“I’m going to save a lot of money on the receptacle for Aunt Melinda’s ashes, X!” She seemed genuinely excited.
“How so?” I asked.
“My Aunt Melinda was a clairvoyant, seer, and psychic,” Susan told me.
“Okay, I still don’t see how her being a psychic will save you money,” I told her.
“Look here.” She help up her phone for me to see the image. “FedX makes a medium box.”
Two weeks ago, I bought an excellent frame. It was marked down to $3, which seemed like a mistake. It was at Walgreens. I felt like I found a free bag of money.
On the way home, it occurred to me that the frame deserved a home worthy of the bargain I paid.
I printed a picture of someone I know and trimmed it to fit exactly in the frame. They’d be mortified to know their picture was used. (It’s not the first time I’ve used their picture for this kind of nonsense.)
The next day, I took one nail and a screwdriver with a hollow reservoir for the screw tips. I put the nail inside and brought the most excellent frame with me.
I hung the picture in a conspicuous place, using the screwdriver base to push the nail into the wall.
I’m not going to say where.
But…
It’s still there, proudly hanging exactly where I placed it.
I’ve done this many times before.
For whatever reason, I’m proud of this one.
These covid times demand more nonsense.
There’s a problem, though. I now have the urge to see how many of different people I can get on the same wall before getting caught; or rather, caught and asked what in blazes I think I’m doing.
.
.
In years past, I did this sort of thing often. It’s one thing to replace the pictures on the shelf at the store, another to ignore cameras or people watching you as you hang one. I once put two pictures on the desks of bank employees with at least 20 people milling around.
I wrote this last week but posted it because a friend sent me a similar prank that went viral.
° Also – there are now TWO pictures on the wall in the place which shall not be named. °
David and Goliath: long-range missile before long-range missile was a thing.
The Goliath Rule: Why throw a punch up close when you can insult from a distance?
Do I have your attention with this horrible picture? Is it completely real or photoshopped? Who knows! Who cares? It’s more or less me back in 2005. I’ve posted it before. It makes me laugh, precisely because it makes me look like the “before” picture for both the South Beach Diet and John’s Guide To D-I-Y plastic surgery.
I enjoy the posts about people complaining (gatekeeping) about people posting their high school pictures. It’s true that it doesn’t “help” current seniors. Let’s be honest, though. High school pictures don’t seem to help anyone. Except comedians. We all love a crazy high school yearbook picture. We can’t help it.
They do, however, remind us that our idea of hairstyle and fashion was never as great as we’d imagined. This is the case of every graduating class in the history of… well, history.
I know it’s not an ironclad rule, but I distrust anyone who is truly upset about anyone seeing their high school pictures. Not only are almost all of them available online, but they are precisely the pictures more likely to survive the next 300 years because they are public and otherwise in the hands of so many other people. They are copied, indexed, and even included in genealogy websites.
What am I saying? You’re screwed if you don’t want people to see your pictures from school.
Years ago, I scanned and archived several years of Springdale High School’s yearbooks. I also uploaded them to all the relevant SHS FB class pages, for everyone to share and enjoy. It look me 100+ hours. It was a huge way for all of us to get acquainted again, whether we liked it or not!
By the way, a huge number of yearbooks are available on classmates. Get a free account and start looking. Other websites carry college yearbooks, too.
.
The Picture Rule: If you’re complaining about the existence of your high school pictures, you’re probably at the mercy of either an exaggerated vanity or a profound scarcity of a sense of humor.
P.S. I have almost never been stymied finding EVERYONE’S yearbook picture, not to mention the address you lived at when you were 7. Your life is an open book, no matter how badly you want to stick it under the bed where no one will ever find it. The more you want to hide your pictures, the more likely your brother-in-law is passing it around secretly via text, email, or DM.
P.S. Redux: If you are desperate to find someone – or a picture of them – let me know and I’ll get enough details to sleuth them out in the interest of both lovingkindness and transparency.
Love, X
Given my name, a surgeon could save a lot of $ doing my surgery; all he needs is a letter opener
Having ventured into the world of helping someone get their hair did, I now present my foray into covid fashion photography. I’m wearing a combo of George, Dickies, and almost-purloined footwear. The bag I’m wearing is Walgreens, available locally. Unlike other supermodels, I waited until after eating to pose. Elegance takes work and I need people to see my struggle with beauty.
Love, X
My neighbor’s dogwood kept me up all night. Its bark did, anyway.
.
.
The Rule of Vocabulary And Insults
.
.
The Questionable Enunciation Rule
.
.
Weird Al just got a lot richer. Congress just voted to replace the national anthem with his hit song, “Dare To Be Stupid,” and for self-explanatory reasons.
.
.
I bought a non-area rug for my sister-in-law’s new house. It violates the laws of physics and literally takes up no room at all.
.
.
Get out there and live a Joe-Exotic kind of life, minus the murder-for-hire part of course – unless you’re surrounded by people who listen to Luke Bryan.
.
.
Judith Priest, local librarian, couldn’t figure out why everyone assumed she had a lisp when introducing herself.
.
.
Tired of using boring masks to protect yourself? Just in time for the upcoming Friday the 13th, from my new line of PPE… No one will get close enough to infect you.
.
.
Meeting doodle: each time something vague or contradictory was stated, I drew an arrow. At least now I know where we’re headed?
.
.
“It’s not fair that Buffalo Wild Wings doesn’t get a routine restaurant inspection,” my coworker complained as he read the inspection list online.
“No, it makes perfect sense,” I replied.
“Really? Why is that?”
“Because there is absolutely no evidence that Buffalo Wild Wings has ever served food – or anything actually edible.”
.
.
Afternoon Update: Mr. Good, aka The Cat, aka Guino, smells what I’m cooking. My wife snapped this picture moments ago, one of Guino sitting at the bar, evidently awaiting an undetermined meal. I’m on the other side of the bar, attempting to catch a picture of him. His face is illuminated by a flash from my camera, rather than the aura of my angelic yet diabolical presence out of sight to the left in the kitchen. P.S. After a delicious morning meal of beans, we had air-fried pickles for supper. The cat has so far not registered any complaints.
.
.
Mr. Good, aka The Cat, aka Guino, sits on a mountain of blankets, looking toward me in the kitchen. The house is filled with the aroma of onions, garlic, and beans cooking in the Instapot. The cat better hide now, anticipating the aftermath of my enjoyment of 5 servings of beans.
.
.
Stolen messenger picture: What heinous act did this cat just commit? He’s awfully comfortable as he either expresses derision or hunger.
.
.
Stolen quote of the week: “I knew they wouldn’t kill me, there’d be too many questions from outsiders.”
.
.
“There is beauty in the breaking,” is one of the most beguiling and contradictory observations that I keep having. The teeth of it aren’t sharp, but certainly insistent as they gnaw.
I bought the new book, “The Kindness Ultimatum,” and realized that the title was awfully passive aggressive.
I say that kindly, just in case!
I didn’t think it was possible there will still websites requiring names containing 3 or more letters in violation of federal law. Especially those that are critical to maintaining both public health and patient privacy. In response, I used “XXX” as my name, while technically committing a crime by affirming my identity with it. And a porn moniker, at that.
Anyone who has seen me knows that “X” should literally be synonymous with anonymous, and not merely for a reason eponymous. (I’m proud of that sentence.)
To make matters worse, I had to choose an answer that was wrong from my credit report, one which included a name I’ve never used: Equis. For those who don’t read or speak Spanish, “Equis” is how you would spell the letter “X” if you were drinking a bottle of Dos Equis beer.
I felt a little like Ron White during his telling of “They call me tater salad.”
It’s horribly amusing that while they wouldn’t accept the simplest name possible (X, one letter), they somehow have the oral Spanish translation (“Equis”) of a name I’ve never written on anything more official than spray-painted graffiti walls. I hope they never see the art piece I did. I titled it, “Orange Paintball President.” If they have, I’ll never be able to confirm my identity again.
No doubt XXX will now magically appear on a secret government list and permanent record, one I will have to recall for no apparent reason, to confirm my identity by incorrectly confirming it.
The website is huge, doing both government and private business for millions. Heck, even the IRS named me NFN X when I had just one name, and that was years ago. “NFN” means “No First Name,” at least for the IRS. They decided that using “Arkansas Idiot” would be an obvious signal that they thought I’d lost my mind. For a while, my Arkansas state driver’s license said my legal name was “Mr. X,” because our state had barely managed to figure out that computers had to be plugged in to function.
When I got a new birth certificate, I’m inclined to think that the director of the Department of Health was tempted to stamp “Accident Report” across the top of my new Birth Certificate.
I guess this virus really did take us back several decades. I did waste several minutes attempting to navigate the website’s ‘Help,’ section. It was amusingly hidden behind an icon of a laughing troll – never a good sign. I’ll get a series of emails designed to both demoralize and belittle me, I’m sure.
I guess I deserve this.
The “X” is where you’re supposed to drop the bomb. And maps always have an “X” to show “You are here.”
I’m here.
But now I’m not sure I have a legal name.
.
.
P.S. By the time I posted this, I had already received three emails from the website, two of them completely contradicting each other and the other telling me it didn’t recognize my email as being from the planet Earth.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 