On my recent excursion to The Target to pick up my McDonald’s Headset to finally go “hands free,” I realized that I was also in dire need of an additional filing system.
(pithy aside, my brand new house phone, the only one I’m able to use in my HOUSE, is Blue Douche enabled. Which means that I can talk on the EAR PENIS but not my McDonald’s Headset. This seems like a steaming pile of bullshit, or at least, a conspiracy)
One of the many things I miss about school is purchasing school supplies. Buying them for my children isn’t nearly as full of the awesome, because, well, obviously. Their lists always require things so specific that I drive all over town in an endless pursuit of a twelve ring, three binder, red, plastic-covered notebook, wide-ruled, until I give up, convinced it’s a typo. Then I see the OTHER parents have managed to find said item and wonder what I’m doing wrong.
I digress.
Getting my corp. taxes done reminded me that my filing system of “throwing things into envelopes” was probably not going to cut it, especially if I wanted to go all official Non-Profit-ish for Band Back Together, so I eagerly went to see what else existed to make my life, well, BETTER.
It was like the heavens opened up and shone down upon me. There couldn’t have been a better day for it. I’d just gone to the Anxiety Doctor for a medication recheck, gone to the Tax Man, and was staring down the Pharmacist From Hell.
But there it was: A SALE on OFFICE SUPPLIES.
*cue choirs of angels*
I grabbed three or twelve-fifty-niner of those weird folding file folder thingies, a sassy three-ring binder – practically a Trapper-Keeper – and folders for it, a new notebook, a bigger day planner than the one I currently use, a white board for Daver and an address book. You know, the ones you use your hand to physically write a name and number next to? Oh yes. I’m proudly regressing.
I’ve somehow been placed in charge of all the stuff coming into and going out of the house. It’s amusing to anyone who knows me and annoying to me, who knows me.
When we prepared for the Great Move of Aught Six from Oak (no) Park (ing)* I in charge of sorting, organizing and packing up our condo. Daver can’t get rid of anything. He’s descended from a Pack Rat, but he’s not one himself, no, he’s merely incapable of sorting out what can stay and what should go.
So he saves it all and overlooks the glaring piles of crap.
When I was packing/sorting/cleaning the condo, I came across a receipt. Curious, I picked it up and looked at it.
Pranksters, it was three years old. Figuring that anything saved for that length of time must’ve been something good, I glanced down at it. Four items: a plastic garbage can, beef jerky, Fritos and…wait for it, wait for it….
…..
…..
…..
kitty litter.
Thank the Sweet Lord of Butter that he’d saved a copy of THAT! Otherwise, I’d never have known exactly what he was buying at 1:42 PM on October 22, 2003.
What was most baffling and/or frightening was that this receipt had also managed to move to three separate apartments.
While Daver was raised by someone who is physically incapable of throwing anything away, my father recently got a label-maker for Christmas. I swear to you, eyes wide with glee, he tore into that label-maker like it was a brand-new laptop. Before the day was through, I was wearing a “Stumpy**” label, Daver had a “The Daver” label, the kids each were wearing their names, and he was upstairs happily labeling everything in his extensive file cabinet.
He takes Organization Very Seriously.
He also takes Getting Rid of Shit Very Seriously.
If he’s found something that is very clearly mine, he will happily march it out to my car the very moment I arrive, lest I forget it. Or swing it by my house. In the odd event that I do not claim it in his arbitrary time-line, he donates it to charity.
Stuff = Bullshit.
Organization = Not Bullshit.
The man has it right.
I do not happen to personally enjoy labeling things, because I have a feeling if I started, I’d probably never stop. I’d be up all night, every night, labeling individual cans of diet Coke “DRINK ME,” just because.
What, ME COMPULSIVE? Why, I never!
Also, make all the Abacus Jokes you want, but I have NO CLUE how to use the damn thing.
Also, Also: new shirt idea.
This?
Or maybe this?
Or maybe something else. I dunno. Need a new idear (because my shirts aren’t Zazzle and are awesomely eco-friendly, organic, possibly made from recycled banana leaves) and screen-printed, I pay upfront, which is why I ask you guys about this stuff. You’re my brain, Pranksters. MY BRAIN.
EVEN THOUGH ME AND MY ABACUS ARE ORGANIZED.
*inside joke for anyone knows Oak Park. Parking is BEYOND bullshit in Oak Park.
**My brother nicknamed me “Stumpy.” Because I was shorter than him. I’m not exactly short: 5 foot 5 inches tall; not like 3 feet tall.
The first time I saw someone talking on a wireless headset was back in 2003. I was in the bathroom at the Atlanta airport, waiting for my connecting flight, washing my hands. There was a woman standing at the sink, looking in the mirror, having a conversation with herself.
As a student nurse who spent half her time in the hospital dutifully putting in clinical hours, wiping butts and taking names, seeing someone have an actual conversation with someone who was not actually all that uncommon an occurrence. Even now, I dismiss that sort of behavior where other people might lock their doors and run, shrieking, the other direction.
Anyway, I whispered to my friend, “woah, looks like SHE went off her meds,” to my friend Jenna, who was taking this Spring Break vacation with me.
She, always more up-to-date on this sort of thing, just laughed and said, “she’s on the phone, Becks. It’s a hands-free headset.”
Sure enough, when I looked more closely, curious now, I saw the wire dangling down from her ear to the phone. Hm. Odd.
A couple of weeks later, I saw what appeared to be a man talking into his wallet while lunching – once again, with Jenna – at Panera. I eyed him suspiciously, even though he was smartly dressed in a business suit. When I saw he was wearing impeccably natty shoes, I realized that he, too, was probably not recently released from the psych ward.
“What. the. fuck? Why is that man talking on a fucking wallet?” I whispered to Jenna, pointing him out.
She laughed. She was forever explaining these things to me; a Pre-Prankster version of the Internet.
“That’s a Blackberry, Becky. It’s like a PDA with a phone.”
“That is the DUMBEST thing ever. Does he KNOW how dumb he looks? Fucking jackass.” I had a very small phone that I loved very much. I would have married it, but it was stupid (also: illegal) to marry something that had a shelf-life of two years.
Fast-forward.
I own an i(can’t use my)Phone only because I like Apple products. Had I realized how craptastic the “phone” bit of it was, I’d have gone with a Blackberry. My very own Talking Wallet.
Also: my new anti-depressants are working which means I’ve engaged in one of my favorite past-times: talking paint off walls. On the phone.
Now, because (insert hilarious joke) I have Neck Issues. I also have lots! of! energy! which means that when I am on the phone, I am also washing walls, doing dishes, waxing my cat, cleaning the garage, scheduling posts, watching dancing cat videos, and/or photoshopping pictures of myself into pictures of celebrities.
Okay, that last bit was a lie, because I don’t own photoshop. I can’t do that stuff! Gnomes can, though, and I’m TOTALLY not a gnome.
So, while I’m jabbering away, annoying whomever I’ve conned into chatting with me, I cradle the phone between my shoulder and my ear, like it’s a wee babe. Don’t think it’s helping my neck issues.
It was time to take! action!
wham!
bam!
pow!
robots!
I needed an ear thingy for my phone. Except, there are only two options (besides speakerphone, which makes everyone sound like they’re talking from inside a tin can which = bullshit):
1) Ear Penis, a.k.a bluetooth headsets. I hate them. No, that’s not right: I loathe them. I loathe them so much that I should probably make up a new word for how I feel about them. I know, I know, they’re useful and you can’t live without yours and blah, blah, blah, squirt, squirt. Fantastic. Yay for you!
That guy is a Blue DOUCHE.
My second option:
B) McDonald’s Headset: you know, like the OLD SKOOL phone headset, with the plastic bits that go to your mouth and stuff? I had to wear one when I worked for United. It was pretty awesome, actually, but I think I’ve earned my comeuppance because every time I see The Daver use his, I walk up to him and try to order a “cheeseburger and a diet Coke, please.”
(be glad you don’t live with me)
Today, after agonizing over it for weeks (read: months), I finally broke down and bought an Old Skool headset. My neck deserves it, dammit, and hey, if all else fails, I can totally work at McDonald’s.
One might think that after telling The Internet that my son Alex had fallen in love with a cupcake shirt and wore a butterfly costume for Halloween this year, that he might be a little, well, girly.
Not so, Pranksters.
Alex’s second word was “penis.” Alex is also a frat boy.
I’ve mentioned that my son is being potty-trained, which means he’s been sitting around in his Cars-Themed Tighty Whities most of the day, here in the Sausage Factory, while I frantically insist he go to the bathroom every 4.8 seconds so as to not further ruin the horrifying once-white (WHITE!!) carpeting in my house. Potty-training! Ain’t it grand!
While I was upstairs, putting my daughter to bed last week, Ben (who is, for those not keeping score at home, nine) and Alex, aged three, decided that it would be best if they BOTH stripped down to their underwear to hang out.
My sons popped out from behind the couch to show me that they were both in their undies and because I am so used to seeing the house torn from it’s hinges after my brief “I’m putting the baby to bed” absence, I was a bit relieved. No one had knocked the ceiling fan off…yet.
“Okay,” I said to them, laughing. “But DON’T PEE ON ANYTHING.”
Still chuckling, I returned to my computer to scour the internet for some singing cat songs or dancing cacti videos. Those wily cactus videos get me going EVERY time!
Not two minutes later, my eldest tore through the living room, chasing my youngest son, both laughing so hard they was crying. I tore myself away from the cactus and looked up.
I saw a pair of naked butt cheeks as they disappeared around the bend.
What the hell?
And then again, the laughter and my youngest son, holding something up over his head as my eldest chased him, both giggling so hard they could barely stand it.
This time, as they came into my line of sight, I looked more closely. What the hell was going on?
I saw it: Alex was holding a pair of underwear over his head as Ben chased him.
They were…they were BEN’S underwear.
Oh sweet Lord.
The next time they rounded the bend, still chortling, I stopped Ben and asked him what was going on.
“Alex took my underwear off and now he,” *giggle, giggle* “now he” *giggle giggle* “now he won’t give it back!”
Alex was rolling on the floor, clutching his gut, laughing so hard that he was crying.
And then I said the words I’d never expected to say: “Alex, give your brother back his underwear. And you two, KEEP YOUR UNDERWEAR ON. PENISES BELONG IN THE BEDROOM OR THE BATHROOM. THEY ARE PRIVATE.”
And then, I died.
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