today’s entry. Trust me, you want to read it. But don’t forget to come back!
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Stupid me, I answered the door when someone rang the doorbell yesterday, thinking it might be one of the kids next door needing to go into the back yard. Instead it was some guy wanting to sell me something to put himself through school, and I listened politely to half his spiel waiting to get a word in edgewise, and when he held out the packet of whatever the fuck it was that he wanted me to buy, I knew better. Because once they hand you the fucking packet, they do NOT take it back, and you end up paying $64 for a little packet of paper towels, or some shit like that. I refused – REFUSED! – to take the packet, told him I was JUST about to leave to run some errands, and could he come back later?
Why did I not just say “Nope, not interested!” and slam the door? I have no idea.
He responded to my OBVIOUS lie – I was wearing sweatpants and a stained t-shirt, and even *I* don’t leave the house in that kind of getup – by telling me it would just take a minute, and I gave him a tight-lipped smile and repeated “I was JUST about to leave”, and he wished me a good day. And probably hung around to see if I actually left the house, the fucker.
Why can’t we outlaw door to door selling? I mean, it’s hardly safe to be walking from door to door to sell shit, is it? What if I were a psycho?
(Oh, shaddup)
This is probably why they choose our middle-upper-class neighborhood, I suppose. Less chance of psychos. Little do they know…
What kills me is when they start spouting off the names of our neighbors who bought whatever it is they’re selling. I know the names of, maybe, three of our neighbors, and I’m not even certain about two of those. And the third one sold us our house, for the love of god. I want to say “Who? Who the hell is that? Where do they live? Do they have any kids? What do they look like? What do they drive? Nope, don’t know them. Clearly they made the idiotic decision to buy something to get rid of you.”
Don’t even look at me like that. I make plenty of charitable contributions. I just make it a point not to buy anything from someone who comes to my door. Well, except for Girl Scout cookies, maybe, though to be truthful I haven’t had any of those in four years or more. Don’t look at me like that, Local High School Football Team. If you really wanted to raise some funds, you’d pony up with the cookie goodness.
Heh. This just occurred to me – I should gaze blankly at them and say “Do you have an appointment?” when they start in. “If you don’t have an appointment, I’m sorry. I can’t help you. No, I can’t give you an appointment, do I LOOK like someone who schedules appointments? Jeez! You’ll have to call and – No! No, you cannot have the phone number! If you were someone who truly wanted to make an appointment, you’d have the phone number!”
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A reader emailed yesterday
Oh god, I just kicked Miz Poo in the nose. IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. She forgave me eventually, but do I feel like a total Poo abuser, or what? Poor Miz Poo!
Where was I?
Oh yeah, a reader emailed yesterday (hi Shannon!) to say that she’d never heard the phrase “shit the bed” outside of her group of friends, and no one else she ever said it in front of seemed to know what it means. That cracks me up, because it seems so obvious what it means!
Of course, trying to come up with a definition, I’m drawing a blank. I guess you either know what it means by the very sound of it, or you don’t.
Suddenly, I’m reminded of the time I was driving to Pennsylvania a couple of years ago to meet my sister and hand over the spud. Debbie’s car broke down somewhere around New York City, and I called Fred on my now-it’s-working now-it’s-not cellphone and asked him to call my father. Ten minutes later when I could get service on my cellphone, I called Fred back. His first words? “Now I know where you picked up ‘You’ve gotta be shitting me!'” That was the first thing my father said when Fred told him. Fred had never heard anyone but me say it before.
What’s funny is that in one of the first few episodes of the first season of The Shield, both Shane and Dutch said “You’ve gotta be shitting me!”, each with their own interpretation of it.
And speaking of shit, why is that they can say “crap” on network TV, but “shit” gets bleeped? It means the same damn thing, does it not? I’ve always preferred “shit” to “crap”, because “crap” sounds more explicit to me somehow.
Your “shit” discussion is now over. You may move on.
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I know I’m supposed to think it’s treacly, sentimental crap, but I sure did love the American Idol rendition of God Bless the USA Wednesday night.
God bless not only the USA, but god bless Grokster. Amen.
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And while god’s blessing everyone, god bless the tech support at my host, Ventures Online. It took some time, hard work, and recreating of an inbox somewhere (don’t ask me, I didn’t do it), but I was finally able to get the mail sent to me from Tuesday night through Wednesday morning. You have no idea how happy I am – it was like my email was just out of reach, taunting me. I’ve set up forwarders so that all the emails I have set up on my two domains will be forwarded to one central account. Which I’m not going to post anywhere online in the interest of not getting spam.]]>