Grocery store cashier: Do you have a twin sister?
me: Huh?
cashier: It's not often that we get such beautiful customers... [observing my wedding band] ...and I see you're already taken.
me: Sorry, I'm an only child.
cashier: It was worth a shot.
I have now lived amongst Bay Area Californians for two years and three weeks. I have striven so hard to maintain my small-town, East Coast sensibility in this land of "greener than thou," "size matters," and (my personal favorite) "I was first before you were first." And I'd thought I was doing a darn good job of it.
There is sort of an unspoken rule at BART stations that passengers should form the closest possible thing to a line while waiting for their trains. At the edge of the platform, black tiles mark where the doors of each car will (or ought) to be. Rarely is there a single-file line behind any of these tiles; two or three deep seems to be the norm. And, for the most part, the First Commandment of the Playground is observed--i.e., Thou shalt not butt in front of thy neighbor.
Owing to my bizarre work hours, the trains are hardly ever full when I head into work. If there's a Giants game, coming home is another story, although even then the problem is more the fine odor of the drunk fans than their multitude. But sometimes, especially weekend mornings, there are a lot of people trying to go to San Francisco all at once.
Some people will still line up almost patiently at the edge of the platform. Others, however, will mill about aimlessly while waiting for the train--and then swoop in sideways once the train arrives, displacing the people in line. Often this results in glares, disgusted sighs, and not-so-subtle comments to traveling companions of "oh my God, what a bitch!"
Butters have always bothered me because of their blatant disregard for the social order of the line. Most of the time I don't care where I am in a line, as long as the line keeps moving and no one is stealing anyone else's place. But witness my evolution--or de-evolution--on this issue:
June, 2005. I'm at the head of the line while waiting for BART. Someone butts in front of me. "Jeez!" I think. "That person has no manners!"
June, 2007. I'm at the head of the line while waiting for BART. Someone butts in front of me. "WTF?" I think. "Can't he see I was here first?"
As much as I hate to admit it, I've become Nobuttus of BART.
With only about half of my small-town circuitry remaining, I'm now part of the swarm.
Resistance is futile.
I should preface this by admitting that I am a spelling champion. By this I mean I won the school spelling bee when I was in the fourth grade (and still have the trophy somewhere to prove it).
And now, with the aforegoing disclaimer: Please do not write "parody" when you mean "parity." For, honey, this makes my teeth hurt.
A parody pokes fun at something by imitating and exaggerating its style.
Parity, on the other hand, refers to identical coverage of mental and physical conditions under an individual's insurance policy. In my humble opinion, this ought to be more of a standard than it actually is.
Sometimes parity only applies to specific disorders, often referred to as serious mental illness (SMI) or biologically based mental illness (BBMI). Parity diagnoses may include major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and developmental disorders; as well as emotional disturbances in childhood.
Parody diagnoses, on the other hand, include Intermittent Hook-Up Disorder.
If you've ever tried to do anything remotely related to health care of any sort in the United States, you've hopefully heard of HIPAA. (For the record, that's one P and two A's--as in Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.)
The gist of HIPAA is that (except in very specific cases) personal health information cannot be released without consent. This is a good idea in theory. However, in practice, it can get messy. Even if you pay for the medical care for your 18-year-old daughter, her doctor is not permitted to tell you about her treatment without her consent.
Or let's say your husband, who has never been in therapy of any kind, attempts suicide, and he's admitted to the hospital. You (back at home) want to make sure the hospital has called your insurance company for prior authorization. Unless your husband has already signed a release of information with the insurance company--not a common thing for people to do prior to attempting suicide--you're out of luck.
(And let's not even talk of situations in which an adult is not able to give consent--for example, he or she is severely psychotic, drunk, or in a coma. Or when a non-custodial parent is required to provide health insurance as part of child support--in which case the custodial parent must do the consenting, and I don't want to be a fly on the wall for that kind of conversation.)
Like I said, HIPAA gets messy.
But listen well, for here comes my point:
You cannot assert HIPAA against yourself.
As your provider, I cannot release your personal health information to another provider without your consent (except, again, as permitted or required by law). But HIPAA does not apply if you haven't yet told me anything about yourself.
I kid you not--people have said to me, "You can't ask me to give you my own personal information. That's prohibited by HIPAA."
Um, no. Not quite.
Add to the list of brilliant legislation being considered by the Golden State a bill which would require all pets to be spayed or neutered. If this becomes law (and it's already passed the state Assembly), mutt owners will be fined for not altering their pets, and owners of registered purebreds will be eligible for an exemption--for a price, of course.
Yes, this bill has good intentions. Overpopulation, abuse and neglect, and lack of appropriate housing are serious problems in these parts, and not just for H. sapiens. If everyone would just prevent their pets from breeding, maybe we wouldn't have such problems.
There oughta be a law, right?
Be careful what you wish for. In the words of Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale (Butte County):
"This is a prime example of why this Legislature becomes a laughingstock, when we want to reach into that personal aspect of peoples' lives telling them this is how you need to handle your animals' reproductive capacity. We ought to be tackling other issues."
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with a California Republican.
Let's imagine that this bill becomes law, and it is fully enforced. As only registered purebreds will be allowed to keep their 'nads, after a certain number of generations the only animals available for sale or adoption will be either purebreds themselves (and thus allowed to reproduce) or a cross between two different breeds (and thus prohibited from reproducing). Mutts, lacking the necessary equipment to pass along their variegated legacies, would become artificially selected out of the population.
Hypothetical as this situation may be, it sounds an awful lot like a really scary thing that begins with an E and ends with a UGENICS.
I made a comment to this effect to Mrs. Gerbil this morning. She reminded me that just because a law is on the books doesn't mean that everyone is going to obey it. This is true. However, why bother to pass a law which you don't want everyone to follow? Why incorporate penalties (like a $500 fine), if not to deter lawbreaking?
I have a better idea. Instead of giving the state the power to determine who's worthy of breeding, why not fund sliding-scale (or even free) spay/neuter clinics? There's nothing inherently wrong with mutts that their owners shouldn't have a choice about whether to have them altered--just as there's nothing inherently wrong with purebreds.
And, if you think about it, mutts are pretty darn consistent with the (often over-hyped) Californian ideals of diversity and multiculturalism.
PS. For the record, our furry bundle of joy was spayed twice before we adopted her. The shelter mistook a post-op Josie for another calico and (somehow failing to notice her shaven, stitched-up underparts) opened her up again before realizing their error.
Mrs. Gerbil and I were standing at a street corner in Union Square, waiting for the light to change, when a young man approached us. He was toting a black binder, the sort that activist street team members carry.
(I dread being approached by people with binders, for I do not sign petitions or fill out postcards or sign up for membership or anything of the sort. It doesn't matter what the cause is; it's just that such things require giving out one's mailing address, and I am extremely protective of our contact information. But back to our story...)
"Hi," he said. "How are you girls doing tonight?"
"Fine," I said.
"Where are you going?" he said.
"We're meeting some friends," I said. (Indeed, we were en route to a double date with R and her boyfriend.)
The young fellow did not say anything for a moment. Then he said, "Well, you could make a difference, but I guess you don't want to." And with that, he stormed off.
This, I swear, is the entirety of our conversation.
So, Mr. Binder-Toting Dude, if you are reading this: Let give you a little lesson in activism. Before you get all passive-aggressive at people who aren't interested in supporting your cause, you need to tell them what your cause is.
I am considering applying for a job in a Catholic health system. The online application system won't let me fill anything out until I swear (in electronic form) that, if hired, I will act in such a way which is consistent with their mission statement. Which, naturally, contains lots and lots of references to specific beliefs.
This seemed a little too much like a credal oath to me, and out of place for a self-professed equal opportunity employer. So I emailed them to inquire exactly what it means to endorse this statement.
I spent a long, long time crafting my email. I hemmed and hawed over whether I should describe myself as "not Catholic" or "not religious"; or whether I should leave my own beliefs out of it altogether.
Mrs. Gerbil found it amusing that I'd spent so much time wordsmithing. Her suggestion: "Will godless Jews be considered for this position? Please advise."
Mrs. Gerbil is always after me to remember that not everyone knows how The (Managed Care) System works.
I usually regale her with at least two work stories each night. Sometimes I just need to de-brief a particularly stressful call; but more often than not the first line of my tale is, "Oh, my God, I had the most ridiculous call tonight." (It should go without saying that I never vent any identifying information--but there, I've said it anyway.) And then Mrs. Gerbil gently chides me for forgetting that the average person does not grok The System.
Hell, sometimes I don't even grok The System. But I will admit that I have a low tolerance for certain types of lack-of-grok, viz.:
Calling the emergency line for a non-emergency. It's 10:30 on Friday night and you have just realized that one of your claims was denied. You call the phone number on your insurance card, press 8 (a prompt clearly demarcated for emergency use only), and demand to know why your claim was denied. I will only inform you that this is a routine matter which is handled during business hours only. Perhaps hearing this will anger you; but unless your claim status poses a risk to yourself or others, it's not an emergency.
Calling the emergency line for a non-emergency matter which has nothing to do with mental health. You go to the pharmacy on a Satuday afternoon, and lo and behold, your co-pay for Lipitor has changed. You call your medical carrier, but they are closed. You hang up, call again, and select the prompt for mental health services. (Huh?) And then you press 8 and demand to know why your Lipitor suddenly costs $50. I will only inform you that you have reached your mental health insurance and we do not have anything to do with your prescription benefits. Perhaps you acknowledge that you just pressed prompts randomly to get a live person; but alas, I have no more information about your Lipitor than you do.
The guess and check method. You are calling about a hospital admission. You have not actually determined who the insurance carrier is, as you haven't bothered to look at the person's insurance card. So, you take a wild guess, and (because you are wrong) you think I should give you the correct information. Perhaps I do know whom you should be calling, and I might even transfer you if you're nice; but there is a reason that triage has already xeroxed the card.
I can't believe you just asked me that. If you work for a hospital, you should know how The System works. Please do not ask me to describe the difference between an HMO and a PPO. Perhaps you are new; but honey, this really makes my teeth hurt.
Hormel Foods is having a drawing for a Toyota Prius.
Yes, you read that correctly. The folks who bring you Spam, that archetype of artificiality, are raffling off a hybrid.
No purchase necessary!
Mrs. Gerbil and I have a bad habit of going to the corner store in the evenings for a pint of Breyer's A&W Root Beer Float ice cream. We indulged said habit last night. On the way out of the store, I pointed out the top headline on the Contra Costa Times, which read as follows:
Warming called security threat.
Mrs. Gerbil and I were both struck by the absolute absurdity of the story. But whereas my first thought was "Well, there's a way to get the federal government to pay attention to global warming," Mrs. Gerbil's was "Oh, my God. That's a real newspaper, isn't it."
(In Mrs. Gerbil's defense, here in Alameda County, the Contra Costa Times isn't a very popular paper. The same niche is filled here by the Oakland Tribune, which has made several aggressive attempts to court our readership. Alas, we are loyal to the San Francisco Chronicle.)
But still, the idea that global warming might possibly attract the attention of the current administration seems more appropriate for The Onion than for real life. On the other hand, if the powers that be predictably get their very powerful panties in a bunch about national security, then why not try to spur some action on social issues by fabricating connections to terrorism?
I've already pondered the connection between marriage equality and national security. I'm sure someone else can spin the United States' failing health care system as a threat to national security. And then there's the state of public education (not to mention the cost of higher education). It should be pretty easy to work in the future of Social Security--I mean, they already have a word in common.
Any takers?
(PS: The point of terrorism is to make people fear your next move. In a twisted way, it's kind of like panic disorder--which, at its core, is the fear of having another panic attack. I know I'm not the first to say this, but I think it bears repeating: declaring a "war on terror" means you've already lost. Food for thought.)
Paris Hilton's psychiatrist, Charles Sophy, says she's "emotionally distraught and traumatized" from receipt of a 45-day jail sentence.
I could go on a snarky little rant to the effect of "oh, how traumatic it is to be held accountable for one's actions." But I'm not going to go there.
Instead, I ask: Did Dr. Sophy obtain permission from Paris to release information about her mental state, or even to acknowledge that she is receiving treatment from him? Did she consent to the disclosure of the length of her treatment by Dr. Sophy (apparently, 8 months)? Did he specify the reason for the disclosure in his request? Did he discuss with her the possible risks and benefits of his report?
The story here is drawn from "court papers," which I guess are a matter of public record unless marked otherwise. But it seems to me to be a giant violation of Paris Hilton's privacy for the Associated Press to distribute her personal health information--her own historical lack of concern for privacy notwithstanding.
Thank you for calling The Afterlife.
If you know your party's extension, please dial it now.
For heaven, press 1.
For hell, dial extension 666.
For purgatory, please stay on the line and someone will be with you as soon as possible.
I'm allergic to California.
Well, I'm allergic to a lot of things in a lot of places, but California is home to some special type of grass which, I believe, was created especially to torture me. Allergy testing has shown that, indeed, I am ridiculously allergic to California grass. California grass decided to bloom on Tuesday.
Holy crap, did that ever suck.
I broke down and took some Benadryl before going to work. Benadryl and I have a very strained relationship. I will not take the stuff unless I absolutely need it, for it gives me a hangover. Thus: I won't resort to Benadryl unless I'm miserable because it makes me miserable in a completely different way.
Yes, folks, I am a diphenhydramine lightweight.
Between 11 am and midnight, I took one and a half adult doses of Benadryl. I took just enough at work to prevent both sneezing and falling asleep during calls; and enough at bedtime to give me the soundest, most excellent sleep I've had in weeks.
But late Wednesday morning I was still having difficulty forming my thoughts into coherent paragraphs. In the middle of the afternoon, I retreated to bed and took a nap. Mrs. Gerbil called during my nappy-nap and asked for a ride home from BART. On the way there I started to wonder if maybe it wasn't a good time to operate a car or other dangerous machinery, as I couldn't focus on anything less than three car lengths ahead. Against what better judgment I should have had, I didn't hand over the keys for the ride home.
By 6pm I was dizzy and ready to go back to bed, but unlike previous instances I decided that perhaps this was not the best course of action. It had been 18 hours since Benadryl last touched my lips, more than 2 of its half-lives, and this wasn't my usual hangover. I called the NurseLine that comes with our health insurance and was advised (a) to call my doctor and (b) not to get back behind the wheel. So I paged the provider on call, who informed me that (a) there should not be any Benadryl left in my system; (b) even if there were, there's no antidote; and (c) I should probably never take Benadryl again.
Being reminded yet again of my eternal lightweight status made me a very sad, and somewhat embarrassed, sleepy little gerbil. So, Mrs. Gerbil took me out for a nice Italian dinner. We discovered tiramisu to be quite an effective antidote. They don't call it "pick-me-up" for nothing!
On Saturday morning BART was full of people going to the Giants-Phillies game. Lacking a place to sit, I found myself a place to stand.
"Excuse me, miss, would you like to sit down?" asked a boy of no more than 11 years of age. He rose halfway out of his seat before I could answer.
I was very touched. I thanked him for the offer but insisted that he keep his seat. He seemed a little disappointed at first, but then he beamed shyly when his dad (and various other passengers) complimented him on his gentlemanliness.
It's thing like this which maintain my faith in humanity.
Just because I have completed a ridiculous amount of education does not mean I must forsake adolscent humor.
Seriously, those gnus have got it goin' ON.
Yesterday I walked by a certain Portolet, which I'd managed to walk by about 15,000 times without noticing what I noticed yesterday.
This Portolet is on someone's treelawn a few blocks from our house. It's been there for quite a long time (thus my 15,000 walkings-by) and is probably there on account of all the construction on that block.
It's a pretty standard-looking Portolet. It's electric blue and brown, with a peaked, translucent roof. Like most other things in this part of town, it's decorated with a smattering of completely illegible graffiti.
So, no, nothing seemed immediately unusual about this Portolet. But upon closer inspection, I found a most mysterious specification printed upon its label:
CAPACITY: 10 PEOPLE.
Assuming they are not clowns, how do you fit ten people in a Portolet? 
Well, I suppose that when you gotta go, you gotta go.
Either that, or what the label should say is
CAPACITY: What comes out of 10 people.
Yesterday our block hosted an enormous garage sale. You wouldn't believe how excited this made me. Garage sales were an important part of my youth. Unfortunately, I have difficulty getting rid of stuff; and when I was younger I would often decide, midway through the sale, that I actually wanted to keep various items.
So my parents instituted a rule: Nothing that leaves the house can go back in the house. It worked.
Well, Mrs. Gerbil and I made a small wad yesterday. But the tragedy of it all was that I had to go to work after a few hours. I would much rather have been sitting out in the driveway than telling callers that I honestly do not have their claims information. Alas.
But before I went to work, I found myself with a little dilemma. Mrs. Gerbil and I live three blocks from a clean and sober house, approximately half of whose residents were my clients at my previous job. I've run into them at bus stops, in downtown Berkeley, in restaurants, and even in the corner liquor store (where they buy cigarettes and snacks, and we buy milk and Ben & Jerry's). It doesn't really bother me, and it certainly did not bother me while they were my clients.
Yet yesterday, I was pre-emptively bothered. I saw one of them walking down the street, then walking back up the street with some garage sale loot. Our building is set back from, and perpendicular to, the street; and there's a privacy fence around the driveway. Thus: I could see him, but he couldn't see me.
I started wondering: What if he comes to check out our wares? Not that he would buy any of our girly stuff, but what if he strikes up a conversation with Mrs. Gerbil and me? How would I introduce him? Should I introduce him? And is it a bad thing if he finds out where I live, even though I haven't worked with him in months?
(Mrs. Gerbil and I have already discussed what might happen if one of my former clients approaches both of us. The agreement: She is not to ask me from whence I know this person, as "I can't tell you" is fundamentally the same as "That's my client.")
My worst fears, however, were not realized. A short while later, he zoomed back up the street, garage sale loot in hand, without so much of a glance up our drive.
I still wonder what might have happened, had he checked out our stuff. It's hard to observe the "I'll acknowledge you only if you acknowledge me" rule when the person is literally at your doorstep. And what if he'd bought something? Would I have felt weird taking his quarter for one of Mrs. Gerbil's sci-fi/fantasy novels?
Signs point to "yes."
Later in the afternoon, Mrs. Gerbil went off to Walgreens to retrieve a prescription of mine. The staff at our Walgreens generally does a terrific job of authenticating their customers, even those whom they recognize (such as yours truly). However, Mrs. Gerbil reports that the pharmacy tech tried really, really hard to give her someone else's prescription.
Apparently the tech asked dutifully for my name and address--and then proceeded to hand Mrs. Gerbil the bag directly behind mine. Mrs. Gerbil protested, "That's not the right one!" The tech said something to the effect of "Did you move? It looks like we have the wrong address on file."
Mrs. Gerbil pointed out that not only have we not moved, but the name on the bag was not mine. They went back and forth about this for a bit before the proverbial light bulb came on, and the correct bag made it to Mrs. Gerbil's little paws.
I'm not even going to begin on that one. Hip-hip-HIPAA, dudes.
According to the newsletter Mrs. Gerbil received the other day, the Alameda Green Party is congratulating itself over preventing the construction of some cell phone tower somewhere. I don't know where the tower was supposed to be, as Mrs. Gerbil has already recycled the newsletter and the link which should lead to the newsletter doesn't actually yield anything of use.
But this will not stop my snark. Oh, children, my snark cannot be stopped.
I will concede that cell towers are ugly. I'll also concede that I had no idea that there were so many ways to disguise cell towers. But it's not just aesthetics (or lack thereof) that fuel protests against cell tower construction. It's the possibility of a health hazard. It's the intrusion of commercial activity into non-commercial zones. Oh, and it's the principle of the thing.
Now, I'm all for preservation and good planning and all that, but there's a fundamental problem with cell tower nimbyism: No cell tower, no cell service.
Many people have no land line because their cell phones are their primary phones. That's great for people who know they can always get reception. Mrs. Gerbil and I each have a cell phone, but we also have a land line because cell phones aren't 100% reliable. On our landline we have a cordless phone and an old-school phone with a 25' cord. (Why the ancient model? Because we can't use the cordless to notify PG&E that the power is out.)
If cell tower construction is restricted, then existing towers may get overwhelmed--and then we'll all bang our heads on the wall to the tune of "We're sorry, all circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later."
When I decided to get a cell phone about five and a half years ago, I chose my company based on local coverage. The best coverage in my area came from Verizon or Sprint, but it was well known that there was no Sprint reception on Coventry Road. Coventry is full of all kinds of fun shops, and as I lived about a quarter mile away, I was there all the time. Needless to say, I chose Verizon. Verizon, however, does not have such great reception in our bedroom in Berkeley. But this doesn't bother me. I can put up with the lack of reception in our bedroom, because the only way to fix this is to put up a cell tower on the bed. And that's just plain silly.
However, I also don't subscribe to the belief that cell phone ownership equals constant accessibility. So I suppose it's okay to support the restriction of cell tower construction if you don't mind not being able to use your cell phone everywhere and all the time. But if your cell phone is necessary for your survival, then cell towers are your necessary evil.
Well, I had planned to blog about a Celebrity Deathmatch that isn't, but should be:
but it seems I am not as original as I'd thought.
I would have probably spent an evening moping about this, if not for last night's Target run with my best friend, R.
When R and I go shopping, we are a force with which to be reckoned. Even Mrs. Gerbil thinks so--which is why she tends not to come along. But last night, Mrs. Gerbil had to work late; and so R and I made like teenagers and spent the night at the mall.
We each needed various items from the health and personal care section. Alas, this took a lot longer than it should have, as there are just way too many choices these days. There must be 57 varieties or Crest toothpaste, and it's getting harder to find good old cool mint gel. And really, how many different cartoons need to be festooned on band-aids? R and I find this all very amusing.
And then we spotted the best varietal of all:
R put her astonishment this way: "Dude. The point of deodorant is to make your armpits not smell."
I put mine this way: "Dude. No one's armpits should smell like Starbucks."
I suppose it's possible that R and I, hip as we are, have missed some important new trend in accessorizing--the one that dictates that your underarms must match your hot beverage.
One of the unfortunate things about my job is that I cannot do a single thing about claims. I cannot tell anyone the status of a claim. I cannot reprocess a claim. I cannot even say whether a claim has been received. This is because I am not in the claims department.
My department never closes. The claims department does. When the claims department is open, I can transfer callers to a real live person over there. When the claims department is closed, not a single real live person is there to receive the transfer. And the only thing I can do is say to wait until the next business day--which can be a tall order if it's 7pm on a Friday night.
I don't know why it is so difficult for people to understand that I can't view their claims information. I get at least three calls per day that go like this:
caller: I am calling about a claim that my doctor submitted three months ago.
me: I'm sorry, I can't see any of your claims information. The claims department is open Monday through Friday, from...
caller: But my doctor sent in this claim three months ago and it hasn't been paid yet.
me: I apologize for the delay, but as I said I do not have access to any information about your claims.
caller: What do I have to say to get you to pay my therapist?
me: Please call back when our claims department is open and they will be happy to assist you.
caller: But why can't you help me with my claims?
me: Because I am not in the department that handles claims. That department is closed right now.
caller: Oh. Okay then, bye.
As you can imagine, I get very tired of saying the same thing over and over and over again. I probably say "I can't see any information about your claims" in my sleep. Sometimes I feel like I'm David Spade in that one commercial, except I'm not saying "NOOOOooooo!" for the passive-aggressive hell of it.
Mrs. Gerbil suggested that I come up with fun, creative ways to impart this information. Last night we came up with a whole slew while we were supposed to be sleeping.
Some of them were inspired by cheesy martial arts movies:
~ Your claims information is silent, like the ninja.
~ Your claims information is as the first crocus of spring, but it is still December.
~ Your claims information is as a deer, deep within in the forest.
~ Your claims information is as concrete shoes at the bottom of the Hudson River.
Some of them were inspired by television:
~ In the world of managed care, claims information is considered especially valuable. In this company, claims are handled by an elite squad known as the claims department. These are their hours...
Some of them were inspired by folk songs:
I cannot give you your claims status
I cannot do squat about claims
That's done by another department
So why are you talking to me, to me?
Call back, call back
Call back on Monday at six AM
Call back, call back
Call back on Monday at six.
And some of them were inspired by nursery rhymes:
Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, but I don't have any of your claims information.
The man in the moon came down too soon
And asked the way to Norwich;
He went by the south and burnt his mouth
From eating your claims information.
Old MacDonald had a farm
E-I-E-I-O
And on his farm he did not have your claims information.
Alas, I don't think this would qualify as good customer service.
" 'You don't mind being treated like a... like a gerbil?' "
- Nick Hornby, About a Boy
" 'Under your prim exterior, I'm sure there beats the heart of a lusty animal. ... Perhaps a gerbil.' "
- Curtis Sittenfeld, The Man of My Dreams
