Talking about coffee breath turns into a story about church camp‏

While I have enjoyed my recent foray into coffee drinking, one of the things I don't like about it is the resultant stinky breath.

Coffee breath is gross, and I'm hyper-conscious of it so after I'm done with my couple cups in the morning, I immediately brush my teeth to try to wash away the smell from my mouth and the stain from my teeth. My teeth are so much whiter since I quit smoking and I don't want a beverage to mess that up.

I'm glad I don't smoke anymore because drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes would create the worst breath imaginable. Might as well just eat poop.

This one time on the bus on the way to church camp in junior high, some guy whose name I can't remember drew the funniest picture of this other guy that had terrible breath. It was a little cartoon guy with flames coming out of his mouth and that image still pops into my head every once in a blue moon and makes me laugh out loud.

The one guy was a really good artist, and the other guy really did have hideously bad breath. That week he earned the moniker Bad Breath Dieu (his name was Dieu). I remember he also didn't bring any money with him on that trip, not a dime, and we all had to donate a dollar so he could buy food on the way there and back. We would have gladly chipped in extra for him to buy some mouthwash.

This One Time . . .

The first half of this year I tutored twice a week at the library. For a couple months in a row, every time I walked into the building I was asked to sign a petition for some political something or other. Normally I patiently listened to a quick synopsis of the issue, then either signed or politely declined.

One day I was cranky from my day at work, was tired of consistently getting hit up to sign a piece of paper when all I wanted to do was walk into the library, and had simply reached my patience and politeness limit. In what was admittedly not my best moment, I said something snarky to poor Petition Pete (not his real name) as I hurried into the building. Five seconds later, realizing that I was still wearing my sunglasses (prescription) and had left my regular glasses out in the car, I regretted that decision. I had picked the wrong moment to feign bravado. I was too embarrassed to run out to the car, grab my glasses, then run back in because I'd have to shamefully scurry across the path of Petition Pete not once but twice.

I am not a tough person, just a chicken with really bad vision, so I ended up wearing my sunglasses inside for a couple hours.

This One Time . . .

This one time when I worked as a cashier at Barnes & Noble in Santa Monica I checked out Viggo Mortensen. At B&N, every time I checked somebody out I had to ask them if they had a membership card, and if they didn't already have one I had to ask them if they wanted one. It's stuff like that (not to mention dealing with the general public) that makes working retail a real headache.

So anyway, I asked Viggo Mortensen if he had a membership card and he gave me his phone number (no one ever carries their cards, we always just looked people up in the system by their phone numbers). His phone number pulled up his name and Christina Ricci's name. The only way it would have been set up like that is if the two of them were in a Barnes & Noble at the same time when they first set up membership and they wanted both their names on the account. Intriguing, right?

The next day I used my friend The Internet to look into the connection between those two and found some quotes from her saying how she was totally obsessed with him and she used to watch Lord of the Rings to fall asleep every night. Another search just now shows that Christina Ricci thinks that Viggo Mortensen deserves a special Academy Award to recognize his naked fight scene in Eastern Promises, but I am still unable to confirm whether or not they ever went out.

I also checked out Larry Hagman once. His old man eyebrows were out of this world! The time I checked out Matt Groening involves me geeking out to an embarrassing degree. I'll tell that story at a later date.