May 28, 2008
So lately I’m extremely wary of throwing away receipts of any kind in public garbage cans because what if someone finds one of my ATM receipts and somehow, you know, deflowers my credit score. I couldn’t 
handle that so I make sure to throw those away at work, home or some trash receptacle that I can fully trust. Hey, is that too much to ask, a little peace of mind when I throw away my garbage, without having to look over my shoulder every five seconds to make sure no ones mussing about in there, examining my wrappers. In fact, if that low-fat lemon yogurt container I just threw out never gets looked at by another set of human eyes, I’ll die a happy man. Cause, you know what they do in there, those trash-people, don’t you? I used to think they were looking for spare food too but boy was I wrong. No they’re looking for information. That’s right. They’re scraping for DNA, collecting identities to do who knows what with them, sell em on ebay, on the auction block, for crying out loud. Who’re the slaves now? Hey, stop looking at my wrappers! What’s the big idea?
May 22, 2008
Oh, you know, if I was a superhero, I’d be The Hypochondriac, sporting a flashy-teal hospital gown and a bright white wristband that has all my information on it, all the while effortlessly rolling around
that intravenous drip cart everywhere I go. My power would be, get this, just by hearing or reading about a particular ailment, condition, circulatory-system defect, whathaveyou, I’d magically take on this sickness as if it were my very own! Oh really, a new study shows that testicular cancer most commonly affects men 25 and under huh? You know now that you mention it my left testicle has been shrinking slightly for the past minute and my right one does have this teeny bump on its side that definitely wasn’t there before you told me all about that age 25 stuff. Whoops, did I just accidentally google-image-search the rare kidney disorder known as Bartter’s Syndrome? Gosh those pictures look nasty but, ouch, I feel a slight pain in my lower back out of the blue coupled with a sudden decrease of electrolytes in my blood in 40% of cases. Whoa, it feels really weird to lose all those electrolytes at once. Think of all the good I’ll do as The Hypochondriac, coming down with that Hemorrhagic Fever everyone thought had been wiped out in the 1890’s, so you don’t have to. I’ll do all that I can, selflessly, if you’ll just get me a glass of water cause I can’t stand sweetheart, for as long as I’m able, which probably won’t be that long given my family’s history of death.
May 21, 2008
I just realized that i always say this. I’m always like, “but yeah I hardly watch tv at all (snicker snicker), I really only watch one show, blah blah blah, ” and I’m usually talking about Lost, but it’s all a delusion! I just finished watching the final American Idol episode, well the final one where they sing, you know, oh gosh they were pretty good this year don’t you think, i totally miss the guy with the dreads though, yeah he was super cute but in a masculine way, oh shit, did you see the one where the girl had to start her song over, (laughing) I was so embarrassed for her, I know she does sort of look like she’s from the ’60’s, STOP IT! I’m not who I say I am.
And last night (gulp) we watched the season finale of Gossip Girl. No it wasn’t cause there was nothing else on and we were just flipping channels and happened to land on the CW at 8pm Eastern when the remote ran out of batteries and we didn’t have any replacements, plus the new “HD” tv we got doesn’t have channel-changer buttons on the unit itself and we couldn’t even turn it off cause the power button doesn’t work (it was the floor model), not to mention the plug was totally stuck in the wall, we couldn’t pull it out, owww, I think I twisted something.
No it wasn’t like that at all. We planned to watch it! We even made popcorn! In advance!! But yeah I can’t believe two characters came out at once, I know I wish they were more important characters with better hair, Blair’s my favorite too, she’s so conniving but like brutally honest at the same time, no I’ve always liked her, me too, yeah he always looks like he’s tired, AHHHHHH! I’m a junky and I just wanted to formally apologize to everyone. Truth is: I watch multiple tv shows, i just pooped my pants, and I’m about to watch last week’s episode of Lost again on ABC.com.
May 9, 2008
There’s this guy at work I talk to now and again, let’s call him Jake. And I noticed just the other day that Jake tends to evoke “gas chambers” quite a bit more than the average person just in normal conversation.
Take yesterday, we were discussing the lethargic pace of a particular project, blah blah blah, apparently higher-ups were eager to see some progress, and he comes out and says, “Well, they’re not sending me to the gas chambers just yet but…” as if the impending quandary he’s talking about isn’t as bad as it could be, i.e. it hasn’t reached “Holocaust-level” priority as of this morning, but if what’s-her-name doesn’t send ‘comps’ by the end of the week, who knows what might happen, doors could be broken down, people dragged from their homes screaming in the middle of the night, uncomfortable conference-calls tantamount to genocide, no one knows for sure. But heck I got the point, I better connect with what’s-her-name about those ‘comps’ before my name gets written on some list in permanent marker, jeez.
And yeah, so this is Jake’s hyperbole of choice, sure it’s slightly culturally insensitive but it’s also sort funny too. Yargh.
What’s your hyperbole of choice?
May 1, 2008
So we were visiting the gorillas at the Bronx zoo. It was that amazing-weather-Saturday a few weeks ago that punctured a hole in the earlobe of Spring, which has since closed up, of course. And since the sun was doing its thing on this particular day, lots and lots of people were at the zoo, parents constantly pointing out the animals to their helpless children, you know, as if little Haley or Ashton was blind and dumb, “Is that a zebra? Look sweetie! Does that zebra have stripes?”
We were in the second of the main gorilla viewing rooms, the narrower of the two. It was super-packed. I was reminded of that scene in Jaws 4 when they’re in that shark tunnel and the glass gets punctured, chaos ensues, 
death, blood, etc. Ricky and I were in the way back, hugging the glass wall, trying to breathe, when a scenario unfolded involving a woman who, for the purposes of this blog and good old-fashioned hyperbole, I’ve dubbed “the angry lady.” She was standing in front of us a ways, when someone pushing a wheelchair went by her, apparently clipping her on the heel. Needless to say, the Angry Lady flipped her muffins!
“My foot! My foot!” She cried. The man pushing the wheelchair stopped, apologized profusely. “Jesus Christ! You could have taken my entire leg off!” She said this right to the person pushing the wheelchair and the woman in the wheelchair herself, who presumably couldn’t walk. They apologized some more then wheeled away. But the Angry Lady had not finished her impressive display. “Why are they bringing that thing in here?” She whined to her husband and son. I looked at Ricky amazed, uncertain whether “that thing” referred to the wheelchair or the less-than-human disabled person in the wheelchair.
And she kept it up for a good 5 minutes or so, extracting every once of pity possible from her family (who I was quietly pitying). “No I’m ok, it just hurt a lot,” she assured them like a trooper. And we, Ricky, myself and the pregnant gorilla behind the glass just shook our heads thinking, “Some people.”
said it—theresnoplacelikehomeandstuff—like it was all one word. And at first I was confused because it sounded like garbled nothing. I thought he was pulling on my chain. “What was that?” I yell after him but he doesn’t turn around. And that’s when it clicks. There’snoplacelikehomeandstuff. It wasn’t gibberish at all. It was seven words, well eight if you count that first contraction. It was the answer. There’s no place like home and stuff. I click my heels together. That was the “theresnoplacelikehome” part. Then I smiled at my cat, my life. That was the “andstuff” part.
