Saturday, March 28, 2009

Bad Dog

I babysat my neighbor's dog this morning while she took care of her mother, who hasn't been doing so hot. This is sad, because her mother, like my neighbor, is absolutely hilarious. My favorite quip from her today at lunch regarding Audubon Zoo: "Well, in my day they had dinosaurs in cages."

Unfortunately, my neighbor has pretty much the worst dog in the world. It's not that she hasn't tried, she has. He's just one of those dogs that is about 80 pounds of solid muscle, insane, and eats cheese that hasn't even been unwrapped.

I like to think of myself as Chip's fun aunt. Today I became Chip's-Not-So-Fun-Aunt-Who-Is-Generous-With-Application-of-Alumni-Magazine-to-Canine-Backside.

I realized what it must be like when you're a parent and you're put in the awkward position of having to discipline your kid's crappy friend. Like you welcome him into your home, give him oreos, and the next thing you know you're driving home from work and the little brat and your child have almost blown up your house because brat wanted to use gasoline to draw a pentagram in your driveway and then light it on fire. Except the bad kid is also humping your own kids, and they're not too impressed.

So. I thought, despite my neighbor's harrowing dog discipline stories (which I thought were exaggerated), I would be able to handle it. Not true.

Here is what he managed to do in the span of the first ten minutes he came over for a visit:

1. He peed on the jasmine at the bottom of my stairs.

2. He managed to leap on top of my stove (thankfully not on) and topple my dishrack (thankfully empty).

3. He ate all of my dogs' food, drank all of their water and then proceeded to slobber it all over my kitchen.

4. He jumped on me while I was cleaning and tore my back pocket out.

5. He knocked my little dog down the steep stairs to my apartment.

6. He peed on the jasmine at the top of my stairs.

7. He ate a bunch of potting soil and promptly puked it up on my just cleaned kitchen floor.

7. He started to lift his leg up to squirt on my kitchen cart, and when I caught him in the act, the motherfucker rolled his eyes at me.

My neighbor came back over to find her dog trussed to the post at the bottom of my stairs with three leashes so he could not move and fuck anything else up. I bet she's still laughing.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Ass Hat (IV)

Today an email from the exact same trampoline guy:

"I'll give you $20 for it."

That's it. No explanation.

I'm all for starting an Ass Hat website. As a first step, I'm having a contest for the person who can make the best picture of someone self-important wearing an ass on their head for my header. The more retro, the better.

The prize?

A trampoline.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Ass Hat (III)

The guy who's been torturing me about every little trampoline detail finally proceeded as predicted to attempt to bargain with me.

"I'll give you 15 for it," he says.

"That works for me," I say. "When would you like to pick it up?"

Not a word. I guess he thought transport was included.

Ass Hat.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Door

My office door has become the bane of my very existence. Despite having had the building manager and repair crew up twice to fix it, and a Catholic priest to exorcise any resident demons, the door will simply NOT stay open. This makes it difficult for me to leave my door open and appear "available" and "social," which is kind of important when you work in such a people-oriented field.

Maybe my door has picked up on the fact that I always feel slightly embarrassed that I know pretty much every detail of how the secretary-who-occasionally-sits-at-the-cubicle-in-front-of-my-office's mother is dying. Or kind of annoyed by it, because, yeah, your mother's dying, but do you have to yammer about it so loudly on the phone while I'm working on this brief?

Of course, the self-closing door does have the bonus of discouraging social "hoverers" when I am in the middle of an important project. Or surfing through youtube to find cool stuff to post on my facebook account. I need my concentration, people.

The eeriest part about the self-closing door is its penchant to slam shut on any partner like a Venus flytrap. This has not gone unnoticed. I am secretly paranoid that the partners who have experienced this phenomenon have grouped together to discuss whether I have telekinetic powers, and if so, how this will affect the firm's healthcare plan.

One partner actually has taken the pro-active step of calling the building people for me, to use his weight for urgent door repairs. It was appreciated, even if it did remind me of the fact I am but a minnow on the legal food chain.

My bosses all have different ways of dealing with the Little Shop of Horrors door. One partner just gently taps it back into position with one hand while drinking a coke with another. Another leans against it Sears catalogue style. One of the others has actually figured out that if he comes in my office, the door problem can be avoided altogether, but I feel sorry for him because then he has to look at my dying plant and smell the remnants of my at-desk lunch. Did I mention that my office is not really aesthetically pleasing because I have never bothered to decorate it? Considering its position at the entryway onto our floor, perhaps my door is closing out of a sense of courtesy to passerby.

The worst was this partner who actually started hitting and kicking it while telling me a story. Then it would rebound and it was hard to pay attention to what he was saying because I kept anticipating it hitting him violently on the head and him crumpling to the floor, a bloody mess with a violent concussion while I had the inappropriate reaction to laugh hysterically while giving him first aid, because it WOULD be kind of funny. Laywer downed by malicious door.

At least we'd know who to sue.

You'd better watch it, door.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Fitness

In a weird fitness phase I went through a couple of years ago, I was really interested in "rebounding" - that is doing aerobics on a trampoline, not moving from boyfriend to boyfriend in quick succession. I've done the latter, and it's not good for your health.

Anyway, I purchased a "jogging trampoline" which is now gathering dust under my bed. Lately, I've really been into getting rid of stuff (like garlic roasters and other really really specifically tasked kitchen appliances), so I thought I'd sell the thing on Craigslist for, like, $20. Really quite a bargain because you can fold it to store.

(I actually plan on just having whoever buys it come and pick it up from outside of my door when I am at work and leaving the check in the mailbox because 1) I don't want any financial interaction with strangers; and 2) I don't really care if they pay for it or not as long as it's going to a home where someone wants it.)

So, I put up an ad that said something like: "Good trampoline, cheaper than a treadmill." Astoundingly, I have gotten only one bite. Here is how the email exchange has gone thus far.*

Him: Is the trampoline still available?

Me: Yes.

Him: How big is it?

Me: It's five feet across.

Him: Is it round?

Me: Yes.

Him: Can you jog in place on it.

Me: Yes. It's mostly a jogging trampoline. I used to jog on it, then I got a treadmill <-----(complete lie and why stranger will not enter home to check)

Him: But you can jump on it as well?

Me: Yes.

And that's it so far. I would think this were even more hilarious if he were fucking with me. But I sense that he is not. I bet he's going to try to bargain next, and I hope he doesn't think I devalue my beloved trampoline enough to just leave it outside in hopes that someone will get it and leave 20 bucks in my mailbox.

*Also, it should be mentioned that according to his e-mail, he is an employee of Louisiana's Department of Education. Which explains a lot.

Love/Hate

As it seems that my first two series, entitled "Elevators" and "Ass Hat Awards" aren't really getting me anywhere, here is a new and slightly more generic (thus, hopefully more prolific) theme.

Things I love, and yet hate.

First in our series, inspired by the lovely Rachel:

Canadians.

I love that Canadians are so non-violent.

Yet I hate that they're so violently smug about it.

I love when Canadians end sentences with "eh?"

Yet I hate when "Eh?" is the entire sentence.

I love that Canadians have universal health care.

Yet I hate when I am forced to be exposed to their universal health care while in Canada. Because it sucks a fat one.

I love that Canadians are proud to wear their flag everywhere.

Yet I hate that they do this so to not be identified as Americans.

I love when Canadians point out that they burned down the White House in some random battle in the early 19th Century.

Yet I hate when Canadians forget that they were not actually doing that as an autonomous nation.

I love Strange Brew.

Yet I hate Canadian Bacon.

I once loved a Canadian boy.

Yet I hate him now. In retrospect, he was kind of a hoser.

I love that Canadians have the expression "hoser."

Yet I hate the fact that I can't use that expression without having to explain it.*

*I think it's important, in the spirit of international diplomacy, to end on a positive note.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Morality

I am hardly the world's most moral or socially appropriate person, but oh dear lord how I love this guy for making me feel like Mother Theresa on valium. Thanks dear ex-prez for volunteering to take my place in line for hell. I hear it's nice this time of year.

Highlights emboldened.

Bush refuses to criticize Obama in Canada
Published: 3/17/09, 9:27 PM EDT
By ROB GILLIES

CALGARY, Alberta (AP) - Former President George W. Bush said on Tuesday that he won't criticize Barack Obama because the new U.S. president "deserves my silence," and said he plans to write a book about the 12 toughest decisions he made in office. Bush declined to critique the Obama administration in his first speech since leaving office in January. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has said that Obama's decisions threatened America's safety.

"I'm not going to spend my time criticizing him. There are plenty of critics in the arena," Bush said. "He deserves my silence."

Bush said he wants Obama to succeed and said it's important that he has that support. Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has said he hoped Obama would fail.

"I love my country a lot more than I love politics," Bush said. "I think it is essential that he be helped in office."


The invitation-only event titled a "Conversation with George W. Bush" attracted close to 2,000 guests who paid $3,100 per table. Bush received two standing ovations from the predominantly business crowd.

About 200 protested outside the event; four of them were arrested. Some protesters threw shoes at an effigy of Bush, and one carried a sign calling him a war criminal.

Bush is unpopular in Canada but less so in oil-rich Alberta, the country's most conservative province and one sometimes called the Texas of the north.

"This is my maiden voyage. My first speech since I was the president of the United States and I couldn't think of a better place to give it than Calgary, Canada," Bush said.

The event's organizers declined to say how much Bush was paid to speak at the gathering.

Bush said that he doesn't know what he will do in the long term but that he will write a book that will ask people to consider what they would do if they had to protect the United States as president.

He said it will be fun to write and that "it's going to be (about) the 12 toughest decisions I had to make."

"I'm going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there's an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened," Bush said.


"I want people to understand what it was like to sit in the Oval Office and have them come in and say we have captured Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, the alleged killer of a guy named Danny Pearl because he was simply Jewish, and we think we have information on further attacks on the United States," Bush said.

Bush didn't specify what the 12 hardest decisions were but said Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.

Bush was also full of jokes during his appearance. He joked that he would do more speeches to pay for his new house in Dallas.

"I actually paid for a house last fall. I think I'm the only American to have bought a house in the fall of 2008," he quipped.
He also said his mother is doing well. Barbara Bush was released from a Houston hospital Friday, nine days after undergoing heart surgery. "Clearly he can't live without her," Bush said of his father and former President George H.W. Bush.

Bush seemed to enjoy himself even though the event started a half later than expected because of tight security. "I'll sit here all day," Bush said during a question-and-answer session. "I'm flattered people even want to hear me in the first place."

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Math

Dear Geeks,

It has recently come to my attention that many of you think it an extraordinarily clever thing to label March 14th as "Pi Day." This has made it into countless facebook stati. There have even been some of you clever enough to have made pies, even though even a blind person reading brail can tell you there's 33.3~% more letters in pie, so it's not the same thing at all and if you want to bake a pie just make one. No one actually cares why you made it. They're just nodding so you will give them another slice.

I am surprised that given your apparent mathematical acuity, this need for precision escapes you. I, my friends, am infinite. That is my glory. I stretch and stretch and there's even some math bee out in the Midwest where home-schooled kids can come and vie to be the cowlicked child who can remember the most numbers after the decimal. And none of them have really done it justice, because I think they only have a maximum of three days to get all the numbers they can remember out. A true winner would still be chanting all my digits as we speak. But then he would die so ... there's really not a lot of point to those things anyway. Except keeping home-schooled kids away from drugs. And, more importantly, other non-home-schooled kids.

Anyway, back on point. Let me show you something. 3/14. There's a slash there. No decimals. Even if I indulge you and put the decimal in to be nice, it still looks like this. 3.14. Three~measly~numbers. Is that infinity? I don't think so.

Please stop publicizing these gross characterizations of me being the same as a date. Also, the calendar is Roman and am Greek. And 3 and 1 and 4 are Arabic numbers. I am not sure in what way you could offend me more. I hope you will be more considerate of my feelings in the future.

Sincerely,

Irish

I was going to have a quiet day today, seeing as for some odd reason I drank a couple of bottles of wine last night by myself after passing off my "Hip-hopping for the Handicapped" tix, and found myself stumbling to Miss Mae's to buy a pack of cigarettes and not very long after that continuously taking 5 minute "breaks" from my drunken phone conversation with my lurver to make myself vomit the entire contents of my stomach so the room would stop spinning when I laid on my bed.

Thank god I was in a sorority and could learn the delicate gift of making oneself puke up all alcohol at the end of the evening so as to avoid a serious hangover. I have a very special technique for fast and efficient results, but unfortunately I can't share it because some stupid pre-teen will think it's a technique for vomiting up food rather than toxic substances. And then I'll get sued. But I can offer the hint to not wait until the toxic substance has left your stomach because there's no getting it back after that point. I've known people who have mastered this technique so well they can actually empty and refill several times in the same evening. They are truly gifted.

But anyway, I got dragged out to see NOLA's annual St. Paddy's Day Parade in the Irish Channel. I could NOT care less for the St. Paddy's Day Parade because it's a lot like Mardi Gras, except worse because it's purely locals and pretty much everyone in New Orleans is an alcoholic. And they're not even those awesome kinds of alcoholics that can drink and drink and drink and never get quite drunk. They're more like frat-boy alcoholics and it only gets worse as the day goes on.

Last year I walked over and caught the tail end of the parade, and I kid you not, it was like being in the middle of a fucking military coup. People were lying all over Magazine Street passed out in their own puke (obviously ignorant of trick, supra)), people fighting for no reason and screaming, and mooning each other. At one point a riot police van drove down the street and people from a second story bar just started pegging it with beer bottles. And then they just started pegging beer bottles at other moving objects, like people. And then some anonymous fucker pegged me in the head with a potato, and that was the point where I decided it was either go home or hate human beings forever.

And then after all that, on the way home all these boys kept stopping me because I was "Irish" and since I get this a lot since I am very white I said "I'm not Irish" and then they'll say "What's your name?" and I'll have to make up a non-Irish sounding name like "Hezebiah" because my real name is the fucking Gaelic name for Ireland. But then one guy was all like "Can I kiss you? I want to kiss an Irish girl today." He was slurring so much that HE kind of sounded Irish. So, I just repeated that I wasn't Irish and I also have mouth herpes, so that was the end of that.

This year was much the same except I actually saw the parade. The one bonus is that the throws are much better than Mardi Gras throws. I got a pack of Ramen noodles. See, those are useful. If another hurricane ever sweeps through this city and I am stuck in my house avoiding armed rioters, would I be able to eat my Mardi Gras beads? No. I'd probably have to eat the ramen dry and like swish the spice pack around in my mouth or something. But still better than beads made in China with a potentially hazardous level of lead content.

So, I'm home now.

The funny part about the Irish Channel in New Orleans is that it's like 75% black. Most of the reason for that is that the houses are cheaper in that area and all got left behind when the schools integrated and whitey decided to head up the road to Chalmette, which is a very scary place. HUD also built the projects there, which is interesting because what better encouragement for underprivileged minorities to pursue self-sustainability than by placing them in a neighborhood named after a nationality who is very fond of the "n" word. And I'm not talking about using it in rap songs. But it's all okay, really, because people on welfare just love irony. That's why on the thankfully few occasions I have to speak to them I use a lot of sarcasm. They like it.

Walking back from this mossy-colored melee, I stopped in to a little Chinese take-out place, which is not great but is handy. In front of me, a stick thin woman wearing rollers was having an argument with the guy about how expensive the Combo meal was. I agree that $10.35 IS expensive, but buck it up. I pay like $13.00 for lunch everyday because that's how much a salad and a smoothie costs and god help me if I want yogurt in the smoothie. But I decided not to tell her that because I don't really know what it's like to have to live off of welfare, or the crack pipe, and she kind of looked like she had both of those going on at once, which was making her poorer than richer. So, she finally gives up and changes her mind and I almost think of cheering her up with a comment like "Yeah, probably a little cheap for your tastes," but she's already out the door and I don't feel like running after her. Also, I might feel bad for and end up buying her dinner. And $10.35's kind of frigging expensive for a first date with a crack whore.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Movement

In the spirit of blogworld, I feel it is only fair to let everyone know that this entry will not be about my bowels.

Sorry.

Rather, I'd like to talk about how absolutely annoyed I get when I have to stop the car to do something. Like get gas. Or get the dogs out to pee. Or get myself out to pee. Actually, with some finangling all of the above can be accomplished at once, and usually without too much police involvement, so that's not really the issue.

Ok, you know that saying about "the journey being half the destination" or the "journey being the destination" or the "destination is actually the journey" or "fuck the destination, all I want IS the journey"?* That saying is so my life philosophy.

I don't like to stop and smell the roses. The first reason is because a lot of other people have probably been jamming their noses into said flowers with nasal drip and I don't want to share. The second is that there are plenty more roses where those came from. Seriously, when have you ever encountered a "rose shortage"? I'm sure should I ever decide to follow your sage advice there will be plenty for me to smell. I'll probably buy my own though, just in case.

When I'd make the semi-annual journey from France into Prague (and vice-versa) I'd take this 14 hour long overnight journey on a bus. It was actually a lot cheaper, faster and nicer than a train - I recommend it. It was always the same bus, with the same slightly mafiaesque looking drivers. And it made the same stops.

Halfway through our journey, we'd stop at some exit off of the German highway, and everyone would get off the bus. This was always at about 2:30 in the morning, and at that point (depending on the direction) I would suddenly awake and question (Paris to Prague) "Why am I still dating this guy?" or (Prague to Paris) "Why do I like this guy so damned much?"**

So, I'd wake up with this jolt of panic and self-doubt and existentialism, which I usually attribute to a seizure without all the weird burning smells and the bus would be stopped. I mean, it wouldn't be moving at all. There we would be, at some rest stop in Germany in the middle of the night and no one seems like they want to get back on the bus and get going. And you think "God! It's only Germany for fuck's sake! Nothing to see here people. Move along." And you start willing them to be magnetically attracted to the bus until their wills give in and they start clambering in.

It's at this point you start remembering that there are in fact some very nice things about Germany, like lots of streetcleaning, beer, and easy access to concentration camps to make you feel bad about being so whiny. And you also realize that you kind of have to go now that you've woken up. But that's the point where the bus driver puts out his fiftieth cigarette and cranks her up. And your soul settles back into complacency as the bus moves on.

I have suffered great disappointment ending almost in tears when I thought my train was finally moving out of the station only to realize it was an optical illusion and only those lucky bastards in the next train were escaping to their next destination (a journey). I have banged my head hard enough to bring bruises when I am stuck in traffic. I do not like to stop when I am in things designed to move.

And one of those things is me.

*Sorry to paraphrase, but I really only got that from a school poster that some friends and I stole when we smoked too many clove cigarettes, and then we drew some testicles on it or maybe it was a butt, because they kind of look the same when you are wielding the Sharpie that SOME of you (present company excluded) might have been huffing and then stuffed into a dumpster.

**The Paris to Prague was my last bus journey and probably why we are no longer still together.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Rejection

My preoccupation with the goings-on in facebook land are occasionally tantamount to my granddad's obsession with daytime television. Both involve a lot of projection of our own desires, fears, and paranoias onto the lives of virtual strangers. The only difference is that the film quality is a little better on facebook. And I don't talk to it. At least not so far.

I like to think of myself as a fearless woman who couldn't give a bird's poop about what other people think of her. This is why, for example, I have no trouble saying callous, hurtful, and inappropriate things in refined social situations while I am "networking." However, I've come to realize that this pooh-poohing of others' opinions is not true, and not only because of the Tourettes diagnosis.

Yes, sadly there will always be a little part of me that will still be bitter about the day I scratched my nose a little too intensely in sixth grade and all those kids started calling me "Ms. Gilbooger" and saying that I was eating boogers and I wasn't. I mean who eats boogers when you can put them on a plywood board and threaten to touch your younger sibling with them while they're sleeping like my deranged Uncle David liked to do to my father. But whatever, those kids were stupid.

Except now all the stupid kids want to be my facebook friends, and out of a sense of munificence (brought on mostly by the fact I am a big-time attorney and their job description is "my husband is a plumber which gives me the flexibility to be a full-time mom") I have agreed to their proposals. But which unfortunately ensued in annoying little griefs that I thought I had left fah fah behind.

The first came from this bitchy cheerleader girl. I remember two very important things about this girl. The first is that she had disproportionately large calves. The second, and most important, is that she told people I had lost my virginity at a party on someone's back porch swing. That last part is not true, and in fact not even believable since most adolescents can barely get it together enough for missionary style, much less moving surfaces. Anyway, she dated an ex of mine and they pretty much both hated me, and really, the story should end there. And indeed, I had long buried it until she "friended" me.

She then offered what appeared to be the peace pipe in the form of a "message" wherein she told me I looked beautiful, that she was amazed at my travels and how she always knew that I'd be a success (?). She then offered info in the form of having kids and invited me to look at her kid photo album. Okay, so I did because I knew she was looking for me to write back and say "Hey, you're also a success because someone put a penis in your vagina and nine months later things came out that can breathe. And they're adorable!" But I looked at ol' Ray-Lynne and Dewayne and I knew that I would hate myself forever if I ever in any way praised their aesthetic value. And yet I also hated the fact that it seemed like she had really tried and yet, there I was, being all petty. So, I hemmed and hawed and then noticed about a week later that she had "defriended" me. And to add insult to injury commented on another mutual "friend's" status that "her status wasn't as witty as some show-offs we know."

Okay, this is actually pretty funny but I am so sick and tired of people who don't respect what should be the cardinal rule of facebook. If you "friend" someone, you do not get to defriend them unless that person really wrongs you in some horrible way. Like kicking your dog. Or sucking as your partner in a clinic. But really, was I chasing you down? No. You wanted me, and you don't get to decide that you don't want me anymore. Or something.

Yeah, that didn't really make much sense. What I meant to say is: Fuck you. And Ray Lynne and Dewayne. And my only regret is that I didn't make that into my witty status for that day.

The second happened a little more recently and involves a girl I may or may not know. We have mutual "friends" but she doesn't look familiar except as a girl who may or may not have been in my math class (and of that I can't be sure because I spent most of my math classes absolutely panicking at the thought that numbers would ultimately be the downfall of me getting into a good college and the hell away from this redneck town). But, whatever ... accept, accept. Then the other day I logged on to find that she had nominated me as "most likely to come on too strong."

What the fuck? I don't even remember this girl, and yet somehow my encounters with her seem to have left such an impression that 13 years later she needs to put out just how over-the-top I was. I'll admit that I had a panache for getting myself in trouble (the strip poker in the hotel with the Beta Club president comes to mind, but we were just faking it, and when he leaned out the hotel room when you stupid people knocked he was only naked from the waist up for fuck's sake). I'll admit that at times it may have appeared that I was on more drugs than I actually was on. And maybe I didn't need to be so enamoured with Tori Amos that I also dyed my hair red. But you are not allowed to friend someone who hardly deigns to know you and take advantage of their goodwill by blessing them with a superlative that makes it sound like I hang out with a cloud of aftershave engulfing those around me as I lean into their personal space and make kissing noises. Fuck you also.

Wait, maybe I don't actually care. Maybe these ruminations are more of an effort for me to get inspired to blog more often. Except now I'm convinced that a colleague hates my guts. But then again, she's the type of person that's so uptight, when she reads microwave instructions that say "make a 1" slit on the top" she probably gets out the ruler. So, I don't really care what she thinks.

Or do I? Did I mention she had the nerve to defriend me at one point? After SHE friended ME?

Duh duh DUH!!!!!

Monday, March 9, 2009

Creativity

I haven't been blogging much because I kind of fell in lurv and a good part of my internet time has been spent researching sex positions. Actually, a lot of my work time, bath time, bed time and even dog walking time has been spent doing that as well. Such is lurv.

I also haven't been bloggin' lately because my only real exposure to people (with the exception of my lurver) has been those people who don't get my jokes, and I don't like being around those people because then I have to turn into serious girl, and apparently I have this very prominent worry muscle that only goes away when I drink. Or have sex.

I dread being serious. I am not even serious in court. Sometimes opposing counsel does something so ridiculous that I snort laughter, and then I have to start making it sound like an asthma attack so I look like the kind of person who respects the decorum of the court even though I spend most of time imagining what the judge looks like in a string bikini. Or wondering if I have something in my teeth.

On that note, NOTHING irritates me more than a so-called friend who neglects to inform you that you have something stuck in your teeth. My teeth seem to cage every scrap of food imaginable, most of it green. A favorite trap is the area between my front teeth and my teeth next to the front teeth (whatever they're called). I can't tell you how many fucking times I've had to go to this fancy business lunch or something and no one had the kindness to maybe hint that I had something stuck. Hey! Spinach is good for me and I need to eat it. If you don't tell me that there's something in my teeth, it's giving me a reason not to eat it. Then I'll get malnutrition and die and it will all be your fault.

Anyway, since no one's very helpful on this score and retreating to the bathroom is not always an option, my new method is talking with my upper lip curled around my upper teeth. This makes articulation somewhat difficult, but I usually don't have much to say at these things anyway since a novice lawyer is sort of like those kids in puritan times that were supposed to be seen and not heard, except that I don't even want to be seen since my teeth might have some anemones parked in them or something.

Ok, so there are a few friends who have proven their worth by letting me know - probably because I'm always the first friend to point out that their fly is down. Not that I'm a crotch starer or anything. But telling someone their fly is down is much harder than the teeth thing because you have to admit that some part of you is attracted to the vision of an open zipper and you have to tell yourself it's just that and not the fact that you may/may not be attracted to your best girl friend and will always remember the delicious afternoon you made your Barbie dolls do things that wooden puppets were not nearly nimble enough to do.

For crying out loud, teeth clearing hopefully does not give people the feeling that they are repressing homosexual tendencies (although maybe it should). But for those helpful folk, please make sure when you tell me which crevice the offending object is stuck in, you do it as my mirror image. Meaning if the spinach is stuck left, show me right. Don't do the opposite and get all exasperated when I keep digging in the other side and then baring my teeth at your questioningly. Remember, helping a friend clear her dentals sometimes involves being an aerobics instructor. It may feel weird having to do it the other way, but it's for everyone's benefit.

Misnomer

I know I'm probably setting myself up for yet more jeering from those of you who like handicapped people, but I am actually attending an event this Friday with the unfortunate title "Dancing for Dystrophy."

Unfortunate because those fuckers rejected the pretty sweet suggestion of calling the event "Rubbing it In." I just feel like that has a much more positive feel.

My only fear is that real handicapped people might actually be there clogging up the dance floor with their wheelchairs and shit so I can't bust out my hot ambulatory moves. But there's a free bar, so that should kill the pain. As long as there's not a handicapped space in front of the bar, 'cause then things are gonna get nasty.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Handicapped

There is nothing that steams me up more when I am in a hurry in a crowded parking lot then to have to see three pristine handicapped parking spaces with no one using them. And then, after finally finding a spot somewhere down the street to see people with handicapped stickers parked right up front in a non-handicapped space.

This is entirely unfair, and I for one am not going to take it anymore.

The ratio of handicapped accessible things to the number of actual handicapped people is absolutely abominable. Do my tax dollars really need to pay for you to make it up that ramp to pick up your prescriptions from Walgreen's? I don't think so. Why don't you send that nurse of yours or something? I'm sure she'd be happy to get away from your handicapped ass for a few minutes because it probably makes her feel all guilty that she can walk and everything. I know being around handicapped people makes me feel that way and that is why I avoid it.

Also, if people are really unable to walk from a parking lot to a store, should they really be driving? I call bullshit on this baloney handicapped business. They get ramps and elevators and those chairs that go up the stairs. And let's not forget those awesome grocery carts. Enough is enough. Soon they'll actually be wanting me to move out of their way so they can get down the hospital corrider.

If handicapped people park in MY non-handicapped space, they should get a ticket.

How's that for fair treatment?