A Picha Asks A Thousand Questions

So while on my mini vacation we found ourselves at a tiki bar for lunch.  OK, we found ourselves at a tiki bar for bloody marys but we had lunch while there, so technically, I’m covered.

Note about the writer:

I have this bad habit of jumping into stranger’s vacation photographs.  I figure it will either give them a good story or make them wonder how much they had to drink since they have no clue who the hell that guy in the picture is.  I envision family debates years later.  “I swear that’s your cousin Danny, you know, Aunt Blanch’s kid?  Who else could it be?  Kind of looks like him but I’ll be damned if I remember him being on that trip.”   I’ve been doing this since high school.  Living in Florida I get the opportunity frequently.  Most people don’t seem to mind.  Some even find it as amusing as I do.  I’m in lots of photos.

Back to the tiki bar:

A loud lady behind me, camera in hand, yells to her group “Everyone get ready for a picha!”  So I got up and stood beside her….uncomfortably close.  I’m part of everybody, afterall.  She didn’t appear to mind too much but she looked at me as if maybe she knew me.  I gave a huge smile and waved, from about 10 inches away.

Her: “Do I know you?”

Me: “Not yet, but you should.”

Her: “Why?”

Me: “I might be somebody.”

Her: “Well are you somebody?”

Me: “I’d like to think so, yes.”

Her “Well I don’t know you.”

Me: “I might be a really fun guy.”

Her: “So?”

Me:  “You can’t afford to take that chance.  You’d just go back to your hotel tonight and realize you might have passed up the opportunity to meet someone really fun.  That’d ruin your day and I can’t allow that.”

Her:  “You can’t allow that?”

Me:  “Wouldn’t be very nice of me, would it?  Where do you want me to stand for the picture?”

Her:  “I don’t think I want you in the picha.”

Me:  “Listen, I’ll get you some validation.  Hey! (I said to my friends at my table) Am I fun or not?”

Them:  “All kinds of fun!”

Me:  “See?”

Her:  “In the back, then.”

Me:  “Perfect, since I’m tall.”

I went to the back of the group and put my arm around a really old lady (I’m guessing it was Aunt Blanch) who was obviously not in the mood for a picha.  I gave her arm a caring squeeze and said “Don’t you just hate these things?  How many pictures can she take on one trip?”  She sighed in resigned agreement and we both grinned like idiots and…..flash!

Ah.  A happy ending.

Let me ask you a question:  Have you ever been on vacation in Florida?  Yep!  That’s me in your photo.  Now you know.

Life Is Short, May As Well Have Fun

Last weekend I went to Dauphin Island, Alabygodbama to do some bird watching.  (I know, all of you think that’s totally the nerdiest, freakiest thing….except Orangespicedrop…..btw Spicedrop, we saw 110 species in our 2 days….but birding is not the point, so the rest of you can keep reading)  We rented a house on the island for 3 nights.  On the way in, we stopped at a Wal-Mart to pick up a few supplies, like water, hot dogs, hamburgers, buns, snacks and toilet paper.

When we got to the cash counter I couldn’t help but notice that the woman working the register had glitter on her eyelids.  Not a little glitter, either.  This woman was probably mid forties, 5’4” and about 185lbs.  She had very friendly smile.  I told her she was looking quite sparkly today.  She told me her son had watched her putting on her makeup this morning and insisted she use the glitter because he loved it so much.  I thought about asking her why she even owned glittery makeup stuff but figured maybe it was just part of the culture and I didn’t want to seem like I didn’t understand.  Instead I asked her if that was the story she told her boss this morning when she arrived.  She kind of looked at me with the “not sure I follow you” look.  So I told her “I’m not buying the thing about your son and I think you came to work straight from the rave you were at last night.  You can’t fool me.”  I grinned at her so she could tell I was just busting her chops.  Then she kind of got wide-eyed as she realized what I had said so I asked “Can I buy some X from you?”  The people I was with were laughing out loud and she said “What?”  I said “I know you didn’t eat all your ecstasy last night, and I was hoping to buy some from you.”  Then she realized I was indeed messing with her so she laughed with us.  I don’t think she fully trusted me, though.

As she was ringing up our items, she reached the 2-pack of toilet paper and scanned it.  I said “I’m not from around here so maybe you can help me.”  She looked up inquisitively.  “Is that the right amount of toilet paper for that many groceries?”  She looked back at what she had already scanned then looked at the things she hadn’t scanned yet and actually was doing the math.  “I’d think so, I mean, should be, unless you get sick or something.” she said.  I thanked her for being such a big help and paid.

Life is short.  Why bother encountering people if you can’t have fun with them?

Do They Make An Ointment For That?

Boy, I really find myself getting pissed off more and more frequently.  I wonder if this is just a factor of age or if people are getting stupider by the day.  So I thought I’d make a list of recent irritants so I can analyze them to help figure out the answer.

1)    People put their ignorant political views on the Facebook.  I can safely say ignorant because they think something like “The president is a pussy” or “The governor is a fascist” is a political opinion.  As soon as you make some over the top extremist statement, you lose all credibility.  Look how we perceive extremists from other countries.  Learn to articulate w/o name calling, Skeeter.  (oops)

2)    You come into my store with a photo you took of a bird in your back yard.  You can’t tell what species it is and ask me to identify it for you.  When I tell you what kind it is (a female red-winged blackbird) then show you a picture from a book verifying my identification, why do you then look at me and say “So you don’t have any idea what kind it is either, huh?  I knew it was rare.”

3)    I know there are many bloggers who have pointed out how much bad grammar pisses them off.  Guess I have to jump on that bandwagon.  Last week I was following an oversize pickup truck with customized stylish lettering painted on the tailgate reading “Racing this truck is like playing the lottery.  Your going to loose!”  I shit you not.  Dude had it fancy painted on the damn truck.  This wasn’t a bumper sticker.  I can’t help but wonder if he will ever know.

4)    Another common gripe among bloggers is kid behavior.  So I’m on that bandwagon too, I guess.  We were at a restaurant last week and while waiting to be seated we were caused ear pain by a terrible 2 who was rocking his full piercing scream.  Not one blood curdling shriek but a constant barrage.  We were seated after a short wait.  Lo and behold the hostess brought Danny Decibel and parents to sit in the booth right next to ours.  We had to leave before our entrees arrived.  We couldn’t even talk w/o shouting to be heard over this obnoxious make-me-pray-for-the-relief-of-sweet-death noise.

5)    I can’t even watch non-recorded tv shows anymore because the commercials are so fucking irritating.  How does a really tacky song (like putting different words to the theme from Ghostbusters….Who ya gonna call?…..I don’t know but I bet it’s someone I don’t want set on fire) help sell products?  Who decided a whiny voice is a great fit for your ad?  Why hasn’t the FCC stopped the commercials running at volume 10?  (They’ve talked about the issue for years but refuse to act.)  I understand the concept of top of mind awareness, but someone has to teach some of these ad geniuses that over saturation will turn the consumer off and if I see the same ad 3+ times in one program, I now hate that product…and misplaced aggression may cause that hatred to spill into the program.

OK.  I’ll quit there.  (But not for lack of more things to bitch about.)

After analyzing these items, I can honestly argue that people are stupid fuckers AND that I’m losing all patience with that stupidity as I get older.

More Things….because there are always things…

1)    If you don’t want your question answered, why in the hell did you ask?

2)    Does anyone else think it’s weird that I never tried a Whopper until I was 50?

3)    Actual question asked in my store: What can you do to make birds stop, you know, pooping?  (Try a cork)

4)    Actual question asked during my presentation to a local kindergarten class: Why are there birds?  (Like I need this existential shit first thing in the morning)

5)    True fact:  Kindergarteners think a hummingbird’s wings sound like a fart and the bird should be called the fartingbird instead.

6)    Next time a flight attendant says “We’d like to thank you for flying with us” tell her you’d really like that too and ask why she doesn’t just go ahead and do it.

7)    Someone can’t “go missing”.  Reporter: “It’s been 3 days since she went missing.”  Augh!!!  Speak English you jackass!  She is missing.  She has been missing for 3 days.  Augh!!!

8)    Another true fact:  Even though the state bird of Utah is the Seagull, there is no such bird as a Seagull.  (Really, there isn’t)

9)    It’s not unusual to see a bird watcher get out of a 1978 Nova (with the mirrors held on by duct tape) that he bought for $500 from the scrap heap and strap on a $2000 pair of binoculars.

10) Yet another true fact: I worked for a guy that was too cheap to let me buy 2-ply toilet paper for the office.

11) If your parents let you get away with lying your whole life, you are going to look like an idiot when you try it in the real world because you’ll think no one knows you’re lying, but we all do.

12) People who go to watch a professional golf tournament wearing their golf shoes are tools.

13) If you are an adult (without a kid you’re trying to impress) and wear your mitt to a baseball game to try to catch a foul ball, you’re a tool.

14) The Broncos just traded Tim Tebow.  Does that mean their theme song this year should be REM’s Losing My Religion?  What good is a Super Bowl trophy going to do them when they are in hell, hmmmm?

15) I love the George Burns line “The only way you can live to be 100 is by giving up everything that makes you want to live to be 100.”

 

A Little Respect

Out of respect for my NCAA bracket, rather than spending all week referring to the Sweet 16, would it be too much trouble to ask for everyone to refer to the Sweet 9?  Or even the annoying other 7?

Thank you.

Power to the People…we know not how powerful we are

As some of you know, I write a monthly article for my community newspaper.  It is formatted like an advice column with me answering questions about birds.  The 1st 3 words used to be Hey Bird Male….well not male but a 3 letter word that is frequently used instead of the word male.  Turns out some guy with a business in a small town in CO trademarked the term Bird Male…well not male, the other one.  He sent me a threatening letter with his attorney’s contact info and gave me 30 days to quit using the term in my writing.  If you don’t know, I’m in a small FL community, 20 miles outside Tampa.  I’m no law breaker!  (Notice I even changed the name of the link on this blog.) I replied with the following:  True fact.

3-14-12

Sir,

Thank you so very much for your “courtesy” email.  I love the irony of you using the word “respect”.

I am immediately complying with your request to stop using the term B___M__ in my articles moving forward from this date.

I certainly can understand why you would see me using this term as detrimental to your business, both current and in the future.  After all, my articles, printed in one of the local, independently owned newspapers; do reach almost 10,000 local residents.  I’m so sorry that I may have inadvertently caused confusion among your client base in both the Fishhawk and Bloomingdale communities.  Even though my articles do not appear on the newspaper’s website, I am now cognizant of the crushing effect my writing is having on you.  I wasn’t previously aware of my impact.  I can only pray you caught me in time.

Small business people, like you in Smalltown CO, have it hard enough out there without some super powerful businessman like me (I mean if my 1400 sq ft store located in a neighborhood of 7500 homes isn’t powerful, I don’t know what is) potentially crippling you by writing an article designed to help some of the locals learn more about birds, with the first three words being “Hey! Irdbay Anmay”.   It must have been devastating.

Thank you so much for visiting my website.  As you can see, I don’t sell anything online.  I clearly comprehend the threat the presence of my articles on my website represents to your business.  Afterall, I have paid for search engine optimization to reach folks searching for bird feeders and birdseed in a full 20 mile radius around my store!  Again, I hope you can forgive me for any damage these articles caused your business in Smalltown or how many sales I cost you from your website.  All I can do is hope you know the damage I’ve caused was inadvertent and I’m happy to cease utilization of the no longer mentionable term.

Since you are in the bird feeder manufacturing business, you may have contacted me as a potential retail outlet for what I’m sure are your fine products.  Many would deem that to be a logical step.  Then, during that conversation, you could have informed me you were able to copyright the term B___ M__ and asked if it would be too much trouble for me to alter the term in my all powerful and far reaching articles.  But not you!  Rather than taking that route, you elected to send a designed for intimidation, attorney driven email. I have so much to learn about business! Your method is far more effective and tells me all I’ll ever need to know about you.  Trust me, it worked.  I shall ride your lengthy coattails no more.

Perhaps when you have successfully rid the world of parasitic phrases like I wantonly used to begin my articles, you would consider mentoring me.  I’m not even savvy enough to spot clear and present danger to my brand.  I’m comforted knowing you’ll sleep well tonight realizing you have stopped the all too huge threat to your livelihood from the evil force that is Rich’s articles.  I can see a day in the future when you will tell your grandchildren proudly of your prowess in conquering a conglomerate like me.  That will be a beautiful time, when history will recall the greatest victories in our land:  The battle for Independence; The Allies Over the Axis; The US Hockey Team beating the Russians and you stopping me from using 2 of 3 words to start my articles in my community newspaper.  I am in awe of your power.

In order to cause you no further harm, I promise to be sure and cease ALL usage of the term.  Please rest assured when I do programs for Brownies, Cub Scouts and the local grade schools, they call me Mr. Rich.  I need some procedural advice though. If one of them can’t remember my name and slips up, calling me Mr. Trademarked Term, should I call the police on the child?  Perhaps if I send you say $0.02 per occurrence as a royalty, you would feel properly honored.  Also, please don’t hesitate to alert me if/when you manage to trademark the word bird.

Best of luck with your business.  Congratulations on your big win.

Rich

(I hope his attorney bills him for a full hour to review my reply)

Discombobulating Confusion

How do words get to be words?  This had been bugging me for quite some time.  Language is alive and ever changing.  I accept that we add words to our dictionary every year.  It is certainly popular to use nouns as verbs these days.  We all Google things.  A new term in golf is to flight the ball in a certain manner.  I can hang with these things.

But I’m perplexed by some older words.  Let’s take, for example, discombobulated.  Who decided discombobulated would be a word?    Let’s assume this guy had some thingamabob, which was in fact, combobulated.  He took it apart and scattered it all over the room.  He elected at that time to refer to his object as discombobulated.  Fine, I suppose.  But how did he choose between discombobulated, incombobulated, decombobulated, uncombobulated and of course, noncombobulated.  All of those would have been perfectly acceptable.  What made him choose dis as his pronoun?  Did our hero then commence to recombobulate the thingamabob?

What happened to the other forms of that word?  It would seem to be a great marketing term to advertise something as combobulated rather than fully assembled.  You never hear of someone saying that they work in the combobulation industry.  You hardly ever hear someone say “Hey, Mike!  When you need a break from combobulating your model train, come on over and grab a brewski.”   Seldom is a product recalled because of a  miscombobulated part, an illcombobulated part or a malcombobulated one, for that matter.  An award or plaque would look magnificent if it read: For Excellence in the Combobulatory Field.

Were all these forms of the word removed from our dictionary to make room for words like Snookilicious? Perhaps all other forms of the base word combobulate were never in there at all.  If not, again I ask, who in the hell decided discombobulated was a word?  Let he who made this choice, come forward to receive a smack upon his cranium.

Once Upon A Tangent

In high school I dated a girl who talked like this, but she used to let me get to (as we called it back in the dark ages) 2^nd base so I never let it bother me.  She told me I was such a good listener.  :)  Lighten up!  I was 15.

“I have to tell you all about what Linda and I did last night at her house.  Her house is so huge and it takes forever to get out there because there’s like no direct way except the main road and we didn’t want to ride our bikes on the main road.  My bike has developed this clicking sound, but only when I’m pedaling uphill and did I tell you it’s green?  I love green soooooo much.  We got this assignment in English where we had to describe something we could see to a blind person and my word turned out to be green.  I tried to do it using smells but it was sooooo hard.  Like Tuesday’s math quiz?  Soooooo hard.  It seems like we were getting a quiz from like trigonometry but this is only algebra and Debbie asked Mrs. Granger if she was even aware of what class this was and she sooooo got sent to the office.  I got sent to the office once last year.  Oh last year was my favorite year.  This year I really like a lot because, well there’s you and I like you soooo much but last year I liked my teachers way better.  Teachers really have a rough job when you think about it because they have to deal with smartmouths like Debbie all the time and I would just blow my lid.  Like Mr. Evens did when you went to the board and wrote “escape” on it and asked him where the x he insisted on pronouncing was in that word.  I can’t believe how you didn’t even fall when he whacked you with the biology book and I thought he was going to explode when you said you weren’t going to go the office; you were going to the nurse instead.  I soooo want to be a nurse someday.  They get to work with the cutest doctors all the time who save people and I really think that’s my true calling, you know, spiritually.  My grandma was soooooo on my case last week because I don’t go to church every week anymore and mom doesn’t go either but she wasn’t standing up for me at all.  So Linda found the measuring lines we made to chart how tall we were each year when we were kids and we did it again last night and we were laughing sooooo hard because we were trying to stand up as tall as we could just like used to.”

I flashed back on this today when a girl, about 14, came in the store and was time-killing-wandering around with her phone in her ear.  She wasn’t really aware how loudly she was talking into her phone.  I was amazed to see that teenage tangent queen is still very much alive and well.  Got me all nostalgic.

These Things Don’t Belong Together and Yet They Are

A good friend of mine recently got to spend some time with a country musician.  The guy is a pretty famous.  Not Johnny Cash famous, but if you are a country fan you’ve heard of this guy.  Last week this same friend attended a basketball game with a famous former hoop star.  I told her she was all fancy hanging with celebs and she facetiously said “Oh yeah, I’m the shit.”  That got me thinking:  There is a fine line between what she meant and what I’m frequently called.  Why can one word have 2 such different meanings?  “You are the shit” is a compliment but “You are a piece of shit” isn’t.  Logically, the negative connotation must be with the word “piece”.  Another word like that is “bomb”.  You can tell someone “You are the bomb” and they feel good.  But you should never tell someone “You are a piece of bomb” unless you are trying to hurt his feelings.  On the other hand telling someone “You are an ass” is a bad thing but “You are a piece of ass” is also bad…sometimes…but different.  This is very confusing.  You’ve come to the wrong blog if you’re looking for answers.  Are you new?

Here’s a short story:  Once upon a time, there was a young pirate lad named Georgie.  Georgie got scurvy and died.

Have you ever thought about what an awesome sporting event you could create simply by combining football, swimming and bowling?  What an incredible coincidence!  Neither have I.  I’ll bet you didn’t know we had that in common, did you?  Tomorrow at work you can tell everyone “Hey!  You’ll never believe this.  Neither Rich or I have ever considered combining football, swimming and bowling to create a fun new sport!”  Don’t be surprised if sharing this little morsel doesn’t get you that promotion you’ve been busting your butt trying to get for 6-7 years.  I’m almost positive they won’t give the position to that 22 year old busty chick that has been working there for almost 2 months.

We really do need to lighten up our societal sphincter.  I was listening to the Oldies station (shut up!) and on came Little Richard.  I thought that if someone tried to release a song these days with the only lyrics being “Tuti Fruiti, Oh, Rudy” (unless you count “whomp babalua a whomp bam boom” as lyrics) there would be anti-defamation hell to pay.  I guarantee lawyers would be on that like sequins were on Richard’s jacket.

I’m amazed at how easily I’m distract

People Watching on a Sunday

Yesterday I went to a Cuban Café to grab a couple of to go sandwiches for my wife and I.  I was seated right in front of the front door while I waited the 20 minutes it took them to prepare my order.  This vantage point allowed me to observe several characters.

There was the party of 8 who were finishing up their meal.  2 members obviously wanted to leave because they were standing next to the table rather than sitting with the rest of the group.  After about 5 minutes, the rest of the group finally got up as well and they made their way to the exit.  The group as a whole took about 2 steps out the door and stopped.  They apparently were not yet done conversing.  They stood, blocking the front door for another 5 minutes, chatting.  3 other groups had to either walk around them or just kind of push through the middle in order to get in.  The only party that tried to leave when they were parked there had to ask them to move.  They were clearly inconvenienced by this request.  They reminded me of the idiot who stops dead trying to decide which way to turn when he gets off an escalator.

Then there was a couple in their 60s who had finished their meal.  He stopped by the counter on the way out to grab a toothpick.  As he left the restaurant he took the toothpick out of the clear plastic wrapper.  He held the wrapper in his hand then glanced left then right, looking for a trash can.  He eyeballed one on the right down the 3 steps and looked up recalling his car was toward the left.  He turned left and threw the plastic wrapper behind him in the general direction of the trash.  I waited until he was in his car driving back by the door before I went out to pick it up so he could see me cleaning up after him while he drove away.  He waved.

There was one guy who finished and told the waitress “Don’t work too hard!” as he left his table.  To him this was obviously the funniest thing he had heard or at least said all day.  He was still laughing audibly at his incredible wit when he made it outside.

My favorite was the guy in his early 30s.  He and his lady had also finished.  They were walking across the parking lot when he stopped, crouched, put his hands up to catch any imaginary basketball then stepped back and took an imaginary fade away jump shot.  (I don’t know if he made it or not because he didn’t give up a fist bump or anything.)  His girl looked at him then put up a hand in front of her face.  (So maybe he missed?)  Tool.

The sandwiches excelled in their mediocrity so the people watching was the best part of that venture.