Saturday, January 31, 2009

Saturday Snippet

Guy in a bar: Didn’t I meet you at Woodstock?

Me: No, my parents wouldn’t let me go because I was in the eighth grade.

(Suggestion: Stay away from pickup lines that reference a woman's age. Whether it suggests she's looks older than she is, like this one, or goes too far the other direction ("Didn't you go to school with my daughter?"), it's not going to end well.)

Friday, January 30, 2009

Old Joke #5

Three pigs go out to dinner.

The server comes to their table and introduces himself. “Hi, I’m Jason. I’ll be your waiter this evening. Can I start you gentlemen off with a beverage?”

The first pig says, “I’ll have a rum and Coke.”

The second pig says, “I think I’ll have a dirty martini.”

And the third pig says, “Just bring me water. Water, water, and lots water.”

The waiter says, “Okay” and heads off to retrieve their drinks.

A few minutes later he returns and hands around their beverages.

“Have you decided what you’d like for dinner”? he says.

The first pig says, “I’ll have the roast beef.”

The second pig says, “I’ll have the lasagna.”

But the third pig says, “I just want water. Water, water and lots of water.”

The waiter kind of scratches his head, but says, “Okay.”

After checking on them and refilling glasses a couple of times, he says, “Can I interest you in dessert?”

And the first pig says, “I’ll have the cheesecake.”

And the second pig says, “I’ll have the tiramisu.”

And the third pig says, “Give me water. Water, water, and lots of water.”

The waiter says, “Certainly.”

Finally, as he brings them their bill, he says, “Would you mind if I ask you a question?”

The pigs shrug.

“Well,” he says, nodding toward the first pig, “I understand what you had for dinner.” And then he gestures toward the second pig, “And I understand what you ordered.”

Then he turns to the third pig, frowning. “But – what’s with all the water?”

And the third pig says, “Somebody has to wee-wee-wee all the way home.”

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Thursday Snippet

(In an effort to boost my readership (which is coming along nicely, and I'm an ungrateful wretch for wanting to it to grow even faster), I've decided to try an experiment. Since people seem to enjoy my lists, each item of which is just a very brief version of my usual posts, I'm going to try to post miniature observations/overheard conversations on my non-full-length post days. Let me know what you think, yay or nay.)

Overheard in the office a number of years ago:

Guy: "Have you ever heard of that drink called a screaming orgasm?"
Gal: "I've heard of them, but I've never had one.

I kid you not.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

And the Answer Is....

This is a follow-up to yesterday's spur-of-the-moment post and to some comments/questions I got on my VM tag list. You posted some hilarious suggestions for WTF (below). (If you haven't perused the comments, I strongly recommend taking a few minutes to do so. They're way funnier than anything I write.)

I was all prepared to go with Buffalodick's idea, "a cat in an alien suit," which made me roar with laughter and seemed altogether likely, until Debbie from Suburb Sanity pointed out that there are no trailers in the picture, and everyone knows aliens only abduct from trailer parks. We all know that cats are clever enough to get the details right, so, we're left with a mystery, I'm afraid. (BTW – Old Dog says the wall is a sound barrier along an interstate. He’s probably right. He’s annoying that way.)

The short story about the infamous art show is titled “Kim in Satin.” I’ll post it soon. I want to give some thought to whether just to post the version that won, or to go back to an earlier version. (I censored out everything that couldn’t go into a family newspaper.)

Regarding the Kix vignette – I did not rinse the cereal. I simply drained it, put it back in the bowl, added fresh milk and ate it. I did, however, rinse the bowl. I’m not a complete freak.

And, finally, to Comedy Goddess’s question: why “The Raisin Chronicles”? Here is a link to my first post, complete with the lyrics to “Lady Face,” the song I wrote in celebration of starting this blog.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Tagged by Vodka Mom



Vodka Mom tagged me, so here goes:

1) One day, years ago, I was wearing a dress at work and I fell backwards into an empty paper box. My arms and legs were sticking up in the air while my butt was stuck in the box. Instead of helping me out, the guys stood around and made comments like, “Where do you buy film for a camera like that?”

2) My parents were children of the Depression and their frugal ways transmitted themselves to me. I once made myself a bowl of Kix only to realize at the first bite that the milk was sour. Instead of throwing it away I dumped it in a colander, then put it back in the bowl and poured on fresh milk.

3) I took my first college class in the summer of 1969, just after my freshman year in high school. After that auspicious beginning, things went a little awry, and I didn’t complete my bachelor’s degree until 1998. I like to tell people I was on the thirty year plan and finished a year early.

4) Only once in my life have I had so much to drink that I was still trashed when I woke up the next morning. I went to work anyway. It was not a good day.

5) I once attended an art show that consisted of nudes of my daughter painted by her lesbian roommate. Said roommate had come out to her parents the weekend before “so they’d have time to adjust” before the show. I did not drink at this event, but when I later wrote about it in a short story that won a local contest, my protagonist did, with disastrous results. The story captured that event so well that, to this day, my daughter tries to steer me away from alcohol.

6) My husband’s favorite memory from our courtship is of a dinner where I poked myself in the lip with my fork and then tried to pretend it didn’t happen.

7) I’m too self-conscious to be a good dancer – I usually look like I’m having a painful muscle spasm. However, I LOVE Motown, and with enough alcohol, I have been known to dance in a way that is both fluid and sensuous. I know this because a) my girlfriends commented on it and b) I got propositioned by a young couple to join them in a threesome.

8) I once interviewed a young man who was so good-looking I got completely rattled, and asked him the same question three times.

9) I apply 15 different things to my face each morning. Sometimes I wonder whether I should head for work or just enter the Witness Protection Program.

10) When I’m in practice, I’m a competent cook, but I have a tendency to crack under pressure. I made brownies for a meet-the-families rehearsal dinner for my second marriage and forgot them in the oven for over an hour. It was heartbreaking to watch the little sugar junkies from my side trying to gnaw off a chocolate fix.

Judging by the difficulty I had coming up with this list, future tags will result in some sorry barrel scrapings. Not saying "don't do it," just warning that the outcome may not be pretty.

As I was writing this, I debated whether to tag anyone else (thus putting them under the same pressure) and decided these people deserve the honor:

1) Hoodchick -- because I've learned more about her in a couple of months of blogging than from ten years of actual acquaintance. Let's see what else there is to know.

2) Chaka -- a recent follower, about whom I'd like to know more.

3) Jan -- because we have this weird, parallel lives thing going on.

4) Dedene -- because she live in France, and I'm totally fascinated by her life.

5) Christine -- an expat living in Italy -- ditto.

Your mission, my bloggy friends, if you should choose to accept it, is to grab the little award at the top of this post and use it to create a similar post, telling us some trivia from your lives.

(Note to Chef E: I'm not ignoring the lovely award you gave me, but I can't get it to shrink to fit in my sidebar, and I haven't figured out what post to do with it. You're learning what my "live" friends already know -- friendship with me requires patience, but if you value laughter, I'm worth it.)

Friday, January 23, 2009

Old Joke #4

Buddy Hackett told this joke on an HBO special back in the ‘80s. It’s not my favorite joke of all time, but it’s definitely my favorite punch line.

An 80-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman fall in love. They want to marry, but the old man fears that he won’t be able to satisfy his young bride. Then they hear about an experimental surgery that’s being done for couples just like them. The surgeon replaces the man’s penis with the trunk of a baby elephant.

After long and careful consideration, the man has the surgery, and it works out beyond their wildest expectations. After a blissful weekend in bed, they decide to move forward with the wedding.

Naturally, the girl’s parents want to get to know their future son-in-law, so they invite him to dinner. Although they are concerned about the difference in ages, they can tell that their daughter is really in love.

In fact, she can’t keep her hands off her fiancé. Under the cover of the tablecloth, the girl unzips the old man’s pants and begins fondling him. All the while, above board, the couple chats with the girl's parents about their wedding plans.

It is as the mother sets out a tray of potatoes that an elephant’s trunk shoots out, curls around a baked potato and drags it beneath the table.

The girl’s mother’s mouth falls open. Her eyes trace the path from the old man to the serving platter and back again. After a stunned moment, shaken, she clears her throat and says, “That was amazing. Could you do that again?”

And the old man says:

“I would, but I don’t have room in my ass for another potato.”

(Note: Despite the reputation I've acquired at Belle's house, no baby elephants were harmed in the telling of this joke.)

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

The Bone Chute

The strangest place I ever worked was a mail order company.

I’d just gotten divorced, and my primary goal in life was to stop running into my ex-husband and his hussy at the grocery store, and then going home and crying until I vomited, so when a job was offered several states away from Ohio, I opted to take it.

It was not, on the surface, a match made in heaven. I was vegetarian; they sold hunting equipment. I was pro gun control; they sold ammunition. I favored animal rights; they favored animal pelts. (As room décor. Seriously -- every office at VP level and above sported a bearskin, or a moose head, or a fish. The place was a taxidermist’s wet dream.)

On the other hand, I could buy weekly provisions without a meltdown, so it all evened out.

Not only was this place just drenched in testosterone, it was situated across the street from the stockyards. My favorite feature of the stockyards (other than the opportunity to get stampeded by an escaped bull whilst walking at lunch) was the bone chute.

The bone chute was a conveyor line that transported the leftover parts of the carcasses to a second-floor opening in the western wall of the slaughterhouse. Outside, a dump truck waited to haul the offal away. On a brisk winter’s morning, the sight of a rib cage with red flecks of tissue still clinging to white bone, gently steaming against a cloudless blue sky, was enough to take your breath away.

It could do a number on your breakfast, too.

It was not a female-friendly environment. It was said that during one of the buying meetings, during a discussion about tee shirt logos for the next catalog, the CEO proposed one that said, “What Do All Battered Women Have in Common? They Don’t Know When to Shut Up.”

Since I wasn’t feeling all that great about men at that time, I derived a fair amount of enjoyment from being the scariest woman they’d ever met. For example, I started my meetings on time, regardless of whether everyone was there. When people showed up late and wanted to know what they’d missed, I recommended that they get the notes from their neighbor. They soon began arriving on time.

It was kind of like those cartoons you see of elephants piled up in a corner, cowering away from a mouse.

My favorite quote from that era was made by the woman who ran the Telemarketing Department, whose office overlooked the slaughterhouse.

“Every evening I look out at the bone chute,” she said. “If I don’t see myself dropping into the truck, I figure it’s been a good day.”

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Oh Happy Day!



Me shaking hands with the man who will today become our President!

(Not) My Old Kentucky Home

Since the last post seems to be raising a lot of questions, let me see what I can do to clarify:

They were chicken eggs.

I don't know how they got there, but my recollection is that that they weren't down in a pit, but on some sort of nest on boards at floor level. Which is weird, but it's what I remember. And once I'd been sent out to the chicken house to snatch eggs from underneath the chicken’s butt, a task with which the chickens were NOT on board, and then ridiculed for being too much of a city-girl-scairdy-cat to bring back any eggs for breakfast (because I’m terrified of birds), anything seemed possible. Heck, for all I knew, the outhouse was an annex to the chicken house. They appeared to be of the same architecture and vintage.

It was on that trip that we also established that my wimpy nine-year-old hands could not wring milk from a cow’s teat. Which may be why, even though Grandma and Aunt Ease just went on and on about how great the fresh country butter tasted, I thought it tasted like sour milk.

Unfortunately, all the folks in this story except me have passed on, so there's no one I can even ask. I suppose I could send a note to my second-cousin, Janie, who now lives in that house, but she was grown and married and away when this happened, and I doubt if she'd know.

In her later years Aunt Bertha moved into a trailer with indoor plumbing and her son, George, inherited the house, which eventually passed on to his daughter after he died, in his early 50's, of a heart attack, just like my mom. (The Porters always did have bum tickers.) Which is also kind of interesting because everyone in Rockcastle County would have bet money that somebody's husband would have killed George long before that heart attack took him, because the Porter men are just dogs. (Seriously – years before, someone took a pot shot at him one morning when he was dropping his son off at school.) Which is probably why the Porter women have no truck that foolishness, after watching their brothers and daddies cat around the whole time they’re growing up.)

As far as it being a horror movie, except for being razzed about my city ways, and the outhouse, of course, I loved going down there. I got to ride around on the tractor with George (who always smiled right into my eyes and called me “little one”). I got to look for geodes in the creek, and then crack them open and marvel at the crystals inside. One time Uncle Casper took me up the hill behind the tobacco patch and let me dig up a little evergreen and take it home. The last time I passed our old house, it was still growing between the front windows.

Don’t know if this makes anything any clearer, but it was fun to recall.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Eggcentricity

Thanks to Ella for dredging up this old memory with her post on the secret egg cache….

When I was nine years old, Grandma and Aunt Ease took me to visit Great-Aunt Bertha, who lived in Kentucky on a farm. Compared to my house, hers was a mansion, except for one thing.

Her toilet was outdoors.

I hated the outhouse because a) it smelled bad, b) it was a two-seater, which opened up the opportunity for communal pottying and c) it was in the middle of a cow pasture, surrounded by an electric fence.

As a city kid, I was afraid of the cows.

As a neat freak, I was worried about stepping in a cow patty.

As a rational person, I was scared to death of the electric fence.

And, to top it off, there were eggs in one of the holes, which raised an etiquette issue: is it okay to pee on eggs? And if you do, and you don’t say anything to anyone, will you wind up eating your own pee for breakfast the next morning?

With all these neuroses whirling around in my brain, it’s no surprise that I put off urinating for as long as possible. I mean till the last, Hindenburg-bladdered, about-to- explode minute.

Which is why, when I finally made a run for it, I forgot about the fence.

For the sake of clarity, let me just say this: there is nothing about peeing that is enhanced by having 11 volts of electricity coursing down your body.

And vice versa.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Just How Stupid Do I Look?

(Don’t answer that, please.)

I use a sinus rinse to keep my allergies under control (along with a daily dose of Zyrtec-D and two shots in the heinie every couple of weeks). It’s a great idea and if you have sinus problems (i.e. if you live anywhere with grass, dust, trees, pollen, mold or pets) I highly recommend it.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, here’s how it works:

1) There’s a plastic bottle
2) With a black, dome-shaped lid
3) Which has a straw kind of thing that goes to the bottom of the bottle
4) You fill the bottle with distilled water
5) Warm it for a few seconds in the microwave
6) Add some saline from a packet
7) Screw on the lid
8) Then squeeze the bottle to squirt the solution up one nostril
9) And it exits via your other nostril
10) And then you repeat with the alternate nostril

(Okay, that’s kind of gross -- hope you weren’t snacking at the computer.)

Anyway, the instructions recommend heating the water 5 seconds at a time and checking the temp before heating further.

Which makes sense. It generally takes about 25 seconds, but that can vary by 5 or 10 seconds, depending on how cool the water is. (Which in turn is controlled by the Thermostat Nazi.)

So I’m good with that. It’s the next section of the instructions that bugs me, where it says, in large type: DO NOT SQUIRT BOILING WATER UP YOUR NOSE!

Because I find myself thinking that if anyone is actually stupid enough to do that, maybe, for the good of mankind, we should just let them.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

PMS Meets MCP

Just got back from Anna’s, where I was reading about PMS. This got me to thinking about a far worse syndrome, one that science has for too long ignored: Monthly Cowardice Pattern (MCP).

Affecting primarily adult males, although children and teenagers are sometimes also afflicted, the impacts of MCP on our society and our economy cannot be overstated. Let me share one example:

Earlier in my life, when my body’s tides were still controlled by the moon, my skin would, at monthly intervals, become very sensitive to the touch. Anything brushing against the down on my arms would set my teeth on edge, and it was worth my husband’s life to attempt a back rub.

During those intervals, I hated fans. The feel of that unrelenting breeze was enough send me over the edge.

One day, while living in Minnesota, I was talking with a group of all-male programmers. Our office was set up as a typical prairie dog village of shoulder-height cubicles. We were standing in the doorways of our burrows, trying to resolve some deep technical issue (that, or discussing the most recent episode of The X-Files). Against the back wall, a standing fan kept the air moving in our little cinder block complex.

As we stood there, talking and laughing, the air began to chafe my skin. Each oscillation was like sandpaper, abrading my last nerve. Finally, I could stand it no longer. I lunged toward the switch.

“This fan is driving me crazy!”

It slowed to a stop and I instantly felt better. I turned around to resume our discussion just in time to see the last guy shrink back into his cube. The place was a ghost town.

Due to the effects of MCP, whatever deep issue we were discussing was left unresolved. With this sudden and shocking onset of Male Monthly Cowardice Pattern, the company’s operational efficiency, and, ultimately, profitability, suffered.

This syndrome wreaks millions, possibly billions, of dollars in untold havoc on the worldwide (yes, this is a global issue) economy, and yet no one has had the vision or perhaps the courage, to take on this scourge.

And the economy is not the only thing to suffer. All around the world, every month, families are put at risk, and the lives of future generations in jeopardy, because men do not have the guts to deal with the monthly flux of their wives and teenage daughters.

But with proper research, a cure could be found. The slinking weasels we see cowering in garages and basement workshops one week out of every month could become full-time men again, husbands and fathers every day, instead of just 75% of the time. The timid mice, whimpering, “Yes, dear,” one-fourth of the time could stand up strong and tall and utter the commanding phrase, “I just want what you want, darling” every single day of every year.

And the pharmaceuticals already exist, it’s just a matter of running clinical trials until the right cocktail, the right dosage, is discovered to put an end to this horrific disease.

Won’t you please give?

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Oversharing - Part 3

I once worked with a guy who was concerned that, if he became rich and famous, women would accuse him of fathering their children and want a share of his wealth.

He waffled for a while about having a vasectomy, because he also worried that having all those sperm resorbed into his body would teach his system to cannibalize itself. In the end, his paternity-suit phobia won out over his self-initiated-immune-disorder fears and he made an appointment with a local urologist.

He told us later that he should have gotten up and left the minute the doctor pushed his way through the curtains surrounding the operating table. At first he thought the booze smell was just rubbing alcohol, until the doctor kind of staggered and grabbed onto the curtains to steady himself. But, for whatever reasons (I’m thinking pre-surgery anti-anxiety drugs), my co-worker’s self-preservation instincts failed to function.

Said co-worker left the doctor’s office with his parts intact (except for the planned snip), but over the weekend the site became infected. And extremely swollen.

I know this because when he returned to the office late the next week he brought in Polaroids that he’d taken with the aid of a mirror. I caught a glimpse of hairy buttocks and equally hairy legs raised in the air before I said, “Whoa! No, thank you!” and backed away.

There are just some things you’re better off not knowing about workplace acquaintances.

Later that day the women in the payroll office asked me about the pictures.

“I didn’t see them,” I said.

“We heard he showed them to you.”

“He tried to show them to me, but I said ‘no, thanks.’”

“Pam said you saw them.”

“I don’t look at pictures of men’s testicles,” I said firmly. “It’s one of my rules.”

I shared what he’d told me, all the gory details, but they still seemed disappointed.

I guess a picture really is worth a thousand words.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Oversharing - Part 2

Today, inspired by K’s post on Facebook’s stance on breastfeeding as a photo op, I promised to share another example of too-much-information from the dusty archives of my work past.

(Okay, I promised two examples, but I try to keep these posts under 500 words, so I’m saving one for tomorrow. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I spend upwards of two hours a day perusing blogs. Since I returned to work, crispness is something I’ve learned to appreciate.)

In the late 70’s, a girl in our office attended sex therapy classes with her husband. After every class she’d come in the next morning and give us a play-by-play of what they’d learned.

This was the group that included Stan, who, predictably, made it a point to be out of earshot when the update occurred, and Tom, who, equally predictably, made it a point to listen and poke fun. Not the least because half-a-dozen classes cost something like $1500 (adjusted for inflation, $5000 today).

The content was mostly what you’d think of as common sense – spending more time on foreplay, dealing with ticklishness, getting to know each other’s preferences. What made the whole thing so funny was the innocent zest with which she approached the experience.

“They said to put pillows on the floor and try doing it right in your living room!”

“They said we can take turns controlling how fast or how slow we want to go!”

One day she came in and enumerated the erogenous zones for us. (Had all the erogenous zones even been discovered by the late 1970’s? I know they hadn’t been in my house.)

My favorite recollection is the day she came in, wide-eyed, and told us about a film they’d seen the previous evening on masturbation.

“I think it was Dr. Perkins’ hands in the film,” she said. “I recognized his freckles!”

The hilarious thing was that she completely didn’t seem to absorb the fact that, by extension, this meant that it was also Dr. P’s penis in the film.

I don’t recall what wisecracks Tom made at the time, but I do recall what he had to say three months later, when she announced that she was pregnant.

“Well, looks like it was worth the money,” he said. “At least they know what they’re doing now.”

Tomorrow: A Vasectomy Gone Awry.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Oversharing - Part 1

K over at Interstitial Life brought this topic to mind with her recent post on the Facebook/Breastfeeding controversy.

As you’ve all figured out by now, I’m the biggest blabbermouth in the world. Bill says the fastest way to spread a secret is to tell an Oates (my maiden name), although I think he’s primarily motivated by his desire to make snarky comments and get away with it. So my telling my sister that he said she looked like me dressed up as Howdy Doody (because she looks just like me but has red hair and freckles) was kind of a public service thing.

Anyway, I’ve gotten some questions over the past week from folks wanting to know how the new job is going. It’s fine. I’ve never done bookkeeping before, so I’m feeling kind of overwhelmed trying to learn it, but I keep telling myself that if I can write a computerized accounting system, I can figure out how to use one. This pep talk is working great except for my recurring nightmare that the authorities shut down the clinic because the books are so fouled up.

You probably won’t hear much about the clinic here at the Chronicles. It would be a HIPAA violation to share anything about the patients and unethical to share anything about folks who report to me. Occasionally, there will be non-patient, non-employee related things, like this week’s mouse excursion, but mostly stuff I have to keep to myself.

One thing I can say about the clinic, though, is that the culture is radically different from the manufacturing environment I worked in for the past 11 years. This became evident when I overheard a couple of folks talking outside my door the other day.

Person A: My husband is having a colonoscopy today. He threw up the prep solution and had to take it again. He was up all night.

Okay, this is (barely) within the limits of what could be discussed (in a whisper) at Ye Olde Job.

Person B: Yeah, I’ve had loose stools for the past two weeks.

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.

(Tomorrow: A couple of examples of extreme oversharing in the workplace.)

Thursday, January 8, 2009

In Memoriam

Michael J. (Mickey) Mouse passed away suddenly late Tuesday night following an unfortunate diving accident.

Rest in peace.

(The ladies at the clinic aren’t thrilled, but they admit it wasn’t cool to have a rodent running all over the clinic, leaving tiny brown gifts everywhere.)

*

So, you’re wondering, how did I know that if you give a mouse a swimming pool with a gang plank attached, he would turn it into an opportunity to meet his maker? Ah, thereby hangs a tale….

I learned this on my first IT job, at a local college, from a guy we’ll call Stan.

Stan was really smart, but I’m not sure how much of the real world he ever heard over the sound of his own drummer. He spent his free time constructing windmills powered by the office ventilation system and sundials that were latitude-adjusted to accurately tell the time on sunny days. On Fridays he would bring in a metal detector and go through the couches in the lobbies, extracting lost change. I believe his lifetime high for one foray was $1.28.

There was also a prankster in the office, we’ll call him Tom. Tom’s practical jokes were both merciless and legendary. He once programmed my phone to automatically forward to the office of the college president. Another time he went out to the parking lot at lunch and moved the car of this guy who was foolish enough to leave his keys lying out, so when it was time to go home the guy freaked out, thinking his car had been stolen. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

Anyway, at some point we noticed that, despite all his tomfoolery, he never played jokes on Stan. One day I asked him why.

“You remember when the Oakwood library had that contest," he said, "to see who could translate the Egyptian hieroglyphics over their entranceway?”

“Sure.” Of course I did – Stan had won that contest.

“Well, Stan figured out the correct translation from this book he had.”

“Okay.”

“Well, a few weeks later I saw he had a book on plutonium bombs.”

I nodded.

“Since then, I don’t fuck with him.”

*
Anyway, one day we discovered a mouse in the computer room. Maintenance set traps, but they came up empty. (Literally – the bait was gone, but the mouse got away.) After a couple of weeks of this, Stan brought in a bucket and taped a wooden ruler to the rim, just like the picture above.

This must have been prior to the hieroglyphics contest, because I remember we all razzed him about it.

Until the next morning, when he quietly disposed of the drowned mouse.

(Which, by the way, is just a gross way to start your day. I don't recommend it. The toilets at the clinic have frequent issues, so I didn't want to give him the goldfish treatment. Turns out I'm not any crazier about dead mice than I am live ones, so I'm standing there shuddering, teeth clenched to keep from screaming, as I use the paint stirrer to keep him from plopping into the john. Ugh.)

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Old Joke #3

This is in honor of Dan J., who recently de-lurked and left a comment. Dan was my boss at my former job, and would have saved me from being laid off if he hadn’t been shit-canned, too. He is a runner, and I always wanted to tell him this joke, but it seemed a little inappropriate for the office.

A guy is out jogging very early one morning when he realizes he has to take a dump. He looks around for a public building, or a gas station, but he’s in a residential neighborhood. He runs for a few more minutes, but the urge just grows stronger. Then he spots a thick cluster of bushes. He considers running on past, but the need is just too great. Stepping behind the shrubbery, he shucks down his shorts and squats.

As he finishes, but before he can pull up his running shorts, the worst happens. An old lady appears beside the bushes and stands there, staring at him without speaking.

Embarrassed, he says, “Can I help you, ma’am?”

The old lady smiles coyly.

“I’ve been a widow for many years. Would you mind,” she blushes, “if I just touch one of your testicles?”

The man is taken aback, but he’s not really in a position to refuse. “Okay.”

Reaching out, she gently cradles his left testicle between her fingers and thumb for a brief moment.

As he starts to pull up his shorts, he realizes she’s still staring fixedly at him.

“Would you mind,” she says, blushing even more deeply, “if I touched your other testicle?”

Reluctantly, he agrees and she softly squeezes his right testicle.

By now he’s starting to enjoy himself, so he’s not too upset when, after glancing down in embarrassment, she gazes shyly into his eyes and says, “Would you mind if I just touch both of them at the same time?”

“Sure,” he says. “Go ahead.”

The old lady takes his left testicle in her left hand and his right testicle in her right hand,. Slamming them together with every word, she yells:

“DON’T…EVER…SHIT…IN…MY…YARD…AGAIN!”

Monday, January 5, 2009

Of Mice and (Wo)men

I started my new job today and I just want to rail at the injustice of the universe for a moment.

Because there was a MOUSE in the clinic! He ran in the front door last Tuesday (it's an automatic door that closes very slowly to give handicapped patients plenty of time to get in) and apparently he managed to find enough food to hang out for the past week.

And when I suggested bringing in a trap and squashing his little head, I started to realize that, even though I've always been the bleeding heart liberal everywhere I've worked in the past, a new day has dawned.

Because every single one of the women I worked with chorused, "No! You can't do that!"

So I won't.

However, if I were to set a pail of water, with a cunningly contrived little gangplank, I mean diving board, in the kitchen, it wouldn't be my fault if he found out he couldn't swim.....

10 True Things

This is the exercise required to earn the "Honest Scrap" award given to me by Comedy Goddess. After reading Ian's (Idiot Stew) list, I decided not to even compete in the funny category, so all you're getting are true statements.

1) I’ve been married 3 times. The first, at age 18, for 13 years. Then again at age 33 for 6 years. And now for 11 years. God knows why Bill was willing to give this a shot, but it seems to work.
2) I am spatially challenged. I cannot stand in my basement and tell you what room is overhead. I can look out the basement window, see what’s out there and figure out what upstairs room offers the same vista, but to just know – doesn’t happen.
3) When I was in the fifth grade, I read that William Shakespeare had the best vocabulary in the history of English and I resolved to exceed him. By the time I was in high school and heard Howard Cosell announce a football game and realized how annoying it is when people use words others don’t understand, the damage was done.
4) I am afraid of mice. As in, stand-on-a-chair-and-shriek afraid.
5) I am not afraid of snakes, although I wouldn't wear one as an accessory.
6) I am 2/3 of the way through my third read-through of the Bible. This makes it impossible for me to take everything in it literally. I plan to continue re-reading it, in different translations, as long as I live.
7) Although I made a fair living at it for 33 years, I was never especially good with computers. A few years ago, people on my former team held a party and burned one of my programs in the fireplace because it was so difficult to maintain. As far as I know, there was no straw figure of me in there with the greenbar.
8) My SAT scores were high enough to qualify me for Mensa. I did not join as I figured the last thing I needed was to pal around with other socially-challenged people. (For all I know, Condaleeza Rice and Madeline Albright may chair their local chapters, but the Mensa folks I've known over the years belonged in an Asperger's support group.)
9) I drink bottled water at home. This is because I live less than a mile from an old landfill that was never completely cleaned up, and from a petroleum depot. I’m a freak about recycling the bottles, but it’s still not something I feel great about. However, I’d feel even worse about dying with a third hand sprouting from the top of my head.
10) I’ve wanted to write since I was old enough to hold a pencil. In the second grade, when Mrs. Young had us draw what we wanted to be when we grew up, my picture showed a woman in a flowing blue dress, seated at a typewriter. This blog is the most fun I’ve ever had with my clothes on.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

At the Sound of the Beep

On Wednesday of the first week I was laid off, I heard a noise, a slow, measured beeeep that reiterated four times. The first time it happened, I ignored it, figuring it was a utility truck outside backing up.

About fifteen minutes later, though, it sounded again. Beeep. Beeep. Beeep. Beeep. Beeep. Along about the third beep, I jumped up, forsaking my keyboard, and went on safari, but by the time I reached the kitchen, it had stopped.

Fifteen minutes passed and there it was again. This time, I leapt to my feet and raced through the kitchen to the smoke detector. Nope, it wasn’t the smoke detector. By the fourth beep, I was rounding the kitchen counters (which are edged with foam tubes, so that I don’t eviscerate, I mean, so the grandkids don’t brain themselves. Thank God). I threw open the basement door as the last beep sounded. Dammit.

Next iteration, I headed straight for the basement, clattering down the wooden stairs, to determine that it was not the lower level smoke alarm nor the carbon monoxide detector. I was heading back to the first floor as this round ended.

A quarter of an hour passed and I sprinted for the second floor, but still no dice.

And that was it. No more beeps.

The next week, the same thing occurred. I ran all over looking for the source, without success. But I’m not trained in Six Sigma methods for Process Improvement and Kepner-Tregoe Problem-Solving techniques for nothing. I made a note on my desk blotter: this time it occurred on Tuesday, starting at 8:15 a.m.

For the next five weeks, I repeated this exercise, looking for a source, a pattern, something that would tell me how I to eliminate this annoyance which was interfering so grievously with my writing. I told Bill about it, but it never happened when he was home. He changed out all the smoke detector batteries, but within a few days, it was back.

Finally, on Christmas Eve, it recurred.

Excitedly, I ran into the living room. “That’s it!” I shouted. “That’s the noise.”

He meandered into the kitchen, listened for a moment and said, “It’s the dishwasher, you idiot. It’s telling you it’s done.”

Idiot?

Fortunately, as well as being grounded in Problem Solving and Troubleshooting, I’m fluent in Husbandese, and know this actually translates into “my beloved wife, center of beauty and intelligence for the universe.”

Because no one is dumb enough to talk like that to the person who prepares his food.

Friday, January 2, 2009

A Hoy There, Mateys!


Ta-da! I won my first blog award, A Hoy! (This is probably old hat to many of you, but it’s my first award, so I’m very excited. )

It was given to me by Radagast, who was actually my first follower, too, way back in September, when I started this. It was he who first made me realize that blogging is more than just putting your thoughts on (electronic) paper – they actually go out into the world, and people read them, and engage with you. For a writer who’s used to working without an audience, that was heady stuff indeed.

I’d like to re-award (like re-gifting, but without the risk of social embarrassment) to everyone in my blogroll. After all, that’s why you’re in my blogroll –- because I enjoy your blogs so much. However, the Hoy by-laws prevent me from passing to more than three blogs that are already in my blogroll, though, so I’m going to shoot for diversity of content.

My choices for passing this on are:

1) K (Interstitial Life) – because she’s hysterically funny. Pick a post, any post, and I guarantee you’ll laugh.
2) Connie (Far Side of Fifty) – because she posts such gorgeous photos and she tells stories of the America I remember growing up in, and regret that my grandkids will never know.
3) Buffalo Dick (Opinions and Rectums, We All Got One) -– because he’s funny, and he cooks beautiful food and sometimes the blogosphere gets a little girly and he breaks that up. With an ice axe.
4) Rachel (Rachel’s Ramblings) -- because her posts always show me something I've never seen before, or thougt about before, or somehow make me think.
5) Chef E (The Behind the Wheel Chef, et. al.) – because there’s a lot of variety in her 6 blogs. If you can’t find something to your taste in one, you will find it in another.


Rules for Making an Award
1. Pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award based upon any criteria - for example, the quality of the commentary, wit, humour, artwork, overall design, value to you of the information being provided, and so on.
2. The awarding blogger should choose at least two blogs not on his or her own blogroll, the purpose being to encourage variety of reading matter, and to have the person making the award think about what they like to see and read.
3. Your five choices must be published in a dedicated post on your own blog. This post must contain the name of the author (which may be their logon name), and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone. This post should contain brief details of what attracted you to the blog. Details may also be posted in the comments section of "What is a Hoy?"
4. In the same dedicated post, each winner has to show the award and acknowledge the blog that has given him or her the award.
5. Both those awarding and receiving A Hoy must show the link to A Hoy blog, so that everyone will know the origin of this award.
6. When publishing details of the blogs to which you have made your awards, these rules must be published for recipients to follow.

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