Brevity is: Spamily
It’s not the gift but the thought that counts. Or so I’ve been told. And the thought behind this gift spoke volumes, the thoughtfulness of a $50 gift card to Olive Garden from a boss in lieu of a legitimate Christmas bonus.
Not that I’m known for having a fondness for Olive Garden. I haven’t been to one in over 10 years. Still, a gift card to dinner is marginally better than last year’s bonus, a gift card to Walmart which was used to get kitty litter. Joy.
Mi Casa Su Causality
Selected pairing for this post: Enjoy!
http://explosm.net/comics/3355/
Hey, thanks for having me over. I hope you don’t mind, but you did say, “Make yourself at home.”
So I:
- Performed maximum quaffage on every partial bottle of whiskey.
- Deleted all West Wing from your DVR and recorded a full season of Honey Boo Boo.
- Adjusted the hot water heater to maximum.
- Rubbed every towel on my butt rather than use toilet paper.
- Let your cat outside.
- Used your wi-fi to download the entire Metallica library with BitTorrents.
- Dug your coffee can of cash out of the backyard.
- Unlocked the windows and the side door on the garage.
- Licked your ketchup bottle clean.
- Went “two turntables and a microphone” on your collection of LPs.
- Pushed over your hoarding piles in the garage and took a nap.
- Spent your remaining iTunes balance on Demi Lovato.
- Cleaned my genitals with your toothbrush.
- Used your mom’s ashes to refill the litter box.
Don’t be angry. All of these are considered normal back home.
How To Get Away With Turder
At family gatherings we sort of take turns doing the cooking. In a nutshell, this basically means my wife does most of everything. When it comes to the kitchen she’s all about the get ‘er done.
I’m already thinking ahead to next Christmas and that I’ll likely make a dish. Perhaps something that I can’t pronounce like bolognese. Meat is definitely a requirement.
What happens when you try to come up with a menu to appease seven human beings, each with differing dietary restrictions, penchants, picadillos, likes, dislikes, preferences, predilections, disinclinations, propensities, and predispositions?
Answer: Exponential permutations.
Good news. It looks like we’ll only need 128 different dishes to satisfy everyone.
Enter The Plankton
If I’m lucky!
Spoiler alert: I’m not exactly the world’s greatest conversationalist.
For the curious, the opening line above is an example of my patented Start-By-Telling-Them-How-You-Suck approach to writing. You can buy a pamphlet describing the technique – and much, much more – for only three easy payments of $19.99. -Ed.
As the holidays cascade down upon us like a perfect storm, I’m already anticipating how I’ll surf that wave and/or navigate the complex maze-like quagmire of quicksand in quixotic fashion.
The holidays means lots of group settings of social interactions. Historically I do not fare well in these and opt instead to spend my time studying in minute detail the nearest potted plant. I’m bringing my magnifying glass just in case.
Since I remain ever hopeful, however, I’ve been role-playing various stratagems in my mind that might increase my odds of getting the occasional word in edgewise. Or I could give up in advance and just play the lotto.
A normal conversation consists of the following:
Person A: Me.
Person B: No, me!
Person C: Bloody hell to both of you. Me, me, me!
Person D: Did I ever tell you about me?
Person E: Did you say something?
Person F: … Apple’s tri-tone sound …
Person A: Ahem. You weren’t listening. I say again …
Every once in a while as the conversation morphs dynamically through these shifting realities, I may actually have something interesting to add. I hate it when that happens.
Person A: Yeah, there are a lot of elephants in Thailand
…. 20 minutes and 420 topics later I finally awkwardly interrupt and take my dream shot …
Me: An elephant sat on my head once.
Everyone: What the fuck are you talking about?!
Yeah. About that potted plant.I’ve heard that one thing that helps make you seem interesting is to ask questions about the other person. Especially if you can appear thoughtful and fake sincerity in the process. If successful, your only job is to tlean back, stay silent, let their mouth do all of the work, and celebrate a job well done.
I’m looking forward to trying this out. To that end I have prepared some questions in advance.
My only worry is that the conversation will run through a googolplex of permutations before I get my first chance to speak. That would be bad and could go down like this:
Person A: So, can you tell us what’s new with your son?
Me: Eeeeiiiiii!
… swift kick to the nards …
Me: I was gonna ask that question!!
Person B: Someone dial up the whambulance!
Lastly, sometimes the floor is occasionally dished my way. If and when that happens I should be ready. Usually this is a provactive attempt to surprise me so much as to induce heart attack. Assuming I survive long enough, I usually succumb to the intense pressure. The stress of filling that space is simply too high. I usually stammer out something like, “Goo goo gah gah.” Then everyone shrugs, wonders why the hell they bothered to give me a chance, and resumes talking about the fractal shapes of their bunions.
Also, something about the spirit of the season and it’s better give than receive but I can’t remember any of that crap right now. I’ve been much too busy with the pre-conversation planning.
I just hope I’m not over-thinking it. Perhaps I should limit my dreams to the Ribbon of Participation.
The Surreal Housewives of #PDX
Family is enemies you don’t get to choose.
–Tom B. Taker
Once again that special time of year is nigh upon us. The holidays. Where we gather with family and friends around fire and hearth to poke at each other’s eyeballs with forks.
Run. I mean that in a T-Rex-is-gaining-on-us-in-the-Jeep sort of way.
From time to time my wife will venture out to work for the Portland elite to line her pocketses with a few handfuls of coppers. She hangs out her shingle as consultant and efficiency expert. That means, of course, employers will spend their entire day trying to trick her into changing diapers, walking the dog and running to Starbucks for another Cornucopia of Venti.
The following is a true story. No embellishment.
It was Thanksgiving. The husband’s parents arrived for a two-week stay. The day after Thanksgiving the wife took off, on her own, to vacation separately in Palm Springs until the in-laws had safely left town.
Why didn’t I think of that?! Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid. Me so stupid! Me bad.
With the in-laws left home alone, the husband locked himself away in the office. The nanny watched their children. And the mother-in-law proceeded to grill household staff. “What the hell does she do around here, anyway?”
God bless us, every one.
Smoking Hot Freedoms
This is one of those topics on which I harp on from time to time. And by “harp” I pretty much mean the instrument my family members must be playing up in Heaven. Right after they accidentally burned down the family tree with a carelessly discarded lit cigarette.
Apparently I’m the proverbial apple that fell far from the tree. Or, in Taker family terms, I’m a mutant. Ironically, at least in this context, I’m a dying breed. You see, I don’t smoke and I never have.
I grew up in the “typical” American family. Our core family unit consisted of mom, dad, a sister, myself and 2.3 cats. Assuming the smoking rate back then, the math is already amazing. For simplicity’s sake we’ll say the odds of an adult smoking were one-in-three back when I was a youngling. Based on that, the odds of me being the only non-smoker in a family of four was about 1 in 27.
But wait, the fun doesn’t stop there. My sister had some children. 4 out of 4 of them are smokers. I had a son. He’s a smoker. My wife had a son. He’s a smoker. My son just announced his pending nuptials on Facebook. Nearby was a picture of the lucky couple. Both were proudly holding cigarettes.
Continue reading →
The Family Owned Rest-O-Taunt
The wrong kind of hunger.
Kids in restaurants: What more can possibly be added to the conversation on this grisly topic? What are the chances of any new pithy insights, useful anecdotes or even a side serving of a modicum of wit? Hell if I know, but I’m going to give it my best shot.
Every once a while a restaurant will make the national news because they do something daring like “banning” children under the age of six. That’s old news by now, even though the practice didn’t exactly become the norm.
So, unfortunately, we’re all desensitized to fine dine experiences that include the boorish behavior of other people’s kids. I dare say, bad form. Especially on top of all the other usual nonsense like cell phones, loud mouths, drunks and cigarette smoke.
But there’s a particular variant of this that was recently brought to my attention by the kindly staff at a local eatery the other night: When the kids aren’t just fellow guests but are owned, operated, sponsored and provided by the restaurant itself.
Duh, duh, duh!!!
I guess we could think of them as the amuse-bouche of upgrade comps. Now that’s a hot ticket!
Shouts from the Abyss 
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