Oye Como Va

Just about a month ago, I would have died to be able to sleep in till 7:30AM. Now the morning light at 7:30 is something I only catch a groggy glimpse of on mornings that I am too hung over to sleep. The only side effect of my new sleeping pattern is a twinge of guilt, that can be eased by working out, doing laundry, or cleaning my room. All of which I now perform daily.

I am trying to set my alarm at 9:00 these days though. Maybe someday it will drop to 8. We'll see. Today I got up, took the dog for a walk in the woods, got some coffee, watched the pilot of The Office with commentaries, and made sure that there were no major changeups on facebook.com. Daunting tasks that, without my hardnosed and go-getting attitude, may never have been accomplished.

Other tasks completed today:

1) Not scratching my poison ivy.

2) Finding out the name of the song I heard this weekend that I liked was Winner, by Santana.

3) Downloading Winner -Santana illegaly.

4) Pooping.

5) Listening to Winner a few times.

6) Wondering if I am a 'winner'. Then realizing that 'winning' is subjective, and not to worry about it.

7) Making a seafood salad sandwich, and feeling bad for myself for not winning more things.

8) Deleting the song Winning by Santana, from my hard drive.

You see? My day is probably every bit as full as yours. You slacker. I win.

Fwd: Fwd: Bullsh#t

My first kneejerk reaction to a mass-email I just received was very harsh and verbally violent. And I don't really want all of you to witness my literary Mr. Hyde, so I took a deep breath and I will start over, as a calmer, more peaceful Dr. Jekyll.

This all happened when I was forwarded an email about Obama by anon. I am not bothered by the first amendment. Nor am I some blind follower of Obama. This isn't about politics, it's about... Ok let me just break this down. Deep breath. Oh and I found out the original author of this article is a journalist for Fox News.

Points of the article:

1) The nifty little note at the top is in bright red large font, explaining that their critique of Obama is by another black man.

Ok good. As long as the man is black, we can rule out racism. Phew. The only way I won't trust him now is if he turns out to be bat-shit crazy.

2) Claims that Obama will ruin our healthcare system, which is the best in the world.

Really? The best in the world? It seems to me that other developed countries have healthy people... And they don't pay much, if anything to go to the doctor. (sorry, this isn't meant to be a political rant)

3) Obama, may in fact, be the anti-christ.

Wait, what? Let me read that again. Wow. He seriously just said that. And then devoted two entire paragraphs explaining how Revelations predicted something just like this. Who sent me this email? OK, well even if he IS the anti-christ, that doesn't mean he's unelectable right? He may lead mankind marching single file into Hell, but where does he stand on immigration?

I am pretty sure that the person who wrote the last two paragraphs was different that the original accredited author, but if you ever send me one of those intellectually lifeless, propagandistic emails again, I'll respond to the whole chain (grandma will get one) ripping up every point you think you might have made. Easy Hyde, easy.

Humor Me

'They' say that you are either funny, or you are not. Maybe that's true, but if that implies that a sense of humor is a natural trait, I disagree. It is not a gene that can be isolated, or a trait that is passed on from generation to generation. Can it be learned? No.

What humor is, in it's most simplest form, is a self preservation mechanism. A tool, learned at an early age, that lets the person cope with life. Let me explain.

I recently sat on my back porch while watching my brother flail on a torn apart trampoline. Hold on, let me go back further. We HAD a trampoline in our backyard, a perfect cure from boredom, mosquitoes, and untwisted ankles. A trampoline that my mother had continuously sworn to my brothers and I, that if ONE more person got hurt on that thing, she would take a knife and cut it in half.

So she did. Almost. She used scissors, but it had the same effect. So what we have now is a rectangular metal frame in our backyard with two flaps of trampoline hanging lifelessly to the grass. It's like something out of the movie Halloween, all we need is a bloodstain for effect.

So my brother Max, after seeing what our mom had done to his favorite outdoor bouncing device, had two options. One: He could shout and scream and be very angry. OR, Two: He could run outside grab on to the metal frame, and start bouncing sideways on whatever spring-connected fabric was left, flailing himself all about screaming "YOU CAN'T TAKE MY FUN AWAY FROM ME!!!"

Now see? That's funny. I was laughing at least. Its either laugh or explode. I'm convinced of it.

Help Harry Potter

My life has taken a drastic swing in the past few weeks. I went from being a bank teller and a coach in Northfield, Minnesota, to living at home, unemployed. My old room was given to Max, who is planning on living at home longer than I, so he gets the biggest room. The next biggest room is taken by Neil, who still has three more years of high school. I, then, was left with the Harry Potter broom closet under the stairs. Which means that I can touch all four walls with all four limbs if I wanted to. Well, maybe not literally, but it sure seems that way.

The other reason it might feel so confined is because I spend just about my whole day in here. I get up, get some breakfast, turn on the computer and start writing. And barring any gchat, youtube, facebook, imdb, msnbc, cnn, music, or other distractions, I keep at it until dinner time. You must be thinking, you must have a lot of writing done! Well, when you subtract all the time spent on the aforementioned activities, it comes own to about 10 minutes and 30 seconds of actual writing per day. Which, I think, is pretty damn good. This blog alone has taken me three days.

But what I am trying to do is write episodes for The Office. So, please, if you have any office related humor, please pass it on. I still have a wheelbarrow full from the bank, but a lot of it has been psychologically isolated from my conscious thought due to scarring emotional trauma, and I cannot remember it now. Don't actually think of funny things from work, because those aren't usually funny. It's the things that drive you crazy that are the best. Like how our sweater buying committee was going to order green sweaters until an employee said "You can go ahead and buy them if you want, but I am not going to wear it." So they bought puke-beige ones instead. Ok, so that wasn't very funny... that's why I need some ideas...

Oscar De La Heat Stroke

Its hard to do anything besides sit here at my computer and try not to sweat when it's 95 degrees outside. And by outside, I mean inside as well. Ok, so it's not 95 inside, but it was close the other night when we had no AC units installed yet. I was three tosses ad turns away from grabbing my snorkel gear and water wings and sleeping in the pool. Fortunately I passed out due to water loss, and slept through the night.

It's great to wake up and look in the mirror to see someone who looks like they were in an eleven round-no decision boxing match. My eyes were all puffy and there were lines on my face where I shoved it into the pillow, and I was still clearly sweating. I had just about the same capacity to answer difficult questions as well. "Would you like some breakfast?"

"Spweggawarrddy!" I mumbled, teetering through the hallway, trying to find an ice compress for the back of my neck. "Ifnestellldargg". The poor man has lost his brain.

"Adriaaaaaaann!! Water Wiiiiiiiiiingsss!"

FNB: 1874

The year was 1874. It was a hot summer day in Northfield, Minnesota.

Nichole flitted a wisp of blond hair from her eyes. The heat was bad in the bank, and she fanned herself with a crisp stack of $50's to stay cool. It was a slow day. Too slow. The door, which hadn't moved in hour, swung open, and with a flash of daylight, four men swaggered in. They said nothing.

Vince 'The Vault', looked up from his counting to see the silhouettes of the men clomp in on their leather boots, spurs clicking on the wooden floor. The door slammed, catching the attention of the rest of the employees. As their eyes adjusted, they could see that these men were no normal customers. Along with their weathered, leather chaps and sunshine faded button up shirts, they each bore two six shooters, and a bandanna across their faces, covering everything but their eyes. This was a hold up.

Diana "shotgun" Shaffer, was the first to recognize the threat, and with the speed that garnered her namesake, she whipped around grabbing the sawed-off pump action on a hidden hook below the coin trays and spun to face the intruders.

The act was valiant, but these were no normal intruders, and as she spun, the man in front flicked up his gun from the holster in the blink of an eye and cracked of a shot. As Diana spun, the lead bullet slammed the gun out of her hand, send it spinning to the back of the bank, careening across the floor.

"Damn" said Vince.

"OK, now listen here!" Said the masked man with the smoking pistol. "We want your money, and we want it NOW." The employees stood frozen, in their tracks. John O'Garvey, the Irish account executive, looked across the room at his very own six shooter, rested helplessly on the coat rack. Don't bring your guns to town!, his mother had always told him. Today he was glad he brought them to town, but wished, gal darn it, that he had carried them the extra ten feet to his desk.

"Now we know full well you have all the money in these here parts" Continued the man in the front, keeping his gun at held up. "So lets get it in some sacks, and lets get it out of here, before we have to use these shooters here for real." The men around him slowly pulled out their own weapons and started for the teller line. The other man stood facing the rest of the bank.

As the men approached the teller line, they threw some burlap sacks over the counter and told them to fill 'em up. Steph, the teller in line who caught one of them, used the distraction to reach into her purse to pull out a small dagger, jeweled at it's crest, and deadly at it's point. It had saved her life from a violent vagrant before, and she hoped it would do the same again. She leaned forward towards the nearest bandit and spoke in a soft voice while batting her eyes. "Why, such a big man such as yourself wouldn't need any money would he?"

The man stood unmoving, gun still raised. And then without provocation let out a shot. Steph's plumed hat flipped off of her head.

"I 'pologize for the rudeness ma'am, but we ain't here for fraternization, and I'd mightly 'preciate it if you'd place the dagger on the table." Infuriated, and scarlet in the cheeks, she placed the dagger down, cursing to herself about her favorite hat.

As they filled up the bags, the moment arrived that Becky had been waiting for the whole time. Becky, the vice president, had just recently installed a trap door security system due to the persistent request of Rick 'The Bandit Baffler' Moe. So as one of the masked men grabbed a full satchel of cash from Nichole, she pulled the rope above her desk. And WHOOOMM, the man fell through the floor with a shout "DAGUMMIT!"

The distraction was all Nichole needed, and she reached into her purse for her little derringer, polished sterling with an ivory hilt and a pink feather on the butt for effect. It also smelled of jasmine.

O'Garvey, winking at Becky, dove across the deck and flew for his own guns, grabbing the belt from the hook and falling behind the welcome desk. Sarah was already under there.

"Are they gone yet?" She whispered.
"No!" O'Garvey said exasperatedly.
"The tall one is kind of cute," she thought out loud. John rolled his eyes and made a note to ask for more male employees. A shot cracked through the wood between their heads, and a shaft of dusty light cut through their hiding place.

Vince, seeing the melee break out, reached for his own sidearm. Reaching down, he began to pull up a pistol, which a muzzle so large, no one had seen the likes of it. In fact, it was so large, that he couldn't quite pull it out. And he got stuck, shooting a hole through his pants and into the wooden floor.

"I'm shot!" cried Liz, a customer service agent.
"No, you are not, now SHUSH!" said Kristina, who was making her way over to Sarah's desk to discuss some important business about the tall bugler with those really blue eyes.

The lead bandit saw The Vault struggling, and ran over to apprehend him, when John came blasting out from behind the reception desk with twin shooters adorned in clover emeralds. If it were anyone else, the fight would have been over, but unbenownst to them, this was the one and only Jesse James, and he wrapped up Vince with a headlock with a pistol to his head, bullets whizzing by and shouted.

"Drop it. Or I drop him!"

O'Garvey tentatively layed down the guns, he had no choice. "You too sweetheart", Jesse said to Nichole, who gave him a dirty look and dropped the gun to the floor.

"OK the money. NOW!" His henchmen collected themselves and grabbed the sacks from the floor and made their way to the door as Jesse followed, holding Vince hostage, walking backwards.

Just as they reached for the doorknob, it swung open knocking two of them down. Rick "Big Bear" Estenson, cleared a path, and right behind him through the bright sunshine a silhouette came marching in. Jesse Jame's eyes widened in fear.

"I thought you didn't work here anymore!" He said, stammering backwards. "I thought you left a while back!" Vince looked up at him and karate-shopped the gun out of his hand, and did a back flip behind the counter.

"I did leave, but I'm back to finish up some paperwork" said Theresa, as she sauntered in with a rifle held high, pointing at Jesse's chest. "Now git! Before you ain't got no legs to get with!" The rifle clanked with its doileys and multi-colored hoop rings hanging aimlessly on it.

"Yes ma'am" Jesse said in a fearful tone.
"And don't let me see you in this parts ever again, ya hear?"
"Yes ma'am". Jesse turned and ran, henchmen trailing south as far as they could. They founded the town of Faribault some years later.

The employees looked around in satisfaction. Another robbery averted. No one hurt, save for Steph's favorite hat. Same 'ol slow Wednesday at the bank.

Everyone settled down, and went about their business.

"Help?" sounded a voice far down at the bottom of trap door pit.