Susie is keen to know 5 weird things about me. Weird? Me? Just how am I supposed to narrow this down to five?! Okay, here goes...
1. I clean the toilet seat before I park my keister on it. Every time. No matter where I am, even my own bathroom that (ostensibly) nobody but me uses. This started as self defense. I live with three boys who have questionable aim and are all vertically challenged. Safety first.
2. When I stir coffee I move my hand instead of my fingers so the spoon stays perfectly vertical.
3. I drink milk with every meal. Okay, not every meal - occassionally it isn't available. But, if it is available, I'm drinking it. Others will complement their prime rib with a fine wine and their wings with a beer. Not me. For me it's milk at every meal.
4. I devour books. I take a book like a Viking raider. Broken spines, folded pages, split sections, cracked bindings...when I'm done with a book it looks like it has aged a decade. This is the main reason I love having my own books. I can't properly read a book that belongs to somebody else because I have to treat it like some virgin wallflower. Feh.
5. ??? You tell me. Points awarded for my best weird habits reported here in the comments. One each for actual ones I've reported to y'all over the years, bonus points for the best previously unknown* weirdities.
* i.e. real ones I never released here or ones that are simply made up.
Blue Velvet: On a scale from 1 to 10, this movie ranks as "Some seriously fucked up shit".
Welcome Christmas
While we stand
Heart to heart
And hand in hand
This year's naughty level is about 40%.
I don't like going to the doctor. It irked me when I was a kid, and it hasn't gotten any irkless since then. The horribly stupid, ironic thing is that I work in a hospital. What an idiot.
I went to the eye doctor today. I say eye doctor because I'm not sure if it was an opthamologist or an optometrist. He was, though, a bit of a prick; and because of that, I now have a combative relationship with someone who I'm supposed to trust my health with.
I walk into the office and fill out all the requisite paperwork for first-time patients. I turn it in and they call me back to the room. I sit in one of those big scary fucking chairs. It's got a lamp, a series of painful-looking implements, and something that looks to me like a face harness. I have no idea what it's for, but I hope they don't use it on me.
The medical assistant asks me a series of questions. No, I'm not suffering any symptoms, just want to get a prescription. I have no idea if I'm allergic to medicines, I don't take any. I have no idea if anyone in my family has glaucoma, because I never pay attention to anything they say. Diabetes? You can get diabetes in your eyes?
Then she says "I'm going to give you the glaucoma test." Great, sounds like fun; where do I stick my dick? "But don't worry, it's not the puff of air anymore. Let me give you these numbing eyedrops." I hate eyedrops. When something gets in my eyes, it's painful and it makes this throbbing noise in my head. However, it's got to be better than getting air shot into my eyeball; and it's sure as shit got to be better than having glaucoma.
I let her give me the drops, after which I cringe and snicker a little bit. "Did they sting?" No. Bitch you just put some shit in my eyes, what do you expect me to do, ask for seconds? But she was right, it wasn't as bad as the puff of air. Of course, unbeknownst to me she hadn't finished the damn test yet.
See, the reason she gave me the numbing eyedrops was so she could poke me in the eyeball with a stick. Yes, in these modern times, we've graduated from simply puffing air at peoples eyes to poking them with a fucking stick. She does so repeatedly until the stick beeps, then does the same with the other eye. I continue to snort and snicker a little.
"Everything okay?" Jesus woman, it's 8:30 in the AM and you've already put shit in my eyes, and poked them with some strange beeping implement. When do we get to try out the fucking face harness? Course, I never say a word to her, she's just doing her job. Her sadistic fucking craphole of a job.
After all this wonderful stuff, she asks me if I want to get dialated. I wasn't sure which opening in my body she was going to dialate, but I assume it was my eyes. No matter what, it doesn't really sound like fun, and I can only imagine what tool she'll pull from her medieval arsenal. "Nah, just need a prescription."
"Are you sure? We usually recommend our patients do it once a year."
I'm sure you do, you crazy, torturous madwoman. "No. It's really okay, I'm just here to get a new prescription for my glasses."
"Alright, the doctor will be in too see you soon."
I wait for an eternity. It must've been a good twenty minutes, during which I rode the chair all the way to the top (it had buttons on it) and back down several times, played around with a few magnifying glasses, and actually took a few hits off the eye drop bottles - nasal spray style. What a rush.
The doctor comes in and starts giving me shit about not wanting to get my pupils dialated. I don't argue with him, because doctors scare the shit out of me. As long as he's not lubing up his finger, I'll do whatever he asks. So, he tilts my head back and commences with a series of three drops in each eye. About halfway through the first eye, he can tell I hate eye drops. Which, it doesn't seem to matter to him - he just grabs my eyelid with his thumb and holds my head back. Yay.
Eventually I wrestle free of Dr. Fuckface's grip, and dab my profusely tearing eyes with a napkin. "I'll be back in about twenty minutes." Fuck you buddy. He flips the lights off and leaves the room before I have a chance to kick him in the balls.
Another eternity passes. But I'm not sure how long it lasted because I couldn't see anything. I started to get hungry too. I hadn't planned on this whole ordeal taking more than a half hour, and I'd already been here just over an hour. Or so I thought. It was like being in a French prison - no light, can't see, hungry as hell, never knowing when the next torture session would start. I consider phoning someone to come get me, but everyone went to the airport to pick up my brother. Solitary confinement.
The doc comes back a while later. At this point I can see, but if anything gets too close, it starts to get blurry. Unfortunately for that doc (who I'm certain must have been a prison gaurd in his former years), I've got great reach. The doctor grabs a flashlight and a magniying glass and begins running me through ocular calisthenics. "Look straight up. Look up and to the right, look right, look down and to the right..." All the while shining this fucking light into my dialated pupil. I'm tearing up again, my eyes are blinking like crazy, and I can hear the blood throbbing. Then he goes for the face harness.
"Place your chin here, and look straight ahead." I do so, he clamps the fucker down on my face, and begins again with the "Look up, etc." routine. What a dillhole, I hope his dick is as rotten and black as his soul.
We go through this for about ten minutes, and then he decides we're done. "Your eyes look just fine!" Well, I'm glad we figured that out. I mean, not like I couldn't have told you that twenty minutes ago; you remember that? Back when I could see straight? Yeah, those were the good ol' days.
"So can I get my prescription now?"
The caption contest is complete!
Grand Prize: 5 points
Fluffy the Hutt was not at *all* pleased when Han Solo had to dump the load of Triskelian Mice he was smuggling.
Victor
First runner up: 3 points (Selected by the price of tea in China.)
Marlon Brando proving that re-incarnation is not a myth!
Rob
Second runner up: 2 points (Selected by Santa's elves.)
I swear I had balls when I went to sleep last night, what the f#&% did you sick bastards do with them and what the hell am I supposed to lick now?
phin
Third runner up: 1 point (Selected by Cartman.)
I'm not fat. I'm big-boned.
shank
The rules:
- In the extended entry are quotes from 13 movies. Your job is to identify the movie that each quote came from.
- Guess as many times as you want, just don't get silly about it.
- First person to correctly guess each entry gets a point. If there are any left after 24 hours they are worth 2 points.
- As people guess the films I will strike out those entries and note who got it first.
- NO cheating!!! That means NO: Google, IMDb, searching my archives etc.!
BONUS POINTS: There is a person common to all of these movies; somebody who I'm only two degrees of separation away from. Three bonus points to the first person to correctly identify who it is.
Had an email blasted to everybody in the office this morning. It was from our Executive Fembot Assistant:
Good morning,When utilizing the break room appliances (i.e. toaster) please do not put plastic utensils inside of them.
This can cause a potentially hazardous situation and can result in a fire.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Which led directly to this IM conversation:
CoolyCoo MoDee*: It frightens me that you have to actually tell people this.DeathAngel**: Tell me about it! Would you believe his is the 7th time I have had to remove spoons from the toaster?! What is wrong with these people?
CoolyCoo MoDee: Dropped on the head too often as children, no doubt.
DeathAngel: Can we do that now? What does the HR manual say?
CoolyCoo MoDee: I think it's allowed, as long as you don't say anything sexual or religious while you do it.
HeadDropper: Excellent. That's my new nic.
CoolyCoo MoDee: Um...
To cap it all off, when I went to take a leak I found myself faced with a wall plastered with boogers. I work with fucking pigs. Fucking moron pigs.
* What? It's an affectation.
** Name changed (slightly) to protect the guilty.
I hate it when you say "Merry Christmas" to someone and instead of an equally friendly reply; you get a scowl and any number of possible condescending comments:
"Hmph. I don't celebrate Christmas."
"Whatever, it's all been commercialized anyways."
Some people will even frown and say they're Jewish. Which really confuses me, because being Jewish ain't all that bad, so what's with the frown? But I suppose that's a whole 'nother subject.
A few years back, I came up with my own retort to these folks: "Don't be a dick." Look, if someone comes up to you and says "Happy Cinco de Mayo", non-Mexicans don't scowl and say "Whatever. I'm from Wisconsin." No. You say "Hell yeah! Let's go get some Coronas!" Same with Octoberfest. Granted, I've got German lineage, but my friends still don the lederhosen, eat a bunch of brats, down some Hefeweizen, and occasionally wake up next to a member of the '76 Olympic swim team. Why? Because it's just a fun celebration.
And this applies to us all. I mean, if someone came up to me and was like "Happy Kwanzaa" I'd be like "Thanks." I might even say "Let's go sacrifice some goats!" Just kidding, you kwazee Kwanzaa kids. Oh Christ. At any rate, if someone wishes you a "Happy Whatever" and it's not a holiday you celebrate, try not to be a dick. It only makes you look like a dick. And nobody likes dickotry.
There's this lady at work, Stella, who's probably old enough to be my mom. Apparently, she's a font of marriage wisdom. I'm not sure what makes her think she qualifies, but maybe it has to do with the fact that she's going through a divorce, and her current boyfriend has been so fleeced by his ex-wife that he sleeps on the floor of a single wide. I mean, between the two of them they have like...almost three marraige-worths of advice to hand out, right?
Anyways, she's constantly...berating me about the things that I absolutely have to do or my marriage won't last. I'm saying - it's like a barrage. She's waving her hands around and her eyes are giant dinner plates bulging behind her bifolcals. She's speaking loudly, emphasizing every other word, she should've been a televangelist.
She told me a few months ago that nothing else mattered, as long as I got a luxurious suite for the honeymoon. And draped rose petals all over the floor. And got the nicest bottle of champagne. It was just complete idiocy.
This morning she starts telling me the following:
"Shank, listen me. NOTHING else you do will matter so much as asking her if you can help her out."
"..."
"Around Christmas time, women feel all this pressure. We have to make cookies. It's stupid, but we just have to make cookies!"
I start making a weird, tight lipped grimace. It's because I can't decide if I want to scream or double over in laughter. My options are to start fucking with her, or just sit through this latest episode.
"If you just ask her 'Hey, is there anything I can do?" Even if there's nothing you can do, she'll appreciate it so much. Because the cookies andthepresentsandthedinnersandthecardsit'sallsostressful!"
I decide to commence the mind fuck. "Stella, you got to lay off the cookies."
"I can't."
"Besides, I'm not good at anything so I never ask to help. Furthermore, I would hate for her to actually say she needed some help, because God knows I'm not interested in helping her."
"But you should ask anyways." God, she so self-absorbed I can't even get her to bite at the sarcastic bait I'm throwing at her. Instead, she launches into this story about how her daughter, sick with a cold or something, asked Stella if she could help make cookies. Apparently, it made her day. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Look, if the secret(s) to maintaining a happy, lasting marriage could be codified and boiled down into a few little pearls of wisdom - your ass wouldn't be divorced. If it's just that fucking simple. Look, I got some advice for you. How 'bout, when shit needs cooking or cleaning, whoever has the time does it. How 'bout, when shit is piling up around the house, you take care of that shit together, ya know as a couple, instead of enabling your obviously lazy husband to sit on the couch and watch you work yourself into some kind of Yultide panice attack.
I mean, fuck. If you hate feeling stressed about the obligations of your role in your marriage, maybe you should try changing that role, instead of giving people advice that directly promotes such restrictive gender boundaries...bitch.
They would start on Who-pudding, and rare Who-roast-beast
Which was something the Grinch couldn't stand in the least!
***Update***
It's come to my attention that some people don't realize this is a picture of the pope.
Jen is closing in on her quarter millionth visit. That's almost as many site hits as donuts on Michael Moore's brunch buffet!
Jen's also giving away a bucket to visitor number quarter millionny. Not just any bucket, mind you. Jen's bucket is full of buckety goodness.
She'll be hitting the magic number today. Who will win the goody bucket? Could it be you?
I’m starting to get a lot of emails about Christmas and nary a one has been positive. Christmas stress can be high level.
Trying to live up to past holidays. The huge expense and time commitments. Facing the holidays alone, losing relatives, owning up to failed relationships…it all adds up.
Most of my Christmases have been very good. Some were fantastic. Two of them were train wrecks beyond comprehension.
Some of you may remember this post.
And when I say ‘some of you’ I am referring to the point whores. The vigilant point whores. Here’s how it is:
Write a caption for the picture. Win fabulous prizes!*
The contest will be open until it closes, probably some time on Friday.
* Best caption gets 5 points with another handful thrown around to the rest of the best.
I've been pretty quiet lately so I figured I'd pipe up and let y'all know what's current.
Monday was our seventh wedding anniversary. I took Lovely Wife to the newly opened Georgia Aquarium. Highlights included skipping the 2 hour wait for security by taking advantage of some severely harried guards, smuggling in contraband and drinking beer with lunch. No, those last two aren't related - they sell beer at the aquarium café. Unfortunately they don't sell fish there. They could make a killing if they sold some fish fry. After looking at fish for a couple of hours I was dying to eat one.
Dinner didn't work out as planned. We were out of the aquarium earlier than we expected so we went Christmas shopping. Our travels ended up putting us quite a distance from our target restaurant when the hunger finally hit. We opted for a shorter journey to a different restaurant that we'd been meaning to try. We hunted for it, finally surrendered and called 411 to find it, arrived and found it closed. Closed as in "out of business" closed. That was a bummer. We ended up at our family favorite restaurant.
I'm currently reading A Feast for Crows, a Christmas present from Helen. Helen continues to kick ass in a seriously hardcore way. Thanks, Helen! :-)
I continue to despise taking a crap at work. My bowels tell me that I'll be doing so a bit later this morning. Feh.
The boys visited the dentist. Bear has an extra set of teeth up top that'll need to be removed. He also had two adult teeth coming in but trapped behind a couple of baby teeth that refused to relinquish occupancy. Tooth extraction was scheduled. Over the weekend I offered him $5 if could remove one (it was wiggly) before the big day. He took the challenge, earned himself $5 and saved us $80. The other tooth turned wiggly too so we cancelled the extraction and will let nature take it's course.
Work continues to be demanding. I'm taking over four projects from a coworker who's a bit overloaded. Oddly enough, two of them are ones she took over from me several months ago when my mega project became too demanding.
After Friday I'm off for 10 days in a row. Ten days in a row? Damn, I haven't seen that since high school. To be specific, ten days off and then having a job at the end of it hasn't been seen. Ten days off due to job loss has happened a couple of times.
Dopple-G and his fiance came over last night bearing gifts. The boys were thrilled with their presents and spent the better part of an hour finding plastic toys and bottle caps to wrap up in order to return the favor.
That's about it for the moment. More later. But probably not today.
My buddy Dave has a mother who was once a nun. He comes up to me in the bar the other night, and we start telling each other jokes. You know, you tell one; then the other says "Nonono, I got one for ya." And so on until Dave says, "Okay skippy. I got one for ya. How do you get a nun pregnant?"
I look at Dave. "I honestly don't know dude."
Just once I’d love to hear the chairman say, “And tonight’s secret ingredient is…salt!”
Remember this SnoozePoints™ post from back in June? It's the one where y'all told me what presents you'd like if I won the lottery. I've kept it open pending my buying an actual lottery ticket. I've come to the conclusion that if I haven't purchased a lottery ticket in five and a half months it is pretty unlikely that I'll buy one in the next two weeks. Therefore I say screw the lottery and award the points!
There are seven winners in this contest: two each in three categories (3 points for winner, 1 for the also ran runner up) and the overall best (6 points). Without further ado, here they are:
Category: Real Presents
Winner, RP with a puppy.
Runner up, Rachel Ann with books. Lots of books.
Category: Humorous Gifts
Winner, Phin with porn sheep, evil clown and casual wear.
Runner up, Jeff with a baby buffalo for companionship and sustenance.
Category: Alcohol Related
Winner, Margi with tickets to Atlanta and beer.
Runner up, Simon with beer company stock.
The overall, number one winner
This was a runaway (bouncing) victory. Tiffani, with a boob job.
Congratulations all! With the SnoozePoints™ season coming to a close we've got quite a bit of movement on the back stretch. I'm considering accepting bribes.
The scene: Post dinner, pre-bedtime. Some time during the day the boys had caught an episode of Dora the Explorer
Bear: Daddy! Listen to this! Uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco. That's how to count to five in Spanish.Me: Wow. Pretty good, Bear. Can you go higher?
Bear: Yeah, but I forgot. Can you go higher?
Me: I think so... Six, siete, ocho, nueve, diez. I'm much better in French.
Bear: Cool! Tell me in French!
Me: Un, dous, trois, quatre, senq, six, septe, huit, neuf, dix.
Bear: Wow. Can you speak in any other languages?
Me: Just cuss words mostly, but I'm fluent in Canadian*.
Bear: Can you teach me how to speak Canadian?
Me: No problem. Just say whatever you want in English but pronounce it like a question and add an "eh" at the end. Like this: It's getting close to bed time, eh?
Bear: Can I watch TV in bed, eh?
Me: Not quite. They don't use questions since every sentence is a question anyway. Rephrase that question as a statement but state it like a question.
Bear: I'll watch some TV in bed, eh?
Me: Much better! And the answer is no.
Bear: That really sucks, eh?
Me: You're a natural! Now take off hoser, eh?
* I joke about Canada because it's...Canada. Serious though, I love Canada. It's one of my favorite states.
Last night I found this true story about the worst Christmas party I ever attended. In the end I triumphed. Sort of. It was dated December 2003 and I’ve no idea if I ever posted it or not. Reflecting back on those days, a case could certainly be made that I was an asshole.
”White House Hosts American Proctology Association”
But you’ll never beat mine.
With all the brouhaha about Christmas displays this year, here is a change in pace:
Murderous Santa display outside Manhattan mansion draws stares
Jason, Michael, and Freddy meet Santa, anyone?
