He beat her to the punch, but she got the last laugh
The weekend before last, I started a massive cleaning of the house – this means all my can goods, but not limited to, are in rows and the labels are facing forward – while listening to a writing and grammar podcast on my PC.
The theme of the podcast presented quick and dirty tips for writers by explaining the difference between voice and tone in writing. Voice was described as “a distinct personality, style, or point of view of a piece of writing or any other creative work while tone was considered a subset of voice or the mood of a creative work.”
To illustrate her point, the host referenced two newspapers with articles written in their respective tone or voice though covering the same story. One being The New York Times, known for their straightforwardness and catering to the more serious-minded individual and the other being The York Post whose audience is the average New Yorker and one who appreciates a great pun.
I appreciate a great pun and I live in New Jersey. I love a clever headline or a sassy blog post title; it’s the hook that draws in the reader. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with my post title up there, so I will share one I recently heard; one Gawker called the ‘classiest headliner ever.’ I agree and present one of the greatest headlines ever written:
“When Ike Turner died, the New York Times had a straightforward headline: Ike Turner, Musician and Songwriter in Duo With Tina Turner, Dies at 76; whereas the New York Post went for a bad pun: “Ike ‘Beats’ Tina to Death.””
That’s karma at its best.
where’s george?
i love it when i find writing on money, even if defamation to currency is illegal. the messages are sometimes interesting, like the message i found last night written on a one dollar bill.
yesterday, after work, i stopped by the bakery because i had a taste for cheese danish and occasionally i like to have one for breakfast with a cup of coffee.
okay that’s a lie. i really like to eat cheese danish while standing naked in the shower on one leg. nobody should have to explain why they like cheese danish, it’s a cheese danish, dude. and i can eat this particular cheese danish anytime of day.
so i’m sitting in my parked car just outside of the bakery rummaging through my handbag for the money, down to the exact change, i needed for my purchase.
fyi, 99.999% of the time, i have my money or debit card ready before i have to pay. i hate it when people wait until they are standing at the register and then go fishing for money like the idea of exchanging currency for goods is a new concept. it makes me want to hiss at them like a cat and scratch their hand with my fingernails, but i don’t.
anyhoo, as i am gathering and unfolding my money, i noticed writing on a particular dollar and hand written in the top white margin the words, “track this bill” and in the lower margin, wheresgeorge.com.
i want to know if the website is legit, so i trade that dollar with another one in my bag and run inside the bakery. unfortunately, they were out of cheese danish. crap! i left the bakery disappointed and with a cloud of smoke hovering over my head and vowed to return the next day.
when i arrived home, i sat down at my computer and slowly typed the url, wheresgeorge.com, into my web browser’s address bar and hoped the website was not defunct. yeah, i don’t have a lot going on right now and i know it’s sad that my happiness is riding on a message i found on a dollar.
but it worked! wheresgeorge.com is a working, up-to-date website, that tracks circulated US and CDN currency in denominations from $1 to $100 around the country and the world.
holders of a where’s george treasury bill have to register for the site, enter in at least four bits of information taken from the bill such as the denomination, the serial number, the series and the zip code the money was discovered to find out its history.
what a great and fun idea. before finding wheresgeorge.com, i doubted many people paid much attention to their currency, let alone remembered exactly where they acquired it. i was wrong. i only remembered because i never carry cash and because i never have any money to carry, so when i do have it, the experience is always memorable.
so that was my excitement for the evening, even if it doesn’t compete with the joy of wrapping my lips around a yummy cheese danish. at least now when someone tells me not to put money in my mouth because i don’t know where it’s been, i can tell them to step off, i know exactly where my money has been, thanks to wheresgeorge.com
i can’t wait to go to work today and tell this story to my coworker. she thinks i’m the cheapest thing walking on two legs, financially speaking. she’s always shocked and amazed when i part with a dollar and pretends to duck the flying moths being released from my opened wallet.
i admit, i am tempted to frame and hang the dollar on the wall in the living room like it’s a moose’s head. and yes, when retelling the story behind the dollar to my house guests, i do see myself decked out in a plaid smoking jacket, trimmed in velvet, while smoking on a pipe. that is, if i smoked. maybe, i’ll just have to settle on the reaction on my coworker’s face when i hold a future press conference to announce that i am going to spend the dollar. but as of right now, the buck stops here.
poppycock
i can’t believe it’s been 7 months since i last posted on this blog. i have been writing, though not as much, but i can’t seem to get around to the editing and posting part of blogging.
i’m also thinking way too much which is a hindrance in itself. i don’t know why i spend so much time thinking, i’m not that smart. although i am cleaning house on kids jeopardy this week.
hmmm, i guess that makes me smarter than a 5th grader but dumber than 9th grader. whatever. i can drive a car, legally. so no thinking for me, i’m just going to write….
oh, i know what i can talk about. the same thing everybody talks about when there’s more than 10 seconds of silence. the weather! the shack i live in doesn’t have central air and that’s fine by me. i don’t want what’s left of my money floating around in vents cooling off areas that aren’t occupied. i want all my money contained in one room.
when the public service gas & electric (pse&g) bill arrives, i will know that money was well spent cooling off the bedroom. unlike people who have central air, when they get their bill, they look at it and don’t know where that money was spent.
needless to say, every living creature in this house is hiding out in my bedroom and the cat has taken over. i remember when she was afraid to come in the bedroom if the AC was on, but now there’s three knocks at the door and a meow if she’s on the other side of it.
how hot is it again? it’s so hot that when i hand washed a few items and hung them in the bathroom to drip dry, they couldn’t. they were already dry and scorched by the heat. okay that joke needs work, but i’m sure i can work it in to my act.
what else?
oh! i have another print hanging in the office bringing the total to five. one of the ladies asked for the photo on the wall of LBI because her sister’s house is in it and she wanted to give it to her as a gift. the partner in charge of artwork said she could have it, but she would have to replace it with one of mine. sweet right? so she bought one of my prints, had it custom framed and i was able to receive a small commission.
anyhoo, every time i walk by this particular print, i always speak to it, nod or just stand and admire it. i also told the woman who sits near it that i am not speaking to her, but to my photo. she said she knows and that i make her laugh every day. glad she doesn’t think i’m rude, just crazy. i do speak to her, but not as much as i do the photo. a few other people want photos for their office. i think that’s cool.
several weeks ago i was patiently waiting in the car in a strip mall parking lot and i noticed something about people utilizing the coveted handicap parking spaces. not one person that got out of a car with a handicap sticker was handicap! not a one. no cane. no walker. no limp. just free and up close parking.
most of the people were in their 50′s and i even saw a woman who had to be no more than 30 something pull into a handicap spot and walk into the store. i think people are using grandma’s car to go to the market just so they can run in and run out. i have yet to see a disabled person park in a handicap spot.
where’s the handicap? if it’s in the brain, i qualify. if it’s related to golf, i still qualify. i have a bad back and sciatic nerve damage that sometimes makes walking difficult, why should i have to park in the back? i can limp and lay my disability down on the pavement for all to see. i can walk the walk unlike the others.
i think i need to look into getting a handicap sticker, i know there’s something wrong with me. except, when i get out of my car, i’m going to cartwheel to the front door of the store. anybody can walk and i will not be outdone, not even at the special olympics.
In: Poppycock · Tagged with: Nonsense
i don’t mind being poor, but i hate being embarrassed
one of the convenient things about where i work is that it’s near a supermarket, walking distance really, but i always drive because there’s no sidewalk.
i can do the grocery shopping at lunchtime if need be or just run in and pick up a few items. that’s what i did last week, i ran in to pick up a few items, so few i used a hand basket instead of a shopping cart.
i don’t know what it is with me and shopping carts, but every first cart i select, no matter where i am, is always defective. the wheel wobbles, the cart tilts, a wheel won’t roll or it’s spinning in a circle when it should be going straight. there’s always something wrong with it!
i even try to fake out the shopping cart devil by selecting a cart and then picking another one. after testing two or three carts, i know there’s someone up above nudging my tormentor saying, “leave her alone.”
naturally, i’m walking around the store waiting for the handles to fall off the basket, but that did not happen. i made it to the checkout line, the cashier scanned my items and asked for money. twenty-one dollars and some cents, not to be exact. i swiped my debit card and the monitor asked if the total was okay. i selected yes. it asked if i would like cash back, i selected yes again, key in the amount or sixty dollars, and waited.
“not approved.” my first mental response was the machine is broken.
not approved? that means i don’t have enough money in my account to cover this transaction. i just used my debit card at the art store, something’s wrong. the cashier told me to try again, i did and still not approved.
as if it would make any difference i reached in my pocket and pulled out a crumpled receipt that showed a recent purchase. “there is money in the account.”
we tried the transaction three times and it continued to display the not approved status. the cashier shook her head and said, “it’s not me,” referring to the machine and i said “it’s not me,” referring to my bank account.
i stood there for a minute and decided it wasn’t worth trying to make a run for it, so i told her i would put the groceries back. she suggested we try the transaction again, sans the cash back. i agreed because i was already embarrassed, what else could it say? no, really, you’re not leaving this store with those groceries?
we went through the same steps again, minus the cash back and – is this where i type lo and behold – my transaction was approved!
i’m still so embarrassed, but if i was there under false pretense, when the machine said ‘not approved’ the first time, i would have bolted, but on that day i was standing my ground. i told the cashier i had money and breathed a small sigh of relief that i at least had $22 in my account, even if i couldn’t get cash back.
oh crap! i can’t get cash back and i have no money to buy lunch. i wondered if it was too late, since my debit card was approved for groceries but not cash back, to run and get a tv dinner. i decided not to ask her but walked out of the store feeling perplexed and embarrassed.
i can’t even come up with a witty analogy but it’s liken to getting undressed at the gym in a room full of women and you realize you’re not wearing a thong, but your kid’s icarly underwear.
as i walked to my car, i pondered question after question. did someone hack into my account? was my identity stolen and if my identity was stolen, i hoped they’d come back and live my life. don’t just take my money and run, punk! naturally, i’m nervous and when i got back to my desk, i immediately checked my account online. everything was fine and now i’m really mad.
i went about telling everyone who would listen what happened to me at the supermarket. not just because i needed to blow off some steam, but because if they listened carefully to my story, they could hear my stomach growling.
after telling this story to erica, she said the same thing happened to her. the reason being? stores limit the cash back amount and obviously shoprite forgot to tell the customers, and the cashiers.
i know when i go to k-mart, that’s the case, but at shoprite, we were free to key in an amount with no restrictions. the maximum cash back amount is now $30. i assume it was lowered around the holidays or to prevent people like me for using it as an atm. why offer it though, if they don’t want to give it to us.
i was tempted to call the store and ask to speak to the manager, but decided to let it go. just for the day, i would be the fool who tried to get cash back with no money in the bank. i don’t mind being poor, but i hate being embarrassed. next time i use my debit card and the machine asks if i want cash back, i’m going to say, you tell me.
In: Money · Tagged with: cash back, Money, shoprite
My Buddy
last week, i had an awesome day at work. no, wait i take that back, i had an awesome lunch during work hours with my buddy. now was the doll, my buddy, for children who didn’t have a sibling and couldn’t fathom the idea of an imaginary friend? my daughter is an only child and every once in a while she’ll make a remark about wishing she had a brother or sister. usually my other personality will step in and come up with a smart alec remark, you know the stuff you want to say but don’t, for my satisfaction and amusement. i high-five her in my head and translate her comment into something more presentable.
friday morning i stopped by my co-worker’s office for our daily chit chat and she suggested that if i did not bring lunch, then we should go to this place she frequents. she even offered to pay because she did not want moths flying out of my wallet and onto her food. she never gets tired of that joke. rumor has it that i’m cheap and my shoes squeak. i offered to pick up the tab and she turned me down, so we went dutch. she’s a fun and interesting person to talk to, i enjoy her company even though there’s a 25 year age difference. yeah that’s right, i like older women, on walkers and with medicaid, but not like that, silly. i don’t have any female friends younger than i am. two the same age, that i’ve known since elementary school, but not a one younger.
so we went to one of her favorite places, goodearthpotato.com, but before we left, she was kind enough to print out two coupons, one for $1 off the stuffed potato and the other for a free fountain soda. but when we got there, the woman at the register said i could not combine coupons, i had to use one or the other. again, high-fives all around to the voice inside my head. “what we’s gone do?” i adjusted my body language’s hearing aid, leaned in, maybe i started to tear up and said, “huh?” she asked if it was my first time there and i nodded yes. later, i wondered if the person inside her head mumbled “dummy” because she let me use both coupons. i said thank you.
i’m not a fan of meat, but for some reason i was craving meatloaf, so that’s what i had. a baked potato stuffed with meatloaf, gravy, sour cream, butter and topped with melted cheese. i have to admit, that meatloaf smacked my taste buds around and tugged at my uvula as it eventually settled in the pit of the beast. yum me!
we made small talk as we scoffed down our lunch and agreed that it was the best thing since sliced bread. after we were done, we cruised past her 55 and over senior complex and she showed me where she lives then we headed back to the office.
we had a fun outing and i enjoyed being chauffeured around in her eight cylinder cadillac as she gave me a mini-tour of her town. i mentioned her mode of transportation because some have commented that riding in her car is the equivalent to floating. my car is more of the horse and buggy persuasion, i feel every bump and wallop, so i don’t know what smooth is. but when i was in the front seat of her car, i felt more like a rag doll. a rag doll swallowed up by plush leather and couldn’t help but wonder when she turned and saw my feet dangling, if the voice in her head was swinging to the same beat of my buddy. i know mine was.