A few years ago, I attended a Monet exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art. It was incredible — there weren’t all the laser alarms and thick glass, just some garden variety movie theater velvety barriers — you could walk up next to the painting and view it in profile. The canvases were huge — 6×9 or so — and I was amazed at the texture of the paint, there was so much of it.

Apparently, the freedom was a little bit much for one of the patrons. That she walked up, as we all had, and viewed the work closely didn’t particularly bother me — it was when she reached out with a fingernail and audibly scratched the irreplaceable painting by the dead master painter.

…Which brings us back to “too shocked to act”. I found myself looking dumbly at my two friends, gesticulating wildly and incapable of speech — just like them. By the time we had reeled our jaws back in, she was long gone…

I was out on a date one night when my date came back to the table with a disgusted look on his face. The guy at the table over had not washed his hands, come out from the bathroom and was feeding his date food, with said hands. yeah. (I still get sick thinking about it.)

I wanted to throw up all over myself.

I just feel sorry for his friend who he went back to sit with, who shared the bucket of popcorn.

I can think of few things worse than eating a salted nut roll during one’s daily BM. (Maybe drinking lemon-lime Gatorade while standing at the urinal?)