I went to an open mike comedy club last night. OMG! You talk about painful! (MEAN ALERT! I am going to be hateful and mean right now.)
I did not know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this. We arrived a little late so maybe the “headliners” had already gone on. There were about eleven more people, and despite the emcee’s bubbling introductions that roused warm welcomes and cheers, these guys did not bring a lot of laughs with them.
It might have helped if there had been a few more people in the crowd. There were about 15 people there, and they had all been or were planning to be onstage. I only saw one guy with a girlfriend there – they left as soon as he bombed onstage.
Coming from me this might sound hypocritical. There have been many, many, MANY of these blogs that I didn’t think were very funny and I’m sure you wholeheartedly agree. However, it was late at night, I was tired, I had eaten a big pile of beans for dinner and my stomach was gurgling PLUS the air was hard to breathe and I had to get the heck out of here or suffocate, so I’ll admit I didn’t put a lot of thought into them.
Some of my blogs have made tears roll down my eyes (although that might have been the beans, too). I had tears last night, but they were not from laughing. It was a crying shame how bad most of those guys were.
You could tell they had the goods to be funny – nice voices or great smiles or a rapport with the audience. Their problems were similar to mine. They didn’t put enough time into preparing.
They came up to the stage carrying notebooks. Oh boy. It’s always nice to see a comic come up on stage and read jokes. After awhile I was hopeful that at least some of these pages contained something that could make me laugh, but alas, ‘twas not to be the case.
The notebooks, I think, were security blankets. The guys glanced at them, pondered, cocked their heads, cocked them to the other side, and then looked up at us like a deer in the headlights because maybe the lighting up there on stage made it so they couldn’t read what they’d written. Whatever the reason, there was nothing on those pages to help these guys in their struggle to be funny.
One guy got up there and said, “Well, I put my name on the list because I’ve never gotten up in front of a crowd and I wanted to see how it felt. Hmmm, feels pretty strange and pretty scary. Hmmm, I guess it would have been, uh, nice if I had prepared something…” He went on like this, rambling about how he should have prepared for five of the longest minutes in recorded history.
Then a guy got up and said, “I had sex last night with an 80 year old woman.” We groaned because he was about 18 and we all started picturing it in spite of ourselves. One poor guy in the audience Ralphed right there in his beer mug. The alleged comedian said, “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.” More groans. If groans had been laughs, his act would have made him a millionaire, especially when he started describing the sponge bath.
Once in their lives someone must have said to them, “You’re a funny guy.” Being funny at a party is not the same as performing comedy onstage, apparently. Funny stand-up guys actually write jokes and memorize them in a logical, funny order. They work at it, and this is where the difference comes in.
Another thing these guys did was say, “uh” every 4th word. “So I…uh….went down to the…uh….corner store and found….uh…..a magazine full of naked….uh….women who were….uh….naked and I….uh…. was….uh….thumbing through it when….uh…..”
The emcee couldn’t take it either. He got up after about 8 people and said, “You know, you see a lot of comics on TV. That’s where all comics want to end up, on TV, and one thing you might want to notice about these comics on TV is that they NEVER have a notebook when they go onstage. Just never see it. Just thought I’d mention that.”
So the very next comic brings his notebook up (he didn’t have enough notice), but the one after him came up empty handed. “Ooooo,” I thought, “maybe this guy is going to be good.” He gets up there and fumbles around with his “uh’s” and “everybody doing okay tonight?” Then he starts contorting his hand around, twisting it this way and that as if he’s trying to find a freckle just below his elbow. Finally he says, “Oh hell, I heard what you said about the notebook and so I wrote my set list on my arm but now I can’t read it.” That got one of the rare laughs of the evening.
Actually, that’s not true, There was an older woman who laughed at everything. You could tell she thought her mission was to help bolster these budding talents. I thought it was very sweet, and I laughed a few times too – but I laughed to keep from crying, as they say.
I have been to funny open mikes, but they should have “closed” this mike. Ha ha. I think anyone who could remember a few simple jokes would be a great hit at this place. For instance, this joke would have brought down the house: What do you call shoes that a frog wears? Open toad shoes. Or what do you call a cow that’s had its calf taken away? De-calf-inated. LOL – I could be a comedian! Maybe you’ll see me up there next week.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
the South Bugged Me
I grew up in the south but I don’t miss it. Actually I miss some of the people – a lot – but I don’t miss the summers. Everybody talks about the heat and the humidity, but the bugs are what did me in.
I’ve been afraid of anything buzzing or crawling all my life. If a bee, just minding his own business, flew too close to me I took off screaming into the house.
The boys knew I hated bugs so they made a point of catching every one they could when I was around. They’d take a big, squirming beetle with all 6 or 20 legs swimming through the air and slowly come right at me. I’d run screaming with that little girl shriek that could break windows in the next block over, The boys would run right behind me with that beetle held out in front of them, clutched between their thumb and index finger like they were tweezers.
That’s how I got to be so fast. None of them could catch me, and just when they were too tired to run any further they’d fling that beetle through the air and I’d feel it bounce against my back. I screamed like the tall actor in the first Home Alone movie. If you’ve never seen that guy scream, you’ve missed out on one of the funniest moments in movie history.
The boys used to catch June bugs in December. Ha ha. These ha ha’s are my version of canned laughter like you hear on sitcoms. They caught them in June, and they were big, green flying beetles about the size of a 747. Somehow they managed to tie a string to the June bug’s back leg, then they’d let it go. It would fly off until it reached the end of the string, and then climb as high as they could and fly in a circle it would go around in a circle as the boy held onto the other end. They would fly in circles as long as anyone cared to keep holding them. I only ever saw this last part because the minute one of them said, “Let’s catch us a June bug,” I warped into the house and cowered behind the screen door.
I knew if my curiosity got the best of me, I’d be running a foot or two in front of a June bug that would end up down my shirt if I stumbled or fell. All I saw was the boys huddled around working with their hands, and then the bug and string flying in a circle.
In the absence of a real bug, boys would pretend to catch one and chase me with it. I could have called their bluff, but if I was wrong, and they had a real bug, I’d be at the mercy of a giant spider they’d fling at me.
It is amazing how boys can sense your every fear, but men can’t sense when you’re angry, irritated, exhausted, or disinterested. That’s why women had to invent headaches.
In the south they also have horseflies that would buzz your head like some miniature kamikaze pilot. They would bump you in the ear or back of the neck to see if you were a fast swatter. If you didn’t swat right away, they knew they could get in there, chomp down on you, and buzz off before you knew you were being attacked. They drew blood and their bites hurt like a son of a gun. Whenever one started dive-bombing my head, I’d grab a limb full of leaves or pine boughs and swish it all around my head. If it hit the big ole horsefly it was stop cold, but it was a deterrent. Sometimes when they came in really close I’d slap my own face with a scratchy pine bough and end up with scratches everywhere, but it was better than getting bit.
They have very, very tiny mosquitoes in East Tennessee with lethal venom. When the sneaky little mosquito got done with you, you had a giant red welt that itched like poison ivy times three.
No, I don’t miss the bugs down there. The boys, either.
I’ve been afraid of anything buzzing or crawling all my life. If a bee, just minding his own business, flew too close to me I took off screaming into the house.
The boys knew I hated bugs so they made a point of catching every one they could when I was around. They’d take a big, squirming beetle with all 6 or 20 legs swimming through the air and slowly come right at me. I’d run screaming with that little girl shriek that could break windows in the next block over, The boys would run right behind me with that beetle held out in front of them, clutched between their thumb and index finger like they were tweezers.
That’s how I got to be so fast. None of them could catch me, and just when they were too tired to run any further they’d fling that beetle through the air and I’d feel it bounce against my back. I screamed like the tall actor in the first Home Alone movie. If you’ve never seen that guy scream, you’ve missed out on one of the funniest moments in movie history.
The boys used to catch June bugs in December. Ha ha. These ha ha’s are my version of canned laughter like you hear on sitcoms. They caught them in June, and they were big, green flying beetles about the size of a 747. Somehow they managed to tie a string to the June bug’s back leg, then they’d let it go. It would fly off until it reached the end of the string, and then climb as high as they could and fly in a circle it would go around in a circle as the boy held onto the other end. They would fly in circles as long as anyone cared to keep holding them. I only ever saw this last part because the minute one of them said, “Let’s catch us a June bug,” I warped into the house and cowered behind the screen door.
I knew if my curiosity got the best of me, I’d be running a foot or two in front of a June bug that would end up down my shirt if I stumbled or fell. All I saw was the boys huddled around working with their hands, and then the bug and string flying in a circle.
In the absence of a real bug, boys would pretend to catch one and chase me with it. I could have called their bluff, but if I was wrong, and they had a real bug, I’d be at the mercy of a giant spider they’d fling at me.
It is amazing how boys can sense your every fear, but men can’t sense when you’re angry, irritated, exhausted, or disinterested. That’s why women had to invent headaches.
In the south they also have horseflies that would buzz your head like some miniature kamikaze pilot. They would bump you in the ear or back of the neck to see if you were a fast swatter. If you didn’t swat right away, they knew they could get in there, chomp down on you, and buzz off before you knew you were being attacked. They drew blood and their bites hurt like a son of a gun. Whenever one started dive-bombing my head, I’d grab a limb full of leaves or pine boughs and swish it all around my head. If it hit the big ole horsefly it was stop cold, but it was a deterrent. Sometimes when they came in really close I’d slap my own face with a scratchy pine bough and end up with scratches everywhere, but it was better than getting bit.
They have very, very tiny mosquitoes in East Tennessee with lethal venom. When the sneaky little mosquito got done with you, you had a giant red welt that itched like poison ivy times three.
No, I don’t miss the bugs down there. The boys, either.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Injustice of Ladies Golf
There is no justice in this world. I played in a golf tournament today. I realize that the word “tournament” makes me sound like a “real” golfer, but nothing could be further from the truth. Women like myself get together in what we call “9-hole groups” because we are either (a) too lazy to play all 18 holes or (b) too lousy to play all 18 holes. These women engage in “Hits and Giggles” because it’s supposed to be more fun than serious.
To make things interesting, we create little “tournaments” for ourselves. These are merely excuses to get a bunch of women together for socializing, eating, drinking, and raffling prizes. Yes, we do hit balls, but the nature of these tournaments is to get the competition over as quickly as possible so we can get to the lemon drops and buffet table. Thus we play “Scrambles,” which were invented by a male golfer to herd women through 9 holes expeditiously so that the real golfers (men) can have the course back.
The golf pros form groups in teams of four women of varying abilities (from bad golfer to really bad golfer). All four hit their balls, and the men fall to the ground clutching their privates (snicker). Then they hit their own golf balls. The ball that goes furthest without landing in the water is the one that all four women get to place their balls beside and hit from there. Everyone hits again, they walk to the best ball, put their balls down and so forth until they finally get the ball onto the green and into the cup. In this way a normal par 4 hole can be completed in a Scramble of 9-holers in about 15 shots. Ha Ha. Actually, some lucky teams manage to par a hole here and there, and they usually win the tournament. (Par 4 means that it should take a good golfer 4 shots to hole the ball, in case you live in the Arctic and don’t golf because you’d never find your ball.)
Today my team had two very bossy women who were driving me and the 4th team member nuts. The 4th team member, Pat, was 81 years old and wasn’t about to be bossed around by some 50 year old whipper snapper. Things got testy. “Who’s hitting this ball,” Pat said, “you or me?” It was a tense moment, but luckily Karen backed up and said, “Have at it,” and bloodshed was avoided.
Despite the barrage of advice (you can always tell an “amateur” golfer because they love to give advice to everyone even as their own balls ricochet off trees and hop from sand trap to sand trap. One of these days I’m going to bitch-slap one of them – I came this close to doing it this morning).
We managed to finish without snatching each other’s hair out and actually started having a good time once Pat and I stopped pouting. We joined all the other ladies in the dining room and anticipated the awards. They give prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams. We waited to see if our names were called but they weren’t. I wasn’t really expecting it, but our game didn’t totally suck and I thought we might come in third. It’s hard to tell when they figure in the handicaps how your score will stack up against the others.
Are you sick of golf? Just bear with me for a couple more minutes and I’ll wrap this puppy up.
After everyone got their prizes and the raffle prizes were awarded, I ended up with zip. I said to my teammates, “I used to win a raffle prize every single time but lately I haven’t won diddly.”
“What would you do with diddly if you won it?” Pat asked. She’s one sharp 81 year old woman.
“I bet we came in 4th,” I said, lacking a clever comeback. “Probably just one point off the money.”
“Let’s go see,” Karen said. “The board is over there.” I hadn’t noticed the board, which the golf pro had written all our scores on. Many of the women had already gotten up and left – anxious to get to their soaps. The four of us filed over to the board and looked for our score. “23.7” Karen said.
“What was the winning score?” I asked.
“23.9,” Wendy said.
I’m looking at that and thinking, “Hmmm, now in golf the goal is to get the LOWEST score, and isn’t 23.7 lower than 23.9?” I went ahead and said this out loud.
“Yes, it is lower,” Karen said. “We should have been the winners!”
“Oh my gosh, how did they screw that up? We won and nobody even noticed?”
We called the two tournament planning ladies over and showed them the numbers. They both raised their hands to their mouths and said, “Oh my. There’s been a terrible mistake. What can we do?”
The answer to that was obvious. We split up right now and run out to the parking lot and snatch our winnings off of those other women. We throw pies in the face of the golf pro who made the mistake. And we sue the place for whatever an ambulance chaser can come up with like wrongful neglect of proper scoring in the face of insurmountable odds, mens rea and gluteus maximus ad infinitum.
This is what I was saying in my heart, but since golf is a genteel sport, we all said, “Oh it’s okay, we’re just happy we won, don’t think anything of it,” and other such BS that none of us meant. We came away empty handed without a shred of glory.
There is no justice in this world, or my luck is so bad that I can’t win even when I do win. Pitiful.
To make things interesting, we create little “tournaments” for ourselves. These are merely excuses to get a bunch of women together for socializing, eating, drinking, and raffling prizes. Yes, we do hit balls, but the nature of these tournaments is to get the competition over as quickly as possible so we can get to the lemon drops and buffet table. Thus we play “Scrambles,” which were invented by a male golfer to herd women through 9 holes expeditiously so that the real golfers (men) can have the course back.
The golf pros form groups in teams of four women of varying abilities (from bad golfer to really bad golfer). All four hit their balls, and the men fall to the ground clutching their privates (snicker). Then they hit their own golf balls. The ball that goes furthest without landing in the water is the one that all four women get to place their balls beside and hit from there. Everyone hits again, they walk to the best ball, put their balls down and so forth until they finally get the ball onto the green and into the cup. In this way a normal par 4 hole can be completed in a Scramble of 9-holers in about 15 shots. Ha Ha. Actually, some lucky teams manage to par a hole here and there, and they usually win the tournament. (Par 4 means that it should take a good golfer 4 shots to hole the ball, in case you live in the Arctic and don’t golf because you’d never find your ball.)
Today my team had two very bossy women who were driving me and the 4th team member nuts. The 4th team member, Pat, was 81 years old and wasn’t about to be bossed around by some 50 year old whipper snapper. Things got testy. “Who’s hitting this ball,” Pat said, “you or me?” It was a tense moment, but luckily Karen backed up and said, “Have at it,” and bloodshed was avoided.
Despite the barrage of advice (you can always tell an “amateur” golfer because they love to give advice to everyone even as their own balls ricochet off trees and hop from sand trap to sand trap. One of these days I’m going to bitch-slap one of them – I came this close to doing it this morning).
We managed to finish without snatching each other’s hair out and actually started having a good time once Pat and I stopped pouting. We joined all the other ladies in the dining room and anticipated the awards. They give prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams. We waited to see if our names were called but they weren’t. I wasn’t really expecting it, but our game didn’t totally suck and I thought we might come in third. It’s hard to tell when they figure in the handicaps how your score will stack up against the others.
Are you sick of golf? Just bear with me for a couple more minutes and I’ll wrap this puppy up.
After everyone got their prizes and the raffle prizes were awarded, I ended up with zip. I said to my teammates, “I used to win a raffle prize every single time but lately I haven’t won diddly.”
“What would you do with diddly if you won it?” Pat asked. She’s one sharp 81 year old woman.
“I bet we came in 4th,” I said, lacking a clever comeback. “Probably just one point off the money.”
“Let’s go see,” Karen said. “The board is over there.” I hadn’t noticed the board, which the golf pro had written all our scores on. Many of the women had already gotten up and left – anxious to get to their soaps. The four of us filed over to the board and looked for our score. “23.7” Karen said.
“What was the winning score?” I asked.
“23.9,” Wendy said.
I’m looking at that and thinking, “Hmmm, now in golf the goal is to get the LOWEST score, and isn’t 23.7 lower than 23.9?” I went ahead and said this out loud.
“Yes, it is lower,” Karen said. “We should have been the winners!”
“Oh my gosh, how did they screw that up? We won and nobody even noticed?”
We called the two tournament planning ladies over and showed them the numbers. They both raised their hands to their mouths and said, “Oh my. There’s been a terrible mistake. What can we do?”
The answer to that was obvious. We split up right now and run out to the parking lot and snatch our winnings off of those other women. We throw pies in the face of the golf pro who made the mistake. And we sue the place for whatever an ambulance chaser can come up with like wrongful neglect of proper scoring in the face of insurmountable odds, mens rea and gluteus maximus ad infinitum.
This is what I was saying in my heart, but since golf is a genteel sport, we all said, “Oh it’s okay, we’re just happy we won, don’t think anything of it,” and other such BS that none of us meant. We came away empty handed without a shred of glory.
There is no justice in this world, or my luck is so bad that I can’t win even when I do win. Pitiful.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Salt in the Wound
I went with my daughter to see Salt. It’s a pretty good movie, full of suspense. When the movie was over my daughter says, “I think Angela Jolie is crazy.”
“Crazy?” I said.
“Yeah, crazy. She’s always playing these parts where she gets beat up and stuff.”
I got to thinking about it, and it’s true. She got whaled on in Salt, and in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and in those Tomb Raider movies. She’s like the women’s action hero. She’s TYPECAST.
Which I think is a shame because she’s a good actress as far as I can tell.
But you didn’t come here for my musings about Angelina Jolie. Or did you? Because I have other pressing things to talk about, i.e. why I went to the movie with my daughter in the first place. The reason is that we went to church yesterday morning, and she came out of the house wearing a tank top that I felt revealed way too much for a Catholic service. Lest you think it’s just me, every mother I know has this same feeling about their daughters – not that they need to dress more conservatively at church – they need to cover up more all the time.
Oh my gosh, I sound like such a MOTHER! I’m sure all the moms back in the day were beside themselves fretting about our mini skirts.
My daughter thought I was an idiot and freak for mentioning her tank top – AGAIN, which made me defensive and her mad. Being a teenager, her anger turns immediately into rage and then it’s just a tiny baby step to sobbing, breathless tears.
I had to walk a very fine line to keep her from reaching that point, which in turn made me angry that I couldn’t tell her flat out that I don’t want the old men at church lusting at her cleavage.
I couldn’t help myself and said it anyway, which then made her call me a pervert. It was not going well, and I shut up.
When we got to church, I noticed that every teenage girl in the place had on the same tank top and revealing the same amount of cleavage, and that my daughter would not have stood out in a lineup of American girls imitating Britney Spears. However, I couldn’t tell her this because we were reciting the Apostles Creed. Besides, she wasn’t speaking to me.
She continued not speaking to me for most of the day. I mentioned on the way home from church that I wanted to see Salt. She didn’t reply. In general, she will only consent to go ANYWHERE with me if she has absolutely no other prospects on the horizon, including getting beaten with a rubber hose, but it was the best way I could think to try and smooth things over. About 4:00 in the afternoon she came into my office and said, “Salt’s playing at 4:20.”
That’s how we made up, without any apologies, just going to see Angelina Jolie. So I have her to thank for bringing about reconciliation, which is ironic because the movie itself is about tearing things apart.
The movie’s set up for a sequel (that’s all I can say without ruining the whole twisted plot), so I hope I can hold my criticizing tongue until Salt II comes out. I wonder what it will be called. Salt and Pepper? When Salt Met Sugar? Ha ha.
DISCLAIMER: If my daughter finds this blog and realizes I’ve been telling the world about her life she will smack me up side of the head with a 2 by 4. So I officially deny that I wrote this blog or that any of this ever happened. It’s just fiction – like most of my stuff – a fiction of my imagination. Honest.
“Crazy?” I said.
“Yeah, crazy. She’s always playing these parts where she gets beat up and stuff.”
I got to thinking about it, and it’s true. She got whaled on in Salt, and in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and in those Tomb Raider movies. She’s like the women’s action hero. She’s TYPECAST.
Which I think is a shame because she’s a good actress as far as I can tell.
But you didn’t come here for my musings about Angelina Jolie. Or did you? Because I have other pressing things to talk about, i.e. why I went to the movie with my daughter in the first place. The reason is that we went to church yesterday morning, and she came out of the house wearing a tank top that I felt revealed way too much for a Catholic service. Lest you think it’s just me, every mother I know has this same feeling about their daughters – not that they need to dress more conservatively at church – they need to cover up more all the time.
Oh my gosh, I sound like such a MOTHER! I’m sure all the moms back in the day were beside themselves fretting about our mini skirts.
My daughter thought I was an idiot and freak for mentioning her tank top – AGAIN, which made me defensive and her mad. Being a teenager, her anger turns immediately into rage and then it’s just a tiny baby step to sobbing, breathless tears.
I had to walk a very fine line to keep her from reaching that point, which in turn made me angry that I couldn’t tell her flat out that I don’t want the old men at church lusting at her cleavage.
I couldn’t help myself and said it anyway, which then made her call me a pervert. It was not going well, and I shut up.
When we got to church, I noticed that every teenage girl in the place had on the same tank top and revealing the same amount of cleavage, and that my daughter would not have stood out in a lineup of American girls imitating Britney Spears. However, I couldn’t tell her this because we were reciting the Apostles Creed. Besides, she wasn’t speaking to me.
She continued not speaking to me for most of the day. I mentioned on the way home from church that I wanted to see Salt. She didn’t reply. In general, she will only consent to go ANYWHERE with me if she has absolutely no other prospects on the horizon, including getting beaten with a rubber hose, but it was the best way I could think to try and smooth things over. About 4:00 in the afternoon she came into my office and said, “Salt’s playing at 4:20.”
That’s how we made up, without any apologies, just going to see Angelina Jolie. So I have her to thank for bringing about reconciliation, which is ironic because the movie itself is about tearing things apart.
The movie’s set up for a sequel (that’s all I can say without ruining the whole twisted plot), so I hope I can hold my criticizing tongue until Salt II comes out. I wonder what it will be called. Salt and Pepper? When Salt Met Sugar? Ha ha.
DISCLAIMER: If my daughter finds this blog and realizes I’ve been telling the world about her life she will smack me up side of the head with a 2 by 4. So I officially deny that I wrote this blog or that any of this ever happened. It’s just fiction – like most of my stuff – a fiction of my imagination. Honest.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
I Have Become My Grandmother
I have become like my grandmother, and I hate it. We called her Gramps, and I liked just about everything about her except one thing, and that seems to be the one thing I imitate.
I could have imitated her cooking and my family would be pleased as punch. Instead I have imitated her most irritating habit. She could NOT go out a door and climb into a car in a single trip. Even if she’d been offered a million bucks to NOT go back in the house, she’d insist she had to get a grocery sack to put it in.
My grandfather, who we called Pops, and I would be in his ancient white Dodge Dart with the motor running, and he’d start grumbling, “damned old woman,” because she wasn’t getting out of the house quick enough to suit him. He could barely see because he’d gotten lye in his eyes making soap decades before, so we had to leave about 45 minutes before church started in order for him to drive 25 miles an hour and get us into town in time – on time being with about twenty minutes to spare.
My grandmother would come out the back door, step down the first step, turn around and lock the door, step down the second step, close the screen door and make sure it latched, step one foot on the sidewalk, hesitate, look perplexed, arch her eyebrows into a V, roll her eyes skyward slightly like she was pondering something. Then she turned around.
Right at this exact moment, every single Sunday, my grandfather would unleash a string of obscenities that would make any sailor proud. “That damned old woman,” and then start listing every flaw she had, “she comes out the damned door looking like an idiot and forgets her son of a bitching hat. Every damn time it’s the same old shit...”
Meantime she’s got the door unlocked and has disappeared inside. We wait a couple of minutes, me in the back seat snickering at his rage and that delightful cussing, thanking God for the wonderful entertainment He has given me on this fine Sunday morning. I was totally amused.
The car is still running, and my grandfather leans his whole body forward, elbows all the way up in the air, and LAYS on the horn with both hands as if he can get it to sound louder and more insistent by putting his whole body into it. Still no Gramps.
“DAMN HER!” he shouts. “DAMN HER TO HELL! As I’m typing this I am laughing so hard I can barely continue because I can see the empty doorway of that white house, hear the engine knocking, and see the back of my grandfather’s balding head with the wispy white comb-over, the air full from his rising blood pressure.
Finally Gramps appears in the doorway, opens the screen door, steps down on the first step, turns and locks the door, steps down on the second step, closes the screen door and latches it, steps down on the sidewalk, hesitates, looks pensive, tilts her eyes up and to the right, and my grandfather LAYS on the horn again. I have tears rolling down my eyes I’m laughing so hard in the back seat. My grandmother scowls at him and waves a dismissive hand toward the ground. He stops the horn and yells at the top of his lungs, even though the windows are rolled up, “Come on, old woman!”
She just looks at him, trying to remember whether she’s forgotten something. She takes a hesitant step forward, then another. Stops, looks worried. Turns around and heads back toward the steps. I lay down in the back seat with my knees in the air and hold my chest, rocking side to side from laughing.
My grandfather bangs the dashboard about six times with his fist as hard as he can. She goes back into the house and comes out a few minutes later with a dime-store see-through scarf thrown rakishly around her neck. Pops has not stopped cussing and ranting since she headed in.
Gramps walks toward the car with determination, head held high and shoulders back as if she is some dignitary with places to go and people to see. She opens the car door, hesitates, looks back toward the house. My grandfather yells, “Get in the car, damn you!” She waves her hand toward the ground again like she’s warding off some pesky child or swooshing at a fly, harrumphs, and climbs into the car.
“Let’s go then,” she says in the voice that says she’s disgusted but it’s beneath her, on Sunday morning, to say so.
I have laughed and snickered so hard in the back seat that I’m exhausted, and none of us talks on the way to church except for my grandmother mumbling under her breath, “I just don’t see why…what’s the big hurry…plenty of time…” She’s practically deaf so she thinks no one hears her.
We get to church twenty minutes early – just like clockwork. My grandfather sits in the car while Gramps and I sit through the long Latin service. I amuse myself by reliving the morning’s entertainment. When church is over, everyone is cordial as if there weren’t cussing and damning and yelling and horn-blowing going on just a little while earlier.
I have enjoyed some belly laughs writing this – my mascara is running. What I’ve described is the habit I have learned from my grandmother. I never climb in the car and leave – I always forget something. Sometimes I get out of the driveway, but I always go back, turn off the car, grab the keys, unlock the door, run through the house looking for whatever I forgot, and run back outside. The sad thing is that my kids are NOT amused waiting for me in the car. I wish Pops were here to entertain them.
I could have imitated her cooking and my family would be pleased as punch. Instead I have imitated her most irritating habit. She could NOT go out a door and climb into a car in a single trip. Even if she’d been offered a million bucks to NOT go back in the house, she’d insist she had to get a grocery sack to put it in.
My grandfather, who we called Pops, and I would be in his ancient white Dodge Dart with the motor running, and he’d start grumbling, “damned old woman,” because she wasn’t getting out of the house quick enough to suit him. He could barely see because he’d gotten lye in his eyes making soap decades before, so we had to leave about 45 minutes before church started in order for him to drive 25 miles an hour and get us into town in time – on time being with about twenty minutes to spare.
My grandmother would come out the back door, step down the first step, turn around and lock the door, step down the second step, close the screen door and make sure it latched, step one foot on the sidewalk, hesitate, look perplexed, arch her eyebrows into a V, roll her eyes skyward slightly like she was pondering something. Then she turned around.
Right at this exact moment, every single Sunday, my grandfather would unleash a string of obscenities that would make any sailor proud. “That damned old woman,” and then start listing every flaw she had, “she comes out the damned door looking like an idiot and forgets her son of a bitching hat. Every damn time it’s the same old shit...”
Meantime she’s got the door unlocked and has disappeared inside. We wait a couple of minutes, me in the back seat snickering at his rage and that delightful cussing, thanking God for the wonderful entertainment He has given me on this fine Sunday morning. I was totally amused.
The car is still running, and my grandfather leans his whole body forward, elbows all the way up in the air, and LAYS on the horn with both hands as if he can get it to sound louder and more insistent by putting his whole body into it. Still no Gramps.
“DAMN HER!” he shouts. “DAMN HER TO HELL! As I’m typing this I am laughing so hard I can barely continue because I can see the empty doorway of that white house, hear the engine knocking, and see the back of my grandfather’s balding head with the wispy white comb-over, the air full from his rising blood pressure.
Finally Gramps appears in the doorway, opens the screen door, steps down on the first step, turns and locks the door, steps down on the second step, closes the screen door and latches it, steps down on the sidewalk, hesitates, looks pensive, tilts her eyes up and to the right, and my grandfather LAYS on the horn again. I have tears rolling down my eyes I’m laughing so hard in the back seat. My grandmother scowls at him and waves a dismissive hand toward the ground. He stops the horn and yells at the top of his lungs, even though the windows are rolled up, “Come on, old woman!”
She just looks at him, trying to remember whether she’s forgotten something. She takes a hesitant step forward, then another. Stops, looks worried. Turns around and heads back toward the steps. I lay down in the back seat with my knees in the air and hold my chest, rocking side to side from laughing.
My grandfather bangs the dashboard about six times with his fist as hard as he can. She goes back into the house and comes out a few minutes later with a dime-store see-through scarf thrown rakishly around her neck. Pops has not stopped cussing and ranting since she headed in.
Gramps walks toward the car with determination, head held high and shoulders back as if she is some dignitary with places to go and people to see. She opens the car door, hesitates, looks back toward the house. My grandfather yells, “Get in the car, damn you!” She waves her hand toward the ground again like she’s warding off some pesky child or swooshing at a fly, harrumphs, and climbs into the car.
“Let’s go then,” she says in the voice that says she’s disgusted but it’s beneath her, on Sunday morning, to say so.
I have laughed and snickered so hard in the back seat that I’m exhausted, and none of us talks on the way to church except for my grandmother mumbling under her breath, “I just don’t see why…what’s the big hurry…plenty of time…” She’s practically deaf so she thinks no one hears her.
We get to church twenty minutes early – just like clockwork. My grandfather sits in the car while Gramps and I sit through the long Latin service. I amuse myself by reliving the morning’s entertainment. When church is over, everyone is cordial as if there weren’t cussing and damning and yelling and horn-blowing going on just a little while earlier.
I have enjoyed some belly laughs writing this – my mascara is running. What I’ve described is the habit I have learned from my grandmother. I never climb in the car and leave – I always forget something. Sometimes I get out of the driveway, but I always go back, turn off the car, grab the keys, unlock the door, run through the house looking for whatever I forgot, and run back outside. The sad thing is that my kids are NOT amused waiting for me in the car. I wish Pops were here to entertain them.
Movie Madness
Yesterday we went to see the movie, Inception, which was really good. I talked my husband into going. He’s not a big fan of movies because they cost so much. “I’ll see it when it comes out of video.”
But I told him how good this movie was supposed to be and he consented to go. We got in the lobby and he wanted some popcorn. “Just get a small one,” I said.
“Why, it’s only a dollar more to get the medium.”
“Because the medium is huge, and I’ll eat the whole thing.”
“I’m starving,” he said. “I’ll eat most of it.”
I know this isn’t true because he only likes the top and middle layers that are that are dripping with that fake movie butter. He’s not going to eat any more than that, and then I know I’ll eat all the rest.
“Look, just get the small. It’s plenty of popcorn,” I whined, but he ordered a medium because it was a better deal.
“Lots of extra butter, too,’ he tells the clerk, “and a medium diet Coke.”
The concession stand girl gets a bag the size of a grocery sack and starts shoveling in popcorn. Five minutes later she’s got it about half full and she starts pumping the butter on it. Pump, pump, pump, pump…these dots stand for about 30 more pumps….pump. Then she starts shoveling in more popcorn. She’s staggering under the weight of the bag as she pumps more butter over the top.
She hoists the bag up onto the counter and starts filling a cup with about two gallons of diet Coke. She has to lift it with two hands.
“That’ll be $13.50,” she says.
My husband pays, complaining the whole time. “Seven bucks for a bag of popcorn.”
“You could have gotten the small bag,” I said.
“Yeah, and just saved a buck. It’s a better deal with this one.”
As we walked to the theater number 6 - on our right, I’m worried that the popcorn bag isn’t waterproof and a waterfall of butter is going to gush out the bottom.
We found decent seats and my husband starts in on the popcorn. I am not joking, he plunges his big old fist into the top and crams the greasy kernels in his mouth and dives in a second, third, fourth and fifth time. He’s after the butter, and he’s not going to share that popcorn until he gets the lion’s share of it. Then he hands me the bag.
I grab a mouthful and it’s as dry as the Mohave Desert. It doesn’t taste good but I keep eating because popcorn and potato chips are two things I can’t stop eating until the whole bag is gone.
I munched my way through that bag until I struck popcorn oil – the second layer of butter. I tried to be nonchalant so I’d get to enjoy some of that delicious grease but my husband caught on quick. My slick fingers kept reflecting off the movie screen like they had a flashlight shining on them. He again snatched the bag away, gobbled up the butter, and then gave me the dry stuff back.
Just like I knew I would, I continued to eat that popcorn even when the button flew off my shorts and hit a bald man in the back of the head. Even when the zipper let its own self down. Even when the muscles in my arm were getting sore from the repetitions. I finally put the bag down, but only because I just couldn’t lift my arm again to grab another handful.
Of course I was thirsty after eating all that, so I drank practically all of the pop. Diet Coke makes me need to go to the bathroom RIGHT NOW. The movie was so complex and captivating, though, that I didn’t want to get up. I sat in misery all the way through it, and when I got up I knocked people down and trampled them to get to the bathroom.
All in all, it was a great evening except for my discomfort. I highly recommend the movie, but do yourself a favor and get the small bag – or else make sure you wear reinforced shorts or bring a safety pin.
But I told him how good this movie was supposed to be and he consented to go. We got in the lobby and he wanted some popcorn. “Just get a small one,” I said.
“Why, it’s only a dollar more to get the medium.”
“Because the medium is huge, and I’ll eat the whole thing.”
“I’m starving,” he said. “I’ll eat most of it.”
I know this isn’t true because he only likes the top and middle layers that are that are dripping with that fake movie butter. He’s not going to eat any more than that, and then I know I’ll eat all the rest.
“Look, just get the small. It’s plenty of popcorn,” I whined, but he ordered a medium because it was a better deal.
“Lots of extra butter, too,’ he tells the clerk, “and a medium diet Coke.”
The concession stand girl gets a bag the size of a grocery sack and starts shoveling in popcorn. Five minutes later she’s got it about half full and she starts pumping the butter on it. Pump, pump, pump, pump…these dots stand for about 30 more pumps….pump. Then she starts shoveling in more popcorn. She’s staggering under the weight of the bag as she pumps more butter over the top.
She hoists the bag up onto the counter and starts filling a cup with about two gallons of diet Coke. She has to lift it with two hands.
“That’ll be $13.50,” she says.
My husband pays, complaining the whole time. “Seven bucks for a bag of popcorn.”
“You could have gotten the small bag,” I said.
“Yeah, and just saved a buck. It’s a better deal with this one.”
As we walked to the theater number 6 - on our right, I’m worried that the popcorn bag isn’t waterproof and a waterfall of butter is going to gush out the bottom.
We found decent seats and my husband starts in on the popcorn. I am not joking, he plunges his big old fist into the top and crams the greasy kernels in his mouth and dives in a second, third, fourth and fifth time. He’s after the butter, and he’s not going to share that popcorn until he gets the lion’s share of it. Then he hands me the bag.
I grab a mouthful and it’s as dry as the Mohave Desert. It doesn’t taste good but I keep eating because popcorn and potato chips are two things I can’t stop eating until the whole bag is gone.
I munched my way through that bag until I struck popcorn oil – the second layer of butter. I tried to be nonchalant so I’d get to enjoy some of that delicious grease but my husband caught on quick. My slick fingers kept reflecting off the movie screen like they had a flashlight shining on them. He again snatched the bag away, gobbled up the butter, and then gave me the dry stuff back.
Just like I knew I would, I continued to eat that popcorn even when the button flew off my shorts and hit a bald man in the back of the head. Even when the zipper let its own self down. Even when the muscles in my arm were getting sore from the repetitions. I finally put the bag down, but only because I just couldn’t lift my arm again to grab another handful.
Of course I was thirsty after eating all that, so I drank practically all of the pop. Diet Coke makes me need to go to the bathroom RIGHT NOW. The movie was so complex and captivating, though, that I didn’t want to get up. I sat in misery all the way through it, and when I got up I knocked people down and trampled them to get to the bathroom.
All in all, it was a great evening except for my discomfort. I highly recommend the movie, but do yourself a favor and get the small bag – or else make sure you wear reinforced shorts or bring a safety pin.
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Too Big Chill
Instead of boo-hooing yesterday about my kids growing up, I should have been paying attention to the new refrigerator. I mentioned that it was a very tight fit, and I was very thankful that it fit into the built-in space we had. It was the only refrigerator with that capacity that would fit. I had measured the space front to back and knew I had about 32 inches of space, and this thing was 31.5 so it was perfect.
I loaded all my food in, and there was plenty – mostly jars. My husband thinks jars are like dollars – it’s better to have too many than too few. In the old refrigerator they were scattered on every shelf and all over the shelves in the doors. I decided to organize them and discovered that we have 10 different jars of jelly. Nobody even eats jelly in this house but me - about once a month. There were two jars of mint jelly, which he uses for lamb but has not made lamb in three years. There are six jars of horseradish! Eight jars of mustards. Three tubes of wasabi. I filled one door rack with nothing but salad dressings. It took me an eternity to get all that stuff into the new refrigerator because I wiped off all the sticky on the jars. It sure looked pretty in there when I got done.
Later, when I went to pull a frying pan out of the drawer that evening, I couldn’t open the drawer because it bumped into the new refrigerator. S-word! F-word even. So I pulled it out (the refer, not the drawer) and measured it. 31.5” – it should fit. I pushed it back in as far as I could and tried to open the drawer. It hit the refrigerator.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “The refrigerator doesn’t go in deep enough.” So my husband pulled it back out and we looked closely. Where the water line comes in, there is a 1” metal protector that added, duh, 1” to the depth. So it was actually 32.5” deep. I kindof wish someone would have pointed that out in all that stuff I read onlne when I was doing hours of research.
I called the appliance store and they will take the bohemith back if we pay a 15% re-stocking fee, which ends up being close to $300. I don’t blame them, but it’s a lot of money to pay.
So now we’ve decided we’d put the one we moved into the bonus room back into the kitchen and get a much cheaper one to put in the bonus room. This means going back to the store and shopping, having the appliance guys come and move the the refrigerators around, and me having to move the food all over again.
There is a very small silver lining in all this. When the appliance guys were here, I asked them if they’d move the two old ones out to the driveway because I’d never get my husband to do it. One of them said, “Oh, he’s that kind of guy, huh?” and I said, “Yeah, he’s pretty good with the remote control but he doesn’t want to do too much more than that while he’s home.”
“I do that,” the guy says. “I just tell my wife I don’t know how to do something and then she quits asking me.”
“Really?” I said, intrigued.
“Sure, or else I do it wrong and then she thinks I’ll just screw it up if she asks me to do it again.”
“I think that’s EXACTLY what my husband does!” I said. “I ask him to do something and he never manages to do it the way I want him to, even if I give great directions.”
“Yep, he’s doing that on purpose,” he said. “I do it all the time.”
“Do tell,” I said.
“Well, I better not say anything more, I’ve already given away a big guy secret.”
He clammed up after that. I started thinking about all the times my husband, and for that matter my kids, have whined that they didn’t know how to do something, or say, “But mom, you do it so much better,” and I quit asking them. The whole thing started becoming very clear to me. It would never occur to me to do something badly in order to get out of having to do it again. I would just complain the whole time I’m doing it and make everyone so miserable that they don’t dare ask me to do it again. This seems like the honest way to go about it.
From now on I’m going to be on the lookout. When somebody around here does a lousy job I’m gong to accept it rather than thinking I need to get in there and do it next time because I want it “done right.” It’s better to get a halfway job than none at all. That’s my new theory.
I hope I get the same delivery guys when they come to pick up the refrigerator and deliver the new one. If I get more insider tips on the conniving behavior of men, I’ll pass it along.
I loaded all my food in, and there was plenty – mostly jars. My husband thinks jars are like dollars – it’s better to have too many than too few. In the old refrigerator they were scattered on every shelf and all over the shelves in the doors. I decided to organize them and discovered that we have 10 different jars of jelly. Nobody even eats jelly in this house but me - about once a month. There were two jars of mint jelly, which he uses for lamb but has not made lamb in three years. There are six jars of horseradish! Eight jars of mustards. Three tubes of wasabi. I filled one door rack with nothing but salad dressings. It took me an eternity to get all that stuff into the new refrigerator because I wiped off all the sticky on the jars. It sure looked pretty in there when I got done.
Later, when I went to pull a frying pan out of the drawer that evening, I couldn’t open the drawer because it bumped into the new refrigerator. S-word! F-word even. So I pulled it out (the refer, not the drawer) and measured it. 31.5” – it should fit. I pushed it back in as far as I could and tried to open the drawer. It hit the refrigerator.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “The refrigerator doesn’t go in deep enough.” So my husband pulled it back out and we looked closely. Where the water line comes in, there is a 1” metal protector that added, duh, 1” to the depth. So it was actually 32.5” deep. I kindof wish someone would have pointed that out in all that stuff I read onlne when I was doing hours of research.
I called the appliance store and they will take the bohemith back if we pay a 15% re-stocking fee, which ends up being close to $300. I don’t blame them, but it’s a lot of money to pay.
So now we’ve decided we’d put the one we moved into the bonus room back into the kitchen and get a much cheaper one to put in the bonus room. This means going back to the store and shopping, having the appliance guys come and move the the refrigerators around, and me having to move the food all over again.
There is a very small silver lining in all this. When the appliance guys were here, I asked them if they’d move the two old ones out to the driveway because I’d never get my husband to do it. One of them said, “Oh, he’s that kind of guy, huh?” and I said, “Yeah, he’s pretty good with the remote control but he doesn’t want to do too much more than that while he’s home.”
“I do that,” the guy says. “I just tell my wife I don’t know how to do something and then she quits asking me.”
“Really?” I said, intrigued.
“Sure, or else I do it wrong and then she thinks I’ll just screw it up if she asks me to do it again.”
“I think that’s EXACTLY what my husband does!” I said. “I ask him to do something and he never manages to do it the way I want him to, even if I give great directions.”
“Yep, he’s doing that on purpose,” he said. “I do it all the time.”
“Do tell,” I said.
“Well, I better not say anything more, I’ve already given away a big guy secret.”
He clammed up after that. I started thinking about all the times my husband, and for that matter my kids, have whined that they didn’t know how to do something, or say, “But mom, you do it so much better,” and I quit asking them. The whole thing started becoming very clear to me. It would never occur to me to do something badly in order to get out of having to do it again. I would just complain the whole time I’m doing it and make everyone so miserable that they don’t dare ask me to do it again. This seems like the honest way to go about it.
From now on I’m going to be on the lookout. When somebody around here does a lousy job I’m gong to accept it rather than thinking I need to get in there and do it next time because I want it “done right.” It’s better to get a halfway job than none at all. That’s my new theory.
I hope I get the same delivery guys when they come to pick up the refrigerator and deliver the new one. If I get more insider tips on the conniving behavior of men, I’ll pass it along.
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