And I laugh hysterically every time. Just thinking about it will make me laugh.
Best Drummer Ever – watch more funny videos
Category: Amusing (Page 4 of 6)
Tripper, unfortunately, still spends more time getting into trouble when left to his own devices. Tonight I ran out to get Thai carryout, and when I got home, the paper towels I had placed over my bowl of tomatoes were shredded into pieces on the kitchen floor. Little fucker. (I love mint beef salad, so I order it with extra dressing, and pour the whole thing over two enormous tomatoes that have been cut into wedges. Nom.)
One of the things we’re remaining consistent with, as pertains to Sir Tripper, is keeping him in his crate at night. He loves to bark up an alarm at anything, so keeping him confined reduces his exposure to shifting light, shadows, the sounds of cats outside, etc. It’s bad enough before we go to bed that our reflections in the large dining room window send him into Freak The Fuck Out mode.
But.
There is this one thing he’s taken to doing, smack in the middle of the night, and it sounds like a small prison riot. We’re not sure exactly what he’s doing, or if he’s even awake while doing it, but as I crawled back into bed after one of his clangy outbursts, I had the funniest image in my mind: he’s performing a Phil Collins-esque drum solo out there. There’s banging and scrabbling and the sound of furious paws of fury (but no throat noises or barking), it lasts about two minutes (just enough to really wake you up) and then all is silent.
Maybe he’s having a Michelob Light, the night did used to belong to them…. At least now, when he wakes me up, I half-grin at the situation.
And, as a child of the 80’s, I have several heart-mind-humor associations with Phil Collins – but one of my favorites is a piece done by Starlee Kine. If you’ve never heard the episode “Break Up” on This American Life, go stream it and enjoy.
Let’s talk about office bathrooms. No, I’m not going to go there. Though the fact that our office is located on the first floor of the building, we do get a fair amount of SecretPoopers(tm) who come down to use our bathroom, so they can sustain the impression in their own office workspace that they NeverPoop(tm). Eye roll, please.
First of all, the facilities were remodeled to make them ADA compliant, and in losing one bathroom stall, we have one stall that is a Toilet Suite. Of course, the toilet is still smack up against the wall next to the other stall, and there’s just a giant expanse that even goes around a tiny corner, where a very slim, mean-spirited person could hide and give someone the surprise of their life, if they were to leap out screaming at the right moment. Let’s hope that never happens. I’ll even admit I give it an extra eyeball just to be sure nobody’s back there. However, I’ve often looked at that space and thought about how you could put a chair, ottoman, reading lamp and accent table, and still leave the stall feeling roomy and quite at home. The cleaning lady does kinda use it for her office, sitting in there, talking on her cell phone. (I say that jokingly, though she will just sit in there and yap, and I always wonder what the person on the other end thinks as the other toilet auto-flushes.)
But the reign of terror I’m referring to is the paper towel dispenser. When I started there, I found myself instantly at odds with the machine. It was an automatic one. You’d wave your hand under it, and sometimes, if the sensor was feeling generous, you’d get a towel. A small shred of a towel that was barely sufficient to dry one hand. Not two. I don’t know about you, but I wash both my hands as a general practice. So that necessitates a second hand-wave, which would often be more resistant than the first, because OMG no WAY you are OVER USING the TOWELS and you’d have to keep flailing your hand about until you got your second half-sheet. Or not. And for whatever reason, the effort to get the second towel would usually result in the machine jamming. Often times, the first attempt jammed, too. The small print on the machine told you to use the manual feed button if the machine malfunctioned. Oh rilly? What manual feed button? Because all there is on the side is a dummy button that has been put over the feed, to prevent the Johnson County Paper Towel Insurgency from stealing your precious paper towels by the yard.
Frustrated, one day, I discovered that I could just pull the whole front metal piece up! and pull down and tear off the towel amount that I needed. I felt scandalous and vindicated all at once. (Lookit me! Tear that mother UP!) Eventually, the machine malfunctioned so much, often a roll of towels would sit on the counter, for you to tear off. (Let it be noted that I never took anything APART, I just used my noggin to get at the towels.) While I was annoyed at this situation, it wasn’t until some maintenance was being done and the bathroom was closed, that I discovered on the second floor, the paper towel dispenser was NOT flawed, it distributed a generous amount of towel, and it had a working manual feed, and I felt that it was truly the curse of the first floor location and the higher traffic.
Finally, I asked my female co-workers if they carried the same annoyance level that I had towards the paper-towel machine, and that’s when I learned that we were actually getting a NEW machine in a few weeks. This one works so well, it often spits out a second towel for the next person. I haven’t even had to investigate the manual feed.
So, that reign of terror in my life is over. It really is the small things, sometimes.
I was delighted by all the things to look at on the car in front of me today. But I wondered: is this a dude or a chick, driving this mashup of statements? For on the left, there was a rainbow sticker. On the right, a vote Hillary sticker. Then there’s the big bike rack. On a Jeep. Oh, yeah, and the enormous “Star Wars” sticker. I really thought it could go either way, but I made sure to pass once on the highway, and confirm for myself.
Just for fun, I want you to vote and tell me what you think! And I’ll reveal tomorrow what the correct answer is.
Well, this is not an easy story to tell. But I’ve managed to tell it a few times now, and I even see the humor in it – hell, part of my brain even saw it in the moment, so I’m going to give it a go. If you’re exceptionally tender-hearted, then I suggest you go look at chinchillas and come back another day.
For those following on all fronts, you might have seen some exasperated plurks/tweets earlier this week (Tuesday), in which I screeched about a particular bird that was making a ruckus outside, so loudly I wanted to go and shoot it. Said bird kept up the racket all afternoon. When James came home from work, he noticed it, and decided to investigate. Turns out? We had two baby ducklings hanging out by my herb bed, and he got a small net and a box, and scooped them up.
I immediately changed from “goddamned bird” to “omg! SQUEE THEY ARE SO CUTE!” and while he went off to look for the momma duck, I tried to pick them up in the box. Fleet little creatures, ducklings are, but eventually, I scooped one up and delighted in its softness, beauty and fluff.
Tripper, meanwhile, walked by and saw the other duckling and went, CHOMP, and scooped one up in his mouth. Horrified, James and I both screamed at him, he dropped the duckling, I put him back in the box – where he died, 15 seconds later.
Fuck. My. Life. James took the dogs inside, and I removed the duckling from the box, and burst into tears. Now, see, most people, at the very beginning of this story, where I say, “Two baby ducklings…” have an instant transformation in their expression. They know. They understand, the doomed nature of ….. Nature. But not me. I think everything can be rescued, everything can be saved, just work hard enough and everything turns out alright. And so, suddenly, this dead duckling exploded into a personification of all the stress and angst with job-related things, that no matter how well-intentioned or hard you might be working, a giant black lab can come along and just pluck you out of your existence.
I pulled myself together, put the (now lonely) duckling in the box, and went inside.
Somewhere in the next fifteen minutes, a small case was made (again) for chickens. If we had a chicken tractor, we could just throw the duckling in there, and he’d be fine. We discussed options. Keeping said duckling, raising him. But I searched online, and there wasn’t a lot of hope or options there. Plus someone made the point that one duck is a very lonely duck. We still have a goodly number of feral cats around, and those probably created this very predicament in the first place. James boiled it down to two choices – he could take care of things, or I could take the duckling, try to find a pond with a duck family on it, release the duckling, and hope for the best.
I put some paper towels in the bottom of a Costco-sized Contadina Tomato Paste box, put the duckling inside, and into the Murano we went. James advised me to drive along Blue River Road, which truly is a beautiful stretch of asphalt tucked away in the city. I’d never been on it, so after veering off Bannister by the Federal Complex, I found the road and headed south. There were parks, and even some ponds, but I couldn’t spot any ducks, and even though there were cars parked in places, I also couldn’t see any people. Because it felt pretty isolated, I didn’t feel completely secure just getting out and tromping around. So I kept going. And going. And going. Until I got to Blue Ridge, and then I knew I had to start heading back towards home. I drove up Holmes, and spotted a great pond – but no ducks. And there was a strange woman parked there and the signs said “No Trespassing”, so I continued to look. I figured I wouldn’t be able to just roll on in to a golf course, but then I thought – Mt. Moriah! Yes! Cemeteries often have ponds, reflecting pools, etc. And as the sun inched towards the horizon, I found myself rolling through the placid hills and then – yes – there it was. Two large pools of water. I made my way towards them.
The good thing about hanging out in a cemetery is that nobody really pays attention to you. Most of the people there are dead, and the ones who are alive are focused on one or two spots. It’s a serene place, and I actually used to study in cemeteries in college, just to find complete isolation (and I was in my Harold & Maude stage). So I drove around, waited for some people to leave that were nearby, and approached the pond furthest from the grave sites. No ducks, but there were a large number of geese. Birds of a feather! The ugly duckling. Surely, these feathered relatives would take on a lonely duckling.
Now, again, a good percentage of you have changed your facial expressions. I’ve watched it happen this week, again, at this point in the story. But I didn’t know. I know geese can be territorial, but I had no idea they’d be so discerning that they’d immediately know this ball of fluff was NOT of their species, and would proceed to peck him to death.
But that didn’t happen. Because that would have been pretty horrifying for me, yes, and I would have probably gotten into a goose fight and I really cannot imagine how that might have unfolded, except I probably would have been brought home to my husband by the South Patrol and asked to never enter Mt. Moriah Cemetery again. Yet, tragedy was still inevitable, though I didn’t yet know it.
I released the little duckling within a dozen yards of the geese. He immediately turned and started running back at me. I thought, “OH SHIT, he’s already imprinted on me and now I’m going to HAVE to take him home and raise him, there is no other option.” Except he kept running. Past me. Towards the car. OK, dude, you really wanna go back with me, hm? No. You want to run away from me, and we’re going around and around and around the Murano.
I did stop and think, well, I’m in a cemetery. People who are grieving do crazy things. If I don’t do this TOO long, it will just slide by and people will not come over here to figure out what in hell is going on and why this fat lady is going around and around her car with a large Contadina Tomato Paste box, scooping at the ground.
Pretty soon, the duckling figured out that the same run/hide/evade experience could be had by just going around and around the back wheel.
We did this for fifteen minutes.
Finally, I gave up.
I told myself, “Ok. I’m going to get in the car. He’s on the inside of the wheel, so I will edge forward very slowly, and he will either be adopted by the geese, he will wander off on his own, or – worst case scenario – I will run over him, but at least it will be quick.”
And I look in my rear-view mirror, fully expecting to see a wandering duckling.
Nope.
I ran over him.
Of course I did. If we were going to sustain this giant emotional snotball of a metaphor, OF COURSE I HAD TO RUN OVER THE DUCK.
I just shook my head. Went home. James came in from the yard and said, “So, how’d it go?”
I replied, “The only way it could have gone, really.” And cried in his arms.
See, I know. I KNOW this is funny in a tragi-comic sort of way. But at the same time, I marvel at my naivete. My desire to fix and solve, a desire that is untouched by reality. I don’t think I would change that part of me, there’s enough inside me that is jaded and bruised and sharp. But oh how it stung. I thought of how the circle of life is sometimes just a car wheel.
And then, changing subjects after telling this story last night, I (completely unwittingly) said, “So! Extra Virgin is SO good. I had duck gizzards!” and everyone collapsed around me in hysterics.
Circle of life, indeed.
About a month ago, I was complaining about the Ke$ha earworm, “Tik-Tok”, and my husband had no idea what song I was talking about. (He looked it up online, and blasted it, just to cement the little ditty in my head for the next few days.) Then, we saw her perform the song on Saturday Night Live, and I get it, she’s a manufactured pop star, her lyrics have less depth than a reflecting pool, and the music is one big froth of bubble gum pop. I’m not here to argue she should even merit the title of “Next Britney”.
But when your song becomes the platform for the ever-famous Simpson’s intro? I think you should feel like you’ve made it on some level. Confectionery taffy-pull that it is. My mouth was open, and of course, I’m glad someone put it on YouTube. Here you go for a gloomy, rainy Monday…. the earworm that keeps on giving.
A few weeks ago, the Wo and I did a little BBQ judging. Up until this point, we’ve only ever judged the weekend at the American Royal. Which is the mac-daddy of them all, granted, but we thought it would be fun to get out and try a smaller venue.
We got there early, and as is customary for me, I had my knitting with me. I found a seat, and focused on knitting away the couple of hours before the actual judging was going to begin. At one point, I got up and walked around, and a woman came up to me, telling me she was also a knitter, and to come look at her project. Sure! She was working on some Patons wool slippers, and had her little project booklet and yarn all in a nice container (important when you’re going to have BBQ flying about!) I note to myself that she’s probably buying her supplies at a big box retailer, and give her mental kudos for picking out wool.
Then, she leans in a little closer, and says, “Now. If you ever go on the internet.”
I inhale. And put on my poker face. Because that statement alone, to me, is hilarious. Oh? the internet? Yes, I’ve heard something about that. Hear-tell you can get all sorts of things there, including husbands. I simply nod.
She slows down a bit, and continues:”You need to go to this website.” Big pause. “Knit. Picks.” She pauses between the words for emphasis. Now I can’t completely contain my face or self, and I release a chuckle, and say, “Ooooh yes, yes, I’m familiar with them…..” and she continues in a rush to tell me about all their yarns and the big sale they’re having right now. I just smile.
When I was relating this story to Carmen, who had both eyebrows raised at this point, she gestured in a hurry-up manner and said, “Didja tell her? Didja tell her, ‘Uh, I’m kind of a big deal…’? Didja?”
No, of course I didn’t. I’m not a big deal in the knitting world, or the internet world, really, I’m just … a big gal, but the notion of saying something like that cracked me up, that somehow I’d even try to pull a fame-hollywood card at a BBQ competition. And then, imagining it on a t-shirt cracked me up even more, because of the double entendre. Mostly the whole situation was hilarious because a well-intentioned lady wanted to enlighten me to the world of Knit Picks and buying yarn on the internet. If there was a degree to be had in online shopping – yarn or otherwise – I would qualify as a tenured post-doctorate professor who doesn’t even have to teach at this point. Bless her heart for trying, though.
In re-telling the story at knit night, it managed to get Bidenized into “a big fucking deal” and I picked THE most inopportune moment to ask everyone WHY did they have to bring fucking into it, and of course it happened to be right when the entire restaurant hit a lull in the chaotic noise of chatter and dishes clinking. Excellent. Big fucking deal, indeed.
eeeyeah.
I do enjoy Ms. Lampanelli, she pushes things right past uncomfortable, and I just love any no-holds-barred sort of humor. So to be served an ad featuring her upcoming show? Great! Win! I even clicked “like”. I’m interactive that way. ~gives you saucy marketer look~
But then look right below it – one of the several thousand “get free products at home” ads I’ve gotten on Facebook for the past few months – usually it’s a fabulous gadget, or M&Ms, or some makeup, or something relatively girly, yet fun….. but today? Today I get Always Maxi-Pads, sitting there teasing me with their enticing …. wings. Because when I think, “Hey! I am so signing up for something that promises to give me something free and fun, like candy, or an iPhone, because I really, really think this company needs someone to to “test” their products and provide feedback to help these mom and pop companies like P&G, Mars, and Apple? Dude, I have passed up all those other things in hopes that one day, I could get my feminine hygiene products for free.”
mmmm, yeah. Let me use one of thosee super-absorbent pads to wipe up all the sarcasm I’ve dripped everywhere. There’s a little Lampanelli in me, too, y’know.
…our niece, Danielle, is a member of eleventeen billion Facebook groups. One afternoon, James rapid-fire read them off, as we collapsed in laughter, because they are so indicative of how kid brains work. Sure, technology has come a long way since I was her age, like, we have the Wii instead of Magic Merlin, but the sheer silliness is still there.
For instance:
Danielle became a fan of I stay up late every night, and realize it’s a bad idea every morning.
Danielle became a fan of i wonder if british people sit around trying to talk in an American accent?
Danielle became a fan of “Hey can i have a Starburst?” “Here” “No, I want the pink one.”
Danielle became a fan of Inbox (1) makes me nervous.
Danielle became a fan of I hate it when my parents wont answer their phone but get mad when i dont!
Danielle became a fan of “OH, SO LET ME TELL YOU THIS STORY…” “Dude, I was there with you.” “Oh.”
Danielle became a fan of 1 word texts to me mean: 1. you don’t care or 2. I did something wrong.
So now, I have caught myself thinking in terms of Fan Groups I Could Start, like,
Jennifer became a fan of “I Hate When the Light Catches On My BlackBerry and I Think I Have A Message.”
Jennifer became a fan of “I Get Worried When I Walk Into the Kitchen, Forget Why I Went There, And Wonder If It’s Early-Onset Alzheimer’s”
Jennifer became a fan of “I Believe Office Supplies Can Change My Life”
Jennifer became a fan of “Sometimes I Talk To Touch Screens As If They Could Hear Me”
Jennifer became a fan of “I’m Becoming That Crazy Lady Who Yells At Cars Speeding Down My Street”
Yes, Facebook, you certainly are a time suck.
Egads. What the fuck is that thing? Half baby, half possum, all Edward Gorey? Imagine the sucking sounds that thing makes when it’s ‘accidentally’ left at the beach. I’m pretty sure it’s got at least two rows of razor-sharp teeth. Gah. I’m almost willing to have Charles Manson’s doppelganger back.
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