Tuesday, August 19, 2008

It would only be funny if the Count on Sesame Street did it.

I hate it when people giving a short, humorous response decide to point out how many words their answer is.

Girl 1: Tony called eight times last night and left five voicemail messages. He’s getting so annoying.
Girl 2: Two words: restraining order.

Somehow, that format is supposed to make it funnier. As if counting increases comedy.

That must be why accountants are soooooooo hilarious.

If you really want to be original, start using it for longer responses.

Girl 1: I’ve been having trouble going to bed lately. For the life of me, I can’t seem to fall asleep.
Girl 2: Thirteen words: Drink some warm milk mixed with a nice blend of Nyquil and vodka.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Address distress.

I ordered a couple of things recently, and after checking the online tracking last night, I discovered UPS had just delivered it. Unfortunately, it listed them delivering it to someone else’s address.

I called UPS to see what had happened, and it seems they couldn’t locate my address. I guess they had forgotten where I had lived since they had last delivered a package to me two weeks ago. After using some detective work that I can only assume was composed of closing their eyes and randomly pointing at a map they determined that my real address was 1 Oakbrook Mall.

“McCash” must sound alot like “Macy’s”.

Eventually they wised up and concluded I really lived on 95th Street in Hinsdale. Not quite 75th Street in Burr Ridge. Sure, it may have been one town off and 20 streets over, but a least it was a better guess than the mall. And that’s where they decided to leave my package.

Now some guy in Hinsdale is wearing my Flight of the Conchords t-shirt and drinking coffee from my Flight of the Conchords mug.

I’m just glad the customer service lady at the other end of the line was nice about it. She said they’d try to get the actual package back somehow, but if they weren’t able to, they’d contact HBO.com and reorder the items for me. All I had to do was give her my order information including a detailed listing of the items I had purchased.

You have to feel sorry for the guy this happens to who placed an order from Adultsexstore.com.

UPS: Could you check the invoice and tell me the item number for the first item?
Customer: Sure. It’s 4611245
UPS: Thanks. And could you give me a short description for the item?
Customer: Um, it’s a DVD.
UPS: Do you know the title?
Customer: Uh...yeah. It’s called...um...Fisting Firemen 5.
UPS: Oh. Okay. And the second item number?
Customer: 2201954
UPS: And the description?
Customer: A...uh...a long rubber object?
UPS: Could you give a more detailed description?
Customer: Believe me, that’s all the description you want.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

To pee or not to pee.

Disaster was narrowly averted this morning when I tried to pee at a urinal for over 10 minutes and nothing came out. You would think this would be a bad thing, as I did at the time, but only later did I realize I was actually dreaming and it was a pretty good thing that nothing came out.

I probably should have figured out it was a dream earlier, though. Taking a piss in your old high school restroom while having a conversation with Sylvester Stallone doesn’t usually happen in real life.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Car-nivore.

I ran over a turtle.

It was a couple of days ago, and a big storm had passed through that morning, leaving branches and other landscape debris scattered across the roads. A fun little obstacle course if you don’t mind getting good use out of your steering wheel. As I drove down Plainfield, I noticed a huge rock right in the middle of the street. I wondered how the storm could have managed to blow a rock that big into the road when I noticed that the rock had a head. By then, it was too late. Under my car it went.

Luckily for the little guy, I swerved enough to have it go between my tires instead of under them.

I stopped my car to go pick him up so some semi wouldn’t smear it all over its mud flaps, but the guy in the car behind me got out before I did and helped the turtle get to the other side.

A happy ending for little Leonardo. I wish it could have gone as well for the other creatures I’ve driven over in my days.

The most recent victim was an itty bitty sparrow. I was turning off a road to head onto the highway when the bird flew down and landed right in front of me in the middle of the on-ramp. I pulled the same maneuver I did for the turtle and made sure to steer so it went between my tires. Unfortunately, it didn’t fare as well for the bird. As you know, when cars are heading towards them, they tend to fly up. And as I drove over him, he flew up - right into the underside of my car. I continued down the exit to see from my rear-view mirror his little body rolling across the pavement. The most depressing cartwheels ever.

The only other animal I’ve hit was a raccoon. My first kill. I was blazing down the highway one night at 70mph. He ran out of nowhere. No chance to do the between-the-tires thing for him. Right under the Goodyears.

So far, I’ve driven over a reptile, a bird and a mammal. It seems my driving is making it’s way through the entire animal kingdom. I just need to hit an amphibian and a fish and I’ll have myself a full set.

Maybe I should try some beach driving sometime. I’ve always been a completist, after all.