Recently in the DFW area,
We have had a great deal of bad winter weather. I mean, it's nothing like what is happening on the east coast or Minnesota... but, if you live in the north, you sort of expect that you will be punched in the balls by weather conditions at some point. Am I right?
Here in Texas, "we don't take kindly to dark n' scary cold clouds."
For me, personally speaking, I would rather light myself on fire rather than have to be cold for more than a week. It's been at least three weeks of this arctic tundra crap. I'm about ready to start pouring the gasoline on my body.
What is worse than being super cold and hating it?
Answer: Hot Shot Weather people who are late for fun. Or as I like to call them, HSW's.
What is a Hot Shot Weather person?
Answer: The kind of person who says things/does things with full on religious zealot energy in the worst weather conditions. You mix that type of person with the "Late For Fun" attitude...
You have a hazardous state of affairs to contend with.
Did you know that last Friday in the DFW metroplex there were 402 car accidents in 30 minutes?
That is a real number... I'm not making that up at all. In fact, the number is probably higher than that. I sort of stopped watching the news after that information entered my ear.
Why was there 402 wrecks in 30 minutes you ask?
Answer: Hot Shot Weather People who are Late For Fun.
I want you to really think about that for a minute... don't worry, I'll wait..........................................
Done thinking?
FOUR HUNDRED AND TWO accidents in THIRTY MINUTES. Can you imagine the various fire station workers after Friday night? I can...
"So Dan, um... you think I can take a quick nap now or um... (emergency call ring)....DAMN IT... are you serious? How many? Come on Steve, you are totally yanking my chain right? What the *#$#@! We live in a state full of 4x4 trucks? How Steve? How?"
Last Friday-
I was working in Fort Worth doing my show there the entire day. When I left the parking garage that day, I could see the highway from a higher vantage point. I swear to you with zero exaggeration, it looked EXACTLY like something in a Michael Bay film: An unnecessary action sequence that does NOT further the plot of the movie whatsoever.
Let's see, we have...
Giant SUV's sliding backward down the overpasses? Check.
Small sedan on fire with screaming woman holding her face watching it burn? Check.
Three small cars and one giant douchebag truck entangled around a street lamp? Check.
Hundreds of flares and police officials waving their arms in the air saying,"Go Around." Check.
No less than 12 emergency vehicles parked on the shoulder of I-30? Check.
Excessive car horn honking and muffled yelling background noise? Check.
Local News crews taking up residence on the side of embankments? Double Check.
....Michael Bay Movie?
What the hell happened?
Answer again: Hot Shot Weather People who were Late For Fun.
If you were one of the people trying to "speed" down the highway.... the highway that was covered in oily slickidy slick ice 4 inches thick...
Do me a favor and shoot your tires out while you still have limbs. I'm totally not kidding.
Do the world a favor and check yourself out of the driving game. We don't want you anymore.
However,
The MOST irritating thing to me about HSW people is how they talk about their future driving plans.
Here's an example:
"We still have plans to go to that play tonight in Downtown, right?"
My Answer: Um... have you been outside? That (probably stupid) play is about the last thing on my priority list right now. It is taking a backseat to Survival (number one) or Inconvenient Stupid Situation I Don't Want (number two).
They might say, "Nah, it's fine. Everyone is over reacting. I don't even need a jacket! I like the cold."
Okay hot shot, you don't wear that jacket. Jackass. You are, at best, buzzard food in the near future.
(For a moment I thought about not cursing in this blog but I can't stop myself. It's unnatural to not curse when your blood is boiling. Plus, if you are offended by the cursing, don't read the blog. It's that simple. )
There were several situations during the icy road conditions that made me reconsider whether or not lead was contaminating the water supply here in DFW. I really believe something is super wrong with a lot of people that I know.
The following happened to me several times during the worst of the winter sh**...
I, Melodee, would have a very natural concern about driving 25 miles from where I live to be at 'unsaid' place. I would voice my concerns to 'unsaid' people. These people (there were several) would say, "I just looked outside and it's not bad at all."
IT'S NOT BAD WHERE YOU LIVE ASSHOLE! BUT YOU AREN'T THE CENTER OF THE F***ing WINTER STORM!
This was my favorite ACTUAL quote/situation... (This came from an event that was scheduled on the worst possible day during the winter ice fest of 2015)
(phone call)
Me: Is the event cancelled for tomorrow?
Answer: No. It's supposed to be above freezing so it's still scheduled.
Me: I'm looking at the news right now and it's only supposed to be a high of 34 degrees.
Answer: Uh huh. So, we will see you there!
Listen to me people...
If it has been sleeting for over a week on and off, with the climax of that ice being the night before this event... Do you really think the minute the temperature gets above freezing the roads will be 100% A-f***in'-okay?
Hot Shot Weather People think that. Hot Shot Weather people also think that, "slowing down on the ice" is merely a suggestion.
I happen to know for a fact that the person that answered the phone lives ACROSS THE STREET from where the event was taking place.
Again.... sorry to flog a deader than dead horse here people but I gotta...
JUST BECAUSE YOU LOOK OUTSIDE OF YOURRRRRR DOOR AND IT'S NOT BAD, DOESN'T MEAN THAT EVERYONE ELSE HAS THE SAME POV CAM. (point of view camera)
I wonder if there was a tribe back during the Ice Age that received a message somehow in their ancient way of receiving messages... probably some type of scout newb that was sent out to see what the neighboring tribes were doing...
(out of breath) "Chief Hot Shot! The entire world is covered in ice. Lil' Newb can't possibly bring back the feather of an Eagle for our Spring tidings on time?! What do you mean it looks fine here? I just told you that the entire world was covered in ice! "
And that was the first Hot Shot Weather Person who would be late for fun.
That tribe died out from being stupid.
You should tell people that story if they are HSW people. You can really juice it out and make it seem like an old ancient proverb or some shit. HSW's are so stupid they will totally believe it. Hell, it might keep them from making impulse monkey brain decisions in hazardous weather conditions.
Look, here's the deal...
Don't ask me to go do shit when you know I'll be taking a risk that will either: A) Kill me. B)Kill someone else via my vehicle. C) Force me to sit in a line of cars on a major highway, cold n' shivering, burning gas, and getting angrier and more resentful of you & your stupid ass plan by the second.
I won't go.
I quit.
I don't care about my job, a plan, or anything in conditions like that. If there is more than a 20% chance I will have to make a call to my insurance company later that day, I'm not interested in going.
There's nothing THAT important that you need me to do. Nothing. I'm not a doctor, an EMT, firefighter, police officer or a DOT sand truck driver. The reason I'm not any of those things is because I hate it when people NEED me for sh**. You don't need me. There's no "emergency entertainers."
However, I will say that I AM a clown part-part-time at a children's hospital. However, I doubt any of the kids I see would like to hear, "Melodee isn't here today because she died in an icy tangled up wreck on Airport Freeway. She was trying to get here... to see you." I don't carry a cross with me to work for a good reason. Someone already did that 2500 years ago so that I wouldn't have to.
Disclaimer: I'm not callous, I'm being logical. Something that most entertainers are not, sadly. I'm sure a select few of them would say, "that's why you aren't a serious clown/actor/whatever..." To that I will say, "what are you even talking about? Hello, I'm Clown Oxymoron. I took my job as a clown so serious that I ignored all logic in order to make children laugh, but they didn't, cause I'm dead now."
I digress...
You aren't late for fun. Nobody is having fun when they are STUCK IN A LINE OF TRAFFIC FOR 4 HOURS!!!!!! NOBODY.
Last thing:
The bartenders/waiters at the restaurant you want to go "have fun at" during the ice storm... They are definitely NOT having fun. Furthermore, they hate you. YOU are the reason why they are STILL at work asshole.
OKAY.... I'm done. I have cabin fever. Maybe I should go out and have fun. I hope I'm not too late.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Tammy Titi Monkey & The Stolen Opper Tuneti Treats- A True Story of Selfishness (real and funny and real funny)
*The characters in this story may be based on actual people. The point of the story remains valid in spite of the ridiculousness. Enjoy*
Tammy Titi is a monkey at the local zoo, a Titi Monkey.
Being a special type of monkey, Tammy Titi relied heavily on her cunning and shrewd monkey brain to trick all the other animals in the zoo.
Tammy Titi had to share a habitat with several animals. There was Blitzy the Ox, Jeff the Lemur, Maxine the Gorilla, Roger the Parrot, Trevor the Snake, Donny the Donkey, and Castor the Snow Leopard.
Tammy Titi was smaller than most of the animals she had to share her space with. And over the years, she had figured out how to hoard the most food from Zookeeper Opper Tuneti.
Opper Tuneti was a fair and just zookeeper. He always brought plenty of food for all of the animals to enjoy. He made sure that the food was nutritious, delicious, and satisfying. Each individual animal at the zoo had their own special meals and treats.
Blitzy the Ox liked hay, Jeff the Lemur preferred watermelon, and even Trevor the Snake got his belly full on snake kibbles n' bits!
Ol' Tammy Titi didn't like all the attention that Opper Tuneti gave all the animals in the zoo. She decided she'd find a way to steal their food after Opper Tuneti filled their respective bowls.
Tammy Titi thought, "How dare they think Opper Tuneti gave them anything! I'm the most cunning, quick, and intelligent animal here! I'll use my monkey brain and my monkey body to swoop down and gather up the food that Opper Tuneti placed out for them. I know, I'll do it a little bit at a time so they won't notice it's me that is taking their rations! "(evil monkey laugh)
Day by day the animals were hungrier and hungrier.
Donny Donkey brayed, "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, there's never enough to eat! I'm hungry, I'm hungry, there's never enough to eat! Opper Tuneti, come back! I'm hungry, I'm hungry!"
Roger the Parrot squawked, "Shut up Donny Donkey! Shut up! Shut up! Opper Tuneti just gave you your food and I saw you eat it! You're fine! I'm the hungry one!"
Tammy Titi watched them all complain. They became drained with each passing week.
Tammy Titi's tree was packed full of goodies. She had Blitzy's hay, Jeff's watermelon, Donny's sugar cubes, and Castor Leopard's steak. She had it all placed in hide-away holes in Tammy Titi's tree. Tammy Titi couldn't eat half of the food she had stored away. Why some of the food isn't even suitable for a Titi monkey!
Opper Tuneti came by each day. With each visit, He began to wonder why all of the animals were complaining so much? Opper Tuneti reckoned that He wasn't giving them enough food. Yet, confused He thought that in His perfect system that they should be thriving by now?
He scratched his head and sighed, "I'll make more of my special Opper Tuneti's gourmet treats next time. That should make everyone very happy indeed."
Opper Tuneti slaved away making the perfect treats for each animal. (including ol' Tammy Titi Monkey)
He was so excited to give them their afternoon snack, he forgot to make their lunch that day. Tuckered out, he fell asleep and took a long, long, snoooooozzzzzzzzzz... (snore, snore, snore)
Tammy Titi Monkey was primed and ready to do what she always did- swoop down and take the other animals food.
She didn't hear Opper Tuneti calling her name this time. "Where is he! Where is he, " she shrieked. (like monkey's often do) "It's half past 2 and I'm hungrier than you!" She yelled loudly to the other animals below.
Castor the Leopard had suspicions about Tammy Titi. Leopard's after all, are the smartest and the cleverest cats in the world. They can hide in plain sight and observe their prey for days before striking. Leopard's know how to climb trees by the way! Often, they take their prey into the tall, tall, tree tops to feast in solitude.
Tammy Titi didn't know this about Castor Leopard... and that's the way Castor liked it. (leopard wink)
Maxine, the Gorilla, had her suspicions too. She knew Opper Tuneti much longer than any of the other animals. Opper Tuneti was her friend, a long time friend. He had given her many treats over the years, and never had she gone without. Maxine, like most Gorillas, had patience and wisdom.
Gorillas are known as Great Apes for a reason. She would console the hungry animals and say, "Don't worry! Opper Tuneti will come, you'll see! Just have patience. He's never failed me, and I know He won't fail you."
Tammy Titi was becoming restless and impatient, a typical monkey trait. She started throwing her poop at the other animals from strategic locations.
She would give out a shrill shriek, "Donny Donkey! Listen! Blitzy Ox threw something at you! You should kick him with your strong hind legs!"
Then, Tammy Titi Monkey would swing to another branch and yell out, "Roger Parrot, You'll never guess who's been taking the food! It was Jeff the Lemur the whole time! Can you believe it? I saw him do so with my beady monkey eyes!"
Fights would break out among the animals. The noise coming from the zoo started to scared away all of the people who were there to visit them. Complaints were filed among the zoo patrons saying, "The animals were out of control, unruly, and looked unhealthy and miserable too!"
Tammy Titi loved her little manipulation game!
It kept her monkey brain busy as a bee to set traps, snares, and stir up strife among her fellow animal neighbors.
Tammy thought, "if I can't steal their food, I'll steal their happiness, crush their confidence, and make them think they are going crazy! Maybe they will be put to sleep forever by the mean Zoo Vet, Dr. Rooin. Dr. Rooin would never catch me anyway, so I have nothing to worry about! After all, I'm the smartest, quickest, and most cunning animal at the zoo. "
Trevor Snake was Tammy Titi's only friend. He understood what it was like to be cunning, clever, and quick! Trevor believed in survival of the fittest. Still, he had to crawl on his belly as his only means of transportation... which is lame.
Back to the story... (throat clearing sound)
Where did Castor the Leopard go in this story?
Do you remember that leopards are the stealthiest of all the zoo creatures? I know I do.
Castor Leopard was perched at the top of the tallest tree, nestled in the thickest of branches, watching everything. Castor Leopard knew everything that Tammy Titi had been doing.
Castor Leopard knew that Opper Tuneti would eventually come back to give them their food. "This time," said Castor, "Tammy Titi won't get away with it!"
Zookeeper Opper Tuneti woke up from His long snooze with an alarming thought, "Oh no! What have I done? The animals depend on Me and I have let them down! I've offered them so much over the years and they've begun to lose faith in Me. Now, I have slept through feeding time and I must give them more than I ever have before, including the delicious treats I made earlier! I will make them happier than I ever have before!"
He gathered a whole barrel full of treats and food, perfect for each of the animals, and began his long walk to the habitat feeding area.
Tammy Titi Monkey was taking a nap. After her prolonged poop throwing, shrieking insults, and false claims, she was pretty tuckered out. It's rare for a Titi Monkey to take a nap. But she had really outdone herself, feeling proud of herself for hoarding all the food that Opper Tuneti had given the animals over the last several weeks.
Tammy Titi slept on the food, most of which was rotted by now.
What a terrible little monkey to have starved all the other animals from Opper Tuneti's special treats! Shame, shame, shame on you Tammy Titi!
Castor Leopard took this opportunity to talk to the other animals. Castor leapt from branch to branch, landing with the grace of a gazelle as to not scare the other animals, some of whom could be skittish if they were frightened.
"Jeff Lemur, Roger Parrot, Maxine Gorilla, Donny Donkey, Blitzy Ox, and Trevor... Trevor? Where's Trevor Snake?" Maxine Gorilla mumbled under her breath, "snaking around on his belly somewhere I'm sure..." Castor forcefully spoke, "My friends, you are all hungry. I know that. You are all tired, I know that too. Please, do not blame Opper Tuneti for this. He is not to blame. He has given us plenty. He gives us what we need. He will be as steady as the rising sun. "
Roger the Parrot squawked, "Opper Tuneti doesn't come for a Parrot like me anymore. I'm an old parrot. It's too late for me to eat Opper Tuneti's treats because I have lost all hope. It is best if He never comes back. Perhaps then I can fly away. If he does come back and I have gone, there will be more food for everyone else."
Castor said, "Don't be retarded Roger. None of us eat f-ing bird seed. Stupid. Just listen to me! I know something that you guys don't know. I've been watching from a higher vantage point this entire time."
Jeff the Lemur squeaked out a sigh and said, "I'm a lesser primate. Opper Tuneti knows that. That's why I'm going to die of starvation." Donny Donkey brayed loudly, "I'm fine. I'm fine. I found some rocks to eat. I'm fine. I can make my own Opper Tuneti treats myself out of these rocks!"
Castor Leopard was getting frustrated and said, "Donny, ugh... You can't eat rocks and pretend they are anything like Opper Tuneti's treats! You'll get a sour stomach! Besides, how can you bray so with a sour stomach? ...Jeff Parrot, just stop. You are everyone's favorite so just stop whining. You are far more of an adorable primate than Tammy Titi."
All the animals gasped at the blunt statement of Castor Leopard. Shocked by this sudden distaste for Tammy Titi Monkey, they began to defend her. "Tammy has our best interest at heart. She's smarter and more clever than any of us. She looks out from the tree tops to make sure we know when Opper Tuneti comes."
Maxine Gorilla slowly raised up and said, "My friends, I am the oldest of you and I have seen Opper Tuneti come and go, many times. I think our friend Castor Leopard may have something important to say, and we should listen to the leopard for once."
Castor Leopard, composed, said, "I am a leopard. I can hide in plain sight. I can bring the largest of you up to the tops of the trees to eat you if I wanted to and I haven't. I've been hungry enough to eat all of you and I haven't. I waited. I hid in plain sight. I watched. I know where Opper Tuneti's treats have gone. Some have been eaten, but only the ones belonging to Tammy Titi Monkey. The fights with each other were not caused by hunger. They were constructed by Tammy Titi Monkey! She was throwing her poop at you from her perch! She intends to make certain that none of you eat of Opper Tuneti's bounty! What's worse is she wants you to destroy one another or even more horrible of a thought...She wants you all to be put down by Doctor Rooin! If you don't believe me, just wait until Opper Tuneti comes back. I have a plan that will fix this for good so that everyone, including Tammy Titi Monkey, will get what they deserve."
The animals were confused and in denial about what Castor had claimed. Some of them were so heartbroken they sobbed. They could only focus on their hunger and how hopeless they were becoming.
Tammy Titi Monkey was still resting peacefully in the trees with her snake friend Trevor in tow. Their bellies were full, as they peacefully slept, content with their terrible acts. They knew that Opper Tuneti would come back soon with a bountiful spread that they could take once more.
Castor Leopard quietly climbed up to their resting place in the tree. Castor tied all of the hoarded food given by Opper Tuneti to a trip wire system attached to Tammy Titi's tail. If successful, the line will drop all of the week's of rotted stolen treats to the ground. When Tammy Titi comes down to take Opper Tuneti's treats from the rest of the group, the stolen plunder will come along with her. Even ol' Trevor Snake will come tumbling down, if Castor plays the cards right.
Whistling was heard coming through the pathway, "Hey there my sweet babies! I love you so much and I'm so sorry I missed your feeding time today. I have an extra special surprise for you all!"
The animals saw Opper Tuneti coming with a barrel and a bag of special treats and delicious foods.
They were squawking, braying, mooing and squeaking with excitement! "Today is the best day. Opper Tuneti brought us more than we can imagine! This is the best day ever." Their mouth's slobbery with drool, they were so happy to be readying themselves for a feast they will never forget.
Opper Tuneti empties the barrels and bags of scrumptious treats into their food bowls and troughs. He is singing and whistling, taking great joy in feeding his animals their favorite and most perfect things...
Trevor Snake woke up and nudged Tammy TiTi saying, "sssssTammy, the other's are feasting and we are sleeping? Look at Opper Tuneti'ssss smiles and laughter, glee and charm. He must love them more than usssssssssss..... " Tammy Titi Monkey shrieked, "Opper Tuneti is mine! Mine and mine alone! I'm the smartest, quickest and most intelligent of these low level mammals! Pah! They cannot possibly deserve ANY of Opper Tuneti's treats or attention! It's MINE!!!!! MINE!!!! MINE!"
Tammy Titi Monkey leapt. And with a single long winding bound, down and down, she crashed. CRASH! Plop, Plop, Plop, CRASH! Pounds of hay, watermelon, bird seed, bananas, sugar cubes, steak, leeks and lettuce came tumbling down with her. CRASH! PLOP! BOOM! BANG!
The animals all looked on in horror! They were gasping, braying, squeaking and moaning. They said, "Tammy Titi? Why would you? Why did you? How could you?"
Tammy Titi Monkey and Trevor Snake were maniacally trying to gather up what remained of their hoarded mess by shoving it into their mouths, their fists, and dropping most of it as they ran or slithered. They were struggling to get back up the tree. Not even the most meager portions of Opper Tuneti's treats, they continued to climb.
All of a sudden with a bounding roar came Castor Leopard, down, down, down the tree to meet Tammy and Trevor face to face, greeting them with a fierce growl. Scared and broken, Tammy and Trevor dropped the remaining stolen items. Shivering with fear they said, "Please don't hurt us. Please. We didn't know that these treats were for everyone. We thought they were for the most clever of creatures. We didn't know, we didn't know, we didn't know! Here, you can have Opper Tuneti's treats! Take all you want! Please! Just don't eat us!"
Castor rummaged through the pile, never breaking eye contact with the pair. Castor found the steaks within the rubbish of rotted treats and turned back up the tree saying, "I only wanted what was intended for me, Tammy Titi. Titi Monkey's can't eat steak and leopards can't eat bananas. You should be intelligent enough to know this, and yet, you take what isn't yours and what you can't even use. You are a wasteful and greedy little monkey. You lack in your heart compassion for others. Animals who are far bigger than you will ever be. And you, Trevor, you slithering snake! You shed your skin wherever you see fit! You are just a snake. A lowly slithering snake, taking what the monkey see's fit to give you. Self interested, you don't share either! Well now we know her dirty little monkey secret! You would rather have everyone put down by Dr. Rooin than to share your Opper Tuneti Treats?"
Opper Tuneti saw all of this and felt sad inside.
After all, he had always given equal parts of his famous Opper Tuneti treats to each of the animals big and small. Opper Tuneti decided that day to make Tammy Titi Monkey her own enclosure that would be far away from the rest of the animals. He would make sure she had her fair share of His treats, but would never again allow her access to any of the other animal's Opper Tuneti Treats.
Opper Tuneti is fair and kind. A good animal knows that He will come each day with something special just for them. A good animal knows that there will always be plenty of Opper Tuneti....treats.
As far as ol' Tammy Titi is concerned...
I guess she'll have to see what it's like to live off of what Opper Tuneti seems fit to give her each day. That's a big hard lesson for a little ol' Titi Monkey.
Castor Leopard and his friend's still hear the shrieking and hissing each night coming from Tammy and Trevor's cage.
They sit around and eat their Opper Tuneti's Treats together, always giving thanks for the special thought that goes into each treat He gives them. From the Leopard to the Donkey, the Parrot to the Ox, each one is visited by hundreds of zoo patrons who appreciate them for the animals they were born to be. I hear that by next year, they will all have bigger and better habitats thanks to good ol' Opper Tuneti.
So remember kids... don't be a greedy piece of shit like Tammy Titi Monkey or a self-righteous prick like Trevor Snake.
The End.
Tammy Titi is a monkey at the local zoo, a Titi Monkey.
Being a special type of monkey, Tammy Titi relied heavily on her cunning and shrewd monkey brain to trick all the other animals in the zoo.
Tammy Titi had to share a habitat with several animals. There was Blitzy the Ox, Jeff the Lemur, Maxine the Gorilla, Roger the Parrot, Trevor the Snake, Donny the Donkey, and Castor the Snow Leopard.
Tammy Titi was smaller than most of the animals she had to share her space with. And over the years, she had figured out how to hoard the most food from Zookeeper Opper Tuneti.
Opper Tuneti was a fair and just zookeeper. He always brought plenty of food for all of the animals to enjoy. He made sure that the food was nutritious, delicious, and satisfying. Each individual animal at the zoo had their own special meals and treats.
Blitzy the Ox liked hay, Jeff the Lemur preferred watermelon, and even Trevor the Snake got his belly full on snake kibbles n' bits!
Ol' Tammy Titi didn't like all the attention that Opper Tuneti gave all the animals in the zoo. She decided she'd find a way to steal their food after Opper Tuneti filled their respective bowls.
Tammy Titi thought, "How dare they think Opper Tuneti gave them anything! I'm the most cunning, quick, and intelligent animal here! I'll use my monkey brain and my monkey body to swoop down and gather up the food that Opper Tuneti placed out for them. I know, I'll do it a little bit at a time so they won't notice it's me that is taking their rations! "(evil monkey laugh)
Day by day the animals were hungrier and hungrier.
Donny Donkey brayed, "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, there's never enough to eat! I'm hungry, I'm hungry, there's never enough to eat! Opper Tuneti, come back! I'm hungry, I'm hungry!"
Roger the Parrot squawked, "Shut up Donny Donkey! Shut up! Shut up! Opper Tuneti just gave you your food and I saw you eat it! You're fine! I'm the hungry one!"
Tammy Titi watched them all complain. They became drained with each passing week.
Tammy Titi's tree was packed full of goodies. She had Blitzy's hay, Jeff's watermelon, Donny's sugar cubes, and Castor Leopard's steak. She had it all placed in hide-away holes in Tammy Titi's tree. Tammy Titi couldn't eat half of the food she had stored away. Why some of the food isn't even suitable for a Titi monkey!
Opper Tuneti came by each day. With each visit, He began to wonder why all of the animals were complaining so much? Opper Tuneti reckoned that He wasn't giving them enough food. Yet, confused He thought that in His perfect system that they should be thriving by now?
He scratched his head and sighed, "I'll make more of my special Opper Tuneti's gourmet treats next time. That should make everyone very happy indeed."
Opper Tuneti slaved away making the perfect treats for each animal. (including ol' Tammy Titi Monkey)
He was so excited to give them their afternoon snack, he forgot to make their lunch that day. Tuckered out, he fell asleep and took a long, long, snoooooozzzzzzzzzz... (snore, snore, snore)
Tammy Titi Monkey was primed and ready to do what she always did- swoop down and take the other animals food.
She didn't hear Opper Tuneti calling her name this time. "Where is he! Where is he, " she shrieked. (like monkey's often do) "It's half past 2 and I'm hungrier than you!" She yelled loudly to the other animals below.
Castor the Leopard had suspicions about Tammy Titi. Leopard's after all, are the smartest and the cleverest cats in the world. They can hide in plain sight and observe their prey for days before striking. Leopard's know how to climb trees by the way! Often, they take their prey into the tall, tall, tree tops to feast in solitude.
Tammy Titi didn't know this about Castor Leopard... and that's the way Castor liked it. (leopard wink)
Maxine, the Gorilla, had her suspicions too. She knew Opper Tuneti much longer than any of the other animals. Opper Tuneti was her friend, a long time friend. He had given her many treats over the years, and never had she gone without. Maxine, like most Gorillas, had patience and wisdom.
Gorillas are known as Great Apes for a reason. She would console the hungry animals and say, "Don't worry! Opper Tuneti will come, you'll see! Just have patience. He's never failed me, and I know He won't fail you."
Tammy Titi was becoming restless and impatient, a typical monkey trait. She started throwing her poop at the other animals from strategic locations.
She would give out a shrill shriek, "Donny Donkey! Listen! Blitzy Ox threw something at you! You should kick him with your strong hind legs!"
Then, Tammy Titi Monkey would swing to another branch and yell out, "Roger Parrot, You'll never guess who's been taking the food! It was Jeff the Lemur the whole time! Can you believe it? I saw him do so with my beady monkey eyes!"
Fights would break out among the animals. The noise coming from the zoo started to scared away all of the people who were there to visit them. Complaints were filed among the zoo patrons saying, "The animals were out of control, unruly, and looked unhealthy and miserable too!"
Tammy Titi loved her little manipulation game!
It kept her monkey brain busy as a bee to set traps, snares, and stir up strife among her fellow animal neighbors.
Tammy thought, "if I can't steal their food, I'll steal their happiness, crush their confidence, and make them think they are going crazy! Maybe they will be put to sleep forever by the mean Zoo Vet, Dr. Rooin. Dr. Rooin would never catch me anyway, so I have nothing to worry about! After all, I'm the smartest, quickest, and most cunning animal at the zoo. "
Trevor Snake was Tammy Titi's only friend. He understood what it was like to be cunning, clever, and quick! Trevor believed in survival of the fittest. Still, he had to crawl on his belly as his only means of transportation... which is lame.
Back to the story... (throat clearing sound)
Where did Castor the Leopard go in this story?
Do you remember that leopards are the stealthiest of all the zoo creatures? I know I do.
Castor Leopard was perched at the top of the tallest tree, nestled in the thickest of branches, watching everything. Castor Leopard knew everything that Tammy Titi had been doing.
Castor Leopard knew that Opper Tuneti would eventually come back to give them their food. "This time," said Castor, "Tammy Titi won't get away with it!"
Zookeeper Opper Tuneti woke up from His long snooze with an alarming thought, "Oh no! What have I done? The animals depend on Me and I have let them down! I've offered them so much over the years and they've begun to lose faith in Me. Now, I have slept through feeding time and I must give them more than I ever have before, including the delicious treats I made earlier! I will make them happier than I ever have before!"
He gathered a whole barrel full of treats and food, perfect for each of the animals, and began his long walk to the habitat feeding area.
Tammy Titi Monkey was taking a nap. After her prolonged poop throwing, shrieking insults, and false claims, she was pretty tuckered out. It's rare for a Titi Monkey to take a nap. But she had really outdone herself, feeling proud of herself for hoarding all the food that Opper Tuneti had given the animals over the last several weeks.
Tammy Titi slept on the food, most of which was rotted by now.
What a terrible little monkey to have starved all the other animals from Opper Tuneti's special treats! Shame, shame, shame on you Tammy Titi!
Castor Leopard took this opportunity to talk to the other animals. Castor leapt from branch to branch, landing with the grace of a gazelle as to not scare the other animals, some of whom could be skittish if they were frightened.
"Jeff Lemur, Roger Parrot, Maxine Gorilla, Donny Donkey, Blitzy Ox, and Trevor... Trevor? Where's Trevor Snake?" Maxine Gorilla mumbled under her breath, "snaking around on his belly somewhere I'm sure..." Castor forcefully spoke, "My friends, you are all hungry. I know that. You are all tired, I know that too. Please, do not blame Opper Tuneti for this. He is not to blame. He has given us plenty. He gives us what we need. He will be as steady as the rising sun. "
Roger the Parrot squawked, "Opper Tuneti doesn't come for a Parrot like me anymore. I'm an old parrot. It's too late for me to eat Opper Tuneti's treats because I have lost all hope. It is best if He never comes back. Perhaps then I can fly away. If he does come back and I have gone, there will be more food for everyone else."
Castor said, "Don't be retarded Roger. None of us eat f-ing bird seed. Stupid. Just listen to me! I know something that you guys don't know. I've been watching from a higher vantage point this entire time."
Jeff the Lemur squeaked out a sigh and said, "I'm a lesser primate. Opper Tuneti knows that. That's why I'm going to die of starvation." Donny Donkey brayed loudly, "I'm fine. I'm fine. I found some rocks to eat. I'm fine. I can make my own Opper Tuneti treats myself out of these rocks!"
Castor Leopard was getting frustrated and said, "Donny, ugh... You can't eat rocks and pretend they are anything like Opper Tuneti's treats! You'll get a sour stomach! Besides, how can you bray so with a sour stomach? ...Jeff Parrot, just stop. You are everyone's favorite so just stop whining. You are far more of an adorable primate than Tammy Titi."
All the animals gasped at the blunt statement of Castor Leopard. Shocked by this sudden distaste for Tammy Titi Monkey, they began to defend her. "Tammy has our best interest at heart. She's smarter and more clever than any of us. She looks out from the tree tops to make sure we know when Opper Tuneti comes."
Maxine Gorilla slowly raised up and said, "My friends, I am the oldest of you and I have seen Opper Tuneti come and go, many times. I think our friend Castor Leopard may have something important to say, and we should listen to the leopard for once."
Castor Leopard, composed, said, "I am a leopard. I can hide in plain sight. I can bring the largest of you up to the tops of the trees to eat you if I wanted to and I haven't. I've been hungry enough to eat all of you and I haven't. I waited. I hid in plain sight. I watched. I know where Opper Tuneti's treats have gone. Some have been eaten, but only the ones belonging to Tammy Titi Monkey. The fights with each other were not caused by hunger. They were constructed by Tammy Titi Monkey! She was throwing her poop at you from her perch! She intends to make certain that none of you eat of Opper Tuneti's bounty! What's worse is she wants you to destroy one another or even more horrible of a thought...She wants you all to be put down by Doctor Rooin! If you don't believe me, just wait until Opper Tuneti comes back. I have a plan that will fix this for good so that everyone, including Tammy Titi Monkey, will get what they deserve."
The animals were confused and in denial about what Castor had claimed. Some of them were so heartbroken they sobbed. They could only focus on their hunger and how hopeless they were becoming.
Tammy Titi Monkey was still resting peacefully in the trees with her snake friend Trevor in tow. Their bellies were full, as they peacefully slept, content with their terrible acts. They knew that Opper Tuneti would come back soon with a bountiful spread that they could take once more.
Castor Leopard quietly climbed up to their resting place in the tree. Castor tied all of the hoarded food given by Opper Tuneti to a trip wire system attached to Tammy Titi's tail. If successful, the line will drop all of the week's of rotted stolen treats to the ground. When Tammy Titi comes down to take Opper Tuneti's treats from the rest of the group, the stolen plunder will come along with her. Even ol' Trevor Snake will come tumbling down, if Castor plays the cards right.
Whistling was heard coming through the pathway, "Hey there my sweet babies! I love you so much and I'm so sorry I missed your feeding time today. I have an extra special surprise for you all!"
The animals saw Opper Tuneti coming with a barrel and a bag of special treats and delicious foods.
They were squawking, braying, mooing and squeaking with excitement! "Today is the best day. Opper Tuneti brought us more than we can imagine! This is the best day ever." Their mouth's slobbery with drool, they were so happy to be readying themselves for a feast they will never forget.
Opper Tuneti empties the barrels and bags of scrumptious treats into their food bowls and troughs. He is singing and whistling, taking great joy in feeding his animals their favorite and most perfect things...
Trevor Snake woke up and nudged Tammy TiTi saying, "sssssTammy, the other's are feasting and we are sleeping? Look at Opper Tuneti'ssss smiles and laughter, glee and charm. He must love them more than usssssssssss..... " Tammy Titi Monkey shrieked, "Opper Tuneti is mine! Mine and mine alone! I'm the smartest, quickest and most intelligent of these low level mammals! Pah! They cannot possibly deserve ANY of Opper Tuneti's treats or attention! It's MINE!!!!! MINE!!!! MINE!"
Tammy Titi Monkey leapt. And with a single long winding bound, down and down, she crashed. CRASH! Plop, Plop, Plop, CRASH! Pounds of hay, watermelon, bird seed, bananas, sugar cubes, steak, leeks and lettuce came tumbling down with her. CRASH! PLOP! BOOM! BANG!
The animals all looked on in horror! They were gasping, braying, squeaking and moaning. They said, "Tammy Titi? Why would you? Why did you? How could you?"
Tammy Titi Monkey and Trevor Snake were maniacally trying to gather up what remained of their hoarded mess by shoving it into their mouths, their fists, and dropping most of it as they ran or slithered. They were struggling to get back up the tree. Not even the most meager portions of Opper Tuneti's treats, they continued to climb.
All of a sudden with a bounding roar came Castor Leopard, down, down, down the tree to meet Tammy and Trevor face to face, greeting them with a fierce growl. Scared and broken, Tammy and Trevor dropped the remaining stolen items. Shivering with fear they said, "Please don't hurt us. Please. We didn't know that these treats were for everyone. We thought they were for the most clever of creatures. We didn't know, we didn't know, we didn't know! Here, you can have Opper Tuneti's treats! Take all you want! Please! Just don't eat us!"
Castor rummaged through the pile, never breaking eye contact with the pair. Castor found the steaks within the rubbish of rotted treats and turned back up the tree saying, "I only wanted what was intended for me, Tammy Titi. Titi Monkey's can't eat steak and leopards can't eat bananas. You should be intelligent enough to know this, and yet, you take what isn't yours and what you can't even use. You are a wasteful and greedy little monkey. You lack in your heart compassion for others. Animals who are far bigger than you will ever be. And you, Trevor, you slithering snake! You shed your skin wherever you see fit! You are just a snake. A lowly slithering snake, taking what the monkey see's fit to give you. Self interested, you don't share either! Well now we know her dirty little monkey secret! You would rather have everyone put down by Dr. Rooin than to share your Opper Tuneti Treats?"
Opper Tuneti saw all of this and felt sad inside.
After all, he had always given equal parts of his famous Opper Tuneti treats to each of the animals big and small. Opper Tuneti decided that day to make Tammy Titi Monkey her own enclosure that would be far away from the rest of the animals. He would make sure she had her fair share of His treats, but would never again allow her access to any of the other animal's Opper Tuneti Treats.
Opper Tuneti is fair and kind. A good animal knows that He will come each day with something special just for them. A good animal knows that there will always be plenty of Opper Tuneti....treats.
As far as ol' Tammy Titi is concerned...
I guess she'll have to see what it's like to live off of what Opper Tuneti seems fit to give her each day. That's a big hard lesson for a little ol' Titi Monkey.
Castor Leopard and his friend's still hear the shrieking and hissing each night coming from Tammy and Trevor's cage.
They sit around and eat their Opper Tuneti's Treats together, always giving thanks for the special thought that goes into each treat He gives them. From the Leopard to the Donkey, the Parrot to the Ox, each one is visited by hundreds of zoo patrons who appreciate them for the animals they were born to be. I hear that by next year, they will all have bigger and better habitats thanks to good ol' Opper Tuneti.
So remember kids... don't be a greedy piece of shit like Tammy Titi Monkey or a self-righteous prick like Trevor Snake.
The End.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Funny- Read it- Holiday Stories
Christmas time is stressful. I have to come up with various lists of things to buy everyone and somehow hope that everyone likes what you got them.
There's nothing that will take the wind out of your sails like finding the gifts you got people still in the gift bag. So you didn't even consider enjoying the gift? They didn't.
They don't even re-gift it to anyone! They are saying, without words, "nobody can enjoy this gift if I don't."
I think about how I waited in a line for an hour buying that gift and got 7 new zits from stress driving during rush hour to pick out the perfect gift... that you won't look at for 365 days- past the day you received it.
This year, I'm narrowing down the purchases to the most base level thought which is, "This is something, I'll buy it."
My Mom had a storage shed built specifically to store her Christmas decorations. The storage shed is large enough to be a guest room. Instead, it has 200 tubs of decorations that date back to 1962. She typically is finished decorating the house with all of it around December 27th. It will take her until March 15th to take it all down and lug it back to the storage shed. I will never understand this. Never. At no point would my brain ever allow myself to:
A) not only keep Christmas decorations from 4 generations of celebration or...
B) I would never feel comfortable saying to anyone, "Oh this? Well, this is my enormous shed that a whole person could live in, no wait, I'll use it for tubs of broken lights and stuffed snowmen with potential bedbugs living inside them."
I'm the type of person that throws things away. If I haven't considered it for more than a year, it's trash.
Of course, I've been known to throw away entire dish sets because I couldn't be bothered with packing them to move. Goodbye dishes.
Let me get on this for a sec...
Holiday parties... don't get me started. Oh, too late.
These parties are for the most part, fun. However, there's always the ONE holiday party that becomes a social experiment in hell. Years ago, I was invited to a holiday party that had instructions of what to bring, wear, and had a line of text at the bottom of the card that I ignored and shouldn't have. It read, "surprise games! Bring your thinking cap! Win prizes!"
I showed up at this party and realized that everyone there was REALLY into group activities. (if you know one thing about me, I hate group activities or forced fun)
Everyone had a color coded name tag, were told to pick out a card from this bowl of blank construction paper bits cut into various shapes, and I was told, "if you want something to eat, make sure you get food before 9:30 because no food will be allowed during group activities."
Really? Says who? NOT allowed? What? I'm not ALLOWED? Uh.... good bye. I wish I was that cool, you know, just to have walked out and flip the bird... I wasn't that cool...yet. I was kind of shocked by the whole thing so I just got in line to get executed by the Third Reich of Forced Fun.
Lots of people in ironic sweaters, lots of couples that finish each other's sentences, lots of division between male and female, one chick who kept screaming "I'm a teacher!," and then there was me. The one who doesn't belong.
People were already making alliances for the group games and figuring out strategies for winning. Big pig faced beady eyed bloated Texas guys gripping their Coors Light like a grizzly bear, talkin' all loud, saying, "Melissa, hey, Melissa, come 'ere, Hey! You ready to get your ass kicked!" (then elbows his buddy who yucks it up in agreement)
What do you win? A 15 dollar gift card to Panera Bread. That's it.
The games started and the competitive tension was creating giant ulcers in my stomach lining. Lots of yelling. Lots of it. (if there's another thing you know about me right off, it's that I hate loud yelling and shrill voices.... annnnnnnnnnnnd DRUNKS.)
People were trashed. They were yelling insults and laughing at their own jokes, etc...
There was a big slobbery basset hound belonging to the owner of the house. At one point during the yelling and shrill high pitched women screaming at their husbands (or boyfriends) about how "women rule,"....At this point, the dog let out loud sigh and schlepped off into a dark corner by the coat closet.
I decided at that moment that I needed to know this dog and let him know that not every human sucks. I went back to the coat closet to visit this dog and then he growled at me and ran off. Okay so I'm totally alone in this? Yep.
How did I get out of this situation? I "went to the car to get something" and I never came back. Get this... nobody noticed. ha ha ha ha Isn't that awesome? They all remember me being there and remember me being "awesome at the trivia." I never participated in one question. That's so hilarious to me I can't even fully explain how it tickles me inside. There's even one chick to this very day that remembers me winning the game. (I cry laughing every time I think of her insisting that I won the game) They will know now if they read this... Remember.. fun surprises... Surprise, I wasn't there.
If you have ever worked retail during the holiday season, you know why humanity hasn't progressed. There's nothing, NOTHING, more disgusting than people who want things real real bad. It's horrible.
I remember working at a puppet theatre (I worked there for years actually) every year during the holiday season at North Park Mall in Dallas. Very ritzy mall, full of entitled rich people who live in University Park or Highland Park. I remember one year when we were doing the show "Little Drummer Boy." I remember this rich white woman full of questions and fear walk in to buy tickets. She was physically posturing a sheltering type move with her transparent skinned made-in-lab children as though they were walking into a strip club. She cautiously approached the ticket counter and kind of whispered her question in full CIA spy mode... "I want to buy tickets, but I have a question... is it scary?"
I remember looking at her in silence for at least 2 long seconds before I said, "It's the Little Drummer Boy." This woman said, "Okay? But you didn't answer my question. Is it scary?"
To this I said, "Yes, you know what... it is. It's horrifying. We sell tickets to entire families so that they will need therapy following the 45 minute puppet show about the birth of Jesus Christ and a poor kid who played the drums for him."
She looked confused and then walked away. She came back about 5 minutes before show time and asked to speak with the manager. Of course, I had already debriefed everyone who worked at the theatre about this stupid person so I had no fear in "getting the manager." The manager/owner, an older man who routinely snapped at people's stupidity, came out and got an ear full. He told her that if she assumed it was a business founded on scarring children, she had no business raising them. Boom.
I wanted Maury Povitch "dance it out in her face" whilst saying, "uh uh, wat! WAT NOW! WAT! uh uh uh."
Just so you all know... if you make an ass of yourself during the holiday season in front of any retail worker at a mall, they all get together after work and drink hard liquor because of you. If sending ill will actually worked, anyone who popped off to the over-worked retail employees would explode into shards of goo upon exiting the store. Trust that. Oh, and they will remember your ass next year too. Believe that.
I hope you all get your shopping done with ease, and please, if you go to any holiday parties that end up sucking real hard... just "go to the car to get something." It works. There will be no repercussions for doing this because everyone will be drunk later and forget all facts relating to that party. It's like you get to be there without being there. It's truly the best idea, trust me.
Feel free to comment on this with your own holiday horror stories and let's all have a big o' laugh.
-Bah Humbug
There's nothing that will take the wind out of your sails like finding the gifts you got people still in the gift bag. So you didn't even consider enjoying the gift? They didn't.
They don't even re-gift it to anyone! They are saying, without words, "nobody can enjoy this gift if I don't."
I think about how I waited in a line for an hour buying that gift and got 7 new zits from stress driving during rush hour to pick out the perfect gift... that you won't look at for 365 days- past the day you received it.
This year, I'm narrowing down the purchases to the most base level thought which is, "This is something, I'll buy it."
My Mom had a storage shed built specifically to store her Christmas decorations. The storage shed is large enough to be a guest room. Instead, it has 200 tubs of decorations that date back to 1962. She typically is finished decorating the house with all of it around December 27th. It will take her until March 15th to take it all down and lug it back to the storage shed. I will never understand this. Never. At no point would my brain ever allow myself to:
A) not only keep Christmas decorations from 4 generations of celebration or...
B) I would never feel comfortable saying to anyone, "Oh this? Well, this is my enormous shed that a whole person could live in, no wait, I'll use it for tubs of broken lights and stuffed snowmen with potential bedbugs living inside them."
I'm the type of person that throws things away. If I haven't considered it for more than a year, it's trash.
Of course, I've been known to throw away entire dish sets because I couldn't be bothered with packing them to move. Goodbye dishes.
Let me get on this for a sec...
Holiday parties... don't get me started. Oh, too late.
These parties are for the most part, fun. However, there's always the ONE holiday party that becomes a social experiment in hell. Years ago, I was invited to a holiday party that had instructions of what to bring, wear, and had a line of text at the bottom of the card that I ignored and shouldn't have. It read, "surprise games! Bring your thinking cap! Win prizes!"
I showed up at this party and realized that everyone there was REALLY into group activities. (if you know one thing about me, I hate group activities or forced fun)
Everyone had a color coded name tag, were told to pick out a card from this bowl of blank construction paper bits cut into various shapes, and I was told, "if you want something to eat, make sure you get food before 9:30 because no food will be allowed during group activities."
Really? Says who? NOT allowed? What? I'm not ALLOWED? Uh.... good bye. I wish I was that cool, you know, just to have walked out and flip the bird... I wasn't that cool...yet. I was kind of shocked by the whole thing so I just got in line to get executed by the Third Reich of Forced Fun.
Lots of people in ironic sweaters, lots of couples that finish each other's sentences, lots of division between male and female, one chick who kept screaming "I'm a teacher!," and then there was me. The one who doesn't belong.
People were already making alliances for the group games and figuring out strategies for winning. Big pig faced beady eyed bloated Texas guys gripping their Coors Light like a grizzly bear, talkin' all loud, saying, "Melissa, hey, Melissa, come 'ere, Hey! You ready to get your ass kicked!" (then elbows his buddy who yucks it up in agreement)
What do you win? A 15 dollar gift card to Panera Bread. That's it.
The games started and the competitive tension was creating giant ulcers in my stomach lining. Lots of yelling. Lots of it. (if there's another thing you know about me right off, it's that I hate loud yelling and shrill voices.... annnnnnnnnnnnd DRUNKS.)
People were trashed. They were yelling insults and laughing at their own jokes, etc...
There was a big slobbery basset hound belonging to the owner of the house. At one point during the yelling and shrill high pitched women screaming at their husbands (or boyfriends) about how "women rule,"....At this point, the dog let out loud sigh and schlepped off into a dark corner by the coat closet.
I decided at that moment that I needed to know this dog and let him know that not every human sucks. I went back to the coat closet to visit this dog and then he growled at me and ran off. Okay so I'm totally alone in this? Yep.
How did I get out of this situation? I "went to the car to get something" and I never came back. Get this... nobody noticed. ha ha ha ha Isn't that awesome? They all remember me being there and remember me being "awesome at the trivia." I never participated in one question. That's so hilarious to me I can't even fully explain how it tickles me inside. There's even one chick to this very day that remembers me winning the game. (I cry laughing every time I think of her insisting that I won the game) They will know now if they read this... Remember.. fun surprises... Surprise, I wasn't there.
If you have ever worked retail during the holiday season, you know why humanity hasn't progressed. There's nothing, NOTHING, more disgusting than people who want things real real bad. It's horrible.
I remember working at a puppet theatre (I worked there for years actually) every year during the holiday season at North Park Mall in Dallas. Very ritzy mall, full of entitled rich people who live in University Park or Highland Park. I remember one year when we were doing the show "Little Drummer Boy." I remember this rich white woman full of questions and fear walk in to buy tickets. She was physically posturing a sheltering type move with her transparent skinned made-in-lab children as though they were walking into a strip club. She cautiously approached the ticket counter and kind of whispered her question in full CIA spy mode... "I want to buy tickets, but I have a question... is it scary?"
I remember looking at her in silence for at least 2 long seconds before I said, "It's the Little Drummer Boy." This woman said, "Okay? But you didn't answer my question. Is it scary?"
To this I said, "Yes, you know what... it is. It's horrifying. We sell tickets to entire families so that they will need therapy following the 45 minute puppet show about the birth of Jesus Christ and a poor kid who played the drums for him."
She looked confused and then walked away. She came back about 5 minutes before show time and asked to speak with the manager. Of course, I had already debriefed everyone who worked at the theatre about this stupid person so I had no fear in "getting the manager." The manager/owner, an older man who routinely snapped at people's stupidity, came out and got an ear full. He told her that if she assumed it was a business founded on scarring children, she had no business raising them. Boom.
I wanted Maury Povitch "dance it out in her face" whilst saying, "uh uh, wat! WAT NOW! WAT! uh uh uh."
Just so you all know... if you make an ass of yourself during the holiday season in front of any retail worker at a mall, they all get together after work and drink hard liquor because of you. If sending ill will actually worked, anyone who popped off to the over-worked retail employees would explode into shards of goo upon exiting the store. Trust that. Oh, and they will remember your ass next year too. Believe that.
I hope you all get your shopping done with ease, and please, if you go to any holiday parties that end up sucking real hard... just "go to the car to get something." It works. There will be no repercussions for doing this because everyone will be drunk later and forget all facts relating to that party. It's like you get to be there without being there. It's truly the best idea, trust me.
Feel free to comment on this with your own holiday horror stories and let's all have a big o' laugh.
-Bah Humbug
Monday, December 15, 2014
Holiday Psychos- Defective Unit Edition
As you all know, or don't, I have a working theory on people. Some people are DU, or Defective Units. They have parts missing from their brain that make them completely irrational, dangerous to themselves or others, and routinely annoying.
The holiday season brings a new awareness of Defective Units. I dare you to go into any retail store, anywhere, and NOT see at least 10 examples of what I'm talking about.
Defective Units parade themselves around like normal humans but they are anything but functioning. Sure, they know how to dress themselves, speak, eat, crap, but they will lack a defining quality or skill, rendering them entirely useless as quality friends or valued members of society.
Example:
A certain family member that will not be named in this blog post makes horrible choices in her life. She has her dream car but she also has a newer version of the same car. She has two cars because she found some rust on the "dream car" and had another family member completely disassemble it and replace basically every single panel, door, handle, everything... Thus making this car value-less because it has none of its original parts anymore but instead has cheap Korean made replica parts. During this process, she whined a lot and somehow convinced her father to buy her a new version of this car because she needed something to drive while the dream car was being destroyed piece by piece. This all started 4 years ago, the car is still sitting in the garage in shambles.
Example numero dos:
My brother, a big PC gamer guy, custom built the most advanced PC money can buy to get the highest quality graphics to run at lightning fast speed so he can sit on his fat ass and play Star Trek with his loser friends. He is unemployed, goes to school full time... so he gets a "sympathy good-for-you" pat on the back from everyone...
He gets the computer built, set up, and then goes to a PAWN SHOP and purchases a 13 dollar monitor that only has red/green pixels still working.
So.... let's review... You spend a fortune on building a super computer that can literally run in 3D mode with no lag and you can't appreciate any of it because your monitor has the capacity of an Etch-a-Sketch? Good Job.
Both of these examples are the definition of Defective Units doing things in life. Somewhere on God's assembly line, an angel was eating a Ho Ho and forgot to put in the logic chip into Human Lot #87392940. Some of us got extra logic chips and not enough happy & dumb chips, therefore we are angry, cynical, and want to be beamed up into an extraterrestrial space craft TONIGHT...oh and usually take a job in entertainment so that we can ensure we will never have enough money or job security to truly relax. It's better we don't relax actually.
During the holiday season, you will witness a full boar attack of the Defective Units. There's the power pusher cart ladies that will run you over while making eye contact because they are CONVINCED that you are there to get the very thing that they want, and there's only one remaining. There's 100 remaining, but you get a deep bone bruise for being in the aisle of that item. BAM... "Exuuuuuse me, (sigh) UGH move!" I blow these people up in my dreams. I imagine bits of them spackling the marble floors at the mall. I don't do this in reality because that would make me a Defective Unit and no thanks.
My favorite Defective Units are the "late for fun" drivers. The giant SUVs that ride your ass on the highway, flash their brights, mildly swerve from right to left looking for a teleportation window that will get them to their destination in light speed. They get around you and then the Defective Unit might get a text from someone and so they slow to a crawl. You drive around them. They finish their texting priority and they are on your ass again swerving and honking. Rinse and repeat. Invariably these people are driving to a store of some kind. They are never driving to a hospital as their behavior suggests. That's why the behavior doesn't match the need, therefore they are Defective Units.
Let's talk about parking garages this time of year...
Parking garages are bee hives full of psychotic bees who just did lines of cocaine. Why, why, why must the bees stop the line of traffic to get the spot that someone is walking to when there are 59 open spaces just around the corner? What do they know about those empty spaces that you don't know? Do those empty spaces have a trap door? Are the empty spaces that are conveniently available to 59 cars have a pre-determined outcome of failure? Are you more likely to enjoy your trip to the mall after pissing off a line of people sucking their own carbon monoxide fumes for 17 minutes while you wait for a family of 8 to pile into their space so that you can have it? The worst part of all of this experience is that you are trapped. You have given up all your human rights in a parking garage. You can't abort mission. You can't quit. You can't do anything but take it square up the keister waiting for "The I-Do-What-I-Want-F-You" family to get the spot that is paved with angel tears.
I heard on the news today that there was a "stampede" at the post offices across the USA. People were "injured" in the chaos to get their gifts sent out in time for CHRISTmas. No further comment on that. It is juicy irony in and of itself.
Anyone who was partaking in a human "stampede" is a Defective Unit.
The Holiday season also brings out the worst in relationships. If you are one of the people who has more negative things to say about your spouse/or partner than you do positive things, just do the world a favor and split up. Clearly, you won't do it for yourself, so find a cause and do it for that cause. "I'm splitting up with you for the mental stability of the puppies of the world."
Again, they are missing their logic chip, which is Crucial to making decisions regarding the quality of their lives. (Defective Unit) They would rather fight and resent someone, dump all the negative rants on other people, get offered multiple common sense solutions, and ignore every single one of them. Something in their brain is flipped, the part was put in upside down.
Their defectiveness is ramped way up during this time of year because they have to think about buying things for that person, and typically realize they would rather pluck their own eyes out than have any thoughtful feeling about their life partner.
These people are horrible excuses for martyrs, and don't buy into their drama or you will become a Defective Unit Default Recall. Simply walk away from them and don't waste your functioning logic chip on giving them any support or solutions. Their inner hard drive isn't compatible with your "software update." They are not backwards compatible either. The more time passes, the more out of date their programming is. No new applications, no amount of RAM will make them run any better. They will continue to run the exact same way until their internal batteries burn out and they die. Facts.
In closing, if you are a Defective Unit, you probably will post something mean on my Facebook wall after reading this because you'll be convinced that it was personal to you. If you do that, you've outed yourself.
However, most Defective Units have the attention span of a gnat when challenged with reading anything other than stupid quotes printed on cheap wall art at Big Lots or "meems" they see on the internet.
Be safe out there America. The Defective Units are out in droves. They function on primal instincts and have no fear of the terrible repercussions of their stanky instant knee-jerk reactions to daily life. Remember, you can always spot a DU if you see the following things:
1. Any situation that requires even minimal patience will cause an outburst of some kind which will thrust them into making a decision which will definitely affect more than just them.
2. Lack of attention span. (this is related to #1, lack of patience) They will want you to listen to them talk incessantly about everything and everyone in their life, but if you text anything longer than "LOL" or "K", they won't read it. Even if what you texted them was directions to a location they want to go to... they will still call you and make you stay on the phone with them while they drive there. You will be late to the event, they won't, and they have already forgotten that you helped them out.
3. Big plans- DU's always have big big plans. They are always making huge plans for their lives with no foreseeable way of accomplishing it. Most of the time they will make these plans after they have become unemployed or are thinking about quitting their job. This is different from having "dreams of success" and you'll know that because you'll feel shitty when they tell you about their plans, verses, being inspired by someone who wants more out of life.
4. Phobias- They have them because they are stupid.
5. Loud- DU's have terrible listening capabilities so they will overtake the room by being the loudest person in it. They will make inappropriate noises when they get mildly "hurt"... They ALWAYS use speaker phone and behave as though you are interrupting a "private phone call" if you make any noise at all.
6. Poor bathroom hygiene- They have no concept of how to flush a toilet or throw any personal product in the trash.
7. They Are the ONLY person in the world- Yep. That's right. They are the most important person in the world. They have no perspective. The phrase "put yourself in someone else's shoes," is lost on them. They lack the hardware to implement that phrase and adjust their reactions to situations. They will tell you about how they got the best deal, you can't get it, and even if you did get that deal they will insist you didn't. They like a restaurant the most, you can't like it the most because they do. It's "their restaurant." Everything is "their thing." They will say things like, "this is totally ME." They are right, because everything good or bad is always "totally me." They get the same result either way.
I hope this list helps you avoid the Defective Units during this holiday season. Try to not engage them, keep your head down, walk fast, and get away.
Happy Holidays everyone. I hope this next year you all have wonderfully functional lives full of inspiration, adventure, and compassion for the Defective Units.
Compassion is the only way to not become one.
The holiday season brings a new awareness of Defective Units. I dare you to go into any retail store, anywhere, and NOT see at least 10 examples of what I'm talking about.
Defective Units parade themselves around like normal humans but they are anything but functioning. Sure, they know how to dress themselves, speak, eat, crap, but they will lack a defining quality or skill, rendering them entirely useless as quality friends or valued members of society.
Example:
A certain family member that will not be named in this blog post makes horrible choices in her life. She has her dream car but she also has a newer version of the same car. She has two cars because she found some rust on the "dream car" and had another family member completely disassemble it and replace basically every single panel, door, handle, everything... Thus making this car value-less because it has none of its original parts anymore but instead has cheap Korean made replica parts. During this process, she whined a lot and somehow convinced her father to buy her a new version of this car because she needed something to drive while the dream car was being destroyed piece by piece. This all started 4 years ago, the car is still sitting in the garage in shambles.
Example numero dos:
My brother, a big PC gamer guy, custom built the most advanced PC money can buy to get the highest quality graphics to run at lightning fast speed so he can sit on his fat ass and play Star Trek with his loser friends. He is unemployed, goes to school full time... so he gets a "sympathy good-for-you" pat on the back from everyone...
He gets the computer built, set up, and then goes to a PAWN SHOP and purchases a 13 dollar monitor that only has red/green pixels still working.
So.... let's review... You spend a fortune on building a super computer that can literally run in 3D mode with no lag and you can't appreciate any of it because your monitor has the capacity of an Etch-a-Sketch? Good Job.
Both of these examples are the definition of Defective Units doing things in life. Somewhere on God's assembly line, an angel was eating a Ho Ho and forgot to put in the logic chip into Human Lot #87392940. Some of us got extra logic chips and not enough happy & dumb chips, therefore we are angry, cynical, and want to be beamed up into an extraterrestrial space craft TONIGHT...oh and usually take a job in entertainment so that we can ensure we will never have enough money or job security to truly relax. It's better we don't relax actually.
During the holiday season, you will witness a full boar attack of the Defective Units. There's the power pusher cart ladies that will run you over while making eye contact because they are CONVINCED that you are there to get the very thing that they want, and there's only one remaining. There's 100 remaining, but you get a deep bone bruise for being in the aisle of that item. BAM... "Exuuuuuse me, (sigh) UGH move!" I blow these people up in my dreams. I imagine bits of them spackling the marble floors at the mall. I don't do this in reality because that would make me a Defective Unit and no thanks.
My favorite Defective Units are the "late for fun" drivers. The giant SUVs that ride your ass on the highway, flash their brights, mildly swerve from right to left looking for a teleportation window that will get them to their destination in light speed. They get around you and then the Defective Unit might get a text from someone and so they slow to a crawl. You drive around them. They finish their texting priority and they are on your ass again swerving and honking. Rinse and repeat. Invariably these people are driving to a store of some kind. They are never driving to a hospital as their behavior suggests. That's why the behavior doesn't match the need, therefore they are Defective Units.
Let's talk about parking garages this time of year...
Parking garages are bee hives full of psychotic bees who just did lines of cocaine. Why, why, why must the bees stop the line of traffic to get the spot that someone is walking to when there are 59 open spaces just around the corner? What do they know about those empty spaces that you don't know? Do those empty spaces have a trap door? Are the empty spaces that are conveniently available to 59 cars have a pre-determined outcome of failure? Are you more likely to enjoy your trip to the mall after pissing off a line of people sucking their own carbon monoxide fumes for 17 minutes while you wait for a family of 8 to pile into their space so that you can have it? The worst part of all of this experience is that you are trapped. You have given up all your human rights in a parking garage. You can't abort mission. You can't quit. You can't do anything but take it square up the keister waiting for "The I-Do-What-I-Want-F-You" family to get the spot that is paved with angel tears.
I heard on the news today that there was a "stampede" at the post offices across the USA. People were "injured" in the chaos to get their gifts sent out in time for CHRISTmas. No further comment on that. It is juicy irony in and of itself.
Anyone who was partaking in a human "stampede" is a Defective Unit.
The Holiday season also brings out the worst in relationships. If you are one of the people who has more negative things to say about your spouse/or partner than you do positive things, just do the world a favor and split up. Clearly, you won't do it for yourself, so find a cause and do it for that cause. "I'm splitting up with you for the mental stability of the puppies of the world."
Again, they are missing their logic chip, which is Crucial to making decisions regarding the quality of their lives. (Defective Unit) They would rather fight and resent someone, dump all the negative rants on other people, get offered multiple common sense solutions, and ignore every single one of them. Something in their brain is flipped, the part was put in upside down.
Their defectiveness is ramped way up during this time of year because they have to think about buying things for that person, and typically realize they would rather pluck their own eyes out than have any thoughtful feeling about their life partner.
These people are horrible excuses for martyrs, and don't buy into their drama or you will become a Defective Unit Default Recall. Simply walk away from them and don't waste your functioning logic chip on giving them any support or solutions. Their inner hard drive isn't compatible with your "software update." They are not backwards compatible either. The more time passes, the more out of date their programming is. No new applications, no amount of RAM will make them run any better. They will continue to run the exact same way until their internal batteries burn out and they die. Facts.
In closing, if you are a Defective Unit, you probably will post something mean on my Facebook wall after reading this because you'll be convinced that it was personal to you. If you do that, you've outed yourself.
However, most Defective Units have the attention span of a gnat when challenged with reading anything other than stupid quotes printed on cheap wall art at Big Lots or "meems" they see on the internet.
Be safe out there America. The Defective Units are out in droves. They function on primal instincts and have no fear of the terrible repercussions of their stanky instant knee-jerk reactions to daily life. Remember, you can always spot a DU if you see the following things:
1. Any situation that requires even minimal patience will cause an outburst of some kind which will thrust them into making a decision which will definitely affect more than just them.
2. Lack of attention span. (this is related to #1, lack of patience) They will want you to listen to them talk incessantly about everything and everyone in their life, but if you text anything longer than "LOL" or "K", they won't read it. Even if what you texted them was directions to a location they want to go to... they will still call you and make you stay on the phone with them while they drive there. You will be late to the event, they won't, and they have already forgotten that you helped them out.
3. Big plans- DU's always have big big plans. They are always making huge plans for their lives with no foreseeable way of accomplishing it. Most of the time they will make these plans after they have become unemployed or are thinking about quitting their job. This is different from having "dreams of success" and you'll know that because you'll feel shitty when they tell you about their plans, verses, being inspired by someone who wants more out of life.
4. Phobias- They have them because they are stupid.
5. Loud- DU's have terrible listening capabilities so they will overtake the room by being the loudest person in it. They will make inappropriate noises when they get mildly "hurt"... They ALWAYS use speaker phone and behave as though you are interrupting a "private phone call" if you make any noise at all.
6. Poor bathroom hygiene- They have no concept of how to flush a toilet or throw any personal product in the trash.
7. They Are the ONLY person in the world- Yep. That's right. They are the most important person in the world. They have no perspective. The phrase "put yourself in someone else's shoes," is lost on them. They lack the hardware to implement that phrase and adjust their reactions to situations. They will tell you about how they got the best deal, you can't get it, and even if you did get that deal they will insist you didn't. They like a restaurant the most, you can't like it the most because they do. It's "their restaurant." Everything is "their thing." They will say things like, "this is totally ME." They are right, because everything good or bad is always "totally me." They get the same result either way.
I hope this list helps you avoid the Defective Units during this holiday season. Try to not engage them, keep your head down, walk fast, and get away.
Happy Holidays everyone. I hope this next year you all have wonderfully functional lives full of inspiration, adventure, and compassion for the Defective Units.
Compassion is the only way to not become one.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Will You Survive? Don't Trust Stupid, 2014 Edition
Okay... (I'm finally getting around to posting this... it's been sitting in the cue for a hot minute)
Sometimes I read "the dumbest things said on Facebook," and I typically get a stomach ache and then want to join up with the native wildlife of Texas, howl at the moon, become feral, go mute... etc..
If you are reading this and have no idea that Africa is a continent and not a city, then go and kill yourself. We have no use for your kind other than to be a human shield. I've met some human shields in my life. There are people that are so stupid that it triggers migraines for me.
I literally saw this post on Facebook, "Happy 2014th Birthday America."
Kill yourself.
During the election(Obama's 2nd term), I realized I had a "friend" on Facebook that was a mouth breathing Cro-Magnon. She said this, "We need to vote y'all. The KKK needs to do their job and impeach that terrorist."
I'm sorry, WHAT? I didn't believe that I was awake when I read that. I double checked a few hours later and... yeah, that was real. I wrote this person before I unfriended, blocked, and and and... I said...
"Andrea, even if you are kidding about what you said, it's not funny. However, I know you aren't kidding because your eyes are so far apart it must be fetal alcohol syndrome that put holes in your brain before you were born. How did you graduate high school? No, I'm being serious, how? I really want to know that before I can take another breath. Do you know what the KKK is? They don't have a "voting seat" in Washington, just so you know. Obama is not a terrorist. His name is a bit terroristeee, but he's not a terrorist, he's the President. Do you live in the woods wearing a barrel as a dress? Do you eat Squirrel more than 4 times a week? I'm trying to give you an out here, Andrea. Please write me back so I know if you are a person, or tell me if a redneck hilljack bodysnatcher infiltrated your FB account. "
Here's the deal America... if you know how to "hashtag" something but you don't know the capital of your state, log out of your Twitter account for a minute and Google "shit I need to know about the world I live in before I get beaten by life."
There was a NURSE recently that I THOUGHT would be somewhat smart... being a nurse and all... I was in a conversation with her about her vacation. Small talk shit. She went to Greece. This is what she said, "Everyone copies America. There were so many half built buildings in this one place we went to and they all looked like, like, exactly like some stuff in Washington, DC." I said, "Glad you had fun." I walked away.
It made my butt hurt. I clinched too hard when I heard that. This person probably makes about 75k a year, has perfect credit, lives in a really nice house, and has a job deciphering MEDICAL FILES?!!! NO. Don't tell me that college educated people are the future because the dumbest shit I've ever heard has come out of the mouths of people holding pieces of paper stating how smart they are.
My Grandma had a 4th grade education and knew about Greek architecture enough to know that they weren't copying AMERICA...
That brings me to my point... IF the world comes to an end, and it's looking like it might, if you know how to read a map and tie your shoes, you will survive.
However, if you've spent the last 3 years taking "selfies" and posting stupid videos of your cat wearing food, you are going to be in for a terrible world-ending adventure. "Hang on y'all, I want to post a selfie of us hiding in this bunker #omgthisshitiscray (ADD LOCATION TAG)... annnnnnnnd you're dead.
If you are one of those people/kids who are PURPOSEFULLY filming setting yourself on fire... continue doing that. Darwin was right about a couple of things, one of them being YOU. However, Darwin isn't needed to understand how to survive. By the time you are able to walk, you know that touching hot things kind of sucks hard. Your brain should've put 1 + 1 together to form the thought, "touching hot stuff sucks, I bet if my entire body was covered in fire, it might suck till I die." Whatever assholes, keep it up, you are a turd on the page of human evolution.
AND... do not tell me "peer pressure" caused these people to do that. That is more of a reason to round them up for an ass whoopin'. Pain is the greatest teacher we have here on Planet Stupid.
If you shelter your kid from pain, your kid will not learn. If you avoid painful experiences, you have not lived.
However, if you seek out pain, you need mental drugs and a hard talkin' to by my Dad. Ferdinand (my Dad) will tell you, "Why'd ya do that? Y'should uh not done that! Don't be sah stupid, stupid! Stop horsin' around n' ya won't get sah hurt all the damn time. I don't know 'bout choo n'anymore. I'm severely disappointed in how you turn'd out." AND shame... lots of shame, self-questioning, more shame... he will never forget what you did... you're 36, he's still talking about it... and more shame... hard regret.
If you expect to be one of the few that survive the apocalypse, then brush up on the following things...
1. What plants can I eat? Which ones will make me barf out my stomach lining?
2. What snakes will kill me?
3. Is that a good spider or a terrible one?
4. Safe water or death by bowels?
5. Proper footwear- do not run in flip flops.
6. How to build a tent if you have one, and if you don't, how to build a tent.
7. Map reading, no, not Google maps.
8. Cardinal directions.... The Sun is not wrong.
9. How to communicate with a person face to face instead of through a 3 by 5 inch touch screen interface.
10. What is a mirage?
11. Knife wins in the rock, gun, scissors game. Bring a knife... Unless of course you know how to make bullets, have a portable bullet making device, the time to do that... in that case, you win anyway.
12. That's a bear right? *See also- Is that a cute kitty? No, it's a mountain lion cub. (your dead now)
13. Find Sasquatch and learn his ways. He knows how to hide his ass off.
Okay that's a start... expect more useful tips on how to avoid stupid people and stupid situations soon...
Sometimes I read "the dumbest things said on Facebook," and I typically get a stomach ache and then want to join up with the native wildlife of Texas, howl at the moon, become feral, go mute... etc..
If you are reading this and have no idea that Africa is a continent and not a city, then go and kill yourself. We have no use for your kind other than to be a human shield. I've met some human shields in my life. There are people that are so stupid that it triggers migraines for me.
I literally saw this post on Facebook, "Happy 2014th Birthday America."
Kill yourself.
During the election(Obama's 2nd term), I realized I had a "friend" on Facebook that was a mouth breathing Cro-Magnon. She said this, "We need to vote y'all. The KKK needs to do their job and impeach that terrorist."
I'm sorry, WHAT? I didn't believe that I was awake when I read that. I double checked a few hours later and... yeah, that was real. I wrote this person before I unfriended, blocked, and and and... I said...
"Andrea, even if you are kidding about what you said, it's not funny. However, I know you aren't kidding because your eyes are so far apart it must be fetal alcohol syndrome that put holes in your brain before you were born. How did you graduate high school? No, I'm being serious, how? I really want to know that before I can take another breath. Do you know what the KKK is? They don't have a "voting seat" in Washington, just so you know. Obama is not a terrorist. His name is a bit terroristeee, but he's not a terrorist, he's the President. Do you live in the woods wearing a barrel as a dress? Do you eat Squirrel more than 4 times a week? I'm trying to give you an out here, Andrea. Please write me back so I know if you are a person, or tell me if a redneck hilljack bodysnatcher infiltrated your FB account. "
Here's the deal America... if you know how to "hashtag" something but you don't know the capital of your state, log out of your Twitter account for a minute and Google "shit I need to know about the world I live in before I get beaten by life."
There was a NURSE recently that I THOUGHT would be somewhat smart... being a nurse and all... I was in a conversation with her about her vacation. Small talk shit. She went to Greece. This is what she said, "Everyone copies America. There were so many half built buildings in this one place we went to and they all looked like, like, exactly like some stuff in Washington, DC." I said, "Glad you had fun." I walked away.
It made my butt hurt. I clinched too hard when I heard that. This person probably makes about 75k a year, has perfect credit, lives in a really nice house, and has a job deciphering MEDICAL FILES?!!! NO. Don't tell me that college educated people are the future because the dumbest shit I've ever heard has come out of the mouths of people holding pieces of paper stating how smart they are.
My Grandma had a 4th grade education and knew about Greek architecture enough to know that they weren't copying AMERICA...
That brings me to my point... IF the world comes to an end, and it's looking like it might, if you know how to read a map and tie your shoes, you will survive.
However, if you've spent the last 3 years taking "selfies" and posting stupid videos of your cat wearing food, you are going to be in for a terrible world-ending adventure. "Hang on y'all, I want to post a selfie of us hiding in this bunker #omgthisshitiscray (ADD LOCATION TAG)... annnnnnnnd you're dead.
If you are one of those people/kids who are PURPOSEFULLY filming setting yourself on fire... continue doing that. Darwin was right about a couple of things, one of them being YOU. However, Darwin isn't needed to understand how to survive. By the time you are able to walk, you know that touching hot things kind of sucks hard. Your brain should've put 1 + 1 together to form the thought, "touching hot stuff sucks, I bet if my entire body was covered in fire, it might suck till I die." Whatever assholes, keep it up, you are a turd on the page of human evolution.
AND... do not tell me "peer pressure" caused these people to do that. That is more of a reason to round them up for an ass whoopin'. Pain is the greatest teacher we have here on Planet Stupid.
If you shelter your kid from pain, your kid will not learn. If you avoid painful experiences, you have not lived.
However, if you seek out pain, you need mental drugs and a hard talkin' to by my Dad. Ferdinand (my Dad) will tell you, "Why'd ya do that? Y'should uh not done that! Don't be sah stupid, stupid! Stop horsin' around n' ya won't get sah hurt all the damn time. I don't know 'bout choo n'anymore. I'm severely disappointed in how you turn'd out." AND shame... lots of shame, self-questioning, more shame... he will never forget what you did... you're 36, he's still talking about it... and more shame... hard regret.
If you expect to be one of the few that survive the apocalypse, then brush up on the following things...
1. What plants can I eat? Which ones will make me barf out my stomach lining?
2. What snakes will kill me?
3. Is that a good spider or a terrible one?
4. Safe water or death by bowels?
5. Proper footwear- do not run in flip flops.
6. How to build a tent if you have one, and if you don't, how to build a tent.
7. Map reading, no, not Google maps.
8. Cardinal directions.... The Sun is not wrong.
9. How to communicate with a person face to face instead of through a 3 by 5 inch touch screen interface.
10. What is a mirage?
11. Knife wins in the rock, gun, scissors game. Bring a knife... Unless of course you know how to make bullets, have a portable bullet making device, the time to do that... in that case, you win anyway.
12. That's a bear right? *See also- Is that a cute kitty? No, it's a mountain lion cub. (your dead now)
13. Find Sasquatch and learn his ways. He knows how to hide his ass off.
Okay that's a start... expect more useful tips on how to avoid stupid people and stupid situations soon...
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Attention Seeking Facebook Life Parasites- Beware of the Drain.
Hello world.
Welcome to my head. I have to write this blog because of my distaste for a certain group of people who utilize Facebook for their own "fishing hole," metaphorically speaking.
If you know of a person on your "friends" list that does this more than 5 times per week, I advise you to keep reading this and also to delete this person from your real life as well as your virtual one. They are parasitic in nature. They drain the caffeine from your coffee first thing in the morning. They offer you a gift of guilt to swallow down for the entirety of your day. They sit at their desks or on their smart phones and they make a conscious decision to suck any and all sympathy from anyone who is bored enough to read what they have to say.
This stretches far beyond Facebook for these people. Their entire life is made up of a series of events that are normal but are translated in their brain as being victimizing. The world is dead set on destroying all they "work hard for" and everyone in their life at some point or another is "the enemy." Be very wary of doing any kind of dealing with these people. They are always on the prowl for the fresh meat of upsetting circumstances to fuel their self-righteous self-sabotage.
If you fall prey to one of these parasitic venomous monsters, you will know it after it's too late to do anything about it. You will get sucked into their life through their charismatic pitch, you will defend them against the people they endlessly complain about, and you will be wrought with the feeling that you are missing something intrinsically important to their character. After all, it can't be that bad for them right? I should note an important feature of these people...
They have no sense of humor about their "bad luck." It's all very serious to them, and if you try and "make them feel better, " they will defend their right to complain as much as you would defend your right to breath air.
There's no winning with them. There's no reasoning with them. There's no "it's going to be okay," or "you have to start thinking more positively" or "the problem that I see very clearly is..." If you try and actually help them, you have given them more fuel to continue on complaining about their life. Why you ask? Because they got attention. It doesn't matter what kind of attention because any attention will do. Negative, positive, indifferent, it's all good enough for their internal "gas tank."
Here's the bottom line... They like to suck.
They love having sucky situations because they have ONE coping mechanism which is endlessly complaining about their life. It wouldn't matter if they received a check in the mail for 50,000 bucks, they would still find some reason to hate the day God gave them. They may briefly give thanks for something, but the second there is anything that isn't according to their want/need for that day, the day itself becomes an enemy... and since the day can't fend for itself, it just exists as a day in time and space, these people have to find some sentient being to blame for their discomfort.
Another fascinating trait of these parasitic attention seeking monsters is that they never, ever, EVER see the bigger picture. They do what they deem as self-preservation at the moment and never think about the implications of such actions to the larger story of their lives. For example... they might decide that they don't want to pay their electric bill because they have made a decision that the electric company is charging too much. The electric company decides to shut off their service due to NON-payment. They feel victimized by the electric company. They post something about how evil corporate America is and how ruthless the electric company is and it's somehow Obama's fault or or or.... Some dumb sucker will see that post and say, "Look, why don't you go with Such & Such Electric company? They have deals going on right now and they won't check your previous credit. It's far cheaper too! Oh and I think they will give you one month free for signing up."
So the parasitic person will do that. They sign up. They get a month free. One month goes by and the bill is real, it's in their hands, and they think it's ridiculously expensive. Instead of realizing that it's high because they have 3 big screen TV's and they wash the same load of clothes over and over again just to avoid folding them, they will blame the friend who told them about that company in the first place.
They will literally start complaining to anyone who will listen about how this 'friend' is pretending to always be so helpful but they 'screwed me over' and got me to dump my old electric company for this new one which is just as expensive... then they might form some conspiracy theory about that friend... ex. "I bet that they are selling shares or something for that company. Nobody is that helpful. I should've known better than to trust someone being nice just for being nice. I bet they got some type of referral money for me signing up... ugh."
They will burn the bridge with their friend or family member or or or... JUST to save face and have the situation look as though it's not their fault.
That may sound insane. It is.
These people/parasites, know their own game plan before they start. They are supreme actors. They have devised how none of this "bad luck" will be their fault. It will always be someone else's fault and there will always be at least one new victim to fall into the trap of sympathizing with them.
Bottom line...
If you know of a person who loves hanging on the cross, has false optimism on public forums in the same breath as complaining about everything and everyone, then you have probably fell victim or will fall victim to their parasitic life sucking ruin.
These people will eventually go insane, broke, and have nobody with any fortitude in their lives by the time they reach old age. They are the living example of "The Boy That Cried Wolf." One day there will be a wolf and nobody will believe that they truly need help. At this point, it's a social duty to let them fall and fall hard. It's the only way they can be held accountable for the social/financial/emotional structures they've set up to fail in clever ways.
Don't believe their inspirational posts on social media or their quirky ways of telling you they hate their life with the aftertaste of "is that a joke?" Do not trust them. Do not give them anything. Do not tell them you are proud of them for "pulling through the painful situations..." Do not think that you are of any value to their lives.
You are doing them a disservice by falling into their trap of manipulation. Remember, they only want attention in it's rawest form. They want to blame and shame everyone and everything to let themselves off the hook for failing at life.
At some point in their life, this tactic worked. They got "off the hook" for something or bailed out of a situation that would have ordinarily resulted in a much needed life lesson for them. Instead, they keep "skipping the class of accountability." In other words, the rules are meant for other people, not them.
Why am I writing a blog about this? Well....
Mainly because I have been rolled by people like this, and I've watched a lot of people I care about a great deal get sucked through the wormhole of these attention seeking liars. I damn near lost my mind over trying to NOT fully go Hulk on someone recently who is one of these parasitic people. I had to realize that THE only way to be of service to the BIGGER picture is to realize they aren't in it. It won't matter in the end if you got a wicked word into their heads to "tell them what's what." They won't perceive it that way, they will still win the battle of being the victim.
The best course of action is to hold them accountable to what pertains to you specifically, and forget the rest. Cut these people from your daily feed or they will find a way to feed on you sooner or later. It won't matter how altruistically patient you are with them, their growth isn't about you. It's only when they cry "wolf" and nobody listens that they will evolve.
Welcome to my head. I have to write this blog because of my distaste for a certain group of people who utilize Facebook for their own "fishing hole," metaphorically speaking.
If you know of a person on your "friends" list that does this more than 5 times per week, I advise you to keep reading this and also to delete this person from your real life as well as your virtual one. They are parasitic in nature. They drain the caffeine from your coffee first thing in the morning. They offer you a gift of guilt to swallow down for the entirety of your day. They sit at their desks or on their smart phones and they make a conscious decision to suck any and all sympathy from anyone who is bored enough to read what they have to say.
This stretches far beyond Facebook for these people. Their entire life is made up of a series of events that are normal but are translated in their brain as being victimizing. The world is dead set on destroying all they "work hard for" and everyone in their life at some point or another is "the enemy." Be very wary of doing any kind of dealing with these people. They are always on the prowl for the fresh meat of upsetting circumstances to fuel their self-righteous self-sabotage.
If you fall prey to one of these parasitic venomous monsters, you will know it after it's too late to do anything about it. You will get sucked into their life through their charismatic pitch, you will defend them against the people they endlessly complain about, and you will be wrought with the feeling that you are missing something intrinsically important to their character. After all, it can't be that bad for them right? I should note an important feature of these people...
They have no sense of humor about their "bad luck." It's all very serious to them, and if you try and "make them feel better, " they will defend their right to complain as much as you would defend your right to breath air.
There's no winning with them. There's no reasoning with them. There's no "it's going to be okay," or "you have to start thinking more positively" or "the problem that I see very clearly is..." If you try and actually help them, you have given them more fuel to continue on complaining about their life. Why you ask? Because they got attention. It doesn't matter what kind of attention because any attention will do. Negative, positive, indifferent, it's all good enough for their internal "gas tank."
Here's the bottom line... They like to suck.
They love having sucky situations because they have ONE coping mechanism which is endlessly complaining about their life. It wouldn't matter if they received a check in the mail for 50,000 bucks, they would still find some reason to hate the day God gave them. They may briefly give thanks for something, but the second there is anything that isn't according to their want/need for that day, the day itself becomes an enemy... and since the day can't fend for itself, it just exists as a day in time and space, these people have to find some sentient being to blame for their discomfort.
Another fascinating trait of these parasitic attention seeking monsters is that they never, ever, EVER see the bigger picture. They do what they deem as self-preservation at the moment and never think about the implications of such actions to the larger story of their lives. For example... they might decide that they don't want to pay their electric bill because they have made a decision that the electric company is charging too much. The electric company decides to shut off their service due to NON-payment. They feel victimized by the electric company. They post something about how evil corporate America is and how ruthless the electric company is and it's somehow Obama's fault or or or.... Some dumb sucker will see that post and say, "Look, why don't you go with Such & Such Electric company? They have deals going on right now and they won't check your previous credit. It's far cheaper too! Oh and I think they will give you one month free for signing up."
So the parasitic person will do that. They sign up. They get a month free. One month goes by and the bill is real, it's in their hands, and they think it's ridiculously expensive. Instead of realizing that it's high because they have 3 big screen TV's and they wash the same load of clothes over and over again just to avoid folding them, they will blame the friend who told them about that company in the first place.
They will literally start complaining to anyone who will listen about how this 'friend' is pretending to always be so helpful but they 'screwed me over' and got me to dump my old electric company for this new one which is just as expensive... then they might form some conspiracy theory about that friend... ex. "I bet that they are selling shares or something for that company. Nobody is that helpful. I should've known better than to trust someone being nice just for being nice. I bet they got some type of referral money for me signing up... ugh."
They will burn the bridge with their friend or family member or or or... JUST to save face and have the situation look as though it's not their fault.
That may sound insane. It is.
These people/parasites, know their own game plan before they start. They are supreme actors. They have devised how none of this "bad luck" will be their fault. It will always be someone else's fault and there will always be at least one new victim to fall into the trap of sympathizing with them.
Bottom line...
If you know of a person who loves hanging on the cross, has false optimism on public forums in the same breath as complaining about everything and everyone, then you have probably fell victim or will fall victim to their parasitic life sucking ruin.
These people will eventually go insane, broke, and have nobody with any fortitude in their lives by the time they reach old age. They are the living example of "The Boy That Cried Wolf." One day there will be a wolf and nobody will believe that they truly need help. At this point, it's a social duty to let them fall and fall hard. It's the only way they can be held accountable for the social/financial/emotional structures they've set up to fail in clever ways.
Don't believe their inspirational posts on social media or their quirky ways of telling you they hate their life with the aftertaste of "is that a joke?" Do not trust them. Do not give them anything. Do not tell them you are proud of them for "pulling through the painful situations..." Do not think that you are of any value to their lives.
You are doing them a disservice by falling into their trap of manipulation. Remember, they only want attention in it's rawest form. They want to blame and shame everyone and everything to let themselves off the hook for failing at life.
At some point in their life, this tactic worked. They got "off the hook" for something or bailed out of a situation that would have ordinarily resulted in a much needed life lesson for them. Instead, they keep "skipping the class of accountability." In other words, the rules are meant for other people, not them.
Why am I writing a blog about this? Well....
Mainly because I have been rolled by people like this, and I've watched a lot of people I care about a great deal get sucked through the wormhole of these attention seeking liars. I damn near lost my mind over trying to NOT fully go Hulk on someone recently who is one of these parasitic people. I had to realize that THE only way to be of service to the BIGGER picture is to realize they aren't in it. It won't matter in the end if you got a wicked word into their heads to "tell them what's what." They won't perceive it that way, they will still win the battle of being the victim.
The best course of action is to hold them accountable to what pertains to you specifically, and forget the rest. Cut these people from your daily feed or they will find a way to feed on you sooner or later. It won't matter how altruistically patient you are with them, their growth isn't about you. It's only when they cry "wolf" and nobody listens that they will evolve.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Halloween Hilarity- The Hogg, The Witch, and The Broken Toe
Halloween in 1991... The Hogg, The Witch, and The Broken Toe.
1991... What a terrible year.
I was in the 7th Grade. Halloween is my favorite holiday, always has been. I remember being really excited that a new girl enrolled in the GAWD AWFUL school I attended. She looked like Drew Barrymore, but she had an unfortunate last name... Hogg. Yep. Hogg.
The irony of this was that she wasn't fat, I was, and she liked me... so the fat kid hung around with a "hog." Get it? Luckily for me she didn't get this right away. It only took 3 weeks until she realized this irony as well as vaporizing. However, I will always believe that the catalyst for her disappearance from the school only 3 weeks after enrolling, had everything to do with what happened on Halloween in 1991.
She lived in an area of Dallas called Casa Linda. I loved this area because of it's Spanish style houses, cool shopping areas with Romanesque looking pillars and a movie theatre that held a very special place in my heart because it was the first theatre I had ever seen a movie in.
Just like the rare West Virginia sightings of The Mothman, I was never invited to do anything with anyone. When I was, a inter dimensional puncture in the fabric of space must've occurred in order for my peers to find me "cool" enough to hang out with.
Anyway...
This girl, as I've said, enrolled in the school I went to. For some reason, still unknown to me, she immediately liked me? She invited me to spend the night at her house on Halloween. I was pretty sure that she would figure out that her reputation as the "cool new girl" would be shattered by inviting me over to her house but little did I know at the time that it would be the events on Halloween that would forever seal my fate with The Hogg.
Halloween rolls around and she is super stoked about what we are going to do. She wouldn't tell me until we got back to her house but I quickly found out that her parents were not in on the plan. Being much like the character, "Butters" from South Park, anything that I could sniff out as being a possible "your in trouble now" situation, made me incredibly nervous. I usually would try and talk the person out of doing anything stupid but historically they would do it anyway and then blame it on me. I knew this well. In fact, it still kind of happens today. (Read my blog entitled, Narcissistic Rabbit & Friends.)
The Hogg wanted to go toilet paper houses in the neighborhood she lived in. In my neighborhood, if you did that, you'd be shot. In her neighborhood it was merely white people being mildly put out over having to get their Mexican yard man to clean up the next day. My neighborhood is probably where they contracted their Mexican day laborers. (not hating on Mexicans AT ALL... my neighborhood was hispanic and mostly black and we had a blast together being anything but rich white people with free time, believe that)
I kept saying to The Hogg, "why can't we just Trick or Treat? I mean, do we have to TP people's houses? We won't get any candy?" (said the fat kid... me)
She said the following verbatim, "(sigh) Look, if you want to be cool, you have to take some risks, duh! Trust me, it will be so much fun. You'll see. If you don't do it, I won't hang out with you anymore." Nuff said. I'm doing it. I was so desperate for a friend at school, I figured it was worth the risk. It wasn't.
That Halloween was one of those rare fall days that I can I remember as a kid when it was actually cold outside. Wind blowing, leaves falling, and the kind of chill that only happened when you were wearing a 100% Polyester costume from Kmart. The kind that made you sweat profusely when you were inside and then contract pneumonia when you were outside. I brought over to The Hogg's house, my stage makeup and various black clothing to ensure that I could be extra ghoul-like. She didn't want to put on any make up and said the following... verbatim... "Melodee, you are too old to be wearing costumes! We are doing what the teenagers do and that is NOT wearing a stupid costume for Halloween." Um... okay? (silent tear rolling down my face from that epic let down)
Trick or Treater's came and went and that is when The Hogg sprung into action... "come on! It's time." She handed me more toilet paper rolls than I had ever seen at any one house I'd ever been to. Toilet paper in my house was rationed out like bits of bread in the Soviet Union circa 1985. I remember thinking/knowing they were rich just from the stockpile of toilet paper they had and how by taking hoards of it, none of it would be noticed as "missing." I told her, "I can't carry all of this, isn't there a sack we can put it in or something?" She sighed and retrieved her dad's gym bag from the stack of expensive luggage in the storeroom. Again, it was even more of a sign to me how rich they were because I think we had one suitcase in my family and it was duct taped shut when we went on vacation.
We walk down the street, further and further away from her house. It was cold. So very cold. We roll up (no pun intended) to a house at the end of the block. It was our first target. She told me to take off my shoes so that my boots wouldn't "crunch the leaves and give us away." I argued that it was really cold and that I had a tendency to get pneumonia this time of year. She didn't care and just silently stared at me until I did what she asked. Took off my shoes and we began the toilet papering of shrubbery and various low hanging branches at this house. We succeeded in doing this undetected. I figured it was a success and we would go back to her house and watch television or something. After all, "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown," was coming on that night so I didn't want to miss that ritual I'd grown so accustomed to doing on Halloween.
She said, "um... no? We have like 5 more houses at least?!"
I remember this moment like it was yesterday. I began sweating because of two things that make me sweat on cue.
1. Rage- usually this comes from feeling trapped in a situation I have no control over.
2. Worry- I had paralyzing fear of getting into trouble with parents, cops, or feeling like I was disrespecting someone's property.
I over-rided the rage and worry and pressed on. I put my shoes back on and continued on the quest of wrapping houses. I think we wrapped about 7 more houses before THE house that ended everything.
The Witch House.
About 6 streets over and in the thicket of tons of willow trees and large vine type plants that shrouding a structure in a veil of scary was The Witch House. This house was an old stone built house with stained glass cathedral type windows, gargoyles guarding the sides, and cats... lots of cats. Anyone who knows me knows that I've never met a cat that liked me. Ever. Cats take one solid look at me and make a judgement call to attack the soft spots. I don't trust cats, I think they are the choice pets of demons and old people who sacrifice chickens to the dark overlord.
I took one look at this house and said, "nope." "Nope. I'm not doing it. You said 5 more houses and we've done like 8 houses and now you want me to toilet paper the devil's lair?" She told me that if I did this, we would be the only people who ever had the balls to toilet paper this house and blah blah... street cred... Okay fine.
I looked at the grass and said, "okay but seriously, can I keep my shoes on? The grass is wet and my feet are already freezing cold. Come on, please?"
DENIED. The Hogg said, "if there were any house that you don't need to be detected at, it's this one... no, shoes are comin' off!" Fine.
I asked her what the deal was with this house and I was extremely curious as to who would live in this vortex of pain and darkness. She told me it was a witch, like a real witch who has a cult that meets there on certain times of the month and various neighborhood pets had gone missing after these cult meetings. CRAZY RICH WHITE PEOPLE ARE THE CRAZIEST. Period. Anyway... She said that you can't let this woman see you because she will put a curse on you and frankly, I already figured I had a full grip of curses on me so I didn't need another one added to the stew of bad luck I had.
We crept slowly on our tippidy tip tip toes through the ever darkening yard of terror. The grass was so cold, so wet, and I started feeling numbness in my toes. We wrapped a tiny tree and I said, "okay we did it lets go." She was insistent that we wrap the vines that grew up the side of the house by the scary ass stained glass windows.
We crept some more... tip toe, tip toe, tip toe... stop, breathe, tip toe, tip toe... drawing ever closer to the epicenter of evil. I wandered off about 10 feet to the left of The Hogg and started feeling uncomfortable with how I was just wrapping up this area closest to the scariest year-round-not-halloween statue of a devilish looking thing. About 10 of the longest minutes goes by and I really can't feel my feet now. They are cold as ice, numb, and it's beginning to concern me. I moved over to the window that had the flickering candle on the ledge and that's when a black cat jumped up and "RAWRRRRRRRRERRERERERRRRR HISSSSSS HISSSSSS!"
I screamed and then covered my mouth and within seconds I look up and see a face staring at me from the stained glass window.
SCREAM, HOLLER, SCREAM n' HOLLER....
I just dropped everything and ran. I ran harder, faster, and with more conviction than I'd ever ran before. I was almost back to the street when I heard The Hogg say, "hurry up!!!" That's when my numb foot NFL kicked a 14 pound slab of limestone and watched it flip over itself in mid-air landing about 6 feet away and shattering.
I grabbed my shoes and we ran all the way back to The Hogg's house. The adrenaline I had was so intense that all I remember doing when we got back to the house was laughing and crying at the same time.
Just as the adrenaline wore off, we looked up and saw The Hogg's father who was scowling at us. My worst nightmare. I was "in trouble" and it wasn't even my own family that was mad... which to me was highly shameful and I thought myself better than that.
He said, "where have you guys been and Melodee, why does your foot look like that?"
Huh? OH SNAP! I looked down and my foot was the size of Shaq's. It was swollen, bloody, and the type of bruise I had was already black & maroon. It was still numb though so I said, "it doesn't hurt." Press forward about 10 minutes after it wasn't numb...."OH God, Oh God... I want to go home. Oh God. My foot hurts so bad. Oh my God. Oh God help. Heeeelllllllppppp!"
I threw the fit of the century. I told The Hogg that I wanted to go home and that I was going to scream until I got a ride back home. She woke her dad up and I got a very passive aggressive ride back home in which I was asked about 10 questions regarding our night of shame and now, agony. I told him what happened. I told him that I had kicked a rock at a full sprint with a numb foot because a Witch appeared in the window and her devil cat put a hex on me. (because to me, that's what happened)
The next day I went to the doctor. My middle toe(the important one) was broken pretty hard. I went back to school and The Hogg wasn't there. In fact, she never returned to that school. I will never know exactly what happened to her but I knew somehow it was my fault. I ratted her out pretty hard to her dad and my Pop called him up the next day after the doctor visit and gave him the verbal "1, 2, punch" and went off about how his kind was the reason a generation will grow up and be "lousy good fer nothin' spoiled assholes 'cause their daddy ain't takin' a look 'round his life to see what his priorities amount to... blah blah...." Chewin' and chompin' this guy up like he was the cause of the world's problems when actually my Pop was just mad that he had to fork out 100 bucks at the doctor's office only to find out that I was unsupervised until midnight on Halloween.
Many years later I drove past that "witches" house. I saw an old lady watering her beautiful plants outside and she waved at me as I drove by as though I lived in the neighborhood. I got a close look at her yard and I noticed something. There was a headstone in the front of her lawn with an engraved picture of a dog on it along with a sign mid-way through her yard that said, "no trespassing, beware of cats."
This "witch" had a grave site (that I kicked and shattered) with her dog's face on it and a sense of humor about her "attack cats." It also dawned on me that I was probably the reason for that trespassing sign being implemented in the first place.
I jotted down her address and sent her an apology card 10 years too late. I got a letter back in the mail which I was scared to open but did and it said,
"Thank you. It's nice to know that I got to be a part of your childhood memories. Don't worry about a thing dear. It's all part of growing up which I think you must be doing a fine job of."
Perspective. Get some.
1991... What a terrible year.
I was in the 7th Grade. Halloween is my favorite holiday, always has been. I remember being really excited that a new girl enrolled in the GAWD AWFUL school I attended. She looked like Drew Barrymore, but she had an unfortunate last name... Hogg. Yep. Hogg.
The irony of this was that she wasn't fat, I was, and she liked me... so the fat kid hung around with a "hog." Get it? Luckily for me she didn't get this right away. It only took 3 weeks until she realized this irony as well as vaporizing. However, I will always believe that the catalyst for her disappearance from the school only 3 weeks after enrolling, had everything to do with what happened on Halloween in 1991.
She lived in an area of Dallas called Casa Linda. I loved this area because of it's Spanish style houses, cool shopping areas with Romanesque looking pillars and a movie theatre that held a very special place in my heart because it was the first theatre I had ever seen a movie in.
Just like the rare West Virginia sightings of The Mothman, I was never invited to do anything with anyone. When I was, a inter dimensional puncture in the fabric of space must've occurred in order for my peers to find me "cool" enough to hang out with.
Anyway...
This girl, as I've said, enrolled in the school I went to. For some reason, still unknown to me, she immediately liked me? She invited me to spend the night at her house on Halloween. I was pretty sure that she would figure out that her reputation as the "cool new girl" would be shattered by inviting me over to her house but little did I know at the time that it would be the events on Halloween that would forever seal my fate with The Hogg.
Halloween rolls around and she is super stoked about what we are going to do. She wouldn't tell me until we got back to her house but I quickly found out that her parents were not in on the plan. Being much like the character, "Butters" from South Park, anything that I could sniff out as being a possible "your in trouble now" situation, made me incredibly nervous. I usually would try and talk the person out of doing anything stupid but historically they would do it anyway and then blame it on me. I knew this well. In fact, it still kind of happens today. (Read my blog entitled, Narcissistic Rabbit & Friends.)
The Hogg wanted to go toilet paper houses in the neighborhood she lived in. In my neighborhood, if you did that, you'd be shot. In her neighborhood it was merely white people being mildly put out over having to get their Mexican yard man to clean up the next day. My neighborhood is probably where they contracted their Mexican day laborers. (not hating on Mexicans AT ALL... my neighborhood was hispanic and mostly black and we had a blast together being anything but rich white people with free time, believe that)
I kept saying to The Hogg, "why can't we just Trick or Treat? I mean, do we have to TP people's houses? We won't get any candy?" (said the fat kid... me)
She said the following verbatim, "(sigh) Look, if you want to be cool, you have to take some risks, duh! Trust me, it will be so much fun. You'll see. If you don't do it, I won't hang out with you anymore." Nuff said. I'm doing it. I was so desperate for a friend at school, I figured it was worth the risk. It wasn't.
That Halloween was one of those rare fall days that I can I remember as a kid when it was actually cold outside. Wind blowing, leaves falling, and the kind of chill that only happened when you were wearing a 100% Polyester costume from Kmart. The kind that made you sweat profusely when you were inside and then contract pneumonia when you were outside. I brought over to The Hogg's house, my stage makeup and various black clothing to ensure that I could be extra ghoul-like. She didn't want to put on any make up and said the following... verbatim... "Melodee, you are too old to be wearing costumes! We are doing what the teenagers do and that is NOT wearing a stupid costume for Halloween." Um... okay? (silent tear rolling down my face from that epic let down)
Trick or Treater's came and went and that is when The Hogg sprung into action... "come on! It's time." She handed me more toilet paper rolls than I had ever seen at any one house I'd ever been to. Toilet paper in my house was rationed out like bits of bread in the Soviet Union circa 1985. I remember thinking/knowing they were rich just from the stockpile of toilet paper they had and how by taking hoards of it, none of it would be noticed as "missing." I told her, "I can't carry all of this, isn't there a sack we can put it in or something?" She sighed and retrieved her dad's gym bag from the stack of expensive luggage in the storeroom. Again, it was even more of a sign to me how rich they were because I think we had one suitcase in my family and it was duct taped shut when we went on vacation.
We walk down the street, further and further away from her house. It was cold. So very cold. We roll up (no pun intended) to a house at the end of the block. It was our first target. She told me to take off my shoes so that my boots wouldn't "crunch the leaves and give us away." I argued that it was really cold and that I had a tendency to get pneumonia this time of year. She didn't care and just silently stared at me until I did what she asked. Took off my shoes and we began the toilet papering of shrubbery and various low hanging branches at this house. We succeeded in doing this undetected. I figured it was a success and we would go back to her house and watch television or something. After all, "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown," was coming on that night so I didn't want to miss that ritual I'd grown so accustomed to doing on Halloween.
She said, "um... no? We have like 5 more houses at least?!"
I remember this moment like it was yesterday. I began sweating because of two things that make me sweat on cue.
1. Rage- usually this comes from feeling trapped in a situation I have no control over.
2. Worry- I had paralyzing fear of getting into trouble with parents, cops, or feeling like I was disrespecting someone's property.
I over-rided the rage and worry and pressed on. I put my shoes back on and continued on the quest of wrapping houses. I think we wrapped about 7 more houses before THE house that ended everything.
The Witch House.
About 6 streets over and in the thicket of tons of willow trees and large vine type plants that shrouding a structure in a veil of scary was The Witch House. This house was an old stone built house with stained glass cathedral type windows, gargoyles guarding the sides, and cats... lots of cats. Anyone who knows me knows that I've never met a cat that liked me. Ever. Cats take one solid look at me and make a judgement call to attack the soft spots. I don't trust cats, I think they are the choice pets of demons and old people who sacrifice chickens to the dark overlord.
I took one look at this house and said, "nope." "Nope. I'm not doing it. You said 5 more houses and we've done like 8 houses and now you want me to toilet paper the devil's lair?" She told me that if I did this, we would be the only people who ever had the balls to toilet paper this house and blah blah... street cred... Okay fine.
I looked at the grass and said, "okay but seriously, can I keep my shoes on? The grass is wet and my feet are already freezing cold. Come on, please?"
DENIED. The Hogg said, "if there were any house that you don't need to be detected at, it's this one... no, shoes are comin' off!" Fine.
I asked her what the deal was with this house and I was extremely curious as to who would live in this vortex of pain and darkness. She told me it was a witch, like a real witch who has a cult that meets there on certain times of the month and various neighborhood pets had gone missing after these cult meetings. CRAZY RICH WHITE PEOPLE ARE THE CRAZIEST. Period. Anyway... She said that you can't let this woman see you because she will put a curse on you and frankly, I already figured I had a full grip of curses on me so I didn't need another one added to the stew of bad luck I had.
We crept slowly on our tippidy tip tip toes through the ever darkening yard of terror. The grass was so cold, so wet, and I started feeling numbness in my toes. We wrapped a tiny tree and I said, "okay we did it lets go." She was insistent that we wrap the vines that grew up the side of the house by the scary ass stained glass windows.
We crept some more... tip toe, tip toe, tip toe... stop, breathe, tip toe, tip toe... drawing ever closer to the epicenter of evil. I wandered off about 10 feet to the left of The Hogg and started feeling uncomfortable with how I was just wrapping up this area closest to the scariest year-round-not-halloween statue of a devilish looking thing. About 10 of the longest minutes goes by and I really can't feel my feet now. They are cold as ice, numb, and it's beginning to concern me. I moved over to the window that had the flickering candle on the ledge and that's when a black cat jumped up and "RAWRRRRRRRRERRERERERRRRR HISSSSSS HISSSSSS!"
I screamed and then covered my mouth and within seconds I look up and see a face staring at me from the stained glass window.
SCREAM, HOLLER, SCREAM n' HOLLER....
I just dropped everything and ran. I ran harder, faster, and with more conviction than I'd ever ran before. I was almost back to the street when I heard The Hogg say, "hurry up!!!" That's when my numb foot NFL kicked a 14 pound slab of limestone and watched it flip over itself in mid-air landing about 6 feet away and shattering.
I grabbed my shoes and we ran all the way back to The Hogg's house. The adrenaline I had was so intense that all I remember doing when we got back to the house was laughing and crying at the same time.
Just as the adrenaline wore off, we looked up and saw The Hogg's father who was scowling at us. My worst nightmare. I was "in trouble" and it wasn't even my own family that was mad... which to me was highly shameful and I thought myself better than that.
He said, "where have you guys been and Melodee, why does your foot look like that?"
Huh? OH SNAP! I looked down and my foot was the size of Shaq's. It was swollen, bloody, and the type of bruise I had was already black & maroon. It was still numb though so I said, "it doesn't hurt." Press forward about 10 minutes after it wasn't numb...."OH God, Oh God... I want to go home. Oh God. My foot hurts so bad. Oh my God. Oh God help. Heeeelllllllppppp!"
I threw the fit of the century. I told The Hogg that I wanted to go home and that I was going to scream until I got a ride back home. She woke her dad up and I got a very passive aggressive ride back home in which I was asked about 10 questions regarding our night of shame and now, agony. I told him what happened. I told him that I had kicked a rock at a full sprint with a numb foot because a Witch appeared in the window and her devil cat put a hex on me. (because to me, that's what happened)
The next day I went to the doctor. My middle toe(the important one) was broken pretty hard. I went back to school and The Hogg wasn't there. In fact, she never returned to that school. I will never know exactly what happened to her but I knew somehow it was my fault. I ratted her out pretty hard to her dad and my Pop called him up the next day after the doctor visit and gave him the verbal "1, 2, punch" and went off about how his kind was the reason a generation will grow up and be "lousy good fer nothin' spoiled assholes 'cause their daddy ain't takin' a look 'round his life to see what his priorities amount to... blah blah...." Chewin' and chompin' this guy up like he was the cause of the world's problems when actually my Pop was just mad that he had to fork out 100 bucks at the doctor's office only to find out that I was unsupervised until midnight on Halloween.
Many years later I drove past that "witches" house. I saw an old lady watering her beautiful plants outside and she waved at me as I drove by as though I lived in the neighborhood. I got a close look at her yard and I noticed something. There was a headstone in the front of her lawn with an engraved picture of a dog on it along with a sign mid-way through her yard that said, "no trespassing, beware of cats."
This "witch" had a grave site (that I kicked and shattered) with her dog's face on it and a sense of humor about her "attack cats." It also dawned on me that I was probably the reason for that trespassing sign being implemented in the first place.
I jotted down her address and sent her an apology card 10 years too late. I got a letter back in the mail which I was scared to open but did and it said,
"Thank you. It's nice to know that I got to be a part of your childhood memories. Don't worry about a thing dear. It's all part of growing up which I think you must be doing a fine job of."
Perspective. Get some.
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