Diseases I Would Have If They Existed

Big-Play Paranoia

Sufferers of Big Play Paranoia (BPP) cannot leave the room during a football game for fear that they will miss a big play. Victims of this terrible disease are deluded into thinking that instant replays "just aren't the same".

People with Big Play Paranoia will often refuse to leave the living room even when their wife asks them to get them a soda, and will not change the channel to cartoons for their kids--even for just a few minutes during a commercial break.

Terrified that halftime will unexpectedly "end early for some reason", they will stay glued to the television even when the halftime show is really boring and frequently is interrupted by the local affiliate for a weather update. On the rare occassion that BPP's leave the room to use the bathroom, they will turn the volume up and then pee with the bathroom door wide open, craning their head to try and still hear what's going on. Even then, they will go as fast as they can, and then skip hand-washing because they swore they heard the game come back on. (But really it was just that Pepsi commercial with Tony Romo in it again.)

Last-To-Get-The-Clipboard-itus

I'm sitting in a meeting at work. Somebody's talking, but I can't hear what they're saying. They're too boring. I'm not going to pay attention to them. I'll doze off, or just imagine what the ugly lady sitting to my right looks like naked. I'm in my own little world, here. No complaints.

And then suddenly, I'm jerked out of my bubble by the edge of a flat wooden surface being jammed into my ribs.

Suddenly alert, I look around the room, hoping the speaker didn't ask me a question or otherwise call me out on not paying attention. Thankfully, nobody important seems to be staring at me. Just the ugly lady sitting to my right, who is now getting impatient. She raises her eyebrows and thrusts a clipboard in front of my face.

"Oh, right." I mumble and I take the clipboard from her hands.

"Uh oh." I think to myself. "What in the world is this?" It's a form with a bunch of blank spaces, and peoples' signatures in thrown in, seemingly at random. "...am I supposed to sign this? Or am I just passing it along?"

Not sure what to do, I draw a quick squiggly line in the middle of the page. If signing is optional, then nobody will recognize it as mine--but if signing is mandatory, I can later point at it and tell them that it was me, and that I did everything that was required. So now I'm ready to get rid of the stupid, confusing clipboard.

I'm sitting at the end of the row, so there's nobody to pass it to on my left. I try passing it forward, but the guy in front of me shakes his head no. I try passing it to the row behind me, but they all wave it away, saying they've already signed it. Crap. What the heck do I do now? I try to give it back to the ugly woman who gave it to me, but she just shoots me another angry look.

...what the heck am I supposed to do with this thing? Should I go give it to the speaker? I don't even know if they're the ones who passed it out in the first place. I have no idea what it is, or where it came from, or where it's supposed to go... This clipboard has absolutely no meaning to me, and yet I am now responsible for it! I can't take this kind of pressure! Arghhh!!!

This is what it's like to have Last-To-Get-The-Clipboard-itus. Other symptoms of LTGTC include:

* desperate look in your eyes
* confused whispering
* repeatedly asking "have you seen this yet?"
* looking around the room trying to find somebody who looks like they're not paying attention so that you can drop the clipboard next to them and then run away before they realize what's happened
* putting the clipboard down and then taking an extra-long bathroom break, hoping that whoever initiated the clipboard-passing will spot it and take it back before you return.

Home Video MADDness

You may suffer from Home Video MADDness if you find that you can't sit through any home videos with cute kids in it, because you keep expecting a "killed by a drunk driver" graphic to pop up on the screen, depressing you for days on end.

Due to being brainwashed by that agonizingly effective anti-drunk-driving ad campaign, HVM sufferers are mentally trained to anticipate depressing endings to cute home videos. Even if they are watching their own home videos, with their own kids whom they know are alive and well, they still cannot help but have tears well in their eyes and a lump in their throat as they think about how awful it is that a drunk driver would ruin such a wonderful young life. Such wasted potential. Such sadness...

-----------------------------

My name is Jeff Henry. I am 26 years old, and I have all of these diseases. Or I would, if they existed. Thank you.