The other day at Lunch 2.0, I made the mistake of calling ValleyWag the National Enquirer of Silicon Valley in front of a Vallewag reporter. I was promptly corrected that it was the US Weekly. I guess that embarrassment was penalty for not paying attention to the mastheads when I’m at the supermarket.

Valleywag stops by for a quickie
Lunch 2.0 @ Ning, Palo Alto, California

Nikon D200, Tokina AT-X PRO 16-50mm f/2.8 DX
1/40sec @ f/2.8, iso800, 26mm (39mm)

Megan McCarthy of Valleywag. Don’t mess with these peeps—their keyboard is mightier than your coding skills.

Had I been thinking more along my sort of reading, I’d have called Valleywag the “Talk of the Town” of the Valley, but nobody actually reads that. If I said it was the “Page Six of the Valley”, you’d understand.

This is all a really bad segue into the fact that a friend of mine appeared in Valleywag recently in which they made a passing reference to a certain trait of hers I never noticed. And this reminded me of something that occurred in high school and why I have a natural defense mechanism to be oblivious to these things.

[Having really bad thoughts, after the jump]

Being hormonal

At an overnight debate tournament before falling asleep, people started playing the questions game—it’s sort of “Truth or Dare” without the dare part, which pretty much amounts to, at that age, asking who you have the hots for, if you’ve ever had sex, and whether a girl fakes orgasms.

From there we went from why V— wanted C— to the subject of breast size. I mentioned that I never really notice those things and didn’t know what all the cup sizes they are talking about meant.

S— says, “Oh come now, tell me you never noticed N—’s tits?”

“Umm, no? Are they large or something?”

V—: “You’re so full of it.”

“No, honestly. She’s in my physics class. I’ll tell you what. Next time I’m in class, I’ll look at them and get back to you.”

The next time

Of course before the next physics class, I forgot the promise. In fact, I went a couple weeks without remembering the whole incident.

After class one day, N— comes up to me. She was an editor of a newspaper at school, and since I was the only person in the entire school with a laser printer (am I dating myself here?), she and the other editor needed to borrow my computer and mad desktop publishing skills to put out their issue. (Send the cute girl to talk to the geek—really, that’s quite unfair!)

That’s when God’s funny sense of humor kicks in. And a thought pops into my head.

Oh yeah! I promised to look at N—’s breasts.

Hmm, yes they’re kind of big and shapely. Especially on a girl that small.

What is she saying? I better just nod.

She’s shorter than me. That’s pretty rare. Maybe that’s why I never did the Donger thing and noticed the breasts before?

Am I staring?

I must be staring. She’s shorter than me. You shouldn’t look at her breasts when you’re talking to her.

Is she noticing I’m staring?

Hmm, probably. You haven’t heard a word she said and you’re not looking at her. Maybe if you play it that you’re just intensely shy she won’t slap you.

Lesson learned: a woman’s breasts are like the sun, you may look at it, but then you look away!

And that’s how I got roped into helping a competing newspaper learn this desktop publishing thing. (And that’s only half this story. If I get into what happened the day she and the other editor came over you’d be ROTFL.)

Epilogue

I talked to her a year later at homecoming. That time I looked at her face the entire time which was actually pretty easy because she’s cute. But the whole time in the back of my mind I’m thinking she’s probably thinking that I’m some lecherous kid who likes to stare at breasts.

Traumatized.
For.
Life.

I guess that’s the real secret to how I kicked ass in physics. Had I had my look surreptitiously during class, I probably would have failed it.

So maybe God was just looking out for me.