New Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dude Blog Fodder

And there you have it, stop at the Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dudes to pick up the husbands shirts and a post for your blog writes itself. I should go there every day. The previous owner was in the back and and saw me, "Hey, I remember you! How are they treating you here?" With the Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dude lurking near the big, giant, hot shirt press I answered, "They're treating me great."
Seriously, what else was I going to say?"
Back in the day when the ownership transition was made, I could have left for a dry cleaner that understood English, I didn't have a blog then so I didn't need them like I do now. But I decided to give the guy that looks like the Vietnam prison camp guard in a Chuck Norris movie a chance. It's proven to have been a good move. He still doesn't understand me but he can almost spell my whole last name. I walk in the door and he says, with his Vietnam prison camp guard in a Chuck Norris movie grin, "S..... E..... E....." I usually have nothing to say to that so I just smile at him like it's our little joke.
Seriously, what else can I do?
The previous owner said, "It's good to see you again."
The Asian woman said, "Have nice day."
The Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dude said nothing.
I left hearing the words from the previous owner commenting on me being an old customer and complimenting the none English speaking couple on keeping me.
I really hoped, as I got in my car that the Asians could differentiate the fact that I was an old customer, not an old customer.

I thought my brain was getting bigger

Occasionally, maybe once a week, I will sit by myself at McDonald's for lunch. This is the time I've set aside to think up something brilliant to post. Lost in my thoughts and my fries, fruit and walnut salad, a humongous ice tea with lemon and 4 sugars. From brain to hand the ideas flow out of me with astounding fluidity. It's really quite amazing. Until the first of the new year, I really thought my brain was getting bigger. But now my mind is stuck on remembering it's 2010. You'd think by now I could remember to write, type or even say 2010. This is a huge set back on my brain growing to genius proportion. What a drag. Even now while sitting in my McDonald's booth my concentration is strained, my eyes keep straying towards the word search game on my trays place-mat.
"Apple Pie" is right there, I should circle it. No focus."
The guy in the other booth is doing his word search. I heard him say to his lunch companion, "I found everything but Apple Pie."
"Doh!" How could he not see Apple Pie.

Peeing with Santa

"We never talk anymore."
"Mom......."
"No, don't mom me."
"It was nothing, really."
"You know I'm a humor blogger, you have a conversation with Santa Claus in the mens room and neglect to tell me.? It's unforgivable."
"I'm sorry, won't happen again."
"Exactly! How many people can say they pee'ed with Santa. You're going through life with blinders on kid. What did you talk about anyway?"
"He hates the beard, it itches."

I have ten cans of soup. All is right in the world.

With one storm system under our belts, we, the mighty Northeast Ohioans, await the second one. The weather channel, talk show hosts, local news crews, the UPS deliver guy and the truck driver at work promise us at least another half foot of snow, more in the snow belt, by the time we wake up tomorrow. According to all of those experts "it's going to be a mess."

If it's going to be a mess I'll want to stay in the house, I thought to myself. And then my next though was, I better get dog food. Because Buckeye has been peeing in snow up past her twat for over a week now, the least I can do is make sure we don't run out of dog food.
I knew we needed "lake effect snow" provisions but the only item that I could grasp, hold on to, and run with was the dog food. So I went up and down every aisle.

Pickles, the last time I looked for pickles at home I couldn't find any, I bought some. Ten cans of soup for $10.00? Deal. Oh look, they have 4 bottles of Diet Sunkist, the only diet pop the diabetic will drink, threw them in the cart. Poke'Mon macaroni and cheese, the boys will think that's so funny, three boxes, because we already have 5 boxes of the Sponge Bob ones at home. Wouldn't it be funny if I forgot the dog food? I high tailed it to the pet aisle and threw a bag of lamb and barley in the cart along with some braided raw hides. On my way to the registers I grabbed a box of donuts for the diabetic.

It seems quite a few people had the same plan as me, all the registers were open. Half of them have the self scanning technology and the other half cashiers. I can't self scan, it just never works for me. So I waited longer for a cashier and ended up getting scolded by the woman. Apparently I wasn't suppose to take the coupon off the Frito Scoops, she was. What kind of sense does that make when half the registers are self scan? Hmmmm? I really, really want to point that out to her, really. But I held my tongue, I barely made it through the Alberta Clipper storm system and now facing impending doom with a Lake Effect Storm on the way, why tempt fate? The dog is now sitting in front of a roaring fire chewing on her new braided raw hide and I have ten cans of soup. All is right in the world.

Can anyone spare $24.83 and provide a receipt?

So the husband and I sat down at another restaurant for dinner. I work full time now, I avoid cooking. This was the topic of our dinner conversation, the not cooking thing. Then the conversation took on a life of its own and we started discussing my receptionist career. "You know what I'm doing now?" I asked him. "They dumped the petty cash box in my lap."
The husband looked amused.
"It hasn't been reconciled since September."
His face lit up like a Christmas tree.
"It kind of got lost in the shuffle during the layoffs at the beginning of the year."
Then there was an honest to God, genuine look of interest in his demeanor.
And then we laughed a good 45 to 56 seconds. There would have been more laughing but our waiter came by to tell us the evenings specials. The baked ziti sounded good so I ordered it. When our waiter left the husband asked me, "What kind of bull crap have you been slinging around that office? I can straighten them out right now by showing them about six or seven old checkbooks you've screwed up over the years."
"I never put proficient in Math on my resume, I avoid all Math conversations around the water cooler. I even mentioned once that I hated Math and I know people heard me, I'm kind of loud."
"Really, I never noticed."

Now that the laughing stage is over and done with, I'm fast approaching the hair pulling stage, next will be the crying. I can't seem to find $24.83.
And I'm totally clueless on where to look for it.

I'm not one of those bloggers that just posts a video so they can say they posted, really

But I was on YouTube, because my Christmas shopping is going to get its self done, and I watched my one and only video I posted there again. I decided to share it in case anyone missed it. The two in the video say they are my kids, but I don't know who they are.

Fourth of July Picnic at Tattoo Tim's House 2009:

I think she's trying to communicate with me.

Never being an overly ambitious person throughout my 40 something years, I decided long ago that one language was enough for me. It's a decision I still stand by, it's a decision that has plagued me at the Scary Asian Dry Cleaners.
I learned last year that The Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dudes co-worker, family member, whoever she is, that takes my seven ah twenty every week likes to be paid in singles, she loves them. She made it perfectly clear to me when I gave her a twenty and she saw the singles in my wallet, "You pay with dollah, you pay with dollah."
"But...........I...."
Smelling the fear she continued, "You pay with dollah."
"I need this for my son's lunch money." Everyone knows you can't give a kid a twenty and expect change back. I held my ground and she backed off.
My weekly language barrier continued Friday. Armed with singles, like I always have and forever will be, after the dollah incident, I dropped off my four shirt and picked up my four shirt. The only thing next was for her to tell me "Have nice day." We have a routine, little or no talking and we stick to the basics. But she started to talk to me. "Huh?" I had no idea what she was saying but she was pointing to my money and the cash register. "What?" If she's raising their prices she needs to learn a new sentence. "I don't understand." We both became frustrated, she ended the "conversation" by waving me off. I was dismissed.
As I walked to my car, with my head hung low (she didn't tell me to "Have nice day.") I tried to piece together the what had just happened. I'm still at a loss, well not a total loss. I'm pretty sure I might have stiffed her a buck.
Read my last post and tell me there ain't some weird karma going on.

From the Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dude Files part 27

Ahh crap. I stopped at the Dry Cleaners during lunch yesterday and the Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dude tried to stiff me out of a buck. With the economy in the tank and Christmas fast approaching like a run away semi-truck on an icy road, I had to point out the error. I helped him count back from $16.50 and the light came on in his eyes. Whether it was the light that meant,
"Oh I see now where I was wrong, thank you for being so understanding."
Or,
"I'm going to beat you over the head with my numb-chucks when you least suspect it, and it will be soon."
I'm not sure.
Someone remind me to send one of the children for the dry cleaning next week.
Aren't the Asian people a people of superior math skills anyway?
I left the dry cleaners with mixed emotions. Obviously I have untapped mad Math skills, but would I live long enough to put them to good use?

"The hell? Snow?" This is mildly annoying.

Thanksgiving Day the husband and I ran around from destination to destination in sweatshirts and this morning snow, ground covering snow. Damn. Why didn't I have a winter jacket on when we set out on our Thankgsiving Day? And when I say destination to destination, I don't mean schlepping from house to house with three kids in tow, eating dinner after dinner, we've been there, done that. I mean:
Handing the crock pot full of mashed potato's to the husband, I announce, "We have to stop at the store on the way to your sisters for maxi-pads."
He made a sound that I am unable to spell and said, "Can't you just....."
"I can't just do anything. We have to stop on this day of Thanksgiving, the day we say thanks for all of life's many blessing and stop for maxi-pads."
We have a short stare-down, "I guess we could pick up some pop, I guess."
"Yes, that's a good idea."
He's come such a long way over the years, maxi-pad talk use to scare him, now he's just mildly annoyed.

We live in Northeast Ohio, so at anytime of the year snow doesn't surprise me, it's just usually cold when the snow falls. Maybe I'm having hot flashes.

Wash your hands moron

If the world is being dumbed down to mass retardation, seriously, do I have to participate? Do I have to be on the list of people that need to be called on a "sleep in" Saturday morning to be reminded I need a prescription filled? I can tell the bottle is almost empty, any moron can tell when a bottle is almost empty. Gah! Do I really need to be reminded I need to make an eye appointment? I know when I can't see.

And don't get me started on the "swine flu" procedures. It's been drilled into my head since birth to wash my hands. But for some reason the world is compelled to remind me with every turn I make to wash my hands. Signs, signs everywhere signs.

Society, we weren't born yesterday, most of us, can we be treated like we have functioning brain cells? Like adults, perhaps?

Okay, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Now I have to go find my car keys.

Turkeys in the parking lot

Being so close to Thanksgiving you'd think turkeys would keep a low profile, you know, hide in the woods, cowering in fear. So you can imagine my surprise to see five of them boldly, taking a stroll across the parking lot at work yesterday morning. At first I thought it was a bunch of geese, we have geese and goose poop everywhere by the office, they are a common occurrence. But I did a double take, "Huh? Turkeys in the parking lot? What kind of crazy messed up day is this going to be?"
I had to share the freakiness with my co-workers. If my day was going to start off with turkeys walking through the parking lot, so was theirs. We watched through the office windows as the turkeys made their way around the building, moving from office to office picking up a new member of the turkey watching procession as we went along. The turkeys picked the newest car in the parking lot to jump on. Seriously, one jumped up on the hood and another the roof, the car still had temporary tags on it. It was clear by then we were under attack. Something had to be done.
"Keep an eye on them, I'm getting my camera."
"We can't stop them you know, they're pissed about something, you better hurry."
"Make sure you get one of the vans in the picture with our logo, we can get this in the company newsletter."
"I'm slightly worried about my car."
"I'm sure it's fine."
The turkeys made their way towards the woods and we haven't seen them since, perhaps they were making some kind of Thanksgiving statement, we'll never be sure though. You never know what turkeys are thinking.

My fragile mental state of mind

Leaving the safety of my home, I ventured out into the swine flu riddled world we now live in, only leaving for food, gas and a mocha. Already at risk and in a weakened condition, because I'm pretty sure I have a sinus infection, I did this for my family to survive the weekend. I stocked up on Sponge Bob macaroni and cheese and Pepsi, oh and another bottle of my beloved Nyquil. Not that I've gone through a whole bottle myself, yet, the rest of the family likes to knock themselves out with that stuff when they're sick too.
We're sick but not swine flu sick. I'm sure I have a sinus infection but refuse to go to the doctors and sit in the germ infested waiting room for antibiotics. I suppose I'll have to go to the "black market" for those. Where is the "black market" any way? I need a few things.
Whether I ever leave my house again will be up to how much I let the media scare me and in my fragile mental state, because of the FaceBook addiction and my brain swimming in snot, it may be never.

FaceBook is reading my thoughts

Ever since I've fallen into the FaceBook black hole, my blog has suffered. But FaceBook told me the blog will be fine and I have no choice but to agree with it, it rules me now.
On my Farmville Farm I planted my entire field with corn with plans of creating a crop circle, thought it would be cool. I messed it up and started over, corn takes three days to be ready to harvest. In that three days Farmville added new items, crop circles. Doh!
You know what this means don't you? I have to start wearing a tin foil hat while on the computer.

My eyes, my eyes, dear God my eyes!

Sitting at work, receptionisting the hell out of the day, I was treated to a view that is now burned into my retinas, for how long, I'm not sure. I'd like to think the image will fade in time, one can only hope I suppose.
I'm at such an angle at my desk that I can see the reception area, the parking lot and our parts counter. Which is good for me, I'm generally a nosy person, I don't know how people can sit in a cubical with no windows all day without snapping at some point, going postal or just start banging their head against the walls. Maybe a have a light case of claustrophobia.
Back to the wide open space that is mine. I saw, coming from the parking lot a very large man with long black hair, in the back of his head, short in the front. Yes, a large man with a mullet and that's not even the worse part. On the inside, I'm saying, "Look at this effin guy." On the outside, "Good morning." Because remember, I was receptionisting the hell out of the day.
He sat down at the part counter. The phone rang, my attention was pulled towards the phone which is on the side of the parts counter where the large man with a mullet was now sitting. I had taken a glance and then another, "Is that? .....oh man, that's butt crack."
Look away, look away. Damn he's still there. Look away.
I knew it was there, I knew it was an awful sight, yet I kept looking that way. Like a car wreck, you know you shouldn't gawk, but you do it anyway. So I thought, well maybe if I put my hand up to the side of my face I could block the view of the large man with a mullet and now butt crack.
"Whoa." This is from one of the salesmen. "That's some view you have there."
"Make it stop."
"Sorry, I'm on my way out." He said with a grin.
On his "way out" he went out of his way to bang on the window on the side of the large man with a mullet and now butt crack, to wave goodbye to me, insuring yet another look.

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Another reason I'm not posting much, is that I'm working full time now. This is something I haven't done since I first got married, almost 25 years ago. I now have a deeper appreciation for Fridays. TGIF!

I promise to post more as soon as I get the FaceBook monkey off my back.

Isn't it funny how an innocent little "invite" on FaceBook can lead to a total, life consuming obsession? What the hell do I need a virtual farm for? But as I type I have another window open on my computer so I can keep an eye on my crops. FaceBook will be the death of me.

The husband and I actually saw farm stuff up close a couple weeks ago, we went to a county fair. It was a work related thing for him and he dragged his city girl wife along. At this fair, while walking amongst the farm people, it's where we decided our children are way too spoiled. Farm kids lead a entirely different life than spoiled city kids. We weren't sure exactly what these farm kids were doing but their days are spent a lot different than ours. We wandered into a barn and sat on some bleachers, because the guy on the speaker said they were starting in 5 minutes.
"Starting what?"

"I don't know."
"Well, we better sit down."
There were several different farm animals at different stations with a person in charge of an animal and these kids kept going to each station with a score card they gave to the person. The husband and I sat perplexed, noticeably perplexed.
"Alright, I'll take a picture."

After about three, 5 minute sessions, because that's all the time they were allotted for whatever they were doing, I leaned over to the husband and said, "This is boring the living snot out of me."
He was up off the bleachers before I finished the sentence. This is when we stumbled into a field of tractors. Which was even more boring because they didn't even move. But the husband reminisced about the summers he spent on his aunt and uncles farm and showed me the kind of tractor he use to drive.
"You drove a tractor just like that?"
"Yep."
"Before you had your drivers license?"

Hello, my name is Sue and I watched America's Got Talent

Just about from beginning to end, I watched it, not counting the commercials and when David Hasselhoff spoke. You see I had to record the episodes because the husband white hot hhhhhates it. Nothing entertains him on TV except World War II documentaries and Sports Center. It's a right brain versus left brain kind of thing we have going. He has absolutely no imagination what-so-ever and I watch Kookamonga television shows.

The advantages of recording America's Got Talent are as follows:
1. I can't say enough about the Fast Forward function, let's break this down.
a. I can't get past this David Hasselhoff picture and video. When he speaks, "Hoffatizes" everything and criticizes an act, I just want to say, "Shut up, you ate a cheeseburger "hoff" the floor." It's much easier to fast forward through his self indulged babbling. I think he even sang on the show, maybe even danced too, but I fast forwarded so quick it was just a blur and I covered my eyes partly too.
b. Commercials, except for the e-trade babies, who wants to voluntarily watch a commercial?
c. The sob stories, if you make it to the big show, semi-finals, finals, whatever, there's a certain amount of crying involved. Too much crying you blow your chances, not enough and you're done. So fast forwarding through that crap saves brain cells. None of them have ever made me cry and none of them have ever made me vote. But for some reason America's Got Talent entertains me and drives the husband crazy, it's a win/win.
2. That pause button, it gives me the ability to yell at a teenager at will and never miss a thing. Barking orders from my recliner with my fingers on the pause and fast forward buttons while the husband contemplates sticking a fork in his eye, now that's one hell of an evening.

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How off do you have to be with your spellin' when the spell-check says "no suggestions"?

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My mother-in-law is recuperating in a nursing home now and doing much better! Thanks everyone for your kind comments and wishing her well!

Apparently I have mad ironing skills

"You look nice in that white shirt."
"Thank you."
"Did you press it yourself?"
"Uh yeeees."
"It looks good."
"Thank...... you?"

So along with my charming personality, friendly disposition and my ability to get along well with others, I can wield a mean-ass iron. This conversation was with a Marine, they know about pressing. My resume is complete.
I'm guessing they call ironing, pressing in the Marines, right?

So I asked the husband.
"Did he mention your gib line?"
"Huh? Give line? The hell are you talking about?"
"Gib line, the line of buttons from your neck to your crotch."
"He never mentioned my crotch."

So I searched google for gib line, nothing.
"You don't know what you're talking about, gib line, there's no such thing on google or wikipedia."
"Are sure he wasn't hitting on you?"
"I.... no.... I just have mad ironing skills."

Isn't it about time we had our flying cars already?

"They have the road to the hospital down to 2 lanes because of their endless construction this summer." The husband says to me. "But I know an alternate route that will take us around it." And he says this with an all knowing, I'm all over this traffic thing look on his face. The kind of look that made me think he spent most of his day contemplating our route and probably was on the Internet and everything.
We were breezing along the alternate route, windows open, radio humming and discussing the boys and where we went wrong with them, when we turned the bend in the road and saw a gozillion red brake lights at a stand still ahead of us.
"Huh. Looks like people are on to your alternate route."
And since I try to maintain a PG rated blog I won't mention what he said next.

So we sat for awhile lost in our own thoughts. That's when I wondered what the hold up was on the flying cars.

If we learned anything during our childhood while watching The Jetsons, it was that in the future we'd all be driving flying cars. I took a sideways glance at the husband and knew that it wasn't the time to bring that subject up. I knew I had to mull in over on my own.

You can't just give a flying car to anybody, I thought. Flying cars needed to be doled out carefully. Someone with an excellent driving record. Which then had me switching gears to my loaner car mishap, how was I going to make that go away? If that gets in the way of me getting a flying car I'll be pissed. I had an excellent driving record before that incident.
You can't just give a flying car to a dumb person either, there's going to have to be an IQ test for flying car ownership. Which I would pass with flying colors, I'm sure of it.
Probably in the beginning stages of flying cars we would have to wear helmets, something I would have to someway get around. I spend too much time on my hair in the morning to have helmet head all day.

Yes, I had that much time to ponder flying cars in the traffic jam.

"Hey we're moving." We made it to the hospital in time to see mom, who looked so much better than she has in days. The hospital staff was making an exception and letting her great-grand children visit, she was beaming.

It's what I get for wearing white after Labor Day

Gulping down my beloved mocha yesterday in between phone calls at work, I got a little careless and spilled. This sent me into a frenzy. My favorite white, long shorts, with the embroidery and beads at the bottom of the legs had mocha spots on them. Damn. Damn it.
Risking unemployment, I left the phone unattended and ran to the ladies room. Constructing a story as I went. The office is primarily men so any mention of tampons shuts them up quick. That was going to be my story if needed. I don't like to use the tampon card unless absolutely necessary, one doesn't want to reduce it's effectiveness, you know?
Vigorously I pumped pink soap out of the dispenser in the ladies room onto 1-ply C-fold paper towels and scrubbed my mocha spots until my entire left leg was soaked. Away from the phone as long as I dared, I soaked more 1-ply C-fold paper towels and brought them back to my desk. This will have to do until I can get to the Shout and scrub brush, I thought.
I spent the rest of the day obsessing over my mocha spots and smelling like pink ladies room soap. This event re-enforced the law of never wearing white after Labor Day for me, never again will I throw caution to the wind and break fashion rules. My tampon card remains intake for now.

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My mother-in-law is doing a little bit better. Thank you everyone for wishing her well!

Nut-tastic

Boy #3 did his grocery shopping yesterday. Living with a diabetic has taught us all to hide sugar. That's why he does a little light shopping on his own. If I locked him in his room, I'm guessing he could survive about a week in there. I asked him to buy dog bones, we were dangerously low on them and I don't want to have Nooter report me to doggie social services. He came home with Nut-tastic dog treats.

Nut-tastic. That name is so fan-effing-tastic.

The husband came home and saw the jar, picked it up and said, "Nut-tastic!"
Boy #2's girlfriend blurts out, "They're for the dog."
The husbands eyebrow went up and he looked at me, "Huh." I said, "She's known you less than a year and she's figured out you're a moron."
"I see the dog on the jar, I know they're dog treats."
"Oh, then maybe she overheard some diabolical plan to put them in a candy dish and watch you eat a few before anything was said, maybe."

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My mother-in-law's initial diagnosis, Stevens Johnsons Syndrome has been changed to Bullous Pemphigoid, equally as awful and has begun to progress aggressively. We call the husband a moron in fun, we know he's hurting, he's worried about his mom.
Thank you all for your well wishes.

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Oh and there's less than an 80% chance that I'd ever lock Boy #3 in his room.