Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor | Tags: boredom, bullying, cow tipping, crime, fun, games, jokes, Middle-Age, practical jokes, social media, stealing, theft
With all the warnings about bullying on social media in the news, I started wondering when playing jokes on people moved from the relatively fun and harmless (i.e. stink bombs, shuffling someone’s CDs into all the wrong cases) to the soul-destroying campaigns causing young people to want to kill themselves.
What happened to the creativity? It’s easy to smear someone’s reputation anonymously online. It’s much harder to find a way to grow grass on someone’s carpet while they’re home on break, or to remove the slats from their bed so that it crashes when they sit on it, and not get caught. Or better yet, get caught, have a laugh, repair the damage and wait for the required retribution. At the very least, you’ll find out which of your friends don’t have the same sense of humor as you do – best to lave them alone.
When I was a teenager growing up in a small rural town, there wasn’t a lot to do aside from partying in the woods like every clichéd country anthem. When the cops showed up, they just told everyone to go home – even getting busted was pretty boring. So we had to find other things to do to liven it up, like cow tipping, which is not impossible, but in my experience always unsuccessful because there’s nothing louder than a bunch of teenagers trying to be quiet. Plus, cows don’t really sleep standing up.
We also “borrowed” grocery store shopping carts and left them in our friends’ front yards. Nothing says “I have friends my parents love” like waking up and trying to explain why there are three grocery store carts parked on your front porch and one has beer cans in it. Oh, and could I please use the family car to do the right thing and return it?
In my twenties, that same boredom and lack of funds caused some of my friends to turn to stealing milk crates from the backs of convenience stores (free shelving) and swiping anything to do with Pabst Blue Ribbon from bars (free glassware and wall decorations). That shot/bar glass collection that every twenty-something seems to have? It’s usually partnered with a stack of coasters or posters.
Now, as a mature adult, when I don’t have money for things, I sulk or charge my credit card ‘cause that’s not real money anyway. The labeled glasses I have the days are purchased from wine tastings, not bars, and if a shopping cart ends up in my yard, it wasn’t my generation that deposited it there.
But not everyone has purged that reflex. For example, “J” still maintains and updates her massive collection of signs. She has a secret room (yes, it’s red) that is wallpapered with signs from restaurants, hospitals, streets, restrooms and bars. She even carries around sign-removing tools in her purse so she won’t miss an opportunity. Another friend has three full-size stoplights under his house (don’t ask).
I have only been seriously tempted to take one item in my recent adult life, and that is the photograph of a black lab sitting on a beach that hangs above the toilet in the bathroom at my local restaurant. It was a running joke for a while that one day I was going to have one too many drinks and walk out with it. Years later, I’m glad I didn’t. Recently, I was in the same bathroom and noticed that above the picture I liked is a new picture – the same dog sitting on the same beach, but clearly many years older. There is white around his muzzle, and he has the bony-hipped look old dogs get. This is, or maybe was, someone’s pet. If I had taken that picture, I might have been taking someone’s memory of their beloved dog.
Sometimes being a grownup brings the maturity that destroying someone anonymously (or not) isn’t a great use of your time, creative skills or humanity. And sometimes being a grownup brings a lot of sentimentality with it – which also happens to protect a lot of things.
So I didn’t steal the picture. I stay off social media as far as destroying people, and I let karma do its job.
Also, I don’t carry a purse big enough to carry out two 11×14 picture frames.
Filed under: Misc. Humor, Sports, Travel | Tags: boat, boating, cabelas, fish, Fishing, fun, jaws, marketing, outdoors, sportsman, vacation
I recently got my Cabela’s weekly supplement in the mail. As I was flipping through, marveling at the wide assortment of camouflage apparel and accessories, I came across a sale on fishing kayaks.
I’m a big fan of fishing – I love getting up at dawn, racing along the still waters of the lake to “the spot,” and casting in that rhythmic way that feels like meditating. I even love the small heart attack every nibble and bite produces – yes, I am probably the only person in the world who can make fishing stressful. But I still love it.
I also like kayaking – not as much, but it’s great exercise and is a wonderful way to see different things along the shoreline that you might otherwise not notice going 20 knots in the boat.
I DO NOT, however, like the idea of doing those two things at the same time.
I do not want to be on the same plane as the fish, especially if it’s a big catfish flopping around with spikes that can ruin your corn-on-the-cob-holding hand. Just because I like to eat a jar of pickles at a time doesn’t mean I want to sit in a vat of pickle juice while I do it.
I cannot fathom hooking a big old bass, wrestling it into…my lap? Are you kidding me? That small heart attack I mentioned would be nothing to the panic that would ensue after I got bitch-slapped by that fish.
Plus, I saw the movie Jaws. I am NOT going to hook a fish and be dragged to my death, bobbing and weaving like those yellow barrels.
So thank you, Cabela’s and all you avid sportspeople for combining two peaceful activities into one stressful, death-inducing trip into angler Hell.
You better believe “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
Filed under: Exercise, Misc. Humor, Sports | Tags: adulthood, gym, health, mens health, orange theory, Running, trainer, women's health
There are several health care jobs I know I could never do, mostly because they’re just gross or dealing with negativity – dentists (scared patients), ear-nose-throat docs (green noses make me dry-heave), and gynecologists (just…eeewww), to name a few. But one of the most underrated jobs has got to be exercise/gym trainer.
Before you roll your eyes and say, oh please, they make their own hours and get to play in a gym for their job, let me point out a few things:
Gym trainers have to look good every day to sell their product. Slapping on some makeup or pricey cologne and throwing on a cute dress or fancy suit after a blurry night out aren’t going to do it. Trainers have to be perky (almost annoyingly so) and looking fresh every time, like they just stepped out of a fitness magazine or off the beach after a refreshing jog along the waterline – they’re selling a body and motivation. No one wants a fat trainer lazily leaning against a stack of weights telling them how to not be fat and lazy.
Trainers have to exude motivation, even when they’ve been up half the night with a vomiting kid, or are regretting eating that entire Chipotle bowl. An object at rest tends to stay at rest, and lots of clients feel like they have already produced a herculean effort just to get to the gym in the first place. For some, that includes just trying to get their sports bra on. They’re not happy about getting out of bed at the crack of dawn or leaving the office after a crappy day of work and heading to a place that makes them alternately miserable and euphoric. But trainers have to somehow make these people exercise until they sweat, hearts pounding and bodies straining with every lift, curl or push – and they must do it in a way that doesn’t make their clients hate them. At Orange Theory, the gym I go to, Hannah and John have mastered this – God bless ’em!
Trainers who teach the early morning classes are a special breed. Not only do they have to look good and be cheerful around a bunch of sleepy, grumpy people who have desperately fueled up on coffee in a pitiful attempt to make it through the class, trainers endure hours of garlic sweat (don’t be that guy), morning breath and general B.O. (because why bother if you’re just going to shower before going to work?).
So be kind to your trainer. Say thank you after class, even though yes, you are paying for it. Appreciate that they got out of bed even earlier than you so you could get to your 5am class, and they never said a word to you the day you came in smelling like PF Changs.
Filed under: Food/Drink, Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Travel | Tags: adulting, bars, beach, crime, drinking, fun, girls, hot tub, lifeguard, north carolina, Outer banks, relationships, rental, vacation, Virginia
Dear Rental House Owner –
Thank you so much for your nice letter and for helpfully providing your lawyer’s name and address, although I don’t think it will be necessary. We had a great girls’ weekend staying in your beach house, and everyone was so friendly! It’s nice when a bunch of middle-aged women can get together for some relaxing quiet time at the beach. I hope you saw that we replaced the wine glasses and re-stocked the liquor cabinet. The combination for the replacement padlock is written on a sticky note by the phone.
And thank you for asking if we got home okay after our night out. We had no idea that your friend Jim owns the _________________ Bar – he was very sweet to escort us personally to our car after Sarah twisted her ankle on the stage. It was also very kind of him to kick that married guy out after he said, “I like your rack” to Lisa. Those drinks the married guy sent over for us that tasted like liquid Skittles were nasty – give us good wine or bourbon any day – what was he thinking? Please tell Jim we hope we didn’t drive too many of his younger customers away with our dancing. Those millennial girls just don’t have the moves we do, and I think they were embarrassed at how much better we were. (They sure do know how to roll their eyes though.) But one nice girl came up to Cheryl and said it must be nice to trust your friends enough to let them hold while you hang upside down like that.
Your next-door neighbor was also very nice, letting us come up on one of his balconies to watch the sunset. When Terry fell and broke her wine glass because she miscounted the steps, he asked if she was okay and didn’t even comment on her speech impediment (it’s often confused with slurring). We cleaned up the wine and broken glass for him, but he had already gone inside so we couldn’t say thank you in person.
You must have a lot of crime in that area – that explains all the cameras. We would greatly appreciate it if you would please tell your other neighbors we were only trying to be helpful when we checked that their hot tub was clean and the heater was working (it was). You might also want to pass on that the cleaners didn’t do a very good job. There was lots of sand in the bottom of the hot tub and two bottles of Fireball had been left on the porch rail. We didn’t want the cleaners to get into trouble so we finished the Fireball off – hence the empties. There wasn’t much we could do about the sand. But if your neighbors find a diamond stud earring, they can put that towards the next cleaning fee.
We noticed that things were a bit dry in North Carolina, so we decided to save water for you by bathing over there. Lisa’s suit color tends to run, so she thought it might do better in the pool. Oh, and by the way, the neighbors also might want to have their pool deck leveled out. Apparently, what they saw on the camera was Lisa falling on the uneven pavement as she was putting her clean bathing suit back on. She must have bumped her head, because she put it on upside down and inside out. We still haven’t figured out how that’s even possible, but that’s Lisa for you. But don’t worry, she says she doesn’t have any interest in litigating the injury.
Yes, we did have one extra person stay overnight. The nice lifeguard we met at Jim’s bar offered to drive us home, and it’s a good thing he did because there aren’t a lot of Ubers around on the off season (none seemed available that late at night – we kept getting declined). I wonder if you know him? There can’t be that many lifeguards who also have a degree in tribal mating dances – that’s probably what you saw on your cameras. But it was extremely fortunate he was there because Cheryl must have had some kind of reaction to the food at the bar – she required mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The lifeguard was very concerned for her privacy so he took her into the other room and managed to revive her after several minutes. After that, it was late and he was tired, so the least we could do was let him spend the night. He was a real gentleman – he even fixed us all breakfast the next morning.
If you find the following items we would appreciate it if you would return them:
2 black bathing suit tops
1 pink thong
1 blue bathing suit bottom
1 floral eye mask
3 pairs of readers – black, navy blue and hunter green, varying strengths
Thanks again for your letter of concern, and as you can see, no lawyers will be necessary. We are happy to pay for any damages we didn’t already repair, but I don’t think the tire tracks in your front yard were from us. Sadly, there were a lot of drunk people out that night – some people just can’t handle themselves on vacation. Even the nice police officer who stopped us on the way home said the lifeguard was just driving a little fast. After looking into the car when Cheryl starting yelling “Don’t slur your driving!” and seeing that Lisa was a bit green around the gills, he decided to let us go. What an understanding young man! He even fist bumped the lifeguard. Your beach town is such a friendly place! You must feel so proud to have a house there!
Until next year,
The Girls.
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor | Tags: adulthood, Douchebag, etiquette, friends, friendship, Middle-Age, New Girl, office humor, relationships, Roadhouse
I’ve figured out how I’m going to retire early. Stealing from the under-rated show New Girl, I’m going to start carrying around a Douchebag Jar.
In case you’re still scratching your head and wondering “What the hell is she talking about now?” here’s the deal: You carry a mason jar or whatever you have handy (depending on where you are it may need to be a full-on trash can), and whenever someone commits an act of douchebaggery, they must contribute a fine to the jar.
What is a douchebag? Urban Dictionary defines it as “An individual who has an over-inflated sense of self-worth, compounded by a low level of intelligence, behaving ridiculously in front of people with no sense of how moronic he appears.”
When can you point out that someone is acting like a douchebag? Well, that’s where it gets a little tricky. Generally, calling someone out for douchebaggery at work is not a good idea; after all, we are supposed to respect our colleagues and play nice in the sandbox, etc. Plus, it could get you fired:
Accuser: “You owe a dollar to the DB Jar.”
Co-Worker: “Why?”
Accuser: “Because you interrupted my client call to tell me you’re going to Bonaroo and MIGHT or MIGHT NOT be back on Monday.”
Co-Worker: “You’re just jealous. Going to Bonaroo doesn’t make me DB.”
Accuser: “No, but thinking your undefined availability while you’re at a concert matters more than my client call, does.”
Co-Worker: “You’re fired.”
Accuser: “You still owe The Jar, plus $20 more because you’re 50 and going to Bonaroo.”
Calling someone out that you don’t know, especially in public, can lead to violence (reference every bar fight ever).
So that leaves friends.
That’s right, sometimes you have to call out your friends. Most folks have at least one friend who periodically acts in a douche-baggy fashion and needs to be corrected. After all, isn’t that what friends are for? We are friends with people for lots of reasons, but one of the best is that they help to make us better people. Don’t believe me? When was the last time your friends gave you an eye roll or responded in a voice dripping with sarcasm to something you said? That’s your friends correcting your behavior, and in theory making you a better person. The Douchebag Jar is just another tool for correcting behavior.
Subourbon Mom 