Wood Zealot's Workshop

My greatest love involves my girlfriend. She introduced me one day to Oreo Thin Crisps by Nabisco and it was love at first bite. I simply can not get enough of these heavenly treats!

Nabisco please take notice of my unadultered love of your Oreo Thin Crisps. You may also be interested to know that this website has tens of readers. Because I find Oreo Thin Crisps to be the single greatest food product ever made, I am willing to make the following offer. Provide me a one-year supply of Thin Crips (at a rate of two 100 calorie packs per day) and I promise to insert a postive Nabisco Oreo Thin Crisp reference (a.k.a “A Shout Out”) in every Wood Zealot Workshop post for a year!! Plus I will publish a special post illustrating how Oreo Thin crisps can be useful to woodworkers beside their pure tastiness. My sole purpose will be to bring Thin Crisps to the vast, snack-hungry woodworking community. My people are waiting to hear from your people… let’s make this happen!

After dating the girlfriend for the past year I decided it was time to do the ever-so-dreaded (I mean eagerly-anticipated if your reading this sweetie!) introduction of her to my parents. Interestingly enough… while I’m 37 years old, this is the first time I’ve brought someone home to meet my parents (yes, I’ve dated previously and even touched boobies before that). Both my girlfriend and parents demanded this meeting stating that they had essentially done their time and that they had thus earned it. So, that was that… a dinner was planned for this momentous occasion.

Wanting to take control of the situation I prepared a few cue cards for me to display at appropriate times to the appropriate individual. These included the obvious:

• Pretend you found that interesting
• Bad topic… Move on… Nothing to see here
• Choose your words wisely. I have dirt on you too
• LAUGH! That was a joke
• for untenable situations “This bitch is crazy. I don’t know her.”

I ran out of cards as there were others that I wanted on hand such as “Just say that you love me anyway” and “Use your inner voice”. All in all the cue cards went well… I only had to use the “This bitch is crazy. I don’t know her card” card four times or so (I apologize Mom but sometimes that shoe fits).

I’m thinking about extending the cue card notion a bit further to facilitate office interactions:

• I’d rather be watching a monkey drinking it’s own piss on youtube right now
• I know you’d rather be watching a monkey drinking it’s own piss on youtube right now but hear me out
• when you find your point, please poke me with it to wake me up
• causal conversation does nothing for me. I’d rather be planning my next movement
• (boss-man specific) yes, yes… potential… yeah, productivity… whatever… just give me more money and I’ll keep the facade up that I “work” here
• (vending machine specific) you took my mother-f’in money now spin your mother-f’in loop a little further so that my mother-f’in animal crackers will fall
• This bitch is crazy. I don’t know her (it’s demonstrated usefulness can not be understated)

I’ve recently encountered a few situations that have given me pause with the realization of the fact that I’m clearly in an obsessive state with regards to woodworking. I will list some of the signs to look for as a PSA (Public Service Announcement) for others out there to detect this condition:

• spending ridiculous amounts of money on tools (including tools that you are not completely sure are even for woodworking)
• selling all of your furniture to make room for tools. I’ve recently sold my coffee table and living room chair on craigslist and currently have my recliner listed. All that is left is my couch! Dedicated woodworking rooms now include garage, dining room, one bedroom, and part of the kitchen (conveniently enough, a hand plane slices roast beef like butta).
• always having wood on the brain (this is ok if you are a prostitute)
• constantly making childish wood/penis jokes (this just might be me)
• you randomly grab wood and smell it (this is sooo not a penis joke… I’m truly addicted to the sweet smell of my walnut… in fact I would go so far as to say that you haven’t lived until you’ve huffed freshly planed walnut)

I should probably keep this as a “live” list and add to it as these realizations occur. Submissions from family, friends, and therapists welcomed.