In Which It's Only Fair

We may be adults, but sometimes, The Boss and I can be downright childish.

The incident I'm referring to happened on Tuesday this week. We were driving to have dinner with a family member, and The Boss casually mentioned that she had a song stuck in her head. Usually when she says that I don't ask her what song specifically, because I don't want to risk getting it stuck in my head, too. This time, though, the inquiry was out of my mouth before I had time to think.

"What song do you have stuck in your head?"

Of course, instead of mentioning the song, she demonstrated vocally. "Stop, in the name of love!" 

I groaned, and plugged my ears. I've always strongly disliked that song. She started laughing, and continued singing a bit more of the lyrics.

"Really, though," she added a moment later, "it's the part where it goes 'Think it oh-oh-ver.'"

"No!" I protested loudly. "Stop or else it'll get stuck in my head, too!"

She cackled, and then started singing again. I pretended like it was causing me immense physical pain, and we both got a good laugh out of it. There was silence in the car for a few minutes, and then the inevitable happened. I started singing in my head the same song. I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand and groaned again.

"What?" The Boss asked, concerned.

"You got it stuck in my head, now. Thanks a lot."

She looked at me sheepishly, and apologized.

We eventually got to the restaurant where we were meeting family, and I had done my best to forget about the song, but still it played on in my mind. As we climbed out of the car and got Baby Badass from the backseat, I unconsciously started humming it. 

"Damn song!" I exclaimed when I realized what I was doing. The Boss laughed some more at my misfortune, apparently not being plagued with the song in her head anymore. "Having a song stuck in your head is like contagious brain cancer. That shit just spreads... and fast."

One of these days, I'll pick a really annoying song, repay the favor, and get it stuck in her head. It's only fair, right?

Have a good weekend, everyone.

In Which I Have Options

Editor's Note: This past weekend I had a piece about what it was like becoming a father be published on the Good Men Project's DadsGood site. It's called "I Can Get Used to This". Please check it out and leave a comment if you like it!

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Baby Badass is two weeks old now, and we've had her home from the hospital for about ten days. We're starting to get into a good routine, and other than a few fussy nights, she's been a real champ. She sleeps for hours at a time, sometimes as much as four or five, even overnight. We realize that we are fortunate and that it probably won't last for much longer, but for right now, it's great. It allows The Boss and I to get caught up on sleep, and during the day to get other things done around the house.

One of the things The Boss and I started doing without realizing it was giving Baby Badass a slew of nicknames. Most of them are meant endearingly, but a lot of them were coined in moments of frustration or after particularly awful diaper changes. Here is just a partial list:

• Cuddlebug
• Sleepy Face
• Fuss Bucket*
• Bottle Monster
• Grumpy Butt
• Deceptively Juicy**
• Boogerbug
• Snore Monster

There are quite a bit more than I can't remember at this time, but the nicknames seem to follow the same formula. Adjective/Adverb/Verb/Noun + Body Part/Bug/Monster/Bucket = Nickname. It's not an exact science, but it works pretty well for us.

* The word "fuss" is interchangeable here, likely with words that pertain to bodily fluids or discharges. Other options are Snot Bucket, Barf Bucket, Urine Bucket, Poop Bucket, etc.

* An odd nickname, I know, but it has a good story behind it. The day we took Baby Badass home from the hospital, she was very gassy and burped a lot. They were really juicy, watery sounding burps, ones that made us jump up to see if she had spit up or vomited. Each time, though, there was nothing. It was just a burp. After a half dozen really watery sounding burps, I told Baby Badass that she was "deceptively juicy". What can I say? It just stuck.

In Which It All Depends Upon Perspective

"Mike, come quick! There's a huge spider on the floor!"

I'm sitting at my computer in the other room, but the panic in her voice makes me drop what I'm doing and come running. I don't know what to expect, being that we live in a finished basement and there are often spiders crawling around, and as I round the corner I see The Boss standing on the second to last stair. She's holding Baby Badass against her chest with one arm, and pointing at the floor below the last stair with the other.

"What spider?" I say after a moment of searching, not seeing it. I bend over slightly, putting my hands on my knees, and look more closely.

"Right there, next to that box. The huge spider," she says, still pointing. I follow the trajectory she's giving and I see the spider, huddling next to a cardboard box in the corner. "Kill it!"

Given the amount of panic in her voice, I would have thought she had encountered some mutant species of spider, something with bristling hair and hungry fangs. You know, something truly scary. Something like this:

Instead, I came running to the rescue to squash a spider that more closely resembled this:

I held back all the wise remarks that surfaced about her being scared over something so incredibly small, and went to grab a tissue. I had it squashed and cleaned up off the floor in just seconds, and couldn't help but marvel to myself about the differences in perspectives. I mean, if this was a "huge" spider, I'd hate to see what how she'd react to a big spider by my standards.

Happy Monday, folks.

In Which I'd Be Inclined to Join

Late last week The Boss mentioned to me that Netflix added to their streaming queue the TV show "Sons of Anarchy". I had expressed interest in watching it based upon the good things I had heard about it, and with a decent amount of downtime when Baby Badass is sleeping (fingers crossed), we started watching it. We were hooked from episode one, and we've chain-watched the series almost to the end of season two now.

I've never been on a motorcycle in my life before, but this show makes me want to join a motorcycle club. If they are anything in real life to how they portray it on the show, the bond between members and the lengths they will go to to protect their own is incredible. I envisioned myself with the leather vest and classic Harley-Davidson, rumbling down the road on club business, intimidating those around me just by my presence.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that I wouldn't be a good fit. For one, I'm too lazy. If I ever joined a club, it'd be called "Sons of Lethargy".

We'd specialize in black market transport and sales of furniture, high thread-count bed sheets, and memory foam pillows. We'd never underestimate the benefits of an afternoon nap, but we probably wouldn't be very intimidating. A bunch of nappy-haired, likely overweight guys standing there with their arms crossed and mouths gaping open in a yawn wouldn't scare anyone.

Who wants to join?

Have a good weekend, everyone.

In Which I Have Higher Standards

I was out grocery shopping recently, and came across this little gem:

A seedless watermelon that may contain seeds? I may have high standards for my foods, but if I go out of my way to buy something for a certain trait, I expect it to hold up to those standards. It's like buying something whose label touts that its fat free and then reading on the label that it may contain 23 grams of fat per serving,  or a bottle of dye-free laundry detergent that I saw recently that, on its ingredient list, mentioned it contained a dye. 

Even at the cutting edge of botanical science, I realize one can't guarantee that a seedless watermelon is truly 100% seedless. I just got a kick out of it, and for two reasons. One, it's in the way they place their disclaimer. They don't admit that the product will contain what it claims it doesn't, but rather that there's a possibility. And two, the fact that they even felt the need to disclaim that. How many angry e-mails did they get from unhappy seedless watermelon consumers that drove them to feel the need to mention it on their label? Twelve? Sixty-seven? Or just one from this guy?

What kind of ridiculous disclaimers have you seen recently?

In Which It Might Be Effective

The hospital The Boss and I went to for Baby Badass has a pretty high regard for security. They put the building on lock down after certain hours, all the babies have ID tags that set off alarms if they are taken far enough away from L&D, and there are cameras just about everywhere (except for the birthing rooms, I hope). The Boss and I were given bracelets as well with a six-digit number that we had to show to be able to pick up Baby Badass from the nursery.

In the hallways and stairwells are laminated copies of their security policies, written in clear terms that proves by its brevity their sincerity. There are security code pin pads on just about every secondary exit. And in the elevators, they have this printed on the door:

Of course I know what Hospital Security intended by placing this on the inside of the elevators, but having the kind of curious mind that I have, I imagined a group of babies providing the security detail. You know, babies wearing rent-a-cop uniforms with billy clubs and handcuffs hanging on their belts. Drinking coffee and sharing stories of their conquests behind the security desk. Chasing down baby-stealers and homeless people who drink hand sanitizer for the alcohol. 

Personally, I would have felt a bit more safe had that been the case. 

Happy Monday, folks.

In Which I Become a Father

What a crazy week this has been. To give the full story justice, let me recap it all from the beginning.

On Monday, we were told by her doctor to call into Labor and Delivery to make sure they had space for us to begin the induction process. The hospital beat us to the punch, calling The Boss' phone at 6:30 AM to let her know that they were full, and to please call around 11:00 AM to see about it then. At noontime when she called, they were still full. All of our momentum had stalled and emotions were running high, and when we finally got the call at 2:30 PM to come in, we grabbed our already packed bags and were on our way.

The Boss' doctor came in after we were fully admitted and inserted the first round of induction medication. We were told to wait for twelve hours, and depending upon how much progress was made, they'd try something else. The contractions she was having worsened, but overall she did very well that first night. By the next morning, she was not dilated at all, so they started a new medication intravenously. 

After 24 hours of being at L&D, there was still no progress. The doctor tried another round of the first medication, to see if that'd kick things into gear. The Boss endured another day of steady contractions, but this time the pain worsened. Because of her fall the week before the nurses didn't want her out of bed, and she was limited to what positions she could lay in due to the monitors on her belly, so I did what I could to make her as comfortable as possible.

We woke up Wednesday morning to find out that she was dilated two centimeters. This was encouraging to both us and the medical staff, so they ramped up the dose of the IV medication to the maximum allowed over the span of a couple hours, where as the day before it took them over eight hours to get to that dose size. Her body was contracting like crazy, but after six hours she was not any more dilated. 

At this point she had been laboring for over 48 hours, and her doctor started talking about doing a c-section. This had been something The Boss had stated she didn't want to do, but after talking it over, she ultimately decided to go for it. She was exhausted, and after we talked about it in length, she agreed that the c-section was the best idea. From the moment we told the nurse the decision to the moment she was wheeled into the operating room, less than thirty minutes passed.

Adrenaline surged and emotions ran high. I made some quick phone calls to family to let them know what was happening. The anesthesiologist came in and went through the disclosures and warnings about the spinal block, and a nurse came in to inject through the IV line some medication for nausea. Another nurse entered the room and handed me a sterile gown, cloth covers for my shoes, a hair net thing, and a face mask. I changed into them, and before I really had a chance to truly process what was about to happen, they led us down the hall to the operating room. 

I waited in an inner vestibule as they prepped The Boss and gave her the spinal block. I stood there for about ten minutes, my heart racing and wanting nothing but to be with my wife. It took a lot of deep breathing, but I was surprisingly calm when the called me into the room. I was ushered to a chair behind the cloth curtain they had draped up around her, and sat right next to The Boss when things began.

It was only a few minutes until we heard Baby Badass' first cry. So many emotions surged through me, it was almost dizzying. Relief that the baby was finally here, love for my wife and my new daughter (who I hadn't even seen yet), and a multitude of new emotions I've yet to be able to quantify. I saw Baby Badass for the first time after she had been cleaned up, being examined by a pediatrician just minutes after she had been born.

Introducing, for the first time on the interwebs, Baby Badass! Born at 3:59pm EST on April 13th, weighing in at 8 pounds 5 ounces, 21 inches long, and with a full head of hair.

In the end, the c-section was a wise choice. The doctor who performed the procedure said that the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck two times, and that was likely why labor hadn't progressed. The baby couldn't drop inside the uterus because of how the cord was around her neck. We were later told that that happens fairly often and they can still deliver naturally, but in the heat of the moment, it was pretty scary to hear.

After The Boss was all put back together and Baby Badass had been weighed and measured and examined, so began the onslaught of excited and weepy family. Everyone got a chance to hold her, but the real magic happened once everyone left, and it was just The Boss, Baby Badass, and I. So many inexpressible emotions, going way beyond love and happiness and anything else I had thought I'd feel. 

It has been a very long week, my friends, but I am the happiest I've been in a long time. 

I have a daughter, beautiful and perfect.

I'm a father. 

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Have a good weekend, everyone.

P.S. The Boss and I talked about it heavily, and we've decided for now to not share the name we've picked for her. I'm sure a lot of you would really like to know, but until we've talked some about it, it'll just be between family.

In Which She's Still Pregnant

Today marks the start of Day Three that The Boss and I have been at the hospital, waiting for the arrival of Baby Badass. We got here on Monday afternoon and started the induction process not too long after we were checked in. Since then, there has been little to no progress.

She's had plenty of contractions (some of them quite painful), and the baby definitely has dropped, but no matter what medication they use to get the ball rolling, her body has yet to dilate more than one centimeter. There was a period of time where one nurse thought she had begun to dilate further, but her doctor later said otherwise.

This experience so far has been a lesson in patience and learning to let things happen how they will. The hospital staff here have been great, and while the combination chair/bed I have to sleep on is akin to sleeping in a coffin, they're doing what they can to make sure I am comfortable, too. 

We're hoping for more progress today. Follow my Twitter/Facebook feed for any updates, and with any luck, Baby Badass will make her appearance soon.

In Which It Was Bound to Happen

SHEETROCK HILLS, Az (AP) --- A suburban neighborhood is rocked by the shocking and grisly discovery of a gruesome mass murder alleged to have been committed by someone who was once thought to be a leader in their community.

Manuel "Manny" Garcia, former owner of Handy Manny's Repair shop, was detained by the Sheetrock Hills Police Department after concerned neighbors alerted authorities about their concerns over the well-being of the tools in Garcia's care. According to police statements, it had been a number of days since anyone had seen or heard from them, and one witness reported hearing "loud noises, like breaking glass and shouting" just three nights before the discovery was made. A passing jogger noticed the smell as she passed by Garcia's house.

Once on the scene, investigators quickly found a hastily dug hole in Garcia's backyard containing a rusty coffee can. Inside the can were the remains of some of Garcia's tools, confirmed by relatives to be the remains of Squeeze the Pliers and Stretch the Tape Measure. Autopsy reports state that their bodies were badly tarnished and damaged from apparent neglect and abuse. Also found in the makeshift coffin were the remains of Alan the Allen Wrench, solving the mystery of his sudden disappearance back in 2005.

Still missing are the bodies of Felipe the Phillips Screwdriver, Turner the Flathead Screwdriver, Pat the Hammer, Dusty the Hand Saw, and Rusty the Wrench. Forensics experts found traces of rust and lubricant leading a trail to the back of Garcia's pickup truck, where they found his empty toolbox.

"While we have no material evidence that leads us to think that the missing tools have also been murdered," Sheetrock Hills Police Chief Hector Rodriguez stated in a recent press conference, "we are gravely concerned over their welfare."

It was originally thought by local media that Garcia had confessed to murdering all seven of his tools, allegedly shouting as he was being placed in the back of a police cruiser, "I killed 'em all!", first in Spanish and then again in English, before breaking off into maniacal laughter, but SHPD have denied having received any confession.

"We have detained Mr Garcia for questioning, but at this time we have no confession. He is our prime subject due to his close relationship with his tools, but he is being held without bail," Chief Rodriguez stated.

A candlelight vigil was held recently by those still holding out hope for the lives of the remaining missing tools. The suburban community is showing it's strength by continuing on through the wake of this horrible tragedy.

Once a successful local business man, Garcia's repair business took a hit after being arrested on three separate occasions for driving while intoxicated. Due to declining business, he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, and lost his business and home properties on Main Street to foreclosure in 2010. Garcia took residence in a mobile home on the outskirts of Sheetrock Hills, and fell out of favor of the public when neighbors began reporting incidents of public drunkenness and sounds of apparent domestic abuse.

Manny and his tools, circa 2007, in happier times.

Some members of the community are speaking out against SHPD, saying that the death of Stretch and Squeeze could have been avoided if only they had listened to their complaints about Garcia. One neighbor, who provided this statement on the condition on anonymity, said that he reported seven different incidents involving Garcia, some in which he allegedly threatened his tools with an acid bath.

"Manny Garcia is a monster," he said. "He's a murderer and a menace to our neighborhood. It's a shame it took losing the lives of two tools to finally get the attention of Sheetrock Hills police."

At the time of this writing, no charges against Garcia have been filed, and the search for the missing tools is still going strong. Even after four days of fruitless searching in the Arizona wilderness, search parties and investigators still hold out hope, enlisting the use of helicopters to scout from the sky, hoping the sun may glint off of the metal of the tools. Nothing more than empty potato chip wrappers and soda cans have been found, and investigators plead to the public that anyone with information about the whereabouts of the tools to call Sheetrock Hills Police Department immediately. 

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It's tragic, really. 

Happy Monday, folks.

P.S. Stay tuned to my Twitter feed (@badassgeek) for updates about The Boss' induction and the forthcoming arrival of Baby Badass!

In Which I Look Ahead

There are a lot of changes ahead for me. 

In every sense of things, that's putting it very mildly. I don't view the birth of my first child in any negative way at all, it's just that I thought by now that I'd have a better handle on what exactly it was all going to be like. Through all of the soul-searching and serious contemplation I've done during these ten long months, I never fully realized the sheer immensity of it all until just recently. With one single event, every facet of my life is going to be impacted.

Having a baby is like my own personal Armageddon, but only in a good way.

Try as I might to hold off some of the changes, there is one I am going to stand strong against, and it has to do with this blog. Right from the start I set out to write a blog that was for me, to share things from my perspective and things that I experience, and over the past three years I have done just that. I have told a lot of stories here and met a lot of amazing people, and I don't want this blog to change into something it's not. I vowed from the start that I wasn't going to become a daddy blogger, and I hope to what extent I've shared thus far that I haven't failed in that regard. To help make sure that Baby Badass doesn't take over what I do on this blog (for those who don't care to read about that sort of stuff), I've created a side blog where I intend on posting all things baby-related. I just purchased the domain name so it might take a few days to work correctly, but please bookmark and subscribe to TheBadassBaby.com for all updates and posts about Baby Badass from here forward.

I want this blog to remain what it has been: a place where I can goof off and make people laugh a couple times a week. Being a daddy blogger isn't a bad thing, it's just not what I want to be known for. I don't want the fact that I have a kid (or will have, shortly) to define who I am on the internet, but rather have it add another element to me. I can only hope that I'm making sense by all this.

What you should take from all this rambling is that even though I'm going to be having a kid, I'm still going to be the same ol' Badass Geek you know and love. Or at least like. Or tolerate.

Have a good weekend, folks.

In Which It's Getting Closer

We've got less than a week to go now, until Baby Badass makes her arrival. The Boss is officially out on maternity leave all of this week (she was going to be out this week even if the events of this past weekend hadn't transpired), and we're both busy with getting the last remaining things taken care of. The Boss is also taking it easy this week, or at least is telling me she is. She was instructed by her doctor to rest as much as possible. The next week is going to be one of the most physically demanding of her life.

I'm doing what I can to make things easier for her, but there are some times where I can't do anything but make her laugh. Which is why I made this, after months of planning and hours of photoshopping:

Unless she goes into labor on her own during the rest of this week or over the weekend, she's scheduled to be induced on Monday. Baby Badass is getting pretty big in there, and they want to make sure she can still deliver naturally. We're planning for the induction, but if Baby Badass decides to come early, we're okay with that, too.

What a long nine months this has been. I can see the finish line on the horizon.

(Click on the image for a higher resolution version of the picture.)

In Which I Run

"Mike, come quick. It's your wife."

It's Saturday afternoon, and I'm preparing lunch in the kitchen at work, just about to pull some toast from the toaster, and I drop everything. Paper plates scattered to the floor, napkins flew up in the air, and my toast was burning, but I didn't care. I didn't question who was telling me this or why; I just spun on my heel and ran.

I wheeled around the corner, practically shoving people out of my way, and I see my 38-week pregnant wife sitting on the floor, clutching her stomach and crying, her face deep red and in visible pain. She's surrounded by a close friend and another co-worker, both of them trying to provide comfort and to make sure she's okay.

"What the fuck happened?" I yell as I approach, forgetting protocol and the fact that I just used profanity (and loudly) in an open call center. Heads pop up from surrounding cubicles, now noticing and hearing the commotion.

The Boss' friend looks up at me, her face ghostly pale and stricken with concern. "She tripped on her feet and fell on her stomach."

A litany of thoughts had spun through my mind as I ran to her from the kitchen, and I had all but assumed that her water had broken or maybe she was having some contractions. The idea that something had happened that would have injured her or the baby hadn't surfaced, and immediately my adrenaline surged. 

I squat down next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. I ask her if she's okay, and she shakes her head. I ask her if she's in pain, and she nods, the tears coursing down her face. I ask her if she can feel the baby move, and she again shakes her head in the negative. That was all I needed to hear. 

I grab all of my things from my nearby desk, and command The Boss' friend to gather my wife's things from her desk on the other side of the building. She nods, and runs off. The other co-worker is talking to me, but I'm barely listening. His voice is just background noise, because I'm trying to process and adapt and think logically about what is the best thing to do for my wife and unborn child. 

An ambulance would have taken too long to get to where we were, so when someone asked me if they should call 911, I told them no. With my bag and jacket in hand, I went back over to where my wife lay on the floor. She's trying to hold back her tears and her crying, but simply cannot. I can tell she's terrified, and quite frankly, so am I.

"I'm going to get the car and pull it up to the door. I'll be right back." 

She nods that she understands, letting herself lean back against the support of another co-worker who just arrived on scene. I run towards the door and out to my car, throwing my coat and bag in the backseat. Barely taking time to check for traffic in the parking lot, I burn rubber out of my parking space and peel up to the door. I put my hazard lights on, and run back inside. 

By then, The Boss' friend has gathered up her things, and she heads out to put them in the trunk. I make my way back to my wife, grabbing a nearby office chair with wheels. There's no way I can carry her, and it's obvious she's not up to walking very far.

"This is your wheelchair," I say, and she manages a quick laugh. My co-worker and I help her into the chair, and she had barely sat down before I'm behind it, ready to start wheeling her to the door. My co-worker, who just happens to be my supervisor, starts mumbling something about an incident report, but I ignore her. That kind of bullshit can wait. 

We get her in the car, and after making sure she's buckled and fastening my own, we're gone. My passive driving personality has disappeared, switched out with one that has very little regard for speed limits or yellow lights. My main objective (other than making sure I don't cause an accident) is to get my pregnant wife to the hospital as quickly as possible. She tells me to slow down as the speedometer crests 70 MPH on the one straightaway en route. I comply, but only because she tells me the speed was scaring her. 

Our hospital has it's own entrance for Labor and Delivery, so I drop her off at the door and park the car. I slam my door closed and run inside, grabbing a forgotten wheelchair from inside the vestibule. I tell The Boss to sit in it, and she resists, saying she can walk. I point to the chair and command her to sit, my voice far more stern than it ever has been when talking with her. She eases herself down, and up to the L&D floor we go.

I finally let myself have a moment to breathe once a group of nurses and doctors are tending to her. There is an incredibly tense span of minutes when they can't find the baby's heartbeat. With each passing moment where they can't find it, I can see The Boss' face get more and more tense and red, and the tears start up again. I push my way through the cluster of nurses so I can hold her hand, and just then we hear it. Our baby's heartbeat. Strong and steady.

The release of tension rushes out like a stiff breeze. She lays her head back on the gurney and sobs in relief. I squeeze her hand, not able to offer more comfort at that time than just being by her side, and I tell her that everything is going to be okay. And in the end, everything was.

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The phrase "emotional roller coaster" was invented for weekends like these. I won't get into all of the details, but let's just say it felt like we were being told something good one minute, and then something bad the next. I know the medical staff there don't want to present to two already nervous people all of their concerns unless they become more relevant to what's actually happening. We both know that now, looking back at it, but in the heat of the moment, it felt like we were being kept in the dark. 

The important thing to focus on is that Baby Badass is okay, being well cushioned by her surroundings and by the fact that The Boss' knees absorbed most of the impact of the fall. The contractions she was having, at times as close as a minute apart, faded away completely overnight. At 38 weeks, it would have been fine if Baby Badass had made her appearance that night, but she just wasn't ready yet.

And that's just fine with me. It gives me a chance to rest up after all that running. 

Happy Monday, folks.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who offered up their support and prayers on Twitter and Facebook throughout this past weekend. The Boss and I were touched by how many of you responded and encouraged us through this scary ordeal. 

In Which I Speak From Experience

There has been maintenance work going on in one of the two men's rooms at work, and the intermittent "Out Of Service" sign on the door has put a lot of stress on the ol' plumbing system as of late. The two bathrooms are located on opposite sides of the building, which probably spans about the length of a football field. And believe me, when the pressure is on, the last thing you want is to have to hoof it down-field. 

Thanks to my preoccupation with various bathroom-related things this week (and with a marked lack of better things to write about), I figured I'd share some things I've learned this week.  

Ten Reasons To Hold Your Pee At the Office, Or At Least Use the Other Bathroom:

1. When you see someone sigh exhaustively as they exit,
2. When there are visible footprints of a suspicious color leading out the door,
3. When you see purple feathers on the floor outside the bathroom and can hear laughter coming from inside,
4. When the odor like that of a poisoned river full of rotting fish and garbage assaults your senses before you even open the door,
5. When you see Steve, the office close-talker who is very chatty at the urinal, enter the bathroom as you approach,
6. Anytime you see anyone speed-walking towards the bathroom while holding their stomach,
7. When you open the door and you can't tell from all the grunts and groans if someone is having sex in one of the stalls or is just really constipated,
8. When you see more people enter the bathroom at one time than would fit inside any conventional clown car,
9. When you see more clowns enter the bathroom at one time than would fit inside any conventional regular car,
10. Any combination of the above.

As is evidenced above, it's been a long week. 

Have a good weekend, everyone.