The "It Socks to Be Us" Club

Recent events over the past 24 hours have prompted me to call a "mooting" of The "It Socks to Be Us" Club for some consolation and commiseration. To date, there are two members: myself and my best friend (of the female persuasion) Dudette. (It's actually called the "It Sucks to Be Us Club", but whenever I issue a meeting call by its proper name, Dudette's over-eager mail filter at her place of employment gives my email the proverbial bum's rush if there's even a whiff of a naughty-word. So I have to be clever how I word it.) The club was founded during those heady and dreary days of grad school, when Dudette & I were not only good friends, but foxhole buddies trying to survive the PhD program. Co-commisseration was a necessity.

Past mooting topics have included:

1) The Microwaved Soy-Sauce Miasma Incident
2) The Devil Who Lives in Deep River and Teaches Engineering Tools (a.k.a. Ice Sucky)
3) The Black Horse in Kentucky
4) Got an Image-Processing Problem? Divide the Image into Quarters!
5) The Obnoxious Sparc-Station Power-Toggler
6) How "Meetings" Became "Mootings"
7) The "You Know" Counting Game
8) How Everything in California is Suspect
9) The Best-Buy Boycott (a.k.a., Trifle Not with the Boycott Gods)

Due to our geographic dislocations, Dudette & I have been considering opening local chapters. I have some potiential members in mind, but the Executive Board (i.e, Dudette & I) are still finalizing membership requirements (aside from our arbitrary and capricious approval). The current draft is as follows:

1) That "Stupid Things" happen to you. This is a subset of Bad Things, which happen to everyone. Stupid Things are best described in some surreal or Seinfeldian context, e.g., "I had a Mulva moment today." Your own Stupidity should not be the cause of said Stupid Thing.
2) When a Stupid Thing does happen, you must have the ability to rant about it in an amusing manner, with the special proviso that you build it to where you can close with "And why does this happen to me?" so the other members can nod knowingly and reply "Because it sucks to be you!"
3) The ability to recognize when a Stupid Thing is in actuality a Really Sucky Thing and move quickly from commiseration to consolation & support. All members must be able to show genuine compassion and empathy to their fellow members when called for.
4) The ability to reduce Stupid Thing narration or commentary into a single gesture or phrase. Example items include the Selfosophy "Turn that Frown Upside Down" hand flip, Kramer-esque"Levels" finger stair-walking and box-pushing and the Celiene Dion Roman Salute.
5) Judicious use of the secret word, "Geezamoli". Because once you've said "Geezamoli", there's nothing left to say.

When the membership requirements are ratified, I'll post them to consider local members.

Geezamoli.