Tag Archives: stupid

She spreads for bread

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Sure, it’s been a dirt dog of a week, but did I mention what a good sandwich I had? I had the good sandwich on Wednesday, Thursday, and again today. I tried to make Mr. H have a sandwich with me for dinner last night, so I could get in two good sandwiches in one day, but he didn’t go for it. He looked at me as if I were insane when I described the sandwich. “It doesn’t sound great to me, but I can tell YOU like it.” What’s not to like about 7-grain bread with flax, shmeared lovingly with mayonaise, topped with alfalfa sprouts*, an entire tomato, and all the different end pieces of cheese left in the fridge?

I saw a literal sign of the apocalypse yesterday. Forget invading Iran. Forget Mission Impossible: III. A strip mall outboard motor business with a pointless letter board saw fit to proclaim “I take my wife everywhere, but she keep’s [sic] finding her way back.” Keep’s. Yes, there was an actual plastic apostrophe used. I backed up to be sure. That officially makes it not a typo, which seems to be the excuse of most idiots and people caught making that mistake on the internet. No, the sign wrangler stood at the base of the pole, inhaled traffic fumes deeply, and opted to use one of those long handled tools to carefully insert that apostrophe into that verb. The surgical precision required to be so wrong is delightful.

*A potential listeria risk, according to books like OMG Your Baby Will Totally Die, but who’s counting! I eat sushi too**. Apostrophes are pretty risky, but you don’t hear enough about those, unless you live with me.

**It’s fucking flash frozen, ask your chef. I’d worry more about mercury exposure than foodborne illness unless you are eating it out of a grocery store dumpster.

Faith, hope, charity, murder

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I have a stupid. Ostensibly, I trained this stupid to do something marginally complicated a few weeks ago. The stupid was hired by my client due to professing knowledge in the technology selected for Project X. At the training hand-off, stupid again reiterated vast expertise. I said “Oh, that’s wonderful. Would you like to do the navigating in the tool while I run through the presentation?” I was thinking “Score, this is going to go so much faster.” Stupid declined, clearly not wanting to show off.

I went through the training exercise, and stupid frequently interjected “OH, that’s not how it used to be when I last used this FIVE YEARS AGO” or “THIS looks DIFFERENT!” Stupid sometimes asked stupid questions. I think my favorite was “Why does the company that sells this technology use proprietary markup?”

At the end of the session, I handed over a quick help document I’d written to cover troubleshooting, the manual to the technology, and all the support numbers for the company that makes the technology. I told stupid that the quickest answers would always be found in the documentation, and I was not available for continuing support per the contract the client had selected.

So far, stupid has called Actual Support several times, each time providing incorrect descriptions of the problem stupid created. Support tells stupid something that would work for what stupid actually described. The solution then doesn’t work, since stupid was wrong in the first place. Stupid then calls me. I screen stupid’s calls. So stupid pecks out an email, usually including a hilarious take on what the problem might be. These have ranged from “Maybe I need to clear my cache” to “Do you think the time change had anything to do with X not working?”

The answer to stupid’s problem is invariably the first thing I wrote in the quick help document, IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS RIGHT AT THE TOP.

I have another pleading email sitting in front of me right now. Instead of cutting and pasting the section IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS yet again, I think I am going to cc stupid’s boss and tell her that stupid must have broken the flux capacitor. There is nothing to be done in the case of a busted flux capacitor. They’re going to have to close up shop and go home. Sucks huh.

Step away from the internet

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“Any impute would be great.”

It would, wouldn’t it?

The condo management reminds us “owner’s” not to have any “boistarous” parties. Also, they approved that I live with a cat. The cat has lived in the building for almost three months now, as an illegal immigrant. To get approved, we initially had to submit a photo of the cat “clearly showing facial area,” a copy of her shot records, and a list of her turn ons and turn offs. Then a month or two later, they decided they would also like a copy of our personal property insurance policy. Never ye mind that this only covers OUR SHIT. The master policy for the building covers everything else. But it’s OK, and now I have permission to harbor a cat, and the cat has permission to mess up our shit as much as she sees fit.

I told her she was approved. She still doesn’t care to come out from behind the washing machine, because the upholsterer was here for about thirty seconds to attend to a blight upon the ottoman. This is traumatic for a cat, apparently. I think she’s stuck back there. It was traumatic for me in that he also told me the story of the Great Fire that occurred on this property some years back. Lo, the townspeople came and watched. I knew all about this because Mr. H was townspeople who watched. Maybe Mr. H stood somewhere near the upholsterer. Barrrrring. Move along.

Now someone outside is yelling “YEAH BABY,” Austin-Powers-style. I am totally liveblogging. I hate you too.

The “financial consultant” is dead to me

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Or he will be, if I ever see him again. He just called and tried to weasel himself a visit to stop by and take life insurance applications. I asked if he could give us a quote, and who the company would be, and he wouldn’t tell me. I said that I couldn’t make an appointment without knowing these things, and he asked why. I said “We aren’t sure we want to use your services at all.” Suddenly, he had quotes for me. “Was that so hard,” I asked?

When he asked to speak to my husband instead, the top of my head came off. My brain rocketed out of my skull, like the crust of Mount Vesuvius. I woke up on the kitchen floor, drooling, brains impastoed on the front of the stainless appliances. I clawed desperately for the phone to call 911, but he was still on the other end, trying to distract me by changing the subject to whether I enjoy nice weather. I heard a coffee drink order being screeched in the background. That can only mean that this fucker is one of those fuckers who works out of a Starbucks! Fucker.

I slammed down the phone and scooped up my brains as best I could. Then I went online and found the same policy he was trying to sell me for less. Was that so hard?

Jebus

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Anthropological findings based on the scrawling on the used boxes the moving company dropped off for us to fill:

* People with mudrooms also name their children Aidan and Ava

* People named Pete have enough “nic-nacs” to fill a large box

* People with children named Aidan and Ava are also heavy drinkers, because a few of those boxes were totally soaked in wine at some point

* People who get these boxes after us will know that we own a lot of “crap” and more “crap”

* I don’t believe in the expectations that labels enforce

* I prefer surprises

* I don’t own a Sharpie that works

And in other news, I just noticed that the street up by the Cracker Barrel is called “Internantional Way,” not “International Way,” as I had previously assumed.

Nancy Drew and the case of why I am so damn stupid

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I woke up this morning, went about my breakfast and second breakfast routine, and yet I felt too ill to properly enjoy elevensies. I was going to blame the parasite, and I stormed into the kitchen to get the melon baller to have it out once and for all.

But then I noticed the half-filled French press on the counter. That could only mean that Mr H did not make coffee in the coffee maker this morning. Yet I drank coffee from the coffee maker, and I wondered why it was cold. I just thought he must have made it earlier than usual. I’m not one to complain, so I just microwaved what was in the pot and added honey and soy creamer. The parasite is laughing at me now, saying “I told you so!” Except it most certainly did not tell me. It sat idly by, chortling, while I sipped day old coffee. Misery! I am not going to swallow Thanksgiving dinner. I am going to chew n’ spit. That’ll teach it. “Mmmm, isn’t this greenbean casserole delicious? Oh, you’ll never know. That’s too bad.”

Indianpeopleloveus.com

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This morning Mr. H and I attended an Indian birthday party. We made up fifty percent of the white people in attendance. People asked us “Is this your first Indian event?” No, we’ve got a few Hindu weddings and birthday parties under our belts, and no, they aren’t any louder than Mr. H’s family on a slow day.

The Other White People kept following us around, and it was really embarassing. Those damn honkies kept asking what the food was.

“What’s this garbanzo bean thing?”
“It’s chana masala,” I said.
“What is this spice? It’s soooo spicy. Is it curry?”
“No, it’s chili powder and garam masala.”
An Indian bystander: “Ooh, she knows what it is!”  Food of many lands, I salute you. You might as well be octopus eyes, chana masala. I’ll eat the hell out of you anyway. Me eat everything. The worst food I ever had in my life came from the Cheesecake Factory. It was worse than that time I accidentally ate the moldy yogurt.

Internet, I am just wasting time waiting for the architect. Then we are off to the high seas! We will probably only eat White People Food for the rest of the weekend. Boring.

Area idiots meet, spontaneously form condo association

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Dear, sweet, internets. Last night I met many of the people with whom I will share a haunted mill starting in October. At last I understand how the federal government could have abandoned all those people in the Gulf states. People are just plain stupid! They walk among us, holding down jobs and passing driver’s license tests and going to the grocery store, where they will most certainly crash the express lane with a full cart. Later they will back their SUV into you in the parking lot.

They say things like “You’ll have to check with the sales team on that one,” or “I don’t know what to do with these truckloads of bottled water.” And people say things like “I did, and they told me the opposite of what you just told me” or “How about you park them and hand out the water.” And then they say things like “My hands are tied, you’re really going to have to check with the sales team/Condoleeza Rice.” They also say “The documents have changed since you last saw them when you signed your purchase and sale agreements months ago, but you don’t get to see them until your closing day, but at that time it won’t matter because they will already be recorded with the state.” And they want us to confirm John Roberts without a fight.

So some people stay behind to eat frosted brownies and look at the discounted window treatments being pimped, and others form an angry mob and stand outside, muttering “Oh God, what have we done? Can you believe these people?” But secretly we, the angry people, want discount window treatments too. Then we hate ourselves so much that we go have mojitos. And we all drive our own cars to get those mojitos. And we hate ourselves more, so we come home and lie on the floor. We feel better when we wake up the next day, but not much.

If you knew anything about physics

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I am so mad, internets. I am mad at people in our goverment for claiming our current situation was not forseeable. Chertoff, you GOON. What, natural disasters that show up on radar need to wear bells around their necks? I am mad at the people who say “this shouldn’t happen here, we aren’t a third world country.” This includes you, Andrew Sullivan. They are right that the hurricane aftermath shouldn’t have escalated the way it did, but since when is it OK for widespread deprivation and turmoil to happen anywhere? The things going on in the Sudan are just fine, because hey, third world country. Those folks knew what they were in for when they elected to exist in a third world country. Of all the lines of justification for why we should not be in this situation, “we’re not a third world nation” is shameful.

I am mad that I don’t have more money to give right now. I am mad at the people who say anyone who didn’t evacuate does not deserve help. I am mad at the people who are yapping about not contributing to relief efforts because they are soooo offended by what Kanye West said. I am mad that people don’t see all the opportunities to help to alleviate poverty in their own communities, and that it takes something this large and terrible to make people even consider helping another living soul. Hey, instead of burning the gas to drive your SUV from New England to New Orleans all by yourself, why not volunteer for the Red Cross here? They can send trained personnel to the gulf, and you can handle the less glamorous things like people getting displaced by fires. Howzabout that.

Yesterday, Mr. H and I drove down to the South Shore to participate in a tango contest. We did our best, but we were trounced by a one-year-old baby with a penciled-on moustache. We demanded a voting recount, but that went over about as well as it did in Ohio. What, we hate America. Of course we’re going to ask. It’s the supreme fucking court, stupid.

Anyhoo, I noticed a wind turbine along the highway, and I wondered why our highways don’t have these things all along them. After all, it’s not like they’re going to ruin the view, and wildlife has already been neatly thwarted. So I started looking into this option, envisioning a future as a wind power magnate, clear of conscience yet still filthy stinking rich. I found this blurb about just such an idea, and then the comments made me mad. Is there anything that doesn’t make me mad today? People arguing about physics = gold. Oh, thermodynamics. Where were you when I needed you? You could have helped me win the tango contest and stopped the cat from throwing up after eating all the cilantro.