There are obviously the people that will pick it up regardless of value. Sacajawea dollars, buffalo nickels and tarnished pennies are all identified with the same level of enthusiasm. Ironically, I assume most of these people to be old women, most of whom should avoid bending down when not necessary.

Then there are people like me who are first stricken with a sense of laziness and the feeling that it’s not worth the effort of stopping walking and bending over to retrieve some small fraction of a dollar. Then the second guessing comes. “C’mon, it’s free money. Put it in a jar. It’ll add up eventually.” At this point, if it’s a quarter, I pick it up, even if I have to backtrack the few steps I’ve taken since I first noticed it. Less than a quarter, I continue to ponder. Dimes and nickels are mostly insignificant, but often I’ll grab them just to put my mind at ease. Pennies I clearly don’t need, but sometimes the whole “lucky penny” superstition hits me. And even though I’m not superstitious, I have irrational thoughts of getting angry at myself if something unfortunate were to happen later that day and I had to think back to when I didn’t pick up the penny. So yes, I pick up pennies. And I put them in a jar. And they add up. About 100 of them equals a dollar.

I feel like an asshole. – ok
I kinda feel like an asshole. – ok
I literally feel like an asshole. – not ok. And if you do literally feel like an asshole, please do not talk to me.

Recently, I was sitting in traffic – really terrible traffic – and I was behind someone driving a Toyota Avalon. I looked at the word Avalon across the back and realized that it spelled no lava backwards. Then I started thinking that it was unfortunate that there was no lava nearby, because it would have been nice for me to push everyone else’s vehicles into it so that I could get home.

I’m a terrible person.

Last night while I was sleeping, I had a dream in which I was cleaning my room (exciting stuff) and realized I had to ask a friend a question that I can no longer recall. Anyway, in my past dreams, I would have called this friend or perhaps just have suddenly been with her to ask in person. In this dream, however, I texted her. Then I waited for an answer. But it was a text, so she didn’t answer quickly, and my dream was suddenly at a standstill. In fact, it was so uneventful that I woke up, rather confused.

Clearly, this is the beginning of an epidemic. Texting has become so prevalent that it will replace other forms of in-dream communication, and the wait for the response will wake us up and pull us out of REM sleep, causing worldwide sleep deprivation and eventual psychosis, chaos and death. RIP humans.

Note: this post was written after a night of inadequate sleep.

We need to quantify commonness of sense and also create a cut-off point at which sense does not qualify as common. I think 85% of the adult population of Earth qualifies as common. If 16% or more do not know something, it is regular sense. If 85% or more do not know it, it is clearly uncommon sense, not to be confused with common nonsense, such as the idea that Mountain Dew causes sterility or that not all women are insane.

I wonder what uncommon nonsense would be… nonsense that under 16% of adults believe? Oh, I got one. “Bill O’Reilly is not an incredibly enormous douchebag.”

• I Can’t Believe It’s Butter!
• Unlucky Charms
• Fish of the Land canned chicken
• Bacon spray
• Pre-roasted marshmallows
• Orange pulp in a shake-top carton
• Tortillas with branded-on burrito/fajita making instructions
• Triangular loaves of bread (triangular prisms, to be precise)
• Peanut Butter Or Jelly (one or the other, but you don’t know until you buy and open it)
• Make-your-friends-cry-cause-it’s-way-too-spicy salsa
• Any combination of the foods with an actual person as the brand name, sort of like an illegitimate food child. I’m thinking Aunt Jemima and the Green Giant’s Maple Flavored Brussel Sprouts.

And what if you have a really big crumb, and then you step on it? You don’t have a broken crumb. You have many crumbs. It defies physics. It’s a good thing crumbs are not official currency or inflation would be out of control.

I’m sitting at a crowded restaurant, doctor’s office or somewhere else that employs a waiting list. Whenever see the host/hostess (mmm, cupcakes) prepare to call the next name, I prepare to stand up victoriously and then non-chalantly parade past the rest of the hungry/ailing/whatever schlubs still waiting. But most of the time, it’s not my name they call.

Instead, it’s Frank, or Diane, or if it’s a fancy restaurant, Wilkenson or Miller. But do I sulk? No. For some reason, I automatically assume it’s a Frank, Diane, Wilkenson or Miller that I know personally. I start looking for these people to say an awkward “hi” as they pass me on the way to the front.

What makes it even better is when there’s a name for whom I don’t have an obvious acquaintance. Conrad…Conrad…hmm. I start cycling through my mental rolodex in search of a Conrad. Little League teammates, people I vaguely remember from high school, ex-colleagues… there must be a Conrad somewhere. Then I see the person pass and realize I don’t actually know him from anywhere.

But now I know him from this place. He is the Conrad I didn’t know until today. And the next time Conrad is called on a waiting list while I’m waiting, he’s coming to mind. And that’s how I waste the space in my brain.