For Sale to Dell Computers

For sale: one coffee cup. Only $499.99. What is that, Dell? It arrived broken and won’t hold coffee? Well we offered you the Special Warrantee for only $199.99 when you bought it, good for one year, but you didn’t buy it, remember? Too-bad-so-sad, but coffee cups are made of breakable material, and you can’t just expect to get one without a chip or a crack that actually holds coffee. Duh!

But here’s what we’ll do. Since you just bought it, if you pay our special Ceramicware Fee of only $130.00 for 90 days, you can give us a two-hour window when you’ll be home sitting around doing nothing at all, ready to drop everything for hours and hours at the ring of a phone, and we will have our outsourced techs call you at their convenience—maybe within that time period, and maybe not (because we’re not real clear on your time zones)—and explain to you over the phone how to fix it. For hours and hours and hours, we will guide you through the process of taking plaster and filling in that chip. In other words, you get to pay a large amount of money to spend an enormous amount of time fixing your own coffee cup! Voila! Fixed!

It’s not, you say? You say it still leaks, and the plaster got wet and fell out? It’s probably because you used the wrong brand. For only $50 more, you can use our brand, which we highly recommend, because it’s specially made for coffee cups. If that still won’t work, it’s probably that you didn’t use enough and you will need another container. Our plaster-applicators will also be necessary for $50 more, as will our hardeners, shellacs, primers, and drop cloths. Then we’ll sell you a set of paints so that our techs can guide you through the easy-peasy process of re-painting the coffee cup design for 187 hours on the phone with someone you can’t always understand. Just be aware they’ll be a teeny bit patronizing if you are not a professional artist, and a woman to boot.

Still doesn’t work? Lucky you. Because you paid that tech fee, you can just do it all over again. And again, if necessary! And again and again and again! And if we apply the plaster using the hard blow of a hammer, we will simply tell you not to worry, insist that the powder that was once your cup is just fine, and hang up, because we know that when you call back, you will just get someone else. You see the nice thing is, we stand behind our outsourced techs…so far behind them, in fact, that you could actually say we are hiding back there! Try to find us, ha ha!  The beauty is, because we don’t have to pay them nearly what we’d have to pay American ones, we pass the abuse on to you, the customer.

Of course you could always pay your own coffee cup repair people at several hundred more if you insist on actually drinking your coffee. Not our problem! Also not our problem that you pay for 20 hours of phone minutes per month and have actually run out of minutes a week early on more than one occasion because you’ve spent that much time on the phone with us!

If, however, we are feeling especially generous, we will ship you a box complete with instructions on packing your coffee cup, and we will let you mail the cup to Timbuktu for only 7-10 business days. We like to say it that way, because it sounds so much nicer than “several weeks without a cup of coffee,” doesn’t it? We won’t ship you a new, unbroken coffee cup, of course—because you didn’t purchase the warrantee—but what we will do for you is fill the chip in ourselves with plaster and then ship it back again. And if it arrives with another few cracks and chips, oh well! Because the truth is, “we”—meaning our outsourced plaster-applying techs—can just keep this up until your coffee cup is over a year old, and then we can either sell you another outrageously-priced warrantee or act horrified that you want us to keep fixing your old, broken up coffee cup. The nerve!

Let’s toast, shall we? To our cleverness in coming up with a way to scam money by charging honest people over and over and over for a bad product that never worked right in the first place. Drink up! Except not you, because that piece-of-crap cup will never work.

Isn't this great Squidward? Just you & me together for hours and hours and hours! And then the sun'll come up, and it'll be tomorrow, and we'll still be working! It'll be just like a sleepover! Only we'll be sweaty and covered with grease! ~SpongeBob SquarePants

Special Delivery

It started, as do most of our backyard adventures, with the bunnies.

But these were not the big, mean, fat bunny gangs. These were itty-bitty, adorable little piles of tiny precious babies no more than 4” long, tops. In other words, future big, mean, fat bunny gangs.  But they were so teensy weensy and helpless that I was horrified when I almost mowed two of them. What ensued was a call to Wildlife Rescue, a homemade bunny nest, and lots of checks to make sure said babies were making it back to Mama. Which I think they did. In fact, I believe the above is one of them several weeks later.

In the meantime, though, I discovered a cat hanging out in the yard, presumably waiting in line at McBunBun’s. I ran it off several nights in a row. I’d see it from the window, but it would be gone like magic as soon as I’d get the door open. Finally I waited at the door without closing it all the way and flung it open. There was a black cat—not merely crossing my path, but standing on it.

“Mew?”

When I got a close look, it became clear that this was really a cat skeleton wearing a fur suit. And let’s face it—there is nothing sweeter than a hungry kitty. So I uttered those fateful words. “Awww. Are you hungry?”

Bet you can guess the answer.

                                                      

The rest, as they say, is history. Here we are, months later. We’ve taken out ads and made reports at shelters. We discovered that there are some very strange people who “collect” black cats. And the nice people who came forward ended up deciding he couldn’t be theirs, after all. So he chose us, and we’re glad. I didn’t think I was really a cat person, but The Great Catsby is sort of perfect for our family.

Some pets are sought, and some are bought. The others are, I guess, the ones that someone up there thinks we ought to have, delivered right to our doorstep.

And that’s pretty good luck.

The Great Catsby

A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. ~Groucho Marx

Ten Computer Things

Those silly voodooers! Now that my Dell computer has been reformatted a record FIVE times since April, I’d like to give them a great, big low five to the nether regions. Though—not to brag or anything—but with all that waiting time while on the phone to Dell and while programs are installing again and again, I’m getting very good at the Plants vs. Zombies game installed on the computer I’ve been borrowing. Please be patient with me as I find, bookmark, and read your blogs again. In the meantime, to celebrate my FIVE reformats, here are:

Ten Things I’d Like to Do to My Dell Computer That’s So Far Been Reformatted FIVE Times Since April:

1. Make my Dell computer that’s had to be reformatted 5 times try to follow instructions for six hours straight from a Dell tech with a thick accent while my computer is unable to go to the bathroom or move around because the phone ran out of battery power three hours ago and has to stay plugged into the recharger.
2. Spray paint anti-gang graffiti on my Dell computer that’s had to be reformatted 5 times and drive it to the bad part of town, shove it out the door and make it walk home.
3. Force my Dell computer that’s had to be reformatted 5 times to teach kindergarten, and then when it’s too tired to move, let it take a nap in the bus slots.
4. Make my Dell computer that’s been reformatted 5 times wait at the dentist’s office for three hours to get its keys replaced with only a copy of Taxidermy Today as entertainment.
5. Buy my Dell computer that’s had to be reformatted 5 times a one-way bus ticket to Goehner, Nebraska and make it sit next to the guy with green teeth who spits when he talks and wants to tell it all about his boil lancing operation and has pictures.
6. Set up my Dell computer that’s had to be reformatted 5 times on a blind date with a mimeograph machine that really, really likes spiffy new computers and likes to sit real close and leaks purple mimeograph ink.
7. Donate my Dell computer that’s been reformatted 5 times to the gypsies who are going to encourage Uncle Fonzo in his computer-juggling aspirations despite his vision disability.
8. Take my my Dell computer that’s had to be reformatted 5 times for a day of fun at Six Flags and make it ride on the scary ride where they make you take your earrings out first lest they get sucked out of your head. Then have the annoyed teenaged attendant forget to push the safety bar till it clicks.
9. Make my Dell computer that’s been reformatted 5 times watch an all-day, commercial-free marathon of Say Yes to the Dress, interrupted only by frequent commentaries by Honey Boo Boo.
10. Make my Dell computer that’s had to be reformatted 5 times ride to the top of the St. Louis Gateway Arch in one of those tiny elevators with the lady with the B.O. that smells like spoiled chicken soup that could be smelled all the way from The Museum of Westward Expansion.

 And a bonus:

11. At the top of the Arch, open a window to give it a better view and then give my Dell computer that’s had to be reformatted 5 times just a little nudge.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward. ~Kurt Vonnegut

Improper Poll: The Agony of De Feet

This post is not really about painful shoes. Sorry to have misled, but I was going for a title that combined articles of clothing and sports.

The reason is that I’ve lately been privy to the television watching habits of a certain young adult who shall remain unnamed...and it seems there are entire shows which attempt to make other people’s shopping into a spectator sport. 

To me it’s like watching old guys who are bass fishing. Someone tries to make the show look interesting. You see lots of shots of facial expressions, and often there is some lack of cooperation that is made to seem far more dramatic than it is, but essentially we’re talking about an act that is about as fraught with drama as getting the lid off a jar. There's a little effort, and in the end they probably get what they're after. So here are

Ten Shows I Would Rather Watch Than “Say Yes to the Dress” or “I Found the Gown”

1.      I Saw the Bra

2.      I Barfed on the Scarf

3.      I Care About Underwear

4.      Say No to the Poncho

5.      I’m Peeved About My Sleeve

6.      Say Gak to the Fanny Pack

7.      I Rant at Pants (and Hurt for a Shirt)

8.      I’m Picky About the Dickey

9.      Say Hooray for the Toupee (because it goes without saying that I love men who wear them)

10.  I Scream for Pajama Jeans

Bonus show that TLC is reportedly considering to air after Breaking Amish: I’ve Heard Rumors About What Goes On in Those Bloomers

Do you like to watch other people shop?

Sweet Aftertaste

I was pleased and flattered to have received this award from Lynn Obermoeller at Present Letters almost a month ago. Unfortunately I was battling computer issues then. So here is my long-overdue response to the Super Sweet Blogger Award!

The Rules:

• Thank the Super Sweet Blogger who nominated you.

Thank you, Lynn Obermoeller. Not only are you super sweet, you are a fierce and lovely soul who writes with such riveting honesty that it speaks to something deep within the spirit.

• Answer five Super Sweet questions.

See below.

• Include the Super Sweet Blogging award image in your blog post.

See above.

• Nominate a baker’s dozen (13) other bloggers.

I don’t have a consistent baker’s dozen of followers, but if you’re here, you are sweet. Consider it passed to you.

• Notify your nominees on their blog.

Ditto.

The 5 Super Sweet Questions:

1. Cookies or Cake? – Yes. And pretty much anything that falls within the “dessert” category.
2. Chocolate or Vanilla? – Yes again. Real milk chocolate wins over just about any other possible ingredient any day, but I don’t like some chocolate flavored things so much, like cake or ice cream. My system craves the real thing and there’s no fooling it.
3. Favorite Sweet Treat? – Depends, but I get weird cravings for coconut sometimes, so I’d have to say coconut cream pie.
4. When do you crave sweet things the most? – At night, coincidentally right within the times when we’re supposed to be the most prone to weight gain.
5. Sweet Nick Name? –Shoot—I’ve had lots of nicknames, but this forced me to realize that no one has ever given me a “sweet” name like Sweetiekins or Honey Pie or Sugar Lips. Never! In fact, some are decidedly UNsweet…hee hee. Should I be offended? Nah. 

Thank you again!

“I’m gonna go talk to some food about this.” ~Liz Lemon, “30 Rock”

Voodid It Again

A few months ago, I joked about the voodoo that had apparently been performed on my possessions. My new computer has been the worst, undergoing its third reformat in three months. So please don't take it personally that I haven't been visiting your blogs or blogging much myself. Fortunately the powers that be are getting to the root of the problem, and I hope to be up and running again when my computer gets back.

What's depressing is that it's currently travelling more that I have in years.

But right now, that's okay. In fact, I'd like to say a little thank you to my voodooers. It's provided me with an excuse to work on more publishable work, and I'm finally making headway on the book I started ages ago! Hope you are having a wonderful summer!

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. ~Albert Camus

Sub Notes: When Garbage Pales

It was the smell of death. And it was in the classroom. So I discretely looked around so as not to frighten the children—teenagers, they were. The scariest part was that it was so close to them, somewhere around the trash can. The closer I got, the more disgusting it became. It was a horrifying, gangrenous smell—the smell of rot and decay. I figured a mouse must have gotten in there and died.

I glanced in. Wrappers. Plastic drink bottles. And nothing else. Nothing. Was I missing it somehow? It was a little hard to see in the trash, because there was a kid who had his feet resting on the trash can.

That was the first time it occurred to me. Sure, I’ve smelled stinky shoes before. Heck, I’ve even had a teenaged son. I remember discussing horrible smells that came out of our teenaged boys’ rooms with a friend who has three of her own. I would never forget her very serious warning. “Whatever you do,” she had said, “don’t ever smell the shoes.”

But this. This wasn’t human. It wasn’t alive. It was sickening, horrifying, vile.

Could it be…? And then the bell rang, and the smell walked out the door. No wonder so many teachers keep air fresheners in the classroom. I hope that boy’s mother knows about my friend’s warning.

Now scientists call this disease bromidrosis
(that's right!)
And well they should
Even napoleon knows that
But us regular folks
Who might wear a tennis shoe
Or an occasional python boot
Know this exquisite little inconvenience by the name of:
Stink foot
~lyrics from Frank Zappa, “Stink Foot”