Category Archives: Humor

Coupon For Socks? (Random Title)

07/23/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

Complaining is easy, much like opening a two-lb bag of Doritos and finding yourself licking the empty bottom corners of the bag.

I’ve had my apartment for two years today. I miss the two known drug dealers who once graced us with their presence. They don’t even send me Xmas cards anymore. If you have 14% of your apartments occupied by those, leaving your box of Barbie dolls unattended in the car is difficult. People who sell drugs aren’t dangerous by themselves; they do, however, often attract people you’d see on the Washington County detention roster. (You know the ones. They often look like they’ve spent the entire night in a carnival porta-potty.) I miss my huge mismatched art project that once dominated the fences outside. I took it down a year ago. Earlier this week, I pulled the commemorative purple tile I’d made to remember it. I’ve occupied myself otherwise by leaving strategically placed items in a LOT of different places over the last year. Somewhere, my large tile with a secret message on the back still towers above the ground, high up in a tree that I probably should not have climbed.

One such secret prank I did still amuses me, though I’m not proud of it. A particularly angry person at some point walked out of their residence to discover a gift certificate to Shakes, in hopes that it might lessen their angry, aggressive attitude. I left a note encouraging them to be silent if they couldn’t ever say anything nice. But I also wrote that there is hope for everyone if they’ll just slow down long enough to see that there are blessings and people around them worthy of appreciation. I doubt my attempt helped them. I would call it catharsis, but fancy words like that violate standards in the South.

The last two years seem tenuously stretched to accommodate five times as many days as they contained. That’s a good thing. Time flies, but it also distorts, like bargain-bin yoga pants.

Back to complaining. Complaining serves us in small doses. It allows us to vent and release pressure. It works until we find ourselves beyond the wall of negativity. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Or altitude. (Go lie down for an hour.) Continuing to spew negativity past that point infects the people around you. Do what normal people do: drink excessively or dive into capitalism by collecting penguin trinkets to fill your walls. It’s easier to cure alcoholism than negativity. You can hide the alcohol, but there’s always going to be a reason to bitch and moan. Or moanbitch, if you need another invented word. As you read this, I’m sure you have such a person in mind. If it’s me, I will take the news better if you write it on a $100 bill and hand it to me.

It seems like I started with a unifying point. But I’ve been listening to political speeches and can’t seem to conclude anything. I noted that it gave me the urge to tell many other people what to do and how to live their lives while simultaneously becoming wealthy at taxpayer expense.

Have a happy Sunday.

Love, X

Humor, Music, Nostalgia, Personal

Infectious Memory

07/17/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

One song which gets my feet tapping is “Dedication To Me Ex” by Lloyd. It’s infectious and gets stuck in my head like a badly-thrown ax. There’s something about the funky old-school feel of the song that’s never aged for me.

Years ago, I was blasting it on the work computer, filling the warehouse with the vibe of the song. I downloaded a mess of songs, most of which I’d never heard before. I still play it at high volume at 3-4 a.m.

A co-worker came running up to say, “X, you can’t play THAT song in here. You’re gonna get in trouble.” I looked at him like he was crazy.

“Why? It’s a cool song!”

My coworker looked at ME like I was crazy. “Yeah, it is a great song, but it’s dirtier than Grandma’s Sunday dish towel.”

He walked toward the back where I keep the computer loaded with music. He listened for about a minute and returned.

“Huh! I’ve never heard that version before, X.”

“What other version is there?” My coworker still thought I might be joking with him.

“Well, he isn’t talking about love in the version I know. Look it up, and you’ll see why.” He laughed about almost running to the back to shut it off when he heard it begin playing.

I did listen to it a little later, the explicit version. He wasn’t kidding.

The weird thing? I didn’t watch the video until a couple of months ago. There is both a clean and an explicit version of the video, too.

This song, and a few others like it, pulled me out of a funk this morning. I lit the warehouse up with booming energy. I sometimes remember my coworker’s face as he ran up to me, wondering if I might lose my job.

P.S. I remember the first time I heard the newer song “Favorite Song” by Toosii. I’m not a fan of his music. I heard the song without knowing the artist – a habit that I love doing. There’s something undeniably hypnotic about the chords and melody. I’m the same way about the artist Lloyd. I’m not drawn to any other songs of his I’ve heard. And that’s okay with me.

Business, Cellphone, Humor, Technology

WhereWolf

07/13/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

Based on obvious need, I invented a new app called WhereWolf. If you’re drunk, you only have to say “WhereWolf” to your phone. It will speak in a mom’s voice, telling you exactly where you are and to get your ass home.

Humor

Shenanigans?

07/10/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

I used points to get this roll of “for rectal use only” labels at no cost. Something compelled me to purchase it. What kind of shenanigans could I possibly get into with such an amazing item?
.

Humor, Work

A Little Revenge

07/07/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

Several years ago, when I worked at Cargill, one of the guys that worked In my department took pleasure in telling one of his favorite stories. His brother’s application for continued residency was denied. His brother had bought a decent vehicle from one of the pay-as-you-go car lots. After his brother returned to Mexico, my coworker continued to go in and make the payments. After making the payments for several months, he went in to pay the car off. The car lot suddenly decided that because the car wasn’t in his name, he could no longer have it. It’s not that they were wrong legally. You get the idea. My coworker was angry, but didn’t argue. He jumped in the car and drove it home.

That’s where he got creative.

A couple of days later, a truck pulled in with a very simple towing bracket to repossess the car. The tow truck driver was expecting an argument. He pulled up quickly and attached his tow truck to the front of the car. My coworker went outside and was very polite to the driver and said he understood that he was just doing his job. He told the driver that something had gone wrong with the car and that a mechanic had been working on it. Further, he told him he should check it to be sure it was safe to tow. The driver still acted like he didn’t trust him. He didn’t get out of his tow truck to do once-over on the vehicle.

The tow truck drove away quickly.

While my coworker did not get to witness the ensuing mess, he did get an angry call from the dealer who owned the car lot. At some point while towing the car, the tow truck driver realized that both of the rear wheels of the car had come off during transport. He did not however realize this until he was most of the way back to the car lot. Dragging the car directly on the pavement evidently did not increase the car’s value.

The dealer was belligerent and angry. My coworker told the dealer what he had told the tow truck driver. And he reminded him that he was not the owner and was not liable either way. The dealer threatened to call the police. To which my coworker replied, “Make sure and include the part where your tow truck driver failed to check the car for safe transport before he drove it.”

He listened as the dealer cursed at him and used racist language.

A couple of months later, my coworker went to the lot with a friend. His friend had thousands of dollars of cash to buy a car. They negotiated the sale and right before closing, my coworker said, “We’re not actually going to buy the car. We just wanted to make sure you understood how much business you lost for what you did to me and my brother. Make sure and tell (owner’s name here) that I said hello.”

They both got another racist cursing. But they left laughing.

Humor, Personal

The Color Purple

07/07/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

Never buy hair color at Dollar Tree. The box clearly indicated it was supposed to be sort of purple. No, I’m not in the habit of coloring my hair. I don’t have enough to warrant such foolishness. I literally applied the coloring as indicated. It struck me immediately that it was about the opposite of purple. But of course I left it in for 30 minutes. When I got out of the shower, I saw an adult male version of a ginger ferret looking back at me. Since I’m more tan than I’ve been in 10 years, the color looks even more striking. The only thing missing is even a hint of purple.

X

Holiday, Humor, Opinion, Personal

laugh?

07/05/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

Fireworks. I love them. I still love setting them off up close and personal but I haven’t done it in a while. As I got older, it’s sunk in how much they affect some animals and some people. If you’ve ever known anybody with PTSD, it’s hard to enjoy them knowing that there are people out there that are terrified. And that some people have to take extraordinary pains and caution to minimize the effects on themselves on their animals.

On a local board, someone caught hell for asking people to respect the lawful parameters of using fireworks. Obviously, fireworks are a good example of an occasion when people are going to ignore the law. And that’s okay.

I have a couple of skills. And one of those skills is finding people. It’s very tempting to make a list of those belittling other people for asking their neighbors to be reasonable.

It would be hilarious and educational to go buy a huge quantity of discounted fireworks. And bide my time. Wait until Sunday night at midnight and light an apocalyptic amount outside their window. A 10,000 string of firecrackers, for example. How could they complain?

It’s no more illegal to set them off on Sunday night than it was last night at 2:00 a.m.

I have this weird feeling that such people who previously belittled others for asking for reasonableness would suddenly start arguing the other side of the consequences if they were awakened at midnight with 6 minutes of firecrackers.

In my younger days, I would have taken great delight in doing this sort of thing. To see if people would recognize their hypocrisy, even as they shouted in anger at the audacity of someone setting off fireworks outside their house.

It’s tempting!

Humor, Personal

3 a.m. Battle

07/03/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

WD-40 is versatile. It even protects idiots. I should know. My next door neighbor wrote me last night to tell me there was a wasp nest outside my apartment. Since I moved in here, I’ve been the de facto wasp warrior for everyone. It turns out there was a nest directly above where I usually sit and stand outside my door on the landing. It turned out that they looked more like yellow jackets to me. It had to have been built quickly but I wonder how many times I had stood out there with them working right above my head without me knowing. I was going to eradicate the nest later today. But you know me. I decided to go to war at 3:15 in the morning in the dark. I opened the door with my can of WD-40 in hand. My cat Güino took advantage and ran out the door to the right. He is familiar with my idiocy and probably wanted to stand somewhere out of the way and enjoy the morning. Even if screaming ensued. I covered myself to be more protected. Just kidding. I went out there shirtless and in shorts without shoes. Peering upward at the nest directly above my head, I calmly sprayed the burgeoning nest with a barrage of WD-40. Luckily for me, the yellow jackets didn’t know what hit them. The WD-40 saturated them before they had time to move. Not that I cared. I knew that once I started spraying that running probably wouldn’t be much help. Especially in the dark. I would like to thank my neighbor for the early morning adventure. I’m not quite sure how I would have reacted had I been standing out there later today only to be to have been bombed by multiple yellow jackets. I’m pretty certain that the result would have been a lot of cardio for me.

Humor, Personal

Wise?

06/30/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

I wanted to share a goofy anecdote from someone I used to work with. He came from California. No, he did not have a banjo on his knee. I asked him what the craziest thing he saw was. I’m paraphrasing:

I lived in a rougher part of Los Angeles. I was standing outside talking to an old man who was my neighbor. A dark Oldsmobile Cutlass pulled up about 30 ft away. The windows were down. We both looked up because the engine was really loud. The man in the car calmly lifted a gun from his lap and aimed it. He shot once. I was already scrambling to hit the pavement. My old neighbor didn’t flinch. The bullet went between us. Or would have had I not been laying face first on the asphalt. The Cutlass roared away.

“What the hell was that? Why didn’t you duck?

The old man laughed and said, “Boy, you can’t dodge bullets. And whoever that was is afraid right now. What are we going to do, call the police? So they can ask us a bunch of questions that we don’t know the answer to?”

I had a lot of questions. My coworker didn’t have the answer to any of them. He couldn’t figure out if the old man was the bravest person he ever knew, or the wisest.