New Years Eve 2019 finds me enjoying a private dance party. I’d like to think diverse musical tastes mirror my world view. With that in mind I’ve chosen three songs to help ring in 2020. No political messages or hidden meanings, simply three songs I’m enjoying tonight. Happy New Year from Notes.
It wouldn’t be a wedding without a sloppy drunk woman accusing us of stealing her purse. We take it in stride, every situation presents unique challenges. Tonight’s drunk accused staff of stealing her purse while she went to the bathroom. “I left it on table 6, a black designer bag with $300 cash and all my ID. I was gone 2 minutes, one of you stole it” she slurred. Dead set on accusation, sloppy drunk unleashed a torrent of “you’d better fucking find it”. We didn’t touch your purse!
Sensing sloppy drunk’s looming meltdown, boyfriend trumpets “this is fucking serious, which one of you stole her purse? Hand it over now!” Emboldened by her partner’s bravado, sloppy drunk parrots “fucking serious”. Hysteria escalates, she’s wailing incoherent protestation. Rage pulsates from boyfriend’s throbbing temples, “she was gone 2 minutes, who the fuck stole her purse?”
Instead of laughing or calling security to escort the lovely couple out, I ask a server to check the bathroom. Sure enough, “stolen” purse rested where sloppy drunk left it – top of toilet paper dispenser inside a bathroom stall.
Did they apologize? Nope! They accused “thief” of planting it and stormed out. Sigh. So ends another day at the office.
The first Monday of the month, Quora deposits money earned from views on my content into a PayPal account. A little bit here, little bit there, I never gave it much thought. Truth is, I wouldn’t have a PayPal account but for Quora insistence on opening one to receive deposits. Not much of a online shopper, credit cards secure occasional purchases. PayPal mystifies this middle aged ponderer.
After work today it dawned on me – in 22 days, 11 hours we’d board a plane for Havana. I needed new dresses. Where to begin? Amazon, eBay? Search by retailer, brand, style? Argh, I loathe online shopping! Pop-ups, flash sales, discounts offered with acceptance of mailing list bombardment. Hour after hour of futile nonsense wore me down. Frayed, disgruntled, on the verge of calling bullshit – I found a acceptable dress. Add it to my cart? Seriously? Okay fine, I’ll play along. Watch me push a virtual cart to check-out! Payment options? What’s this, complete the transaction with PayPal?
Throwing caution to the wind I clicked PayPal. Snap, order on the way! Holy crap, I just bought a dress with virtual money handed to me for posting questions. WTF? Sweet! Can I play again? Yep, seems so – twenty minutes later, repeat performance, another dress on the way. What fun! Steady now, take a deep breath, time to act responsibly.
Phonebots clog city streets. Tenacious, impenetrable and defiant, they march catatonic to the glow of their hand held device. They invade crosswalks with self absorbed surety of army ants, oblivious to crossing signals, traffic flow or common decency.
Wanting to scream “what’s wrong with you!” never goes well when driving a company vehicle. Self centred numskulls always take offence. Sometimes they snap a photo of our company logo/phone number, calling to express outrage over the employee who almost ran them down. Propriety dictates polite restraint. I take a deep breath, waiting patiently for phonebots to cross the street. Every so often my inner prankster honks the horn, if I’m lucky a phonebot jumps and scurries. One time a phonebot dropped their device, I laughed out loud.
Do phonebots know how infuriating they are? Believe it their right to cross intersections with flashing “Don’t Walk” signals? Create gridlock by stepping off the curb seconds before a light changes preventing vehicles from making turns, then dawdle along with kaleidoscope eyes fixated on their cell phone? Do the self absorbed little darlings care? Absolutely not! So I sit, and I wait, and every so often I shake them up with a strategically dispatched blast of the horn. It’s hysterical, phonebots hate it when you interrupt social media dribble in the middle of an intersection at rush hour.
That’s right, “Dogggy” with three G’s – ponder Dogggy Paddle, other than my employer the only Instagram site I follow. Forget cats and cute baby animals – Dogggy Paddle relieves stress, smooths rough edges, coaxes smiles from sullen faces. Check out the link below.
Walking the dyke near Steveston this afternoon, I stumbled upon drift rabbit…
Beached rabbit, wet rabbit, dead rabbit, tranquilized rabbit? Doesn’t really matter – drift rabbit made me smile.
Ponder perceptions with this test. Seeing is believing as far as our brain is concerned.
I need my head examined. Quora obsession – call it my dark side,finds me lurking in places I’m not proud of. What began as a “phase”, has become an embarrassing testament to powers of indignant outrage, astonishment, and mind blowing realization. Polite reminders to behave myself deliver tepid results, best intentions fall victim to uncontrollable curiosity. Convincing myself of “curious” intentions, eases excruciating reality – I need my head examined.
On a good day, I’ll post questions like “What is the greatest archeological treasure lost to war or conflict?” or “Will cursive writing become obsolete?”. Genuine queries resulting in thoughtful exchanges.
Bad days (the crux of my bat shit addiction to Quora) go something like this – following are two questions asked this evening under the topic “Religion”.
“If you’re an Atheist, is it better to raise your children as Theist so he/she can find strength in difficult times?”
“Is it true that Atheists don’t really believe in God, but that they really just want to be God?”
This is when it gets tricky. Reasonable Notes would guffaw and move on, possessed Notes shakes hands with futility. Something about preposterous questions void of frivolous explanation or reason pushes my crazy button. Every sinew of my being, taut and helpless as propriety skips out the door.
“Crazy button” deserves clarification, crazy suggests ranting tirades – the reality of my “crazy” doesn’t even come close. Crazy resides in the fact I respond. Crazy shame lurks in not logging out or moving on once “are you serious”, holy freaking crap and WTF? settle down. Crazy is my fascination with absurdly brief ridiculous questions – particularly those intended for morally corrupt heathens. As I’m writing another question surfaced…
“Do some people just pretend to be Atheists, and try to convince others God doesn’t exist because they believe God doesn’t want mankind to know of or believe in his existence?”
I’m having second thoughts about my plea for help – that question was too good. Perhaps I could temper obsessively poor judgement with strict resolve to look, keeping snide remarks and opinions to myself.
Christmas at my house always involves board games, I’m revisiting Monopoly because it defined so many Christmases
As a child we played a lot of board games – Monopoly for the most part – more often than not, it ended long before any satisfactory conclusion. Not that it mattered, the rules were simple and it was something to do.Every family had a Monopoly game; expressions like “get out of jail free” or “do not pass go” became part of popular culture.
Monopoly wasn’t something I would ever classify as fun; the premise of collecting property by forcing others into bankruptcy struck me as vicious – perhaps explaining why the game rarely reached a conclusion. I can’t recall a single game with an amicable parting of players. If we didn’t lose interest, it was guaranteed someone stormed off in a huff.
Before Christmas, shopping found me in a game store. Years since I’ve paid the slightest attention to boxed games on store shelves. I’m can’t say for certain…
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