He Thought It Was A Party Favor

So last Saturday, a bunch of us were at Regina's place for a small get-together-- or what I like to call her "Working is for Suckers" party. In case you haven't guessed from my self-imposed party theme, Gina quit the rat race to do her own thang for a little while. And this shindig was her friends' and family's way of wishing her well (while seething with jealousy).

The party was excellent. Everyone brought a ton of food. We talked and laughed. And Regina, ever the gracious hostess, made mixed drinks with her Magic Bullet for anyone who wanted one. I had some delicious pina-colada-type drink, which name has completely slipped my mind. (Sorry, Gina. I know you told me twice.)

Anyway, as all good things must come to an end, the party finally wound to a close. And since there was a ton of food, and only eight of us at the party, there was plenty left over. Naturally, some of us made To-Go plates. Actually, Gina insisted-- especially because at any given time, Regina has enough food packed into her fridge to host a dinner party for ten at a moment's notice.

But, understandably, there are limits to her generosity. That much was evident when I heard her indignantly ask, "What are you doing?" I look up to see another guest in the process of putting a half-full bottle of rum in a plastic bag.

In all of my years of experience in witnessing trifling To-Go plate behavior, this has got to be the most outrageous! And I've seen people bring tin foil (and no food) to a potluck picnic! Alcohol is NEVER a To-Go item! Why would it be? It doesn't need refrigeration and has no expiration date. What I'm saying is that there's no rush to consume it like, say, freshly made Taffy Apple Salad. (Thanks again, Gina! It was even better the second day!)

But wait! It gets even more trifling-er! I assumed that he contributed the rum and, in a fit of selfishness, decided to take the remainder home with him. BUT NO!!! Regina bought the rum herself! Why he thought he was entitled to half a pint of rum purchased by the host of the party is beyond me!

Which leads us to his response to Regina's justly perturbed inquiry. What was his reason for taking the booze? He blithely explained that he was taking the rum home to drink later.

Really?

C'mon, really?

Why stop there? He could have taken a few rolls of toilet paper from the bathroom to use for later. Or taken several packets of detergent from her laundry room. You know, to use for later. Once you eliminate the unspoken rule that To-Go items should be limited to perishable food, then the sky's the limit on the things you can help yourself to in your host's home: toothpaste, light bulbs, cosmetics, cold medication... Literally anything!

Anyway, Regina explained to her alcohol-absconding guest that he could have had ALL of the rum that he wanted during the party, but that's it. Funny thing is that earlier in the evening, she offered to make him a drink. Twice. Both times he refused. I guess you have to be in the mood for rum.

The cherry on top of this bizarro sundae is that the guest then had the audacity to act offended by Regina's refusal to allow him to scavenge through her belongings. He actually stomped out, leaving behind the person he came to the party with!

Well. I guess it's too bad that this was Gina's last foreseeable house party. I was starting to get a little low on shampoo.

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An Involuntary Book Donation

Despite the various Discovery Channel shows to the contrary, it has been my experience that most individuals fall into one of two categories: people who are afraid of spiders, and people who completely lose their s**t if they come within 100 feet of a single, minuscule spider.

I fall into the first group, and my sister, Ethel, is the poster child for the second. A spider crawling across my arm or leg will send me into hysterics, no question, but one crawling up the wall won't even raise my blood pressure (although I am obligated to grab the nearest shoe for its summary execution). Ethel, on the other hand, once saw a small spider crawling across a roll of paper towels that was sitting on a table three feet away from where she was standing, and she still screamed like a pantie-clad extra from a slasher movie. Needless to say, rational thinking tends to take a breather whenever Ethel encounters a spider, and hilarious circumstances are bound to happen.

Ethel and rational thinking briefly parted company this last Labor Day weekend as she, Steven and I drove down to Evansville, IN for our family reunion. We had just left a gas station somewhere south of Effingham, IL when Steve said in the calmest possible voice, "Mom, I don't want to alarm you, but there's a spider right by you." I would have been fine-- in fact, I'd have been deliriously happy-- if Ethel had merely become alarmed. Instead, she opted to freak the hell out. She started whipping back and forth in her seat, shouting, "Where?! Where?! WHERE?!"

I never did see where that inconsiderate spider had the audacity to plant itself. But it must have been near the passenger side door because Ethel then lowered her window about half way, I guess hoping it would jump for freedom. I can only imagine that the spider considered my sister's generous offer of leaping into oblivion and then decided to take its chances in Freak-out Town, population: Ethel, because it didn't budge.

So, Ethel's Plan B was to forcefully evict the spider by smacking it out of the window with the closest object she could reach. The closest object just happened to be my church phone directory. It was a small pamphlet of about 80 pages that I kept on the dashboard of my car for easy reference (and because I was too lazy to take it into the house).

Anyway, Ethel was using the directory to smack and sweep along the car door, demonstrating to the spider her calm and levelheaded argument of GET OUT! I believe she had managed to get the spider onto the pamphlet because Ethel then began shaking the directory out of the open window. (Man, that spider was not taking the hint!)

Now, by this point, I had reached the open highway, which means I was rapidly approaching 55 miles per hour, if I hadn't reached it already. At that speed, the pages of my booklet that Ethel was desperately flinging about began to flap violently in the wind. It then occurred to me that this was not a good Plan B. And I thought, "I sure hope she has a firm grip on that book because..."

Zwoosh!

That was the sound of my phone directory taking flight. Apparently the spider wouldn't have to venture into the unknown alone. Ethel was immediately sorry, apologizing and offering to get out of the car and retrieve it (the directory, not the spider that used it as a landing craft). I actually slowed the car and considered taking her up on her offer since there was absolutely no one else on the road.

Then, rational thinking decided to punch back in from its coffee break, and I realized that doing something foolish like picking things up from the middle of the highway is a good way to get dead. And really, when was the last time I used that book, anyway?

So, I took one last look in my rear view mirror at my directory lying forlornly on the pavement and then sped off. I guess the lessons we can take away from this experience are: a calm, rational tone of voice is no match for a spider freak-out. And always keep a box of tissue in the car for bug-related emergencies.

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Exactly What is My Deal?!

I know it has been quite a while since my last post. And I do apologize for leaving you all hanging. I just had a lot to do these past couple of weeks and couldn't find the time to squeeze in a single entry. I'm working on getting one out soon. In the meantime, please enjoy this crude drawing, which is my visual representation of your annoyance with me.

Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200.

The American Dream of achieving prosperity through ingenuity and hard work is still alive and well. However, when you combine this with someone who is functionally insane (or maybe just not the sharpest knife in the drawer-- it's sometimes hard to tell the difference), the results are often entertaining. And illegal.

The borderline-criminal act in question occurred back when I worked at a local college. One afternoon I went to the copier room to make use of the machine, but it was already occupied by my coworker, Brian. Whatever I had was not urgent, so I decided to just come back at a later time.

An hour or so went by, and I returned to the copier room, only to find Brian still there making copies. Nothing about our jobs required us to be tied to the copy machine for that long. If that was the case, our employer would make us hand over our shoelaces and all sharp objects at the start of each work day. So, obviously he was working on something personal. And massive. There was a good story behind this marathon usage of the copier. I HAD to know.

I managed to pry Brian off the copier and asked him what in the Sam Hill was he doing. He explained that he had devised a brilliant plan for making extra cash. He had a textbook for one of the classes that the college was offering that semester (I assumed he had taken the class in a previous semester). His plan was to make copies to sell to students that were taking the course. He was so excited about the profit margin of this little venture that he was even contemplating buying textbooks for additional classes and selling copies of them.

There were SO many things wrong with his plan that I sat silently for several seconds deciding what to tackle first. I chose to start small. I pointed out that while most businesses look the other way when their employees make the occasional personal photocopy, they tend to blow a gasket when an employee abuses company resources in order to subsidize his side business. And, in fact, if our company knew that he had just burned through over 80 sheets of paper and no telling how much toner, they would fire him on the spot. And then they would fire the spot.

Next, I introduced Brian to the term "copyright infringement." It was apparently a new concept for him that a book company (not to mention the bookstore and the authors) wouldn't want some Joe Blow from off the street to sell their product without permission. It was understandable that he did not know the exact term for his misdeed. (Actually, it's not understandable, but go with me on this.) However, he should have at least known that his plan wasn't strictly legal. I guess he was too busy counting the big piles of money he thought he was going to make.

Brian was a little disappointed that I had crushed his get-slightly-richer-quick plan. Still, he was grateful that I had stumbled upon him first and not someone with keys to the pink-slip drawer. I was happy to help. It was important to help Brian understand the legal implications of his actions. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to laugh at his attempt at entrepreneurship. Of course, it was mostly about the helping. The laughs were just extra.

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The Mysteries of Cellophane

The thing about being functionally insane is that crazy is rarely on the surface. Usually, insanity is buried deep under many layers of "socially acceptable behavior" and "work place decorum." But like a $1.29 goldfish after three months, crazy eventually rises to the top in one form or another.

It took almost a year of working a temp job before this particular woman's bloated carcass of crazy broke the surface. And I would like to stress that she was completely normal up to that point: normal conversations, normal behavior, and normal appearance. Normal, normal, normal.

"Tina" and I had developed a pretty good friendship over the months. We even got into the habit of trading office gossip. On this day, our conversation wandered onto (believe it or not) 'crazy coworker' stories. Having been with the company for several years, Tina had a wealth of stories. But I didn't hear a single one of them. Her actions spoke louder than her words.

As she talked to me, Tina reached into her desk drawer and removed a packet of vitamins sealed in a cellophane pouch about the size of an index card. She opened the packet and emptied the pills into her hand. Next, while she was yakking on about somebody else being crazy, she proceeded to fold that cellophane wrapper into tiny squares about eight times!

Now that's merely odd. What made it outhouse rat insane is that she then pulled out a rubber band, which she wrapped snugly around the tiny square of plastic. And finally, she tucked her little bundle into a pocket inside of her purse.

By this time, the whole conversation was a wash for me. My mind couldn't hold onto a thing Tina was saying because it was abuzz with questions, such as:

• What's so important about that cellophane?
• What does she do with the cellophane when she gets home?
• Is whatever she does with the cellophane so complicated that she can't take care of it here at work?
• Why the rubber band?
• Does she think the cellophane will make a break for it if she doesn't secure it tightly?
• Is this a hobby for her?
• If so, then what particular qualities does she look for in her collectible cellophane?

I didn't, however, ask Tina any of these questions. I couldn't. It would have meant acknowledging the crazy, which would have resulted in one of two possible outcomes. One, she would become embarrassed by the acknowledgement, and then things would become awkward between us from then on. Or two, she (thinking that her actions were board-certified sane) would invite me into her crazy cellophane imprisonment/hobby, which would make things super awkward between us. Either way: no fun for me.

So I did the only thing I could. I nodded and smiled for the next ten minutes. Then I said something nonsensical, like "I guess these papers aren't going to staple themselves." And then I got the heck away. Thankfully, Tina never did this in front of me again (although based on her near-automatic actions, this was clearly a habit for her). Maybe she wisely added another layer of "socially acceptable behaviors" to hide her crazy from me. Or maybe with that last piece of vitamin wrapper, her cellophane collection was finally complete.

I'd like the meal, hold the food.

Sometimes a person can have a lot on her mind. She can be juggling a mental list of errands that span from what she has to do that day, to the things she needs to do next week. Therefore, it is perfectly excusable if she accidentally does something that makes you not only question her sanity, but also wonder how she dresses herself in the morning. After all, she is normally an intelligent, quick-witted, smart, brilliant, clever and unassuming genius who hates to toot her own horn.

You do realize that this "she" is me, right?

Anyway, here are the details of my temporarily-stuck-on-stupid moment. I was going home after a long day of work and running errands. I had decided to stop by Wendy's drive-thru for a quick dinner, and then straight home. I still had to throw something in a bag because I was driving out of town at 5am the next morning. I was also working on a project for my upcoming family reunion, which involved several trips to Target and Walgreens, not to mention the countless man-hours I was putting in with all the cutting and pasting (I mean literally, with scissors and glue).

So all of this was going through my mind when I ordered and paid for my value meal, plus it was important to remember to get my debit card back with my receipt. The girl at the window handed me my card, receipt and pop. Great. I put everything away securely and pulled off. As luck would have it, there was a perfect opening in the rush hour traffic for me to jump in and speed off for home.

I'd driven about four blocks, still arranging in my head that evening's schedule of eating, packing and scrapbook-making, when I realized that I could not smell my food. As a matter of fact, I couldn't remember even receiving my food from the drive-thru lady. I then replayed the transaction in my mind: card, receipt, pop, pulled off... Dang it!

Do you know how difficult it is to make a three-point turn in rush hour traffic? Let me tell you, people in a hurry to get home do not want to be inconvenienced by some moron doing a traffic-clogging driving maneuver. Well, too damn bad! This moron left her paid-for food at the drive-thru, and she is going back to get it RIGHT NOW. Try not to burst a blood vessel during the 15 seconds it takes me to turn around.

The girl at the window was really sweet when I returned for my food. In other words, she managed not to laugh in my face when handing me my meal. But we all know she laughed afterwards. Well, as long as my stupidity gave her (and you) a moment's joy, then I guess I've done some good in the world. You're welcome.

Um, can I have my pen back?

I'm a sucker for writing implements: pens (roller ball, gel & felt tip), mechanical pencils, markers and I believe I mentioned my college obsession with paint pens. Due to this, one of my biggest pet peeves is pen borrowing. Mainly because while most people have mastered the art of borrowing a pen, few have yet to acquire the skill of returning it.

Here's a perfect example that made my blood boil: one afternoon, I was sitting in Panera Bread eating lunch, but mostly taking advantage of their free Wi-Fi. That day, Panera was accepting applications for staff positions. They had set aside the big table for people to fill out apps and another couple of tables for brief interviews. I happened to be sitting across from the big table.

Well, I and my Broccoli Cheddar soup were minding our own business when a girl in a seriously tight Baby Phat t-shirt and jeans ensemble (her lucky job-hunting outfit?) approached my table and asked to borrow my pen. My first instinct was to claim that I didn't have a pen on me. Unfortunately, it was sitting in plain sight on the table (Dang it!). I could have still said no, but I'm not comfortable being that blatant a douche bag. So, I begrudgingly said, "sure" and handed over my precious, precious pen.

The whole time she filled out her application, I stole glances her way, ready to snatch back my pen the moment she finished. I also wondered if she thought wearing a t-shirt that exposed her midriff would give her the competitive edge she needed to obtain a job making sandwiches. But then I shook it off because her apparent ignorance of proper job-interview attire was really none of my business.

Anyway, she finally completed her app, and I half expected her to take the pen with her to the interviewing table (because I get it that people sometimes totally forget the pen that's in their hands). But she didn't do that. She set the pen down and walked away.

C'mon, really? It didn't jog her memory that the fancy pen she just sat on the table belonged to someone? Not once did she think, "Hey, where did I get this pen from?" OK, maybe she was focused on her upcoming interview. Or maybe she was distracted by the loss of circulation in her legs due to her tourniquet-tight jeans. (At a job interview! I can't stress that enough!)

In any case, my pen sat naked and alone on the table, but not for long. To add insult to injury, another applicant immediately sat down and started using my pen like it was Panera's community pen.

Now, I didn't blame the guy that was using my pen since he had no idea of what just happened. And I guess that I could have held off retrieving it until after he had completed his form. But surely I was not going to run the risk of having my pen passed from person to person until someone walked out with it!

We had finally reached the level of douche bag that I was comfortable being. So, I walked up to the guy, politely but firmly reacquired my pen and, on the way back to my table, punched Ms. Hot Thang in the back of her head 3 or 4 times during her interview. Then I calmly went back to my soup because you don't want those bread bowls to get too soggy.

Alright, I might have made up that head-punching part. It's not like she didn't deserve it, though.

Rumors of his death have been greatly exaggerated.

How many times have you watched a TV show and said, "That would NEVER happen in real life!"? I'm talking about shows where circumstances perfectly align to create the most ridiculous scenarios. Here's an example: the characters of a show mistakenly believe that another character has died, and all attempts to find the truth just lead to more and more confusion.

So many incredible details would have to fall into place for this to happen that this couldn't possibly occur in reality. The writers of this program should really reduce their daily crack intake.

But before we organize that intervention, I should mention that the above example was not taken from a hilariously macabre episode of Three's Company. This really happened to my nephew Steven.

Last Thursday, Steve and I were sitting around having a conversation, when his cell phone kept ringing. First it was his Dad, then one of his sisters. He nonchalantly mentioned that many of his siblings and cousins were trying to reach him because... wait for it... they heard he was dead.

To my credit, I managed to not swallow my tongue in shock and used it to ask what the hell he meant by that. He explained that an old friend of my Dad, "Mrs. Jones," heard that Steve had died in his sleep. In a coincidence that could only happen on TV, Mrs. Jones just happens to live on the same block as Steve's paternal grandmother. So, she contacted his grandmother to extend her condolences and get more details.

Understandably, Steve's grandma was very upset by this news, especially since it was coming from a neighbor and not a family member. I can only guess that she got on the phone and called everyone she knew to find if this was true. She couldn't call either me or my sister (Steve's Mom)-- who could have easily dispelled this rumor-- because we had changed our phone numbers a while back and never got around to giving it to her (our bad).

The family that Steve's grandma did get a hold of tried calling Steve on his cell, correctly assuming that a living Steven would answer his phone. But like a perfectly timed plot twist, Steve by this point was on the job, where he has to keep his cell off, and was thus unreachable.

Eventually, Steven gets off work, answers his 30 trillion voicemails and everything ends with a nice freeze-framed sitcom chuckle.

Except that it doesn't. Not yet. Mrs. Jones apparently was very thorough. I stated earlier that she was a friend of my father. Well, they became friends through our old church. So, when Mrs. Jones tried to find out more about Steve's demise, she didn't stop at family. She also called several old church members, some of whom are members of my current church.

By this past Sunday, the rumor had spread throughout my church. If I had gone to services that morning, I could have nipped it in the bud. But of course, my life is now a sitcom, and I skipped church that day. As a result, my sister and I found ourselves hosting a surprise afternoon visit by two well-meaning church members, who wanted to make sure we were "holding up in this time of loss." It would have been awkward if it wasn't so hilarious.

Well, I guess this finally ends this week's TV episode, titled "Steve's Cashed It In... Or Not." Let's hope it's not a two-parter.

Sexual Chocolate Studly Man-Steak

Told Kerry that I mentioned him in my last blog entry. He insisted that this is how I should describe him from now on. Above is (more or less) my mental image of this.

Where's my purse?!

So, I'm sitting at Duffy's Tavern with my nephew Kerry at his birthday brunch last Sunday. I'm enjoying all the crab legs and mimosas I can handle, when a couple of girls ask to squeeze past us in order to get to a table. Fine, fine, no problem. It's kind of what you expect at a downtown Chicago bar-- packed in elbow to elbow.

But wait! One chick has a suitcase with her! Not some cute carry-on. It's a BIG ASS piece of luggage! Big enough to fit a 5-year-old inside (although I'm pretty sure the police frown on that type of behavior).

Has she ever been inside a Chicago bar? Have any of her friends? Someone should have explained to the girl that downtown bars have very little floor space and no one wants to trip over her crap, so she needed to leave her metric ton of worldly possessions somewhere else or not come at all.

So, now I need to get my purse off the back of my chair because heaven forbid she knock my new Coach purse to the floor! When I reach back for it, my purse is not there. Crap, it's already on the floor, then. Wait, no! I don't see my purse anywhere!

Oh no! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Why did I leave my purse on the back of my chair, where I couldn't keep an eye on it?

What am I going to do now?

Sigh. OK. Let's backtrack. When did I see it last? That's right. I was digging through it just a few minutes ago, looking for an embarrassing childhood photo of Kerry to share with him and his friends on this special day (I am so his favorite aunt). Did I get the photo out yet? No, I was interrupted by some girl with her super-sized Samsonite trying to get past me.

Wait a minute...

My purse is in my left hand. I've been spinning around in a panic, shouting "Where's my purse?!" And it's been in my hand the whole time!

Luckily, since the music is so loud, the only people who have heard me act like an idiot are my BFF Regina and Kerry, who will probably rag on me about this for quite a while. That's fine. I still have that photo.

She must get lost. A lot.

When you temp for a living, you get to meet a lot of interesting people. And by "interesting," I mean to say "functionally insane." I guess you can say that on some level everyone is sanity-challenged, including me (did I mention that I temp for a living?). But it's my blog, so I've decided that I am the sane person in the room. And the voices in my head agree with me, so there!

Anyway, this brush with the bizarre occurred during my first week on a temp job. "Abby" was showing me the ropes. As she trained me on what I was to do, Abby handled a multi-line phone and juggled several responsibilities at the same time without breaking a sweat. All in all, she was a very competent person. So there's NO WAY someone like that would open up a can of CRAZY, right?

Well, during a slow moment in the day, Abby complimented me on my manicure. I thanked her and said that if she was interested, I had it done at the nail shop across the street, just north of this building. I tried to point in the direction of north, but the area where we were sitting did not have any windows, and being new to the job, I didn't have my bearings. Abby, surprisingly, did not know either; however, she mentioned that she had a compass in her desk that could help us.

A compass? Really? This wasn't a temp job at the Timberland Outlet Store. This was a paper pushing job at your standard office building. There was no conceivable reason why anyone would need a compass. But no worries: I'm sure there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for her having a compass. Maybe it was a keychain. Or maybe it was part of some novelty paperweight. Or heck, maybe she was an avid hiker and liked to keep her compass/GPS locator with her at all times because she never knew when the urge to go hiking would overcome her and she liked to be prepared. Whatever.

So, imagine my shock when she pulled a mouse pad out of one of her desk drawers. A MOUSE PAD. One of those little flat pieces of foam and cloth that you place under your computer's mouse to make it glide easier. A. MOUSE. PAD.

It was one of the company's promotional mouse pads-- it was circular and had a pattern of a compass printed on it. It represented the company's slogan which was something like, "using this company's products is going in the right direction." But it couldn't have been more not a compass. And yet I sat in stunned silence while this very accomplished woman ROTATED THAT MOUSE PAD clock-wise and counter clock-wise, trying to "adjust" it so that it faced north. After several long seconds, Abby finally gave up and said to me, "I guess this won't help."

No, I guess not.

[Note: I am completely joking when I say "the voices in my head." I once made that joke with a casual acquaintance, and she looked at me funny for the rest of the evening. Please don't assume that it is a cry for help. I let my drinking do that for me. KIDDING!]

Why, hello sweetie!

Hello and welcome to my brand-spanking-new blog. I have decided to (finally) create my own blog for two reasons. First, I have a need to write things down. Have you ever seen a movie or TV show where some teenage girl writes wistfully into her diary? Well, I was that girl. For a long time. I was also that girl with the journal in college. Oh, you know the girl I'm talking about. Her journal was tragically COOL-- it had entries in at least three different colored inks that included not only her ingenious scribblings, but also personal sketches and taped-in excerpts of her favorite articles and pictures that SIGNIFY her life (think: the lead characters' journals in the 1997 movie The Saint, only with more paint pen designs and holographic stickers).

My second reason for this blog is that somewhere along the line, I decided that I was funny. You can blame my friends and family for encouraging this. They've always laughed in all the right places during my anecdotes-- leading me to believe that I am a natural comedienne. Or at least wildly amusing. If they did this based on some misguided sense of affection, then every single friend/family member is to be held fully responsible for the (allegedly) abundant lack of humor found in this blog. [List of transgressors available upon re... uh, will sue if I name them.] So, if you feel compelled to state in my Comments Section how unfunny I am, then I say you are free to express that opinion. Just remember that I am just as free to ignore it.

Alright now. Here is what you should expect from a blog called A Mundane Life... with Jokes: mundane stuff (SURPRISE!!). Okay, okay. What I mean is that I intend to post anecdotes of the funny, strange and baffling things that happen to me in my regular, ordinary, plain-brown-paper-bag of a life. I will also describe in detail the many pet peeves that I have acquired over my 39 years. I should also admit that while most of my posts will be about current events, I will occasionally dip into my past for funny stuff. So, to the people in my life who may have heard those stories exactly one zillion times: tough.

Smooches,

Diana