You may have recently heard that words only comprise 7% of communication. You must be worrying about what we do to communicate the other 93% of what we want to say. As a speech-language pathologist, or as I call myself, “Communication Expert,” I am delighted to have the opportunity to enlighten you regarding the percentages of each modality of communication that we use in a given conversation.

41% yawning.
Yawning may indicate fatigue. The average American gets less than seven hours of sleep per night, yet research indicates an ideal amount is closer to eight hours. Bats sleep twelve hours a night, and they have some of the sunniest personalities of anyone I’ve ever met. Christian Bale is very amicable. To sleep more like a bat, try hanging yourself upside down from a heavy overhead fan. Make sure that the fan is off first.

Yawning also sometimes communicates boredom. A well-placed deliberate yawn communicates the same message that the words “You are the most boring professor in the history of academic excellence and I want my money back for this class immediately” would also communicate, if one were not concerned about the consequences.

28% bodily noises.
These often communicate that one has eaten too much. For a comprehensive list of bodily noises and their specific communicative functions, please contact The Ex.

21% dancing and singing.
This type of communication works best if you’re in a musical, or in any movie that was produced before the 1960s. It can communicate happiness, pleasure, disappointment, sadness, fear, or psychosis.

7% words.
When we string these words together in a coherent manner, this is referred to as “talking.” Sometimes “talking” is important, such as when you need to communicate something urgent, such as “Don’t hang upside down from that ceiling fan yet, it’s still ON!!”

3% thumb-wrestling. (Can sometimes be interchanged with arm-wrestling.)
Nothing says “I’m tough!” quite like thumb-wrestling. A thumb-wrestler knows what he or she wants out of life and isn’t afraid to go for it with only one digit. Having been born with misshapen thumbs that resemble ping-pong paddles, I can personally attest to the silent but strong “I’m tough!” message that I’m sending each and every time I challenge an opponent to thumb-wrestling.

And there, Readers, are the most prominent forms of communication that you will witness, conveniently adding up to 100% of all communicative acts. I hope that this resolves some of your questions. If any questions remain, please ask me, and I will answer your questions through the highly useful communicative acts of yawning, dancing, and thumb-wrestling. I”m sure you’ll get my drift loud and clear.

–Troi out

We all know the importance of getting an education, and furthering our academic knowledge throughout the entirety of our lives. That’s why, upon receiving a recent community college brochure, I dedicated myself to carefully studying each page to identify those academic subjects in which I could enhance my knowledge.

And it’s a good thing I did. It turns out that there are many vital topics about which I know very little. Having identified the most crucial classes, I would like your advice, Readers, on which class I should take first.

Urban Chicken Keeping
If I take this class, I will gain knowledge on the delights of keeping an urban flock for enhancing my gardenscape and harvesting fresh eggs. More importantly, this class will guide me on “…raising chicks into happy hens and cover their husbandry.” As I like to offer indispensable dating advice to humans on my blog, it is excellent that I will now also be qualified to offer this advice to happy hens in search of a good husband!

Planning Your Own Funeral: Having the Last Word
I think you’ll agree with me that there is nothing worse than dying. Except for dying WITHOUT having planned your own funeral. Sure, I’ve planned other people’s funerals, but it’s just not as satisfying. I don’t know everything that will be covered in this class, but I hope it will cover the basics I’ve always wanted to learn, such as grave-digging, casket-decoration, and affordable funeral catering. Because I’m sure I’m not the only person who attends funerals for the free food.

Soap Making
In the case of an apocalypse, I want to stay fresh and clean. After all, it is likely that at some point in my life, I will be stranded in a bomb shelter with a handsome member of the opposite sex, and I will discover that we are the only two people left on earth and that we must mate to ensure the propagation of the human race. Being stocked with frivolities such as “water” and “food,” there may be a soap shortage, and I’ll want to freshen up before the requisite repopulation of the earth. The apocalypse is never easy, but knowing that I will have soap-making capabilities at my disposal will definitely offset any losses the apocalypse brings.

Readers, please vote on which class I should take first. Please know that I value your opinions, all six of you, and will take your recommendations under careful advisement.

–Troi out

Have you ever been given bad advice? For example, when you had the hiccups, somebody advised you to hold your breath until they stopped, and you passed out? And then, when you came to, you were STILL hiccuping?? (Um, me neither. That never happened to me either.)

A person who gives bad advice is known as an A.S.S. (Advice that Sucks Specialist). It is bad enough to be the recipient of suggestions given by an A.S.S. It is much worse to live with the knowledge that there are A.S.S.es out there giving bad advice, and profiting from it.

Luckily I am in the T.A.G.* (Terrific Advice Giver) program and I give really excellent advice. For example, just tonight, as a good friend bemoaned his single life while driving me back to my apartment after a movie, I assured him that life in the single lane (which means if you use the left carpool lane during peak traffic hours, you’ll be ticketed) is far superior to codependent coupledom.

As a T.A.G. member, I was eager to dispense my advice to my forlorn friend. “Look at it this way,” I told him, “in the long run, there’s really no difference between a single person and a person in a relationship. In a relationship, there are one of three possible inevitable conclusions. One, a break-up. Two, marriage and subsequent divorce. Three, death. See? When you look at it that way, there’s really no reason to be sad; we’re all going to end up single anyway!”

I’m not sure what my friend thought of my helpful advice, because he opened the car door and flung himself out into the road. I hope he’s okay. More importantly, though, if he is okay, I hope he doesn’t seek advice from an A.S.S. Only qualified advice givers (T.A.G.s) such as myself can be trusted to cheer up the lonely singles out there.

For more advice, please visit my website. Wait, if you’re reading this, you’re already there.

-Troi out

*The university from which Troi received her T.A.G. licensure and certification was unable to be verified and her T.A.G. degree was not available for review at the time of this blog posting.

I would have held to this assumption longer had it not been for the electric lighting in the hallway, the computers in the classrooms, the SUVs in the school parking lot, and the genetically-modified food in the cafeteria. Once I realized that I remained in 2008, I celebrated with some genetically-modified coffee and partially hydrogenated french vanilla creamer, and then went about the business of coming up with a second hypothesis regarding the strangely attired 4th grade students.

But before I could refine my hypothesis of children from 1868 traveling to the present, the real reason for the bonnets was divulged by a passing student. “I can’t wait for our field trip to the Pioneer Farm!” she exclaimed.

(A field trip to Pioneer Farm was going to be my third hypothesis, I’m sure of it.)

The students apparently derived much enjoyment from their field trip to the Pioneer Farm. They told me they made bread (although when I probed a student for details, she disclosed that the dough had already been made and they simply had to pop it in the wood-burning oven. That’s my kind of cooking) and candles.

The students enjoyed telling me of their field trip, even amidst my diatribe on the many inadequacies present in that historic time. In 1868, for example, there were no drive-thru espresso shops. There were no fast food restaurants, and not nearly enough clothing stores. A person such as myself, who cannot sew, cook, nor make decent espresso, would be forced to walk around naked, nibbling on flour, and feeling tired.

Okay that’s an exaggeration. I can’t sew, but I actually make great coffee. So I would have been walking around naked, but I would have been very awake while doing so. I imagine so would everybody else around me.

I also know that I would not have been successful in 1868 due to my present-day reactions to losing the luxuries to which I am so accustomed. A recent cataclysmic event occurred in which my apartment had no hot water. The apartment manager alleges that the paucity of hot water lasted a mere 20 minutes, but I’m pretty convinced it was an eternity. Washing my hair in cold water was pretty much the most oppressive experience I’ve had to endure.

Not really. But you get my drift.

Since the hot water incident, I’ve stopped dabbling in time travel. I wouldn’t mind going on a field trip to Pioneer Farm for 7 hours, as long as at the end of the day I can take a hot shower. And have pre-made clothes to put on afterward.

–Troi out

Speaking of laffy taffy jokes (Funny? Or Just Dumb?), you may find yourself spending endless hours wondering just where these jokes originated. I know I do. I decided to set off to investigate into the laffy taffy industry to discover just how this comical candy finds its bad jokes.

The laffy taffy industry (no relation to the salt water taffy industry, which is not funny at all) referred me to Earl from Nowhere, Midwest, who granted me an exclusive interview* to give me an inside look at the origins of the jokes on laffy taffy wrappers.

Me: Hi Earl. Do you have a last name that I can report in my findings?

Earl: Nah, over here, we all gots the same last name anyhow.

Me: Earl, can you tell me just where the jokes on those laffy taffy wrappers come from?

Earl: I don’t listen to no rappers. I gots me some good country music fer to listen to.

Me: No, not rappers. Wrappers. The paper that surrounds laffy taffy candy.

Earl: I shore do like me some laffy taffy candy, and those there jokes are originally thunk up by me and my friends!

Me: Earl, are you telling me that YOU have contributed some of the jokes on the laffy taffy paper covering?

Earl: Yep, shore enough, I’s out tippin’ some cows the other day, and I says to my friend Billy, I says, “Billy, them cows are everywhere! How many of ‘em you think there are total?” And Billy says, “Gee whiz Earl, I can’t count that high, but if we had one of them cowculators, that would be just swell!” And so I says, “Yesiree, a cowculator would shore help us count them cows!”

Me: So, Earl, one of my all-time favorite laffy taffy jokes, “How do you count cows?” “With a COWculator!” that joke originated with you?

Earl: Well, I don’t likes to brag, but that’s just one of thousands of jokes I’ve sent in that has made the front page of that paper covering on my laffy taffy candy.

Earl then escorted me to the barn, where he had indeed hung thousands of laffy taffy wrappers that contained jokes he and his friends had contributed.

So, Readers, you can now sleep a little easier at night knowing the sources of laffy taffy jokes.

–Troi out

*The preceding blog post does not contain any accurate information and does not reflect the author’s actual feelings toward the midwest or any other region of the United States or beyond. The preceding post was inspired by my good friend, e. Lucas, whose true feelings are also not represented by the fictional information contained in this post.

This is not to say I’m not funny. In fact, most of my friends would consider me to be one of the most amusing people they know. But most of the time this is due to accidental humor. That is, I believe what I say to be of incredible importance, but they consider it to be ridiculously amusing. Those times I go for intentional humor and try to properly deliver a punchline, I’m met with, at best, averted eyes, and at worst, loud booing from the crowd. And these are my friends. I don’t dare attempt a joke in front of strangers. Not since that unfortunate incident on the bus.

The primary culprit for my lack of success at joke telling is the fact that I already know the punchline, and I already love it. Thus I am unable to hold my laughter until I get to the punchline. The whole joke experience is virtually destroyed by my incessant giggling as I envision the fantastic punchline that I will inevitably botch.

My hysterical laughter increases my audience’s expectations for the joke. After all, if I find the joke THIS comical, it must be the greatest joke ever told. The audience is therefore disproportionately devastated by the mediocre punchline. And this after suffering through the laborious telling of the joke marked by fits of laughter from me.

Thankfully, after years of friendship, my friends have appropriately lowered their expectations to the point that as soon as I utter, “Ooh, I have a new joke, and this one’s GOOD!” they already know that it won’t be.

I work with students who have disabilities, and I know the importance of modifying assignments that are too difficult so that the students can still experience success at their level of learning and understanding. Applying this technique to my life, I acknowledge that it could be said that I have a joke-telling disability (and for those who don’t consider that a true disability, consult my friends), and I need to modify my joke-telling so that I experience success. And while my closest friends insist that I will experience the most success by simply never telling a joke again, ever, I know that excluding me entirely from participation in the joke-telling culture is not an appropriate modification for someone with special (joke-telling) needs.

Therefore I have developed and am in the process of implementing two modifications for joke-telling for myself and those who are similarly afflicted with impairments in properly delivering jokes. The first is to accept and embrace the contexts in which we are considered most humorous. That is, those times when I’m actually attempting to be serious. Second, identify a joke-telling success, and capitalize on it. For me, these are laffy taffy jokes. They tend to be so bad that they elicit a laugh from even the most skeptic audience members. (Generally, they are laughing at how bad the laffy taffy joke is, but a laugh is a laugh.) Moreover, these jokes are so short that I have experienced a 74% success rate at making it through the entire joke without bursting into laughter when I increase my rate of speech by approximately seventeen syllables per minute. I experience a 97% success rate when I tell these jokes to my students who are under the age of eleven. I experience a 100% success rate when I tell my students that they can eat the laffy taffy if they laugh at my joke.

The moral of this blog, if you were looking for one, is that anybody can be funny, but it’s not funny to be anybody.

Just kidding. Don’t ever look for a moral in my blogs. Not even the one entitled “This Blog Has a Moral!” because you know I’m just messing with you.

–Troi out

It is most unfortunate that it has recently come to light that upon our breakup, The Ex missed my blogs so much that he hired a private investigator to seek out my new site. The private investigator, backed by years of training at private investigator college earning his private investigation degree cleverly typed into google the code words “Coolest blog site ever!” and, obviously, the first search result linked him directly to my site.

However, having been discovered as such by The Ex, it is no longer prudent to discuss The Ex nor draw attention to The Ex’s decision to Ax me the first time, nor his decision to Ax me the second time. Therefore, all further blogs will contain no negative statements regarding the opposite sex, or anything else for that matter, and will discuss only happy things, such as butterflies and puppies.

Butterflies are beautiful winged insects who flit gaily through the sky until they are smashed by a windshield. Those who manage to avoid the windshield will fly happily through the sky until they are captured by the hands of a small human child, whose excessive touching will remove some of the tiny scales and damage the important veins that assist in the butterfly’s flight. The beautiful butterfly will be permanently wounded and unable to fly again. EVER.

Speaking of wonderfully happy things, puppies are also happy. They are energetic, innocent animals that bring much joy to our lives until they are spotted outside without their collars and whisked away to the pound, where at least 60% of them will be euthanized.

Well, loyal readers, I sure hope you enjoyed reading this positively uplifting blog post as much as I enjoyed writing it! It feels awfully good to write about only happy things! Please stay turned for my next cheerful and optimistic blog post: “Death and Destruction: How Close Is It REALLY?”

–Troi out

I regret to inform you that the UV germ light (UV Rays: Not Just for Skin Cancer Anymore!) did not solve all of the cold and flu woes I have experienced since working with the multiple-germ infested larvae, or what the other teachers refer to as “students.” The UV germ light might have worked better had I actually bought it, instead of just writing about it while intermittently poking fun at it. That’s just one hypothesis, though, and I’m not one to jump to conclusions.

At any rate, undergoing my fifth sickness of the last 8 months has made me realize I need to throw caution to the wind and replace said useless caution with extreme paranoid PREcautions. Having been blessed with the genetic predisposition for paranoia I find that I am just the blogger to break this new precautionary ground.

This new ground is also referred to as a Level A aluminized Hazmat Suit. Please see image below.

This groundbreaking (literally, it’s so heavy, it will break the ground) protective Level A Hazmat Suit is just one step above antibacterial instant hand sanitizer and one step below the total annihilation of all bacterial and viral germs known to human lifeforms as documented in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The Level A Hazmat Suit, when worn to the jobsite as work attire, has a number of benefits in addition to protecting you from the germs of young children. First of all, its silver sheen goes well with almost any room decor, so you can galavant from your classroom, to the cafeteria, to the faculty lounge, while remaining fashionable. Second, no more fire drills! You will remain protected through almost any calamity, including fire, earthquake, or terrorist attack, while your poor unsuspecting coworkers will have to flee the building for their lives. Kick back, relax, and drink some coffee amidst the panic and dread.

Speaking of drinking coffee, the Level A Hazmat Suit does have a few drawbacks that I should mention before you invest in the Hazmat Suit family and extended family discount to swathe and protect all of your beloved family members. First, it’s actually impossible to drink coffee while in the Hazmat Suit, because its protectiive outer covering precludes the possibility of anything actually entering your mouth. And even if you could successfully bridge the gap between the coffee and your mouth, you wouldn’t want to, because it will also be impossible for you to use the bathroom while in your Level A Hazmat Suit. Finally, you’ll find that as you make pleasant small talk with your coworkers, you’ll receive looks of confusion and disdain, because even though you’re saying, “Why, hello coworker, have you noticed how sharp I look in my fine new Hazmat Suit?”, all they will hear through the largely soundproof protective gear is a blurred “Welloworersharloohazmasuit?”

I can hardly wait to wear my new Level A Hazmat Suit to work tomorrow. In its sparkling clean and freshly pressed state, I will be the envy of my coworkers and I will remain as disinfected and germ-free as the day that I spilled a bucket of instant hand sanitizer on myself.

And remember my motto: Instant hand sanitizer dries, but a Level A Hazmat Suit lasts forever.

–Troi out

How did I stumble upon the Australian Walking Stick, you ask? Well, last year I had the pleasure of doing my speech practicum in an elementary school, and I picked up some truly fascinating information during my time there. One day I was standing in a classroom with a student, gazing into a cage that was empty except for a few plants and a lot of sticks. My conversation with the student went something like this:

Me: “This is a very interesting empty cage. Can you tell me a bit about it?”
Student: “Well, it contains many insects. They are everywhere.”
Me: [This poor kid thinks he sees insects.] “Really? Where are they?”
Student: “You’re holding one.”
Me: “No, I’m just holding this stick.”
Student: “That’s not a stick. See how it’s moving?”
Me: [Very sophisticated movements ensue, the details of which are fuzzy; there may have been some screaming and ducking under a table on my part while I very calmly and rationally attempt to shake off the animated stick from my hand**] “Why you’re right. This is an insect.”

**Don’t believe what you read in the encyclopedia that the Austalian Walking Stick is a docile, harmless insect that is strictly vegetarian. This vicious Walking Stick attacked me, and my life flashed before my eyes. (The previous statement contains information that is partially and/or entirely false. Please proceed at your own risk.)

An important lesson I learned from this pleasant interaction with the student is that children are not as unintelligent as they may seem. If you find yourself in Australia, holding a stick, and a child informs you that it’s a bug, you might want to believe him. In fact, if you find yourself in Australia, you may not want to pick up sticks at all. Try picking up rocks instead. Or litter.

However, the MOST important lesson I learned from this exchange with the second-grade student is that Australian Walking Sticks are truly brilliant creatures. First, they can blend into their surroundings, resembling the objects around them (sticks). This is a superpower previously only achieved by X-Men such as Facade and Mystique. I still have not learned to effectively blend into my surroundings, or to resemble a stick, despite the obvious benefits of such a skill. Even more incredible, however, is that Walking Sticks have learned to procreate without the need for men. Yes, the female Walking Stick is parthenogenetic, which means that the females lay unfertilized eggs, which hatch into female Walking Sticks that subsequently lay their own unfertilized eggs, which hatch into more females. If you’re catching my drift here, you will see that not only are men disposable to the Walking Stick culture, their lack of importance could eventually lead to an advanced Walking Stick society devoid of all male presence. Females would rule all the Walking Stick land (Australia) and females reaching adolescence no longer have to deal with the uncomfortable sex talk that Daddy Walking Sticks were previously forced to have with them.

In light of the fact that I have obtained most of my knowledge about Walking Sticks from a second-grade child (who, admittedly, is smarter than I am as he can distinguish between animate and inanimate objects, an area of apparent difficulty for myself), I ask that you please refer all questions, comments, arguments, and boycotts of this blog to the second-grade child, who asks that he remain anonymous. Or he would, if he knew I wrote this.

–Troi out

I couldn’t agree more. Thank goodness this problematic behavior is confined to gamers. People such as myself never have to worry about such neurotocism or introverted behavior. Why, it’s not as if I refuse to board a plane because I’m convinced it will crash, nor that my cell phone is currently ringing but I have no plans to answer it because I prefer to continue chatting with my friends via instant messaging. And people like me most certainly don’t suffer from a lack of agreeableness. Quite the opposite, I find that I agree with myself nearly always, and when I program my computer accurately, it agrees with me too. (”Good morning, Troi! You’ve got mail, because you’re so popular! And you’re always right!”)

All kidding aside (my computer doesn’t REALLY say that when I log on–a well-programmed computer never patronizes its user), couldn’t it be said that, generally speaking, computer systems are easier to empathize with than people? Particularly of the opposite gender? My computer is here every night when I get home from work and it’s always willing to communicate the day’s news with me. It takes but a minute to turn it on and it stays on as long as I need it. My computer doesn’t quit working two weeks after our first encounter, and when it’s ready to quit for good, it sends plenty of warning messages*. Can human contact begin to compare with such reliability??

*I have a mac. I cannot speak for PCs but I hear they’re less reliable, like men.

The study I read goes on to state that “there is a scale along which people…can be placed upon…..and that people such as engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists are nearer to the non-empathizing, systemizing, end of the spectrum.”

I like to call this God’s way of balancing the universe. The way I see it, engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists got all of the brains, so they had to be shorted elsewhere. A deficiency in emotional intelligence for these folks was the only way to equalize the universe so that it wouldn’t collapse upon itself. Therefore, God created two kinds of humans: People who are highly intelligent but who cannot relate to other people, and stupid people who are popular.

When these two strains of human mate, there is born a third type of human: The Average Joe. Due to the high instances of breeding that have taken place since the beginning of time, most existing humans are a hybrid of smart and stupid that embodies the classic Average Joe.

So as you reflect upon this important study, take a good look at yourself and discern into which breed you fall. Are you a gamer? Or do you have stellar social skills? Or are you good at nothing in particular? If you find that you fall into the third category, don’t despair. Simply program your computer to compliment you daily when you turn it on. You probably don’t know how, but call a gamer and ask for his programming assistance. Just don’t mate with him.

*As always, Troi would like to point out that she does not believe what she writes, nor write what she believes.

–Troi out

p.s. Thanks for the link, e. Lucas. I don’t think you act like you have Aspergers. Keep playing those computer games.