Ravings of a Textual Deviant

I emailed my brother and said that I hoped he didn’t need one of these. His reply?

“hmm. a urine sign would really be more useful, sadly. stinkerpants. she’s cute though. too bad she knows it.”

In the past few days I have been compared to a hurricane, a tsunami, and an iceberg. Today’s horoscope starts out “Like a rush of hot lava welling up from the center of the Earth, you are about to arrive at the surface…”

I suppose the fact that Ed has survived me this long certainly says something for his fortitude. Or his luck.

Me: Can we just lock [parasitic housemate] and [notorious complainer] in a room together with a can of Drano?

Alisa: I don’t see why not. They can kvetch each other to death, and then we can use the Drano to clean up afterwards.

There are no more delays, excuses, or reasons to defer. My dear friend’s Parasitic Housemate is moving out tomorrow. Fiat. Everything is packed. Helpful people have volunteered to help my friend get the PH’s stuff out of the house, and in an act of great charity, move it to the PH’s new residence rather than dumping it unceremoniously in the gutter as some of the less kind among us would prefer—not only does that include me, I believe I am leading the pack.

In an amazing display of the power of self-deception, the PH had to be disabused of the notion that she’d still be sleeping at my friend’s house through the end of the week. My plan to ensure this absolutely, positively doesn’t happen (a necessity given that my friend is too nice for her own good)?

1. Take apart the bed that day, preferably as soon as the PH is out of it;
2. Shove all the furniture into the middle of the room, and start painting (PH hates the smell of paint);
3. Take back the PH’s house key as soon as the PH is delivered to her new residence.

I’m still trying to convince my friend that she needs a restraining order. Unfortunately, land mines in the front yard are impractical, given that my friend has a seven-year-old kid. On the other hand, my friend is planning on selling the house this summer…

To paraphrase Margaret Cho, I save my mother’s emails because they’re worth saving.

The Morris Butler House had a Birthday Tea for Queen Victoria this last Saturday, and I was asked to play Queen Victoria. I couldn’t turn down an opportunity like that; after all, it’s good to be the Queen.

A few days ahead of time, I was given some information about Queen Victoria, which I supplemented with information from the Encyclopedia Britannica. I even memorized the names of all of Victoria’s children in order.

I arrived at the House with plenty of time to get ready. Each of the volunteers in turn asked me if I was Queen Victoria, and I answered each one “I will be.”

I had checked on the room before I had gone up to get dressed so when I came down I knew where to head without having to look for the empty chair (always useful when you are being a Queen, since the Queen gets to sit wherever she wants and it causes much less fuss if she wants to sit where her place card is.)

All the ladies curtsied to me and waited for me to be seated before they sat down (they had been well instructed.) They sat down and I immediately realized that they would not be allowed to speak unless I spoke first so I did. We were served two different kinds of cake and ruby scones, (which I spoke of with the British pronunciation, of course) all with cherries since they were Victoria’s favorite. We also had Victorian kisses, which were suspiciously like little meringues. With all that sweet stuff, the chicken curry sandwiches were a real relief. Fortunately, my teacup was kept full (English Breakfast Tea, of course.)

I spoke with my high British accent, using phrases like “One gets a bit peckish” and words like schedule (using the British pronunciation, of course.) I tried to remember to say We instead of I and I did a fairly good job of it.

Thanks to the information I had studied, I was able to answer most of the questions they answered without too much of a problem. Then, one of the women asked if I had ever been to Africa. I said no, but pointed out that South Africa was part of Our Empire. Then she said that her two daughters (who were sitting across from her at the table and were the only children there) were from Ethiopia. She said that they were in awe of me. They were very well behaved, so later on I called them charming children.

Then, one of the volunteers came over and asked if I could either speak louder (which I didn’t want to do because the other end of the table was about 30 feet away) or go down the table to speak to the ladies at the other end. I agreed, but I didn’t go immediately. The Queen goes down to talk to the ladies at the other end of the table when she feels like it.

I went about halfway down, and spoke to the ladies in the middle and one of them asked why I always wore black, so I told her how I missed my poor Albert. Then she asked how old he had been when he died and that’s when I realized that I should have memorized a few more dates. I gave an answer (which turns out to be 9 years off) and she was satisfied.

Then I went down to the far end of the table, where there was a group of about a dozen Red Hat Ladies. One of them asked if they could sing Happy Birthday to me and I assented. Then she said, “Ladies, get out your kazoos.” Naturally, I had to say, “I didn’t realize it would be an instrumental version.”

I thanked them and went back up to my place. By then all the sweet food was getting a bit much, even with my care to have been taking small bites all along so that I would never have my mouth full when I had to answer a question.

A volunteer came over and told me that they were ready to give the ladies a tour of the house, and I could finish up within the next 7 or 8 minutes (it’s nice to have a staff that’s so precise) so I did. When I was ready to stand up, the volunteers told all the ladies to stand, so I had to wait until they all made it up, then I got up and went back upstairs and started to get back into my jeans and T-shirt.

Later that evening, I received an email from the Morris Butler House saying, “Wow! Everyone was really thrilled with the tea today! Thank you for all of your help! The whole event went incredibly smoothly and all of our visitors said that they had a great time! Everyone raved about your performance, and several asked if you were British.
You were fabulous!

Thank you so very much.”

I emailed back, “You mean they didn’t think I was really Queen Victoria?!”

The best instant message exchange I’ve had all day.

Doug: Yes well what can I say…
Me: all kinds of wonderful things when you put your mind to it
Doug: Fair enough.. but I still think it might be a good thing for them to have IPs…
Doug: Whoops wrong window
Me: it does make a certain kind of sense, though

Mr. Coworker instant-messaged me with a change four minutes before five people were to sign a document that would allow us to begin testing the system in question forthwith…by which I mean NOW. Never mind the fact that we were supposed to start testing last week, and the niceties of the review process.

Screw it. We’ll revise the document later. I wonder if my jail cell will have a high-speed Internet connection.

Doug: He said the movie changed his life. Personally, I don’t believe in a $7 epiphany.

Me: If you’re only going to spend $7 for an epiphany, it ought to come out of a bottle.

Two phrases that aren’t euphemisms, but sound like them…

“The Italian sales force community”

“Handwashing my delicates”

“The Tao that can be known is not Tao.”—Lao Zi

“The Tao is like pornography. I can’t define it, but I recognize it when I see it.”—me
(Apologies to Potter Stewart)