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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Where the trains of thought have no brakes, and the engineers are asleep on the job.
My dog may soon become a star.
Well, okay, not so much a star as an anonymous minor celebrity. And a local one, at that. Still, that’s better than you or I are likely to achieve, unless you’re one of those people who go heroically pulling children out of wells, or giving Heimlichs to random passersby. And even those sorts of selfless acts of bravery aren’t guaranteed to bring you accolades, as I found out myself. (As it turns out, you don’t get credit for a well rescue if you’re the one who boots the kid in there in the first place. Also, people seem to appreciate a Heimlich hug somewhat less if you administer it when they’re not actually choking. Pick, pick, pick.)
Anyway, my dog’s already pretty well-known in certain local circles. She was one of a group of dogs featured in a small daily newspaper, and she’s visited schools for children that are, um… what’s the term I’m supposed to use this week? ‘Differently abled’? I think that’s it. And everybody — I mean everybody — who visits the training place where we leave her while we’re at work just adores her. I can’t get in and out of that place without some new person saying, ‘Gosh, that’s your dog? She’s fantastic! What a sweet dog. I love her!‘
Which is nice and all, but do each and every single one of them then have to look me up and down with that expression that says, ‘Are you sure that’s your dog, ’cause I can’t see how a dingleberry like you could possibly have a dog so cool.‘ Thanks. No, really. Thanks so much.
(That reminds me, I’ve really got to work harder on teaching her the ‘bite ’em in the ass’ command. You wouldn’t believe what I have to go through to try to get that one across. Suffice it to say that it involves lots of peanut butter, a soft fluffy pillow in my pants, and lots of Bactine. And I don’t want to talk about it any further. Or think about it, really.)
I suppose our puppy deserves all the attention. She is a very good pooch, and simply loves people. She’s just about the friendliest, tail-waggingest, crotch-sniffingest pup you’d ever want to meet.
(And nothing but nothing says, ‘I love you‘ quite like ‘*SNNNNNNURF* Gee, your pubes smell terrific!‘ Truly, it’s the international language.)
My only concern is that I haven’t found a way to turn my dog’s sunny disposition and (relatively) good manners into cold, hard cash. This is America, after all, where the national creed is ‘Exploit first, ask questions later‘ (‘E pluribus unum‘, my lily-white, rosy-cheeked ass. How many people even know what that means, do you think?) But she’s too distractable to go into acting, and she doesn’t really have the ‘classic look’ the dog photographers seem to dig. I’ve thought about loaning her out as a professional chick magnet — if I were in the market for a lady friend, I would have had boatloads of opportunities to strike up a conversation, given all the cooing and stroking the dog gets from women on the street.
(Of course, that sort of thing wouldn’t have really worked for me, even if I weren’t already married. I was never able to talk to a woman that I didn’t know, but wanted to know. You know, KNOW. Intimately and sweatily and, if all went well, moanily. Okay, so I didn’t often think quite that far ahead, but I still found a way to psyche myself out to the point of slack-jawed babbling.
(You think this shit is bad; you ain’t seen nothin’, folks.)
So even if I’d had the dog way back when, I’m sure I’d have managed to mumble, fumble, stumble, and/or bumble my way out of lots of girls’ pants. Or I’d have overcompensated and said things like, ‘Yeah. I like to be petted, too!‘ or ‘Boy, it must be nice to be able to lick yourself any time you want.‘ Which would eventually get me thrown in jail, I suspect. Where I might get more action, but not the kind I’m looking for. Though if I still had my ass pillow and Bactine, at least I’d have a fighting chance in there.)
So, anyway, the dog — while very popular and a joy to have around, when she’s not horkin’ on the floor or playing peek-a-boo with skunks — has cost far more money than she’s made. Which is fine, I suppose, but she hasn’t made any money. Not one red ugly-ass cent. Meanwhile, she’s got food, and bones, and treats, and peanut butter, and toys, and beds, and all manner of grooming crap. And as I write, she’s just lying here, rolled half over, not even trying to bring in the dough. Lousy shiftless bitch.
But all that may change soon. You see, our puppy may soon be featured on Zoom. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with this show. It’s a for-kids, by-kids, with-kids kind of deal. Okay, so it’s probably not by kids, since I don’t remember the cameras shakin’ all over the place, or the scripts littered with ‘booger’ and ‘cootie’ references. But there’s a bunch of kids in it, and they… um, sing and play and talk to each other, I guess. It’s been quite a while since I’ve actually seen the show, I have to admit. I discovered it when I was still pretty young — maybe ten or twelve — but probably a little too old to really appreciate the show for its entertainment or educational value. I’d already graduated from Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and had given up on most of the Electric Company. (Though the Spiderman and Letterman bits were still worth watching, if you didn’t mind sitting through some counting and spelling and other learning crap.) So I didn’t watch Zoom a lot, and when I did tune in, it was mainly to see what the cute girl with the freckles was up to that week. And it was never anything interesting, like ‘striptease for beginners’ or ‘looking pouty for the camera’. So I lost interest pretty quickly.
(Okay, okay, so I probably wasn’t really thinking about such things at the time. I was a little young to be having that sort of fantasy about a girl on a kids’ show. That sort of thing came later, when I circled back to watch Shari Lewis and Lambchop. Sure, Shari was a little old for me at the time, but she beat the hell out of those ugly chicks on You Can’t Do That On Television. (And yes, music fans, that was pre-Alanis, if you happen to think she was hot at fourteen or so.) And you gotta give Shari points for perk. Any woman with a voice like that and her hand up a lamb’s ass is at least moderately hot, no matter how long she’s been around. Am I right, guys?
And anyway, I soon got wind of the Spanish-language kids’ shows, and turned over to those. Holy hell! Have you seen these things? They’re all bikini girls and confetti and dancing. I don’t know how the kids ever learn anything, but they kept me entertained, that’s for damned sure. You know, I hear women say that Latin men are some of the most… how to say it, aggressive and enthusiastic lovers, to the point of being frenetic, and sometimes starting fires from all the static and friction and such. But can you really blame them? Shit, they’re learning their ABC’s and uno-dos-tres from strippers at age five. Their version of Mister Rogers models wears fuck-me pumps and tasseled pasties. I think I’d be a little anxious for the rest of my entire damned life, too!)
All right, let’s whoosh back to Zoom for a moment.
So, on Wednesday the folks from Zoom are going to visit the place where our dog stays during the day. And she and one of the other pups are scheduled to help out with whatever the hell they’re going to do there. I don’t know — I don’t really have a lot of details. But I do know this — there’s a golden opportunity here. If this goes well, we can turn our penniless dog into a cash cow. Sure, we’ll get nothing from the Zoom folks — lousy public television non-profit goobers — but maybe, just maybe, our pooch will steal the show. And maybe some local real TV exec will be watching the show with their small child, and he or she will be mesmerized by this street-smart, sophisticated drooly canine, and then things will really take off. How, I don’t really know. The dog is still gonna be distracted by food, and the possibility of food, and shiny objects, and objects that might become shiny if someone would just clean them up and polish them. She’s flightier than Logan Airport on Christmas Eve. She loses focus faster than my near-sighted absent-minded grandma sitting on her bifocals — again. She’s… well, I think you get the picture.
So maybe the dog won’t become our ticket to the high life. Or maybe the Hollywood folks have some sort of training regimen, or wonder drug, that’ll transform her into an alert, focused acting machine. Whatever. Either way, the pup’s gonna be on Zoom, and that’ll be fun to watch. I’m definitely gonna tune in, and probably get it on tape, too. Hey, I wonder if that freckly girl is still on there? That’d be cool. She’d be in her mid-twenties by now, at least — maybe they’ll have her do that striptease bit, after all! How cool would that be? Now if I can just get the producers to have her put on a sock puppet and talk in a high, squeaky voice while she’s peeling down, then we’ll be getting somewhere!
Permalink | No Comments100% natural blog from concentrate. Now available with extra pulp!
Well, that was quite a weekend. It’s a damned good thing I don’t have a job, folks, because if I did, I would at this very moment be trying to figure out an excuse for calling in sick tomorrow, just for the extra snoozies.
That’s the beauty of getting a new job, of course. Your Excuse-O-Meter resets to zero, and all that lame shit you came up with to get out of work just melts away. In the blink of an eye, the wand is waved, and all of your imaginary ‘car trouble’ is but a distant memory. Your ‘chickenpox’, your dog’s ‘measles’, and your wife’s ‘toe replacement surgery’ are suddenly back in play, and ready to be used on a new set of managers. All those ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ and ‘elderly grandparents’ that you put in the hospital, or claimed were visiting, or conveniently killed off (shame on you!) are magically alive and well and ready to go through the wringer again. It’s a beautiful thing. I can’t wait to land a new job, so I can start making up reasons to miss work again. This sitting around on my ass because I’m supposed to is starting to get old.
See, most things in life are like that. When you’re not supposed to be doing them, you want to. And when you are supposed to be doing them… well, that’s usually when you’re engrossed with some other thing that you’re not supposed to be doing. It’s the siren song of the forbidden fruit. The thrill of the guilty pleasure. Or, to put it simply, ‘taboo is faboo‘.
(That one’s a freebie, folks. Feel free to use it in your daily conversations.)
Actually, that same yearning for ‘otherness’ is what got me into my current profession in the first place.
(Well, not my current current profession, since I’m between jobs at the moment. I suppose my current occupation is probably holding my desk chair down on the floor with my ass. And, despite my best efforts to the contrary, I actually seem to be becoming rather an expert at this particular vocation. Not only do I put in eight-hour days, and then some, but my ass is actually getting heavier and wider, to better fill the position of ‘Senior Chair Keeper-Downer, Internet Division‘. I’m all for going that extra mile, people — I was just never told that the mile would end up being the distance across my ass cheeks. That shit wasn’t in the contract, you understand.)
Anyway, back to my latest profession of choice that actually paid money.
(Though, of course, if any of you are interested in sending me money for blogging, I’ll certainly be happy to call this my profession. I’ll even keep talking about my ass, if that’s what you want. Send me cash, and it’s all about what you want. Principles, shminciples. I’ll make this the Ass Blog — all ass, all the time. Two hundred channels, and there’s nothing but ass on. Really. Hell, send me enough money, and I’ll post pictures of my ass, in various unflattering positions.
(Because that’s really the only option when my ass is involved. The position hasn’t yet been invented that will paint a pretty picture of my ass, I’m afraid. You can’t get blood from a stone, folks. Or my ass, come to think of it — that’s just about where I draw the line. Pictures, yes. Bloodletting? A most emphatic, ‘Stay the hell away from my ass, freakbag!!‘ We all have our limits.)
All right, let’s put away the asses for a while, shall we? That was like a whole month’s worth of ass in just a couple of paragraphs. You must be stuffed to the gills with ass by now. (Yes, I know — I’m still doing it. Sorry. I just couldn’t resist, once I had the mental image of a fish stuffed to the gills with ass. C’mon, that’s funny! Close your eyes and picture it. See? Now aren’t you happier I got that last assing in?)
So, anyway, I’m a computer programmer by trade.
(I don’t know who the hell I traded with, but I bet they got the better end of the deal. They’re probably a bartender, or a circus juggler, or an astronaut, or something cool like that. Bastard.)
But I wasn’t always a coder. I’m actually trained as a research biologist. Four years’ worth in college, and four years after that, as a matter of fact. And that’s about all I could take, frankly. I started fiddling around with computers on the side, sneaking off to learn HTML, and bits and pieces of UNIX administration, and later real live coding, in real live languages like Java and Perl and SQL.
I left science because it got old. Research sounds cool and all, but it gets pretty repetitive and drab and dull. There’s a reason scientists wear those pristine, plain white lab coats, and not clown gear, or bunny rabbit suits, or slick nylon pimpin’ togs. All of those would work just as well — or better — at keeping nasty chemicals away, but scientists aren’t known for their sense of humor. Or social skills. Or bathing habits, in many cases. No, biologists are there to ‘figure shit out’, and nothing else. Most of ’em wouldn’t recognize a joke if it crawled up their ass and had a litter. Which probably is for the best — with all the attention to detail and precise measurements and focused observations, you probably don’t want someone who likes to go out on dates, or attend parties, or who’s going to be distracted by the latest knock-knock gag. So clearly, I wasn’t the man for the job, and I let myself wander into something more appropriate.
Which is not to say, ‘ideal‘. Computer nerds aren’t really known for their eloquence or pith, either.
(Sorry, is ‘pith’ even a word? I mean, ‘pithy’ has to have a non-adjective form, but that just doesn’t look right. I always have trouble with ‘pithy’, anyway — in my mind, all I can hear is Eric Cartman saying, ‘Don’t get all pithy, bitch!‘ Which is cool, but only rarely helps me with however I’m tryin’ to use the word. Damn you, South Park!)
So, eight years in science, including school, and then I needed a change. So I went from being a science geek to a computer nerd. I traded in my taped-over-the-bridge thick glasses for a pocket protector and pants hiked up to my nipples. Joy. Still, the hours are better for programmers, and you can find the occasional code jockey who’ll go out for beers now and then.
(If you look hard enough, that is — and I did. Who wants to drink alone?)
So, if nothing else, I made it from the fire up to the frying pan. Whoop-te-doo.
And now, as I look back, I see that I’ve been slinging bits and bytes around for almost exactly eight years. The same span it took me to tire of science and lab work and cutting open mice to see what’s inside.
(Well, okay, I could never tire of that. Some things are fun, no matter what profession you’re in.)
And now I’m looking for a job. And wondering what I really want to do when I grow up. And blogging when I’m supposed to be looking for a job. Uh oh. I think I’ve been on this merry-go-round before.
What does it all mean? Honestly, I don’t know. I just know that I owed you nice folks a post today, and I’ve filled up several paragraphs explaining how I got to this point. Where’s the next stop? Computer squaresville? Maybe. Is there any other option? Dunno. After the weekend I’ve just had — burgers and brats and comedy on Friday, an all-day, all-night pool party yesterday, and spending today walking around like a slack-jawed drool-dribbling zombie — I think I’m just gonna have to sleep on it. I’ll have more for you tomorrow, and hopefully it’ll make more sense. This writing in a half-coma thing is tough, dude. But a few hours of rest will get me back on track, I think. And if not… well, you’ll know what happened when I call up and tell you that I think I’m coming down with the chickenpox *cough*, or that my dog looks swollen and puffy and red. And God forbid I need more time to recover — that’s when the relatives start dropping dead, to buy me time. And I don’t wanna put Aunt Gracie through that again.
Permalink | 2 CommentsFor when you care enough to blog the very best.
Well, it finally went and happened. After a couple of weeks of playing the ‘timestamp game’ and conjuring posts at insane hours, I finally went and missed a day. I didn’t register a post here for a full calendar day. Friday, August 22nd, 2003 shall evermore be known as ‘The Day The Blog Passed By‘.
Or something. Basically, I got lazy, and missed a day. I’m sure you’re all crushed, and shocked, and a little sweaty. I know I am. But it’s okay; I’m doing my best — or some reasonable facsimile thereof — and the mega-posts I’ve been banging you over the head with lately probably more than make up for an unscheduled off day. Assuming anyone’s reading this on a regular basis, anyway.
Besides, it isn’t like I didn’t write anything, anyway. I just didn’t post it. Or more correctly, I didn’t post it here.
(No, no, the first was more correct, actually — I didn’t post anything, but I did email a post to someone else, and they posted it elsewhere. Whew! I’m awfully glad we cleared that up, aren’t you?)
In any case, the post in question was most graciously and nicefully prepared and posted by my good friend the Soup Lady over at The Joy of Soup. The post is about my recipe for bratwurst that I unleashed on unsuspecting party guests at our barbecue last weekend.
(And again, on rather more suspecting guests, last night.)
It’s also about six million words long, so be warned. Still, if you like this stuff, you’ll probably enjoy that stuff, so go check it out. And be sure to browse the Joy of Soup archives — SueP (that’s Sue Playdee, get it? Hey, I don’t writes ’em, folks…) has got a veritable plethora of soup recipes, tips and hints, and other fun facts for food freaks. Or even phood phreaks, if you happen to be one of those. So go there. You know you want to. And many, many thanks to SueP for the opportunity to litter another site with my blithery prose. It’s good to spread the love.
So, look, not to neglect you fine folks further or anything, but I’ve got another shindig to go to later today. And I’m not sure exactly what shape I’ll be in when I get back. So please accept this mini-post, which points you to a much, much longer post, as a token of my appreciation, and a promise to do better tomorrow. Really. Cross my heart. So, until then, peace, folks. I’ll be back soon. And do try not to miss me. I’ll be thinking of you. Really!
Permalink | 2 CommentsIt’s not what you know that counts. It’s what you blog.
Isn’t it funny how a tiny little word or two can make a big difference?
Oh, I’m not talking about ‘thank you‘ or ‘please‘ or ‘not pregnant‘. Sure, those can make a big difference as you go through life (and, in some cases, save you a hell of a lot of money), but this is Where the Hell Was I?, not Reader’s Digest. I don’t care about all that kissy-kissy nice-nice crap.
(Speaking of which, why is it that the prissy little nerdy types get all the sing-song hyphenated descriptions, anyway? They get ‘kissy-kissy’ and ‘namby-pamby’ and ‘goody-goody’. Some of ’em even get ‘touchy-feely’, which is at least a good excuse to clock them. But where’s the love for the rest of us? You never hear of anyone being ‘horny-horny’ or ‘pissy-wissy’ or ‘suicidal… um, -widal’. Okay, so forget that last one. Still, I think it’s time we got in on the action. I say we take over, and beat the shitty-witty out of any puny-wuny pissant that stands in our way. I’m mad-mad as hell-hell, and I’m not gonna take it any longer! Who’s with me?)
Anyway, I’m talking about little words that sometimes get accidently left out of, or added to, sentences by people who just aren’t paying very much attention to what their mouths are doing. And then we, the marginally normal ones, have to deal with the ape gibberish coming out of their pie-holes and try to respond intelligently. Which only drags us down with them into the moron muck.
I had this happen to me just this morning. First, just a smidgen of backstory is in order. In case you’re new around here, I’m currently looking for a job.
(Actually, even if you’re old around here, I’m still looking for a job. I don’t even know why I say these things.)
And I’m collecting unemployment insurance while I’m at it. You know, because I used all the money from the fancy day job I used to have to light expensive cigars, and paper the walls of my house, and wipe my ass. Important stuff, in other words.
(Okay, I’m kidding. I really blew all my dough on beer and Girls Gone Wild! videos. But that’s not nearly as sexy as the cigars and the ass-wiping. So don’t tell anyone, okay?)
So, after a couple of weeks of this, the state gubment decides that it’s had just about enough, and sends me a letter stating that I must sign up for one of their ‘career center seminars’ in the next two weeks, or lose my benefits. And since I’m only up to Girls Gone Wild IX (that’s the Daytona Beach Spring Break one, if you’re scoring at home), I really need to keep the money rolling in. On the other hand, I’m already working with a career counselor that my old company was kind enough to hire.
(I suppose they could see that I’m nearly unemployable, and can use all the help I can get my grubby paws on.)
But I really don’t need a roomful of state employees with their fingers up their noses asking me what a ‘Pooter Pro Grammer’ does. Honestly, my blood pressure is high enough as it is.
(Okay, so if you’re a state employee and you’re reading this, I’m not talking about you, all right? I’m sure you, and all of your friends in the local office are perfectly competent, not to mention friendly, helpful, thrifty, brave, and all that other good shit. And you probably hardly ever stand around picking your nose, I’m sure. No, the people I really meant are those other bastards in your office that you and your buddies hate, who never do anything and are always yelling and getting into pissing contests, and generally making life miserable. Those people. Not you, okay. Unless you don’t know any of those people, in which case you’re those people, and I am talking about you. Shiftless no-good loser-bag.)
All right, what was I saying? Ah, the seminar thingy. Good show.
So, I talked to my counselor about the whole mess.
(Sounds like I’m in summer camp, doesn’t it? Seems like I oughta be making leather wallets and practicing archery and trying to get to second base with the cute redheaded girl during a midnight skinny dip. Of course, during a skinny dip, pretty much any physical contact counts as second base, I suppose. I mean, besides the fact that she’s naked all over, you know she’s naked, which is pretty damned exciting. And which further means that if you’re facing your swimming sweetie, it’s pretty clear what the first thing you touch her with is going to be, whether you mean to or not. And that’s second base, or at least a reasonable enough facsimile for a twelve-year-old boy to hang his hat on. Unless there’s shrinkage, of course, in which case you have to try a little harder. Or try to be a little harder, I suppose. I guess this is one of those cases where adding in a couple of little words really doesn’t change much at all, does it?)
Anyway, swerving back on track, my counselor assured me that she could get me out of the seminar with a simple letter saying that I was already spoken for. Or as I like to call it, my ‘Get Out of Flunky Unemployed Boring Seminar Hell Free’ card. All I had to do was call up the job center, figure out where and to whom the letter should be faxed, and she’d handle all the rest. And it was during that phone call that I was struck dumb by one of those creepy near-sentences that make you want to box somebody’s ears for making you feel and sound like a raving idiot.
Okay, so maybe that was just a tad more than a smidgen of backstory. This is why I don’t cook, by the way. A ‘pinch of salt’ becomes a handful, and a ‘dash of hot sauce’ morphs into a whole bottle, if I’m not careful. It just never works out very well. On the other hand, I do make the homeless people around here very happy when they ask if I can spare a ‘little change’. So somebody’s getting rich off this sickness of mine, at least.
Anyway, I made the call. Here’s how it went:
Lady: Hello, Mass Employment Training Center.
Me: Hi, my name is Charlie, and —
Lady: Can you hold, please? *click*
Me: Um, sure.
Now, right away, this was odd. Sure, a lot of busy places will answer the phone and put you right on hold, but she didn’t do it all in one breath like the pros do. Instead, she let me get my name out, and then banished me to holding pattern Hell. Which made me wonder, ‘Do they know about me already? Am I walking into a trap?‘ When in doubt, folks, I turn to rampant, snarling paranoia. It ain’t pretty, but I haven’t been ambushed by ninjas yet, knock on wood. So it must be working.
But getting back to the phone call. After thirty seconds or so on hold, the lady came back. And this is where she threw me for a loop:
Lady: Hi, sorry about that.
Me: Oh, no problem. So I got this letter in the mail —
Lady: Excuse me. Are you the gentleman I’m talking to?
I mean, seriously, how the fuck do you answer that question? Unless your name is DeNiro, or maybe Pacino, ‘Am I talking to you?‘ is not a rhetorical question. And certainly not during a phone call, when — let’s be clear on this — by goddamned definition, yes, you are talking to me! If you’re talking to someone else, then I can’t see them, now can I? So what the hell was I supposed to say to that? I didn’t know, so I stalled, hoping she’d clarify if I asked her to repeat the offending half-assed question. But, of course, I’m just never so lucky:
Me: Um… what?
Lady: Are you the gentleman I’m talking to?
Me: Uh… well… um, yes?
Lady: Oh, wait. No. You’re not. Hold on a second. *click*
Okay, so I answered the question, in the only logical way I could possibly see how, and — guess what? Apparently, I was wrong! What the hell was it, a date? I had no idea the conversation was going to involve trick questions and unanswerable riddles. I fully expected her to come back and spout, ‘Does this phone receiver make my ass sound fat?’ or ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’ Um, well — don’t care! Just get the hell back on the phone so I can get the hell out of the seminar you’re randomly trying to make me go to! Bitch monkeys!
(Anyone still wondering why I have little faith in the state’s best and brightest to run an employment seminar? They’ve got Fannie Gump here working the phones, speaking quasi-English and playing Whack-A-Mole with the ‘Hold’ button. And you’re gonna find me a job? Greeeeeeat.)
After another fifteen seconds or so:
Lady: Okay, I’m sorry about that. I’ll transfer you now to someone who can help you. *BEEP* *BEEP* *click*
Me: Um, thanks. I guess…
Now, I don’t know whether she remembered who the hell I was, and she never asked what the hell I wanted, so I have no idea why the hell she thought she knew who would be capable of helping me. Maybe my paranoia was well-founded after all, and they knew exactly what I was after. Or maybe she mixed me up with someone else. Or maybe, just maybe, she’s a toothless, babbling idiot, because five seconds or so after she dingled on the phone buttons and ‘transferred’ me, I heard an ominous *ka-click*, and then dead silence. No buzz, no Muzak, nothing. Bitch cut me off. Slung me back and forth, left, came back, spouted gibberish, and then cut my ass off. Maybe it was a date, after all. If only there’d been an eighty dollar check to pick up and a firm slap on the cheek for trying to smooch her, the picture would have been complete.
(Not that I would try to sneak a kiss from her, mind you. For one thing, I’m happily married and get all the smoochy-smoochy I need here at home. And for another, the receiver did make her ass sound fat. And I could see from our conversation that she had the IQ of week-old roadkill, so I wasn’t interested. Not by a longshot.)
Anyway, after a bit of thought — and a lot of cursing — I finally realized that what she’d really meant to say was, ‘Are you the gentleman I was previously talking to?’ Or something similar. On the other hand, she repeated her fractured, meaningless question rather than the more coherent version when I asked her, so I still have to stamp her ‘Moron, First Class’. But at least I understand where she meant to be coming from, though the message got garbled as it passed through her headmeat and out through her lips.
And, to be fair, after a couple hundred deep breaths and a few shots of tequila, I called back, and sorted things out rather uneventfully. Maybe I got the same woman, and she’d just had a brain lapse earlier. Or maybe she has multiple personalities, and one of them is Sylvester the Cat. Or Sylvester Stallone, for that matter, and that’s who I’d reached the first time. Or perhaps I just reached someone more competent and phone-worthy when I called back. For all I know, the first lady was some crazy vagrant who’d broken in and started answering phones, until they subdued her with tasers and dragged her by her ankles back to the curb. Hey, it happens. How do you think Stuttering John’s career got started?
So, it all worked out. I got the info I needed, and I got out of a seminar that would have sucked up another two hours of my life that I could never get back. And no, the fact that I just spent two hours blogging about the whole mess is not delicious irony. It’s just coincidence, pure and simple. Besides, this way, all of you learn a valuable lesson — if you decide you simply must open your yap and… well, start yapping, do try and make sure that all of your words are on board, and in the right order, okay? Otherwise, you’ll just freak people out, and they’ll call you names behind your back. And nobody wants that. Not even that headjob crack whore bozo bitch at the career center. It’s too late for her, folks. Don’t you be next!
Permalink | No CommentsAll the crap that’s fit to blog.
Well, hello there. Good to see you. Please, take a seat up front; I won’t bite. You won’t even have to wear a rain jacket. Really, don’t worry. We’re all friends here. Relax.
Now, for those of you who tuned in yesterday, you’ll know where we left off. For those who didn’t, I’ll give you two options:
There you have it, friends — a long, rambly, windy blog entry, or a single simple sentence. Your choice. So don’t you go telling people that I don’t give you options, dammit. I know how you like to talk behind my back.
So, anyway, we were scheduled for an afternoon visit over the weekend. And at the appointed time, give or take an hour or two, our friendly vacuum representative huffed and puffed his way to our door, having just carried his eighty pounds of cleaning crap up our rather significant stairs. Poor dearie. So, we let him in, got him a glass of water, and got started.
Now, I don’t know whether you’ve ever had the privilege of being called upon by one of these nice young chaps. But I can tell you, it’s a bit of an experience. There are pithy remarks, and product demonstrations, and inane rhetorical questions. Not to mention winning smiles, triumphant grins, and sweeping voila-style hand-waving. Really, folks — it’s a boom mike and a drooling crowd of idiots away from having an infomercial in your own home.
(And honestly, in our household, the dog drools and I’m an idiot, so it wasn’t even that far away. Only my wife has any damned sense around here, and I think we’re slowly dragging her IQ down to our level. It won’t be long before she’s scooting around the carpet on her ass and trying to lick her own privates. And who knows? One day, she might even start taking after the dog, too! The dog. Dog. Yes, thank you. I’ll be here all week.)
So, on to the actual festivities. Our ‘sanitation contraption technician’, as he liked to be called, started by unpacking a dizzying array of hoses, attachments, trays, and brushes. I could identify a few of them, based on my rather limited experience, but others looked more like devices from the annals of Nazi torture rather than Good Housekeeping.
‘Ve use zis one to suction ze testicles, und zis one to viggle around in ze eye sockets. If zey do not talk by zen, ve vill jam zis tube up in ze pooper chuter, und blow ze cotton balls soaked in gasoline through it. No one can vithstand ze ‘Great Balls of Fire Up Ze Ass’ treatment!‘
Anyway, like any good salesman, he started with the sex toy. And I respect that; all the pros do it. You’re selling houses? Show the jacuzzi first. Cell phones? You lead with those leather sheathy things that are ostensibly to ‘wrap around the phone’. Yeah, right. Maybe you work at a supermarket? Then you put the zucchini right by the door, and the cucumbers right next to ’em. Easy in, easy out. If you’re really ballsy, you’ll display the honey and whipped cream in the same case, but most grocers don’t want to beat you over the head with it. There should be just a bit of subtlety to sex, after all. Nobody likes it when you go at it all chimp-style, like you’re playing ‘Finish That Screw‘:
Chimp 1: I can finish that screw in four strokes!
Chimp 2: Oh, yeah? I can finish that screw in three strokes!
Chimp 1: Your mother flings poop, bitch! I can finish that screw in two strokes!
Chimp 2: All right, fool. You think you a chimp pimp or something? Finish that screw!
Chimp 1: Um, er, too late. I guess I should have said one stroke. Ick. Uh, could I get a towel over here, please?
Okay, I think I lost track just a bit. Chimps and sex and cucumbers all in the same paragraph will do that sometimes. Let’s see — I think the salesman was just starting his routine. Let’s join our blog entry, already in progress:
So, the sex toy. This particular vacuum cleaner model has both a high-speed intake (the ‘sucky end’) and a powerful outflow (the ‘blowy end’).
(And wouldn’t it be useful if people were labelled the same way? I mean, when you first meet someone, it’s hard to tell which end is going to suck, and which end is going to blow. Of course, if you’re like a lot of people I know, both your ends are capable of each, and rarely stop doing one or the other.)
Anyway, he put some guard on the sucky end, and then a hose over the blow hole thingy. And onto the hose, he strapped — yes, I said strapped, ladies — an attachment with a soft flat red surface. He turned the engine on and made us feel it while it vibrated. With our hands — our hands, you sick bastards! Anyway, he tried to explain it away as a combination ‘sander’ and ‘buffer’ and ‘massager’. Pfffftt, I say. We know what massager means, don’t we, folks? That thing’s designed for ‘tickling the pink’, and nothing else. Don’t try to tell me I can sand the floors with it, and don’t dare suggest that I rub my neck with it! Ew! Not after it’s been plunged down the mine shaft. Who wants to get that on the hardwood? (Um, floors. Hardwood floors. Funny how the answer to that question depends on that last little word, eh?)
So, we giggled appreciatively and he put his big red vibrating thing away.
(Really, it was like a slumber party at Peter North’s place. Creepy.)
But then he got down to the business of showing us what the cleaner was really capable of, when it wasn’t busy making sweet, sweet machine-assisted love in its free time. First, he regaled us with the blowy sorts of attachments. He replaced the big red sin against nature with a small nozzle, and tried to convince us that we could blow leaves, or even snow, with the thing. Right. Like I, as a marginally self-respecting male in this day and age, am going to go out into my yard — in public, mind you — and perform manly yard work with a vacuum cleaner. Uh-uh. That is a one-way express trip to get-a-wedgie-from-every-neighbor-on-the-block-ville, folks. And I’m not going there. I’ve got few enough unstretched undies as it is.
There was also this needle-nosed thing that he stuck on the hose and said could be used for those ‘hard-to-reach’ places. And he said it with a very sly, knowing look, which made me think that maybe this was another sort of sex toy. But I couldn’t imagine exactly how several dozen foot-pounds of air blown at, or in, or up a person could be a turn-on, so I let my mind slowly drift back to whatever the hell he was actually saying. Something about computer keyboards and couch crevasses; I didn’t really catch it. Though it did strike me that if the other attachment was capable of blowing snow off of my driveway, then this little concentrated shooter would hardly blast the crumbs and gunk from between my keyboard keys. With that kind of power, it’d heave the goddamned thing across my desk and embed it in my wall. But I didn’t interrupt. Far be it from me to be rude.
Anyway, that was about it for the blowing. Next up was the sucking.
(So now it’s sounding more like a dinner party at Asia Carrera’s pad. That’s more like it! Rrrrrrrow!)
Anyway, for this bit, he strapped a little doohickey onto the outflow pipe that allowed him to put little paper filters where the collection bag would normally go. That way, we could see all the crap and dirt and bugs and goop that his machine was pulling out of our rugs. Fantabulous! What a selling angle!
‘Look, you pigs, at your nasty filth! Oink, oink, piggies! Look — filth in the carpet! Filth on the floors! Buy this vacuum, or all of this filth that you’ve never seen, or touched, or known or cared about, will remain just where it was, undisturbed until the end of eternity! You don’t want that, do you? Well, piggy, do you? Do you?‘
So, that’s where the horrific shame began. Now, I’d just vacuumed the carpets a day or two before. And my wife had dusted, and wiped off the couches and tidied them up. So, of course, when the guy jammed his carpet attachment on the machine and fired it up, she gave me dirty, withering looks as the filter was filled with hair and dirt and sand, and what looked queasily like small animal bones. And the same with the next filter, and the next, and the next. I could only shrug, and say that I thought I’d vacuumed up all the fur and dead animals, so how the hell was I supposed to care? Er, know. How was I to know? I got it right at the time, luckily.
But, ah, how the tables turned when our sanitation magician slapped on the upholstery attachment and went to work on the couch. ‘Oh, suuuuuure you cleaned ’em, hon. No, no, I believe you, really. It’s just that I thought you buried the cat in the yard, not between the cushions.‘ Okay, I didn’t say that. Not because I’m nice, mind you, but because we’ve never owned a cat. But there was a cat’s worth of hair on the filters, mixed in with all the goop and filth and muck. I swear to God, until that day, I thought our couches were green. Turns out, we’re just unwavering slobs. Now we’ve got to paint the walls in that room, since the real color of the couches clashes with the decor. Damned lousy vacuum cleaner!
But that wasn’t the end of it, folks. Not by a long shot, no matter how fervently you pray for this post to be over. No no. Next, he asked to see our mattress. And I said that was fine, but if he brought that damned ‘sander’ with him, we were going to have words. But he didn’t. No, instead, he cranked the rug sweeper dealie back on, and strapped a handle on the engine, and joined us in the guest room.
(Sure, we could have shown him our room, but he was a guest, so that’s where we took him. Plus, we knew this would end up being gross, and if there’s one thing I like to avoid in life, it’s being in my own bedroom with my wife and hearing her say, ‘Ewwwww!‘ Not to mention that I try to keep other men out of the room while we’re in there together. Sometimes I have to beat ’em off with a stick, but that’s my policy, and I wasn’t about to break it for Joe Door-To-Door.)
(Actually, if you’ll indulge an aside to an aside for a moment, his name wasn’t actually ‘Joe’, though he might have wished it were. He signed his name as ‘Mike Angelov’, which to me is just a sad, sad commentary on the state of parenting today. Or twenty years ago, when he was born. Whatever — you know what I mean.
And if you don’t get why that’s so tragic, think for a second. His first name likely isn’t ‘Mike’, now, is it? It’s almost assuredly ‘Michael’. Michael Angelov. MichaelAngelov. Or Michelangelo, plus a ‘v’. Sure, it’s not the most annoying, heinous trick you could play on your kid, but it was so easily avoided. Name the kid Joe, or Steve, or Frank, and it’s done. No muss, no fuss. Name him Michael — or even Mike, for smart-asses like me — and you’re inviting trouble. Most of which will be visited on your kid in the form of swirlies and getting the crap kicked out of him for no apparent reason. Way to go, Pop.
Look, if they wanted him tortured and ridiculed, they could at least have been more obvious about it. Name him ‘Los’. Ooh, or ‘Darkness’. Actually, that would be cool. So when he’s sitting at the DMV, and they call for him, last name first, he’d be ‘Angelov, Darkness‘. Sweeeet! Mike, are you getting this? Your parents fucked up, but there’s still time for you, dude! Get out there and procreate, fer Chrissakes! Time’s a-wastin’!)
Okay, let’s see, where the hell was I? Oh, right, in the guest room.
So, the dude — aw, hell, let’s just call him ‘Dark’ from now on, shall we? — sets up shop on our mattress, and starts sucking on it near the foot of the bed. Um, I should probably also mention that he was using his machine to do so, lest you whip up some sort of disturbing mental image about what went down that day. Be good. Now, for this trick, he used a black filter, rather than the white ones he’d employed to that point. And why, you might ask? Or maybe you’ve already begun to suspect, as I had by then. The reason is that dirt and filth and hair show up quite well against a white background, but crusty dead skin flakes really only stand out with a dark backdrop. Like a black filter. And believe me, skin really shows up well on black. Trust me on this one. It was one of the grossest things I witnessed all day.
(Okay, not the grossest, quite. I did catch a few minutes of that new Roseanne show. Gag me with a putty knife, that shit was rank! And the bitch doesn’t get any prettier, now, does she? You’d think she’d have nowhere to go but up, but goddamn, you’d be wrong. And nauseous, too. Gives me the crawly willies just thinkin’ about it. Wuuuh-ooooh-uuuuuh!)
Anyway, after grossing the hell out of us, Mike — um, Dark, that is — had just one more piece of business. He had to show us that our vacuum cleaner was crap.
(Not a hard sell in our case, since our vacuum cleaner was older than we were. I think it was a family heirloom, passed down from my caveman ancestors. I’m pretty sure it was the first model made right after they phased out the prehistoric elephant kind that they had on the Flintstones.)
So, he set out to make his point. First, he vacuumed a small area of our rug with our vacuum. Over and over and over, like some deranged compulsive freakjob. ‘Out, out, damned spot! Out!‘ Okay, he didn’t say that. I did, but only in my head. My borderline insanity is not on trial here, dammit! What is on trial, or rather, was on trial that day, was his vacuum cleaner. So, after wearing a hole in the carpet with our model, he set to work with his, and — like a true magician — pulled a rabbit out of his hat! Well, okay, not so much a rabbit as a dust bunny. And not so much a dust bunny as a whole frickin’ herd of them. And they didn’t come from his hat, of course; they got sucked from the still-smoking patch of rug he’d just abused with our machine. Boy, you should have seen the proud look on his face. ‘Look, piggy, more filth! Who’s a dirty piggy then, huh? Who’s a dirty little piggy?‘ Bastard.
But he didn’t stop there. Oh, no. Next, he set out to prove that his uber-vac could handle all the spills and thrills of modern life, and pick up new dirt as well as old. So, he littered our rug with new dirt. You know, to make a point. Now, folks, I’m a fairly open-minded fellow. I’m all for amazing demos and dramatic demonstrations. So I really didn’t mind when he poured salt all over our rug, or mushed grape jelly into it, or even flipped our dog over and ground the hair off her back into the fibers. All of that was cool — I could see where he was going with it. Plus, it made the dog smell like salty grapes, which was a marked improvement. But did he really have to drop trou and pee all over the pile? Really, I ask you, was that necessary? Was it critical for the demonstration? Or was the glass of water we gave him just too big? I don’t know, frankly, but I was a little taken aback. Not to mention disappointed. Somehow I’d always expected the Angel of Darkness to be, you know, bigger.
So, anyway, that was pretty much the end of it. He used our machine to roll all the shit around for a while, and then swooped in like SuperMaid and slurped up the sluice with his own vacuum. Not only did it not stain, but the carpet was even cleaner than before, and nicely scented with lavender.
(And asparagus, disturbingly enough. Made me wonder what he had for lunch that day.)
And so, my wife and I were stuck between a rock and a giant, invisiible mound of our own filth. So we did what we always do in that situation, and gave the guy lots of money for the vacuum, and to make him stop calling us ‘piggies’. In hindsight, it was probably the right thing to do. We needed a new vac, and nothing, but nothing, was going to suck as hard as this wonder machine we’d just been shown.
(Okay, except for that Roseanne show. Sorry, I just can’t get over it. Of all the people whose behind-the-scenes shenanigans I’m not interested in seeing, she’s right near the top of the list. With Weird Al Yankovic and Bob Dole in the running for top spot, too. I mean, did they really think that just because she’s an overweight ex-trailer ho that it was going to work out like The Anna Nicole Show? Seriously, I have trouble watching that one, too, but at least she was in Playboy a while back. I think if you’re going to be completely self-absorbed, barely literate, and stereotypically bass-ackwards, then the least you could do is have some naked pictures of yourself from when you were hot lying around. You know, to keep folks interested. But god forbid that Roseanne gets wind of that idea — seeing her skinny-romp on a nude beach would be like watching the Michelin Man run wind sprints. Or Homer Simpson on a treadmill — remember that one? ‘The jiggling… it’s almost… mesmerizing…‘ Eek.)
So, that’s pretty much it. We shelled out a big wad of cash for a big ugly noisy thing that sucks, blows, and will even vibrate your ass if you ask it nicely.
(Which is a lot like hiring Sandra Bernhard to do a movie, from what I understand. Hey, come to think of it, that’s another crappy bitchy monster that came out of the original Roseanne show. Was that studio built over a Hell Mouth or what?)
Anyway, our house will be cleaner, if nothing else. My wife’s already given all the floors a good once-over, though we haven’t tried the blower, or the shampooer, or even sucking our mattress yet. I’m a little frightened of that last one, truth be told. I’m worried that all the skin we’ve accumulated in there is the only thing holding it together and firming it up. What if we Hoover it out, and go from ‘skinny’ to ‘saggy’ in the blink of an eye? Oh, the horror!
(I think I’ll wrap it up there, before I make another Anna Nicole joke out of ‘skinny to saggy in the blink of an eye’. Really, sometimes it’s just too easy, and I think you nice folks have had enough for one day. Just think of it as one for the road. G’night!)
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