For all I know this may just be old. At least as old as Mid-January. But I missed it. And when I need to get a good belly-laugh – this does it.

What’s more damaging: a couple of asshats who don’t pay you, or someone attacking your reputation?

Today I had two asshats who didn’t pay me.  One of them was just being a typical asshat, with the same old boring excuses for being a deadbeat.  The other came up with an elaborate story about how they installed incompatible software four days after I was in the system, but because it broke the other software and they didn’t bother to notify me that it was broken, and there was nothing in the logs about it being broken, that I owed them a two hour fix for free with no explanation of the situation before I went into fixing it other than, “It’s broke.”

No, see, that stuff doesn’t bother me… I’m used to it, as pissed as it makes me.

It was a third one that really stuck in my craw because it’s unfathomable:

“He ran across your site and you had some stuff on there that made it sound like you were racist… said he wouldn’t give you a penny for a day’s work.”

WTF? Exqueeze me?

No, seriously, that’s what kept me so worked up when I lived in Kentucky those three months… I couldn’t go five minutes without some asshat making up total horse pucky, and attempting to circumvent every single good thing I tried to do.  Everything became a damn conspiracy, and I was behind every bit of it!
So I pressed about HTF he could come up with I’m sounding “like a racist” …

“Well damn I voted wrong” … like it is some sexual reference to Kenyan women

O.  M.  F.  G.

So somebody claims I’m a racist, goes the extra mile to say they wouldn’t give me “a penny for a day’s work” because they’re too ignorant to know a couple of premium, dark coffee beans, instead turning it into a relationship that even an overly-sensitive, extremely jealous girlfriend — or ex-girlfriend, wife, stalker, nutjob next door — couldn’t twist it into if she tried?

Wow.

Let’s just say, just to even attempt to make any logic out of such a ridiculous assertion, that even if it had been a “sexual reference to Kenyan women,” how the Hell could that possibly make me a racist?

Unless he’s totally against racial mixing… thus making him…

A white trash cracker!

Oh, and there’s a meal I detest: a venison round steak (medium well), canned corn and canned green beans.

Apparently, that makes me a racist, too.

[ he says, as he laughs his way to the kitchen for seconds of injera, gored-gored and quince ]

     It’s about that time.  Halloween… and what seems to be the family Halloween movie classic these days?

     Ghostbusters.

     Sure, some people are sick of it, but c’mon… When’s the last time you watched it on DVD?

     In what may be Bill Murray’s most sarcastic role ever, Dr. Peter Venkman goes down as a classic character in movie history.  His pointed retorts, grandiose embellishments and perfect comedic timing truly made this one of the best comedies of the 80’s. 
     There is no pretense with this movie.  It is what is.  Fortunately, the Murray/Aykroyd/Ramis trio played off of each other — not to mention everyone else — perfectly, delivering some truly classic lines and insults.

     “I make it a rule: never get involved with possessed people… ahh, actually, it’s more of a guideline than a rule…”

     “No, I think you’ve got enough people in there already.”

     “No, we’re exterminators. Someone saw a cockroach up on twelve.”

     “Listen! You smell something?”

     “We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!”

     And lastly, my personal favorite…

     “Everything was fine until dickless here…”
     “They caused an explosion!”
     “…came and shut down the power grid.”
     “Is this true, Venkman?”
     “Yes, sir, it’s true.  This man has no dick.”

     Now, the TV version of Ghostbusters?  Sure, it sucks… But I’d still rather watch it than that sullen, little, bald malcontent in the orange sweater who can’t kick a football every friggin’ year…

    Hey, sue me… Just because it’s blasphemous doesn’t mean it’s not funny…

     Everyone knows everything everyone else does small towns, although they live quite a distance apart.  One day, in my best redneck accent (I do voices quite well, and though it’s dead-on, you’ll rarely meet anyone who sounds as inbred as I do when I do it), I quipped, “By God, you could fart at one end o’ th’ county and by the time ya git to th’ other end, ever’body knows what it smelt like!”
     They died laughing, although they didn’t like that I said “fart.”

     Good thing they don’t hear some of the other words I say on a regular basis…

     One of the things I’ve always known is that there are many factions in small towns.  There are people who it’s okay to talk to, and there are people who it’s not.  That’s kind can get tricky, because quite honestly, I talk to everybody and don’t care about that kind of stuff.  Generally, people don’t bother to get upset with me about it, because I’m a “nice guy.”
     One of the unique things, tho, is the constant use of the archaic word “queer” to describe these people you’re not supposed to talk to or “watch out” for. Although, it has nothing to do with someone’s sexual preference, and is pronounced quite differently…  
     One day, I asked, “Quare?  How ya spell ‘at?  Like ‘square’ without the ‘s’?”
     This resulted in the age-old, universal, one-fingered gesture in my general direction.
     To which I replied, “Well, ain’t that mighty Christian of ya?!”

     Also good for a laugh.

     A couple of weeks ago, after hearing about how everyone in town was “queer,” someone asked me, “So, Mark, how ya like it here?”
     I said, “I dunno.  They’s too many quares.”
     “What?” they asked, shocked.
     “Yeah, by God, ever’body I talk to, they tell me, he’s quare, she’s quare, and by God, they even told me you was, too!”
     The blank look was priceless.

     Give it a minute, give it a minute… Yep, they died laughing.  😉

     Another incident happened when an elderly gentleman came up and said, “Oh, man, it’s a beautiful day!  I’m gonna home and work in my garden!  Do you have a garden, Mark?”
     “No, sir,” I replied.  Keeping a straight face, I added, “My girl won’t let me play with hoes.”
     One person who overheard the conversation cupped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing.  It took him a minute to catch on.

     Now every time I see him, he laughs, and tells me, “Stay away from them hoes!”

     Another day, I was answering questions about some software when I leaned forward and hit my funny bone on the edge of the desk.  My uncontrollable reaction was to blurt out, “Motherf…” at which point, I caught myself and stopped the profanity midstream.
     She ignored it, and continued her explanation of the software issue without skipping a beat.
     I gave her the answer and showed her an alternative method to do what she was asking.
     She responded to the answer, and added, “And, by the way, I know that must have hurt.  But next time, just go ahead and finish the word because we all knew what you were thinking, anyway.”

     Laughter is always good medicine.

     And being just slightly off-color does tend to relax even the most uptight people.

     Older people, especially, seem to enjoy it even more…

It’s Monday. In most cases, that would be enough. Not today. Actually my head started to spin around last night thanks to my wonderful, caring EX-husband. But, that’s another story all-together now isn’t it?

No, today (after last night), I decided to:

• Get up early – check
• Drink some coffee – check
• Have a nice long shower – check
• Do my do – check (thank God for Aussie Freeze) – check
• Actually put on some war paint – check

…and be somebody and have a great day…

Yah, right.

I managed to amp up on caffeine, have a shower and look like somebody today. Most days, I go to the office looking scary because who the ever comes in our office? Not a damn soul but the UPS guy and he’s used to seeing me look like something my cat just yacked up.

All is going well, I main-lining my Juan Valdez coffee, I get dressed and look pretty damn good for a Monday, drop my purse and coffee cup on the end table so I can run up to the kitchen and grab my lunch. I get back downstairs, I stick my lunch in my purse, grab my coffee and out the door I go. So far, so good, eh?

Well, not so much because as I hear that click that signifies the door is indeed shut and LOCKED, I realize my damn keys are in the house… Figures, in the past this wouldn’t of been an issue at all since I new all the locksmiths in Osborne Park where I used to live…

“Damn!” I said out loud to myself and the trees. “No biggie. I’ll just call OG and she can pop over and get me.”

It was already 8:30 and since 8:30 is merely a suggested time to get to work, I knew I wouldn’t be able to reach OG for at least another few minutes.

“Good grief. Here they fucking come.” I muttered to myself standing in the middle of the driveway.

THEY are my nosy neighbor and her moppy looking muts. I can’t stand her or them. She’s the one neighbor that everybody has. She knows everything about everybody in the neighborhood well, exepting us, as we avoid her like the plague.

I saw them coming at me, barking like there’s no tomorrow. I looked at the one taking a shit in the neighbor across the street’s yard and looked up to see NOSY in her front yard, yelling “No jump! No jump!” Whatever.
Those dogs don’t understand plain English because they still run and jump all over anybody that has the balls to walk anywhere on our road when she has them out.

I looked her dead in the eye and gave her my “you’re a skank” glare her before I made a snap decision to take off and walk to work.

Off I went, thinking I’d make it a little ways, be away from psycho neighbor and her mutts, I’d get hold of OG in a few minutes and she’d come get me. I try her again.

“Hey. Come get me. I’m a dork, I locked all the keys in the house…”

“Dude,” she said in a solemn tone, “You just take this like a man. But you’re F-U-C-K-E-D.”

I’m automatically assuming some more fresh cooked drama is coming my way.

“I rode my bike to work today.” She concludes. Excellent, no drama, but it appears I’m walking the 6 miles to work today in these friggin shoes…

They are Gloria Vanderbilt and they were expensive. These are the most comfy slides I own. However, I don’t think Gloria had me walking to work in them., cuz after the first mile and a half, my dang dogs were barkin.

I made many personal observations on my trek this morning.

1. I shouldn’t wear silky, thin pants in fall. It’s fucking cold and I might get locked out of the house.
2. I really, really don’t like my neighbor. Her dogs shit in everybody’s yard but their own (trained to do so by their proud owner I assume).
3. Random people who walk along the river in Oak Ridge are super friendly. I suppose I exchanged 10 smiles and at least that many “hello” and “Good mornings”.
4. Our ex’s are never going to go away. They are part of our pasts and we just have to learn to deal with it.
5. I can indeed do two things at once. I can walk and text at the same time.
6. People really do throw some nasty stuff on the side of the road. For example:
   • some dude chucked his Joe Boxer tighties out the window… Ewwwww…
7. There is too much roadkill for a Monday morning…  The count goes a little somethin like this:
   • One disemboweled and half masticated deer (bllluch)
   • Two squished baby skunks
   • A racoon that had just been plowed down
   • A poor bunny rabbit that being eaten by crows
8. Maybe I should go back to the gym.  All things considered, I feel all happy and refreshed after kicking every pebble for six miles.

Ahh, ya gotta love a Monday!

Peace!