While in Omaha (for my anniversary!) this past weekend, three things of note happened to me. Actually I’m not sure how noteworthy they are, I just thought they were either funny or just plain strange. I’ll leave you to decide.

1. On Saturday after spending a lovely morning at the zoo, Joey and I went to the mall across the way from our hotel to find some lunch. We were pert near starved since the lines had been too long at the zoo, and it was about 2:30-3:00. I zeroed in on the first place I saw (some wrap place) and Joey went to Subway. I stood in line for awhile, ordered a Santa Fe wrap (with light Ranch dressing) and had the lady grill it for me.

The guy at the cash register was taking money and finishing up the wraps by taking them off the grill, cutting them, and putting them on places. He had one small thing going for him–he had gloves on.

I watched him help the customer before me, take my sandwich off the grill, hold it while he cut it, slide it onto my plate, and then give me the change for my $10.

I hesitated as I took the tray. I thought, Did he just touch my wrap with the same gloves on that he took that other guy’s money? Yeah, he did.

Unfortunately, I was too tired and grouchy to do much about it at that point. I figured I’ve probably eaten my fair share of unsanitary things in the BWCAW and I’d probably not die.

However, I didn’t necesarily pay for those unsanitary things up there. And besides, when you’re in the Boundary Waters, you sort of expect it. You don’t expect it from some punk kid with long greasy hair and germed up gloves.

I was in a pretty good stew by the time I got over to Joey. I was sitting at a table, staring poutily at my wrap, convinced that I was not going to eat it but too tired to have the gumption to do anything else.

Joey decided that we weren’t paying for that, so he took the tray, went over to the boss-lady, told her what happened and she made me a new wrap. She also went and whispered in long-hair’s ear and he sulked off to the back.

I hope he got in trouble.

2. For dinner yesterday evening we found a hole in the wall Persian restauraunt called Ahmed’s. It was fantastic. Great Middle-eastern food with fantastic flavor. Yummy. Anyway, on the way home, Joey took a detour.

He decided we should go to this other mall, not the one by our hotel, because it had something “special” there.

I could not imagine what any other mall would have aside from the huge one right next to us. (Aside from maybe a Gap–can you imagine? No Gap!) We headed in to the mall with 20 minutes to go until closing time.

Joey asked for directions, which I didn’t hear since I went off a ways, and then we found ourselves in front of the Build-A-Bear workshop.

“I want to get you another bear!” Said Joey.

So we set to work to select a bear almost as cool as Pierre le Bear that he bought for me on our honeymoon.

We could not find any bears as cool.

So we settled on a rabbit.

He’s soft, fluffy and has positionable ears. You can turn and twist them in all sorts of strange ways. (I know because I wound them up like a pig’s tail.)

Since Pierre le Bear’s name rhymes, we thought we should come up with a rhyming name for this rabbit.

Do you know how many words don’t rhyme with rabbit?! All I could think of was….

Habit.

Yes, our rabbit’s name is Habit the Rabbit. The cute little salesgirl thought it was quite funny. She was even laughing as we left.

Poor rabbit.

3. We watched at least four hours of “Mythbusters” on the Discovery channel. Since we don’t have a TV, that was pretty much the greatest novelty of the whole trip. If you haven’t seen “Mythbusters”, do it. They test myths like “could a bunch of ping pong balls really raise the Titanic” and “can you catch a bullet in your teeth” and “would you really get electrocuted if you releived yourself on the third rail of the subway?”

Real intelligent stuff.

Anyway, somewhere in the third hour I leaned over to tell Joey something. It was, granted, about 9:30 this morning but I had eaten breakfast and I had brushed my teeth.

“Hey Joey,” I said.

“Yeah—AAAUGH! Your breath smells.” He proceeds to sniff my breath.

“Wait, no wait, I think it’s your face!” He sniffs my face.

“Yeah, it’s your face. Hahahaha, it’s your upper lip!” He dissolves into hilarity.

Now I will grant him that about an hour later when I went to wash my face, I did think it smelled kind of funny.

If that’s not weird, I don’t know what is.