Thursday, July 29, 2010

Weapon of the Week

My job mostly sucks. I don't have one of those jobs that I go to because I love it. It's more like the job you go to because you need to feed your family and keep them insured and clothed. There is one shining moment per week I am allowed however. Without going into too much detail as to what I do, it's closely related to stomping out crime. As people who stomp out crime like to do, we meet about it of course. At this weekly meeting we go over some of the "best" crimes of the week. This has brought to my attention the awesome innovation of criminals, specifically the weapons they choose to use. I'm going to highlight one per week, and I may back track some as they deserve the mention here.

This week's weapon winner: Telephone

Have you ever been mad at the person on the other end of the phone and all you can do is beat the phone against the counter? I think that's how this got started. Someone was probably on the phone with customer service somewhere. Customer service can piss you off like nobody's business. Maybe they had to call customer service because their baby daddy wouldn't. Maybe they had to call about the cell phone overage that they noticed on the bill but had no idea why it was there. Maybe when they were on the phone the customer service rep eluded to the fact that the person they share the line with was making a lot of calls. That this person was possibly making all those calls to the same number, at all hours of the night. Maybe it was a number that was recognized as a sisters number. Not his sister, knowwhaimsayin? Possibly after talking to a snarky customer service rep and then realizing what was going on made someone mad. Then he walked through the door. Who wouldn't throw the phone at him? Telephone was definitely the best weapon to choose here.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

If loving you is wrong, I'm out.

I hate being wrong. I don't even like the word wrong. Say it. Wrong. It's a stupid word. So I do as much as possible to never put myself in the position of being wrong. Let me clear something up. I'm not the person who thinks she's always right. Confused? Let me explain.

I am not so egotistical to think that I am always right. There are tons of things I have no idea about. Algebra, clueless. Airplane staying in the sky, you got me. Here's what I do. I don't answer unless I know 100% that my answer is the right one. I will not argue any answer unless I know I can prove it. Now that's not to say that I'm not opinionated. I'll give you the hell out of my opinion, but you'll know it's just my opinion from the start. I don't do this to try and come off as smart, or know it all. I do it to save myself the embarrassment of being proven wrong. How can a person who is wrong argue so heatedly when they don't know for sure if they're right? Is it because they are sure, or because they think you will give in to their insistence? My vote's for the latter.

Maybe I'm playing it too safe. Maybe I should argue back when I'm pretty sure *purty* *pretty* what the fuck? Is this right? Is this a word used in conjunction with sure when you are almost sure? Or is this some local slang that just snuck *sneaked* up in my vocabulary? Now it's telling me snuck is wrong. Did I make snuck up? Sneak, snuck. Sneaked just sounds dumb. But you know what? I'm gonna look all this up, and when someone says "I'm pretty sure snuck is wrong", I'll have the right answer to both.

Monday, July 12, 2010

For Eul, not Yul

Helpless people bug the shit out of me. Please don't ever let me be the person that can't set the time on a random electronic device. Given instructions I can pretty much assemble anything. Youtube has a video for everything. Now I'm not saying I want to do it, I'm just saying I could if no one else is going to.

My Aunt Eul (pronounced yule, like yuletide, or Yul Brynner, and maybe my dad made me watch one too many westerns and that's why I know who Yul Brenner is and why every time I say Eul/Yul I feel the need to hum this tune Magnificent Seven Theme Song is a prime example of this at 86. Don't let the age fool you, she's been helpless from birth. Everyone should have an Aunt Eul. I've said this on more than one occasion, and those that don't are truly missing out.

She is the funniest person I know that has no idea that everything out of her mouth is funny. For one thing she can't remember the name to anything. She will however come up with an alternate that you will be able to figure out if you still have your secret decoder ring from 1985. She calls me up the other day and tells me she wants to go eat at USA Today. Obviously she did not mean to eat at the newspaper, unless she wanted to swipe some reporters lunch. My mind immediately started going through the list of what the hell she could be referring to and finally settled on a local place by the name of Crawfish Town USA. So I translated for her and she says of course that's what she meant. It takes years of practice to learn what she may be talking about.

She's also a hoarder. Not like the kind that they have on tv, no this is more like super preparedness. If there is a toilet paper shortage at your local Wal-Mart, you can bet that Aunt Eul is the reason behind this. She has a closet just for toilet paper. She lives alone. How much can one person need? Nightgowns are another rabid obsession for her. I swear she has 200. Silk, cotton, poly, rayon, flannel, printed, solid, long sleeves, short sleeves, sleeveless, short, long, mid length, you name it. The best part is that I do most of her shopping for her and the sales clerks are always giving me pitiful looks and are not buying that this floral patterned tent is actually for my great aunt. I'm pretty sure Prescriptives brand makeup went under because they were tired of manufacturing toner. I swear I bought 500 bottles of that toner for her. The women would see me coming and start emptying the counter. Yet, I've never seen it laying around her house. Probably selling out her back door.

The last best thing about Aunt Eul are her compliments. Just yesterday I went over to drop something off, probably a nightgown, she asked about my dress.

Her: (absolute first thing out of her mouth) How much did you pay for that dress?

Me: Twenty bucks! (proud because I thought it was a great deal on such a cute dress)

Her: Oh good, it doesn't look worth more than that. (making a scrunchy face like I stunk)

My hair is another thing she won't edit herself on. It's curly. She likes it curly. I pay stupid amounts of money on occasion to have it straightened. Here's how that goes.

Her: (shrieking) What did you do to your hair!!??

Me: I straightened it. You don't like it?

Her: God no, it looks ugly. (more faces like I stink)


So if you ever need a good game of clue, toilet paper, toner, nightgowns or insults, get yourself an Aunt Eul she's awesome.