by Phyllis
Look, lady, don't get upset with me because I mispronounced your daughter's name.
You will get no sympathy from me. I have had my name mispronounced my whole life. And even though any primate with half a brain could take three seconds looking at my name and realize there are only TWO possible pronunciations, somehow every person I have ever known has gone with either the incorrect of the two possibilities, or some off the board bastardization.
Plus, ma'am, keep in mind, this is my surname. You know, handed down from generation to generation? So it may look funny or foreign but I had no choice. Neither did my parents. They just gave me what they already had.
You, however, chose one of those clever, cool, alternative spellings of a common English name. What were your hopes or expectations in doing this? I couldn't possibly guess. But please calm yourself, hunker down, and prepare yourself for a lifetime of people botching your sweet girl's name. It really is your fault.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
What to Make of It?
by Phyllis
It's a little like having your favorite Pandora station play something really stupid all of a sudden, only this happened in reverse.
I am no stranger to Adventure's First Stop. Mostly because there is a store fairly close to my home, I buy a lot of fuel for my cars there. My sons also can go through milk like no person's business, so I have made many a jaunt up to store 211 to get a couple of gallons to tide us over. (And so long as they have the 'buy one liter of Diet Mtn. Dew get one for 50 cents' promotion going on, I will wear out a path to their door.)
While either outside filling up my tank or inside browsing the many jerky selections and deciding not to buy the refillable 100 ounce soda vat, I have heard not a few good ol' songs from some of country music's "best." I can recall Garth Brooks and his Papa Loved Mama ditty and George Strait and his Give it Away (not a RHCP cover, in case you wondered). Rascal Flatts gets some love there as well. I don't know if this is because they are tuned to a country station or what. Who cares, right?
But the other day as I topped off the car, I heard "You Take Me Up" by Thompson Twins.
Should I report this to management?
It's a little like having your favorite Pandora station play something really stupid all of a sudden, only this happened in reverse.
I am no stranger to Adventure's First Stop. Mostly because there is a store fairly close to my home, I buy a lot of fuel for my cars there. My sons also can go through milk like no person's business, so I have made many a jaunt up to store 211 to get a couple of gallons to tide us over. (And so long as they have the 'buy one liter of Diet Mtn. Dew get one for 50 cents' promotion going on, I will wear out a path to their door.)
While either outside filling up my tank or inside browsing the many jerky selections and deciding not to buy the refillable 100 ounce soda vat, I have heard not a few good ol' songs from some of country music's "best." I can recall Garth Brooks and his Papa Loved Mama ditty and George Strait and his Give it Away (not a RHCP cover, in case you wondered). Rascal Flatts gets some love there as well. I don't know if this is because they are tuned to a country station or what. Who cares, right?
But the other day as I topped off the car, I heard "You Take Me Up" by Thompson Twins.
Should I report this to management?
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Smalltalk
by Phyllis
I am not a fan (although I expect it will be suggested to me soon).
I don't like to make it. I don't like to participate in it. That is not to say I haven't done it--just that I have always hated it. I know it sounds negative (in a good way) to say it, but I don't really like talking to people in the first place. Well, actually, the part I don't like is listening. I can talk to you all day if you like, and will act like I am listening (not an oscar-worthy performance, I must admit), but I don't really want to hear what most people have to say.
[I wonder if someone will steal my idea for a T-shirt that says "Pretend I have my earbuds in." Great idea, right?]
So for someone who doesn't like to talk to people, smalltalk is nearly insufferable. And I had three whoppers laid on me recently and I nearly lost my cool each time.
#1 - Walking through the empty halls during classtime at one of the elementary schools I work at, I see a remotely familiar person (I have worked at this school several years now) coming my direction. I make no eye contact but soon hear her say, "You working on those computers?" "Yep," I say. Not a lot of thought went into that one, though, ma'am, I think to myself. But I realize I prefer it that way. Nowhere really to take the "conversation" and it ends there as we pass each other.
#2 - This time I am working at our district's alternative High School (you figure out what that means) removing spyware some genius has installed on his PC. (Yes, I am an IT snob.) I leave the room for a minute to go check on something else, and when I return, two students are in there working with the librarian on a paper. I seat myself at the PC again and continue working on it. After nearly five minutes, the librarian offers, "So, you're in here with us?" I scarcely know how to respond to such a question without laughing hysterically, so I compose myself for a few seconds and come back with "I'm just working on the computer." End of conversation again.
#3 - The good fellers who came and installed the fence in my backyard recently had plenty to say. My favorite had to be when one had returned from retrieving a tool from his truck ("Yeah, the bed's a little high for me but hell no I wouldn't put a lift gate on it. I'd love to lower it, though.") and gave me this gem: "Hey, man, that blonde neighbor of yours?" He tailed off as he grinned and gave me a look I can only describe as disgustingly lecherous.
Admittedly, I didn't know how to respond to this, so I gave him the best conversation stopper I could think of. "Hmmph."
It didn't work.
I am not a fan (although I expect it will be suggested to me soon).
I don't like to make it. I don't like to participate in it. That is not to say I haven't done it--just that I have always hated it. I know it sounds negative (in a good way) to say it, but I don't really like talking to people in the first place. Well, actually, the part I don't like is listening. I can talk to you all day if you like, and will act like I am listening (not an oscar-worthy performance, I must admit), but I don't really want to hear what most people have to say.
[I wonder if someone will steal my idea for a T-shirt that says "Pretend I have my earbuds in." Great idea, right?]
So for someone who doesn't like to talk to people, smalltalk is nearly insufferable. And I had three whoppers laid on me recently and I nearly lost my cool each time.
#1 - Walking through the empty halls during classtime at one of the elementary schools I work at, I see a remotely familiar person (I have worked at this school several years now) coming my direction. I make no eye contact but soon hear her say, "You working on those computers?" "Yep," I say. Not a lot of thought went into that one, though, ma'am, I think to myself. But I realize I prefer it that way. Nowhere really to take the "conversation" and it ends there as we pass each other.
#2 - This time I am working at our district's alternative High School (you figure out what that means) removing spyware some genius has installed on his PC. (Yes, I am an IT snob.) I leave the room for a minute to go check on something else, and when I return, two students are in there working with the librarian on a paper. I seat myself at the PC again and continue working on it. After nearly five minutes, the librarian offers, "So, you're in here with us?" I scarcely know how to respond to such a question without laughing hysterically, so I compose myself for a few seconds and come back with "I'm just working on the computer." End of conversation again.
#3 - The good fellers who came and installed the fence in my backyard recently had plenty to say. My favorite had to be when one had returned from retrieving a tool from his truck ("Yeah, the bed's a little high for me but hell no I wouldn't put a lift gate on it. I'd love to lower it, though.") and gave me this gem: "Hey, man, that blonde neighbor of yours?" He tailed off as he grinned and gave me a look I can only describe as disgustingly lecherous.
Admittedly, I didn't know how to respond to this, so I gave him the best conversation stopper I could think of. "Hmmph."
It didn't work.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Bad News
by Sue
Yes, it is me, Sue. I promised Phyllis once upon a time I would contribute to his blog, and then only wrote one post. So I guess it is time again. Plus, Phyllis and I were talking the other day about something, and he had plenty to say about it, but claimed he could not post a blog about it. He said at least one person he likes quite a bit might get a little sore.
And, yes, it is bad news for all you inkophiles out there. It is my contention that tattoos are not cool anymore.
Yes, I think they were at some point. It was a practice on the fringe, very cutting edge, very daring. But we have crossed over to a new era. And by my crude calculations more people have them now than don't. I am only going by what I see.
Any trip to your local WalMart will give you all the proof you need. In order to enjoy the savings and convenience of the world's most evil store, you have to sport some ink. A butterfly or other gentle creature on your ankle is fine if you are female, but you can also follow the example of every other 21-year-old girl in the world, and get the good old tramp stamp. If you are a man, go with the Kanji on the calf, bicep, or neck, or go all out and get sleeves.
I can hear tat-nation squawking already. They are telling me how cool people don't get tats like that and how they had their tattoos long ago when it was still cool. Fine, I say, but you make my point: with the WalMart riff-raff clouding the issue, you can see the practice is no longer cool; it is far too common, and, as they say, played.
If that's not enough for you, please consider my next-door neighbors: Their teenage son--the one wearing shorts so low his whole butt would be showing were it not for his colorful underpants, who buzzes around to high school and back in his Nissan Z-something listening to profanity-filled hip-hop or (c)rap or whatever it is called these days--is, like, dude, totally tatted up. So are all his buddies.
Do I need to say anything else?
Yes, it is me, Sue. I promised Phyllis once upon a time I would contribute to his blog, and then only wrote one post. So I guess it is time again. Plus, Phyllis and I were talking the other day about something, and he had plenty to say about it, but claimed he could not post a blog about it. He said at least one person he likes quite a bit might get a little sore.
And, yes, it is bad news for all you inkophiles out there. It is my contention that tattoos are not cool anymore.
Yes, I think they were at some point. It was a practice on the fringe, very cutting edge, very daring. But we have crossed over to a new era. And by my crude calculations more people have them now than don't. I am only going by what I see.
Any trip to your local WalMart will give you all the proof you need. In order to enjoy the savings and convenience of the world's most evil store, you have to sport some ink. A butterfly or other gentle creature on your ankle is fine if you are female, but you can also follow the example of every other 21-year-old girl in the world, and get the good old tramp stamp. If you are a man, go with the Kanji on the calf, bicep, or neck, or go all out and get sleeves.
I can hear tat-nation squawking already. They are telling me how cool people don't get tats like that and how they had their tattoos long ago when it was still cool. Fine, I say, but you make my point: with the WalMart riff-raff clouding the issue, you can see the practice is no longer cool; it is far too common, and, as they say, played.
If that's not enough for you, please consider my next-door neighbors: Their teenage son--the one wearing shorts so low his whole butt would be showing were it not for his colorful underpants, who buzzes around to high school and back in his Nissan Z-something listening to profanity-filled hip-hop or (c)rap or whatever it is called these days--is, like, dude, totally tatted up. So are all his buddies.
Do I need to say anything else?
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