The BS Quotient

Hey guys.  First, good news.  My plane tickets are purchased and I will be off to New York early next year to see Shawn.  Yay!!

Now, today’s post.

I woke up this morning thinking about Evan.  I wasn’t really thinking about him, per se, but something I always associated with him.

If nothing else, Evan had the largest employment of the BS Quotient that I have ever seen.  While other people would see BS and accept it as flattery, Evan would recognize the BS immediately and ignore it without question.  He’s often been described as an overly sarcastic ass, so that may be where the BS Quotient originates.

My favorite example of him employing it is in regards to Larissa.

As much as I love Larissa, over the past few decades, I have become well versed in the level of BS she employs.  This is nothing against her, of course, just me acknowledging that she has her moments, like everyone.

The time she most employs said BS is when she is flirting with men, whether they are single men, men other women are interested in, or, yes, even the boyfriends of her friends.

Larissa has many interests, but when flirting with men, she will start listing all her stereotypically manly interests in succession.  A comment like “This past weekend we drove up to the mountains in my “car” (where “car” is not the actually car she owns, or wants, but a stereotypically manly car that has been worked over with a certain kind of souped up engine, for example) and shot some deer.  Then, when we got home, we drank beer and played video games for six hours.”  There are many problems with this, but most notably that there was a high likelihood that the weekend in question she had been at work and then went to a bar with me where she invariably told another potential male interest that she went drag racing… she didn’t.

While all of this is going on, of course, I am left flailing and end up bringing up my only probable common interest: college football.  I never say anything like “Oh, last year, I totally went to every bowl game and blah blah blah blah blah” because I didn’t and they know that I didn’t.

It probably wouldn’t be quite so annoying if Larissa only did this to random strangers, but you’ll note above that I said she did it to the boyfriends of her friends.

One time in particular that sticks out is when my friends were celebrating my twenty-second birthday at a brewery/restaurant and she ordered a bud light.  My boyfriend at the time, old Brody, quipped sarcastically “You’re really ordering a bud light at a brewery?”  To Larissa, of course, this was a green light to rattle off manly interests.  It took everything I had to get Brody back into conversation with Bree and her boyfriend Kegan, whom he knew personally.  He eventually did, but that didn’t stop Larissa from trying to keep bringing up manly interests until she talked about her taste in music.  As a music snob, that was when Brody’s BS meter went off, and probably Kegan’s too.

Evan, meanwhile (though admittedly I don’t remember the topic), had his BS meter go off much quicker in regards to Larissa.  Steph and I have talked about it and she remembers that group dinner like I do.  Evan ignored Larissa’s manly interests and preferred to continue whatever conversational topic was settled upon by me, Steph, Cam, Bree, and her then-boyfriend, Blake.  It wasn’t necessarily that Evan was ignoring her because she wasn’t coupled up (rather, her then-boyfriend had just opted not to come), but I think he saw through the listing of manly interests off the bat.

I do not mean this post as a discussion of Larissa’s habits and I do wonder sometimes if she knows she does it (it even happens while she is in a committed relationship).  Rather, it is to look at Evan’s BS Quotient.

As I have alluded to, the BS Quotient is the amount of BS a person will accept and tolerate before they realize it is in fact BS, thus causing the BS meter to go off.  In general, I have a pretty mid-level BS Quotient.  It isn’t necessarily a certain topic or subject that will set off a BS meter, but usually a person’s behavior.  I’ve become fairly adept at reading people, so after a certain level of conversation, I can tell whether someone is being sincere.  Obviously it also depends on how long I’ve known a person.  If a girl I just met started a “manly interests” conversation, for instance, I would give her the benefit of the doubt while I decided if it was sincere or a flirtatious ploy.  Sometimes it is actually sincere.  I’ve known Larissa so long that I can time my watch by her “manly interests” conversations, and then subsequently roll my eyes when they eventually happen.

Old Brody, as I mentioned, is more oblivious to BS, depending on the gender of his BS meter tester or the situation in which his BS meter is being tested.  However, subjects like music and certain sports will always set it off when necessary.

Evan, meanwhile, could be employed as a BS tracker for the CIA if such a profession existed.  I’m not saying it doesn’t, because it really just might, but to my knowledge, it doesn’t exist.   (If anyone from the CIA reads this and needs new BS trackers, I will do my best to put you in touch with Evan personally.)  Evan’s BS Quotient is so low that he knows within minutes whether or not someone is BSing or being sincere.  This inevitably leads to him giving said BSer the cold shoulder, which is likely what results in his being described as an overly sarcastic ass.

My point here, muddled as it may be, is that there is probably some good use for Evan’s extremely low BS meter.  That’s likely why I woke up thinking about it this morning.

The Law of Proportionate Busyness

So, this morning, I wake up at seven because I have to be at work at a little before ten.  I remember that schedules are usually up by then (seven), so I mosey over to schedule myself and the option is unavailable.  Like, I can’t make a schedule at all.

As annoying as this is, I do my morning blog reading and move on with my life, but seriously.

For whatever reason, any time I have actually woken up at seven (the time the schedule is supposed to be up with open shifts), I have been unable to schedule any shifts at all.  For that reason, I did not work at all last week and I do not work at all next week.  And really, at this stage, I just can’t afford to not work.  Like, what do I do?  I need the money badly.  I still think I should have gotten the full-time position over that other employee.  I don’t want to leave where I’m working now, I just need more hours.  Full time would have done that for me, rather than me having to scout out a second job for myself.

This, of course, is directly related to the Law of Proportionate Busyness.  Which states that the more of your friends that you don’t normally get to see who want to see you within a set time frame, the busier you are.  So, your friend that wants you to come see his band play?  You definitely have a midterm the next day (or work at five am, same idea).  Your friend from out-of-town is visiting for just the weekend?  You definitely work all weekend and, on top of that, you’re probably covering someone else’s shift in addition to your own.  That’s how little time you have.

Since this is a law of proportion, this also means that the opposite is true.  If you don’t have work for an entire week, the likelihood that everyone is clamoring at your door to see you is very low.  Or if you’re recovering from surgery, for instance, even fewer people will want to see you because you have the added stigma of not being able to leave your house until it’s dark.  This wouldn’t be so bad in the middle of winter.  During the summer, it’s a huge pain.

A very similar property is that the cheaper airfare gets, the more grad school work the person you’re trying to visit has, thus they cannot take ten minutes out of their day to call you and be like “This is when school starts in January, so these would be the best dates to come.”  Yeah, Shawn, I’m totally looking at you.  I know you’re busy and you have case studies due, but honestly, this would take ten minutes tops.  The only hard part would be deciding what a good time for an outgoing flight is based on classes or something if visiting rolled into the start of classes.

Another annoying principle is that the colder it is, the less water there is (in general), so you spend more time in the shower because the water stream isn’t very high…

And by the time you get out, the schedule is posted and you’re like “Agh!  I only work three shifts!”  Thankfully, of course, I was trying to schedule for the week I got moved into my part-time department, so I already had three shifts and was able to schedule another one.  This brought me to a grand total of four shifts, although a couple are short ones.

Yeah, this has pretty much turned into a things that are bugging me on Friday at nine am post.  Let me just say, though, that it’s not because I’m not a morning person by any means.  I’m a whenever person, really.  I just can sometimes be a bit unpleasant for two hours after I wake up.  This is even if I’m not awake at seven am.  Like I could be a total grouch at eleven am, or eight pm, if that’s when I happened to wake up.  But now that it’s almost nine, I’m doing just fine, pretty much.

Plus, even though I have work at 3:45 am on Black Friday, I’ll be out at noon.  So I’ll be able to watch the alma mater’s football game with no problem.  I might even go to a sports bar because I will be so cheerful by then.  So, knowing that actually put me in a pretty good mood.