Have I mentioned before that I stopped working part-time at Jesus Inc. and started getting paid three more dollars an hour at my local FastStop convenience store/gas station/cigarette emporium?
With my current full-time employment, I wouldn't have to keep working part-time, but in an effort to pay off some credit card debt that built up slightly during The Year Of Unemployment, I keep plugging away a few hours a week. Besides, it can be a source of frivolity worthy of posting for your amusement.
For example...
Things were fairly busy the last time I was working the register. A woman walked up and asked, "Are you available?"
My immediate response, of course, was, "I'm very flattered, but no. I am happily married."
Laughter ensued. Numbers were exchanged...just in case things went south.
A second incident of the marriage of my quick tongue and lack of a filter could have resulted in a harassment lawsuit, but luckily, my female coworker recognizes humor and stupidity when she sees it.
Here's what I'm talking about...
FastStop is on the cusp of its biannual inspection, so last week we were all pitching in to do a deep cleaning of every nook and cranny of the store. My female coworker had just finished wiping down a metal mesh candy-holding display shelf and was hanging it back on the wall next to my register.
Without forethought or evil intent, my mouth opened and out came two simple words: "Nice rack."
I'm so glad that instead of slapping me, she laughed and said, "Thank you!"
Getting AHEAD of the social media wave on this one (because I've not seen any FatBeatles hashtag).
Correction: while doing some actual research on the subject, I see there WERE a few tweets with this hashtag in 2015 and early 2016.
So.
Once again, I am on the back side of a minor trend, but that's far better than being on a minor trend's backside.
What songs would John, Paul, George, and Richard have recorded if they were on the...um...hefty end of the continuum?
- All My Oven
- All You Knead Is Dough
- Baby, You Can Drive My Car to McDonald's
- Blackbird (Under Glass)
- Can't Buy Me Non-stretch Pants
- Carry That Weight (Around Your Hips)
- The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill's Never-ending BBQ Buffet
- Eight Shakes a Week
- Full on the Hill
- Get Baby Back Ribs
- Getting Butter
- Got to Get Guac Into My Life
- Happiness Is a Warm Bun
- I Want to Hold Your Ham Sandwich
- I'm Down (To 265)
- Lady Fingers Madonna
- Love Me Mountain Dew
- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Sandwich
- She Came In Through the Drive-thru Window
- Strawberry Pies Forever
- When I'm Two Hundred Sixty-Four
- With a Little Hellman's from My Friends
- You've Got to Hide Your Snacks Away
I was born at about the same time as Rock-n-Roll...but without the African influences.
I'm told that, at a few ounces over eight pounds, my delivery was difficult enough to make my mom glad that I was the fourth and final child. (Little did she know that ten-and-a-half years later I would lose my claim to the "Final Child" title.)
For the first four-and-a-half years of my life, we lived on a little farm on the north side of the county line road, in a house with a wrap-around porch and linoleum floors. There was a barn with some dairy cows, a couple other outbuildings, and a nearby creek from which to fish with a length of string and a bent paper clip. (Never caught anything except a stern talking to for standing on the bridge while a tractor drove over it.)
Because I was 4 years, 5 months old when we moved from there, I don't have a lot of memories of "the house on the county line road," but there was one incident that was planted in my brain and still remains.
Having begun its multi-year run of annual television screenings in 1956, The Wizard of Oz was still a fairly new TV event. My dad, FlatulenceKing, was sitting in an over-stuffed chair, directly in front of the television, eating popcorn and watching Dorothy and friends wend their way down the yellow brick road.
I'm assuming my three older siblings were in the room, but all I actually remember is coming up behind my dad and the TV screen gradually becoming visible...you know, like all those shots in the movies when the camera moves closer to a cliff until you can finally see Los Angeles laid out before you in all its twinkling splendor.
What I saw on that screen was not a beautiful landscape of nature and electric lights, but the Wicked Witch of the West standing on the roof of a cabin, throwing a fireball at the Scarecrow.
I never got to my bedroom faster, either before or since...and that was even while needing to step around the small puddle at my feet.
I'd like to say that's the reason I avoided green vegetables for twenty years, but our TV was black and white.
(To hear the author reading this post, go to SoundCloud by clicking here.)
Here I sits
No thoughts a-stirrin'
The early-afternoon-nearly-a-nap jerking my head upright
Calling it quits
My eyesight blurrin'
Wondering why my bedtime routine doesn't start earlier at night
Glasses off
My eyes a-rubbin'
And knowing this attempt at a blogpost needs to turn funny soon
Nervous cough
Desire to go clubbin'
And just start this thing over tomorrow; maybe 'round noon
Leaning back
Fingers all a-laced
Staring at my laptop; the Dell, not my legs, of course
Head goes crack
Hits the floor apace
Staring at the ceiling; calling for help till my throat gets hoarse
