COLUMN: Ladies Night

For as much time as I spend with them, my electronic devices certainly don't seem to know me very well.

You may have read my recent discovery that Facebook thinks my top interests include "ice," "cod," and "gay bars." My Amazon Echo ignores me until I start screaming "Alexa!" at it like a scolding parent. And now I've discovered another technological wonder that doesn't understand me in the slightest: Netflix.

For the past few weeks, every time I log onto Netflix, it's been constanly recommending that I watch an unending stream of dumb cringe comedies. You know, movies where nerdy losers do embarassing stuff and I'm supposed to find it endlessly funny.

Why is it funny to watch the embarassment of others? America's Funniest Home Videos has been on the air since the dawn of time, and it's basically nothing but people falling on their faces, taking shots to the groin, or dancing like nobody's watching (or filming.) And it's usually pretty funny. WHY?

Embarassing moments are great fun to watch -- unless they happen to you. I still remember that one time when I gave my crush a necklace for Valentine's Day and she responded by yelling "Eww!" and pretending to vomit. I'm pretty sure I'm still emotionally crippled from that moment and I'm also pretty sure it happened when I was ELEVEN. To this day, if I'm daydreaming and an embarassing memory pops up, I'll literally hear a voice in my head going, "LET'S CHANGE THE SUBJECT."

I'm an adult now, and at my age, you're not really supposed to care what others think of you. But let's be honest -- there's a small part of my brain that keeps a 24/7 vigil worrying if people are secretly pointing and laughing at me behind my back. This is pretty silly considering my silly job is to write a silly column that I sincerely hope you all point and laugh at.

Some might say I have a lack of self-confidence. I say I have an over-abundance of self-awareness. Specifically, the awareness that my particular self is prone to moments of extreme embarassment.

Take the other day, for instance. I was leaving work on my lunch hour and heading out to my car. Being the important deep thinker that I am, I was reflecting on a work problem I had just solved, wondering how I could fix another, curious where the nearest mailbox was so I could mail a card to my dad, pondering how long it takes mail to get from East Moline to Galesburg, complaining internally about the weather, reminding myself to stop for gas, and trying to decide what I wanted for lunch. That's when my thoughts were rudely interrupted by two immediate realizations:

(1) There was a very attractive woman walking just a few paces behind me that I hadn't noticed, and
(2) I was singing. Out loud. Loudly. With both volume and passion.

It also must be noted that I can't sing. Well, apparently I CAN sing -- just very, very, VERY poorly.

The fact that I was subconsciously singing out loud was embarassing, sure, but explainable. I am, after all, a huge music nerd with 30 years of DJ experience who works part time at a record store for fun. I've been exposed to a whole lot of songs over my years, and music is constantly going through my head. The average human brain can store roughly 2.5 petabytes of memory. That's 250,000,000 gigabytes -- the ultimate flash drive. Each of us has the capacity to remember literally hundreds of thousands of songs -- and I reckon I'm about out of room.

And out of those hundreds of thousands of songs swirling around in my subconscious, the jukebox in my brain chose that day and that hour to select: "Ladies Night" by Kool and the Gang. And not just any PART of "Ladies Night," mind you. No, the moment that I snapped to and realized I was having an a cappella solo karaoke jam session while in close proximity to another human was just one moment AFTER I had just emotionally and entirely subconsciously belted out, "Mmm, SOPHIS-TI-CA-TED MAMA! Come on you disco lay-day!"

Strangely, my attractive new friend did NOT offer me her number. All I could do was sheepishly mutter, "Excuse me," while trying to walk professionally to my car as though I hadn't just staged an impromptu one-man salute to disco in the parking lot. 

I'm pretty sure she pointed and laughed, if only internally.  But who knows? Perhaps my reassurance that she was a sophisticated mama was just the boost of self-confidence she needed to make it through the day. Maybe I was doing her a public service.

All I know is that I got to my car and strangely didn't feel like I wanted to curl up in a ball and hide forever. Instead, I just laughed a whole lot, which felt way better than shame. I'm an embarassing weirdo a lot of the time, sure. But I think I'd be disappointed in myself a little if I wasn't. When I worked in downtown Moline, there was a guy who would walk his dog around the neighborhood, always with a pair of headphones on, and always belting out songs like he was auditioning for American Idol. And you know what? That dude always had a smile on his face.

Life's too short to spend it constantly worrying what others think about you. If some girl thinks I'm a weirdo because I had an uncontrolled disco moment in a parking lot, oh well. If Facebook thinks I'm a fan of cod and gay bars, let them. If Netflix is convinced that I like stupid teen movies... well, Netflix is probably right -- those movies are awesome.

COLUMN: Truck Fire

(Note: Not the actual truck or the actual fire. But it was kinda like this.

Except at night. And I was a lot farther away. Or is it further away? Point is, it was scary.)

I am, by no means, a macho, macho man like the Village People once yearned to be. Still, I've always kind of assumed that inside this mild-mannered nerd beats the heart of a hero-in-waiting. After this week, I'm pretty sure I was wrong.

Running towards trouble and not away from it is a skill that doesn't come natural to me. A loud bang? I jump out of my seat. Someone yells? I pretend not to hear. A bee flys by? I run away while trying SUPER hard not to shriek. You can describe me with a choice of adjectives, but "brave" usually isn't among them.

Still, I've always thought that if I found myself in a crisis situation, I'd do the right thing. I'd help my fellow man. I'd run into the burning building -- or at least briskly walk. I've just never been in a real hurry to test my heroic instinct.

Last Sunday, I drove with my best friend Jason to Chicago to see one of our favorite bands from the old days (The Trash Can Sinatras.) It was a brilliant night out that took me straight back to college -- a frame of mind which might also explain why we thought that afterwards, we'd just hop in the car and drive back home like the 18-year-olds we definitely aren't.

Collegiate Shane would NOT have been impressed by the two middle-aged men limping and groaning their way into the Dekalb Oasis at 1:30 a.m. in dire need of caffeine and Advil. As it turned out, though, we didn't need coffee to wake us up on this particular roadtrip.

Twenty minutes later, we were somewhere outside of Dixon and I was thiiiis close to falling asleep in my seat when I heard Jason from behind the wheel yell out, "What the hell is THAT?"

I looked up. Omigod. "THAT" was an 18-wheeler, about 200 yards in front of us -- on fire. Not just a little fire, either. This was a BIG fire. Like, a MOVIE fire. I barely had time to curse when an explosion sent two flaming truck tires into the air over the inferno. I half expected Arnold Schwarzenegger at my window yelling, "Come with me if you want to live!"

Another fireball followed as presumably the gas tank went up. Was this my hero moment? Was I supposed to spring into action and somehow, some way, make everything all better? Instead, the two of us sat there transfixed, saying little that I could repeat in a family newspaper.

No one else was around. "We've got to call 911," someone said (was it me?) and we did, though it barely helped the operator to tell her we were "on I-88 somewhere not quite Dixon." Part of me wanted to run to the truck and make sure the driver was okay, but the fire was WAY too intense. The only thing we could do was turn on our emergency lights and try to warn other drivers coming up behind us.

A handful stopped and pulled off the road alongside us. A few minutes later, we saw the lights of a police car approaching from the other side of the accident. Behind us, another 18-wheeler rolled up, carrying a dozen or so new cars on his trailer. This bright bulb took one look at the situation and decided his best course of action was to just keep on truckin' down the half-lane that wasn't full of fiery debris. Smart move, since the only thing better than one exploding vehicle is a dozen of them.

He made it through, though, and that was all it took for the other cars to follow. Eventually being the last ones left, Jason and I shrugged and decided to follow suit. As we cautiously drove around the inferno, we were met with a surprise. From where we pulled off, it had looked like the whole truck was engulfed in flame. In reality, only the trailer was ablaze and the cab didn't look too bad. We saw no driver, a police car was there, and we could see lights of approaching fire trucks in the distance, so we carried on home. Easy peasy.

But then the next day, I e-mailed Lee County Sheriff John Simonton to see if there were any public details about the fire. I almost wish I hadn't.

Like I said, from our vantage point, all we saw was fire. What we didn't see was the car in front of the truck that stopped when they saw him blow a tire and swerve off the road. We didn't see the passengers of that car race to the cab and pull the unconscious driver to safety before the first explosion. We never spotted the good samaritans or the first-reponse officer giving the driver CPR until the ambulance arrived. As I write this, the driver's currently in critical but stable condition and expected to pull through, thank God.

Maybe I could have been more proactive. Instead, I was a gawker, unaware that life-and-death heroics were happening just beyond that blaze. Instead of keeping a safe distance from the fire, we joined in the parade of idiots too impatient to wait for the road to clear. Sheriff Simonton also informed me that the tanker was full of liquid oxygen and could have gone nuclear at any point.

So if you're holding out for a hero 'til the morning light, you might want to skip me. I'm still not entirely unconvinced that I'm incapable of bravery and self-sacrifice, but the jury's still out and I'm in no hurry to test it ever again. Just be safe when you're out there on the roads. And I know that some people say thoughts and prayers are overrated, but if you could send some towards the driver of that truck, this wannabe hero would be grateful.

COLUMN: Allergies

My neighbor's house is on fire. I'm not kidding.

Well, it WAS on fire. This column won't run until Monday and I'm writing it nearly a week in advance, so if my neighbor's house is STILL on fire by the time you're reading this, then we've got a far more serious problem than I could have ever anticipated.

But right here, right now, in the reality of me sitting on my couch writing this column, my neighbor's house is on fire. As I type, there are police outside my window blocking the road and two trucks full of firefighters attacking the blaze. The good news is that it looks like they caught it early and it's not going to be that big of a deal. I'm pretty sure they've already got it done to a mere smolder, everyone seems okay, and there doesn't look to be a ton of property damage. Whew.

I tried walking down there for a closer view and got a couple of very stern looks from some of Rock Island's finest, so I decided it would be best to retreat to the house and let them do their job. Besides, I was a bit preoccupied.

How did I first know that the neighbor's house was ablaze? Was it the random shouts I heard from down the block? Was it the wailing sirens of fire trucks skidding to a stop in front of my house? Was it the foul burnt smell currently suffocating the neighborhood?

Nope. I knew something was up when, out of complete nowhere, I sat up, blinked, went "uh oh," and sneezed 37 times in a row. I'm not kidding. I counted.

Like many of you, I suffer from seasonal allergies -- and the season is NOW.

When I was a kid, I was constantly sniffling through pollen season. When I hit my twenties and thirties, though, most of my symptoms went away and I just assumed I'd outgrown my hay fever. But about five years ago, my allergies returned with a vengeance. These days, I can pretty much count on losing the ability to smell for most of the spring and fall.

Some folks get the sniffles or a runny nose or itchy eyes. Me? I get spontaneous, no-warning rapid fire sneezing fits that can last for fifteen minutes or more. It's just a fun quirky facet of Shane that my co-workers especially seem to enjoy.

Some people can sneeze politely. I once had a massive crush on a cute girl who even had cute sneezes -- little petite things that went "Fiw!" adorably. I used to have a co-worker who could hold them in entirely and would just politely go "fppt" while I presume her head narrowly avoided exploding into tiny polite shards. My sneezes tend to sound more like "RrrrrAFFFFLEKAFLOOOOOOOOOO!" which is made all the more fun when they appear one after the other like semi-automatic assault sneezes.

My co-workers, bless them, are used to it. That is, the ones who've always sat near me are. But since we recently moved offices, we're now in one giant cubicle farm where each and every employee of the Dispatch/Argus now gets to hear me rrrraffflekaflooo-ing on a regular basis. The other day, a couple of them attempted to issue a polite "God bless you" after each sneeze. Both of them gave up after sneeze #25 or so. I'd like to think God must have better things to do than sit around and bless me 37 times in a row.

It's all great fun and games until it happens while you're behind the wheel of a car. I've had to pull off the road on many an occasion just to sneeze a dozen times. I'm probably the only person who's explained tardiness to their boss as "I was sneezing" and have them go, "yeah, I understand." They've heard it. They know.

I've never been tested to find out exactly what I'm allergic to, but I'm in no hurry to find out. Doesn't it still involve drawing a grid on your back, injecting you with tiny amounts of irritants, and seeing which ones make you red and itchy? To this medieval practice, I say a big no thanks. This would be like testing for meningitis by having people spit in your mouth until one of them makes you sick. Keep your back grids, needles, and cooties to yourself, doc.

No, instead I'll just err on the side of caution and assume that I'm allergic to ALL of nature and do my very best to wall myself indoors until everything that's gonna bloom blooms. I know I'm allergic to pollen, dust, bee stings, and now I'm pretty sure I can add "burning duplexes" to that list. I reckon that's all the knowledge I need for now. I'll be fine in a month, I promise you.

Some people might be bummed if they had to stay indoors and live the spring season through HEPA filters and allergy drugs. I'm cool with it. I've got a long Netflix queue to get through, people. Go enjoy the rest of your spring. I'll keep the homefires burning -- just not as dramatically as my neighbor, I hope.