Tidbits without pants

1. First off, I should clarify that I am wearing pants. But for some reason, whenever I think the word "tidbits" in my head, it is followed by "without pants." Can anyone tell me WHY? Because I have no idea. I must have read it somewhere. Did one of you use that as a post title once? No? I'm just a crazy lady? I thought so.
   
   
2. Speaking of pants (or no pants), I am totally following Miss Pants's lead with the itemized list of randomness. How's it working for you so far? (Don't answer that.)
   
   
3. In the past 24 hours, I have squashed no fewer than four tiny flying gnat-like things in my bathroom and computer room. There is no food in my kitchen that might explain a fruit fly infestation, my windows have not been open for weeks, and my garbage can should contain nothing particularly organic or questionable at the moment. So WHERE are they coming from? I am terrified I am eventually going to find a rotting, scary, long-forgotten nectarine that rolled behind a piece of furniture somewhere, but I am too mortified (read: lazy) to look for it.
   
   
4. That reminds me of a story. Not the story involving the fruit fly infestation around my desk at work last summer (because I am still too horrified to share how that happened), but a story from when I first moved into my house five years ago. Because you don't have to worry about earning back a rental deposit when you sell a house, the previous owners didn't bother to clean a single room of my new home before I moved in. (I only hope karma paid them back nicely for that one.) As a result, I spent my first day here surrounded by boxes, on my hands and knees scrubbing my refrigerator, toilet, and bathtub. Good times. A couple days later, my good friend Lisa (bless her heart) came over to help me scrub away the sticky yellow grime that mysteriously coated nearly every surface in my kitchen. At some point about halfway into the project, Lisa looked up and cried, "I keep expecting to find a whole pork chop in here!" We never found one, but I wouldn't have been surprised if we had.
   
   
5. This afternoon, my favorite coworker sent me an email that said, "I am pulling an HMC* and leaving for a bit without telling anyone where I'm going. I'd explain, but I'm sure you would say it was TMI. I'll be back shortly." Because you can't get a message like that and not be curious, I replied, and she finally admitted that my half-joking guess was correct and she had some indelicate stomach issues that she didn't want to attend to in our office's not-so-soundproof one-seater located in a high-traffic area in the center of the building. I thought perhaps she'd made the quick drive back to her own house for the Home Toilet Advantage**, but she later explained that she'd instead run to the public library (a half-block away) and relieved herself there. Rather than being incredulous or mortified, I told her that was actually a brilliant idea and I would have to remember it the next time I find myself in a similar emergency situation. The problem, of course, is that now should I ever tell her, "I'm going to the library," she is going to think I'm using this new secret code to give her more information than she needs about my digestive tract. It turns out there's a reason we don't talk about this sort of thing in polite company, isn't there?
   
   * HMC is an acronym we use for the coworker we can't stand. It's not even that great of a nickname, so that's all I'll say about that.
   
   ** I just tried to Google my way back to the blog where I originally heard this term, and while I didn't find the one I was looking for, I did find a few other blogs that mentioned it. And because I was foolish enough to click on them, those blog owners are going to see me in their search engine hits and wonder about me the same way I have wondered about everyone who's ever Googled their way to MY blog with the words "human castration story." (I swore I would never type that here again, but frankly, the damage is already done and those searchers are never, ever going away, so once more really can't do any harm.)
   
   
6. The coworker we can't stand recently threatened to sue the gym where we all get free memberships. I think my boss is officially exasperated with her. Also, we learned that the gym personnel have their own special nickname for my least favorite coworker, and it's actually way better than ours. I cannot share it without giving away said coworker's last name, but I will say that it starts with "Evil" and rhymes with the name of a famous motorcycle daredevil named "Evel [something similar to my coworker's last name]." It's brilliant, really.
   
   
7. Speaking of the gym, I think a sixty-year-old man may have hit on me there yesterday. Or not. Maybe he was just being friendly. He glanced over as I was getting up from the weight machine next to him, and he said, "Is that enough weight for you?" Because I am paranoid, I answered, "Uh, I think so. Why? Am I a wuss?" He laughed and said, "No! I actually meant the opposite! That was supposed to be a compliment!" And then he followed me around the weight room, choosing the machine next to mine three separate times, twice clarifying, "I meant that as a compliment! I'm sorry!" Um, OK sir. I'm just going to turn my iFraud up a bit now, 'kaythanksbye.
   
   
8. Sunday night I went to a David Sedaris reading, and tonight I am going to a Sarah Vowell one. I'm pretty sure neither of them would ever type a random list of mini-stories and call it publishable. We'll just say that's one more reason I'm not the writer either of them is.