At work today I enjoyed one of my favorite simple pleasures. I'm a smoker. Even I agree that burning tobacco is a kind of repugnant smell. But there's nothing to quite match the scent of fresh (non-burning) tobacco. The simple joy of a deep noseful of that "just opened the pack" scent is probably one of the things that keep me smoking. Another of the things that keep me smoking is my raging addiction to smoking, but that's a topic for another post.

Every time I open a pack, I catch that scent and I hold one of those white cylinders under my nose and inhale deeply. Every time I think to myself "mmmm, pure North Carolina." I don't know why I think that. My tobacco probably comes from every place but North Carolina. But it's my world… so there.

Also today at work I got a new monitor for my workstation. I can finally run 1024×768 at the office. Yay, me! So I'm moving stuff around on my desk to make room for my new gear when I find one of my favorite things, something I had forgotten that I still had.

I found a solder spider. This is my word. I'm pretty sure everyone else just calls it "gob of solder" or something equally boring. For the non-electronically inclined (which mostly includes me as well), when you're using a soldering iron, occasionally a drop of solder will fall from your project. Every now and then that drop of solder will splatter a bit. The solder cools and dries very quickly, so you can just pick it off your work table and throw it away.

I don't throw them away, at least not immediately. I think those tiny little metal splatters look like spiders. They more or less have a round center with tendrils protruding around it. The spider I rediscovered today was the largest I'd accidentally made in probably at least a year.

Sister stopped by my office on her lunch hour today. I eagerly showed her my newfound treasure. She gave me a mildly condescending "yeah, neat." Her lack of creativity is so unbecoming. "To hell with it," I thought. I think it looks like a little chrome spider, and it is my world, you know.

Sister was also at my office for lunch yesterday. I don't know how we got on the subject, but she mentioned something about "last year when I had those casts on my toes…" I said, "whaaaaaaat? When did you have casts on your toes? Was I drunk the whole time?"

She said, "yes, you were, but you wouldn't have noticed anyway."

She starts telling me this story about how her choice in shoes had given her painful calluses on her pinky toes. Or something like that. I was too busy snickering at her to listen very closely. So she went to a podiatrist, who saw something worth x-raying. It turns out that Sister has Mexican Toe Disease.

That's not actually the name of the condition, but she said it's got some word in it that sounds like "sombrero," so there you go. Depressingly, she told me that it's neither contagious nor an actual disease. Toes are supposed to have two joints. Sister's pinky toes only have one. Well, one joint each. It's not like the two toes share a joint. That would be freaky. And I'm pretty sure I'd've noticed that even through a drunken stupor.

In-between my snickers, Sister jokingly said something like "what man's gonna want me and my hideously deformed toes?" I couldn't help but think of an episode of Seinfeld. George is dating a beautiful, smart, intelligent swimsuit model that happens to have tickets to a once-in-a-lifetime concert by the three surviving Beatles. This woman is about as close to perfection as George Costanza will ever find, but he just can't get past the fact that one of her middle toes is about a quarter-inch longer than normal.

Sister did not find the comparison amusing. I, on the other hand, found it deliciously entertaining. And we all know whose world it is.

And while we're on the subject of toes, I saw that nasty Lamisil commercial on TV just as I was starting this post. Have you seen this? It's hideous. There's this yellow gremlin thing that takes a toenail and yanks it upward like the hood of a car. I've seen it often enough that I'm starting to normalize it, but the first time I saw it I nearly jumped out of my seat. By the time the thing was over I wanted to wash my feet until I had no skin left.

Apparently some marketing guy didn't get the memo regarding acceptable advertising in my world.