Don’t Mess With Me

I have had more scam calls in the past month than I have over my lifetime. And let me start by saying, I am the worst nightmare for these people. I learned from a man who made a sport out of telemarketing calls. I have been listening to my dad mess with telemarketers since I was a small child. He kept a New York Times salesman on the phone for a good ten minutes telling him how the paper would be useless in our house because the entire family was illiterate. He talked this guy’s ear off about a cousin who went all the way through school to the 10th grade and then argued that the 10th grade was the end of high school, not the 12th grade. So when telemarketers call me, I usually do my best to keep them on the line as long as possible so they can’t annoy someone else.

Last year I had a guy call and tell me they were coming to arrest me. Since at least ten reasons popped into my head for why this could be accurate, I listened. Apparently my tax preparer didn’t file my tax return, which is weird since I’m a CPA and all. He even ended up swearing at me at one point so I grabbed a whistle and blew it in the phone as hard as I could. I then proceeded to call him back repeatedly blowing the whistle until the line was finally taken off the hook. I can be a little mean if they catch me in a mood. I have told several of these idiots that I am sorry they made such bad life choices that scamming people is their only form of income or I wonder if their mothers are proud of their career choices.

A few weeks ago I got a call from my “computer’s support team” telling me there was suspicious activity on my Amazon account. I asked if I had paid extra for the support team or if my computer just came that way. Strangely, the guy did not understand sarcasm, which seems to be common with these calls. He walked me through downloading a file onto my computer to resolve the issue. I tapped on my keys pretending to follow his instructions and then finally said “okay, I’m all done. I can’t wait to see what your virus does to my computer. Oh, and by the way, I don’t have an Amazon account, but my husband does. Do you want his phone number?” All I heard in response was a click. Luckily for him, I did not have my whistle handy.

Yesterday I received another call who sounded almost identical to the amazon guy. He was also from my computer’s support team, and said I definitely had a virus. He must have heard from his buddy that I downloaded the file! He asked if I had noticed anything unusual and I said that my granny porn had been really slow to load. When he asked what my desktop looked like I told him I had no icons and asked if I should. He said everyone had icons so I must have done something to make mine disappear. I think he just wanted to know if I had any of the granny porn loaded on my desktop. Maybe that question is the scam caller’s equivalent of “what are you wearing?” When he asked me what browser I used I said the blue one because it was way faster than the red one. He still didn’t catch on that I was toying with him. We had been on the phone for at least five minutes when he told me to press the function key along with another key. I asked him what a function key was and he tried to explain as I continued to ask questions. He was trying to describe the layout of a keyboard while I was saying things like “space bar, is it a bar in outer space? I don’t understand what you mean.” He was clearly becoming exasperated so when he said “do you see the key with the Fn on it? It’s right next to the key with Ctrl on it” I almost started laughing, feeling his head ready to explode. Instead I said “OH MY GOD, that key is not there. There is a blank spot. Do you think the virus stole it?” And again, all I heard was a click. 

** I knew this album was in my head for a reason. **

I Wanna Be Sedated

People have lost their minds. Bat shit crazy, lost their minds. In just a week almost every one of my family members has had an encounter with a lunatic demanding everyone step aside for them to assert their rights. Strangely, not one of these incidents was related to wearing a mask in public which is where I see most of the lunatics asserting their “rights”.

My poor husband who never bothers anyone encountered some crazy old man who told him to “fuck off” after his dog came running through the school yard. The man had intentionally let his dog off it’s leash a foot in front of the “no dogs allowed” sign at the gate of the baseball field and the dog promptly charged my husband. When the sign was pointed out to the old geezer, he went on a tirade, swearing at my husband. Unfortunately, the dogs on the playground are common even though there are multiple signs forbidding it. One man told me not to worry because his dog was nice as it knocked down my toddler. I said “listen dude, I don’t know you or your dog, but I can read and your dog isn’t allowed here, and it certainly isn’t allowed to run wild without a leash in public”. He actually had the nerve to tell me to close the gate because the dog owners didn’t want the dogs escaping. I told him a leash would prevent that. There are dog parks for a reason. I like dogs even though I am allergic to them. I just don’t like having a dog inflicted on me or my family in a public place. It’s the equivalent of me sending my kid out to play with a steak knife. You never know what’s going to happen.

Even better than a rude dude with a dog is a rude dude with a cell phone. My dad was mowing his grass and as he drove his mower up to the driveway to empty the clippings a man came walking by on his cell phone. As the man walked closer he started making shushing motions at my dad and signaling for him to turn off his lawn mower. He pointed repeatedly at his phone and put his finger to his lips in an effort to persuade my dad to be quiet. My dad just laughed (and I suspect revved the engine a few times). I wonder if this guy called the airport to ensure no planes would be flying overhead during his super important call. My dad should have driven up around him in circles asking him why he was signaling him and what the hand gestures meant. I only wish the swearing dog owner lived in my dad’s neighborhood to see what kind of entitlement face-off could have ensued.

Some things just seem like common sense to me. Like if you want to let your dog run wild, go to a dog park, or your own backyard. If you want some quiet time to talk on the phone, get in your car or stay in your house. It’s rude to cut in line (even if it is to pick up your kid from school). It’s also rude to talk on the phone in a movie theater, while a cashier is helping you, or while you are in the middle of a meal. Kids play outside, and they may make some noise. People cut their grass, build decks and remodel their kitchens which might also be loud occasionally. The world does not revolve around you. Or her. Or him. Or me.

Oh yeah, and when you do feel like you are entitled to be an asshole, remember there is always a bigger asshole out there. I told my husband I would have followed that old man home and covered his lawn in dog poop the following night. I told my dad I would have followed the shusher all the way down the street cutting every neighbor’s grass on the way and singing really loudly and off key. Sometimes people just need to have a mirror held up to them to see how obnoxious their behavior is and I don’t mind being that mirror.

 

Guilty of Being White

Some days I feel like I am living in an alternate universe. I have often said that the last few years have felt like a Marvel Comic movie where an evil villain has taken over and some dude wearing tights will show up at any minute and save the day. And I just keep hoping it’s Henry Rollins, but maybe without the tights. But the last week has left me flummoxed. So flummoxed in fact that I am using old-timey words like flummoxed. I’m not shocked and horrified by people protesting and causing chaos, I’m shocked that everyone is not joining them. I am shocked and horrified that the same people who are so vocal about the rioting and looting happening around the protests are the same people who didn’t have a word to say about any of the black men and women who have been killed by police in our country. But I shouldn’t be shocked. These are the same people the system takes care of. These people are me, just less mouthy and more comfortable with the status quo.

People aren’t out protesting because they have nothing better to do. People are protesting because they have had enough and they want their voices to be heard. And now they are being told that their voices are too loud. They are being told they are free to be angry, just in a way that is more pleasing to white middle class America, and that is bullshit. This is an abused child throwing a tantrum because that is the only way he is heard. This is the consequence of a broken system and the masses that were kept comfortable by that system don’t want to be disrupted. Apparently when a tantrum is thrown in the form of a white man marching up to the state capitol with a gun to protest a stay at home order, it’s okay, but when it’s the disenfranchised demanding justice it’s a threat. A bunch of entitled brats can protest not being able to get a haircut, but God forbid anybody hold up a Black Lives Matter sign and march down the street. Let’s just keep ignoring injustice and hope it goes away (or not).

It’s sad to me that things haven’t changed much in terms of racism in our country. I think if anything the racists have crawled out of their holes more in the past several years since they have felt protected by our current administration. And when they first started coming out I thought it might be a good thing because it’s easier to fight a known evil than one in disguise. But now I see that it’s kind of like turning on a light in a cockroach infested apartment. You just want to turn the lights back off and close the door. The problem with that is the cockroaches are still there. And what that light is shining on more and more is the systematic discrimination that our country has perpetuated throughout history. We feed the prison system young black men like Hitler feeding Jews to the gas chambers. It feels like trying to stop the gears of a machine by shoving a toothpick in between it’s teeth. But I am reminded that if all of the toothpicks are lodged into the machine, it will jam and break. So today I am a toothpick, along with all of the other toothpicks, trying to jam the gears of this broken system. 

I don’t want to preach, but I will. Silence is complicity. If you want to see change, use your voice. 

Pandemic Vacation

My daughter has spent the last six months mentioning how we haven’t been to Disney World in “forever” which is the equivalent of three years. Every time she said this I mentioned that if she remembered going a few years ago that it clearly hasn’t been that long. But apparently I am highly susceptible to brainwashing because about two months ago I started feeling like we hadn’t been to Disney World in forever. I always knew I would make a great cult member. So I booked a trip for her birthday which just happened to fall on a Monday after a long weekend for parent-teacher conferences. It was like the universe was screaming at us to take this vacation, so we did.

We were getting ready to head out and people kept asking if I was worried about flying. I wasn’t worried. Not even a little. I am one of those people that doesn’t really worry about much. My husband on the other hand worries about everything, so between the two of us, we have a pretty healthy outlook, but it only works when we are thinking in sync. I also carry buckets of hand sanitizer and sprays when I travel. I may not worry, but I am disgusted by other people’s bodily fluids, skin and breath. I was trying to get my hands on a hazmat suit to wear on the plane. Not to protect me from germs, just because I thought it would be hilarious to board a plane dressed like an extra in Contagion. My husband had been texting me photos of the lunatics in China walking around with plastic bags over their heads or helmets made out of water bottles. I’m sure these are the same geniuses who don’t wash their hands before leaving the bathroom, and every one of them would be seated around us on a plane. I didn’t see any bubble helmets but I did see quite a few paper masks. One of those masks would have been helpful during the flight when the couple in front of us sat down. I’m fairly certain the man rolled around in dog shit before boarding and the woman had tried to set herself on fire. It’s bad enough when you have to spend several hours in a giant metal fart box hurdling through the air, but when your fellow passengers are not vacationers, but residents of the land of meth and hennessey returning to their swampland, it’s especially ripe.

We planned this trip prior to any worldwide health concerns. We are assholes, but not the kind who put other people in danger. Social distancing is actually something I can excel at. I don’t particularly like people, and I certainly don’t like having to spend too much time with others, so I have been social distancing for most of my life already. Unfortunately this is not something that can be accomplished in a theme park. The night we arrived was the night they made the announcement that the parks would be closing in three days. Since the point of no return was miles behind us, we pushed forward. We loaded up on hand sanitizer and sunscreen and headed to the parks for the three days they remained open. Not so surprisingly, the parks were still packed with overweight sweaty dads licking their fingers after consuming a half dozen churros and tiny booger machines wiping their filthy hands on every surface possible. The only difference was the moms occasionally squirted a dollop of cleaning product into everyone’s hands after screaming “stop touching things!” The whole place smelled of alcohol by the second day, which was nothing new for Epcot.

My daughter’s birthday was the day after they closed the parks. We had purchased after-hours park tickets and had reservations for the restaurant that you have to sell a kidney to get into, so needless to say, she was a little bummed out. Luckily I was able to move up our dinner reservation and my little princess was satisfied with being able to celebrate her birthday for several days instead of just one. We also realized after almost murdering each other after the first ten hours of stampeding from one ride to the next, that we would never have survived a late night together. It was probably for the best that our time at the parks was cut short by a day. We even made it over to the shopping district and to the pool, which never would have happened under normal circumstances. I even discovered a massage chair in the arcade that simultaneously squeezed your calves and skull in a death grip while punching you in the butthole. I’m not sure who designed this chair, but it may be the same guy who came up with waterboarding for the military. And I actually paid money to sit in this chair and then convinced my husband to do it as well. Apparently he could be a cult member too.

Shockingly, there were quite a few parents who either had no idea that we were at the beginning of a pandemic, or just didn’t care. I watched as children of all ages rubbed their hands all over every surface within a ten foot radius. They touched literally everything they could get their grubby little paws on while their parents stared at their phones. These parents obviously were not checking out CNN or they may have told their kids to keep their mitts to themselves. My husband watched one child pick his nose and eat it for a solid half hour. His mother was either immune to this behavior or just happy she didn’t have to worry about his lunch because she seemed not to notice that this kid was two knuckles deep trying to scratch his brain with his tiny fingernails that had just been submerged in a buckets of the seven dwarves fake plastic jewels. On the second day I offered my daughter $10 for every hour she managed to not touch anything. I explained that she could earn a cool $120 over the course of the day simply by keeping her hands germ free. She made $10 the entire day. She lasted the first hour and then never made it past 15 minutes after that. I must have poured two gallons of candy scented sanitizer on her hands that day.

By the time we checked out of our hotel and got ourselves to the airport they had announced that pretty much everything was closing down. All of the filthy little monsters licking their hands and then swinging on the railings were following their unaware parents to the beach. We watched the footage of swarms of bikini clad idiots storming the shores mistaking the word “pandemic” for “epic party”. All I could think is at least we are thinning the herd. If we had stayed any longer, we may have had to take out a loan to cover the tips I was handing out. I was throwing money around like a rapper in a strip club, knowing most of the workers were going to be sent home shortly. I was anxious to get home by this point as I knew we would need to quarantine ourselves for at least two weeks after having been exposed to so many people.

Once we got on the plane we were subjected to instructions on how to properly cough into our elbows and how to wash our hands in the bathroom. I was shocked that anyone would actually use the airplane bathroom, considering I will hold it for hours in normal circumstances before stepping foot in that petri dish. I guess I should have been more shocked that adults needed instructions on how to avoid spreading germs. The woman seated behind me proceeded to sneeze on the back of my seat for the next two hours and lean her head against the little airplane window. I don’t know if I have ever been so happy to get off a plane. Our vacations are always an adventure, but being home has never felt so good. Bring on the social distancing, it’s not often I actually get to show off my skills, and I could win a gold medal in this competition.

*I wrote this while trying not to kill my family and listening to X-Ray Spex!

You Can’t Sit With Us

Little girls are supposed to be full of sugar and spice, but a lot of them are full of piss and vinegar. I volunteer at my daughter’s school for lunch and recess once a week and I see a lot of sugar and a lot of vinegar. It’s always comical to me when I see the girls who try to show me how sweet they are while spitting venom at half of the kids around them.

When my daughter was in first grade a new girl entered her class like a little lightening rod of drama. She told fantastic stories about having to fly to Paris for the weekend for her father’s wedding and how her brother got drunk on church wine at his first communion. It didn’t take a detective to figure out this kid was lying, but it annoyed me that she was so bad at it. Not one of her classmates believed her stories. I explained to my daughter that she did this because she was the new kid and fearful that the other kids wouldn’t like her if she didn’t have enough material to keep them interested. When the girl continued this behavior a year later, my daughter started to really question her motives since she was no longer the new kid. That particular girl went on to a new school last September. She had run out of good stories by then anyway, so it was probably better to put her in a new setting to recycle some of her old tall tales.

Just like a mini Breakfast Club, the role of little liar needed to be filled and another girl soon stepped into that position. The replacement liar is more of a physical story teller, so she not only tells stories, she fakes physical ailments as well. She has a handful of girls believing that her aunt is Beyonce and that a variety of things make her faint, including the mere sight of any cheese lighter than neon orange. She noses around everyone’s lunches and snacks looking for items she finds offensive so she can put her acting skills to use. My daughter is usually one of her targets for commentary since she doesn’t buy into the notion that children should only eat garbage. Apparently the little con artist thinks that being the niece of a pop star entitles one to take the position of snack police because she sniffs around everyone else’s food making sure it is nothing she finds offensive. God forbid anyone pull out a mini mozzarella ball or an ambulance may have to be called.

A few weeks ago at lunch the fabricator was lounging on one of her friends pretending to be out cold from some food item being in her line of vision when I walked by and told her to sit up. She continued to play dead as I asked the other girls what was going on. When I said that clearly she had not fainted because she didn’t wet her pants they all started to giggle and poke at her. She immediately sat up and asked what I was talking about. I explained that when a person faints they often wet their pants since their entire body goes limp, including their bladder. I concluded with saying “so now you all know she is faking if she hasn’t wet her pants” and walked away. She hasn’t faked a fainting spell in school since then.

Interestingly enough, this little con artist is not a big fan of my kid. I think it’s because she has never bought into the stories and fake fainting gimmick. She also called her out when she made fun of a middle school boy because he had eczema on his hands. My daughter’s bully and bullshit meters are pretty strong. She came home the other day and told me that twice in the same week Pinocchio came over to the table she was sitting at and said to the girls she was sitting with “come on guys let’s move over there” to leave my daughter sitting alone. When I asked my daughter what happened next she said “nothing, other people sat down with me” and moved on to the next story she was dying to tell me. The following day I watched my daughter pick up her lunch box and bring two of her friends over to sit with a kid who was sitting alone. Sometimes the lessons learned in the lunch room are as important as the lessons learned in the classroom.

At one point my kid asked me if I had talked to the little liar and her crew about how they had left her sitting alone and I told her I did not. Even though the ring leader was hanging around me more than usual chatting me up like any competent Regina George vying for prom queen, it staying out of the situation knowing my kid can handle herself. Truth be told, if I had my say, I would tell my daughter to stay far away from the little storyteller before she gets wrapped up in some ponzi scheme situation by middle school. But I don’t need to tell her anything, I’ll just continue packing all that munster and mozzarella cheese in her lunch sprinkled with a little holy water for good measure.

*I wrote this while listening to Rat Boy

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