The Greatest Rape Joke Ever Told

No, really.

No, ok, look. I know there's been a lot of talk about rape, and rape jokes, and certain comic who (point of personal preference) has never actually been funny, this week. And all the rest of it. And then Jezebel, of all places, actually published a really great article that sums up the issues around rape, and jokes, and rape jokes, really well. If you haven't read it, go do that. I'll wait. (If you're lazy, the Cliff Notes: Yes, you can joke about rape, because most anything, in the right light, can be funny. It is extraordinarily difficult to joke about rape when you are making rape survivors the butt of the joke. Victim-blaming? In this situation, probably actually never funny. Moving on.)

Which brings us to: This past weekend, when my friend S accidentally spit out what might be the greatest rape joke I've ever heard.

WE BRIEFLY INTERRUPT HIS BLOG POST FOR SCIENCE TO HAPPEN:
Walking up the street to a bar that is hosting a rather hipster-centric dance night, S and Q and I notice a construction crew on the street we need to cross. They're resurfacing the crosswalk, laying down new crosswalk "paint" - actually strips of white asphalt-like substance that are more wear-resistant than paint. They do this by scrubbing/airblasting the old crosswalk off, then cleaning the space with a flammable cleanser, which they burn off with FLAMETHROWERS. These FLAMETHROWERS are single barreled, duel-nosed contraptions that send off an incredible burst of flame that flares out in a K-shape, with comically perfect flames, about 30 inches in whatever direction it's being pointed. Somehow, the flames always manage to extinguish just short of the operator's toes. This heats the street asphalt and gives the crosswalk asphalt something to adhere to. They lay the strips of crosswalk asphalt down, then go over them with the same flamethrower to melt the asphalts together. Another worker follows behind the flamethrower operator, spreading glass beads over the new surface. These give a tiny bit of traction to the crosswalk, as well as making it more reflective to drivers.

RESUME SITUATIONAL COMEDY:
While this is all happening, the flames are spewing from the dueling flamethrowers (two dudes wielding a flamthrower each), a handful of hipsters, S + I included, are staring, fascinated, by SCIENCE happening. The construction crew, in neon yellow construction vests, glances up once or twice (especially at S and I, as we're standing on the same side of the street that they're working on, not 4 feet from their workspace) and glares. Clearly, giggling twenty-somethings are not the usual sort of nuisance they run in to while on these projects.

As I'm slackjawed at SCIENCE, two of the older, more bearded members of the crew look up at me staring like I've never seen a flamethrower before - and in turn, look at me like I'm some sort of fantastic buffoon, S turns to me and states, very matter of factly: "Well, if they didn't want anyone staring at them, they shouldn't be dressed like that."

And then I lose it and die laughing. Because THAT, universe, is what a funny rape joke looks like. You're not trivializing the victim. Heck, S didn't even need to say "rape." But by taking a well known trope of rape prevention/avoidance (even though, as most women know, how you dress has very little to do with whether or not you will be raped), and flipping it around at at a bunch of fully clothed burly men WIELDING FLAMETHROWERS (who are, in fact, attracting attention by wearing neon yellow clothes. Also, FLAMETHROWERS), you reach that glorious intersection of the Benign Violation Theory where humor takes place.

No one is hurt. No one is threatened. And we all got to see some really cool flamethrowers.

Comedians of the world, take note.

For Later WREFerence...

I'm working a science conference down in Denver this week. Mostly I curate the presentations, and the scientists yell at me, since none of them can be bothered to read directions.

Some of them surprise me, though.

One man came all the way over here from Guangdong, China, to present his findings on Something Something Technical Something Solar Something Brewery. I don't speak Science, and he barely speaks English, and so conversations have been difficult.

On the first day of the con, he had tremendous difficulty figuring out the process for registration. We all tried to be helpful, but it was mostly a lot of hand waving and that thing that Americans do when, when someone can't understand us, we just talk slower and louder.

The next day, he chased a coworker and I down in the speaker's hallway, because he couldn't figure out where he was speaking. My coworker and I managed to deduce that he was presenting his paper in the Ignite format (20 slides, 15 seconds a slide) and immediately started to worry about him. We managed to convey his room number and date to him only through the gratuitous use of drawing alphanumerics in the air, and a lot of pointing at the schedule. Somehow, it all worked out. He was so thankful, he opened the box breakfast he'd picked up from somewhere, and began offering my coworker and I food by the handful. No matter how many times my coworker tried to be gracious and accept his gifts, there was always something else to be had. My coworker ended up with a fistful of bacon and another fistful of fruit. (I helped him eat it.)

We were just blown by the kindness and appreciation of this man, who had flown halfway around the world, knowing nobody, barely able to communicate with a whole other culture, to speak for 5 minutes at a tiny conference out in the mountains. His eagerness to meet people (we've since seen him palling around with many of the other conference attendees), his graciousness, and desire to learn (he is ALWAYS either in session or running to see something else) is incredible.

The next day, I walked into the staff room to find a bag of green tea sitting on my backpack. Confused, I turned to my coworker, looking at him quizzically. I'd been moaning about the lack of real tea near the conference center all week, so where had this miraculous gift come from? My coworker had run into our buddy that morning, who thrust this bag of tea at him, that he'd brought with him from his home provence and traveled around the world with, just to give it to a person who hadn't even gone out of their way for him , had simply been doing their job. My coworker, in turn, gave it to me. And when I heard the whole story from him, I started leaking happy tears, right then. I don't think our friend meant to be so pointedly thoughtful, but the serendipity of the gesture was just completely overwhelming to me.

I've found inspiration and strength in the strangest places this week - my new Chinese friend being one of them. In presenters eager for the challenge of an Ignite presentation, in my coworkers ability to function and be productive on less than no sleep, in their eagerness to work together and to get to know me and support me however they can, and even in the scientists, who are talking so far over my head I can barely keep up - but what I've learned has been incredibly insightful and even, dareisay, motivational.

If A, Then Fall Down.

Cleaning my skates isn't hard, or scary, it's just an exercise in patience coupled with my OCD-tendencies and utter terror of botching something up. I'll spare you the how-to of bearing maintenance (though it appeared on my facebook page last night at a friend's request), as my fears lie in the details.

What if I bend a bearing cover. What if there's still dirt in there and the bearing locks up and I die. What if there isn't enough lube and the bearing locks up and I die. What if there's water in the bearing and it rusts then locks up and I die. What if I snap something on the cage (the thing that holds the individual balls in place) and the bearings fall out and my wheel falls off and I die. And so on.

Granted, all this is relatively pointless, since the ACTUAL consequence of any of these worst case scenarios is pretty easy: If A (where A is the catastrophic ruination of any part of my skate while skating), I fall down (I am the best faller on the team, I have NO fear of falling), do situps for the rest of practice, and buy new parts.

All that said, it took me four hours to fully clean my skates last night, since my bearings had to go through four acetone washes before I was convinced that they were all clean enough to be reassembled.

Shiny and clean!

The interesting thing happened when I went to clean my wheels. (Lucky, there is nothing scary about cleaning wheels. Rinse 'em off and you're done.)

The first time I took my wheels off my skates was also the first time I had them regrooved. After about a year of skating, they'd all been worn bald, and I was sliding all over the track. Theoretically, people told me, you can tell how you're skating based on how worn down your wheels are, and where. Inside wheels wear faster than outside wheels, since that's where you should be putting the most pressure. They also wear at a slight angle, because of crossover. Because of this, you should rotate your wheels regularly.

But my wheels were all uniform. I took this to mean that basically, I sucked.

This time, though, as I was swishing my skinny new Stalkers around in soapy water, I realized that they actually felt different. As I took them out and looked at them - yup. Sure enough, some of the grooves are more worn down than the others. And it's pretty evenly divided, 4 and 4. So, inside wheels and outside wheels. Which means that since starting roller derby (and changing to new wheels that don't suck and actually allow me to T-stop and are ohmygod amazing), I've legitimately become a better, stronger skater. Whaaaaaaat??

I shudder to think that I might actually be, y'know, learning anything in roller derby besides how to skate fast and get low, but there it is. If I keep doing a thing, eventually I will get better at that thing. And eventually that thing will have noticeable results. It's terrifying. And inspiring. And I just said inspiring.

All cleaned up and ready to roll.