Saturday, November 26, 2005

Saturday Morning

Saturday Morning

Saw this at Sheila's:

HAVE YOU EVER:

Smoked a cigarette or tried it:

Never have. Parents smoked enough for me, I think.

Crashed a friend's car:

Once upon a time, I ran my friend Paul's ATV into the back of a pickup truck. Nobody believed that the throttle stuck.

Stolen a car:

Only long enough to park the car in a different part of the parking lot. You know, to mess with somebody. The panic that ensued was not nearly as funny as I might have thought....

Been dumped:

Yeah.

Shoplifted:

Yep. Ain't proud of it. Overcome by guilt, took it back, and put it back in place without anybody knowing.

Been fired /laid off:

No, I but I believe I was going to get fired by the district manager at Goodwill if I'd stuck around much longer. That, or I'd have gone to prison.

Ever had that job that was really cool until somebody came in and reorganized, not because it was needed or to make things run more smoothly, but because everybody needed to be shown just who the boss was? That's how the DM was. He gave orders just to see people do what he says.

He was from Philadelphia. He hated the south. He hated southerners. He figured everybody with a southern accent was an idiot. He hated how slowly we talked.

He was one of these assholes who take their cues from the talking heads on Fox News and MSNBC...and when somebody started talking, and he was through listening to what they had to say, he would start talking over them, and would not quit talking if the other person was talking.

We had more than one conversation where we both spoke loudly at the same time for at least a minute.

I quit about the time he said "we need to get rid of the fat asshole and get somebody with a brain."

I did not turn my notice into him. I turned my notice in to everybody but him, letting them know that he's a prick just for the sake of being a prick, and I couldn't work for him anymore...

It didn't occur to me until much later that it was cool to have an arch-enemy named Luthor. Even if he spelled it Luther.

He was tranferred a month after I left.

Been in a fist fight:

Not since grade school. My size has dissuaded a couple of people since then. Truth be told, I don't think I could whip butter now.

I've walked off a couple of times. See the previous question....

Snuck out of your parent's house:

Just a couple of times.

Been arrested:

Nope.

Gone on a blind date:

Yeah. Just once.

Lied to a friend:

I have to lie about my secret superhero identity every day. It sucks.

What really sucks? When you think somebody knows, but they don't really, but you are so relieved you start talking about superhero stuff and they don't understand and say something like "what are you talking about, I thought you were just working second shift..." And you have to backtrack, or at worst, kill them.

Skipped school:

Classes in college, but I was a goody two-shoes in high school.

Seen someone die:

Yep.

Been to Canada:

No. If we had another day when my buddy Steven and I went to New York in October, I would have liked to travel up that way.

Been to Mexico:

No.

Eaten Sushi:

Nope. Danielle says you can't sling a dead cat in Australia without hitting one. Sounds like a nightmare to me.

Met someone in person from the internet:

Yeah.

Taken pain-killers:

They gave me a few when I hurt my knee a couple years back. I took one, and didn't like the cottony, disconnected feeling I had when I was on them. I mean, it wasn't like a good drunk. I didn't like the slo-mo feeling.

Had a tea party:

Does that mean I've thrown one, or been to one?

In either case, the answer is nope.

Cheated while playing a game:

I've tried, mostly at cards, but I am uncoordinated and have a guilty conscience. It didn't work.

Fallen asleep at work:

A couple of times. I worked as a bellman at a Holiday Inn one summer in college. I worked the morning shift, which meant I was dragging out of bed like 4:15 in the morning.

It wasn't a bad job. With tips, it averaged out to about 10 to 11 bucks an hour. Plus, I'd get in at 4:45, and most of my stuff would be finished about 8:30 or 9. Sometimes I was there until 1. Most of the time I'd go home about 11 or 11:30

Usually, I'd help out on the front desk, or go to talk to people in the event-planning office for a couple of hours. But I was generally given pretty free roam of the hotel.

There was one night where I didn't sleep before going in. Went to work. Did all my stuff. Wandered up to a storage room on the top floor where they kept a few spare chairs. Put the radio I was supposed to carry next to my ear, in case they called, and I slept out the rest of my shift on those uncomfortable hotel chairs.

They never missed me.

Used a fake ID:

Nope

Felt an earthquake:

We had a tremor that I missed a couple of months ago.

I have felt one, though. Once upon a time, I was in my parents' sunroom, home from school, and I was watching TV. We had 3 cats at the time, and all three were sleeping in different places in the room. All were within my field of vision, and I saw all three stand up, surprised at the same time, and then I felt the tremor myself. Lasted a few seconds. Shook the glasses in the cabinet. Seems like it ended up something like a 4.0 on the richter scale. Which isn't great shakes, I'm sure. But it was cool at the time.

Touched a snake:

Yeah. Didn't care for it.

Been robbed:

Not personally. The store where I work was robbed this past summer, with me in the store. I was in the back.

Petted a reindeer/goat:

The same people whose ATV I crashed owned goats. I have petted a goat, and eaten that same goat later in the week.

Won a contest:

A writing contest here and there.

The really cool contest though I'd forgotten all about until I got my prize.

It was 1998, the year that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were making their assault on Roger Maris' record. Pepsi had a display at one of the grocery stores to win tickets to the playoffs, or something like that, with various second and third prizes.

I didn't get called to go to the playoffs, and I didn't think twice about it.

Then, come December. It was finals week at my school. I was dealing with the stress of multiple finals and having to turn three papers in on the same day (which was tough, when you consider I wrote my papers the morning they were due, more often than not). Add to that all the little personal stresses you put yourself through, with friends, women, family at the holidays, and I was getting a little hard to be with....

I was in the middle of a marathon writing session, when one of the roommates comes in from having checked the mail.

In the mail came my prize in that Pepsi sweepstakes...a Louisville Slugger baseball bat with Mark McGwire's signature engraved...

I just thought it was funny at the time, when I was probably as stressed as I ever got in college, for the gods to send me such a fine, fine whuppin' stick...

Been suspended from school:

No.

Been in a car accident:

Just a couple small ones.

Had braces:

Yep. For three years.

Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night:

I probably have, but I'm not a big Ice Cream person, so it's not happened a whole bunch. The last time I remember doing it, it was a pint of Mayfield's Butter Pecan...

Witnessed a crime:

No, not really. Except for that robbery, which I only saw on camera after the fact.

Swam in the ocean:

Yeah. You know the best part? when you've been swimming in the ocean all day, and you lie down that night, and you still feel like you're in the ocean, bobbing on the waves.

Sung karaoke:

Nope.

Paid for a meal with only coins:

No, but there was one comic convention in Charlotte, NC, where the hotel for some reason decided to harass us over and over again. I think it was because we paid cash for the room. They bothered us about stupid shit...we couldn't use the phones...I think we had a noise complaint. Once calling us to say we owed more on the room than we'd paid. We collected change and paid the 7 dollars or so in pennies, nickels and dimes.

Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose:

Yeah. 7 Up burns.

Been kissed under mistletoe:

No.

Crashed a party:

Nope.

Worn pearls:

Nope.

Jumped off a bridge:

Not lately.

Ate dog/cat food:

Okay, here's the skinny:

Dry Purina dog food: Not all that different from Cheerios
Dry Purina cat Food: Edible, but all the fat makes it greasy.
Wet Dog food: Smelly, but not unlike H.S. cafeteria food.
Wet Cat food: What you eat in Hell.

Kissed a mirror:

No.

Glued your hand to something:

Only with rubber cement.

Done a one-handed cartwheel:

I can only think that such an endeavour would end up with me hurting myself, and badly.

Talked on the phone for more than 6 hours:

What? In my whole life?

Didn't take a shower for a week:

In 1993, we had a snowstorm that dumped 18 inches of snow on my parents' house. We didn't have power for a good while. Six days, I'm thinking. No power to work the pump, so no water in the house. I went Friday to Friday without a shower that week. That was a grungy, grungy week.

Picked an Apple off a tree and eaten it?

Yes. And then the trees wanted revenge, and started throwing apples at me, my friends the scarecrow and the tin woodsman.

Been told by a complete stranger that you're hot:

Just once. I was the subject of a joke, I think....

(Edited for Grammar and Spelling...)

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