Woke up at 6:15 AM. Got a ride from a friend at 7:25 AM to LAX on the Van Nuys Flyaway Bus - which is the best bus ever. With the possible exception of the bus that took us from Chicago’s Cactus Bar and Grill to the Buffett show in 2000. Got to the Continental terminal at 9:15 AM. Cleared security at 9:30 AM and checked the big board for the status of my 10:30 AM flight to Cleveland.

Delayed until 2:25 PM.

I was upset. Then a Continental rep told me that the delay entitled me to a $12 meal at Ruby’s, which is a 1950s-style diner in the C terminal. I was slightly less upset thanks to a well-executed breakfast burrito.

From 10-11:30 AM I read The New York Post cover to cover.

At 11:41 AM I drifted off to sleep. At 11:42 AM a 5.4 magnitude earthquake struck 30 miles east of Los Angeles, shaking LAX and waking me up … probably forever. I was seated (slouched, really) in a row of seats in the middle of the C terminal. It felt like someone was rocking my row of chairs back and forth. For 30 seconds. And being a real dick about it. But the real dick, it turns out, was the earth’s shifting tectonic plates.

At 11:45 AM I called Costantini and asked him for an Earth Watch report. He said a photograph fell off the wall at his parents’ house. I thanked him for the detailed update.

The great thing about Los Angeles – 30 seconds after the earthquake everyone went about their business like it never happened. I love any city that takes events that would grind other cities to a screeching halt in stride. My town. Much better than DC, where a light snowfall causes pandemonium.

From noon to 1:30 PM I read the Los Angeles Times cover to cover. Had a nice conversation with an Ohio University grad (class of 1982) and another gentleman who told me he sat on the tarmac in Newark for five hours once. Great guy. Served in the Marines during the Vietnam War. We talked about it. He said, in complete seriousness and with much thought and not a hint of self-pity or sarcasm, ”Vietnam was the war that made war unpopular.”

Never hesitate to talk to the guy sitting next to you … anywhere. Everyone is interesting. I learned this as a journalist.

Finally boarded my 10:30 AM flight at 2:30 PM.

On the flight started reading “The Watchmen.”

Dear Everyone I Know Who Has Read The Watchmen And Never Told Me About It,

Fuck you.

You clearly do not know me. Every minute you talked to me about some other book or movie or dumb idea you had, you were wasting my time.

Our friendship is on tenuous ground.

Your friend (maybe),
Joe

This is a GREAT novel. I can’t wait to finish it.

Two hours into the flight the crew interrupted the movie Penelope (I may or may not have applauded at the flight attendant’s good judgment) and announced that there was a medical emergency (no more applauding) and could a doctor come to the back of the plane. There was a doctor and he — according to third-hand reports — helped stabilize a man who was having trouble breathing. This information could be totally wrong. I got it by eavesdropping on people who said they heard people talking. There was some talk among the passengers that the plane would have to land so the man could be treated, but that never happened and apparently the man’s condition improved.

Touched down around 9:55 PM (was supposed to be 6:20 PM).

Dad picked me up at 10:15 PM. We listened to the Indians lose to the Tigers on the car ride home. When I got home, I ate everything in the fridge that was not a salad.

All was normal with the world again.

(Above: Modern douche. Photo by rumkolat/flickr) 

Whenever I see a car with a bunch of stickers covering the bumper or trunk, I always think, “What a douche.” I can’t be certain that all of these drivers are douches, but according to psychologist William Szlemko and his colleagues at Colorado State University, at least one out of every six of these drivers is pretty douchey.
 
A story on Yahoo said the researchers “discovered that those having a larger number of personalized items on or in their car were sixteen percent more likely to get involved in road rage.”
 
Road rage is extremely douchey behaviour.

Once again science makes me look good.

Thank you, science.
 
I’m all for personalization when it’s an expression of creativity or means of enhancement. I like when couples personalize wedding vows, homeowners remodel and cats glow in the dark. But when you personalize a car with stickers you destroy the car’s natural beauty. Even if it’s an ugly car, you destroy its natural ugliness – which is a perverse form of beauty to many of us. In either case the car’s appearance has been altered negatively. Personalization is no longer a means of creativity whose end is enjoyment. Personalization of a car via bumper sticker is an act of personal property destruction.
 
The conclusion I drew from this study is that someone who is willing to destroy his own property first is more likely to destroy yours later through actions like – wait for it, wait for it – road rage.

This is why you should give wide berth to drivers with a “Dog is My Co-Pilot” bumper sticker. Any person who looks at “Dog is My Co-Pilot” every day, smiles in self-satisfaction and thinks, “That sticker remains entertaining and clever,” is clearly a psychopath who is six minutes away from slicing you in half and knocking on your lover’s door at 2 AM wearing a suit of your skin.

When the police find your corpse in the trunk of the guy’s car, with that “Dog is My Co-Pilot” sticker on the bumper, you can bet one of the detectives will look at the sticker, look at the captain, take a pull on his cigar and say with disgust, “There is no dog.”
 
Then the captain will roll his eyes and think, “What a douche.”

All of which brings us to the heart of this week’s column – the word “douche.”

This remarkable word has made the leap from feminine-hygiene noun to insult adjective. Sometimes when a person does something incredibly unintelligent, traditional pejoratives will not suffice. “That guy was a total idiot,” says very little. “That guy was a total douche,” says everything.
 
I like the word douche. I like it because the goal of the word is to correct bad behaviour. If douche has a negative connotation, and no one wants to be called a douche, then fewer people will do douchey things. Language corrects the behavioural market. A well-timed “Rick, don’t be a douche” from a hot babe can do more to prevent a bar brawl than a roomful of bouncers. This is the power of words. And hot babes.

(Above: The proper way to prevent a bar brawl. Sergio Savaman Savarese/flickr.)
 
Because I like the word – and because I want it to have the maximum sting when I launch it upon my enemies – I will attempt to define the word douche. If douche gets watered down, it will lose its effectiveness. This is true of all douches.
 
The traditional definition of douche is this: “a jet or current of liquid (as a cleansing solution) directed against or into a bodily part or cavity (as the vagina).”

It’s odd that douche has a negative connotation. Isn’t a douche, when you think about it, a good thing? Would you want to live in a world without douches? I wouldn’t. Moving on…

My definition of douche is this: “A douche is an individual who acts without considering how intelligent, reasonable people will perceive his or her actions.”
 
Under this definition, the following people qualify as douches: Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Ann Coulter, Hillary Clinton, Barry Bonds, Madonna, Greg from “Real World XX: Hollywood,” Damone from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” women who leave the house wearing more than two pieces of clothing with leopard-skin patterns, guys who take their shirts off at dance clubs, babies who cry on airplanes. (That is the ultimate in douchey behaviour. Being a baby is no excuse.)

I’m not the first person to attempt to define douche, but I like my definition best.

Urban Dictionary has seven definitions. This is the first one: “a word to describe an individual who has shown themself (sic) to be very brainless in one way or another, thus comparing them to the cleansing product for vaginas.”

I must disagree with any definition that in the process of accusing people of being brainless butchers a word (themself) while also calling an “individual” a “them” at the end of the definition.

Wikipedia says: “The metaphor of identifying a person as a douche is intended to associate a variety of negative qualities, specifically arrogance and malice.”

I agree that a douche can be arrogant or malicious, but he or she must be unaware of the consequences of his or her actions. If a person uses arrogance or maliciousness to gain some end, he is just mean or evil. (See: Simon Cowell.)

In researching this column (Joe does research?), I discovered that the Internet is flush with anti-douche activity.

There are Web sites dedicated to posting photos of douches.

You can find lists of douchey people.

And there is an iconic douche photo (worth checking out) that made its way around the Internet a few million times. The photo offers a definition slightly similar to mine: “an individual who has an over inflated (sic) sense of self worth, compounded by a low level of intelligence, behaving ridiculously in front of colleagues with no sense of how moronic he appears.”

I only agree with the last part of that definition – “with no sense of how moronic he appears.” If the individual had self-worth, that individual would not be a douche. It is the lack of self-worth that often leads to douchey behavior. Also, individuals can have high levels of intelligence and still be douchey. “South Park” covered this in 2004 with the episode Douche and Turd, a satire of the 2004 presidential election in which President Bush and Sen. John Kerry – both seemingly intelligent – were compared to a giant douche and a turd sandwich. The episode marked the cultural ascent of the word douche. Turd is still waiting for its day in the sun, so to speak.

(Above: A giant douche debates a turd sandwich. Thank you, “South Park.”)

Let’s break down one example of douchey behavior. A female friend of mine was recently being hit on by a guy. He said to her, “I didn’t know how attractive you were until I saw you in a dress.”

This is a completely douchey thing to say.

It implies:

1. Unless she always wears blouses and sweaters that cover her face, the guy does not think her face is attractive.

2. The guy only finds her attractive now that her legs and breasts are exposed.

3. The guy thinks she is so stupid that she will take his comment as a compliment.

This is a guy who did not consider how his comment would be judged by an intelligent, reasonable person.

What a douche.

I love everything about this story.

Here is the lede:

A 57-year-old south side man, who might have been struggling with a hangover, is charged today with shooting his lawn mower with a sawed-off shotgun.

Special thanks to loyal reader Amelia B. for the tip.

This column was rejected by one of the publications for which I write. I won’t get into the reason why, other than to say it had nothing to do with the quality of the piece. Rather than let this sit on my C: drive forever, I thought I would share it on my site. It’s not funny - but it’s true. - Joe

A look at the real cost of smoking
By JOE DONATELLI
 
Are you a regular cigarette smoker? By regular I mean you smoke after you wake up. You smoke in the car. You smoke on break. You smoke at lunch. You smoke after dinner. You smoke when you drink. You can’t quit. You are addicted.

Here’s the part where you expect me to say, “Smoking is bad. You shouldn’t smoke. It will kill you.” I’m not going to say that. You’re a grown-up. You know that already. What I am going to share with you is the short-term economic cost of your decision to smoke.

These figures were calculated using a tool at  www.womenshealth.gov/quitsmoking/tools/calc.cfm.

10 cigarettes per day at $3.00 a pack for one year: $547.50

* For $547.50 you can fill a 15-gallon gas tank with $4.75-a-gallon gas 7.7 times. That’s “free” gas for two months if you fill up once a week.

* For $547.50 you can fly roundtrip from Los Angeles to Honolulu on Northwest Airlines this October and still have enough money to buy the first round of Mai Tais at the hotel bar.

* For $547.50 you can buy a 16-gigabyte iPhone for yourself and an eight-gigabyte iPhone for someone you love.

10 cigarettes per day at $3.00 a pack for 10 years: $5,475.00

* For $5,475 the median household can pay off its credit card debt of $1,900 and still have $3,575 to invest in a Roth or traditional IRA.

* For $5,475 you can fly first class from Los Angeles to Paris roundtrip in October on Continental and still have $1,630 for shopping on the famed Avenue Montaigne.

* For $5,475 you can buy a Pioneer 50-inch high-definition plasma flat-screen television from Best Buy.

10 cigarettes per day at $3.00 a pack for 30 years: $16,425

* Investing $547.50 a year for 30 years – or $16,425 total – in stocks, indexes or mutual funds that yield an average of 10 percent annually would net you – with compound interest – $108,620 after 30 years.

* For $16,425 you could buy a Harley Davidson Dyna Street Bob. You also could buy a Mini Cooper that requires only $2,275 financing.

* For $16,425 a state resident can purchase a four-year education at California State University-Los Angeles for his or her child and still have $3,097 for books and transportation.

If you’re struggling to quit smoking, try this. In addition to whatever program you are using – the patch, cold turkey, etc. – take whatever amount of money you spent on cigarettes per week and throw it in a jar. When you get discouraged, go to your jar and make a withdrawal. Go see a movie. Invest in your future. Buy a gift for someone.

Having a tangible record of your battle might lessen your burden. As might the prospect of sipping Mai Tais in Hawaii.

On this week’s podcast we discussed how terrible Mike is on the phone with women - especially when it comes to leaving voice mails. Podcast guest John Kyle Grady forwarded this link to two voice mails left by a guy who is way worse than Mike on the phone. Not only is this guy Dimitri worse than Mike, he is probably worse than anyone else who has picked up a phone - ever.

Thanks, John.