Thursday, December 16, 2010

Silent-but-Deadly Three-Way

One of the most awkward situations to be in is the silent-but-deadly fart three-way, when you aren't among friends. There is no way to get out of the situation easily.

A maintenance worker was doing minor construction about 8 feet to my left, stretching up to the ceiling, and making frustrated person noises, as whatever he was doing wasn't going right. I was at the computer, and my dog was to my right. Together we formed a triangle.




I had turned on some music, so I didn't have to listen to the maintenance guy talking to himself, and was surfing websites as the smell hit me.



Someone close by had released an SBD, but who? I didn't want to automatically blame the dog, but I couldn't really ask the guy if he'd just made a fluffy.






The smell was impossible to ignore, so I got up and took the dog outside. As we came back inside, the maintenance guy was leaving to get something from his truck. Instead of his normal chatty ways, he looked kind of embarrassed and talked to the dog.




Suddenly it then dawned on me that he was looking at me like he thought I'd made the terrible stink. Now I felt awkward, and it was way too late to blame the dog. Even if I had blamed the dog I probably would have looked guilty, because doesn't everyone always accuse their pet?




Thursday, December 9, 2010

It MOVED!

My oldest daughter, V, has always been a bit of a conspiracy nut, and, from the time she could talk, she was obsessed with aliens, vampires, ghosts, and an assortment of other paranormal topics.
























My youngest daughter, O, is three years younger than her and has always been the voice of reason and logic.





















Their different ways of viewing the world have never been as apparent, or insane, as when V was seven, and O was four, and V found a butterfly for her bug collection.

V had been collecting and pinning bugs for about a week, mostly finding them already dead in our yard, or during walks. Occasionally we would catch something alive and euthanize it with rubbing alcohol fumes.



On this morning, we were walking home from the library when V found a dying Painted Lady butterfly, and decided to bring it home to wait until it naturally "passed on" before making it her newest trophy.



The butterfly had stopped twitching by the time we got home, so V decided to put it in the bug box with the rest of her collection. My attempts to tell V that the butterfly might not be completely dead yet were met with looks of pity, as if I had no idea what I was talking about.

























A few hours later, the girls decided they wanted to look at the bugs we already had, so V carefully got the collection down from her shelf, and slowly opened the lid, to avoid damaging anything, which startled the still nearly-dead butterfly and caused it to move some.
































At this point O, being a child of reason, and knowing V's tendency to be a bit over-excitable decided to take the situation into her own hands.
























This did not go over well with V, who was now more freaked out than ever.







































It was about two days before V would get rid of the now definitely-dead vampire butterfly, and only after pestering O into apologizing to the butterfly's spirit, so it wouldn't haunt our house.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Lessons from The Manitou

Recently I watched "The Manitou" with my family. I'd seen it once, on late-night tv, when I was about nine, so I remembered bits about what happened, but never realized what great life lessons it teaches. In case you don't want to suffer through... um... don't have the time to see this movie, I've compiled some of the more important things it teaches including an entire section on "Indians."

I'll start with the Native American facts first:

a) "Indians" will fight to the death over anything trivial, but have no need for money.

b) While they don't need money, they sure do need tobacco!

c) They are a soft place to land if something explodes nearby.

d) Medicine men can't work while wearing a thin hospital gown over street clothes.

e) "Full-sized" evil medicine men are dwarfs with amazingly chiseled muscles, yet are blind and can only walk on their knees.

f) Medicine men have trouble finding jogging partners.




And now for the rest of the lessons:

1) DON'T BE AN ADMINISTRATOR!

2a)Delay surgery on a large neck growth, because having the growth isn't possible.
2b)Especially if the impossible growth appears to be an extremely fast-growing fetus.
2c)Don't give the patient any information, and send her home.




3)If you are working in an operating room and the patient wakes up from heavy sedation, starts chanting in a foreign language, and the surgeon is psychically forced to cut his own wrist, calmly sit at a nearby computer and type.

4)If a person starts chanting in a foreign language, floats along a hallway, with her feet about six inches off the floor, and is thrown down the stairs by an invisible force, don't worry. She did it to herself.

5)If you don't know what a foreign phrase means, and you are not an expert in languages, do not let that stop you from accurately translating an obscure saying from a culture that died out centuries ago.




6)If an optical laser becomes possessed and starts blasting holes in the walls of the operating room, medical staff will rush to the scene, yet do nothing but crowd the doorway to stop anyone inside the room from escaping.

7)If a possessed patient tells you exactly how to get rid of the thing possessing her, pretend you don't understand and do the exact opposite.




8)You can't stop manitou! Okay, you can, but it's really hard. Well, if you try, it can probably be done.

9)The sacred circle will be destroyed if it is broken... unless it is broken, then it will still work.

10)Don't attack while the enemy is weak, wait for him to gain strength!

11)When running for a flashlight during random power outages, take the elevator.

12)IBM Typewriters explode.

13)"Complicated computer stuff" has its own soul, which can be focused by a "person-to-person call" to make a possessed woman shoot electricity at her demon.




14)Scary music quickly turns to Star Trek music when a dark room fills with stars.

15)Doctors explode when exposed to the reality of the paranormal, and cheesy lightning effects.

16)A demon determined to kill people is easily confused by boobies and loses his ability to aim at still targets.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Geez, bitch, just because I don't want to make out doesn't mean I want to fight!

Our dog, Opposite of Einstein (aka Oppstein), is a small dachshund-ish mutt, with a curly tail. Oppstein loves to cuddle, but sometimes too much. Tonight she was trying her hardest to sit on my shoulder and lick my neck, and I wouldn't let her. After a few minutes of pushing her off my shoulder, just to have her run back and try to lick me again, I finally shoved Oppstein harder, to the other side of the couch, and told her, "I like you, but I don't want to make out."




This set off a frenzy of growling and attempts to get me to wrestle with her.



































I wouldn't have anything to do with it, and ignored her, so she instead switched over to my husband, Jeff, who was sitting on the floor nearby. He's always game for riling up Oppstein, and likes to make her as hyper as possible, so within a few minutes the dog went from trying to play tug-o-war with her chew toy to full on snarling and running around the room, barely missing children and fragile items, and looking like she was having the time of her life.



After about 10 minutes of hard playing, Oppstein was running full-speed, doing circles around the living room, faster, and faster and faster! Soon she was going so fast that she was about to melt, like the tigers in "Little Black Sambo."

Suddenly a look of utter shock crossed her face, and in mid-stride she slid to a stop...



... and started pooping.






I jumped up to open the door, and she ran outside to finish, but the damage to her ego was done. For the rest of the evening she hid behind me on the couch and seemed embarrassed to even look at Jeff.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

It's all about perspective.

One day I was walking down the street, and coming towards me was an older lady with what appeared to be a giant nose. Not like, "Gee, her nose is kind of big." big, but, "WOW! There's an alien attacking her face!" big.

As she got closer to me, I realized that her nose was notably less giant than I had originally assumed. By the time she was directly in front of me I'd come to the conclusion that her nose was a perfectly normal size, but the rest of her was entirely too small.




Sunday, November 14, 2010

A little about me.



Before I get this blog going, I figured everyone should know a little bit about me.


This is me at age five. I like to think I was a fairly normal kid.

I played with dolls.





I jumped rope.




I tried to decide what my future husband's name would be.




I gave birth to imaginary school buses.





That pretty much sums up my childhood.