Gaydar

Becca and I attended an information session for a Phd program she really wants to enroll in at the Morgridge College of Education.
One of the administrators that we got to sit down and talk to was a guy I would guess to be in his mid 40's. Nice understated suit, stylish glasses...and a nose stud.
A dainty little little nose stud like a woman would wear.
I didn't see it at first because I was hypnotized by a bronze bust very near the table we were sitting at. It was a bust of the man that the building we were sitting in was named after. Not terribly notable except for the fact that the man had an owl coming out of his right shoulder. Not on, coming out of .
"What the hell kind of half owl/half man hybrid had they named this building after?" I kept wondering.
So, it wasn't until the light caught the stud in his nose that I noticed it. The strange thing was I wasn't getting any kind of gay vibe at from him. Weird.
Later we were in the Coach store and I brought it up.
Becca said " I just think he's very Metro. I have good Gaydar and he wasn't setting it off."
I said, "I do too, and you're right no bells were going off."
Just then a smartly dressed young man flounced over and asked if we needed any help. I leaned close to Becca's ear and said under my breath, " beep...beep...beep"
I have to give it to her she held it together pretty well until he left then she turned to me, "Right! That guy was setting it off!"
Later that night we went out to dinner and the nice young man serving us was obviously gay as well. While he was talking to us I stared at Becca and watched her battle to keep from smiling too widely. I was really tempted to beep at her again...but it would have been odd behavior ...ok, I know I'm known for odd behavior at times, but frankly I didn't want to make the kid uncomfortable. He was, after all, about to bring me plates of food.
After he left she wheeled on me,
" All I could hear while he was talking was your voice in my head saying 'beep...beep..beep'. "



ps: I never found out why the man had an owl coming out of his arm. I went over and read the little sign under the bust and it said, "The bust of William Driscoll has been moved to another location until further notice" When clearly it had not.
pps: further study reveals he was a zoologist ...which still doesn't explain an owl coming out of his fucking shoulder instead of being on it!

The new Era

The day after the election I had a customer buying a phone. The price was $100 minus a $50 mail in rebate.
I told her about the rebate but as always happens only the lowest number registered.
(when I say "we ordered your phone and it will be here 3 to 5 business days" the customer hears "I swear on my sweet grammy's grave that your phone will be here in no more than 3 days, regardless of holidays, weekends, fires, floods and tornadoes)
So she is staring at this receipt, pen poised, and she just can't bring herself to sign it because for the life of her she can't figure out how $50 became $107.35 after taxes.
I finally decide to help her out, I say matter of factly
"Taxes"
She looks up at me with a question on her face.
I say, "they warned us Obama would raise our taxes....but 100% seems a bit much to me."
She looked stunned for just a second and then I said, "the mail in rebate?"
She and her daughter cracked up.

I have found in sales if you can scare the crap out of the customers with something like 100% taxes and then reassure them it's just a mail in rebate that you may or may not get in 6 months it makes for a much better customer service experience.

Signs That Your Campaign Might be In Trouble

ok.....if a former Secretary Of State...
and National Security Advisor...
and Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff.....
who is a member of your party endorses your opponent?
Your campaign might be in trouble.
If your most recent endorsement is....lets see...oh, I know:
Kurt Schilling!
You are in even worse trouble than I thought.
That's deep shit right there.
Think about that, on one side you have Colin Powell backing Obama...you heard of Colin Powell, right?
Um, lemme' see.....MBA from George Washington University, served 2 terms in Vietnam, rose to the rank of 4 Star General blah, blah, blah...plus all that Secretary Of State horseshit I mentioned earlier....
On the other side, Kurt Schilling....lets see....3 world series rings, lifetime era of 3.46, 2001 World series mvp and a 98 MPH (in his prime) fastball. Of course his only experience in political matters up to this point is limited to testifying in front of congress in 2005 about steroid use in baseball.

In terms of having the faith of powerful, influential people behind you....
I'm going to go with the guy with all the "experience" in politics versus the guy that you would kill to have on your company softball team.

Enh....maybe I'm biased...

Guess What I Did On My Day Off...

Ok take a flying leap at what I did with my day off yesterday.
G'head, I'll wait.
(at this point you should hear the theme music for Final Jeopardy in your head....or maybe even hum it to yourself)

If you guessed:
-did laundry
-went to the library
-worked out
-blogged
-wandered aimlessly around Whole Foods, listening to my music, chatting up the pretty woman in the cheese/produce/seafood department. Oh, and the guy behind the meat counter...but I couldn't accurately tell you if he's all that good looking or not...that's just not my thing. I am relentlessly hetero despite my metrosexual facade . Ask anybody.
-Subsequent to the Whole Foods trip cooked a needlessly elaborate meal considering it was for only one person

Any one of these (or perhaps several of these) would have been a good guess.
However, that's not what I'm talking about.
I voted.
I partook of the early voting process.
Heartily, I may add.
I voted long. I voted hard. I voted deep.
I voted the shit out of it.

The thing is, I am a political junkie. I can tell you, at great length, why I rated Reagan as one of my least favorite modern presidents until Bush came along. I am very much interested in the outcome of this campaign...and I wound up voting completely by accident.
I didn't set out to vote.
It's actually kind of weird.
I was at the mall. I fucking hate the mall. I was going to say I avoid it like the plague...but who even knows what the hell the plague is? I avoid the mall like herpes. Like kicks to the balls. Like tainted shellfish.....like taints...(ok that last bit may have been borderline inappropriate...taints..)
But...You get the picture?
So, for some reason I decided I wanted to see if I could find a protective case for my cell phone.
(they did have one, it was stupid-expensive considering it probably cost next to nothing to make and I passed on it.)
Anyway.I have developed a defense mechanism for places like the mall or Walmart.
I listen to mp3s on my phone and pretend I am in a video in which a cool, good looking, well dressed guy in his 30's ironically walks amongst the uneducated-unwashed masses.....
and if you think this is snobby and rude? Then you're stupid and you probably smell gross...I'm just saying...
So there I am, walking in the mall, trying not to hate or punch anyone and I round a corner and there it is, a polling place. It was like I turned a corner and I found a hot chick giving out free CD's and sushi and bourbon . I slowed down my pace as I approached, trying to take it all in ....to make sure I really was seeing what I was seeing.
I walked up to the nice old lady and she said, "are you here to vote?"
I was like a little kid, "Can I?!"
She broke down the rules (have a valid I.D. be registered etc...) and I got in line and voted like a madman.
I won't go into all the ins and outs.
But! If Obama becomes president, I am totally taking credit. I voted for him waaaay before all you fuckers and y'all just copied me.
I won't even get into all the reasons why you should vote for Obama.
The Real News (found on most channels) tells you why...and the Fixed News...or Fake news...or..umm Fox "News" tells you why by talking all kinds of retarded bullshit...and I apologize to Retards for saying that. Even Retards think "umm what you are saying? ....Fox "news" makes no fucking sense. And I'm a retard!" (you should hear a super fake, over the top, cliche, retard voice when you read that.)
(again...sorry to Retards. And that includes you Dubya.)
So.
I voted for Obama.
Duh.
But the other thing on the ballot that I voted for...or actually against as the case may be...
Hang on....
Here in Colorado they have a ballot initiative for a constitutional amendment to make it official that "life begins at the moment of conception" And....AND.!!..that little lump of egg and sperm, the millisecond that it bifurcates into 2 cells, it has the same rights as you and I.
Think about that. The fraction of a second that it takes.....the moment of fertilization...I'm near to speechless...what the fuck?
Is a seedling the same as a 100 year old oak?
Fuck no.
Come on.
A 2 celled organism, that may at some point become a human, has the same rights as you and I?
Get the fuck out of here.
I will barely concede that my 13 year old son has the same rights as me. And god only knows how many cells He has...he's going through puberty for fuck's sake...

So.
I voted for Obama. And I voted against giving double-celled organisms driving privileges, voting rights and the ability to supersize their happy meal.
And anybody that doesn't like it? Well, I challenge you and that ...that...collection of cells to a fight...you and the cells versus me and ...I don't know...um..a cage fighter? I mean, if you really think that is a human being with full human rights and not just a small assortment of cells...well then lets the 4 of us have a fight and you see how much back up those cells are versus my cage fighter...and I'll even let you pick...you can pick a guy that is 0-40 ...
40 fights 40 losses....
I could probably beat that fucker.... even with my separated shoulder (on account of spending so much time in that ditch?Remember?)
and I will still take that Human Being over your little pile of cells.

I'm.
Just.
Saying.

Hunh!

I like when a comment taken out of context is funny.
I'm about to watch a boxing match and the announcer says, "it's the punch you don't see coming that knocks you out ...now lets talk to Larry Merchant who you can always see coming"
WTF? You can always see Larry Merchat cumming?
Really?
Then later in the fight they are trying to explain that the key to this fight is that the fighter that hits first is doing better because there is no counter-punching going on.
The other announcer said, " if Mosely gets off first he looks better, if Cotto gets off first he looks better"
Again,
WTF?
I was starting to think they had a bet going on Like in "Super Troopers" when the one trooper bets the other trooper he can't say "meow" a certain number of times and so the trooper says to the couple he has pulled over "meow listen here" amongst other things.
I think they got this bet going that they couldn't say on the air something that would imply the fighter is having an orgasim.
Right as I had this thought Lamply said, "Mosely is impressive at this age. He just keeps coming and coming and coming"

Oh shit now it's a three way tie!

Suddenly I was more interested in what the announcers were saying than the fight itself. What kind of innuendo was going to be dropped next?!
For the next few rounds it just punching and stuff.
ZZZzzzzzz Boooring.
I thought it was going to end in a three way tie until Cottos mouthpiece was knocked out and Jim Lampley seized the opportunity by saying, "wow, that left his mouth like Paris Hilton spitting out a wad in the back of the limo!"

A little artless and obvious but I gave him the win nonetheless.

(that last bit may have been embellished)

Censoship People has reared its Ugly head.

I knew this day would come.
Well it's official, I have been censored on the internet.
You know what that means?

The Terrorists Have Already Won.

I can try to go to the mall and buy a bunch of useless crap I don't need like President Jackass has suggested....but it might be too little, too late. I'm afraid they really may have already won and there is nothing a vibrating leather chair can do about it.

I should explain. Last night I left a comment on a blog. That the blog owner refused to post.
It was my usual well thought out, expletive laden diatribe that only tangentially had anything to do with the the actual subject.
In essence I said "fuck Doulas."
Every doula I know is a lying douche.
Of course the one I know happens to be my ex wife and while I will grant the two facts about her: 1) shes a doula and 2) she's a lying douche may be independent of each other and doulas as a group might be good people....I'm just saying all the ones I know are bad people, ok?

But the censorship has already begun. The terrorist have already won and soon we'll all be sporting burkhas....of course this is still america so we'll have burkhas that say Phat Farm or Abercrombie on them...but that's not the point.....

Today Was A Good Day ( yes I am quoting an Ice Cube song)

It was a good day today because Chris revealed himself to be a pirate.

I should back up a little.
Chris is one of 2 new guys (the other is Marvin, a black dude who talks with a bit of a lisp so to me he always sounds like Tim Meadows character The Ladies Man...so of course I like Marvin.)
Chris is black too...but he's one of the whitest black dudes I've ever met.
But of course I'm too white to point that out...fortunately Hamlet has had a great time of pointing out how 'white' Chris is.
Oh....have I ever mentioned Hamlet? First, this is not a pseudonym. Hamlet is a Dominican guy from New York. Hamlet looks,acts, dresses and talks like the absolute cliche of what you think a Dominican guy from New York should be. I think he's awesome because he says thing to me like "watchoo need nigga?" if I'm trying to ask him a question. Plus? He's a Dominican guy from New York named Hamlet!
Don't even try to deny it; that's awesome.
So, to give you an example of how Hamlet points out that Chris is white despite the color of his skin, yesterday I happened to walk into the office and Hamlet , Chris and a couple of other people were there...I walk in as Hamlet says to Chris, "c'mon muthafucka, name one other member of the Wu Tang Clan besides Inspecta Deck" and Chris says, "umm lets see, there's Inspecta Deck..." and Hamlet turns to me, points and says, "Nigga, name somebody from Wu Tang."
I say, without hesitating, "The Rza, The Gza, Old Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killa, Method Man..." He interrupts me looks at Chris, "see bitch, Michael blacker than you!"
Then he turns to me and says, "knowin' Wu Tang don't make you black......you know Bobby Digital?"
To which I respond, "I'm vegetarian, bitch, I don't eat the beef. Wait 'till you go to sleep I'll pull ya' teef."
Which is a Bobby Digital lyric....Bobby Digital is the alter ego of The Rza....but I digress.

So. I'm blacker than Chris...who is technically black... ( one time he mentioned his wife is black and somebody said "a mixed marriage? Nice!")

What the fuck was I talking about?
Oh yeah, Chris is a pirate.
He comes in wearing a belt that has a skull and cross bones belt buckle.
I'm serious.
So of course we all spend most of the day making great sport of his piratical belt buckle. We start sentences with 'argh' and 'avast'
(holy shit, spell check was fine with the word "piratical"
...anyway)
But, the best part of all the fun we had at his expense?
(and believe me, we had great fun. At one point he asked me, "what am I supposed to do?" I said, "I don't know, invent a time machine and go back to the moment in which you put that fucking belt on and then stop yourself?....Or at the very least, maybe buy a mirror for the house?")
Ok. He was about to leave. Marvin had a very cute young customer. I asked her if she had ever seen a real pirate. She , of course, was all "what the fuck?"
I summon Chris over, he shows her the belt buckle and she says....
wait for it...
"where'd you get that, Hot Topic?"
Yes!
Nice!
I couldn't help myself, I high-fived her.
Those who know me know I'm not a high-fiven' kind of guy...but that was exceptional.
She did not pause, did not think about it.
"Where'd you get that, Hot Topic?"
I looked at the woman who came with her, I said, "M'am, is this your daughter?" she said yes and I said, (with absolute sincerity) "you must be so proud."

When I'm President King part XXIV

I may have written about this before, if so I apologize to those have heard it already....
but when I'm President King the advertised sale price of grocery items (specifically the sale tags at the supermarket) will first have multi unit sale prices that are divisible by 2.
Ie: 2 for $10. I'm not going to even make them put a single unit price on something, I'm a fair guy. But we can all easily tell that the price per unit is $5. Even 4 for $5 is ok, (that's a buck and a quarter, easy enough) But when I see 7 for $13 or some random retarded fraction, fuck that. I shouldn't be forced to do algebra to find out how much my gaddamn cottage cheese is costing me. (sorry to those of my readers who may be retarded, nothing personal)
What brings this on tonight?
I was in the store and I passed through the chip eisle and saw that a brand of chips I happen to like was on sale....2 for the price of 1. The price of one being $3.98 a bag...so roughly $2, not a bad price I guess and easy enough to figure out how much it's going to cost me.
So....I happen to cruise by the "fresh" salsas (the kind they keep refrigerated) they have a brand I kind of like, which is unusual in this Wonderbread town, and it's on sale....3 for $5...damnit!...that's what, $1.67 each? Not bad I guess...then I happen to look at the salsa next to it....it looks kind of good too...but it is some other random fucking fraction.
Hmm...
So I think I'll get a little more clarity on this by looking at the fine print that
gives the price per ___...
Not much help there because the first tag says __ $ per ounce, the one next to it __$ per pound and the third brand? __$ per quart.
Ok, I was almost fine until I saw that last one.
Per quart? Really?
Why give me the price per quart? Who knows what a quart of salsa is? Who buys a quart of fucking salsa for personal consumption? What the hell am I doing with that much salsa...drinking it? Pouring it on cereal for fucks sake?
It is absurd to try to compare these 3 measurements. They may as well try to sell it to me in seconds per hectare. How the fuck am I supposed to compare a weight measurement with a volume measurement? Why not throw the per square inch price? Hey, why not go fucking metric with this bitch?! 3 euros per kilometer or some shit....
What the hell?
Nobody ever buys a fucking quart of salsa for personal consumption. What does a quart of salsa even look like?
What really annoys me is the obsfucation.
Why do you have to try to confuse me as a consumer? How about giving me clear information that will let me make an informed choice, fuckers?
It's not just obsfucation, it's unnecessary...do they think we'll just get all flustered and buy 5 for the price of 9 or something?
When I'm President King you will be able to look at a block of cheese or whatever and say, "OK, this one costs eleven cents per pound more than the other, but it's a higher quality product"
Or the reverse, "fuck that, the shitty cheese is 8 cents more per pound than the good stuff?!"
Informed choice without trickery ...is that so unreasonable?
The whole fucking point of having a sale is to increase sales so why not let people feel good about their choice because they have made an informed decision instead of just muddying the water?
I got so annoyed trying to do the math on this shit that I decided to forget the whole thing.
I refuse to pay $43,000 centavos for 7/16 of a decaliter of store bought salsa, I'm not gonna' do it.

I do have to say though..on the way out I happened to catch an awesome deal, the service deli had eleventy-five shmears of 3/4 fat cream cheese (which is soooo much better than 1/2 fat) on 75/15's* of a bagel.
Toasted!

* I was going to throw in some pi and 'squared' type mathematics and shit....but this stupid laptop** doesn't have the keys for that sort of thing)
** I'm going to change the name of 'laptops' when I'm President King.
First: most of the time people do not have them on their laps when they are using them.
Second: 'laptop' sounds vaguely sexual..... which is soooo stupid because if you are using a laptop in a sexual way (Internet porn? Heard of it?Anyone? Oh right, it's just me.) then the last place you want that fucking thing is on your lap)
I'm just saying.

I was at the Dr.'s office and the 2 receptionists are having a conversation.
First receptionist: Are you sure it's not pronounced 'Focusia' ?
(as in focus-e-uh)
I assume they are talking about some new ADHD medication.
Second receptionist: I'm telling you, you're saying it wrong. Here lets ask him.
She points at me.
She hands me a piece of paper. It is a takeout menu.
She points to one of the sandwiches listed.
It comes on Focaccia.

PS: in case you are sitting there thinking "yeah, I'm not totally sure how it's pronounced myself" it's Fo-cash-uh...(middle syllable is an ah sound)

Breakfast with Cindy

My friend Cindy and I have a place that we really like for breakfast. It's a 2 hour round trip to get there, the hollandaise is that good. I'm not going to tell you the name of it because you will go there and the wait will be even longer.
Usually it's about an hour wait to get a table...actually we could probably have minimized the wait but we specified the patio.
The first time we went there we said just sit us wherever and we wound up with a lovely table triangulated by the kitchen, a table full of 8 screaming toddlers (maybe a lamaze class reunion?) and a woman with a devastating case of cankles which she tried to draw attention away from through the clever use of cleavage. It wasn't working. I couldn't take my eyes off the things. Seriously the woman should adopt a style of dress that involves boots, lots and lots of boots.
So this time we said we would wait for the patio...we got a nice table, shady, not near any cankles or babies...but it was right by the door. Which is not that big of a deal except that it was an automatic door so it was kind of like having breakfast right next to the front door of a supermarket. But I'm not complaining. I think that pretty soon we will have it narrowed down to one perfect table and we will have to wait an hour and a half for it...
While I was waiting in line to put our name on the list a guy sort of scooted past me said excuse me ....and then stood in front of me.
I paused for a second and then my "Oh Hell No!" response kicked in. I said "Um excuse me?" The guy turned around and I said "Please tell me you did not just..." and then I made a little circular motion with my finger to indicate his little swooping in front of me maneuver.
Yes I did make a quick little mental calculation that he was wearing trendy glasses and a nice sweater I imagine you could get at Banana Republic (and not the outlet either) and was slight of frame and therefore was highly unlikely to be able to kick my ass.
But in my defense just today a big black guy that I work with kept repeatedly saying he was going to punch me, to which I finally replied , "look either punch me in the fucking face, or shut up about it" So I'll shoot my mouth off whenever it's appropriate.
Anyway, the guy says, "Um, actually I'm just getting to the coffee pot."
He points and, whaddya know, there is a coffee pot right next to the nice young lady taking table reservations! I apologize to him and the nice young lady takes my reservation.
I go outside and Cindy is sitting on a bench and the Trendy Guy and his girlfriend are standing Right Next To her. super. The guy gives me a nod and we both smile. As I sit down Cindy gives me a quizzical look and I say loudly enough for the couple to hear, "oh that's the guy I tried to pick a fight with in there"
He says he says " Yeah we were going to totally fight but then we worked it out" I explained what happened and she gave me the look that says, "Michael, you're a dumbass"
So while we were waiting for our table Cindy and I did what we normally do in situations like this.
We start talking shit about people.
For example Cindy says to me "have you ever seen cankles on man?" and honest to God the mans ankles looked like a couple of monster burritos. They were the color of flour tortillas, and they went straight down into his sandals without any tapering whatsoever.
(What is with this place and the fucking cankles anyway?)
Then a guy walks up...and his hair was dyed....have you seen these guys that their hair is going grey so they have died their hair .....and you're not really clear what color it was supposed to be?
Blackish, brownish, reddish...no fucking idea what color you meant but that ain't it dude.
He's wearing....I don't even know how to properly describe the shirt...satiny,thin white and black lines in undulating repeating patterns meant to create a 3-d effect of movement and depth at the same time.
Over this he is wearing a herringbone jacket. The effect gives me an instant migraine. I make a sort of woozy face and say to Cindy, "I think I have vertigo".
She glances over my shoulder and says "What color is his hair?"
Then, we both catch sight of this woman at the same time.
She is 50 to 70 something. Hard to tell because she has clearly had extensive cosmetic surgery. I have seen these women on tv but never one in it's natural habitat. They look like an alien trying to pass as human.
As if some other life form has been watching our tv shows and has a skewed idea of what we like a woman to look like.
I can try to describe the various plastic surgery horrors. The elfin appearance from the face lift, the enormous, inappropriate boobs, the Michael Jackson nose...
Where do I start? You know what, I kind of buried the lead.
Her lips.
They looked like her face had crashed and deployed the airbags. They looked like somebody had sewn a couple of bicycle inner tubes on her face and then applied lipstick. They looked so rubbery and fake that you got the impression that even after she stopped talking they would keep moving all wubbly-jubbly for a few seconds.
Cindy supposed that when she ate, to get the food past her lips, it would appear kind of like a pelican throwing food up a little and then sort of gobbling it down into her throat...I have to say Cindy does a pretty damn good pelican.
We watched as family member after family member said goodbye and with looks of horror had the ginormous fish lips applied to their cheeks.
The absolute best was a guy in his 20's, looked like a grandson maybe. He tried to hug her without actually having Grandma's huge rack touch him. It was like he was trying to apply some sort of force field with his arms around her without touching her. He did that exaggerated ass-out hug thing. You had to feel for the kid. Here he is trying to have a nice family breakfast and he has to at the last minute do evasive manoeuvres to avoid Geriatric Triple-D's.

Before you think I'm being mean to the woman, I'm not the jerk here, ok?
You want to know who the asshole is? The plastic surgeon who didn't have the temerity to say "Hey, look, you're 5 foot 2 and you weigh 115 lbs. soaking wet...maybe Triple D is not the way to go?" Or the surgeon could have said, "I know you want fuller lips...but normally we inject only 1 to 3 cc's of collagen...7 cc's seems excessive." Or perhaps, "look I can only stretch the skin of your face so much before your ears meet in the back of your head and you look like an elf."
Or maybe the husband who kept paying for it and encouraging her?
Not me.

But fuck all that.
The Dutch apple pancake was phenomenal and the eggs benedict perfection. Cindy was charming and funny and beautiful. The weather was ideal and we sang "There's No-one Like You" by the Scorpions at the top of our lungs on the way home and it was a pretty damn good day.

Skip down one post I got one out of order

I somehow posted one out of order. Skip down one....

At least they're honest about it...

I saw these organic sausages at the store so I thought I would check them out...All things considered I was pretty disappointed.

First off, I'll be honest I couldn't taste the rats.

Either they really skimped out on the rats...In which case I'm kinda pissed, because if I buy rat sausage I want to be able to taste the rat goddamnit!

Or the second possibility is that maybe rats just taste like chicken...which is disappointing in it's own way I guess...

Anyway if you want a decent organic sausage (I served them with a nice spicy mustard and new potatoes with a bit of Irish cheddar melted on top)

Then I would try these but, if you're looking for an authentic rat sausage, keep moving buddy this ain't your brand.

Self fulfilling Prophecies

You know how some of the most horribly awesome schadenfreude filled stories start out like this:

"There I was, minding my own business...."

This is a story about a self fulfilling prophesy

I recently said something in the comments section about huniliating myself, and then corrected it and made a joke out of the typo...Yeah, well last night was so filled with huniliation it's not even funny....

No, it's fucking hilarious.

Ok.
So there I was, minding my own business.
I was sitting outside my apartment reading a book. Never has reading a book caused me so much pain.
Up rolls a woman who used to live upstairs from me and finds me very attractive and to be frank this chick is several miles of bad road.

(I'm not sure about the proper nomenclature here. I know that a woman that is nothin' but trouble is some certain set of miles of "bad road" but I don't know the proper number...but trust me she's at the very least Several Miles.)

SO up rolls Ms. Thang and I try very hard to convince her I have several pressing engagements and cannot possibly leave.
The fact that I am hanging out in front of my apartment with my feet up reading a book doesn't really sell my story and so I finally agree to go see her new apartment and am assured that I will be returned home in an hour or less. She lives very close to me, so it's no big deal right?

Sigh.
We get to the apartment and somebody slaps a beer in my hand and my day goes officially and conclusively off the rails.
Then Ms. Thang gets into a huge door slamming-yelling "mutherfucker!"-throwing shit kind of fight with her boyfriend...and then they get engaged...I think..

but that's not the point.

The point is the baby.

Inside the apartment I could hear a baby crying....
I can't stand the sound of a crying baby.
But not why you think...
It's not that I'm intolerant, it's quite the opposite.
Before Calvin was Turbo, and before Turbo was Hopper he was just a little colicky smidge.
He cried for hours on end. And i held him and sang to him and patted his butt and ....I cried too.
Sometimes he would cry for so many hours in a row that I would be holding and rocking and singing and dancing ...and crying right alongside him.
He seemed to like this one particular Blues Traveler song...if i hear that song ...to this day I can't help but feel a little bunched up, a little sniffly.

SO there is a crying baby. I say something brilliant along the lines of "what's with the crying baby?"
They bring her out, I say let me see her, and somebody throws me the baby like a shovel pass....I hold her for a minute and bounce her a little and sing a little ...and she stops crying.
I think this is where it officially went from being Weird to Fucked Up.

(hang with me it's a long story but the good news, for you, dear reader, is that later on it's going to go from Fucked Up to Totally Fucked Up)

So...I'm going to estimate the next part of this story at about 4-6 hours. I sit in a chair on a balcony with this sweet little 6 month old and I break out my super high tech phone. The memory chip I happen to have in at the moment is loaded pretty heavily (like 2 gigs?) with 80's-90's punk and ska.
So I spend a big ole' chunk of time listening to Husker Du and Suicidal Tendencies and Goldfinger and Common Rider and Bad Religion and Bad Brains.
With every song I tell Sierra a story about the song...where I was the first time I heard it, the meaning of the song, the time I saw them play the song live, why this band or song is significant in the history of punk...
Whatever comes to mind.
I have the most captive of captive audiences. Every once in a while somebody slaps a beer in my hand or slams a door or shoots a BB gun off the balcony. (I'm serious. I was all, "not around the baby!")

Off and on a woman comes to talk to me.
She is a little hot...a little not. She looks like a cross between Christina Ricci and Susan Sarandon....so... cute, but...maybe not from every angle?
Ok, this woman bounces in and out of the scene...I want to go home at some point...I almost stole the baby, I swear. It was such a fucked up scene and here is this sweet little innocent thing....
Then I find out, the woman who may or may not be attractive, is actually the babies mother.

What. The. Fuck?
I'm a pretty perceptive guy and I had no fucking clue this was the mother of the baby?

She left, for hours at a time, some random fucking man holding her baby.

Jesus Fucking Christ how did I wind up here....

So I finally have had enough and demand somebody take me home ...and I realize that there isn't a single sober soul available to drive me anyplace....
Tony, the new boyfriend of the cute/not cute babymomma is supposed to show up and give me a ride...this frankly, does not seem like a great idea to me.
I happen to wander by their apartment because I'm just going to walk home, fuck all y'all!'
(realize now that I was more intoxicated than I thought and walking anywhere was probably one of the poorer ideas of the night)
and a guy sort of snaps at me from behind the screen door "hey, are you the guy?"
I'll be honest....at this point in my day I was fixin' for a fight. It would have taken very little to provoke me into violence. I just spent hours holding and caring for a tiny little thing that has much chance of having a good life and I as very very mad to have been exposed to that. I know it exists, but I don't want to fall in love with it and know about it
I told my friend Cindy the whole insane story and I told her I kind of had this idea that I would volunteer to watch the baby a couple days a week and she pointed out that I would just wind up loving the kid and getting my heart broken and in the end I wouldn't be able to do any good anyway..
so...
Tony (as it turns out) says from behind the screen door "you the guy needs a ride?" I say something along the lines of "yeah, I'm the guy that got kidnapped, I'm the fucking guy that watched the baby all night"
And he kicks the screen door open and I square off to fight this guy who frankly was much larger than me...and he hands me a bill.
It's folded lengthwise, I don't look at it, I stuff it in my pocket, and say goodnight. Or fuck off, or peace out or whatever.

I began to walk. I have no answer for why I didn't just call a cab.
It wasn't all that far from my house. Right? I'll fucking walk home. Fuck all y'all
I am making good time and cutting through yards....
then I come to a bit of a thick piece, some bushes, some trees..
I break out of the trees and there is a ditch. A culvert, a cement river.... a drainage ditch...

45 degrees of cement on one side 45 degrees on the other.

I'm pretty sure my house is a less than a mile on the other side of this ditch...
So. I run down one side jump the little mucky river and run halfway up the other side........
and then I slide on my forearms and knees and feet down 15 or something feet of cement.
I'm not kidding, I tried a dozen different ways to get up and out of this fucking ditch. There was no purchase. I could not for the life of me climb out of this thing!
I tried every trick in the book.
I got a running start...nothing. I came at it from an angle...nothing. I tried to get all weird and crab-walk backwards up this fucking thing...not happening.

And?! it was twisty! so here I am walking along in a fucking cement ditch towards my house.....admittedly, I don't have the best sense of direction...but I know I'm going the right way. But at any given time I could only see a hundred yards or less and then it would bend again so I had no way of knowing if there was an actual way out or just more freakin impassible walls
And then i realize that up ahead it goes from being 2 feet of cement on either side of the mucky water to ...well..... just mucky water...Fuck That! I am not walking in the mucky water.
so I reverse direction...
I am looking for a way out, a fucking choice in life...because really, I am starting to think I may have to call 911 to get me out of this fucking ditch.

Really.

I was picturing first trying to figure out how in the hell I could even point them in my general direction....then I'm picturing firemen with ropes or maybe a helicopter and a little basket...
There is no way in hell I am going to be that guy. I will not be on the news.

So, I keep walking and around each bend I hope to see some way out of this mess and around every bend I have my hopes crushed.
On one side of the ditch I can see the back of a shopping center that I happen to know is pretty damn close to my house on the other side are peoples back yards.

Then I see it like a ray of hope up ahead. 2 branches hanging down from this overgrown tree in somebodies backyard.
I get a running start, I leap up grab onto the lowest hanging branch ....and it comes off in my hand!
I take that branch and use it to pull the other branch down to where I can reach it and then I begin to haul myself up hand over hand...I swear I felt like Bruce Willis in one of those die hard movies.

I stumble through the bushes and come to a backyard. I climb straight over the fence and walk through somebodies backyard.
Trespassing?
Whatever, I just survived The Ditch.

I pass through a gate, walk down a driveway and lay down at the foot of the driveway. I call the cab .
The cab ride costs me $5.00 that's how close I was to home. I'm pretty sure it costs $3.00 just to get in the fucking cab. I pull out the bill Tony gave me. $20.00. Well hot damn, Tony is a stand up guy at least. So I tip the cabbie %100 and go home.

The next day I tell My friend Cindy the story. When I get done she says, "and what did we learn from this experience?"
"Stay away from fucking ditches?"
she laughs, "ok that too, but what could we have done to prevent all of this? What did we learn?"
I pause for a second....

"OH! Don't get in the car!"
"That's right sweetie, don't get in the car."

I was flipping channels and I came across the US Open....
One of the Williams sisters was playing and my first thought was,
"When the fuck did Ru Paul learn to play tennis so well?"

This happens to me every time...

Grandpa Munster

John McCain is speaking tonight at the GOP convention.
I don't know that I have much to say about him that hasn't already been said.

But I will say this. I have been saying this for months I think I have a couple of good ideas for campaign slogans/advertising ideas.

A poster of John McCain holding his fist up in furious anger...the tagline...
YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!!
In fact I think that should be the slogan for the entire campaign.
You kids get off my lawn!

I was also thinking maybe a commercial in which we see John McCain come out the front door of the White House to pick up the newspaper and then a soccer ball comes rolling up and McCain stops it with his foot. He picks it up and we see that it has the Iranian flag on it. The Presidents' face knots up in furious outrage. He holds the ball aloft with hands shaking slightly in anger and says:
"That's it Iran! Your ball has come in my yard for the last time! I keep this!"

Those are just a couple of ideas. As more come to me I may share.
Enjoy the speech...if you can stay awake.

Yeah...but I didn't think you would catch me...

With my sister bringing up Space Food Sticks and me writing about The Big Texas it gave me a little moment of clarity regarding the difference between how my generation was raised and the way in which we're raising the next generation.

When I was a kid we would drive my parents nuts asking for Food Sticks and Cokes. They would get annoyed with us always bugging them to eat that crap.

BUT, not because it was crap. They would say no because they didn't want to have to go buy more of the crap...
not because it was bad for us, they didn't think twice about that.

When my son bugs me about having hot cheetos and root beer I demure because I don't want him eating junk like that.
(ok, I do give in more now that he is a teenager and has the metabolism of a triathelete.)

It's a whole different attitude towards kids.

They loved us just fine but if somebody would have suggested that we have to wear a helmet to go on a bike ride, it wouldn't have even made sense to my dad. He would have just said, "why does he need a helmet? The boy knows how to ride the goddamn bike!"

We were free range children. In the morning they would open the doors and say "get out "

Heaven forbid you come in before lunch time. I can remember trying to come in the house for a drink of water one time and being told if "I just want water we have a goddamn garden hose."

Don't think for a second I am complaining. If my parents had kept as close of an eye on me as I did on Turbo? They would have probably killed me at some point. I would ask if I could go swimming and my mom would say . "No you can't go swimming, it's raining out."

And then I would go put on my swim suit and jump in the pool anyway. She would think I was in my room playing and then there I would be at the sliding glass door shivering and blue lipped. She would run a hot bath....

Did I get in trouble?

Probably ......but not enough to never do it again.

You can be damned sure Turbo would not repeat that stunt.

It's a combination of me not being an easily controlled child....and parents who weren't really overwhelmed with a desire to control me.

Can I give you a perfect example of my uncontaineable nature?
(Christina and I have a running joke that my motto is "I'M MICHAEL I DO WHAT I WANT!")
When I was...I'm guessing here but I would say 4 or 5? My dad had a Corvette. I want to say it was a '59. I loved that car.
He loved it too of course.
So.
He washed it, waxed it, the whole nine yards. Then he went in the house.
A few minutes later he realizes he can hear the water running. He thinks, "shit, I left the hose on"
He comes outside to find me, no shirt on, whipping the hose above my head like a fucking madman, water going everywhere...including inside his 1959 convertible Corvette.
He goes over and turns off the hose.
I look down the barrel of the hose like "what the hell, where did my water go?"
He walks over, "what the hell do you think you are doing?!"
Me, "playing in the water"
Dad, "well you're getting that shit in my car, knock it off! If I catch you doing that again I'm gonna beat your butt."
He always said that but never did it.
(except the time I gave Jason a bloody nose. But that's another Oprah.)
So.
He goes back in the house.
He gets halfway to his chair and hears the water come on.
He comes outside to find me, no shirt on, whipping the hose above my head like a fucking madman, water going everywhere...including inside his 1959 convertible Corvette.
He goes over and turns off the hose.
I look down the barrel of the hose like "what the hell, where did my water go?"
He walks over, "what the hell do you think you are doing?!"
Me, "playing in the water"
Dad, "Didn't I tell you if I catch you playing in the water again I'm gonna beat your butt?!"
Me, "yeah...but I didn't think you'd catch me."

And yet I lived.

the waffle story.

Sorry but you kind of gave me permission.

I'm an older brother. I think I have talked about this before. I wasn't always the sweetest to my little sister. She bugged me, I was annoyed by her very presence a lot of our childhood.
But.
I loved her.
I have always loved my sister fiercely. We survived a lot as kids and I adore her now.
But it was rocky at the start.
When they told me that there was another kid coming along I was resentful.
I had a good gig and I didn't see the need for another kid.
In a famous family story my mom came to talk to me (while I was watching TV ) about the impending baby and she asked what I thought would be a good baby name and I said, "I don't care! Name it Mazola!"
Yeah...our last name is Miller?
Mazola Miller?
I have to be honest......in hindsight?
That name would have been Awesome!
She could be a rapper right now instead of a stay at home mom.

So when we were kids I defended my sister With Extreme Prejudice.
(ask me about Royce)
But I also gave her miles of shit.
In my defense she was a bit trying for a person like me.
She has since come into her own, but as a kid she took the whole innocence thing too far sometimes as far as I was concerned. She was sweet and innocent and literal and it drove me batshit-crazy.
**editors note**
we talked about this and she freely admits she clung to glorious innocence for a very long time. I don't think I was ever as innocent as she was for a long long time. I Can't ever remember really believing in Santa Claus for example.
One time she was attempting to make orange juice from frozen concentrate and she was smacking the shit out of the bottom of the can. She was going at it like this concentrated O.J. owed her child support or something. My step dad couldn't take it any more and he said "use a spoon!" so I handed her a big ole wooden spoon and ...she started smacking the shit out of the can with the spoon.
We were required to eat an iceburg lettuce salad with every dinner.
Hyuk!
I cannot eat another one of those motherfuckers for the rest of my life. I don't care what it is, I'll take the soup, thanks. Put all the fried chicken and bacon you want on it I will punch you in the face rather than eat iceburg lettuce.
So every night we are have this iceburg nightmare and my sister takes the bottle of ranch dressing and smack smack smack GLORP ...she has a shitpile of ranch all the Fuck over her salad.
It's a ranch salad soup.
and Chrissy says.
"there."
and this of course drives me batshit angry.
So.
We have this relationship in which she bugs the hell out of me but I beat the everloving shit out of anybody that looks at her crosseyed. I thought at the time that it worked for us but in retrospect I was a bit of a dick to my sister.
(umm.... it made her a stronger person?)

SO I told you that to tell you this.
My stepdad would make waffles. Fresh homemade waffles. A pile of them.
Then whatever was left my sister and I would eat.
It was summer and I got up early to get a drink of water and I saw a plate of waffles, 8 or 10 of them. I thought to myself, "Ima have some waffles later!"
I got up an hour or 2 later...and there was one muthafuckin' waffle!
Chrissy and Deanna ate my damn waffles!
We didn't have this expression at the time but ...WTF?
So I'm standing there in the kitchen.
We had a long galley style kitchen and we are on either side of it.... showdown style. Like Sergio Leone was blocking out this shit.
I see that there is one waffle.
I look at the lonely waffle.
I look at my sister.
"Where the fuck are the waffles?"
She gives a little shrug like "whatchoo gonna do?"
I make a "imma stomp you" kind of gesture and she makes a
"Pshh you ain't doin' shit" kind of gesture.
I do a little surge towards her like I will come over there and beat her ass...and she shrugs like 'whateveah'......

Here's the thing...I don't think for a second my little sis thought I could rack my angry brain for a weapon to demolish her with and come up with a ........fucking flying waffle as a reasonable alternative.
Projectile waffle?

Who does that
Really, honestly?
But I did.

So i picked up that lonely waffle and threw it with great vengeance and furious anger.
How could she have anticipated that when looking for an airborn weapon I would choose a delicious undressed waffle?
(for the record, nobody has ever been able to accuse me of throwing a syruped waffle)
So.
I grabbed that waffle and I threw it.
(oh did you know that at the time I was on the water polo team and therefore very well versed in the art of throwing things? Yeah!)
Ok.
So i deploy the waffle and it travels at enormous velocity down the length of the kitchen and then....
Impacts Christina's face with a glorious ....

how do I describe the sound?
flop
kerblap
fwop
plap
shaplow
plap
sha-plap.....

I don't know. I feel all Suesian...
But it was the most incredible sound mine ears have ever beheard.
She shrieked, hopped and ran out of the room.
I told her friend Deanna (who she may have been showing off for? ) that she may want to head home.

The best part ?
(aside from the glorious, inexplicable sound?)
was that when my mom got home we both shouted at her about the event and she handed down a ruling to the effect of "both of you leave me the fuck alone!!"

Look I know that this makes me seem like a real dick to my little sister, but you have to understand, at this point in our lives......
I was her protector, mentor and caregiver...and she ate my motherfucking waffles!
Shit had to be handled.
This act of aggression could not stand.

The Sedaris effect.

Have any of you fellow bloggers experienced the Sedaris Effect yet?
I recently had a brush with it and it's actually kind of cool.
David Sedaris has written about how his family is hesitant to tell him things for fear that it will end up in one of his stories.
A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, recently went to....um...an "all male revue" ? in Las Vegas.
She sent me a text informing me that it would be all nude.
I recommended that she bring hand sanitizer.
Later that night she called me and told me about the experience...I was accused of jinxing the night with my hand sanitizer comment, by the way. The next day I asked her to tell me the story again and she said, " What, so you can blog about it? I don't know..."
And that is as much of that story I am at liberty to tell at this point.
You may never know the rest of the story because of the Sedaris Effect.
The problem is actually a combination of two things
1) the aforementioned Sedaris Effect
2) I have a policy that, if all possible, I will not spill your beans.

Before I get into the exact meaning of the Sedaris Effect, I would like to tell you about "spilling someones beans".
This is a concept, a phrase, a figure of speech that I invented. (If I have written about this before and you are a regular reader and you already know what this means, skip the next few sentences.)
When my sister was pregnant for the first time she told my mom. My mom turned straight the fuck around and told a very good friend of the family. My sister didn't get the chance to tell one of her best friends ...it's actually beyond that, she's like a sister to my sister.
When my sister found out that my mom told her shit straight away I was like "oh no! She spilled your beans!"

I realize that it's based off of an existing phrase. The difference is it's more proactive. It's dealing specifically with the fact that someone has told not just A secret, but , your secret, your story to tell not theirs.
I try on this blog to not spill other peoples beans. I realize I tell other peoples stories once in a while but I usually write it with pseudonyms first and email it to the person it is about. If I use a persons real name, usually it is with their permission.
Keen observers will note that I use my sons real name if it is a current story and his nicknames for older stuff. Part of that is because I now have his permission to use his real name whenever I see fit. He doesn't mind and he knows I will do my best to not embarrass him.
Part of it is because when he was 3 he was Hopper. He was only Calvin when he was in trouble. (and it helps delineate time frames) Part of it was that he wasn't old enough yet to really have an adult kind of discussion about the blog. I decided this summer that he is more than old enough to make that decision.
That boy is, as people have noted frequently, an old soul.

So.
The Sedaris Effect.
It comes from a fear of having told a story to a storyteller, (a blogger ?) and then having them spill your beans.
I realize now that I have actually suffered from it on more than one occasion, but didn't know it.
Whenever someone hesitates to tell you something or obfuscates or you learn about something well after the fact....
It may very well be The Sedaris Effect.

I have a quick question

Why is it that the people with the worst breath have the most to say?

eybrow escapades

You know how there are some women who draw on their eyebrows and they look like they are constantly surprised or maybe bemused? (Cindy says you can't trust those women because if they would lie about their eyebrows they will lie about anything.)
I had a customer today who had that look in spades. I have never seen a woman rock that look so hard.
Part of the problem was a physical attribute of hers: she had those buggedy eyes with the white showing all the way around the iris.
Then she applied her lipstick in such a way as to give herself a pouty look(she's one of those women of a certain age that color outside the lines when it comes to the lips)
...but when it was combined with the other aspects it actually looked like her lips were pursed in constant surprise.
The combined effect was that her expression at all times was one that said:
HOLY FUCKING SHIT! SWEET MOTHER OF BABY JESUS! I CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT I AM SEEING!
I must have jumped in fright a half dozen times because I glanced in her direction and thought for a fraction of a second that Bigfoot with his dick in his hand or maybe a great white shark holding an AK47 was looming up behind me. Every time I would tell her something of interest her eyebrows would heave even further up her face causing me to jump again.

I know each of us looks in the mirror in the morning and has a greater or lesser degree of acceptance or denial about how we look but how can you not be aware of the fact that your face looks like those guys in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the ark of the covenant is opened and their faces are all horrified and blasted.
Really?
Honestly?

Hey shit! look a postscript!

PS: just saw a Vonage commercial and they kinda sorta do a Mac Vs. Pc style commercial? the Vonage chick has one eyebrow perpetually thrown up in the air like she just don't care..awesome. A drawn on skeptical eyebrow.

thoughts on becoming a man

Part of being a man is knowing yourself and your limits. Knowing what you are capable of and when to say 'when' is an important part of being a man.
This summer Calvin made an important first step on that long journey.
My friend Cindy was trying to buy a new car and I volunteered to go with her and help negotiate.
But, before I talk about Calvins' realization....
An aside.
Cindy's daughter Devany? This kid is a force of nature.
Charming, funny, smart...and cute? Holy cow. I haven't seen a kid this cute since Calvin.
(For the reals, in case you weren't lucky enough to see it yourself, Calvin was one of the cutest kids in the history of cute kids. Big blue eyes, chubby cheeks, perpetual smile...everybody loved that kid)
Oh and?
She has the devil in her.
I can say this because it's the same brand of devil I had in me as a child.
We were at dinner and the manager came over to see how things were and she said to him "You're a bad man!"
apropos of? ...
Nothing. First time she lays eyes on the guy "you're a bad man"
What I wanted to say is "sorry... but...she has the ability to see into mens souls"
What I actually said was someting along the lines of " hey, you not a bad man, I'm sure you're fine...she's a toddler?...I like my fajitas!"
But the best line of the day from this little firecracker?
She has a dog. A stuffed animal named Blackie that looks like a Black Lab. He is her best friend, her babie, her nemisis. ( she alternated between coddling, chastising and dragging him around all day)
So...a salesman walks up to us and starts trying to build some rapport...
He gets my name, shakes my hand, does the same with Cindy, says 'what's up little man?!' to Cal and then gets to Devany...
"Hey there, what's your dogs name?"
She looks him up and down like he walked up in 'da club and asked her to dance or some shit...
and then says "Blackie"
Oh...did I mention the salesman is african american?
Yeah.
So he does a little stutter step and I say something like "She named the dog!" and we all pretend it never happened.
So, on to Calvin's quest for manhood.
It was a long day with not many quality opportunities for nurishment.
He had some hot Cheetos before we left the house.
Then we fucked around at the dealerships. He ate some regular Cheetos at Carmax.
Then we went to ...On The Border? I don't know at this point.
Cal chose a taco that in all honesty was made for the boy.
Buffalo Chicken Taco.
Sure it has all kinds of jalapeno ranch sauce and lettuce and tomatos and shit to take away some of the sting but Calvin ain't havin' that. He wants just the buffalo chicken, cheese and jalapenos.
So he eats his stuff, Devany tells the manager he's a bad man, we go home and Devany and I watch ancient episodes of Pink Panther cartoons on Hulu and Calvin eats the rest of the hot Cheetos........
and then vomits.
I rub his back and tell him he's a super kid...
and he technicolor vomits.
And then he vomits some more and talks about "the burn"

He is now a man who knows his culinary limits.
Step one.
Hot Cheetos, Cheetos, Jalapeno, buffalo wing taco.
Fine.
Add more hot Cheetos?
Not so much...
So now he knows...

So...today I was at the video store and 2 different interesting things happened.
First, I was walking the eisles and I overheard a guy ask the clerk:

Guy: Have you seen the "Dark Knight" yet?
Clerk: yeah ...6 times.
G: So...did you like it?

Wait! WTF dude?
No, he saw it once and it sucked and then he was all like, "boy that was a stinker, but maybe I missed something...I'm gonna see it again"
Then he just kept seeing it and seeing it hoping it would get better...
So, I stopped and I said to the guy, "seriously, dude, why would he see it more than once if it sucked?"
And the clerk and the guys girlfriend cracked up and the girlfriend kind of smacked the guy and said "duh, of course he liked it"

Then something else happened in the store...
I don't know how to even warn you about this. It just reared up and smacked me in the face so I may as well tell you it the way it happened...

I was squated down looking at some videos and I happened to glance over and see a woman standing near me bent over a counter.
I noticed 2 things about her right off the bat:
1) she was wearing low rider jeans that exposed the top of her asscrack.
2) she was storing a set of keys in the aforementioned asscrack.

At what horrible fork in the road does the crack of your ass become a viable option to store your keys? Do you say to yourself "I know I look good in these tight assed jeans...but where can I put my keys? I know! There's nothing in my ass right now...usually there are all manner of things in my ass, but right now my ass is open for buisness!"
I dread the day she goes to put her keys there and finds a lost cell phone...

I'm not going to that video store anymore.

I probabaly should have just put this blog on hiatus. I have a bunch of half written blogs that I can't find the time to finish while Cal is here
So until ...well around the 20th...this blog is on hold...
which brings me back to the whole " I should have put this on hiatus" thing...I know it's coming a bit late.
But I will resume writing by the middle of next week.
Oh and The Foodie will get some love too.

As far as I can tell Calvin spends all day doing absolutely fuck-all in the way of actual physical activity...and then the minute I sit down to write he picks up a tennis ball and bounces it against the refrigerator...which happens to be very near the table I am sitting at.
I don't say anything about it because ...well I guess it's Karma.
I used to spend hours bouncing a ball against a dormer on our house and I knew that it drove my parents nuts...but I didn't care.
So I feel as if I can't say, "quit bouncing that fucking ball!" without being a bit of a hypocrite.
So that's why this post sucks...and I have a half dozen 3/4 written posts that I have yet to finish and for the first time in months, the other day I had not a single visitor to this sight...not even me.
Sigh.

Jamie

I made mention of the fact that I work with a woman named Jamie that is a bit of a bitch.
I'm fixin' to talk about Jamie.
She is nonstop drama. Some people are like that everything has to be a big fucking issue. Whatever.
I realized pretty quickly that everybody is automatically on her shit list and I tried to get off that list by being cool with her...that was a mistake.
I decided that if I'm on the shit list I may as well do something to get on that list. You know, be proactive?
So I spent the better part of a day antagonizing her...and we got along famously.
Then the next day whenever I would ask her to get a phone for me (I won't bore you with the details but inventory has been going missing and so now if I want to replace someones' phone I have to go through someone else to get the thing)
So I say, "Jamie, can you get me the phone for Jones please?"
she says, "Umm no. Do you need anything else?"
So I say " get me the damn phone, Yo!"
and she laughed and got me the phone.
So that worked.
Then later, same situation, I need a phone and I know she is going to give me shit again so I walk up and say "woman! get me the phone for Smith!"
She laughs even harder than the first time and gets the phone.
This is progress for us.
The other day she comes into the back room and sees me watching TV on mu phone with only 5 minutes left on my break. She says something about "youdon'twannabewatchin'noTVwhenyouonlygot5minutesleftyoubettah'eat!"
When a woman talks to me like that I can't even hear it. It's like when Rosie Perez goes off....
I make eye contact with the manager and she is smiling at me. I ask, in a voice loud enough for Jamie to hear "What ethnicity is she?"
Racheal says, "Jamie? She's white."
I say, "hmm...'cause when she starts speaking Peurtorican I can't understand her."
Jamie goes ballistic and repeats what she said about my "5 minutes" at close to maximum volume and, out of politeness, half the speed.
One of the funny things about this whole affair is I tell Cindy about all this and she says "are you two flirting?"
Enh, no.
I have to say that is not a bad guess though...many times my flirting takes the form of verbal combat....but not in this case, not at all.
So today, I come into work on my day off. I got a text from the boss that DJ called in and they are short. So I show up to cover lunches and get a little OT. I log into DJ's station which is right next to Jamie. Somebody says something about me being in the back of the store instead of where I usually house..up front.
I say yeah "I'm rolling with the 6-7 Mafia (I am at station 6 Jamie at 7)
Jamie laughs hard enough to pee a little.
Then later somebody else makes a comment about me hanging in the back....I say "aww hell no, you fuckin' wit' the 6-7 mafia!"
Jamie loses a it a little bit more.
I swear, if I keep this up, we may end up homies.

Best Customer Evah!

I deal with a lot of irate people in my job. The more bent out of shape and rude people are to me the more I go into passive-aggressive mode. When I'm at work I don't have much of a choice. My normal mode during any sort of confrontation is aggressive-aggressive as anyone who knows me personally will attest.
I had one of the best experiences with a customer the other day. I was overjoyed...it was so much fun.
A kid with pierced lips and a nasty concert t-shirt and his 3 stupid friends came into the store and dropped off his phone for repair. An hour later he came back to pick it up and instead of getting on the wait list like everybody else he stood around for a while goofing around with his dumb-ass friends. When he realized someone wasn't going to walk up to him and ask how they could help him he went up to Jamie and said, "I'm late for work can you get me my phone?" in a very abrasive manner. Which is exactly the wrong way to approach Jamie.
(I haven't written about Jamie yet...I know I will at some point though. Jamie kind of looks, sounds and acts like....I guess the best way to describe her is if Rosie Perez had an older sister...but waaaay bitchier. In case you don't know who Rosie Perez is, she is an actress who plays almost exclusively really bitchy Puertorican girlfriends. She's always the girlfriend and always a bitch. Jamie could give her bitch lessons.)
So they go back and forth about him not being on the list and she finally says give me the ticket and goes to grab his phone. I am loitering innocently in the back room and Jamie approaches me "you need to go give him his shit because I ain't tryin' to put up with his sorry ass."
I say "sure" for 2 reasons
1. I am doing my best to remove myself from Jamie's shit-list. It seems that you have automatic enrollment on the shit-list and getting off of it requires diligence. I made small strides recently during the staff meeting when as I was speaking she made snoring sounds and I responded with "get the fuck out of here, I have one thing to say and I have been listening to you ramble on about your bullshit all morning" She's like one of those bullies that will be your friend if you stand up to them.
2. this might be fun.
Here's why it might be fun: his phone is not fixable. We have to replace it in the store with a new one, but we don't have the phone in stock...so we have to order him one. He's not going to be a happy camper and Jamie has already pissed him off.
So, I grab the phone and I walk out front and Jamie says, "he's going to help you over there" and she points.
So we go to my work station
Me: unfortunately the technician was unable to fix the phone so I'm going to order you a replacement.
Pierced Face Kid: what!? I wasted 2 hours and you didn't do shit with my phone?!
Me: well I wouldn't say we didn't do anything. The technician did assess your phone and conclude it's unfixable. I can order you a replacement.
PFK: Replacement?! I need a fucking phone now!
Me: I can order you one...
I don't think I actually got to say that whole sentence.
PFK: What the fuck am I supposed to do!?
now here is where I start to have some fun with it
Me: well I think you have 2 options. You can let me order you a new phone. Or, you can take the phone that you broke beyond repair and leave.
PFK: FUCK YOU! I'm late for work motherfucker! You people made me late for work!
he then grabs the phone and begins to stomp out.
He gets a few feet away, the whole time yelling expletives, and I say, "have a nice day"
He yells "FUCK YOU!"
He gets to the door and I say, "buh bye" and make a little wave with my hand.
He kicks the door open and says:
"SHUT THE FUCK UP STUPID!!!"

Ok, at the time I thought that was pretty funny.

But here's the blowback on this one ...for a week now at least a few times a day I try to ask a question or make a comment and somebody shouts at me
SHUT THE FUCK UP STUPID!!
that's not happiness for me, I have to be honest.

Chick Norris

I got a text from Cindy yesterday:
Fucking Ridiculous! I just pulled a Chuck Norris!

I can't say I wasn't extremely intrigued.

She went home for lunch. She decided to use the facilities before going back to work.
(I support that decision. I go at home whenever humanly possible. Public restrooms are so unseemly.)
So she attempts to do the next natural thing which is leave...and she can't. The door isn't locked, it's stuck. She calls to her mom to help her out.
Reports are sketchy, eyewitness accounts vary.
We still don't know exactly what was transpiring on the other side of the door...we do know her mom was attempting to use scissors to free her from the bathroom.
It became clear that no help was forthcoming from the other side so she decided to take the pins out of the hinges and pull the door out from the other side. Her mom had opinions about this. To which Cindy responded, "Well, clearly you can't get me out of here!"
So...she gets the pins out and ...nothing.
She decides to climb out the window.
Hang on. You have to understand, she's on lunch. She has to be back to work.
Calling back and saying, "Hey, I'm not going to be back in today, I'm stuck in my bathroom" is not the kind of thing you will realistically be able to live down any time soon. Every time you go near a bathroom someone will offer to "spot you". It's just not possible.
So she decides to go out the window.
But, of course she's wearing a skirt on this day, so going out the window and possibly showing the neighbors your big girl underpants, is not an option.
She calls her mom back to the door and has her stuff under the door something to cover her legs...pajama bottoms.
So, instead of piling out the window in a skirt she piles out in a blouse and pajama bottoms....I have to be honest, I have questions about which is more dignified.
So, she gets a quarter way out the window and realizes it's actually pretty fucking far to the ground.
So she calls mom again. Mom puts a stepladder underneath the window.
She climbs out the window and ....
this may be the moment she lost her shit.
She goes into the house and at a run, kicks the fuck out of the bathroom door.
Kablam!
The door drops in one shot.
She was mad at that door!
That door got a round house kick to the face!

Then she went back to work and I got a text:
Fucking Ridiculous! I just pulled a Chuck Norris!

Today I got another text:
I just had to Chuck Norris Sandra out of the bathroom!
Turns out her 15 year old daughter got stuck in the bathroom.
I can't tell you how gratifying it was to hear that two days in a row my friend went
Kablam!
....on a bathroom door.
I know that from now on, if I ever get in a situation that I need to fuck up a door, I don't have to do it myself, I have a friend that can do it for me.
Doors?
Don't be so smug, I have a friend.

ps: the second best thing about this story?
Sandra on her cell phone,
"umm hello, I'm locked in the bathroom?

When I was a kid I kicked my uncles ass one time

That title is totally misleading and inaccurate.
Let me clarify.
First, the misleading part. My uncle is only about a year and a half older than I am. By saying that I kicked his ass it makes it seem as if I was a tough little kid who somehow took on a grown-ass man.He was bigger than me though.

I was small for my age...
This is a picture of me playing football. Not to sound pedantic but can I explain an artistic concept? Foreshortening is when things closer to the viewer appear larger and things in the background smaller. So why the fuck am I closer to the camera and yet I look so much smaller?
I always joke that I was the smallest kid in my class...except for one Asian girl. I was also the smartest kid in my class...except for that same goddamn Asian girl. This led to me getting into a lot of fights...but that's another Oprah.
(By the way, at what age do they stop saying you're small for your age? I mean you never hear somebody say "how old is that guy? 36? Wow, he's small for his age!"
'Little People' don't count...I guess if I saw a guy who was totally normal and fully formed..but he was the size of a baby, I might say, "He's small for his age"
Yeah right!
I'd say, "holy jumping Jesus did you see that baby sized man?!")
But I digress.
Second. The thing about the title that is inaccurate is that I said I kicked his ass one time. I actually did it plenty of times. We used to scrap all the time. Usually I'd be on the losing end...but somehow that never once stopped me from throwing down.

I want to talk about one time in particular.

I'll tell you right now, the point of this story isn't the fact that I kicked his ass, the point of the story is that I said one of the stupidest things I have ever said...which compelled me to kick his ass.

We were arguing about something.
Look. We were best pals, like brothers. If anybody said shit to either one of us they had to deal with the Miller Boys collectively. Michael and Mark would happily fuck up your world...but we kept our skills sharp by battling each other.
So we are going at it about something and he pushes my last button and I snap and smash my fist into an Etch A Sketch and crack the shit out of it.
He runs over and looks at his smashed Etch A Sketch and he says, "how stupid can you be?!"

Hey, look...Ok...what had happened was...
I meant to say " not as stupid as you"
But what I actually said?
"Stupider than you!"
People.
"Stupider than you"?
That got the poor boys ass stomped.

And he didn't even say it!

Last night Calvin surprised me as I came out of the kitchen, "hey dad check this out" and he opened his mouth in a gaping grin...he had a hole where a molar should be.
When I went into the kitchen he wasn't a meth head...wtf?
Then he brandished a tooth.
-what the hell dude?
-I lost a tooth
-I didn't know you had a loose tooth
-yeah I don't tell anybody when I have a loose tooth...cause they'll try to pull it
-Who the fuck is trying to pull your teeth?!
-yeah... mostly just mom.
His mom is one of those weird people who can't keep her hands off other people.
Ever know one of those people? Always fiddling with your hair and shit.
I made a comment about it and my friend Cindy said I was being mean but I had to prove my point so I said to Calvin, does your mom pop your pimples? he said "no...I had to make her stop"
How much do I fucking hate people that pop other people's pimples? Hyuk!
Seriously, are you a fucking monkey? Keep you hands off the rest of the pack. Jeebus Crispers.
(See how I substituted that for saying Jesus fucking Christ? I'm gaining sensitivity in my old age)
I had a friend in high school that used to get ingrown hairs on his back (Hyuk!) and we would be at his house and he would lay on the floor and his mom would pop them! (hyuk) in front of me (hyuk) Have some fucking decorum people!
But the worst?
Absolute Fucking Worst?
(I caution you, if this has been unpleasant up to now, you will hate me afterwards)
Some people have no sense of boundaries.

OK
we were visiting my Grammy Betty. She lived up in the mountains in northern California.
They left my sister and I at a babysitter. I remember 3 things about this experience.
1) I had withe me a Harlem Globetrotters lunchbox that contained, among other things, oreos.
2) it hailed chunks of ice the size of golfballs. (or as I like to think of it, commercially produced meatballs, the kind you get in a giant bag at sam's club)
3) the woman was breastfeeding.

Lets discuss why I remember that last bit.
I was about 7. My sister about 3.
This woman was breastfeeding a baby in the livingroom.
She had a daughter about my age and her daughter had a friend over. She whipped the boob out to do her thing, which made me uncomfortable. ( I confess, I was pretty uptight at 7, I'm much cooler now) Then the daughter asked if she could have some and the mom said sure. Then the daughter offered it to the friend! And the friend was all
"oh milk from my best friends mom's boob? hells yeah!"
I was definitely in hyuk mode ...then she looked right at me and said, "you want to try?"
It was like I was in some kind of bad vampire movie.
Everybody seems all cool and everything then they are all like "hey we drink blood by the way, that's cool right?"
What The Fuck?
Personal Boundaries people!

Uni doesn't sleep ...it waits

Ever since Cindy and I had The Uni Incident uni has become a catch-all reference for things horrible and disgusting.
Recently we were talking about how much we really want to trick others into eating it....I think if we can get enough people to do it we will be able to spread the hate exponentially and eventually I will design a t shirt that says "I ate uni" with a little pictograph of a guy making a "hyuk!" face. I'll sell them on my website www.iateuni.hyuk.com.
It's a dream...
I was discussing my plan to try to trick my co-workers into eating it. I've been going to lunch all week with the same three people and I think I may have earned just enough trust to get at least one of them to try this abomination.
Cindy told me that I should tell them it's an aphrodisiac. I said yeah because after you manage to choke the stuff down you yell out "Fuck Me!" Cindy said, "no it's an aphrodisiac because after having that shit in your mouth bodily fluids are nothing"
She commented that uni tastes like ass, I said "actually it tastes like an ass that someone wiped with an even dirtier ass" then remarkably the conversation actually devolved from there.
You may be wondering how it could have gotten worse but I am going to be merciful and spare you the details.

In other Cindy related news I got a new phone.
Which doesn't directly relate to her ....yet.

I was playing with my new super high-tech-cool-ass phone....and frankly it was infuriating me.
All I wanted to do was send a text message and I could not make the thing behave. I hadn't figured out this predictive text thingy it has and so I was trying to write "goodnight" and it thought maybe I was trying to say something about ghosts. It reminded me of talking to a person who is:
1) insanely obsessed with trying to predict what you're going to say next
and
2) very bad at it
So you say, "hey the other day I was out in the woods and I saw"
and before you can finish the sentence the person says
"the Pope shitting?!"
What? NO!
(by the way that was an extremely obscure Steve Martin reference and anybody who can tell me where that comes from gets a severely abused vinyl copy of "Lets get small")
So it thought I wanted to talk about ghosts instead of simply saying goodnight to Cindy.
Fucking great.
It has all kinds of quirks.
Oh and ? This is an unapologetic phone.
Literally.
I can not get this thing to type the word "sorry".
It may make me more of an asshole because I'm about to give the fuck up on trying to say
"I'm sorry." I'm just going to be all "I ain't apologizing for shit...'cause my phone won't let me."
But you know what? The phone learned the word "fuck" and all it's various permutations very quickly. Who didn't see that coming?
Oh, also, when I try to type the word "go" it defaults first to "ho" so sometimes if I am texting too fast I suggest to a friend that she should "ho" instead of "go".
Not good.
It's similar to T9 texting, but with wider predictive abilities. I gave up on T9. It was even more fucking weird and random than this phone.
When I complained about the capriciousness of T9 to Cindy she told me to
"put on your big girl panties and learn T9 already"
Gotta love Cindy she can be a real peach sometimes.
Thanks Peaches.

Market forces and whatnot

I have been job hopping lately and I don't much like it. I can always get a job but it's a matter of will it be profitable.
The situation with the housing market sort of took all the fun out of being a loan officer.
I went back to selling cars but even selling the best product at the best store didn't do much to help the fact that the automotive market was the only consumer segment to show negative growth last quarter.
Oops.
So, I decided to sell one of the most recession proof things I could think of: cell phones.
You may cut back on eating out or the deluxe cable package, but nobody is shutting off their cell phone.
Nobody.

So I'm sure I'll have all kinds of anecdotes to share. Don't worry, no matter where I go I see something funny.

I used to think that I hate people. I mean, lets be frank, I don't have a terribly high opinion of my fellow man. But I realized recently, I don't hate people, I just hate when they don't conform to my standards of normal behavior.
This is an interesting insight because up until now I haven't been able to make sense of the fact that I have this general animosity for people yet I love working with the public.
I'm trying to have fun with this job because it's kind of a step backwards in terms of career development, my skill set is far beyond what the job actually calls for. This gives me the ability to be more relaxed and have some fun.

I like messing with people and I have a phenomenal poker face. I can say the most absurd things in the most plausible manner. Sometimes when people say" are you kidding?" I say yes but I use the exact same straight face. This then causes them to wonder if I'm joking now or if I was really joking before.
This older woman comes in with a phone so old it has a fucking rotary on it.
Ok maybe not that old but still in cell phone years this thing is an antique. The cell phone market is like computers, almost as soon as you buy it it's yesterday's news. In cell phone years (like dog years?) this thing is old as John McCain.
I upgrade her phone and I take it to the back to transfer all her contacts from the old phone to the new one. I come back out and I hold her shiney new-hotness phone in one hand and her old- brokeness phone in the other.
I hold the new phone aloft and proudly say "I have taken all the contacts from here" dramatic little shake of the phone, "and moved them to here" dramatic little shake of the old phone.
She looks bewildered, "don't you mean the other way around?"
"Nope, I took them from here" I beam with pride as I show her her new phone, "and I moved them all here" again proudly brandishing the wrong phone.
Partially what sells this joke is that I am wearing a name tag that, in addition to my name, says "in training" It may as well say "I be an retarded"
I let her dangle a bit before taking her off the hook and saying "naw, here's your new phone, you're all set"

I had another customer come back after she had already gotten her new phone and I had taken the old one to the back. She said she needed to get her old phone because she forgot to get her memory card out of it.
Me: unfortunately it's already been chipped
Her: chipped?
Me: yeah, chipped. Have you ever seen when they cut down a tree and then they toss the branches into a giant chipper? Well we have a new program that is very "green" and exciting.
We toss the old phones into the chipper and then the pieces are recycled into various consumer goods. Park benches and stuff I think.
Her: so you're saying that my old phone has been destroyed?
Me: not at all, I'm saying it's been recycled. Maybe one day your kids will play on a slide made out of your old phone!
Her: but I need that memory card!
Me: oh it's right here.
and I produce the memory card.
she smiled at me. "you didn't throw my phone into a chipper did you?"
Me : no...it's more like a "cardboard box" than a chipper