My wife thinks I'm autistic. She had me take a test online. The test totally said I'm not autistic, I just have a few autistic tendencies.
One of those tendencies is that I like some things a certain way. I get used to a certain uniformity in my life. I can handle a lot of chaos as long as my constants remain constant.
Here is one of the constants that really should remain constant.
My Spot
This can really be divided into sub categories.
First and foremost is my spot in front of my computer at our house. This is where I sit. I can see the TV from there, I can play on my computer. All is well in my spot. Every once in a while, Robyn feels the need to use my computer. I usually stand next to the chair and whimper until she moves. If she doesn't move, I resort to twitter. Like this tweet: "I bought my wife 2 computers and she is still using mine." Not that anyone on social media can make her move, but at least I feel better when I'm sharing my pain.
The second spot is my spot on the couch. I only need my spot when we're watching movies. So Robyn should appreciate that I'm not as bad as Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory. In fact, I appreciate that Robyn watching Sheldon has made her more tolerant of some of my OCD tendencies.
The last spot is my spot at the dinner table. My spot at our own dinner table is undisputed. However, we often go to Sunday dinner at my Mom's house. I have a spot there as well. Recently, we were spending Sunday night with Robyn's family and a family member sent me this amusing picture:
Aside from the fact that Mellen is smoking, my Dad is so hungry and Delta is growling, in the corner you can see that Zack is in my spot. Naturally, I sent him a text.
Aren't you so proud of me? I didn't even ask him to move. That is love.
I'm pretty sure I'm a demigod. I know that sounds crazy, but how else do you explain the signs I've received? I'm getting ahead of myself, I suppose I should probably explain the miraculous signs.
There is something you should know before I tell my story. First, I feel that Sheldon should explain the difference between a fork and a trident. Watch this video:
As Sheldon so eloquently puts it, "tridents are for ruling the seven seas." Well, that brings me to my story. On Thursday night Robyn and I went out to dinner at Mimi's Cafe. They served us dinner, but they also gave us this:
I joked to Robyn that I didn't know whether I should eat or rule the seven seas. But beyond that, I thought nothing of it. Then last night, we had the company Christmas party for my work. It was a very fancy and delicious dinner, but when I sat down I noticed this.
Well, obviously since I just joked about it the night before, the sign had to be sent again. It is very reminiscent of the book The Lightning Thief (not the movie, it was a sad rendition of the book). Percy Jackson got in an awesome sword fight where he beat everybody up. When he stood in the water it healed all his wounds and he looked up and saw a glowing Trident above his head, it was sent from Poseidon to let him know that Percy was his son.
Clearly Poseidon was sending me a message. I am meant to rule the seven seas. I think this means I should take more trips to the beach.
When I was a small child (in high school) there were strict rules governing how one could obtain the privilege of riding shotgun in a car. You could "call it" by shouting "shotgun!" This gave you all rights and privileges of having the shotgun seat unless there was an attractive girl in the group that the driver of the car liked, in which case your call became null and void.
If someone were to call shotgun there was one way (besides being an attractive girl, which I couldn't do) to dispute the call. There were various contests that you could challenge the caller to and they were required by law to participate in the challenge and the winner would gain all the rights of shotgun that the caller previously acquired. These contests were as follows:
Rock The classic game of rock paper scissors, best 2 out of 3 obviously. Spit You would have a spitting contest and the one who spit farthest wins Shoot Before playing you would both select whether you wanted to be odd or even. One person is odd and the other even, together you say "once, twice, thrice, shoot!" When you say shoot you both show a number of fingers. You add yours with the other persons to see if the sum is odd or even. This practice is based on seeing George and Jerry play it on Seinfeld. (Of course, they call it "choose" instead of shoot.) Race You would race to the car, first one to touch the door gets to sit there. Thespian Each person performs a death scene, the driver of the car determines which death scene is better and that thespian gets to sit there. Canadian You would perform a Canadian mating call, again the driver would decide which was best. (This originated from a friend of ours who was from Canada. He made this wierd screaming sound that we determined must be his mating call.)
This wide range of contests made for a more fair and equitable selection of who would get to sit in shotgun. Of course, you could eliminate these contests when calling. A very safe call would go like this: "Shotgun no rock, no spit, no shoot no race, no thespian, no canadian."
Why am I telling you all this? Well, just this past weekend I was with my brothers and my dad. We had gone to the priesthood session of General Conference together. On the way out to the car, I suddenly felt inspired to call "Shotgun!" I didn't bother to call out any of the protections, I didn't think anyone cared that much. Of course, my brother felt the same nostalgia I did for old times and he called "Rock!" As he and I were standing by the door playing Rock, my youngest brother got in through one of the back doors and climbed over the seat. Back in the day I would have been apalled at this lack of respect for law, but I happily got in the back seat while my brother, who had beat me in rock, proceeded to battle it out with the cheating brother. It was some fun nostalgia indeed. But it then occurred to me there needs to be just one more contest and that is Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock. You could call for it by yelling "Spock!"
To explain the game, here is Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory
As sheldon says: Scissors cuts paper. Paper covers rock. Rock crushes lizard. Lizard poisons spock Spock smashes scissors Scissors decapitates lizard Lizard eats paper Paper disproves spock Spock vaporizes rock Rock crushes scissors
Or, for those who want to see it visually I have included the following table: As you read left to right, a plus means the thing on the left beats the thing on the top.
So, just think about it. Next time you want the front seat, try yelling "Spock!" It could change your life.
I have recently discovered a few flowcharts that I feel will be helpful to all the world around me. The first is a flowchart I found on xkcd. I was very amused by it because of how true it is. I am often asked for help in software that I have never seen before and I follow this exact process and it almost always yields good results. Robyn is the tech guru at her school and she said that she sometimes uses this process as well. So, I thought I would share it with everyone so that you can all become local computer experts.
The other flowchart I have to share is from a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory. It has become a favorite show of Robyn and I. I often appreciate how difficult it is for engineer types to fit into normal society. The show is about physicists, but as a computer engineer I share some of the same geekiness as them so I enjoy it alot. Anyway, there was an episode where Sheldon was trying to make friends. He decided to distill the algorithm for generating friendships down into a flowchart. Robyn and I have noticed we don't hang out with people nearly as much as we used to. Maybe we'll use this flowchart and see if any other couples would like to join us for a meal, a hot beverage or the least objectionable recreational activity.
P.S. I can't take credit for making this flowchart. I googled it and found it on a blog here.
For your convenience I have included the clip. If you don't watch the show you should totally start.
