We went to see Cake last night at the Uptown – I am so friggin’ tired today – we didn’t get to bed until close to 1 a.m. – what is up with concerts having to be so late? And with that I officially prove I’m Old.

But we parked in the Family Dollar parking lot, which seemed like an amazing coup, but as we were walking away, I looked back and saw an “unauthorized vehicles will be towed, blah blah blah” sign. JWo wasn’t worried, so we headed in & caught quite possibly one of the strangest blends of music being performed by Gogol Bordello: Gypsy Punk. In all seriousness, they were kinda cool, if bizarre. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the tow truck that was driving around, smiling evily, circling closer & closer to LaFonda the Honda. JWo offered to move it, and I said no. But I couldn’t stop the fretting. Finally, I decided to go ask about Towing Potential & took the keys, just in case. Keep in mind there’s no re-entry for concerts, so the notion of moving the car could also carry with it the sentence of missing the band!

So, here’s how you swing it. You find a cop, preferably by the door, and wait patiently until he looks at you. I would not recommend going for his gun, or anything else on that belt. (Have you ever noticed just how much stuff they have on their belts? Jesus, if I had to grab something off that belt I’d be all, “Hey, hang on, ok, whups, I think it’s over one past the mace, I know it, hang on, hang on!”) Then, you put on your anxious face. And you ask the cop if they tow from the Family Dollar parking lot. When he nods and says, “Yep, I think so,” you want to look stricken. PANICKED. Then, do you hear the bus, JWo? You throw your husband under it. “Oh my gosh. My husband parked the car there and I am freaking out. Can I go move it? Can I get back in?” And then the cop will get the bouncers/ticket takers to look at you & memorize your face & he will tell them to let you back in because you are going to move your car from Family Dollar.

Worked for me! And then I deftly parallel-parked it in the smallest space ever, further inflating my ego & sense of accomplishment. And I was able to enjoy the concert without wondering if LaFonda had been hauled off to some impound lot and how in hell would we get home and get LaFonda and how much it would cost!

More about the concert later – the one-line review is: if you like Cake, damn, they are worth seeing. They’re one of those bands that’s actually better live.

Me: “What’s with all this crazy stuff we’re not watching? Dancing with the Stars? Skating with Celebrities? It’s crazy! What’s next?”

JWo: “TETHERBALL with the Stars.”

Me: “Dude, that would totally rock!”

JWo: “ROPE!”
:Motioning of pounding the ball around the pole:

Me: “I always got hit in the face when I played tether ball. Bein’ short and all. It sucked.”

JWo totally deserves an intellectual property fee if FOX picks up the idea.

Sales Rep calls. “Hello. BLAH BLAH BLAH Would you like to also buy an Olympic package?”

“No.”

“OK. Well, I can’t believe I did this, but I can’t find the rates I submitted to you for this last buy? Would you find them & fax them back to me so I can input your order you sent?”

-Hair begins to stand on end.-

“What?”

“I mean, I can’t believe I gave you Fear Factor at that rate.”

“Is it going to clear?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t input it yet. I just can’t find the rates I sent you. So could you send them back to me?”

“Let me get this straight: you can’t find your rates, so I need to look for them, so you can CHECK MY WORK? And you don’t even know yet if it will CLEAR?”

“Well….I mean, I just don’t know about the rate on that Fear Factor.”

“Listen. If the spot clears, it clears. If it kicks out, then I’ll move the money to another station. How’s that?”

“Well….”

“Because looking for your rates & sending them back to you so you can see if my rates are going to work before you even enter the order is not going to be a top priority for me today.”

Big pause.

“Yeah. Nevermind doing that.”

HARRUMPH! I am NOT one of those old-school bitchy buyers. I am laid-back, friendly, and generally speaking, not a hard-ass when it comes to working with reps. And if you’re not in this business, the above conversation might sound harsh – but seriously, don’t call me until you’ve input the order & things are getting kicked back out. Call with solutions. You make commission – I don’t!

I’ve had my angry eyes at the ready all weekend & apparently, they’re locked in and loaded for bear. As JWo said this morning, “You need to go eat something so your angry eyes come off.”

HARRUMPH! I need a cheeseburger.

I almost always straight-away delete my spam. Most people do. I used to get apoplectic with the number of requests to help the Nigerian Royalty get their multi-million dollar bank accounts out of Switzerland, but blessedly, I’m off their lists after the job change.

This morning, in my Bulk folder, I see something from Sherri Merino. Perhaps she is a sheep! But the subject line was priceless: “My Friend, You Are In Trouble.”

I am? How did you know? My goodness! I wasn’t even aware I was in trouble. Turns out, Sherri’s got a line on a whole lot of licensed software at rock-bottom prices. How dare she bait and switch me like that. I thought she knew me. I thought she was my friend.

In a completely unrelated observation, big birthday wishes are shouted out today to Miss Kristin and my dad. Two very special people to me! May the next year be filled with happiness, good health, and joy….

One of my great sources of entertainment is to go through all the available ring tones for my phone on the T-Mobile website & torture James with the threat of them. (“Lonely? I’m Mister Lonely” in a chipmunk vibrato, courtesy of Akon.) Some of them, he does like, and some that he likes, I hate. I like having a fun ringtone, mostly because the ones that came with my phone are crap, and besides, JWo calls me every day when he’s headed home, so I need something GOOD, and preferably non-torturous for the people who sit nearby.

Some ringtones make us both cackle, and it’s incredibly cheap fun. After all, I buy a new ringtone like, uh, four times a year. My delight is in finding some of the classic songs that not only make me happy but are a completely geeky throwback. For instance, tonight? I happened upon “Caribbean Queen”, by Billy Ocean, and I did a very involved, seated, chair dance to it. And that’s when JWo said I danced like Ellen.

I’ll take it. I’m not taking on Madonna for Dance Dance Gyratelution in a leotard: I don’t need to. But I did download “Dance Dance” by Fall Out Boy, so I can feel the frenetic love & excitement every day when school’s out.

Last night, I was talking to my boss before I left, recapping some things & talking about the lunch party I’m co-ordinating for everyone at work. It’s an “Office Space” party, we had one at my last job, and it was quite fun: watching the movie “Office Space” over lunch, and we’re providing all the movie snacks – popcorn, candy, soda. And with a movie like this one, you also have to have cake! I ordered a big cake from Costco, and it says “Happy Birthday, Milton!” in honor of crazy Milton who didn’t get a piece of cake in the movie. Mmmm, cheesecake filling & cream cheese frosting. Kill me now. We’ll also have a couple of prizes – one person will win the movie, and the MacDaddy prize is, of course, a red Swingline stapler, complete with Innitek post-it notes.

So my boss goes, “You’re becoming a regular Julie McCoy Social Director…” and I am sure it comes as no surprise to you that I have been called that before. I did point out that I’m far from being the only social director here at the agency, and I have actually shown restraint, out of deference to other people’s toes.

But the Love Boat reference reminded me of the time in my life when my liver was a magical sponge, and hangovers didn’t ruin the entire weekend. Yes, I’m talking about college, and the 3-5 years afterwards. We would play “Chug Boat”, with all sorts of drinking rules, and every episode guaranteed to escort you to “Blotto” in an hour or less. We made posters of the rules & collected money for beer. There were Group Drink rules, where everyone watching drinks, including “Captain without a hat!” “Full boat shot!” “Theme Music!” “Sexual Innuendo!” or anytime Isaac the Bartender pointed at the camera. Then, you also picked a character, and every time that person was on screen, you drank. Hardcore players would insist camera angle changes constituted a new shot, and god help you if you were playing with them. Oh, and if you picked the Captain, you had to drink TWICE if he was on-screen and not wearing his hat. I usually picked Gopher, and depending on the episode, Julie McCoy. (You might recall she had a teensy-weensy coke problem and wasn’t in all the shows…) I also remember playing to a two-hour Mother’s Day special, in which a side bet was established where the person who picked the cast member to follow also would have to do SHOTS if they ended up with the worst mother on the show. The guy whose character had Ethel Merman for his mom was the lucky devil that night….

In any event, today’s lunch party will be a little less raucous & a little more frosting-filled. I am ready for the weekend, and as much as I could, I’m not going to come in and work! Ummmmm, yeah. When I said “Saturday”, I meant “all day” on Saturday. Mmmm, yeah…….. I took the quiz, and the “angry” part made me laugh…

Samir

What Office Space character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

TGIF, and make sure you get your TPS reports turned in!!!

Yesterday was one of those days. I play a mean-ass game of whack-a-mole, so you may rock at Dance Dance Revolution, but I can pound the hell out of vermin popping up all over the place. Unfortunately, I get so zoned in the whacking, I don’t do so well at managing, or interpersonal skills. Every fifteen minutes, I re-remembered something that HAD. To! Be done! RIGHT now! It may not have been that urgent, but when you’re whacking out the moles, everything becomes urgent.

And, if one more CBS station whines to me about not getting on this current buy, despite the fact the demo is Adults 18-24, I am going to punch them in the face. Through the phone. Oh, you’ll see it on your tv news. Probably on a different network. TONIGHT! ON FOX! Crazy woman twists time & space continuum & cold-cocks television sales rep THROUGH THE PHONE!

There’s a chapter in the yet-unwritten Big Book On Marriage (subtitled: Things Nobody Told You), titled, “In Which You Discover Ways To Bug The Living Shit Out Of Each Other And Still Stay Together.”

Fortunately, we don’t have a lot of entries in that chapter here, but I managed to stumble on one the other evening. Actually, I think it’s only the second line-item. But it’s a doozy. For whatever reason, I started speaking to JWo in a rich, rolling Irish brogue. I startled myself with how good it was, because normally all my accents tumble and crash within two minutes into something distantly Australian. (Crikey!) I simply channeled the spirit of a dead Irish priest and spoke to him gently & kindly, asking him what he thought of “24” & Jack Bauer, my child. Then I asked for some good whiskey. I felt like the next Meryl Streep.

Then, JWo started screaming, STOP IT STOP IT!

Hm! A chink in the armor! I shall stow this information away and return to it again, when it will be mooooost useful. MOOOOHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh, you probably were wondering what the first item on the Stop Bugging The Crap Out Of Me list was. Well, I also channel a ferocious, wily gopher. It’s quite a look for me, and I expect when I’m senile & calling myself Paddy O’ Furniture in my golden years, rambling about the Potato Famine and the rolling green hills, I’ll still utilize this face to scare the young ‘uns & get ’em off my lawn. This one REALLY scares James, and in fact, it scares Kristin, too. I don’t bring this face out for many folks, just the ones closest to me…. So consider yourself LUCKY:

When your alarm goes off, and you stretch your arm out to hit the snooze button, and instead?

You hit your husband.

Mornin’ Sweetie!

Yeah, it would be nice if I did a love-thy-brother kind of blog today, in honor of Dr. King, but instead, I have to rant about the dumbshit in the Ford F-250 who almost broadsided me on Ward Parkway this morning. I could not believe my eyes, and my little mosquito-whining horn & I were in shrill agreement as I screamed, performed evasive maneuvers & saw my entire front quarterpanel narrowly miss being rammed by his big green stupidness.

Ward Parkway is three lanes wide. I was in the middle lane (with a big black SUV on my left, so I had very little room to swerve). Mr.FuckNut 250 was at a stop sign & turned right into the left lane – but see, you can do that pull-into-traffic alongside oncoming cars if you’re a BMW Mini. A Ford Contour. Even a Passat. But when you have the length & size of a big pickup truck, you can’t make that turn without crossing another lane. Which FN250 realized, as he saw my “O” face screaming at him & heard my little horn honking, and I could see him, wildly cranking his steering wheel as hard as possible, and between both our efforts, my car did not get hit.

A near-miss for LaFonda. A near-need change of underpantaloons for me, not to mention the years off my life. One more stupid driver to put on my list.