Suzanne Olsen's Humor Blog - I don't offend some of the people most of the time

Month: October 2009

Christmas in October

Just heard my first Christmas ad on the radio, albeit it wasn’t advertising how many shopping days until the holidays so we’d better start spending now, it was to let people know about an upcoming holiday bazaar and not an ad itself.

Have you ever wondered where we got the word, “albeit.” Neither have I.  But since computers make it so easy, I’m going to go off and find what that word means right now.

I’m back.  Wasn’t that quick? The online Merriam Webster dictionary say’s its function is a conjunction (sounds like a good name for a country western song – “I met her at a luncheon, and said my function is a conjunction, and then my face she was a punchin’…”), and it comes from Middle English and means  “conceding the fact, even though, or although.”

It also shows the pronunciation, ȯl-ˈbē-ət, al-, which no one can possibly decipher, so I’m going to tell you how to pronounce it using an example anyone can understand.  If you’re a child from the South and a group of you want to play tag, and of course nobody wants to be it, but you’re a good kid and you step up to the plate, then you’re going to say: “I’ll be it,” but it will sound like: “All be it,” and that’s how this word is pronounced.

I’m always a little curious about words, but even more so about the gall of stores that put Christmas stuff out so early. It drives me nuts. Remember how we were all disgusted when it reared its ugly head before Thanksgiving?  And now it’s pushed all the way back to Halloween and beyond.

We’ve all complained about it so much that I’m not going to go on and on. I purposely don’t buy the stuff until the last minute because that’s the way I do everything, but I tell myself I’m doing it out of spite to get back at them, and that gives me a lot of personal satisfaction.

Well, I’ve finally exhausted this topic. Have you ever wondered how many people with the last name Webster named their girl children Merriam? I’d sure be interested in knowing. Hold on and I’ll Google that and get back to you.

Is Anybody Listening?

I guess I revealed in my last blog that I talk to myself. Actually, it’s really just thinking out loud. Except that sometimes I do answer. After I say something stupid, which occurs more often than you might think, the first thing I do when I get alone is start in with, “I can’t believe you said that, what were you thinking?”…“I don’t know, it just slipped out.”…“I should have just left you at home…”Well why didn’t you?…”Next time I will.”

I talk to my 9 pound Yorkie Poo quite a bit when there’s no one in the house. I say things like: “Let’s go make lunch,  yo momma is starving!” I usually make it sound a little cutesy, because if someone’s listening, like a burglar hiding under the bed, I don’t want him to think I’m crazy.

If you work from home and spend a lot of the day alone, you’re going to talk to yourself. There’s a profound need to hear a human voice, even if it’s your own. That’s why solitary confinement is such a dreaded punishment, except for a couple of husbands I know, who probably fantasize about it.

But when you get in the habit of talking to yourself, it starts happening around other people. If I’m golfing and hit a decent ball, by accident, I’ll cheer it all the way. “Go, baby, flly, fly, fly, fly, fly!” Realizing what I’ve done, I’ll make up some sheepish cover story, like: “I’m just trying to help it along on sound waves,” but nobody’s buying it. I can hear them thinking, “She’s a couple of clubs shy of a full set, but it was a nice shot.”

I know I’m not the only one chattering away to myself because more than once I’ve been in a ladies bathroom and heard a woman come in, thinking she’s alone in there, and whisper to herself, “Who does she think she is with a comment like that? I ought to march right back out there…” or some such. You know that she knows she got caught because when you start rustling around, she gets very, very quiet, and she won’t come out of that stall until you’re gone.

We all do it, I’m not ashamed of it, and as someone very wise once said, “You’re not crazy until the toilet starts talking back.”

Computer Everglades

I was all excited this morning because I’m in a blogging frenzy and wanted to type in another post. I plopped down happily in front of the computer and tried to log in. My username is my email, and I have an assortment of passwords I cycle through to get into everything. I tried all the combinations, finally being allowed to log in when I accidently mistyped my email address. That one little wrong letter let me into my blogger account, but caused me to be greeted with a giant red warning, “Your email address has not been verified.”

“That’s because it’s WRONG!” I hissed back at the computer. “Well,” I said, determined to be in a good mood, “I’ll just fix that puppy and I’ll be off and running.”  But no, just like every freaking other thing having to do with computers, IT WON”T LET ME.

After reading for hours and hours, I find out that the mistake is permanent. Up front they happily volunteer to email me a new username, but the one I gave them is wrong and doesn’t exist, so it’s just going to go to Mercury and back without me ever seeing it.

And how was I able to log in the day before? It doesn’t matter. The computer just does what it wants to do, and you can’t fight it. The most any of us can hope for is to plow through a zillion posts that describe the same problem, and hope some other guy figured out how to fix it, then let him lead you out of your misery one irritating step at a time. I spend most of my life squinting at the screen with my mouth hanging open and a dull headache creeping up my forehead.

To get to the fix, it’s typical to have to elbow your way through lots of pages mostly consisting of capital letters strung together that appear to be common knowledge because they don’t explain them. It would be so much more fun to wade through the Everglades dodging snapping alligators than reading that stuff. By the end of the CMOS’s and RAM’s and CPU’s and ESAD’s, I just want to say, “I’ve got your motherboard right here, you sorry piece of crap!”

It’s late at night now, and I finally got it fixed. Don’t you even think about saying that this time it was my fault and not the computer’s. I might come right through the screen and lunge at your throat like a junkyard dog. If this post isn’t funny, I’m sorry, and if you don’t like it, you can just kiss my FDISK.

Fashion Fruits

I went to a gathering last night and, as usual, saw many displays of cleavage all over the room. I call them fashion fruits. A couple of grapefruits were nestled in a fluffy pink sweater.  Cantaloupes hovered behind a saggy green tank top. And the plums, the poor little plums, straining to be noticed in a white scooped-neck t-shirt.

One set vied for center of attention. The turquoise top they were in plunged quite low, and I couldn’t really fit them into my little fruit metaphor except that they were like two oranges in flesh-tone socks that gravity was hell-bent on dragging to her waistline.

The problem for me is that I never know where to look. It’s distracting – I’m trying to focus on the person’s face, but those casabas are practically screaming at me to look down. A rat could scurry across my bare foot and I’d be like somebody in a neck brace.

For people like me who are never sure what to do, I think it’s high time we get this thing out in the open. Women are always tossing out compliments about someone’s hair or shoes or clothes.  We could just add,  “And that cleavage of yours is quite remarkable, it just makes your whole outfit. And it’s so natural looking!”

If it becomes socially acceptable to notice and comment, then the awkwardness will disappear. All those women last night could have complimented each other’s endowment, and the married men, reduced to enjoying the display with sideways glances, could openly relish the titillation. “Yes, I certainly have to agree with my wife, your cleavage is just breathtaking!”

When someone establishes the proper etiquette in these situations, everyone will breathe a huge sigh of relief.  Meantime, those of us with apricots and kiwis are counting the days until it’s turtleneck season.

Walking Laurie’s Dog

I woke up this morning and I was so cranky I started an argument with the mirror.

At least I could look forward to walking with my friend, Laurie. Except she’s got this big black standard Poodle named Pepper. He’s 14 and can’t hear, or refuses to. Laurie pesters him all the time. “Pepper, Pep, where are you, Pep, come here boy, Pep, Pepper?” Laurie’s got chickens, too, but I’ll gripe about them some other time.

So Pepper is FOS, (full of ____) all the time. No matter when we walk, day or night, that dog is this big, lumbering, hunched over, straining eyesore dropping chocolate loafs all over the place like strings of sausages. It’s nauseating. No, really, I’ve gotten that “bl…lu” reflex a couple of times in my throat.

Laurie never brings enough plastic bags – however many she stuffs in her pockets on any given day is usually about half as many as she needs. Today we were walking through a school playground when the dog started doing his thing as he kindof traveled along. He covered about ten feet with mini-loafs, making a dotted line behind him. Laurie picked up a couple and started strolling away from the scene of the crime, (and it is criminal – I’d like to know how what that dog eats). “Oh, no,” I said. “You have to pick it all up, this is a playground.” “Was there more?” she asked, as if her darling precious, poodle-hairdo scalped sissy dog could have done such a thing. I marched over and pointed my finger down at the grass, shaking it a little like a judge harassing a guilty criminal. “There’s one,” I said, “and here’s another, and there’s another one over there, and two more at the base of that tree.” “Good Lord,” she exclaimed. “Pep, what’s gotten into you, boy?” Good question, I thought.

We resumed our walk, the dog jerking Laurie backwards from time to time as he continued to blanket Southwest Portland in giant tootsie rolls. Although, like everything, there is a bright side. If we ever get lost, we can follow the trail of plastic bags every few feet until they lead us safely back home.

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