I'm Suzi. I live in suburban Mpls/St. Paul, and spend my days working in graphic design and sales. I suddenly find myself caught up in the First Day to 5K, a podcast running program that should have me ready to run a 5K race in October or so. My fridge is filled with organic stuff these days, because I've just started learning about what sorts of dastardly things are done to our food in this country, and it's pretty horrifying. My awesome family includes The First Baseman and a couple of daughters, Rose and Kelly, who are just about grownups. I love the ocean like it's my religion and try to visit it a couple times per year. The girls and I are on a constant quest to change The First Baseman's mind about stuff, like getting a dog and letting me use his name when I blog about him. I see as much theater as I possibly can, and I am the last remaining Minnesota Timberwolves fan. Look for me in section 126.
First, let me say that I realize that, compared to the problems that other people have (houses in foreclosure, daddies and mamas and kids in Iraq, teenagers drinking themselves to death), this is nothing. We won't even remember it in a month or so, but today has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Our completely fabulous daughter, Rose, is graduating from Gustavus Adolphus College tomorrow, and there have never been parents any more proud of their kid than we are of ours. Some of you know her, and you see why. She's smart, she's funny, she's beautiful, and sometimes she's even kind to people, if she's in a decent mood. Kidding! She's always kind to people.
This week has been full of senior week activities—a boat cruise, a banquet, parties, a Twins game—and it's also been rather emotional. It's sad for Rose to move away from this place she's called home, where she's learned who she is, and from these friends who have become more like sisters and brothers.
When she arrived for graduation rehearsal this morning, she was surprised to find that there was no "stuff" for her—no name card, no cap and gown, no anything. She didn't panic, but asked around and was told to go to the registrar's office…
…where she was told that they did not have a stoopid dumb form they needed, a form called the Application for Graduation. A form that she completed and turned in MONTHS ago. A form that the registrar's office had LOST. I know she turned it in, because we happened to be chatting on the phone as she walked across campus to do it, and we had a moment of celebration that the form was in, and that graduation was just mere months away.
The registrar was very rude, and told Rose that there was nothing she could do at this point to make it possible for her to participate in graduation tomorrow, and nobody else she could talk to about it. She did point out that there was some Kleenex nearby, because by then, Rose was crying.
After talking to other faculty and her friends, she called the Dean of Students, leaving a voice mail message on his cell phone, and she also emailed him. We waited all day for him to call back. He never did. So around 7:30 tonight, against Rose's wishes, I called him at his home.
He was very nice, very sympathetic, and promised to call around and find out what could be done. The only thing I fault him for is not carrying his cell phone, and not checking his voicemail or email the day before graduation. He called Rose a couple times to ask for information, and we had hope.
Then, Rose's academic dean called and said she had bad news. She said that they couldn't possibly process the goddam form overnight, and that gee sorry, you're out of luck. Can't graduate.
I called the academic dean back as soon as Rose gave me the news, and got her cell phone voice mail. I'm pretty sure the college supplies their faculty with cell phones that they can turn off as they wish. I also left a weepy voice mail message for the president of the college, who is retiring after tomorrow, so probably doesn't care.
This is something I can see happening at a large university, not at the little college on the prairie, where they promised to care about every student. They sold us that. They sold us that individual attention, that caring. This kind of thing is not supposed to happen there. And yet, it has.
Like I said, this isn't that big a deal, in the scheme of things. She'll still have her degree, we're just as proud of her as we can be, and in the long run, it isn't going to matter that she didn't march across a stage in a cheesy robe and a hair-wrecking hat.
Today, though, for a couple of parents who didn't go to college but make it a priority for their kids, and the kid who worked really hard the past four years, this is disappointing, and I don't think I'm finished sobbing about it yet.
Update Sunday morning, 5 hours before graduation: She's in! We're not sure who fixed it, or how, but we suspect it may have had something to do with my call to the college president, because the academic dean mentioned it when she called me this morning. Rose is at this moment picking up her cap and gown. What was impossible yesterday was somehow accomplished in about 30 minutes this morning. Whooo hooo! Yay! Bring on the pomp!
Thursday, May 28, 2008
Goodbye, lady stache I never knew I had.
Yesterday, I took Kelly to the mall to get some lame polo shirts for her new job. There's a little clue for you about where she works. That'll narrow it down to 500 places.
So while we were zooming through the middle of Burnsville Center, a sign caught my eye. It was atop one of those annoying kiosks that block your path, and it said something like "Eyebrow threading."
Hey! sez I to Kelly. I read about that in a girly magazine! It's an ancient art in, oh, India or somewhere, I think. What happens is that they spin a thread really fast and tight against your skin, and any little hairs get all caught up in the thread's bizness, and then they get YANKED clean out.
Once Kelly was nerdily outfitted, she went off to meet some people who are more qualified mall companions than her mother, and I wandered back to meet Oozma the Torturer.
Now, let me first say that although I regularly have my eyebrows waxed, and have one pesky-but-sorta-cool whisker that reappears every six weeks or so, I'm not one of your hairier-faced ladies. Just a regular-faced lady. Still, Oozma pointed out that I do (did) have facial hair.
Yes, it was the kind of facial hair that is not even visible. It is "like a baby," as Oozma put it. It's the same hair that you might see if you look at the inside of your arm, or anyplace else on your body that is not regularly tended to with wax, razor, or threading.
Still, when somebody tells you that not only do you HAVE facial hair, but that she can relieve you of that facial hair for a mere twenty-five dollars? Oh, believe me. You jump at the chance.
And what could go wrong, right? I mean, it's just thread! She can't possibly hurt you with a couple strands of thread, can she?
Oh. Yes. She. Can.
Holy mother of Krishna! From the first roll of the thread against my face, it took every bit of strength and Lamaze breathing to refrain from jumping out of that chair, kicking Oozma in the gine and running for the exit. Those little, barely-existent hairs have the same kind of nerve endings as teeth. I swear. It was like thousands of simultaneous facial root canal procedures. The eyebrow-hair nerves must be dead from years of waxing, but the cheek hair nerves are quiiiiiite sensitive.
Because physical pain is never enough, it occurred to me about ten minutes in that I was in public. I was in a tippy-backy chair in the middle of Burnsville Center, in front of TJ from T-Mobile and everybody. Larry Brown, the Sears guy who sold us our appliances and not the dynamic NBA coach, could have witnessed the procedure on his way back from the food court. For their amusement, Oozma told me to "hold like this," which means reach your right hand around to your left eyebrow and pull up. Then she made me "put tongue like this," which means poke your tongue into your cheek, so it looks like you have a huge jawbreaker in there. After that, "make face like this," Adam Sandler in Waterboy. Really lovely poses, and all with tears running down my face, partly because of pain (did I mention it hurts like a mofo?) and partly because Oozma's 4000-watt lights were pointed right at them.
Finally, it was over. I was so happy about that that I let out an inadvertent squeal of joy, and that was even before I knew about the heavenly facial massage.
Talk about heavenly! Oozma lubed up her hands with some sort of soothing balm and laid 'em on me. It felt so good! I couldn't believe that it was the same skin that felt like it was being scraped off my bones just moments before!
Believe it or not, I might consider having Oozma yank out all my baby beard hairs when they grow back again, because we women don't make decisions based upon pain, but upon vanity, and I really love how my skin looks and feels now!
There are LOTS of videos of threading on YouTube, if you want to see, but before you watch them, you absolutely MUST go and read (I think she doesn't use her real name to blog)'s hair removal tale. Or should I say tail. Her hair was not on her face, and her story is much more adventurous! Go right now to Wiping Up Snot. Warning: you will see the word vagina.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Favorite moments in grocery shopping
The First Baseman and I went to the grocery store together tonight, because that's how we celebrate long, holiday weekends, and I can't decide what I liked best—when somebody came looking for a suburban housewife ass-whooping when they stole my cart, or when The First Baseman had a conversation with the cashier about the volume of toilet paper consumed in our family, ending with "especially you" and a glance my way.
I guess that's his way of "blogging," because he thinks "blogging" means "saying embarrassing things about your family." I don't know where he gets that.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Busin' it.
Pay close attention to that there 'postrophe. I'm talkin' 'bout takin' the bus, not 'bout 'busin' anybody.
So today, I drove down to St. Peter, taking The First Baseman's gas guzzling vehicle to Sophie's adorable spring concert, because Kelly had driven my car to school, and I thought it only right that I fill up the tank before I picked up the First Baseman at the airport. It wasn't even completely empty, and the numbers on the pump didn't stop until they got all the way up to $58.80.
That is sixty damn dollars, people!
Now I am on the MTC website, learning how to ride public transportation to all my spots. "All my spots" would be the Target Center, Metrodome, Hennepin Avenue Theater District, Ordway Center in St. Paul, and my mom and dad's house in Hopkins. It turns out that, though I'm pretty far out here in the suburbs (Burnsville, the part that is almost Lakeville and almost Apple Valley), I can get to these places within about 2 hours, for about 2 bucks.
I am going to start doing it, because hello bus weirdos! Hello, twitterable events! Hello, not filling up that stoopid dumb gas tank so much!
The only problem that I can see is that the route that comes waaaay out here to the 'burbs only runs on weekdays, and the last bus out of downtown at night is about 9:00. But, come on, people! If we all start using it, they'll get more bus drivers and drive us around later at night, and on Saturdays and Sundays, too.
Maybe one good thing will come out of these ridiculous gas prices, and maybe that one good thing will be that more stubborn dumbasses like myself will start using the public transportation that we all pay for, anyway.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Why I'm not allowed to work at a photo studio
In keeping with the theme of customer service mishaps, I bring you one that belongs to somebody else, for a change.
Lifetouch is in the news for shipping a load of jacked-up yearbooks to a school in Texas. When the yearbooks arrived, the students found that about 40% of their photos had been altered. Girls' heads and been stuck to boys' bodies, limbs had been removed, clothing changed or removed. Yuk yuk yuk. That's exactly the sort of stuff I did when I first used how to use Photoshop. There is no denying the fun aspect, though I would have probably added pro-Bush t-shirts and stuff.
Anyway, here is what the PR Director at Lifetouch had to say. You can see that the job comes with a manual, and the manual has a section on Responses to Complaints, though the responses are not specific to the details of such complaints. Here's her quote, from StarTribune.com:
"Our people misinterpreted guidelines for the yearbook''
I love when a company tries to blame the customer for the issue, in this case, implying that there was some sort of communication breakdown between the school and Lifetouch, like the school maybe wasn't clear in specifying that it was important for everybody to keep their same head on their bodies, oh, and please don't clone out any limbs.
Now THAT is the kind of customer service I have encountered this week. Welcome to my world, Dallas High School!
Saturday, May 17, 2008
More Customer Service Retardry
This morning, The First Baseman and I headed over to our friendly neighborhood Sears store to purchase a new refrigerator and stove, which is something we do once every 24.5 years. Yes, that is correct. In our 24.5 years of marriage and home ownership, this is the first time we have acquired one of these appliance via a method other than moving into a house where it's already there.
We made our selection and the sales guy wrote up the order and set a date for delivery. Then, he wrote up a separate purchase for a range hood, which is that light and fan mechanism that sucks all the stink out of the air when you cook brussels sprouts. The range hood is a no-big-deal, inexpensive, cash-and-carry sort of appliance, and so, when we shook hands with the sales guy after all was said and done, I made a motion to bend down and pick up the box that contained the appliance hood.
Since it is Customer Service Twilight Zone week, however, this move was not allowed. Oh, no. You can't just pay for something, then carry that something out the front door, put in in your car, and drive it to your house. Certainly not. What was I thinking?!
"You'll have to drive around to the loading dock to pick it up."
"But wait", sez I. "I sez, it's right here. And I paid for it. And it isn't heavy. And the door is right there. Can't I just take it?"
"No. You can pick it up in 15 minutes."
Yes. That made perfect sense. We poked around for a few minutes, killing time, The First Baseman shoving my head under a giant drill press to make me an extra eye, sitting on the riding lawnmowers, arguing about whether or not I need a mitre saw (I do), snorting about the words "tool" and "hose," and then we decided we'd killed as much time as we needed to kill, and headed for the door.
We walked right by our new range hood, still sitting on the floor in front of our new oven, and then I noticed a tall, confused-looking fellow pulling a two-wheeler. I pointed out the range hood, which he scooped up with the unnecessary two-wheeler, and we went our separate ways. Ten minutes later, we met up with him again at the loading dock, where, once he'd loaded a lawnmower, a leaf blower, a water heater, a microwave, and a TV into various vehicles, he lovingly turned over the range hood to The First Baseman.
Update: The range hood is completely bashed in, as if a gorilla wearing steel-toed boots used it for step aerobics.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Customer Service Twilight Zone
It occurred to me tonight, during my 45th minute on "hold" (heh, Freudian typo—I first typed "hole" instead of "hold") with Federal Express International Customer Service department, that I am in some sort of customer service twilight zone, and I've been here all week.
I am almost always satisfied with the outcome of any call to any customer service department. I usually get what I want, and you know why? Because I am nice. I'm patient, I'm friendly, I listen, I don't interrupt, and I'm reasonable in my expectations. People usually want to work with me, not against me, because I am more pleasant than 99 out of 100 of their other customers. It works for me. Once, T-Mobile credited $345 to my account because I was nice, and I didn't even ask. Long story, but the charge was for a phone that we returned, but they never got it back from UPS. I was just looking for tracking numbers, and because I was nice, they told me not to worry about it.
Being nice really works well toward getting what you want. Try it.
This week has been different, though. I don't think I've been an ass to anybody, but man! Things just have not gone my way any time I've needed the assistance of a customer service agent of one sort or another, and the experiences have been as ridiculous and shockingly unexpected as finding Britney Spears' vagina on your dad's MySpace page—you know, annoying at first, then sort of fun because it's challenging to deal with, but then you just want it to go away, and for things to go back to being the way they were.
For the record, my dad, to my knowledge, has no MySpace page. That was just an example, you see, but when he gets to the above sentence about his MySpace page, he is going to tense up, bounce out of his chair, grit his teeth, grimace, and go, GAH!, which is the same reaction he has to the phrase "social networking." So there's your disclaimer.
First off was my experience with sending flowers to my mom for Mother's Day. Here's a handy visual:
Ordered
Delivered
Roses•Lilies•Carnations•Sweet William•Alstromeria
Pink•Purple•Burgundy•Orange
Tall, clear, glass vase
Orange ribbon
Butterflies! Keyword, BUTTERFLIES!
Flowers are alive
Cheap, bushy roses
Red•Pink
Stubby, cubical, smoky glass vase
No ribbon
No GODDAM BUTTERFLIES, and they were the whole point. Mom likes butterflies.
Wilted Saturday, dead Sunday
When I called, I fully expected that there had been some sort of mix-up, and that they'd run right out and bring my mom the flowers I'd ordered for her. Oddly enough, there was no mix-up. They were busy, you see, and tired, because it was Mother's Day, and no butterflies for you! Three phone calls later, I finally gave up and called the credit card company to dispute the charge. Still, strike one. I didn't get my way.
Then on Monday, I called our phone company, Frontier, because I need an 800-line in our house. Does that sound like an odd request to you? Because it was baffling—simply baffling—to Shalanda at Frontier, and I do not blame Shalanda for that. I blame Frontier for their lack of training. It's pretty mean to send your reps to the phones before they know how to help a customer set up a phone line, considering you're a frickin' PHONE COMPANY. It was as if I'd asked them to send me a Spanish-speaking five-horned rhinoceros with a basket of orange M&Ms and a portable antigravity chamber. I was on the phone with Shalanda for an hour and 15 minutes, and then she said she'd call back when she had an appointment set up for the technician to come.
During a normal week, that call would have come a few hours later, and the technician would have set me up for the next day. Since this is Customer Service Twilight Zone Week, that call never came, but the technician did, on Thursday. Turns out he didn't need to be here. Turns out all they had to do was switch one of our lines to the 800-number. It took another hour and 15 minutes on the phone with Adam to figure that out, but good news! The technician turns out to be a friendly neighbor, so we had a nice chat for an hour, and the 800-number would be turned on the next day! That's today.
The 800-number is not turned on. Nobody knows why. Strike two.
So yesterday, my boss sez to me over the phone, HEY! DRIVE OVER TO MY HOUSE AND GET SOME SAMPLES OF OUR NEW LITTLE PLASTIC TURTLES AND MAKE THEM GET TO CANADA RIGHT SKIPPY! I packed up the little plastic turtles, addressed them to two different sales reps in Canada, printed the international shipping forms online, and took them to Kinko's, which is now the same as FedEx, which is really convenient. Every other time I've sent little plastic turtles to people via FedEx, the little plastic turtle delivery has been smooth sailing. This week, not.
I tracked the shipments to find that one was delivered. Cool. The other one had been on the truck for delivery at 8 this morning, but at 5 this afternoon, it was back at the station. I called to find out what's up, and get this. Here's the official response: "Uhhhh…looks like the driver ran out of time. It will be 'attempted' for delivery on Tuesday."
Whaaaaaaa? What happened to absolutely, positively, has to be there overnight? Little Plastic Turtles, Inc. spent the equivalent of two tanks of gas to get it there on time. I spent 90 minutes on the phone, being my nicest self, to try and get them to deliver the package tomorrow instead of Tuesday. Finally Sergio, the manager for whom I waited over an hour, told me that the problem is that although FedEx HQ is in Memphis, that he is in El Salvador, and FedEx Canada wasn't answering their phone. Huh? I'm not sure what Memphis and El Salvador have to do with it, but he assured me that some Canadian will call me tomorrow, eh.
Anybody want to place a bet? What are the odds of that phone call coming? I'm going to predict strike three.
I'm just thankful it's the weekend, and that I deal with little plastic turtles and not transplant organs or bomb neutralizer.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
And suddenly, summer came
So, I've been sort of consumed with work lately, and somehow summer zoomed right in here without my noticing. It wasn't until tonight, when I received a twitter announcing that there was fun being had without me that I went outside long enough to notice that not only has the snow melted, but it's warm enough to relax in a outdoor rooftop bar til 11 p.m. When I left, there were three convertibles within my sight on Lyndale Avenue. If you don't live in a climate like ours, you probably don't really understand just what if feels like when summer arrives. You know that scene in The Sound of Music where what's-her-face is spinning around in the sun, arms outstretched, singing about the hills being alive? Yeah. It's like that.
I refrained from spinning, but I really wanted to at least click my heels, because of the spectacular weather, and also because there was loooooove in the air. It's some sort of secret, although I'm not sure why, but if you follow the same people I follow on twitter, then you might have a clue. Suffice it to say that it makes me very happy to see my friends so happy!
I just realized that I didn't even tell you about my spectacular Mother's Day! It was so great. Rose sent me flowers on Saturday, and came home from school for the weekend. We all went to a movie (Baby Mama-it was okay) on Saturday, which was so great, because it isn't that often that all four of us get to do something together anymore. Frickin' kids and their own frickin' lives. Then on Sunday, they took me to Cupcake for lunch and gave me a board game called Smart Ass. I don't understand the significance, but whatever. Turns out it's a pretty fun game, and we played it all afternoon, until it was time for my nap. When I woke up, The First Baseman was grilling me a steak. Heavenly. Oh, and also? How many of you moms have parents who sent you flowers on Mother's Day? Show of hands? Yeah, that's what I thought. Just me. I got the best parents, so booya, suckas!
Speaking of flowers, do not buy them from Enchanted Florist in Scottsdale. Long, boring story. Just trust me, okay? Unless you want somebody to deliver dead flowers to your mother, in a variety/color/style/vase that you didn't order, don't do it. Order from The White House, and try not to hate them for the autoplay music on their site.
Flight of the Conchords Tuesday. Fun! Wonderful! Funny! But two and a half hours is too. dang. long. I love those guys, I really do, but it was almost twice as long as I would have liked. Also, while interaction with the audience is part of the show, I'd have liked a little more shutty.
Tell me if you think this sentence is confusing: "We have three phone lines. Please remove 899-4000 and replace it with an 800-number." If you were able to make sense of that in less that three hours, fewer than 3 phone calls, and without a visit from a technician, you should work at Frontier. They need you.
Okay, I have to go. The Office isn't going to watch itself!
Friday, May 9, 2008
A week of educatin' myself
Once again, it's been a fair amount of time since I've last blogged, and that's not because I had nothing to say, but because I was distracted by things like working and playing and a sick kid and stuff. Life is always educational, though, and here are some of the lessons I learned this week:
It's a close fight, but a burger from Patrick's can beat up a burger from Lion's Tap. They're both deliciously worthy opponents, but Patrick's has juuuuuust a teeny bit of crustiness on the outside, and that gives the edge to the Gustie burger.
Carlos Gomez smells his bat after he hits a foul ball. Every time.
It's very hard to control yourself and live normally when all you can think about is how you get to see Flight of The Conchords LIVE next Tuesday. That's right, kiddies. Rose was kind enough to get online the moment tickets went on sale, while I was on an airplane, and the show sold out immediately. I. Cannot. Wait. I mean, we're talking about New Zealand's 4th most popular folk parody duo!
There is a new show on the best channel in the world (Animal Planet), and it's name is Creature Comforts, and I believe it may be addictive. See, what they did, is they went around the US interviewing people about normal, everyday subjects, and then the took all that audio and they made claymation animals to speak it. I'm telling you, it's the best TV since Meerkat Manor. Here's a little clip:
Ibuprofen can help you ward off a root canal indefinitely.
Contrary to predictions, I did NOT like I am Legend. Why would anybody think I would? It had all my favorites—loneliness, separation from children, hideous monsters jumping out everywhere, disease, a dead dog, a terrorized child, and a nice, depressing ending, where the hero dies. Why didn't we watch Enchanted, instead?
Sunday, May 4, 2008
El Puerco de Lardass en el Metrodome
I always manage to find at least one interesting specimen each time I visit the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. That's the giant bubble where the Twins and Vikings play, for you non-Minnesotans, and today I observed something so utterly gross, so delectably disgusting, that I just had to share it with you, my blog friends.
Allow me to introduce El Puerco de Lardass:
Oh, yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen. Is he not just a vision? Just look at the way he gazes gluttonously upon a handful of roast beast as he prepares to attack it. No utensils for El Puerco! As gross as it is to fondle your food before you eat it, this is not what earned El Puerco de Lardass his title. I sometimes blur the faces of people I blog about, to protect them from embarrassment should they, or someone they know, find their way here. In El Puerco's case, though, I decided not to do that, because this man earned the right to be embarrassed. He should be embarrassed, and you'll see why as you read on.
I should mention that The First Baseman and I sat in the Terrace Suite today. A ticket to the Terrace Suite includes a comfy leather seat, a great view of the field from halfway between 1st base and right field, and a delicious buffet of fruit, salad, veggies, dip, nachos, hamburgers, Dome Dogs, cookies, and roast beast. It also has a bar, and pop, wine, and beer are included in the ticket price, as well. El Puerco's grease-caked aorta must have nearly exploded when he realized that he could go back as often as he wanted. He could have as much food as he could stuff into his bulbous gut. Oh, the thrill he must have felt!
Here is how El Puerco positions himself in his comfy leather seat, next to his probably long-suffering and grossed-out missus:
Precious, isn't he? So thoughtful, so considerate, so gentlemanly. But no. Sitting with your knees at 10 and 2 is not reason enough to warrant the nickname El Puerco de Lardass.
Although we didn't keep track of the exact number of trips our handsome hero made to the buffet, trust me when I say that it was a lot. Constant, actually. He managed to slurp most of the food into his gullet with great windy, snorking, smacking noises, but some of the juices and spit and looser solids, like strings of beef fat, ended up on the outside of his robust gut, rather than the inside:
Oh, yeah. I forgot about the potato chips. He crunched down about eight pounds of those with a vat of dip.
So, you're probably wondering why I'm being so mean, why I'm making fun of a fat guy, huh? Please note that I am not making fun of him because he is fat. I am making fun of him because he is a gross, disgusting, boorish oaf who happens to be really fat and slovenly, and I have no problem drawing attention to that because of how utterly rude he is. You'll see.
Now, study the following photo carefully. This is what the area in front of El Puerco looked like in about the 5th inning:
Couple of things here. Firstively, see that smaller white plate that has a huge puddle of barbecue sauce on it? El Puerco came back from one of his missions to the buffet, loaded with a plate of roast beast that the chef had lovingly piled a foot high, but oh, darn! El Puerco forgot the barbecue sauce! He called over the waitress, who really isn't there to serve food, because, uh…buffet! She serves drinks and takes people's plates when they're finished, and like most people in this industry, she works for tips. So El Puerco rudely motions her over and asks her to go to the buffet and get him some barbecue sauce. Yes! Really!
And here, ladies and gentlemen of the slob-judging jury, is where he earned the right to be called out in this mean blog post. When the waitress brought the plate of barbecue sauce, after she'd been bringing him drinks and clearing his dozens of plates for the last 90 minutes, he said to her,
"Hey, you guys share tips, right? Cuz I already tipped that guy (points to bartender), so we're good.
What. A. Pig. The First Baseman's jaw involuntarily dropped to his chest, his eye's widened, and without even realizing he was speaking out loud, he said, "Are you serious?!" By then, though, El Puerco was snout-deep in saucy meat, snorting more grease into his bulldog jowls. The poor waitress just looked at us and shook her head. And guess what? She didn't come back to our section again. Everybody knew why, and none of us minded getting our own drinks and clearing our own plates, obviously. The plates piled up in front of El Puerco de Lardass, because even though he lumbered to the buffet seven or eight hundred more times, he never once took his own trash to the garbage can.
Secondively, see those cubes of cheese? That's where El Puerco kept track of strikeouts. With cheese. Directly on the ledge that somebody will have to clean. The buffet gets put away in about the bottom of the 7th inning, so on El Puerco's 800th foraging trip, he was disappointed to find nothing there. Now, an inning and a half without food was just too much for him to handle, so he started nibbling his strikeout cheeses that had been sitting out, getting all warm and soft and oily all through the game. He'd eat half, and then put the other half back on the hopefully staph-infected ledge. Sure enough, at the end of the game, he waddled out of there, leaving his greasy cheese mess for somebody else to clean up. I can only hope he contracted a nasty case of Renteria.
If you ever want to really get to know somebody, pay attention to how they treat waiters and other service people. You'll learn everything you need to know.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Prom proposals
***shaking my cane*** Why, when I was a kid, if a guy wanted to ask a girl to go to the prom with him, he'd spend a week mustering up the courage to do it, then he'd put on extra deodorant one morning, and he'd go to school, walk up to her, and say, "Uh, yeah…I wuz wonderin' if maybe you'd go to prom with me." She'd either say yes, or she'd say no. That was that.
Well. Things have changed. Kids are going to great lengths and making a huge production out of asking each other to prom, and I have some mixed feelings about it. My friend Sue points out that this is excellent training for boys on how to be romantic once in a while, even if they don't come by it naturally. That's a very good point, I think. People can almost always use a little extra encouragement when it comes to looking like they care.
It's such a production, though. Kelly is going to prom with a kid named Aaron (oh, did I not mention that she broke up with Jimmy? Yeah, right before we went to Florida), who probably will not stick around long, because my dad will torture him by calling him A-Erin just like he calls The First Baseman's Godfather La-loyd. Anyway, Aaron has asked Kelly to go to prom, but he hasn't really asked Kelly to go to prom, because there has not yet filled her car with balloons, or made a garage-sized sign that says PROM? and hung it on an overpass. He has not yet come to her softball practice dressed in a tuxedo and bearing four dozen roses, nor has he landed a hot air balloon in our front yard. I've yet to come home to find our house gift-wrapped, and I certainly haven't seen Kelly's name written on the bare asses of the LaCrosse team, although if I had, I would make her marry that genius, not just go to prom with him.
Being a teenage girl was no walk in the park a lot of the time (Hey, walk in the park, and then happen upon a big chalk mural on the path that says WILL YOU GO TO PROM WITH ME), but I cannot imagine the pressure the boys are under with this extravagant prom-asking business. It must be stressful enough to be all pimply and hormonal and face the possibility of slinking off from a nice, quiet rejection, but how must it feel to get shot down out of the Goodyear Blimp?
Not only that, but all their good tricks are going to be used up before they're 20. It's hard, really hard, to keep thinking up sweet, romantic ways to tell somebody you care about them. These ideas certainly can't be recycled, can they? I mean, Kelly had a surprise romantic picnic for Jimmy on their "one-year anniversary," so she can never do that again, right? Someday, her husband is going to turn 51, and she's going to be going, "Dammit! I can't believe I wasted that one on some high school chump whose name I don't even remember."
Is this a national trend, or just a Midwest thing? What are some of the bizarro creative prom invitations you've heard about, or experienced?
