An Awkward Moment

So there are times when it's best to keep your fool mouth shut, and boy did I run into one of them today. We have a new chap in the office, and I had heard that he was expecting a child at any time. I learned today that the expectant mother is his girlfriend when a co-worker (who walks past his desk) asked about where he was. I selected that very moment to comment that being unmarried in that situation is a negative reflection of character.

Why would I make such a comment? Because it would be a statistical truth. Marriage is a legal commitment wherein you have decided in the eyes of the law to bind yourself to a particular person for life (or until you throw a tantrum or whatever). Legally, it takes a bit of doing to unmake a marriage. If unmarried, you are not legally bound to the other person in any way, no matter what you experience together. Sure, you have an emotional commitment, but emotions are fickle.

Therefore, if a couple have decided to spend their lives together to the point that they want to bring in a child together (and whether it was planned or not, they still made that decision "together"), why would they not take the step to legally commit to the relationship. That's not a question I can answer for anyone, but I'm only left with statistics, stereotypes, and stories. All of those things point to someone who has a problem with commitment. Someone who deals in "What ifs".

That is why it would a negative reflection on character, regardless of any moral opinions of the matter. You see, the character observation has absolutely nothing to do with the "living in sin" ideal. It's a simple notation that someone who won't marry for some reason generally has commitment issues. I didn't even hear the young woman referred to as a fiancee, which at least implies that eventual commitment, but just as a girlfriend.

I commented that if you were given the choice of trusting the person who had the pregnant girlfriend or the person married for twenty years, who would you go with? The response was obviously the person married for two decades. That person has shown that they can not only commit, but can overcome the common pitfalls of marriage as well as cooperate with another person in life. It speaks volumes of a person's character.

Now, why am I bringing this up? Because in all good comedies there's that moment where everyone starts looking away, and the speaker stops, closes their eyes, and asks if the person was standing behind them. Yeah, he was there. He did hear the conversation. Awkward moment had.

In the end, he kind of blew it off, but still, if I were confronted, I would simply ask why they had decide to not get married. The answer would not be for my benefit, because strictly speaking, I don't care. The answer isn't for me. I can't do anything with it, and I could predict most of the token responses to such a question. This is a question he would need to ask himself and honestly evaluate the answer.

I don't often open for discussion, but I'm always open to be proven wrong. What do you think of this character observation?

A Little Too Social

I know man is a social creature. Without everyone else around us, most of us could not survive in any capacity. We each have our place as cogs in the great machine of our society, but there are times when the social aspect can be left aside without any detriment to the greater social order. Yet, there are people out there who simply cannot handle saying nothing to someone. They must make some level of small talk or ... well, I don't know. Their shotgun collar will explode or something.

We just want to cure your introversion. We love you.

In my life, I have come to identify these always-talkers, and occasionally take active steps to avoid them if I not in a talking mood. Most of the time, this is not possible, but when I have control, I take it. This is because most of the time the "conversations" occur, they are completely pointless, and only occurring to make some noise and keep their collars in check (cause they go off if there is silence for 60 seconds, I suppose). Surely, you've had this conversation:

"Hey, how are you doing?"
"Good, you?"
"Doing good. Thanks."

Move along. You never tell the truth in the response because let's face it, the person doesn't actually want to have a discussion with you. They just want to hear their voice to make sure it still functions. Perhaps I should launch into an actual discussion over my life and its various catastrophes, but I'm sure all my various spy capers and hacking escapades would turn their heads and besides, most of it is classified, like the time that I [REDACTED].

When do these conversations occur? Well, one of the weirdest is passing in the hall. It is literally only a few seconds in seeing each other. Read that conversation above and that's about as much time as you have before they're gone. Another is the break room, which is expected, but usually, I only in there for a refill on the water or if I'm particularly desperate, more Dr. Pepper while I sneer at the Diet Mountain Dew (ugh...). You know that story though. Again, though, it's literally and in and out for me while they do much the same thing while refilling coffee or whatever.

A more amusing one is in the elevator. The reason this is amusing is because I've ridden with one of the people with one of those sound-detecting shotgun collars with people from other floors on the way up. They will wait until the extra person leaves before they hit me with the obligatory conversation during the few seconds between the last person's floor and ours. And I was hoping for silence.

If only this were possible in my world.

The most awkward place this occurs? At the urinals in the bathroom. Not kidding. Men generally go to the bathroom alone, and there is a rule that no one talks about anything in there. You do your business and move on. I'm okay with the occasional discussion around the sinks during the hand washing phase (some of you may be unfamiliar with that piece), but while waiting for nature to work its way out, silence is the preferred option. Yet, there are a few guys out there who will inevitably strike up a conversation while you're standing there far beyond just what I have above. Like, they want to chat. Really.

So as to not be that terrible person I've mentioned before, I participate in their conversation. But seriously, it isn't necessary to chat over the urinals.

I know some people thrive on it, and I try to be gracious, but some of us relish that gold of silence, and really enjoy being alone with our thoughts. Conversely, we also like to fill our time with meaningful activities which includes meaningful conversations, so that banal three-liner needs to be abolished entirely. If you want to start a conversation, please do. I welcome originality, creative thoughts, and by all means, prove me wrong on something. And maybe I'm partly at fault for giving the non-answer, but when you only give me 3 seconds before you're out of my life, I'd rather you not say anything.

Images from Saw III and Doctor Who: The Vampires of Venice.

Terrible

You know how sometimes you look at horoscopes and numerological studies and that sort of thing, and they usually tell you something you want to see, and you nod thoughtfully and say, "yeah, that's me." Most of the time, these things are geared to our conceit and we always agree because the good and bad could apply to facets of anyone. So, when I saw one about superheroes, I was amused. My birth month gave me a Superman theme of goodness and truth and justice, which does actually fit me very well. Then it went on to the con side where it indicated extreme conceit and condescension which also fits me very well. Unfortunately, sometimes.

Sometimes, I do think I'm a rather terrible person, and it's always in retrospect because I never consider what I'm doing in the moment. I am actually a genius when it comes to intelligence. I think I'm kind of stupid sometimes, to be honest, but from a scientific perspective, I would be considered very, very intelligent in that I learn quickly and easily and can regurgitate most of what I take in (that'd be knowledge, not food, though I imagine I could be skilled at regurgitating food as well). This intelligence makes me very conceited and gives me a bit of a complex in that I know exactly how much smarter than you I am.

Admittedly, I do try to keep it under control when I help people so that they understand the concepts I'm trying to put forth, but a lot of the time, they come away feeling stupid, and people being how they are, it's my fault they feel stupid. Now, it isn't my fault they aren't smart to comprehend the concepts I'm giving them, but I'm the one in the hot seat for teaching complex math to someone who can barely find the numbers on a calculator (cal-cu-what? Go back to eating your glue.).

At my work place, people tend to take ownership of problems they deal with, and they get remarkably possessive about it. I don't care. If someone handles something sent to me, I scoff and shake my head at their impatience since the world won't fall down if it doesn't happen yesterday. In one such instance, I saw an email string where there was a problem, it got passed to other people because I had left for the day already, and then it got "solved" (using the term loosely since it was only resolved because it took long enough to get someone else on it that the only issue was a lack of patience to let something finish). This morning, someone on that string felt the need to ask me about it even though they knew it was fixed. I flat out said that I wasn't sure what she would want me to tell her about it since I had also read the email where it was done, and nothing more to do. I didn't know anything about it. I probably had "that face" that told her she was an idiot. I didn't mean to, but it really was a stupid question. Customer service will say there are no such things as stupid questions, but I assure you there are. If you ask the counter high schooler at McDonalds if they serve pasta, that qualifies as a stupid question. A) McDonalds isn't an Italian restaurant and B) if the answer were yes, I wouldn't recommend it because McDonalds is not an Italian restaurant.

On the flip side of terrible, I have some Star Wars cups on my desk, and in those Star Wars cups are some candy canes. These candy canes came out around Christmas a couple years back and have some images on the wrappers from the Star Wars series, The Clone Wars. I'm not a huge candy person, so my eating any candy at all is very, very slow (except perhaps Jelly Babies, which are scrumptious). Why do I keep these candy canes on my desk? To remind me of how terrible I can be sometimes, and how that affects people. Every time I look at them, I recall being in Wal-Mart with the Queen and her pointing how a box of these candy canes to me. I do like Star Wars, and I have been known to collect knick knacks related to the series, so her doing this is perfectly in line with me. Now, I have a tendency to think about cost more than desire, so in order to dissuade any notion of me wanting to buy this item, I derided the commercialism of the product and silliness of them only putting images on the wrappers when they're just candy canes.

Then I got them for Christmas.

You see, the Queen had already purchased said candy canes since I have an affinity for Star Wars, as I said. She told me this while fighting back the tears since she wasn't aware I would completely hate them, which I don't. I carried them around in my lunch bag for awhile, and then they sat on my desk at home before I finally packed them up and have them with me at work in those cups. Thinking about the situation even now hurts me. These rather innocuous items show me not only that she loves and thinks of me, but also that I am a terrible idiot sometimes and need to consider my words carefully because words can hurt.

I wasn't sure how this post would turn out, and it's gone down a rather depressing path, so I'll end it with this. Humanity is a social creature. Even the most antisocial of us need other people in our lives to achieve any level of happiness. I'm introverted by nature, and I can go enormous lengths of time without talking to anyone. In fact, most people think I hate them because I don't say anything, but the thing is that I get my socializing from both my friend at work (I believe I referred to him as The Mixer or something before) and from my family at home. I don't need much of anything else, but that does not negate anyone's status as a person. Some people need more than others, and I try to accept that.

It doesn't change the fact, however, that most of the time, I really do come off as a terrible person whether I mean to or not.

You Talking To Me?

People are funny. Absolutely conceited so very much of the time. You can see this "all about me" attitude when someone posts something on Facebook, and before they know it, everyone is wondering they are the target of the offhanded comment about "those people." "Is he talking about me?" the person wonders, and usually, when I see something like that going on, I have to say that if you did something that would warrant such a comment, then yeah, probably. If the comment wasn't directed at you before, then it certainly is now (you know, since you wanted it that way).

Really, there is a solid test to determine whether any given applies to you. I know, you'll be all "but what if I did something that I didn't know about," and to that I'll ask that I speak to another one of your personalities that wasn't blacked out at the time of the incident.

The test is, "Did I do something that would lead to this comment?" Real simple. If yes, then apologize for your actions, then explain why you thought it applied to you, allow the ire of the person you wronged (and didn't know you wronged them) to cool down to the point that you can apologize for the now completely new sin you committed against them, and hopefully you can either reconcile that relationship or you have learned from the experience that unless someone directly tells you that you've done something against them, to simply leave it alone (or apologize when it happens).

This has been a public service announcement from a disinterested party who just wants everyone to relax and not take everything so darn personal all the time. Seriously, it isn't all about you.

For The Downtrodden Race

It stinks to be the underdog, you know? There are classes of people who are always on top, and others who always seem to be on the bottom of society, no matter what they do. It is important to always respect those who are not born or allowed to retain the benefits some of us have on this earth. After all, change is not always welcomed, and it is not always beneficial. Sometimes, change comes and it can rip one's life apart sending them into a life they never intended or welcomed, and without choice, they can end up hated by people who once loved them.

I'm speaking, of course, of the Fempiror race, who are who they are because they were forced into that life by some errant rebel who injected them with some kind of serum that changed their person to this other life that most of them never wanted. They aren't freaks. They are misunderstood. They don't want to be hurt by the sun. They don't want cold skin. They don't want to live a long life and be ridiculously strong. Actually, many of them dig that last part, but what they don't want is to be driven out of polite society just because they're different.

The Fempiror are of all colors and nationalities, and many of them are very old. As a result, they understand the world's take on them, and accept their sub-life. Many of them have formed their own communities only associating with other Fempiror since too many times, they've been hurt by those they call "regular humans."

They don't deserve this. Only by cross-contamination of blood can you become a Fempiror, so you need not fear their presence or think they will hurt you or make you become like them (unless they are really angry and think they can some kind of vendetta against humanity, in which case, you'll want to avoid them). Seriously, most of them are fine, upstanding people just trying to make their way in the universe.

Hug a Fempiror today. Show them you care.

This has been a paid advertisement by the Council for Fempiror Equality.

Popular People

You know, I recently went over a shameless list of search terms and while looking over trends, I noticed how Miley Cyrus actually popped up a lot in several trending lists. Actress, musical artist, people (did you know she was a person?), and teen pop artist. I never watched her show, Hannah Montana, though I do have the misfortunate of recalling her father, Billy Ray Cyrus's tune, Achy Breaky Heart. I much prefer the Weird Al knock-off, Achy Break Song, where he begs not to ever play that song again.

One thing I will admit, however, based on what I do know about young Miley is that she actually does have some singing chops. I've listened to quite a few of her songs, and it isn't bad. Her older stuff is fairly bubble gum, but some of the more recent is quite passable. I also found it interesting that she is more popular than everyone's favorite teen punching bag, Justin Bieber, at least as a search result. And of course, a big search engine welcome to Cory Monteith of Glee fame, which is another show I've never watch, but I totally clicked on his name to find a Wikipedia article written in his honor.

Hm, it says he's Canadian. That's not remotely interesting.

Naturally, William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, are right near the top of the list what with that new royal English baby they got going on. Prince William being the second in line to the rather pointless throne of England behind his father. I watched an Animaniacs episode once that had Prince Charles, William's father who was married to the illustrious Princess Diana (I bet he felt so lucky to get with someone so popular), as a character, and at one point, Yakko (probably) asked him, "Who died and made you king?" to which the downtrodden Prince Charles replied with a sniffle, "Nobody." Laughed out loud every time. I still laugh out loud at that. Well, I'm not laughing right now, since I would distract the people around me, but if I were alone and actually watching the episode instead of merely replying it in my head, I would probably laugh...every time. That's a probable chance of an every time laugh right there.

It is worth noting that Kate out trends William in the search. That'll show him. I'm not sure what it'll show him, but it just will(iam).

And before I drop this shameless post, I'll just shout out to Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Donald Trump. No reason, really. Just thought I'd include them because I can. As someone in charge of one aspect of my life makes clear, when you're in charge, you can do what you want. Happy Sunday.

So Very Tired

I'm not tired. In fact, I'm very rarely tired. I only realize that I am actually tired when I lie down and fall asleep in under five minutes, and at that point, I don't really remember much.

At this point in evolutionary history, most people on the planet have a Facebook page. We love Facebook, right? I look at it sometimes even once during a day when I remember it's there. There are people who lie and die by Facebook, though, and they post everything. Like, every detail that comes up. I blocked a guy once just because I became weary of him describing every turd that dropped from his body. Seriously, I don't care, nor do I want to know.

Some people, however, post every creak that emits from their person, and declare that this is what getting old feels like. They note how tired they are. How much they need a nap. How bad their kids act. I read from the stay at home mom about how grateful she is that the kids are at daycare so she can take another nap (She also took a nap that morning when she was sure the kids were sufficiently distracted by the TV). I read from the 29-year-old about how hard it is to get up some mornings, and that they must be getting old.

This isn't just Facebook either on the old thing. I've been hearing from people for years about how old they feel some mornings, and these are people at every age. My worship leader is a bit younger than I, and even he complains about feeling old and not being able to do as much as he used to. I shake my head.

I'm 38, and don't feel any creaks or groans, and I maintain a level of energy that rivals my three princesses. I've asked before exactly when it is I'm supposed to feel old, and inevitably, people give their own age or a few years before. I've actually passed up some ages that I've been given before, and I'm certainly older than most of the people I read about on Facebook and their poor, creaky 30 year old bones.

I don't know what it is. I don't work out with any regularity, but I have an athletic weight. I have occasion to play video games till midnight and still get up at 5-6am for work. I don't watch what I eat, though I don't overeat.

I'd be very curious to know what it is about me versus other people that I still feel like the youngest person in the room when I'm quite occasionally the oldest, or at least the upper age bracket.

Maybe it's the hyperactivity. Oh yes, I was diagnosed as AD/HD as a child, and that never really changed. My legs are bouncing away as I type...

A Story About A Passion Play Gone Wrong

I wanted to relay this story I heard the preacher at camp tell about when he went to see a passion play and the rather severe problems they had during the production. I'll do my best to remember all the details since it's been a few weeks since I originally heard it.

As you may know, a passion play is a story concerning the last week of Jesus' life on earth culminating in at least the crucifixion, if not the resurrection as well. Jesus Christ Superstar is a musical passion play, and Passion of the Christ is probably the most well know movie version of the story (as well as the bloodiest, only missing an NC-17 rating because of the subject material).

So, he was watching this passion play, and they reach the crucifixion part where Jesus was hanging on the cross. The actor was actually tied up to this cross and his final line is of course, "It is finished!" after which he bows his head, and the guards come out to stick the spear in his side, and then carry on. Well, after his line, he died and nothing happened. Apparently, the guards missed the cue and never showed. Jesus did the only thing a good Jesus can do in such an instance. He resurrected himself and cried out, more dramatically, "It is finished!" after which he bowed his head again and died. noting that the guards had not arrived, Jesus resurrected himself a second time, and cried out even louder and with more drama, "IT ... IS ... FINISHED!" after which, he died again.

By this time, the guards had apparently realized that they had missed their cue, and so they grabbed their spears and charged out to take care of business. Now, in order to achieve the effect of stabbing the spear in Jesus' side, the spear had a collapsible tip so that the Jesus actor would not be injured and real blood and water would not flow. Well, in their haste, the tardy guards grabbed one of the real spears and not the rigged-to-collapse one, and as they were in a hurry to catch up to their missed cue, they gave Jesus a hearty stab in the side ... where blood and water flowed. Jesus, was a really trooper, though, because the only way you knew anything was wrong was when he breathed in sharply through his teeth and clenched his fists.

Realizing they had actually stabbed Jesus, the guards rapidly got him off the cross and carried him backstage.

So for the resurrection scene, they pulled in second-string Jesus, as first-string Jesus had not had enough time to heal. The scene went on as planned, and at the end of the scene, they had this dramatic ascension whereby second-string Jesus was rigged to a tree behind the stage and slowly ascends into the branches ... or that was the plan. You see, rigs of this nature are carefully counter-balanced to the weight of the individual who is to be using it, and it turns out that first-string Jesus weighed a bit more than second-string Jesus. He told his disciples, "Surely, I am with you, to the very end of the a--" and the rig kicked in and pulled Jesus at blinding speed into the branches of the tree knocking second-string Jesus right out.

Fortunately, they didn't need a third-string Jesus because the play was quite over by that point.

The Girl of Taco Gringo

Optimus Prime is really one for stories, and he ran down another one for me recently that I thought was both amusing and fascinating in how our interactions in other peoples' lives serves to change them. This one boils down to an essential if-then statement when it comes to Prime's life choices, since in the case of this particular girl, his failure to keep track of time and desire for some Mexican fast food changed someone's life, and perhaps not for the better.

His story began with Everquest, a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), which has since been supplanted, I believe, by Everquest 2. These are affectionately referred to by players as EQ1 and EQ2. Well, people who play these types of games tend to revolve their lives around them, and as such, he tended to miss dinner time at the college cafeteria. Some colleges have some very specific times that the cafeteria is "open" for meals, and in the case of his college, this open time was 5 to 6 pm. After that, you're on your own. 

Well, his choice of fare when he missed the college meal time was a place called Taco Gringo, and he said after the first twenty or thirty times he went in there, they got to know him, and he tended to get more to eat after that. One person who got to know him was this girl who was a waitress in there, and him being a geek and all, he talked to her about computers. She wasn't even a user at the time they met, but knew "about" them, probably like your average 80 year old knows "about" them.  She had been thinking about getting one, and so she talked to him about how to use it, etc.

He, in turn, not only gave her the whole skinny on computers, but told her all about EQ1 and his affinity for it. I have little doubt that he went into lots and lots of detail about who he was and what he did and the little clubs or whatever he was in within the game world. This lead her to go out and buy a computer, and subsequently, get into Everquest as well. While I've never played an MMORPG (never wanted to make the time to do so), I understand that losing yourself in that virtual world is very easy to do if you're not careful, and this is what she ended up doing. She went from waitress to EQ junkie in short order.

So one day, when Prime had missed the meal times at the cafeteria again, he's gone into Taco Gringo only to find that the girl had failed to show up for work again, and had been fired as a result. This, however, was not the end of the story because he'd apparently learned more of what happened to her after she'd left Taco Gringo and how her life in the EQ world went from there. This is all given "as the story goes," and may or may not be 100% of what happened, but it's an interesting story all the same.

She had met a wizard in EQ, and he didn't live too far from her -- just over the state line. She began to take time to go see him, and like the game junkie she had become, she took her computer with her when she went. It started out with weekends, but after one weekend when she'd taken her computer over the state line to see her wizard, she didn't come back. Turns out they had gotten married, but then reality set in.

Apparently (and this may come as a surprise), being a level 80 wizard in the Everquest virtual world is just that: a level 80 wizard online. This equates to being absolutely nothing in the real world. Like his new wife, his EQ obsession took its toll on him, and he was expelled from college for his overkill obsession. This guy was beyond your typical gamer. As the story goes, he had an actual Legend of Zelda Master Sword in his dorm room at one time. By actual, I mean it was an actual, functional sword made to look just like the one in the video game.

I asked him what ever became of them, and his first response was pregnant with 12 kids, but then he laughed it off. Turns out the relationship was not meant to be. He left her when she discovered World of Warcraft.

Gas, Gas, Gas!!!

It's time for a terrifying tale. This one was told by my good friend, Optimus Prime, who apparently has a bit of a reputation. He says that fat guys have a set of rules kind of like the Gremlins (or Mogwai) do. You know, you can't feed them after midnight, keep away from water, that sort of thing.

Well, the rules with fat guys are apparently do not feed them beans or alcohol. Follow these rules and they're pretty lovable and playful. Fail to follow them, and it's pretty scary. Here's why.

On his 21st birthday, he was one of four people there and he had about 8 or 9 shots. This means he was rather plastered, and ended up in the bathroom for a bit. Well, the naked fat guy in the bathroom vomiting and farting made the room all but unusable for everyone else. So lesson learned there.

He already knew beans were right out, so he ensures that he doesn't eat any dish that contains beans. In fact, I asked him once if he'd been to Ron's and he had, but asked me if they put beans in their chili. I said they don't, so he mentioned that chili cheese fries were awesome.

This aversion to beans likely came from the fact that they were a catalyst for the destruction of a Ranger he used to have. He went to some Mexican place in Warrensburg, MO and enjoyed a dish that contained beans. When he and his friend started the 2 hour and 45 minute drive back to Joplin, the gas began.

They rolled the windows down. It didn't help. The smell was overpowering. The driver gunned the engine to full power, and they made that drive from Warrensburg to Joplin in an hour and a half. They survived, but the Ranger's engine didn't.

So he learned the lesson that beans equals bad things happen. This doesn't stop him from giggling when the lesser offenses waft out, but he stayed away from the bean dishes and alcohol. The time came when he was to take a business trip from Missouri to California with three other people from his office at the time. While in the airport, they had a meal and asked the waiter prior to ordering if a particular dish had beans in it. The waiter assured him that it did not.

Following the meal, he got to looking at his nearly empty plate and commented that it looked like the dish did, in fact, contain beans. The waiter shrugged and said, "I guess it did." Well... time to get on the plane for a three and a half hour flight.

It was ten minutes into the flight when the giggling began. Moments later, his co-workers "recognized the rancid smell," and declared him to be the source of the offending scent. But the gas didn't stop. It kept coming...until about 20 minutes before they landed, it kept coming. Air on a plane recirculates, and since it was a Southwest flight, it didn't get filtered. People 8 and 9 rows back were getting physically ill. It was horrible.

They had a layover in Arizona, and his fellow travellers forbid him to eat anything. The second half of the trip was a lot less scentful.

But that's not where the story ends. You see, a legend must come out of this. While they were in California, he was walking down the sidewalk with everyone and his boss was laggin behind a bit. He was far enough back to overhear one of the passers-by begin, "Remember that guy I told you about on the plane...?"

Unfortunately, the tale of terror does not end there. The other day, he was driving around with his wife in their new, cool Mustang, and a rancid smell pervaded the air. She looked at him, but he wasn't giggling. They looked back at their son, who was sporting a smile of his own.

The gas has been passed.

Prime's House - The Conclusion

When we last left my friend, Optimus Prime, he was going on vacation, eagerly awaiting the closing of his house. In theory, the closing date was to be that Monday after he went on vacation, giving him his entire week off to move and get settled. This was a logical assumption since their contractual close date was on Monday, and it would stand to reason that everyone would work to get things done by this point, especially since their realtor was also their mortgage broker. As reasonable as it sounds, this was not to be.

Instead, like a kid waiting for that perfect girl to call, he spent a lot of his week hovering over the phone, just in case the underwriters got their act together (finally) and decided to hand over the money. He said he enjoyed his first couple days off, but by Wednesday, he was anxious because he felt like he was wasting his vacation by not being able to move.

On that Tuesday, he knew that the underwriters wanted to look at the appraisal again before they moved forward. He was informed that this "looking at the appraisal" would take 24 hours and it would be another day after that before they could close because they'd have to schedule a time for everyone to get together. I imagine by this point, the sellers were probably getting anxious as well (but don't quote me on that).

Add to this that they still didn't have a car. The plan was that they close on their house and then run to the car lot to get a car. Talk about spending some money in a week. So Wednesday had also come and gone without a house and without a car, so they'd been trapped at home thorughout half his vacation at that point.

And just to heap something else onto the pile, their plan was to wash the laundry that was drenched during the ceiling incident (read: all of it) once they moved in. Well, by now, this laundry was getting pretty rank, and they were running out of things to wear. Patience is a virtue, but I think this would have been more than I wanted to deal with. I'd've broken down and found a laundromat since their complex's laundromat was nothing to write home about...well, then again, their whole complex was nothing to write home about.

One really has to wonder about these Case and Associates people. They own a huge number of aparment complexes around here, so it would stand to reason that they're doing something right...right? I asked Prime about this, and he commented that it was their office staff. Not only are they incredibly nice, but apparently the company feels that men are the ones doing the apartment shopping as the office is staffed with women of model standards of appearance. I guess the idea is to lose the shopper in their appearance and forget about how crappy the place looks, so by the time you figure out what just happened, you're stuck in a lease.

So by Thursday here, the waves had calmed down pretty much, and my day was nearly over when at 4:59, my phone rings. I roll my eyes thinking that someone decided to wait till the last minute to call and that there was no way I was going to pick that up. That's why God made voicemail, right? So I look over at the caller ID, and it's Prime's number. Naturally, I answer it.

In probably the most excited voice I've ever heard out of him, he says they have a house. They closed at the end of the day, so they weren't going to go car shopping, but they, indeed, have a house and could finally start moving in. I'm happy for him.

Naturally, more drama was to follow, but that's to be expected in any life. So far, he had issues hooking up the hoses for the washer so they could finally do laundry. They got that worked out. And most recently, their son decided to drop five Transformer toys down an open vent on their second floor. Oh, what fun.

Oh, yes. The car. Well, Prime wanted to get together on Friday to celebrate and revealed that he had managed to procure a silver 2006 Mustang convertible as a car. The poor car got a beating in the recent hail storm, but that beating amounted to $5000 off the selling price, and since their son was acting up, it put his wife in a bit of a sour mood, which only served to entice them to knock off another $1000 to seal the deal. They are quite the happy campers at this point.

In the end, he said it all couldn't have worked out any better. You see, before he lost his job in Missouri and moved down here, he had a house and a Mustang. Since he got here, he's been in a crappy apartment with an Explorer. But now, he's back to the house and Mustang. Funny how life works.

The Drama of Prime's House

Gather round my children and I shall tell you a tale... A tale of frustration, woe, victory, and triumph. A tale of a man and his quest to acquire the ultimate American dream: home ownership. God, how boring does that sound? Well, this one was a month in the making, but it runs kind of interesting and has a decent ending to it.

Optimus Prime, the geek who I work with at the computer job, has been looking to purchase his own home for the last few months, and has been looking around town for a good realtor and then a good house. He's actually been in the area for a couple years having moved from Missouri after losing / quitting his job there. That process was a drama in and of itself which involved him having to sell of his last house, losing his Mustang, etc., which made his wife rather unhappy with him.

They've been living in this apartment complex owned by Case and Associates. Remember the name. I've never heard anything good about these people. Optimus describes his apartment as a dungeon, even though it's on the second floor, because no natural light can make it into this apartment. The only window is the door to the balcony and there is a tree right there that blocks the sun. He has had problems with pretty much every faucet in the place, and no matter how many times their "maintenance staff" comes out to fix it, the problems remains. This is because they either can't fix it, or won't due to this next problem.

Cockroaches. Ew... You see, this complex used to have five more buildings than it does now, but due to a fire, those burned, and the cockroaches who were inhabiting these buildings all migrated into the remaining ones creating a veritable infestation that management doesn't seem to want to do anything about. He tells me they were going through a can of Raid about every day or day and a half, and the roaches were just laughing at them.

Recently, they had someone spray and he has complained much less about them, but the head maintenance guy refused to work on their sink once because there was (ew!) a roach under there. What a wuss...

Another thing that bugs them quite a bit is the laundry facilities. Apparently when they have time to do laundry, so does everyone else, especially this one Mexican lady who commandeers every single washer and dryer in the place for hours on end, not allowing anyone to get anything done. Imagine the deluge of people once she is finally done.

So they're ready to move, nevermind the obvious fact that there is not enough room in that little place for them. They can't keep anything out of the hands of the little one since the place is so small that he can get into everything and management won't allow locks on any of the doors.

Well, a little over a month ago, they found a place they loved. He raves about it daily...or rather, did rave about it daily until the offer letter was signed and accepted and the dreaded "process of buying a house" set in. Now, I remember some of these woes because when I bought mine, there were a few pains to deal with, and most of them...no, all of them...were the mortgage company. He had a couple of extra woes, which added to his drama.

The initial dickering was nothing extremely special. He wanted to make sure he got this one year warranty with the price of the house so that anything major that went wrong could be fixed for $50. Not a bad deal. We didn't have anything go bad in the first year, but that's a good thing to know about if we ever go for another house (no, we're not even remotely considering thinking about beginning to look; we're happy). So they gave in to his requests and offer done.

Then, his wife got into a car accident and totaled their one and only car. He asked his realtor about this predicament since they needed to get another car. They were told with their prior car loan in its good state of being nearly paid off, there would have been no problem, but a new loan would look bad on the credit in getting a house since they'd be at 100% debt. This means if he wanted the house, he was forbidden to get another car until the house closed.

Well, not completely forbidden, of course. He could have gone for a used car for less than the payoff he received, but he wanted the warranty, etc. of a new or nearly new purchase, not to mention the piece of mind that comes from getting a vehicle from a reputable dealer, so he was stuck renting a car on the weekends and hitching a ride with another guy here during the week, and he's been doing that faithfully this whole time.

This gave them the opportunity to try several different vehicles from the rental company and they actually like the Ford Focus, though it is the cool hi-tech features that appeal to him. I mean, built in MP3 player that responds to your voice? Yeah, geek paradise there.

So, with no car except rental action, they set up the inspection for a week where he could fork over the $800 to everyone to inspect the property, etc., and the house got a mostly clean bill of health except for one tiny hiccup. Apparently, the electrical wiring on the second floor was a weekend warrior kind of job, and it failed miserably. The list was so long of electrical problems that all they asked the previous owner to do was bring the electrical up to code. Seems fairly straight forward, right?

The previous owner spent a week getting estimates before they officially agreed to do it. During that week, Optimus was fretting daily over losing the money in the inspection, but finally said if he didn't hear back from them, he'd have to back out and start over since the first on the month was coming up, and he had to know whether he was giving notice or not. He wasn't interested in paying another month of rent if they were moving. He laid it all out for his realtor. They agreed the following day.

So things are back on, and he's getting excited. He could close any day, right? Heh. Well, the water heater wasn't 18 inches above the floor, and it had to be moved up. This was done fairly quickly, but now the loan company has to go back out there to visually confirm it. You'd think this would be a quick process...

Another week goes by, no firm closing date, and then the storm comes. If there were anything more to make them want to get the heck out of there, their bedroom ceiling bursting forth with its own indoor waterfall ruining everything in sight might do it.

Naturally, the complex got some people out to fix the roof the next day so it wouldn't leak again. Well, come the next storm, it was if nothing was done at all, and it leaked just as it had originally. So yesterday, the complex got some people to replace the carpet. That makes sense, right? These people are full of sense, but what kind of logic do you expect from a guy who's afraid of cockroaches?

They showed up with the carpet people without any warning at all, and only Prime's wife was there. They expected her to clear their bedroom so they could replace the carpet. Now this is a housewife taking care of a three year old being expected to move the bed frame, wet mattresses, a dresser, and everything else a typical bedroom has...and oh yes, you have fifteen minutes cause they're on the clock.

Needless to say this didn't fly. What finally happened there was (after Prime talked to her, he talked to me, and I threw out an idea or two) she told them off for that day, and to come back tomorrow after they had a chance to move stuff for them. They came back today and replaced the wet portion of the carpet without bothering with the dresser. I shake my head...

For today, Optimus is completely useless since he is distracted by an impending closing date, a week of vacation, and the prospect of getting out of that apartment "possessed by Satan." He said he'd had a priest come over to bless the place, but he was told that he was "too old" to be blessed fully and to walk it off when it was over. And he's been walking it off ever since...

Cat Woman

You know, sometimes when you hear a story, it's way too good to pass up. Usually it's because it sounds so unbelievable that it simply can't be real, but you are assured that it is. I'll have to keep the source on this one anonymous since I want to make sure no one is unduly humiliated (not that I give away a great deal of names anyway, right?).

I grew up with cats -- lots of cats. But despite having an upwards of sixteen cats at one time, it never possessed me to personify them a great deal. Sure, I talked to them, but it was obviously a one sided conversation unless they reacted in some clear way. This is normal, and one way, I don't mind being normal. After all, animals are living creatures, and talking to them enough might actually induce some kind of understanding between you and them. But that's where you end it. You don't go to "the next level."

What is this "next level," you ask? Well, hold on to your seat.

There is a woman out there who had two daughters and a husband and lived out of town on some farmland. As time wore on, her daughters grew up, got married, and moved out of the house, leaving the woman and her husband alone to live out their days in the silence of the country. The husband worked, as most do, so he is gone during the days, leaving her by herself completely.

Her daughters urged her to get a job so she can get out of the house and earn a little money. Well, she refused stating that she was afraid to drive since (because they live in the country) she was afraid she'd hit a deer. So she had another idea: she'll raise cats and sell them. This went on for a couple years, and apparently, she made some decent money doing it...but she got attached to the cats, so she had to stop.

Well, she decided to move from raising cats...to raising chickens. This went on for a year or two, but again, she had to stop, because...yeah, she got attached to the chickens. So now she is in a house with the occasional husband, the leftover cats, and the leftover chickens. What's a woman to do?

Obviously, conversing with the cats isn't totally out of the question, but what do you do when Puss doesn't respond? Well, clearly, you assign a voice to Puss and answer for him. This way, you are talking, and Puss is responding in a different voice, so now, you can converse with someone. But oh wait, Boots is out of the loop. Boots gets his voice, too, and now you can have a three way conversation over the dish-washing. That works.

But what happens when Boots gets attitude and starts calling you fat? And Puss has been sleeping around with more than one of the other cats in the house, so clearly she's a slut. And now, the chickens want to get in on the conversation, so they (naturally) get their own voices and let's not leave out the other cats as well.

After a short while, now the cats and chickens all have their very own voices, first and last names, and complete family histories. Conversations are flying all over the place with everyone trying to talk over each other (though curiously, no one manages to talk over anyone).

So one day, Nixon decides he's gonna get a little lip with the master and he and the woman launch into this hellacious argument. Names are tossed back and forth. Nixon calls her fat and ugly. She knows he's a whore with his manhood and has been overeating lately. It's too much, and word comes back to the others that Nixon has left, going into the field behind the house. He doesn't return.

Several days later, a cat's body was discovered in that field...decapitated. Poor thing must have committed suicide.

One thing you would never do to the cat woman is suggest that the cats are not talking to her. This would, of course, be foolishness, since since she (and you) is clearly hearing their voices, they simply must be talking. If she sits in her chair and starts in with a thousand mile stare, let her go. The conversations will start, and the cats and chickens will start talking. Just let it go.

I hear that if you were to have the honor of staying over at her house, and you wake up and you're alone with her...pretend to be asleep. Apparently, the occasion has arisen that you've had a conversation with the cat woman and it didn't go so well.

It would suck, after all, to wake up in the field and discover you'd lost your head.