My Homer gift

It's true, it's true.

I gave Kris a Homer gift this past Christmas.

Gift giving in our house is usually an escalation sorta thing. It started when we passed the shy circling of the dating mating rituals and moved into the "I think I know your tastes, so I'm going to risk rejection by buying you things!" stage. Kris did the most risking: he bought me jewelry (always risky, as I wear very little).

I bought him underwear.

Before very many birthdays and holidays had passed, we were in danger of spending small fortunes on each other. We called a truce on the escalation, and try very hard to keep it on the low come the holiday season.

I failed miserably this past year, with Kris receiving about fifteen gifts. One or two of them being Homer gifts, I'll admit.

There's a Simpsons episode where Homer goes Christmas shopping for Marge and purchased a bowling ball for her. He figures, she won't really like it, so he'll get to use it. Of course, she overlooks the custom holes and the "HOMER" engraved into the ball, and learns to bowl to spite him.

I wasn't nearly so bad, but the periodic table shower curtain I purchased really wasn't on Kris' high-priority, must-buy list.

But, hey, I wanted to memorize the table. And what better way than while sitting on the toliet, looking at the shower?

My plan was to memorize the elements a little bit at a time. I've been drawing out the table once every few days, which is fun. The progression should be interesing.

A couple problems, however, have surfaced, the first being the curtain is backwards when I'm in the shower. I've started memorizing it in reverse, and have to work on imagining the elements in the correct order.

The other major problem is that, well, I don't actually sit on the toliet long enough to derive any meaningful learning time. Everyone should be so blessed with highly functioning colons.

We'll see how far I get. Right now, with only five weeks of studying, I have about 50 of the 111 elements correctly memorized. Patterns abound in that table (like, well, d'uh, it is periodic, you know).