In the spirit of giving the masses what they want, here's a picture of Fredo after I, annoyed by his constant requests to play, threw his toy shark into the house.
Yesterday I was on my barstool working while they were training a new waitress behind the bar. The trainer had to attend to customers, so she told the trainee what to do while she was gone.
"If you have any questions, just ask John," she concluded.
]]>"2014. Why?"
Assisted living, here I come.
]]>Two days later, he said, "If anyone asks, Mark and Amy and Jason and CJ were there, too. That's on the expense report."
"Sure thing. Why?"
"Otherwise we look like total alcoholics. We had 24 drinks."
Wow.
"I'd dispute that, Sal, but I can't remember."
]]>"IT Helpdesk. How may I help you?"
"Did you guys push down a policy that disables VBA macros?"
"Did you try rebooting?"
"Why would I do that?"
"You should always do that. Can you reboot for me?"
I sigh heavily and reboot. Five minutes later...
"Word macros are still disabled."
"Did you try reinstalling Office?"
And so it goes, until half a day later.
"I've got good news. Turns out we pushed down a policy that disables VBA macros."
I have long thought that to save money, time, and murder, people all need Technical Aptitude Ratings.
]]>"Did you guys push down a policy that disables VBA macros?"
"Did you try rebooting?"
"I'm a Level 7."
"Here's the registry setting."
"Thanks."
That original ceiling light that does nothing for me and would only take 15 minutes to swap out? I will learn to love it. When jostled, century-old electrical wire looks very much like Bucky at the end of Infinity War. (In addition to the normal tools, this six-hour debacle involved superglue, velcro, spackle, a staple gun, a shop vac, and industrial strength duct tape.)
The answer to the question "Christ! What is this wall made of?" is four inches of plaster. As difficult to drill into as it is easy to drill hideous chunks out of.
Do not make eye contact with neighbors. They will want to discuss neighborhood history back to the Roosevelt administration. Teddy Roosevelt.
]]>These are truly the moments that test one's character.
I didn't do it, and I've been crippled with regret and self-loathing ever since. What grade does my character get?
]]>In the spirit of giving the masses what they want, here's a picture of Fredo after I, annoyed by his constant requests to play, threw his toy shark into the house.
"Zoom in. You can see his intestine poking out," Inger texted.
I'm lucky. Most people don't realize the exact moment their life bottoms out.
]]>"But it's worse," she said, genuinely confused. "A lot worse." She's still in high school and of course has no real world experience, let alone corporate experience.
I explained that Marketing is bush-pissing. She didn't understand. I explained the politics of how we were wildly successful without them, and that this embarrassed them, and now they're finding fault with our work and "saving" us, and how we're letting the babies have their bottle because this is not a hill worth dying on. Yeah, I used pretty much every metaphor in my arsenal.
Now she's upset. "So...you're being paid to ruin your own work?"
"Now you get it."
]]>Today, as I have so many times for over two decades, I dejectedly opened the door to a restaurant serving what I was promised is "genuine New York pizza." Whatever. Let's rule it out and move on to the next dump.
But wait. Pizza by the slice? No pineapple or arugula options? No silverware? Charred, foldable crust? Pools of orange grease atop the cheese? Canollis on the menu? I allowed myself a half-gram of hope. And it wasn't bad. Not bad at all.
I praised the NYC-native owner for the lack of pineapple. He and I chatted a bit about pizza and the Northwest, and then he asked me what part of New York I was from.
"I'm not," I replied.
"Oh. Sorry. And here I am talkin' like I know you."
"It's all right. I'm from Ohio. We talk to strangers, too."
When I left, he was outside, smoking next to the dumpster. I said goodbye and thanked him for dinner. "You know," he said softly, "I do have pineapple in the kitchen. You'd go out of business in the Northwest without it. I just don't put it on the menu because I'm ashamed."
]]>She was standing on my front porch, her voice nervously cracking as she went through her speech. She eventually, inevitably asked for a donation.
"How do I know you're really from Greenpeace?" I asked. She stopped petting Fredo for a second and pointed to her Greenpeace hat and shirt.
"But I guess anyone could buy these..." she trailed off, dejected.
"I'll tell ya what. I'll try to stab Fredo, and you throw your body in front of him."
Cue the waterworks.
]]>"I'm afraid Fredo is getting smarter," I told a friend.
"Well. He sure wasn't going to get any dumber."
That's fair.
This morning I watched as his pee ran down my teak furniture to my concrete slab, where it pooled around his paws.
]]>We were meeting online the other day when she told me she was looking at my wall. My webcam had fallen behind my monitor, so I grabbed and reaffixed it, the top of my head momentarily pointing at the camera. Poindexter burst into giggles.
"Are you laughing at my bald head, kid?"
"No," she chortled. "I'm laughing at you wearing two pairs of glasses, grandpa."
]]>