Monday, March 5, 2012

Shanay and the Janitor

There are some institutions I just hate dealing with. They infuriate me to the point I want to scream and make me as stressed as the Pope in a whore house.
Lately I have been dealing with the Arkansas Dept. of Finance and Administration (in other words – the tax bastards) and I seem to be getting nowhere. They have me oweing 2x the amount I actually owe and I can not seem to get anyone on the phone that knows what they are doing and NONE of them seem to care one bit about my questions and concerns.
I called the 800 number I was given and all it consisted of was a recording of a person telling you to call another number. Why in the hell don’t they just give you the number they want you to call in the first place? Why the 800 number decoy? That’s just bullshit.

I called the new number and waited for over 20 minutes for a “customer service professional” as they put it. Finally I hear, “Dis Shanay, what you need?”
I tell Shanay of my dilemma and Shanay tells me I need to call the 800 number.
“No.” I say. “I just did that and was instructed to call you.”
She says, “Well I ‘sho don’t know why it wudda done did dat.” (yes, she said - done did dat.)
I reply, “I don’t either Shanay, but since you’re on the phone can you help me?”
“Not really ‘cuz it fo’ fitteen and I gets off at ‘fo turdy, but lets me gives you a numba to call.”
“Gee…thanks, Shanay.”

I call the number she gives me and actually get someone on the phone right off. That’s the good news. The bad new is it must have been the janitor because when I asked for help he said, “There ain’t nobody here right now.” And promptly hung up.

Today I called again. At noon. Plenty of time for someone, should I get a hold of anyone, to help me…or so you would think.
I call the “not 800 number” that Shanay gave me and after 15 minutes of listening to The Captain and Teneal I get Norma on the line.
I tell Norma my situation and she gives me a number to call.
Oh but wait, I look at the number and it’s Shanay! Oh HELL no!
“Uh Norma….I already called this number you’re trying to give me. Shanay can’t help me and I don’t think she cares.”
“Shanay is just like that”, she says. “You just have to ignore her.”
“Well Norma, if it’s all the same to you, is there someone else I can talk to?”
“I can give you our 800 number.”
“NO!!” Crap! WTF??

I finally persuade Norma to at least try and help me. Begrudgingly she pulls up my file and we identify the amount I am questioning. She actually was a bit of help and answered a few questions. When she realized it was her lunch hour coming up she said, “That’s pretty much all I can do for you right now but I’ll tell you what. I’m going to give you a number to call. We don’t usually give this one out but when you get them on the line don’t tell them you have already talked to me or anyone in my department. After you talk to them you call me back at this number and I will update your file. Be sure to call me back because they won’t update your file and remember….DO NOT tell them you have already talked to me.”

I haven’t called the number yet but I’m pretty sure it’s the janitor.

Monday, May 23, 2011

How to out smart a roof jumping kid.

The other day I was thinking how cool it would be to have the persuasive power that could make people say, "Golly. Not only was I wrong, but probably stupid as well, and perhaps a little bit insane. I now adopt your viewpoint as my own. Would you like a bite of my sandwich?"

I was standing in Wal Mart recently when I overheard a kid asking his father if he could get on the roof when they got home. Of course you don’t want your 7yr old playing on the roof so my imagined argument to the question would go like this:

Kid: Can I climb on the roof?

Me: No. You'd get hurt.

Kid: I'll be careful. And my friend Elmo climbs on his roof all the time. He never falls off and he’s not very retarded.

Now at this point you realize that regular reasoning isn't going to win the day. You have to resort to the "Because I said so" fall-back, but while effective, that never seems like a clean win to me. To the kid it appears you don't have a good reason and you're just being an ass about it. That's why I would imagine the rest of the discussion going this way:

Me: Do you know who invented the roof?

Kid: No.

Me: It wasn't a kid. In fact, nothing important has ever been invented by a kid. Do you know why that is?

Kid: I don't care.

Me: It's because your brain won't be fully developed until sometime in your twenties.

Kid: I'm not listening TRA-LA-LA-LA-LA!!!

Me: You don't understand why you can't go on the roof because your brain isn't developed enough to understand the risk involved.

Kid: You suck. I hate you.

Me: I'll make you a deal. If you can find anything in our house that was invented by a kid, I'll admit that kids know as much as adults and you can climb on the roof. Use my computer, which incidentally was invented by adults. Go nuts.

(seven hours later)

Kid: Golly. Not only was I wrong, but probably stupid as well, and perhaps a little bit insane. I now adopt your viewpoint as my own. Would you like a bite of my sandwich?

Me: Thanks, but the last time you washed your hands was in amniotic fluid.

Parenting....how hard could it be?

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

One billion years of beer on the wall

Being agnostic I don’t subscribe to a single omnipotent being. I’ve often said I think it’s more of a group of deities of some sort. They have an amazing sense of humor and…they all wear clown noses. You know…to display the point they are some humorous mo’ fo’s.

This used to be only a theory of mine but now, through science, I can prove my Clown Nose Deity theory.

I have learned that there is a massively huge cloud of alcohol in the far reaches of the universe. This cloud actually consists to the same type of alcohol we use to make beer.

The cloud is called G34.3 and is in the constellation Aquilla. It is so big it’s hard to fathom. It’s 1000x the diameter of our entire solar system and contains so much alcohol it could provide 300 thousand beers each day for every person on earth for 1 billion years.

Maybe just a little less than that because I made the cloud somewhat smaller this weekend but, if you believe in a God, you now have proof he wants you to drink beer and is probably drunk too.

1000x the diameter of our solar system. That’s one hell of a big bar. Wonder who’s playing this weekend? We better leave now because it 220 light years from earth.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Inflatable turd orphan injurer alert!!

I like to spot sentences that have probably never been uttered.
And believe me…I have.
This hobby is like bird watching but without the inconvenience of going outside and looking for birds.
The trick is that the unique sentences have to be natural, not just a bunch of random words strung together. Take for example the following question:
Did you hear about the inflatable Swiss dog turd that attacked an orphanage?

That sentence qualifies, even though I wrote it myself, but the event actually happened.
Apparently there was an inflatable poo sculpture in a park in Switzerland that a gust of wind got a hold of, pulled it out of the ground, and slammed it into a nearby orphanage.

Luckily no orphans were injured in the attack. And no one is more relieved, so to speak, than the artist who squeezed out that masterpiece. I mean, if just once in your entire life you create a huge inflatable turd that injures an orphan, it sort of erases anything else you might do. You'll always be that guy.
“You inflatable turd orphan injurer!”

I wonder how you get rid of a huge inflatable turd when you no longer want it. Do you take it to the dump just to be ironic? Or do you rent it on weekends for kid parties?

I'd probably put stucco on it and make it my home. That way when company came over, and I hadn't bothered to clean up, I would just say, "I'm sorry, my house looks like crap." Everyone would laugh and laugh, and not even care that the floor is seven layers of CD’s, clothing, and miscellaneous Skittles. Anyway, if you accept a dinner invitation inside a giant turd, you probably started out with low expectations.

And what if the inflatable dog turd gets punctured? Would the first person to notice exclaim "Holy crap!"?
And if not, would that person regret the missed opportunity for the rest of his natural life? I know I would.
I have trouble releasing that sort of thing. For me, it would be like training all my life for the Olympics and forgetting to set my alarm on the day of my event. It would haunt me.

And on a totally unrelated note, I learned this morning that the minimum age of Olympic athletes is 16yrs old. Have you seen some of the Chinese athletes? No way they are 16. I saw one of them turn 42 flips in a row and she looked as if she was not a day over 4yrs old.

And on a totally completely unrelated note, I also learned that Julia Childs, world famous chef type lady thing, was a spy in WWII.
You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me!
What did she do, cruise around with microphones hidden in basted turkeys?

I gotta go have a single serving frozen dinner and trip over some CD’s on that one.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

My Doomsday Cult Cave will have a Welcome/Goodbye mat.

Because of the earthquake in Japan I’m surprised there have not been an influx of dooms day theories and, my personal favorite, “Doom Mongers” and Doomsday Cults.
I recall a Russian cult that gave up and emerged from the cave they were hiding in the day after they said the world would end. That was just pretty funny to me.

Doomsday Cult Leader: Today is the day. Do we still exist?
Doomsday Cult Dude: Yes.
Doomsday Cult Leader: Fu*k it. Let’s go home.

Allow me to give you some advice: If you ever decide to join a doomsday cult, the first thing you should ask about is the quality of their doomsday cave. A poorly constructed cave could kill you, and that would take all most all of the fun out of doomsday.
You should also look for a cult leader who is specific about the exact doomsday date. Otherwise you’re just sitting in a cave for an extra month for no good reason.

I’d want the comet/event to strike earth a minute after I wiped my feet on the cave’s welcome/goodbye mat. That way the people who got all of my worldly possessions wouldn’t have time to enjoy them. I wouldn’t feel so sad for someone who, just prior to being annihilated, was saying something like “HA HA HA!!! THAT IDIOT BRIAN GAVE ME HIS CD’s!!!” That guy has it coming.

I think it will be hard for the cult members to explain the gaps on their resumes when they try to reenter the job market.
Unemployed Doomsday Dude: “Well, I spent much of 2010 in a cave waiting for doomsday. It turns out that my infallible leader was more of a drooling nutbag than a prophet. Anyway, my point is that, you should hire me because I have excellent judgment.”
Interviewer: "Leave this place. Fu*king ass hat."

The big problem with picking a doomsday date is that it so obvious when you are wrong. For most other decisions, you can generally make a case for why your wrongness was really right. For example, you still hear people say Saddam had WMD but he did a good job of hiding them. There’s no way to disprove that sort of assertion. But when the world doesn’t explode on Tuesday, it’s hard to make a case that it did. You have to go with something like “The comet was heading this way, but we…like, uhhh…prayed it off course. Yeah, that’s it. You’re welcome. Give me back my stuff.”

I’m sure there are a lot of doomsday cults. I wonder if they have some sort of convention. I can imagine rows of vendor booths for white robes, hair clippers, and canned food. I suppose there would also be a cave realtor or two.

When a doomsday cult blows yet another “end of the world date” I wonder if the other doomsday cults are sitting in their own caves, listening to the news on their radios and thinking “Those idiots! They totally got the wrong date!”

I imagine the various doomsday cults are highly competitive, always trying to recruit the nuts away from the other cults. “Our cave has a flat screen TV, and every Friday is casual. Except the Friday after next, ‘cause you know…that’s the one.”

Cults are funny. I think I’ll start one.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The Alaska Pipeline is filled with orange soda. And you have no napkin.

“Hello thanks for choosing the Mc Donald’s drive through window. Now please pull up and park and wait on your very simple order because we are morons and it’s going to take us a few minutes to get your order wrong. And don’t forget, you won’t be getting a napkin. You will however; be getting onions so thick they look like fungus toenails and a straw that could replace a section of the Alaskan pipeline to suck your orange soda through. We know you ordered Dr Pepper but like I said, we’re morons. Here’s your incorrect change. Thanks again!”

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Old milk and cigarettes. Over One Billion Served!

So I pull up to the golden arches. You know the ones.
Where, for some reason, there is always a garden hose stretched from the building to the dumpster and some borderline transient is showering the area. Pushing the mystery sludge to the “toxic waste area” (either TO or FROM…it’s hard to tell which because the lovely smell of old milk and yesterdays McMuffins is always wafting through the air).
Anyway, I pull up to the inaudible speaker (which now has a tendency to actually feed back and I find that hilarious) and I order the usual from the artery-hardening menu.

Scccccchreeeeeeeehhhhhhh crrrrrooowwwww aaaaaagggghhhhhhh ggggurrrrsssshhhh
Translation – “Welcome to McDonalds. What can we make for you today?”

“I’ll have a #4 with a coke. Supersize. That’s all please.”
I’m quick to say, “That’s all please”, because I’m well aware of the apple pie sales pitch that is soon to follow and I’m trying to head it off.

Gggggggggghhhhassssshhhh Cuuuuullllllllwwweeeeeeitttttzzzz Meeeeerrrrrrrrrrr
Translation – “We don’t be Supersizin’ no ‘mo.”

“What? You don’t’ Supersize? Why?”

Sssssssssswwweeeeedddrrrnnnasssssh Ooooouuuuuuutttttttissssss
Translation – We be’s out.

“Ok (but I’m not buying it for a second) I’ll have the #4 with a coke. Large. That’s all please.”

Wooooouuuuuuugggrrrrrssshhh Caaaaaaattttttiiiiillllaaaaaazzzzh?
Translation – “Would you like an apple pie with that?”

(damnit! I thought I had ‘em) "NO! I don’t want an apple pie!"

While I’m waiting in line, which is a least 10 minutes because the moron in front of me just ordered a burger without a damn pickle on it and some dumbass inside is on the phone to the main office wondering what to do, I begin to wonder WHY I can’t have Supersize fries.
Then I remember. It’s the little fat ass kids. Apparently McD’s, with the most dangerous menu on the planet, has decided to try and be socially aware of my health because some parents complained that their kids were too freakin’ fat from all the Supersize fries they ingested. Sure as hell couldn’t have been the double quarter pounders or the freakin’ Big Macs now could it?
So there ya have it. Because some parent decided it was more comfy to feed their problem child massive amounts of fries rather than deal with the little bastards problems; I can’t Supersize my damn fries!
What lobbyist organization pulled THIS off? The Organization for the Betterment of Fat Ass Little Bastards with No Friends?

Maybe we should have an age restriction on fries. No that wouldn’t work, and I’ll tell ya why.

So I go into the local Walgreen’s. You know the one. Where every time you go in there, no matter what day or what time, it’s the SAME people working in there. That scares me.
Anyway, I go in there to buy some cough syrup and some cigarettes ( yeah, I know, I know… but that’s a whole other rant). When I get to the counter the sweet little ‘ol lady, the one that’s back there EVERY SINGLE TIME says,

“Are you forty?”

“No.”

“Are you OVER forty?”

“Yes...Why?”

She explained that she had to ask because I was buying cigarettes.
I’m afraid to even think what Phillip Morris is thinking behind this brilliant ploy.
I guess you can be any age to buy the cough syrup that is loaded with enough drugs and alcohol to get Timothy Leary to come to your party but you have to be forty to buy cigarettes.

So this is what it has come to:
Any kid can buy all the alcohol they want if it says “Vicks” on the label but there is no way in HELL you can Supersize your fries and you have to be forty to buy a pack of cigarettes. WTF?!
And here’s the kicker…you only have to be 18 to go to Iraq and get your ass shot off or vote for the nimrods that came up with all this shit.
I understand perfectly.