Sh*t Happens

Tired of run-of-the-mill Facebook status updates from your friends? Do you frequently encounter the location status: at the lake? Or perhaps it’s the news status: I can’t believe Michael Jackson is dead? How about the poll status: What should I be for Halloween?

Every so often, there is that diamond in the rough that gets you thinking and forces you to make a comment in an already long string of comments. For me, it creates blog fodder.   This is by far the best status update I’ve read in the past few days:

“someone pooped on the sales floor at work today… Reluctantly, as usual, I went to clean it up and someone had stepped in it. WHO are these people!?”

Yeah…. So what are you thinking right now? My immediate reaction was Wha? Does my friend work in a pet store now? What does she mean someone? Is that her attempt at personifying a dog? I don’t understand.

As ridiculous as the status seems, it turned out not to be a joke! Someone actually took a poop in the store, a bookstore. On top of that, note the “as usual” part of the statement. Apparently this has happened multiple times. Unbelievable, right?

The result on Facebook was a flurry of comments ranging from sympathetic to dumbfounded to comical. And this was the most memorable:

“I think from now on ‘I’ve got to go to Borders’ should be a widely accepted euphemism for going to take a poop, replacing talking to Elvis, seeing a man about a mule, and dropping the kids off at the pool…”

What costume?

The hubby and I have never been particularly fond of Halloween. As I kid I never had a costume that I really enjoyed and the same goes for him. But these past couple of years, we’ve moved closer to embracing the festivities and starting dressing up.

Two years ago, I was a poor representation of a Harijuku. Last year, I dressed like my Rock Band character and came up with the costume just 5 minutes before switching the porch light on. No one understood it but me, the hubby, and two of our fellow band mates. This year, I decided to dress as a girl from the ’60s.

The hubby is a bit more conservative. He’s only willing to wear a weird wig. Last year’s wig was a little black Afro. This year, he went with a big blond Afro. Stylish, huh? That’s it. That’s all he did….

Just kidding! He doesn’t actually dress like what you see in the picture on a regular basis, but he tried to play it off to some of the kids. And it was funny. I mean, can you see his shirt?? It’s Poseidon on a pegasus!! I kid you not. I bought that shirt the day of Halloween at a non-thrift store. It’s laughable! Same goes for the shorts, though we kind of like them. They are just really, really long. Like man-pris. The socks are a nice touch, right? He looked like a total weirdo.

So some of the older kids asked him what he was supposed to be. And he would just say, “What do you mean?” with a straight face. Confused, the kids would then ask what his costume was. And he would say, “What costume?” He found great joy in saying this to one girl because she believed him, and then he had to turn away to laugh. He later admitted to her that he was just joking. She replied, “I was going to say!”

Some of the parents were unsure of him, too. He said that one of the moms gave him the evil eye. haha.

Come on, people. It’s Halloween.

Black Tacos?

from tacobell.com

I’m not a big Taco Bell customer as it is, but I’m not sure about this Black Jack Taco. There is something so wrong about it. Aren’t we sort of trained as kids that food that is “black” is burnt? Who wants to eat a taco that looks burnt? Not me.

It’s about as bad as eating blue ketchup on sweet potato french fries. ack. It’s not natural.

 

 

Squeaky Wheels

Rarely am I the squeaky wheel. I let things go. I don’t complain too much. The only exception to this is when it comes to consumer injustices. I will write letters of complaint. I will speak to managers. I will make you feel bad for ever crossing my path.

I don’t raise a fuss randomly. I’m actually quite logical with whatever my complaint it. I’m not one of those kooks who complains just because they want their way or they are scamming a business. I’m legit. Really.

About a year ago, I had an issue with my camera. I thought I figured out how to fix the camera on my own, only to find that the fix was just a band-aid. I contacted the Canon people to see if they could fix it. It turned out that they could… for a fee. Or I could opt to buy a different model that had been refurbished. Nothing else was offered to me and I was not willing to do either option, so I just dropped the idea.

Flash forward to earlier this month. I happened to visit the Canon website where another customer happened to post that she had the same issue I had and Canon offered her free shipping and offered to fix the camera for free. Wha?

Do you hear that in the distance? It’s a squeaky wheel.

Yes, I raised fuss. I contacted them. I presented them with the evidence. I questioned them about fair treatment. The result? This squeaky wheel got the grease. I was offered free shipping and they fixed the camera for free. Why does the world work this way? ack. Why do we have to complain to be treated fairly?

One Liner (#1031)

A friend of ours wrote the following as her Facebook status: “trying to figure out what (child’s name) should be for Halloween.” A few of her friends suggested some nursery rhyme and Sesame Street characters for the 2-year-old.

Then hubby replied to her post:

“easy, Kate Gosselin.”

LMAO! Ridiculously funny, right? I mean, can you imagine a toddler as Kate Gosselin?! I think we might have to participate in Halloween this year simply for the sheer prospect of seeing mini Kate Gosselins running around.

Your Shore Good at Spelling

Ack. I can’t take it any more. I’m in the midst of grading a bunch of assignments and I’m about to crack.

My students had an assignment to take pictures and write detailed captions to accompany them. They had to turn in 5 images. Seems pretty simple right? So why am I getting so frustrated? My students don’t take the time to double check their work AND they don’t know how to spell. I didn’t mention to them that the program they were using to crop and caption their photos has spell check.

On the one hand, I’m getting really tired of writing up comments saying “____ is misspelled.” On the other hand, they also make grammatical mistakes, capitalization errors, punctuation omissions, and careless mistakes that a spell checker would never catch. On the other hand (if I had another hand), it’s really telling.

OK, I’m being nice. It’s more than just telling. It’s effing pathetic. PATHETIC. This isn’t tricky stuff. A lot of these mistakes are careless typos that are a result of their not taking the time to proofread, so I’m not even going to defend my students. They don’t deserve it. Instead, I am going to vent to you, readers. And we are going to laugh together at the learned-it-in-elementary-school mistakes… and then cry after we realize that these kids are our future. Here are some of the offenses:

• raspberrys I blame this one on the Blackberry brand.
• Not capitalizing the name of the town they live in. I’m hoping this is text messaging’s fault and the students’ lack of attention to detail. Yes, students. As in, more than one student did this.
• Not capitalizing a street name. Really? It’s a proper name!
• 8 errors within 5 sentences, 4 of which were in the same caption! I’m not kidding. I would like to smack this student in the head. Way to go, superstar. What an embarrassment.
• “It’s” when it should be “its” You’d think when this is explained in elementary school that people would remember the correct usage since it’s so unusual but no.

Since I’m not done grading, I have a feeling this list will continue to grow. Yay.

Chicken Pause

I thought of you today, lovely readers. I was at the grocery store this afternoon and stopped by the chicken case. I was about to get some (over priced) chicken breasts when something caught my eye… in a bad way. Chicken feet. Only, they were labeled “Chicken Paws.”

It was so strangely intriguing that I wanted to take a picture with my phone but did not want to offend anyone who wanted to buy them. (In my childhood, I ate some weird stuff. I’m not sure if it was due to our income or our culture, but I know what it’s like to be made fun of because you’re a little different.) In some areas of the world, they are considered a delicacy. I myself do know know the first thing about them or how to prepare them, though I did happen to see an episode of The Next Iron Chef in which this item was part of a cooking challenge. Regardless, I walked away.

I moved on to the dairy case. And then I stopped and looked back at the chicken area. I felt so compelled to show you what I saw, not because they were chicken feet but because they were labeled Chicken Paws. I mean, since when did chickens have paws?!

I headed back to the chicken case. Could I snap a picture without anyone knowing? I quickly came up with a plan. I pretended that I was trying to make a call on my cell phone, putting the phone low as if I had a vision problem. I quickly snapped a picture, saved it, and then put the phone up to my ear. I pretended to look at the other chicken products, which incidentally led me to realize the chicken was on sale! And the I hung up the phone as if I could not reach whomever I was calling to consult about the chicken.

Below is the prized shot. Unfortunately, my camera is not that great so you probably can’t read the Paws part on the label. Oh well.

So, I’m wondering. What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen in the grocery store? Would you dare take a picture of it for me? Would you/have you tried any kind of “delicacies?” Do share.

One Liner (#0688)

I finally received my invite to Google Voice, which seems like a really neat service by the way. One of the features with this service is being able to choose your own phone number. I searched for a bunch of different words so that I could have a memorable word within my phone number, but nothing really seemed quite good enough. Then I happened to look to my right, where a can of mixed nuts was sitting on the table.

I searched for “nut.”

The result? (###)###-0NUT. I told the hubby that I found a number that ends in zero nut. “That’s kind of funny. What do you think?” I asked. His reply? “Lance Armstrong probably has the one nut one.”

HA! Zing!

No Autographs, Please

I know famous people. I did a satellite interview with Rosie O’Donnell. I interviewed Andrew Shue (Billy of old Melrose Place) a few years ago. I’ve met Kevin Bacon. I’ve spoken to David Cook…. OK, OK. I’ll admit it. I don’t know any of those people. But did you know I’m married to a celebrity? Yeah. It’s soo true.

Some of you already know the back story, but for those of you who don’t, here it is. Years ago the hubby worked in local news as an on-air person. He was a reporter-type and also filled in at the sports desk for a while. Back in those days, it was not uncommon for him to be recognized. It was kind of strange at times but not entirely unexpected.

All right, so he’s not really a celebrity. It’s not like he gets mobbed at the grocery store, but his pseudo-celebrity has brought some amusement to our life.

Years ago when I was interviewed for my previous job and the hubby had just left local television, people found out about us somehow. That in and of itself is strange because I never mentioned it and I use my maiden name for work. Regardless, people found out and this seemed to intrigue them. “You’re married to that sports guy on TV? That’s _____[insert synonym to neat or cool or somewhat fascinating].” Or “Your husband is ______? Wow. We really liked watching him on TV.”  um. OK. Really? You know who he is and you are a… fan? huh. I never knew how to respond to these comments.

Even after being out of the TV biz for a few years, this woman came up to him while he was working at his present job and asked about his being on TV. She spoke to him as if she knew him. When he first told me this story, I couldn’t believe it and all I could do was laugh. I even questioned if the woman perhaps mistook him for someone else but she seemed to have her facts down. The memories that people have are amazing!

Rewind to last weekend, TEN YEARS post-TV. The hubby comes home and begins to tell me this story that seems rather ordinary. He was talking to this man when the man’s friend walks up and introductions begin. The man introduces the hubby to the friend, and the friend says, “Oh, I know you. You’re from the TV station. You used to do the news.” Seriously?! The hubby replies, “Oh man, that was a long time ago!” The friend says, “Well, I’ve been here a long time.” I, for one, could not believe the story and the hubby insisted that it was true. Then we both busted out laughing.

Now that you know about his celebrity status, I’m sure you want an interview, right? Your wish is my command. A brief exclusive interview with the hubby.

that girl: Have you ever signed an autograph?
the hubby: Yes, I have actually.
that girl: Really?
the hubby: I remember it was in Martinsville. This kid came up to me and asked me for my autograph on this piece of paper. I told him, “You don’t want to ruin this autograph,” referring to the autograph he got from Dale Earnhardt, Sr. moments beforehand. And the kid says, “Oh… yeah I do.” And so I signed this piece of paper for him, right next to Dale Earnhardt’s signature.

Ah, the legacy lives on.

Talk Nerdy to Me

I wish you were at my house right now. There’s a whole lot of nerdy going on. Moments ago, the hubby and I were watching some TV shows we had recorded from the other night. Next thing I know, there’s a DVD playing something from the ’90s. The show? Hubby’s super-star appearance serving as the captain of his high school team on the Scholars’ Bowl. It is freakin’ hilarious! Not only is the content amusing, it’s funny to watch hubby as he watches the video.

The moderator asks the following question: In math, what is the number being divided is called?

Did you get it?

Hubby did… both now and way back then. It’s the “dividend.” He’s so dang smart!

Now he’s laughing on the show… and in person watching himself. “He said, ‘Massachusetts’ and the answer is bi-cameral.” hee hee.

He is now cursing the name of Josh, a member of the opposing team who keeps buzzing in before the moderator finishes asking the question. “That Josh. He’s sharp!”

Good times. The end result, by the way, was a loss. 320-140. It was a valiant effort.

Did any of you or the significant others ever do this stuff in high school? Whenever hubby mentions this, it makes me giggle, so to see it on TV makes me laugh even harder.