John Hodgeman accidentally gives real advice in the mostly-humor column

[conuly]

1. Ryan writes: I was in a crowded grocery store when I heard a person call out, “Marco!” to their child. I instinctively responded, “Polo!” The person seemed annoyed and sarcastically replied, “Like we’ve never heard that one before,” then walked away, presumably to find their child. I was only trying to bring joy into the world!

I’m sitting in a busy coffee shop as I write this. While I was contemplating your case, a woman asked if she could take the seat across from me. Sensing an opportunity, I said, “Absolutely not!” Ha-ha! Boy, did that bring down the house! It didn’t. Because even though I immediately smiled and said, “Of course you may,” it was still confusing and destabilizing to a person who was, after all, just trying to go about her morning. Now imagine how she would feel if her son was missing in a grocery store! Anyway, as soon as another seat opened up, she got away from me as quickly as possible — as will others in your life, until you learn the world is not your improv stage.

Link one

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2. Daniel writes: My brother insists on using Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, saying there’s no reason adults can’t enjoy the “gentle to the eyes” experience. I say that now that he’s 26 and off our parents’ insurance, it’s time for him to graduate to adult shampoo. Who is right?

You wrote to the wrong judge. I used baby shampoo well into my 20s, and I honestly don’t know why I switched. I suspect I was lured by labels with cosmopolitan typefaces and empty promises to thicken my wispy, pathetic baby hair. But in any case, it has never worked! My hair is still thin, childish and deserving of the gentle wash that baby shampoo affords. Your brother can do what he wants because, as you point out, he is a grown-up. If you don’t like it, get out of his shower, weirdo. Sorry to be harsh, but you’re being a bully, not a brother, and you can be sure: When I next shower, I shall shed no tears for you.

Link two

Comments

[conuly]

1. What sort of response did LW expect? From anyone?

2. When I was four, I got shampoo in my eyes and didn't open them again for a day and a half. My parents were, you might say, a little bit unnerved. I required their help, or that of my older sister, until nearly middle school to wash my hair without getting soap in my eyes, something they obliged without complaint because they never wanted to go through that again. Which just goes to show that my older sister was more mature at the age of seven than LW apparently is as a so-called adult. Grown-ups do not criticize how other people wash their hair, or eat their food, or generally live their lives. It doesn't exactly affect anybody else, now does it?

[lilysea]

yes, the only time people should criticise someone's else's shampoo is

"hey, the fragrance of your shampoo gives me a migraine, do you think you could use a different product if you're visiting my house/working at the desk next to me at the office, I would really appreciate it, thanks."

unless it's causing genuine issues, it's no one's business

[full_metal_ox]

Grown-ups do not criticize how other people wash their hair, or eat their food, or generally live their lives. It doesn't exactly affect anybody else, now does it?

I’m going to hazard a guess that Daniel’s own choice of personal care products runs to SPORT, TURBO, FRESH, and black or camo packaging.

[movingfinger]

Gosh that takes me back. Mom had this special hoop-hat thing for washing small children's hair! It was a huge fabric brim about 4" wide all the way around, an institutional peach-beige color, and elasticized in the middle. Pop it over kid's head with the hair sticking out to shield the eyes and face. I think she has photos of at least one of us wearing it.

[conuly]

That would've been useful, or maybe goggles? I feel like goggles would've helped.

But no, our solution was to fold up several layers of washcloths and carefully place them over my eyes, with some more over the rest of my face as the hair was rinsed. Something I continued to do on my own for a while after I started doing my own hair!

[laurajv]

We were given a special hair pitcher by a friend when our eldest was born. It was shaped like a whale and curved, with a soft brim, to fit along a toddler-sized forehead and seal water away. Our kids loved it.

I just checked amazon and it's still available, heh.
https://www.amazon.com/Skip-Hop-Tear-Free-Waterfall-Rinser/dp/B00FXR5S20/

[conuly]

I may need to order one for the kids' erstwhile stepmother, who is having a baby.

[katiedid717]

We had foam shower hats/visors - kind of like this but without the ear flaps (although those would have been handy too!)

[pauraque]

These are both great. I have known people who desperately needed to learn the lesson of #1 -- that "bringing joy to the world" doesn't count if it's at the expense of innocent bystanders.

[full_metal_ox]

I have known people who desperately needed to learn the lesson of #1 -- that "bringing joy to the world" doesn't count if it's at the expense of innocent bystanders.

…the world is not your improv stage.

Corollary: your fellows do not exist to be straight people in your ongoing ambush comedy routine.

[princessofgeeks]

Daniel needs a hobby other than pestering his roommates. Jeez.

[dissectionist]

LW1, if you said it with the intention of being funny, then it wasn’t “instinctive” - it’s something you chose to do because you thought it would be funny. If you did indeed play so much Marco Polo as a kid that you involuntarily said “polo” upon hearing “Marco”, then the only suitable follow-up is an immediate embarrassed look and adding, “Sorry,” once you realized you’d said it.

[landofnowhere]

^ this.

[jadelennox]

yeah, I've done that instinctively, and I don't get defensive about it, because I'm wrong and I know it. Not with someone named Marco, but with similar names. I apologize! I did it once in college, which was more than 30 years ago, and I'm still ashamed of it.

[dissectionist]

I’m still mortified about the time decades ago that I said, “I love you,” to a store clerk I’d been chatting with and I was leaving the store. It happened because I’m so used to saying that as I leave the house if my family is near enough to hear it, and a “I’m leaving somewhere, say ‘I love you’” synapse got triggered. But it was still embarrassing, especially since the clerk was of a different sex and close to my age, and we’d been having an amicable conversation for 10-15 minutes. So awkward, even though I apologized immediately and explained our family tradition, and they said it was fine. It’ll live in my head as a cringe moment forever.

[lilysea]

I once accidentally said

"thanks, gorgeous" to a cashier

because I was wrapped up in thinking about the person (S) I was about to have a date with in less than an hour, who I referred to as "gorgeous.

It was embarrassing at the time, but it wasn't on purpose,

and if psychology research tells us anything, it's that most humans make this kind of mistake accidentally at some point.

(A friend of mine in high school accidentally called her French/German language teacher "Mum" once in front of the whole class, which C found very embarrassing.)

[magid]

At least it's a positive term, rather than using something with a bad connotation....

[full_metal_ox]

Unless the cashier hears such “endearments” from creeps hitting on them while they’re trying to do their job.

[magid]

Good point.

[azurelunatic]

My 5th grade teacher said "Yes, [name of her own daughter]" when I did that. Which was fairly funny.

[redbird]

1. The "instinctively" in the LW's description is misleading: Given that, I was expecting an interaction closer to "stranger: 'very funny'. LW: 'sorry, reflex,'" asking the columnist for reassurance that it was no big deal.

Instead, LW goes on to say they were "only trying to bring joy into the world." Telling a joke isn't instinct. If someone can't cope with being told they're not funny, they shouldn't be cracking jokes to strangers in the supermarket.

[full_metal_ox]

Let’s not forget bonus points for splash damage: Marco may have gotten to hear an adult stranger popping up in ambush to make fun of his name. Yep—-that’s how to bring joy into the world!

[mrissa]

1. "I would simultaneously like credit for being a thoughtful and considerate person and for having no requirement to think before I speak."

2. "I am definitely the boss of my sibling's personal care products, and that's not at all a weird thing to want."

[matsushima]

I'm 36 this month and I recently switched back to baby shampoo. It's cheaper than the expensive unscented grown-up stuff I was using.

[minoanmiss]

LW1: if you can think of a name-related joke, at least a dozen of your fellow wits already did.

LW2: Who does your brother's choice of shampoo harm?

[ysobel]

2: LW's sense of masculinity.

[conuly]

Surely it is more manly to freaking have a life?

[ysobel]

Pfftt. Suffering is ~manly~, and it's obviously LW's job to make Daniel suffer, because gentle shampoo is a gateway drug to horrible vices like ... gasp ... self-care.

/s for the above of course.

(More seriously, I wonder if LW secretly would prefer gentle shampoo but has been denying it because it's For Babies, and he's doing the crabs-in-a-bucket thing.)

[full_metal_ox]

LW1: if you can think of a name-related joke, at least a dozen of your fellow wits already did.

No supposedly teaseproof name, ever, withstands the collective imagination of the playground.

[mrissa]

Corollary: teaseproof names are a snare and a delusion.

[conuly]

Also: Your ability to judge what your child's peers will consider a teasable name is very low. Nobody is going to tease a child because they have the name of some character in a TV show that was moderately popular 30 years ago, or because they have a name that wasn't popular 30 years ago but now is in the top 25 names in your state, or because it sounds funny back in the old country where you no longer live.

[full_metal_ox]

Remember: if the past is a different country, if you’re old enough to be a parent, you inhabit the present as an immigrant. You can somewhat diminish contemporary fallout potential by checking Urban Dictionary, but some out-of-left-field development you couldn’t possibly have anticipated can always come along and happen to a hitherto perfectly good name; I feel really sorry for all those Khaleesis out there.

[ysobel]

I first read #1 as the other adult marco-polo-ing with their son, not that the kid's name was Marco. It seemed wrong even then, but doubly so on reread.

"I was only trying to bring joy" for one thing negates the "instinctively" thing, but also is a lie. LW wanted to get a laugh. Or maybe a smile, especially if other adult was female. But the heart of it is making fun of a kid's name, and providing an unnecessary distraction to someone worried their kid is missing.

(I've done the "No! Okay, yes" thing, but only with friends who I know will see it as a joke.)