen to ME! I would not pass along an urban legend!”

Let’s look at these tips in more detail.

It suggests tragic consequences for not performing some action/It promises money or gift certificates for performing some action/There is a statement urging you to forward the message.

People still think – STILL, and this started happening EONS ago – that Bill Gates is going to send them money for forwarding an email. It’s not going to happen. Also, those chain emails that say that if you don’t forward an email to the ten most fabulous women you know within the next fifteen minutes or you will NEVER FIND LOVE EVER and also, if you don’t send it back to the person who forwarded it to you, SHE WILL KNOW WHAT A SHITTY FRIEND YOU ARE? Well, color me shitty, because I just hit delete, asshole. STOP SPAMMING ME. Seriously. Why are you wasting our mutual time on this? Why aren’t you WORKING? At WORK? I mean, I know why I’m not. I’ve got a very important and socially-relevant blog about important things like whorish Halloween costumes and pie charts to write and if I don’t write in it, there are literally TENS of people who will be disappointed. But you? And the worst thing, one of the people who sent me the most of these, before I completely blocked her email, was in the medical field. Um. You’re supposed to be saving people’s lives, I think? And also, years of medical school, and you still think that chain letters both work and are something that you need to fill your friend’s email inboxes with? If I ever get injured, please bring me to any hospital but yours. Thanks in advance.

It claims it’s not a hoax.

I love this. That’s someone sending you an email telling you you’ve won the British Lottery, or someone telling you that they’re the Prince of Uganda and you need to deposit their check into your bank account, or a homeless person coming up to you, smelling of beer, telling you they just need $20 for a bus ticket to visit their sick mother. “But it MUST be true! It SAYS SO! Right HERE!” Yes! Yes it does. Well! Then how could it be A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FALSEHOOD. Because NO ONE HAS EVER LIED TO ANYONE EVER IN PRINT.

There are multiple spelling or grammatical errors, or the logic is contradictory.

Well, if it’s coming from one of the people who usually send me this kind of crap, the spelling errors could either be in the original message, or coming from them, honestly, so this one’s hard to tell. And as for logic – well, logic isn’t really the strong suit of people who are sending these things. People who are sending these things think that a multitude of celebrities died falling off of cliffs, that black and white caterpillars are poisonous, and casinos pump extra oxygen in to keep gamers awake and playing longer. 

It has already been forwarded multiple times (evident from the trail of email headers in the body of the message).

Then it MUST be true. Look at all the people who have already seen it! THIS IS A FAMOUS EMAIL.

Here’s my urban legend advice.

If you hear “friend of a friend” – GO TO SNOPES.COM.

If it sounds overly jingoistic and suspect – GO TO SNOPES.COM.

If you get an email forward with a lot of caps, misspellings, and teddy bear cartoons – DELETE IT.

If you send me garbage like this – BE PREPARED TO GET A SNOPES LINK FORWARDED BACK TO YOU, or, alternately, GO DIE IN A FIRE YOU’RE WASTING MY PRECIOUS TIME.

Now, send this post to everyone you know within the next ten minutes or you will not get the money that’s coming to you, you will get boils on your face, your hair will fall out, your prince will NEVER come, and you’ll get crabs the size of cockroaches. A friend of a friend told me so. IT MUST BE TRUE.

Get Back Into the Kitchen and Make Me Some Pie (Charts)

My reputation as the queen of all things statistically-related has become LEGENDARY. Which is totally awesome – I love a good pie chart – but also confusing, because I think you might not know, people, how a pie chart actually works.

Three different people came here searching for pie-chart related goodness this past month. I would have discussed this with my stats post I did recently but that post got crazy-ass long and I think this deserves a post all on its own, frankly. If you are bored by my complete and total obsession with my stats, FINE, you are a killer of all things JOYFUL, how does it feel to be a JOYMISER.

If the things the searchers were looking for were things that could be put into a pie chart, I assure you, I would be all over making these pie charts. There is no bad time for a pie chart. Also, related story: no bad time for pie itself. Pie is a winner of a dessert. I love pie. When I was a kid, I was very sad because there was only pecan pie for dessert one year, and I hate pecans. So the following year, my grandmother made me a pecan-less pecan pie. Do you know what that is? A Karo syrup pie. AND IT WAS THE BOMB YO. Also I think I’m still on a sugar high from it but that’s neither here nor there. I also like cake. And cookies. FINE ALL DESSERT ITEMS CAN COME TO ME THAT IS OK.

Anyway, this is what people were searching for in pie-chart form this month:

Pie charts of the top ten things girls like

What you know pie chart

Pie chart things you can suck

These are all funny things, and kind of awesome things, and in one case, a totally awesomely dirty thing, but NOT THINGS THAT ARE BEST COMPARED USING A PIE CHART.

I’m going to give you a quick lesson in what works best when you’re looking to compare things, statistically-speaking. I’ll try to keep it brief for ADD purposes.

A PIE CHART is used to compare parts of a whole. An example: “Things People Did in the Park Saturday” would be the whole; parts would be “played Frisbee,” “picnicked,” “read books,” and “masturbated behind a bush and then cried because they realized they would be forever alone.”

A BAR GRAPH is a little more confusing. There’s an X-Y axis. The X-axis is one value (for example, “% crazy”) and the Y-axis is another value (“how long I went out with them.) Then you put bars in the graph and you can see things like how crazy someone is compares to how long you dated them. (Spoiler alert, the crazier, the longer we were together. More of an indictment of me or them? I refuse to answer this question.)

A LIST is something you can make for any reason, at any time, if you are sane or a looney, and it can be adapted to any situation. You can make it a simple list; you can make it fancy and make it a pro and con list.

There are also much more confusing things that are harder to explain, like a line graph, an area graph, an X-Y plot, a scatterplot, a histogram, a Venn diagram, a frequency polygon, etc. But I’m just going to go ahead and assume, since you just keep searching for everything with “pie chart” in front of it, that the nuances of statistics escape you.

A note about lists. Lists are awesome because you can make them anywhere. On the back of a receipt. On a laptop. On a post-it. I am a consummate list-maker. So are crazy people, though. I know that. I get it. I’m pretty sure the Unabomber liked his lists a great deal. But I’m kind of a weirdo obsessive, and I like there to be lists. I like everything to be in list form, so I can CONQUER IT. I also like to be able to look over the lists. For example, I write down every book I read every year in list form. Then, at the end of the year, I make a list of my top ten books of the year. Why do I do this? No reason whatsoever other than to look back at the top ten books I read over the past 5 years and say, “Hey, I like that author, I should see if he or she has anything new coming out soon!” Things like that. Also, lists are calming. Soothing. Relaxing. Organized. Sane. Except if you’re a crazy, I suppose. How to tell? Well, if your list is titled “People I Want to Die in a Fire” or “Things I Haven’t Put Up My Nose Yet This Year” I’d probably say you’re a nutbag. But if your list is something like “Discontinued Nail Polish Colors to Look for On Ebay” you’re just obsessive-compulsive and a hoarder. You’re welcome!

I think what you want, people who are searching, are lists. Because pie charts wouldn’t work in these situations. You aren’t comparing anything. So here are your lists. I TOLD YOU I AM HELPFUL.

Top ten things girls like

Sanity

A sense of humor

Cleanliness

Self-reliance

A job

Intelligence

Ability to express emotion

Adult conversation and debate skills

No dead hookers in the closet

That sexy lower-back dip thing that man have that makes our knees wobble

What you know

Stuff

Things

That this is a stupid question

How to change my own wiper blades

That “I wanna tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot” is one of the best lines of rock music ever written

That most people are total jackholes but sometimes people will surprise you with their beauty and sincerity

That I am loud and annoying but for some reason people seem to like me anyway

That my nephew is better than anything ever

That certain Saturday Night Live skits will never not be funny to me, no matter where I am or what I’m doing

That if I don’t stop answering this question the rest of this post is never going to get written

Things you can suck

Lollipops

Your mom

Your dad

Your thumb

Popsicles

Straws

Jolly Ranchers

Pickles

Peppermints

The government teat

Lemons

Rocks

A bag of dicks (credit to Cara)

Me

It

See? LISTS. Lists, not pie charts. And, as a final example, some pie charts done correctly (none of which I made myself, sorry, they're all stolen from the Interwebs and I have no idea who the authors are so thank you, anonymous authors!):

YOU ARE SO WELCOME.

I kept hearing that lyric "I got one hand in my pocket" in my mind. I know. I'm sorry.

I know this is going to shock and awe you, but until recently, I had never seen a Lifetime movie in its entirety. I know! Don't I seem like the kind of person who would eat these things up? And with titles like Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? and She Woke Up Pregnant HOW CAN YOU GO WRONG. (And now that I know about it, I NEED TO WATCH SHE WOKE UP PREGNANT. How have I not seen this? What an awesome teaser. How did THAT happen? Oh, hello, a baby! When I went to sleep that was not there, but now that I have awoken, it is there!) But no, seriously, I have never sat all the way through one. I've seen bits and pieces. Once I saw part of one with Meredith Baxter-Birney (although I think she's not hyphenated anymore because she got divorced and married a woman? Meredith Baxter, then?) and I think she was an alcoholic or something and was crashing around and fell down in the pantry and this seemed like something Mrs. Keaton WOULD NOT DO so I turned it off. Me not watching a full Lifetime movie is mostly due to the fact that I have insane ADD. Like, I can barely sit through an hour-long drama without getting up and running around like Tom and Jerry chasing each other around the apartment at least four times. I get SO BORED. Even if it's good. This is part of the reason I don't see a lot of movies in the theater, because running around like a lunatic? Kind of frowned upon in there. What? Oh, yeah, I'm totally off topic, WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE YOU ARE SURPRISED.

Anyway, because I thought, hey! Everyone should see at least ONE Lifetime movie all the way through in their lifetime (ha! that was kind of almost a joke! I know, I know, I'm totally the funniest person ever, you don't have to tell me because I'm aware of my total domination of hilarity!) And also, Lifetime is television FOR WOMEN. Well! I AM a woman. So it's like it's MADE for me. That's like someone giving me a FREE TAMPON. I have a use for that! BECAUSE I AM A LADY!

For my viewing pleasure, I chose a very excellent movie entitled The Craigslist Killer.  This was for a number of reasons, which I will lay out for you in a handy bullet-pointed list because everyone likes both bullets and lists:

• Craigslist is absolutely enthralling to me. Everything you could ever want is there. Free chairs! Crap for sale! Things to do! A man who wants you to stomp on his son's train set while eating crab meat! Missed connections! And so many perverts. Like, a meeeelion perverts. Perverts love posting for free, you see.
• I am obsessed with killers. There. I've said it. Listen, I'm not at all proud of this. And I'm not saying I'm one of those people who marries a serial killer on death row, or anything, but I am fascinated by what drives a person to become a serial killer. In another life, I'm pretty sure I was either a profiler, or a victim of a serial killer. Not a serial killer, though, because I just don't have the energy. You have to think of SO MANY THINGS. What to bring! What to wear! When to show up! Planning, planning, planning! I am not good at minutiae. I would get caught driving away.
• I was on vacation, and there's no cable, so anything seemed like a good idea.
• The Craig's List Killer story was one I followed pretty avidly, because, as mentioned, obsessed with killers, but it was so bizarre to me that I couldn't look away. Also, the killer went to school in the town where I live now, so it was everywhere on the news here. We're pretty proud of our hometown heroes.

So, The Craigslist Killer. First - you remember this story, right? Fine, upstanding med student, engaged, living in Massachusetts, is secretly meeting up with people advertising "erotic services" on Craig's List, and then, for some reason, decides screwing around with them isn't enough, so he starts robbing them, and then gets a gun and kills one of them. Then the cops catch him and he goes to jail and his girlfriend was very "stand by her man" for a while, and we were all, "whaaa? HOW COULD SHE NOT KNOW" but then I guess she got wise to, oh, I don't know, the TONS OF EVIDENCE IN HER APARTMENT, and she broke up with him, and then he killed himself in jail after scrawling her name all over the walls in his own blood, therefore cutting short the state's plans of trying him for the murder.

Now, The Craigslist Killer movie. Well, it was similar to the true story, I think, for the most part. It had that going for it. The bare bones were there. The facts were there. But there were some missteps.

After watching this, I came to a very important conclusion: there is now no need, no need at all, to ever watch another Lifetime movie again as long as I live.

I took some notes so I could share them with you, because I was watching it somewhere where there was no internet or cable.

Transcribed from my notes:

This is the WORST. (It is important to note this was written five minutes into the movie.)

If you want to school at SUNY Albany, you would probably not pronounce it SUNY AAAHL-banny, with a long "a" at the beginning. Because NO ONE SAYS THAT. And we'd slap you if you did. It's ALL-bunny. I know. It kind of looks like it should be pronounced as it's written - like the man's name Al, and then "bany" pronounced like "banny." But that's not the case, and people who went to school here FOR FOUR YEARS would know that. Or they'd have been beaten up a lot while living here.

He said it again. STOP SAYING ALBANY LIKE THAT.

What is going on? OK, he's having these - um, I don't know, episodes? Where it looks like he's having a personal earthquake? But nothing else is shaking, just him? Are we to assume that's the demon inside him trying to come out, or he's epileptic? THIS IS VERY CURIOUS.

OK, this is where the small amount of credibility I have just left me, because he just went into what seems to be a combination Big Lots and survivalist store and filled a cart with duct tape, rope, and disposable cell phones (and asked the guy stocking the shelves, VERY secretive-like, "So, um, these are, like, the ones no one can EVER EVER track, right? Like, ever? No matter what cross your heart and hope to die?") And he went to the counter, and a very unfortunate checkout woman was checking him out - and also checking him OUT, if you  know what I mean? And as she rang up the tenth cell phone - I'm not even exaggerating - she said "You know, you could program MY number into one of these." Um. Well! How about you also tie yourself up with his rope and tape your mouth shut? Because if someone is buying a cartful of that stuff, without even sticking in some Fruit Rollups and some tampons, or something, like as a beard? RED FLAG RED FLAG HE IS A SERIAL KILLER. Oh, and he didn't even put her number in one. He just grimaced at her and had another personal earthquake and sped out of there with his bags of killin' goodies.

A whore! Oh, I can see the whore's microphone box underneath her negligee. WHO ANSWERS THE DOOR IN A NEGLIGEE. Whores, apparently.

So, I know I'm the most sheltered human being alive, but people really advertised on Craig's List for erotic massages? And people showed up for them? This is really distressing to me. And also kind of gross. What if you showed up and the masseuse was just icky? Would you go through with it? Or would you just leave and totally hurt her feelings? Or what if you really just wanted a massage and misunderstood the subtext? AWKWARD.

BILLY BALDWIN IS A COP IN THIS. Oh, Billy Baldwin. This makes me feel SO BAD FOR YOU. Do you throw darts at photos of Alec at night when you go home and weep and gnash your teeth and say, "But I was the pretty one! I was supposed to be living the dream, too!"

The fiancee's mom (also, the fiancee's nickname is "Pocket" and this is stupid) has Michele Bachmann crazy eyes and was the mean girl who stuck magnets on Phoebe's back brace in Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion. Aw! Remember Alan Cumming in that? So adorable! And the dance at the end where they looked like dying swans and I laughed so hard I fell out of my theater seat and onto the disgusting popcorny theater floor?

Comparison photo, after the fact, for those of you who might be interested:

                   

                        

Michele Bachmann (left, obviously) wins the crazy eye contest! And there was much rejoicing.

The Craiglist Killer is doing that thing where he's psyching himself up in the mirror, because I think he models himself after Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. You, sir, are no Patrick Bateman. Didn't you hear Bale's f-bomb heavy rant on the internet? No one could ever live up to that. It was the best/worst thing EVER. Don't even TRY.

Best line of the entire movie (sorry, that really should be "movie") goes to Billy Baldwin. "I don't get it. This day and age? Women inviting people they DON'T EVEN KNOW into HOTEL ROOMS?" Ha! My thoughts EXACTLY, cop played by Billy Baldwin. (Is it obvious to anyone yet that I not only didn't write down anyone's names, I actually am so filled with ennui at the thought of this movie that Googling them is too much work?) Also, it should be noted that Billy Baldwin is acting using the Joey Tribbiani "smell the fart" technique. Throughout the entire movie. Billy Baldwin! Does this make you feel bad for the time you were kind of a snotty douche when you came to my college that one time? Because I kind of feel your fall from grace is a little warranted.

There is a profiler on here who is the WORST PROFILER EVER. "I think the killer is middle-aged? And a loner? With no friends? Who can't get a girlfriend? And is ugly?" Um. OPPOSITE, profiler. Dr. Spencer Reid would have known all about the killer about twenty minutes into this movie. I am disgusted.

Out of nowhere, the cops just said, "His name is Philip Markoff! Here is his Facebook profile! HE HAS SO MANY FRIENDS!" (Sigh. YES, I looked it up. I had to. The joke wasn't funny without an actual name in it.) What? HOW DID THEY FIND THAT OUT? Did I miss something? A minute ago the only evidence they had was grainy security camera footage; now they've got him? I feel like this jumped ahead two weeks and I missed a bloody glove or something. Also, Billy Baldwin looks PISSED at all the friends the killer has. Billy Baldwin doesn't have NEAR as many Facebook friends as the Craigslist Killer, methinks. Also, the Craigslist Killer doesn't use any privacy features on his Facebook profile. Well, then you deserve to get caught. Twitter is for PUBLIC use; Facebook is for PRIVATE use. Google Plus is for everything because of the circles. Should have asked me, Craigslist Killer.

Mostly I'm just wondering how he got away with anything at this point.

"Hey, let's go to Foxwoods and do some gambling wanna go let's go no need to pack let's go go go time to be impulsive ha ha ha love you Pocket!" --the Craigslist Killer when he realizes they're onto him and decides to take his fiancee to Foxwoods Casino. She goes. Why? BECAUSE SHE IS STUPID. No, that's mean. She's actually just completely naive and a little bubbleheaded. And a med student, so, you know, totally someone you want operating on you.

"Why are they pulling me over? I'm not even speeding! Aw, shoot!" --fiancee, who doesn't see that the killer is sweating like a drunk after a three-day bender and trying to hide inside the glove compartment

In the interrogation room, the Craigslist Killer attempts to turn the tables. Billy Baldwin asks him why he would do this. "Why do YOU think I would do this?" he asks in return. Oh, well-played, Craigslist Killer. Well-played. Well, have to let you free now. You've got them! Logic is on your side, no question about that.

OMG there are a ton of women's panties rolled up underneath his mattress. THAT HE SHARES WITH HIS FIANCEE. That is totally unsanitary. I would be so skeeved out by that. I think I might stick around after the murder accusations but OH HELL NO when I found out about the skeevy whore panties. And not because of the cheating, either. BECAUSE OF THE POTENTIAL FOR CRABS.

"It's not physically possible that he could do this!" --the Craigslist Killer's mentor, who is also a doctor. Um, actually, PHYSICALLY, it is. And as a doctor, who treats the human body, it's kind of important you know if something's PHYSICALLY possible. I don't think I'll be going to this hospital anytime soon. The three people who I've met who work there are a killer, someone who doesn't understand the word "physically," and a woman so naive she doesn't know there are a million skanky pairs of panties under her mattress.

The Craigslist Killer tried to hang himself with his shoelaces but they were not very sturdy and also, you know, SHOELACES, so that didn't work. Damn. Fine plan, bro.

Why is the fiancee, who has shown kind of admirable fashion sense up until now, wearing a Member's Only jacket? Is it to show that her fashion sense, like her life, is falling apart? I might be reading too much into this movie.

Wow, that ending was abrupt. BAM, all of a sudden she decides he's a killer after all because enough people told her it happened so it must be true. Way to be decisive, Pocket! BAM, she breaks up with him. (He apparently thought the wedding was still happening because he asked if she thought the tailor would come to prison for the final fitting of the tux. Sexy!) BAM, he kills himself after writing her name all over his cell IN HIS OWN BLOOD.

What did we learn from this movie?

1. Billy Baldwin is a cautionary tale.
2. Crazy eyes are bad.
3. If someone nicknames you "Pocket" that's a sign he's deeply disturbed.
4. Buying a metric ton of disposable cell phones is never a sign that he's "the one" unless if by "the one" you mean "the one who will kill you and wear your skin as a kicky spring cape."
5. Don't watch Lifetime movies, even if they ARE for women and YOU'RE a woman, because DEAR GOD IT'S A TRICK.

A Magical Bridge of HOPE and WONDER!

Sometimes I wonder about kids that grew up always having the Internet available to them. The Internet only became a thing – well, an available thing, ubiquitous thing - when I was a freshman in college, and even then it wasn’t so shiny. There wasn’t a lot going on. Email, mostly. And I remember playing a RPG with some friends at another college. I was horrendous at it. Basically I just begged people to tell me where things were so I could accomplish missions. I wasn’t good at figuring things out myself.

One of my friends and I sometimes despair for kids growing up today, because everything they do is documented. Everything. There’s always someone with a phone taking their photo, or a video, or something, and listen, there are things that happened in college (and even in high school) that I would not want documented. I mean, did you behave yourself at every single party you attended in college? Did you not ever get so drunk you decided it was a very, very good idea to eat a rotten jack o’lantern that had been sitting on someone’s porch for a month (not me) or fill up a bathtub where someone had passed out with water until the guy almost drowned (hell, not me, this one pissed me off, I pulled the guy out of the tub, I didn’t want to be played by Tori Spelling in the Lifetime movie that would inevitably be made about the drowning of the drunk kid, probably titled “Mother May I Bathe with Heineken”) or pee behind some trees because you couldn’t wait to get home and then realize the backside of the trees was in direct view of a very busy road and, therefore, so were you (out of respect for the person this happened to I will refrain from commenting on the identity of the person who decided this was a smart idea.) (It was me.) Anyway, these all happened before phones with cameras were everywhere, thank all of our lucky stars. The last thing I’d want is a video of me mooning the bar district at just barely legal drinking age to surface when I was fifty-five, or something.

The kids now, though, I guess they’re used to it? Are they always ready for their close-up? Is it just expected that it’s going to happen, so they might as well deal with it? Is that why they’re so careless about sexting and such? Because listen, that is never, never a good idea. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, kiddos, but sending racy texts to someone, or nude photos, is going to end badly. There’s one person you can trust in this world, and it’s yourself, and you don’t have any need to sext yourself, now do you? You could just look in the mirror, or talk to yourself, or something. At some point, your relationship is going to end, and bam, revenge material. Or someone’s going to get their hands on those things and bam, what you thought was sexy is all over the papers. Remember Prince Charles telling Camilla he wanted to be her tampon? Yeah, when he was saying it, he thought it was sexy. Now it’s all I can think of when I see him. Think of that the next time you’re tempted to send nudie pics to your latest fling.

There are things about the Internet that are completely enjoyable, though. Of course, the usual suspects: instant communication with far-flung friends; social networking; media in a flash. Also:

Acronyms. As someone who loves language, I have a love/hate relationship with these. OK, first, listen, we had these before the Internet, you know. We had fubar (which I still love beyond all that is rational) and snafu (again, love – I like the ones that have a cuss in them, because I could always get away with saying them around adults and not get in too much trouble) and SCUBA. (Does anyone but me remember Alex Keaton teaching Mallory how to remember what SCUBA stood for on Family Ties? I can still immediately spout out “Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus!” on cue.) On the one hand, they’re dumbing down our speech. The first time I read “LOL” I had to ask someone what it meant. When they told me “laughing out loud” I had a long discussion with them about how stupid that was. Because I am a grammar nerd. “Writing ‘I love that LOL’ isn’t even grammatically correct. ‘I love that laughing out loud?’ Shouldn’t it be, ‘I love that, I’M LOL?’” Needless to say, what I thought didn’t matter, and LOL is everywhere. The thing that makes me laugh (or, LOL, to get with the lingo) is when people say it out loud. I worked with a kid once who, during a conversation we were having, looked at me very seriously after I’d said something funny and said, “LOL.” Our conversation after this occurred:

Me: Did you just SAY LOL?
Him: Yes.
Me: People don’t SAY LOL. This isn’t a chatroom. We’re at work.
Him: EVERYONE says LOL.
Me: Why?
Him: It saves time.
Me: Wouldn’t actually LAUGHING be quicker?
Him: You are old.

Yes, yes, I am old. (On The Good Guys - which was actually very enjoyable, was I the only one who watched this? - Bradley Whitford's character told someone "Saying OMG doesn't save you ANY TIME." I loved him for that.) So old, in fact, I often have to look up what things mean. SMH, for example. People started using this one a lot on Facebook recently. I think it’s kind of unnecessary – I mean, if you say something sarcastically, that should come across, right? Do you need to add that it made you shake your head?

However, I find acronyms kind of fascinating. They save time! They are innovative! And they brought us FTW and FML! These are two acronyms that I really, really enjoy. I propose a new one, though: FMGWAC. This is a Heathers acronym. (You can figure it out. I have faith in you.) I think we should start using it. It is never not appropriate. Just pop this into your next IM or Tweet or whatever and let’s get this thing trending.

Awesome YouTube Videos. I’m sure there are a million of these, but I’m going to use one example: Charlie the Unicorn. I had no idea this even existed until recently (yes! I know! I’m old!) and my brother showed it to me. I was then immediately ashamed I was unaware of the awesomeness until now. You’ve all seen this, right? If not, here:

Now, you have successfully wasted time, and you know why when I hear anyone say anything in that breathy, cult-follower voice, I am immediately in hysterics. Also, I’m fairly sure if a guy were to drop “Shun the nonbeliever, shunnnnn” on me at a bar or something, it would work better than any pickup line could ever hope to.

Memes. I kind of adore Internet memes. I find them fascinating. I love "All your base are belong to us" and I love "Son I am disappoint" and I love the LiveJournal Splice Review. If you haven't read that, you need to click. You will be thanking me for days. FOR DAYS, ADRIAN BRODY. FOR DAYS.

Internet Shopping. What did I do before I could do this? (Well, I can tell you one thing, I had a lot more money in the bank.) I hate people, you see. I hate crowds; I hate salespeople asking if they can help me; I hate going somewhere and finding out they don’t have what I’m looking for; I hate store hours. The Internet is always open. There are often coupon codes. It gets delivered to my door. And there is anything you ever wanted. You are not limited to the things in your town; you can shop any town, anywhere. It is all available to you (well, if you have the money for it; I’m not saying you could get an antique crystal chandelier if you’re unemployed, or anything, so don’t go too crazy saying “But I read this BLOG saying I could get ANYTHING ONLINE.”)

Google. Yes, we had dictionaries, before the Internet. But when we wanted to look up the lyrics to a song? We had to wait until it came on the radio, then record it, and listen to it over and over and over  and kind of guess at the parts we weren’t sure at. (“He dada all for the glory of love?” “No, probably did it all.” “It sounds like dada.” “Why would he be saying that?” “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Peter Cetera that? I didn’t write the song.”) What if you wanted to look up what year the television series The Greatest American Hero aired? Or how much an elephant weighs? Or how to potty-train your cat? There was not one reference guide for everything. The library was helpful, sure, but it wasn’t all in one PLACE. Google is all in one place. And it is awesome. Also, I’m fairly sure they own my soul right now, because I use their products more than anything in the world. They can have it. I don’t think I’m using it for much.

Internet Dating. Where else could we meet complete strangers who would reject us? Before Internet dating, we just had friends of friends who would! Or people you met in bars, or something! Now, complete strangers, who may or may not want to cut you up into little pieces and throw you into their air ducts, want to take you out, expect you to sleep with them for the price of a cheap dinner (or, for a trip to Borders, not that that ever happened to anyone I know or anyone who is writing this right now!), and then never call you again because you were more compatible online than in person! Oh, the freedom!

Yes, the Internet: a glorious place for people to argue, hook up, send naughty photos, and shop, all from the comfort of their own living room. All we had when I was a kid was the Oregon Trail. And my settlers kept dying of dysentery. Which was kind of funny when I would name my entire team after the kids in my class I hated, and then not buy them enough supplies to make it to their destination. (Aw, Kenny has died of ague? Throw him out of the wagon! We got trailblazing to do! Hi-ya!)

When the Cult of Personality Offers Koolaid, YOU DRINK IT.

I enjoy taking online personality tests when I have downtime. I assume a lot of people do – there are a lot of websites dedicated to them. Now, before you go judging me, I don’t mean the “What Twilight Character are You?” Facebook quizzes (because, obviously, the Twilight character I am is the one who stands up and says “REAL VAMPIRES DON’T SPARKLE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY” and that character wasn’t written into the book – obviously due to a major tween conspiracy.) I mean the real kind – your personality type, what psychological disorders you have, things like that. Because everyone wants to be more self-aware and/or scare the ever-loving shit out of themselves!

First, today, I took this one.  It’s the Myers-Briggs personality indicator.  You’re scored on four “dichotomies” – you either score higher as an extrovert or introvert, sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling and judgment or perception. You get a four-letter code and with this code, you’re supposed to be able to figure out what job you’d be best at.

I got INFJ – I’m an introverted intuitive feeling judgementalist. Apparently, only 1-3% of society scores in this percentile (which makes me either the special snowflake I’ve always assumed I am and proves my detractors wrong over all these years, or maybe a psychopath, proving them oh-so-correct.) According to the internet, things this me:

Possibly psychic

Artistic and creative

“They are usually right, and they usually know it” (thank you, Internet! Wait, is that a jab?)

“experience health problems when under a lot of stress” (not so cool, Internet, back to the good stuff)

“stubbornness and tendency to ignore other people's opinions” (whoa, Internet! I refuse to accept this diagnosis! Wait! I am proving you correct! DAMN YOU INTERNET!)

INFJ’s either excel as counselors, artists, writers, or in service professions (so, either I can do something creative that probably doesn’t pay my rent, help people who are more screwed-up than me, or work at McDonald’s? Um, thanks?)

In summation: “Life is not necessarily easy for the INFJ.” (INTERNET! You are DEAD to me right now!)

OK, fine. Now that I am thoroughly depressed and apparently an artistic psychic who is a stubborn, willful sickly one-of-a-kind and therefore lonely individual, let’s move onto something more entertaining and totally accurate.

TweetPsych! TweetPsych only works if you’re on Twitter, and active on Twitter. Put in your Twitter name and Tweetpsych analyzes all of your Tweets and tells you what you talk about more and less than the average Twitter user.

A sampling of things, per TweetPsych, I talk about much more than the average Twitter user:

Myself (I don’t know how you can’t do this on Twitter)

The past

Sex (I…don’t think I do, really? But according to TweetPsych, I talk about sex 58% more than the average user. Which makes me feel a little whorish. Sorry, everyone, for being such a Twitter slut. I’ll try to control myself from now on.)

Negative things

The future (apparently, I have no interest in the present)

Positive things (ugh, TweetPsych, you are giving me a mixed message here)

Anxiety (well, these personality tests aren’t helping)

Emotions (I do have a lot of these. And it’s entertaining to share them.)

The present (ok, TweetPsych, I like all frames of time reference more than the average Twitter user, touché to you)

Control (being in it? Out of it? Not sure)

Social (very vague)

And things I don’t talk about enough:

Dreams (I don’t sleep enough to dream. I’m extremely sleep-deprived. Thanks for the reminder, TweetPsych.)

Leisure (I should talk about my leisure activities more? Ugh, fine. I sat on my couch last night for an hour reading a book. Exciting!)

Constructive (this says I should talk about building and creating things more. Well, way to make me feel like an unproductive member of society.)

Learning (I been done with book-larnin’ fer years now. No more readin’ for me! It’s all loud TV and US Weekly from here on out!)

Work (listen, TweetPsych, I’m not talking about work, because THAT GETS YOU FIRED. Then I would be talking about UNEMPLOYMENT.)

So in summation of this report, I am self-absorbed, obsessed with sex and time frames in both the positive and negative sense, and a socially anxious control freak. Um…kind of yes.

After taking these, I decided there needed to be something more all-inclusive and infinitely more awesome. There hasn’t really been a test developed that gets to the heart of what makes people tick and helps best figure them out. I thought, I’m hip, I’m fairly self-aware, I could come up with one. Also, the test would be named after me, and then my fortune would be made.

The Lucy’s Football Totally Awesome Superstar Miss Kitty Fantastico Personality Test

(not a real test)

(please do not answer these questions and send them to me, I will not grade them)

(no, seriously, there is no answer key, and I don’t want to have to come up with one)

(fine, but if you do it, I’m going to make up a really, really negative personality type for you, like “Anal Monster Self-Hater” and then you’ll be sorry)

Yes or No Portion

I often find myself angry to the point of a throbbing headache at shitty drivers Y   N

I do not like green eggs and ham; I do not like them, Sam I Am   Y   N

I think my own problems far eclipse everyone else’s, although I pretend to care about theirs, because listen, what kind of psychopath doesn’t pretend to listen? A friendless one   Y    N

I feel bad for those less fortunate than me, but I don’t engage them in conversation, because once you show compassion, they start following you EVERYWHERE and then you can’t get any work done   Y    N

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, but my frozen yogurt makes them leave in disgust   Y    N

I often talk to people who aren’t there, because I am scintillatingly entertaining, even while alone, and you can’t turn this kind of charm off if you TRY   Y   N

I think that dark forces are working against me (or, when someone douchey falls and I get to see it, for me)    Y    N

I’d rather stay home and watch Ghost Hunters than go out and interact with my peers, unless there is cake, then all bets are off   Y     N

I’m the one people go to when they have a problem they need advice for, only they can’t find me because I hastily departed when I heard the rumor they were coming and I didn’t want to deal with their piddly whiny shit   Y     N

I was aware Duckie from Pretty in Pink was gay upon first viewing and confused that he didn’t seem aware of that fact, even as the credits rolled   Y    N

Multiple Choice (circle one)

You find $20 on the ground outside of the library. You:

a. Keep it

b. Bring it into the library and ask if anyone reported $20 missing

c. Keep it, but donate it to a good cause

d. Find the people who chose answers b or c and beat them with whatever awesome thing you bought with your free $20

Your car won’t start, and you will be late for an important meeting at work. You:

a. Call work, apologize, promise to get there as soon as you can, and call a cab

b. Call Triple A and start screaming “My job is ON THE LINE!!!”

c. Call Triple A, call work, and patiently wait for a tech to arrive

d. Say “free day off, mofos!” and kick back with reruns of “The A-Team”

Your younger sister comes to you. She’s pregnant and needs advice. You:

a. Listen to her, gently console her, and help her work through her options

b. Shun her for her sins and make her wear a scarlet letter throughout the land

c. Find the boy involved and beat his ass for not caring enough about your sister to use protection

d. High-five your sister for getting some, tell her, “tough break, kiddo,” and advise her to watch one of those teen mom-type shows on that the kids like nowadays for advice

e. Whatever. Don’t care. Still watching “The A-Team.”

Your favorite book is:

a. Fear of Flying

b. Goodnight Moon

c. The Bible

d. Screw books – internet porn, baby!

You are given 24 hours to live. You spend your day:

a. With family and friends, reminiscing about days gone by

b. Doing something high-energy, like skydiving or bungee-jumping

c. In private meditation, preparing for things to come

d. 24 hours? Hookers and blow. Did you really ask that stupid question?

Short-answer portion – in one to three sentences, please answer the following questions:

1.       Please explain yourself.

2.       No, seriously. I can’t even begin to figure you out.

3.       I mean, who wears clothes like that? Those weren’t even in style when they were selling them.

4.       Oh, they’re “retro chic?” Yeah, I have a word for that. “Douchebaggy.”

5.       What do you mean, #2 wasn’t even a question, and #4 was kind of rhetorical? Who’s writing this, you or me?

6.       Fine, here’s a question for you: were you born this much of an asshat, or did you actually practice, and take classes, and study super-duper hard, and ace all the exams, and graduate Magna Cum Asshat?

7.       Oh, I’m “resorting to juvenile namecalling” now, am I? Fine. Well, you smell like poop, and trucker caps are stupid. Also I used all of the gas in your car yesterday and didn’t tell you so when you try to go to work tomorrow you won’t be able to get there.

8.       What do you mean, “How can I be so inconsiderate?” Did you ever think that maybe you would have gotten in an accident on your way to work today? That would make me a life-saver, now, wouldn’t it? You’re welcome.

9.       Where are you going?

10.   For a walk?

11.   Don’t expect you back anytime soon, or maybe ever?

12.   Fine. Fine. That’s so typical. Hurry, I think there’s a vintage t-shirt shop in Soho going out of business – someone else might buy up all of the ironic ones, and then where would that leave you?

Essay portion – grammar will be a factor, because I love it and it’s my goddamn test:

In one to infinity paragraphs, explain why I can’t finish a half-gallon of milk before it goes bad, even though nothing else in my fridge spoils before I get to it.

There you go, Internet! Remember, there are no wrong answers, only right ones and the ones that prove you’re going to spend the rest of your life forever alone and/or in a padded room.