July 7, 2007

Notre Damn Strikes Back

Well, Notre Damn didn't really strike back, but it sounded like a good title.

I just had to share this tidbit as I was perusing my stats (which I forgot to look at for about the last three months). Someone from Toledo, Ohio, hit my site with this search string in Google:

who called Notre Dame "Notre Damn"

LMFAO

I'm the third hit on Google for that string. It goes to this little story, which I'll repost now, because, well, it makes me laugh still.

I hate the telephone. I was never one of those teenagers from whom you had to surgically remove the phone from the ear. In fact, once the internet really matured, I'd so much rather deal with an email or even an IM than the phone. Why? Well, I choose when to do my email or IM. The phone interrupts at any given moment with its shrill and demanding call.

Most of my friends know how much I hate the phone and so, we rarely get calls at our house ... so much so that it's become habit now to think "wow, what important thing has happened that someone had to actually call us?" when the phone rings.

So telemarketers really bug the crap outa me.

So, last night the phone rings and this young woman's voice comes piping out, "Hello, this is Muffy O'Donnell. May I speak with Red Monkey?"

Now about half the time if I don't recognize the voice or the name, I might just hang up. Friends who thought I would certainly recognize their voice have long since learned I don't recognize voices well. I figure hanging up now is saving the telemarketer time and money. They're not gonna get a damn thing out of me, so now they know and they can dial the next number on their list and maybe make some money off that mark.

If I'm in a decent enough mood, I might attempt to be polite. Last night was somewhere in between polite and really really onery. I decided to answer literally and honestly and see what happened. She asked if she could speak with Red Monkey and I answered:

"Sure."

Pause as she waits for me to put Red Monkey on the phone. "Hello?"

"Yes, we've done that part already."

I can now feel the confusion coming through the phone line. "Umm, well, is this Red Monkey?"

"Speaking."

"Oh, well, like I said, this is Molly Maguire and I'm a student here at the University of Notre Dame."

"I'm sorry."

Pause. "Hello???"

"I didn't go anywhere."

"Umm, so I'm a sophomore at Notre Dame and --"

"Yeah, I heard you the first time. I said I'm sorry. That's a pretty bad school."

"But ... what? But why? Why would you ... I'm sorry. It is not."

At this point I hung up out of kindness. The kid is likely trying to raise money for a school that has more money than most state school systems, and she's probably getting a small commission on each "sale" she makes. If I have to take the time to explain to her exactly why the education that she's getting there is deficient, well, she'll never make any money!

I'm curious to see if I get another phone call from them, though.

(Oh, and the title of this post? That's from an IM conversation I had right after I got off the phone. I was explaining to someone who had called and typo'd Notre Dame as Notre Damn. Given my feelings about that place, it seemed faaaar more appropriate!)

Apparently, however, this is an old stand-by for non-Notre Dame fans ... and, in fact, looking at some of the Google hits for just the "Notre Damn" search string, apparently it's a common typo.

Has ND ever called back? Yep. And, they sent me some bullshit letter about how lucky I am to work there, and shouldn't I give them money. I grabbed a Sharpie marker and told them to NEVER contact me again. They sent a letter apologizing (OMG, someone there knows HOW to apologize for something? AND has the decency to DO so?????) Alas, other departments still send me crap from time to time. It all goes in the recycling now.

Sad that it's still so painful. Maybe I'll get around to posting about that one day. Maybe not.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:29 AM | Comments (2) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

July 3, 2007

Bagthorpes

I adore the Bagthorpes. And, having FINALLY placed hands on the elusive The Bagthorpe Triangle by Helen Cresswell, I must share a bit of the humour of this book ... whether you want it or not.

"I feel all of a frazzle," I told 'im. "As if my right arm don't know what my left leg's doing." It's 'orrible.

... Nor could anyone else [imagine such a thing]. Jack could not help wondering if your right arm needed to know what your left leg was doing. He tried mentally to connect up these two parts of his anatomy, and the effect was quite strange. He immediately abandoned the experiment, out of a real fear of ending up like Mrs Fosdyke.

Oh my, but I love these books. I think ... perhaps ... finally ... I have them all now. I've been haunting eBay and used bookstores for the last couple ... there are nine total, I think.

Not quite Harry Potter, of course, but FAR funnier. Then again, Harry Potter was never meant to be funny. (Can you tell I'm ready for July 21?)

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:43 AM | Comments (1) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

July 1, 2007

Stripes of Lies

I was a candy striper.

I admit it. I need the volunteer work points so that I could be in the Honors Society in high school. I'm not sure why I needed that, I never went to any meetings. Oh yeah, so that I could have a great transcript thingy to show colleges.

At any rate, myself, Kyungah (Janet) and Trisha worked Sunday mornings, 8 to noon. We attempted to be assigned to the children's wing, but alas, on Sunday morning they needed us to go all over the hospital.

Understand ... I was 15, I didn't want to be there, I didn't think anything we did was of any importance, and we didn't get paid.

We didn't have the world's best, most altruistic and helpful attitudes. Well, at least I didn't.

So, we wandered from nurse's station to nurse's station every Sunday morning. We were supposed to get a 15 minute break, but the cafeteria was right next to the "Pink Ladies" station ... the older, retired volunteers who would give us additional jobs. If we didn't manage to sneak into the cafeteria, we didn't get a break at all.

Breaks and "fairness" take on a great deal of importance at 15.

So, we began hanging out in the 4th floor auditorium for our breaks instead.

Now, one detail about me as a kid:
I made up stories.

Whether it was spinning a tale of utter fiction on paper and calling it the beginning of a novel or answering a friend's question with a totally implausible answer (and somehow, a straight face), I enjoyed making things up.

So ... bored out of my wits one day whilst doing the whole candy striping thing, I decided to have some fun with Trisha. We took our break in the 4th floor auditorium and someone had left a few lights on. Far from making it more comfortable, the room was now creepier than ever. And, for whatever mad reason, I decided to begin spinning some story-lies. I don't remember exactly how I started ... something about my parents being abusive and mean. No details, just generalities.

So, when I was seven, I just couldn't take it anymore. I went out to the shed in the backyard and got an ax. And I killed them both.

Oh, you did not, Red Monkey. Kyungah has been over to your house and met your parents before.

No, she met my adoptive parents. My birth parents are the ones I killed. But ... (I rubbed my face a little and with the anticipation of getting her to laugh, I started grinning ... I just couldn't keep a straight face any longer.) ... but my adoptive parents are starting to get on my nerves now. I'm thinking of doing them in too. You won't tell on me, will you?

What I hadn't really fully understood when I decided to tease Trisha with this story was that
One ... she was truly one of the most gullible people I'd ever met in my life.
Two ... umm, yeah. I should have noticed this part, but umm ... yeah. I was sitting under a can light. So I was lit from above and it was one of the very few lights in the room. I'm guessing the effect must have been rather creepy.

Of course, being me, I just couldn't comprehend that someone would buy this story, particularly not when I kept laughing through most of it. (Again, I couldn't see myself with that can light coming down ... in retrospect, I'm sure that between the lighting and the laughing, it was actually pretty creepy ... I mean, who laughs at that except serial killers?)

So, there was a knot of girls in high school, all seniors, who were just terrified of my little sophomore self. (Was a 10-12 school.)

But, as they say in the commercials, that's not all!

Stunned that Trisha believed me, I teased her mercilessly about it ... that is, on those few occasions I could talk to her ... she seemed to be avoiding me for some reason.

The last day of candy-striping, I had an excellent plan. One that would certainly let her know I was just teasing her.

I grabbed a plastic knife from some fast food place and then got out my mom's happy prismacolor art markers (they're not nearly as nice as my beloved Copics, but I don't think Copics were around then). I coloured the handle and part of the "blade" with a nice grey colour. And then added some red to the tip of the blade. If I remember correctly, I rather artfully let some red trail down the blade as well.

The last day of candystriping, before the start of high school, I "pulled the knife" on her whilst we were in the elevator. I know, I know. I thought it was funny. I was 15.

The look of utter terror on her face was umm, priceless at 15. I fell to the floor of the elevator, I was laughing so hard. I tossed the "deadly weapon" at her, which I think terrified her more as she did a funny little hop-skip out of the elevator. I honestly thought I was going to pee my pants I was laughing so hard.

I hauled that fake knife around high school for days, asking everyone and anyone if it looked even remotely real. No one thought it did, so of course, I teased Trish about it the few times I saw her.

Good thing that was before Columbine and all the rest. I'm sure I'd have been in mandatory, court-ordered counseling (at the LEAST) if that had happened today. But back then, at 15, that was truly the height of hilarity.

Poor Trish.

(Although you would think that someone who had asked me how the elevators worked and I gave some cock and bull story about the old fashioned elevator operators now being put in closets to pull on the ropes ... anything becomes light if you use enough pulleys and leverage ....
you would THINK that a person who'd been thru one of my silly explanations would have twigged that I was kidding her .... ahhhh, youth.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:56 AM | Comments (3) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

June 15, 2007

Dog Days

Fridays are the dog days at work right now ... last week I brought them both, and they were amazingly good. But I only brought both because I thought it would be the only doggy day. Now that it's a regular thing, I'm taking one dog every other week.

Yep, she's sitting on the desk in between me and the keyboard. Happy as can be.

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:42 AM | Comments (1) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

June 13, 2007

Things that Frighten Me

Whilst the car itself is "just" a Photoshop creation, apparently there are tailpipes out there for real (although I believe research has shown this particular one to be a fake, there's another image out there snapped from a cell phone which is probably legit).

Still ... frightening!

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:56 AM | Comments (5) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

June 8, 2007

But, OH, What a Ride

So, you've got muscular dystrophy. You can still do stuff. Ben Carpenter rode his motorized wheelchair all over Paw Paw, Michigan. And, as he was attempting to cross the street June 7, 2007, he got a wee li'l bit of a surprise.

The 911 calls flooded fast and furious into the Paw Paw dispatch. Ya see, a semi-truck started to go when the light changed. He couldn't see that Ben was in front of him.

No, don't panic. It was the best possible outcome. The 21 year old Ben got the equivalent of a roller coaster ride in his wheelchair. Pushing the semi up to 50 miles an hour down Red Arrow Highway ... a road I've been on many a time ... it winds back and forth, goes through the woods, and is essentially kinda hilly and woodsy ... anyhow, Mr. Semi Driver didn't know it, but Ben's hand grips managed to get caught in the grill, which meant that Ben had a great view (if he could stand the possibility of bugs in his eyes) as they zoomed through the countryside.

In fact, when all was said and done, Ben was just irritated cuz he spilled his pop. And if he's as addicted to the difficult to find Diet Vanilla Pepsi as I am, I don't blame him!

What I'm incredibly curious about is this ... how the HELL did the wheelchair managed to get facing the exact right way AND the hand grips get lodged exactly right to keep Ben essentially safe and enjoying the ride?????

BBC front page (well, it was on the front page for a while ... and I couldn't believe a local story hit there!)
Local News

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:39 AM | Comments (3) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble