a vent and social skills

Today I learned that the vent fan on the bottom of my over-the-stove microwave vents to the great outdoors, despite the fact that it's mounted on a wall that doesn't reach the vaulted ceiling. Apparently there's a duct in that wall that goes to another wall that does reach the ceiling. I would never have learned this if my laundry closet door wasn't still made of plastic and tape and thus swayed when the pressure changed.

Then I learned that the key to public speaking is confidence, and that's all. Also, you can issue effective blanket compliments to enormous groups of people you will probably never even meet. I apparently still am stuck with fantastic social skills for a physicist, so I found the whole blanket-compliment concept pretty surprising.

In other social skills news, I accidentally learned how to tell someone his cologne reeks. This morning I went to the bank at the grocery store I can't actually shop in, and there was a perfumy poison cloud emanating from the bank area. I assumed it had come from a customer who'd already left, and, loudmouth that I am, I said as much, along with something about perfume and its tendency to linger. After I had chosen a teller and partially completed my transaction, it occurred to me that the fumes that made my hands shake so much I had to move away to sign my name was the cologne of the male teller in front of me. So I hope his coworkers teased the heck out of him for the rest of the day for his perfume habit.