It would appear that one of the perks of being friends with The Magnet For The Absurd (MFTA) is that eventually absurdities start to present themselves to you. This wonderful image comes from Susan, who has sent me countless absurdities by phone, for my sheer entertainment and wonder. Sue, I believe you have left apprentice stage and have earned the title of Partner of Absurdity (POA).
Perhaps you need a logo…
Filed under absurdities, carry a camera, humor, magnet for the absurd, signage
A few weeks back this household was struck with a series of annoying bad luck. Nothing all that serious, just a chain of really annoying events (ok and a few that were sort of serious but I won’t share, and thank goodness those have been resolved).
First, Gary got rear-ended on the LIE… in my car, of course. The insurance company was wonderful, we got a rental car and decided to spring for the $16/day upgrade to an SUV since it was in the midst of Snowmageddon ’11. All is well and good, it snows on top of snow and we get in the groove of shoveling every week; bitching and moaning like the rest of the world. Until…
We have completed the big dig out and Gary asks me for the keys to the rental car so he can move it into the street to brush off the snow.
I look everywhere… pockets, bags, bathrooms, nooks and crannies.
No key.
It becomes quite obvious that we have no choice but to call the rental company and get the second set.
News Flash: rental cars companies do NOT keep a second set. They call a locksmith for you. But of course on this day after a blizzard I am informed that the locksmith is snowed in. “With all due respect”, I told the woman at the rental place, “I am a 50-something Jewish woman on the North Shore of Long Island and I was able to dig out, what kind of wussy is this locksmith that he is… ahem… ‘snowed in’.”
He showed up at 4.
And $300 later we had a new key.
Fast forward to today. After a few days of record high temps the snow is melting almost as fast as it came down. And while I was out on the lawn (affectionately named ‘doody lane’ for the path we shoveled for the dog) picking up said doody, I spotted a glint out to the corner of my eye.
Yes folks, the original rental car key. As I suspected, it must have fallen out my pocket, was snowed upon and shoveled onto the mountain on the side of the driveway. Yes, other people have told me I have a Lucy and Ethel sort of life.
I thought about giving it back but decided that a shadow box frame was worth a $300 laugh in the whole of life.
Filed under absurdities, homeowner, humor
Every year for as long as I can remember my dad has always sent me flowers on Valentine’s Day. No matter where I lived, or with who, he always made sure that on February 14th my doorbell would ring and a beautiful bouquet of flowers would be delivered to remind me that I would always be his little girl.
As soon as my daughter was old enough to understand, she too, was the recipient of her Zaidie’s special Valentine’s flowers. Daughter #2 – my sister-in-law, was on his list as well. And of course he would never forget my mom. Simply put, there will always be flowers for all his girls.
This year the flowers came as I was running out to a meeting. I unwrapped them, looked at the card and called dad as soon as I could to thank him. I could not help but think how special this constant is. How the little things in life are the ones that form the memories you will never forget. Even though we know they will be coming, it is always so special to receive them.
This post could have been a Time to Cry (again) Thursday if the florist with the hearing problem did not add this humorous twist.
It was not until this morning as I was making coffee that I looked more closely at the card:
To my doctor who can do everything. Luv ya, Dad.
I can’t help but wonder if his doctor got flowers addressed to me.
Filed under absurdities, family, humor
Oh, and with my husband, of course. A man of brevity, Gary leaves me little notes on the kitchen counter if he leaves before I get up. (he is such a romantic).
I have been battling the plague some sort of sinus/respiratory thing this week and slept in this morning since I was up hacking half the night. I came downstairs to make a cup of tea and found this note on the counter.
Translation: Let the dog out and she did her business, gave her insulin and fed her.
It’s good to laugh first thing in the morning, thanks G.
I saw this in the book rack at the drug store while I was waiting for a prescription. The local shop owners don’t even flinch anymore when I whip out my camera.
Am I the only one who thinks this title is hysterical? It’s like the guy’s version of the book. I love the quote at the bottom:
“An absolute delight!”
Filed under absurdities, book review, carry a camera, humor
Oh yeh, now we’re talkin’ MFTA material. I big thank you to Jana’s friend Sarah for finding this baby….
The Comfort Wipe.
In a nutshell, this is a a plastic arm that holds your toilet paper while you wipe your arse! They claim this is the first improvement to toilet paper since the 1880s. Oh, you mean the year it was invented? So they are saying nothing has changed in the TP world since it was first conceived of… I sort of doubt that. With all those bears and clouds hawking the stuff I would think there have been a few improvements along the way. I mean 2010 alone was a huge year in the land of the wiping of ones butt with advertising smackdowns and the like.
Back to the Comfort Wipe, I love the idea that these people find toilet paper ‘archaic’ and ‘disgusting’. They are marketing this towards those who ‘just don’t want to touch dirty toilet paper’.
You know, as opposed to those of us who really like to.
With a pitch like that how could anyone not own one of these. Of course I do wonder how the hell you are supposed to clean this thing.
Filed under absurdities, humor, marketing, products
During the course of my work I occasionally get involved with creating graphics for different awareness weeks or months. Usually these are disease-related and we need to create a look and feel for these events. I love patient information work, it makes me feel like during the course of making a living I am at least helping to educate patients and families, making the navigation through the unpleasant a bit more palatable.
Ok, I recognize this is (so far) not a very funny blog post.
I always start a project by procrastinating on the internet in the name of research, or as we like to refer to it in the business – doing a search on what is currently in the market. This week was no different. Here are a few of my favorites that I thought you might find entertaining.
Handwashing Awareness Week (Dec 5-11). Funny, but a good idea. And this site called Henry the Hand – Champion Handwasher, just kills me. I love the remake of Hand Jive that they use as their sound track.
Mathematics Awareness Month (April) because you can never get too much math!
Aggressive Driving Month Hmm, I know a few people who could ‘celebrate’ this… you know who you are, I will not call you out. Looks like this one was dreamed up by a promo company, go fig. Talk about a ‘Hallmark Holiday’.
National Ethics Awareness Month (March) Note: not observed on Wall Street (oops, so sorry to my finance friends, cheap shot but you can take it)
Optimism Month (oddly the same as Ethics month in March) Pessimists need not celebrate.
But, by far the best thing I stumbled upon today was…
Rabbit Awareness Week (April 22 – May 2nd) “…because rabbits get a RAW deal”. Get it RAW… Rabbit Awareness Week. Hey, if I have to explain this to you forget it, ok? Believe it or not this is a week and a website (nicely designed BTW) dedicated to fighting what I consider to be one of the great tragedies of our time…
Rabbit Obesity.
Seriously, I have nothing more to say after that.
Filed under absurdities, humor, marketing
I love the names of nail polish colors. Sometimes I will pick one just because of its name. This could be my favorite of all times. Riki was wearing this on her fingers (way too bold for me) and when she told me the name it was a near obsession.
I always wonder what the department that names these must be like. When I first graduated from art school I had the lofty design job of working in the graphics department of a major lingerie company. You know those ridiculous bra tags that hang right in the middle making it impossible to see how they fit? Yeh, well I designed those. Very rewarding. And equally rewarding was the job of this woman, Fay, who worked in office next door to us, chain smoking and making up lingerie color names all day long. Picture this if you will:
Fay walks into the room puffing on a butt and in a scruffy voice that could only be compared to Harvey Fierstein, she would ask, “What do you think of wisteria?”
Well, you know, as a vine it is not bad but I am not thrilled with the fact that it attracts bees. Oh, you meant for a bra color. Yeh, sure, ok.
I have been wearing Beach Party for quite awhile because, well because I love to have a beach party on my feet. But A Good Mandarin is Hard to Find… can’t beat that one. Even the manicurists were giggling at the name.
Filed under humor, nail polish
Here is a perfect example of how I keep myself entertained at all times.
These past few weeks I have been exceptionally busy and preoccupied. Not in a bad way, I thrive on this pace. It has not been the stay up all night, work all weekend kind of busy. More like the very full day and lots of plans at night and on the weekends sort of busy.
The thing is, at times like these the little details of life seem to get put on the back burner. You know, like going to the bank, making sure there is milk, buying stamps (yes we still use stamps on occassion, we are very retro) and the biggie this week…
buying soap.
More than once I heard Gary at 6:30 AM mumbling to himself and then asking me, “Do we have soap?”
Infant that I am, the only response I could think of was:
No soap, radio.
Luckily I was smart enough to keep that to myself because frankly his humor is just not all that developed at such an hour. I, on the other hand, would snicker to myself and then rummage through the travel bags to find soap until I finally wandered down to the basement bathroom and grabbed a vintage bar from the shower that is hardly ever used. (does soap go bad?)
Seriously, if you don’t entertain yourself throughout the day, what is really the point? Now might be a good time to tell you how I was sort of dancing a little to a Frank Sinatra song in Uncle Guiseppes this morning holding a big ass can of coffee and was ‘caught’ by a friend who looked at the coffee (and the little dance) and said, “wow, that’s a hell of a lot of coffee, cranking on a deadline?” I told her that actually I was and she was rather impressed that I could still do that little dance.
Don’t kid yourself folks, inside I am way more of a wreck than I appear to be.
Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.
Filed under absurdities, gary, humor
Certainly when your college kid is living home for the summer.
Tucked in snugly between the cereal bowls and the water glasses on the top rack of my dishwasher, this jewish mother found…
the ever popular I heart Jesus shot glass. Thinking that it most likely did not belong to my husband, who not only does not drink but I am pretty sure does not heart Jesus either.
So I texted my sweet daughter:
Ummmmm…. I heart Jesus?!!!
And of course the answer was:
hahahaha. I will be home soon.
It appears this was a ‘gift’ from a friend. No disrespect to my Christian friends here, I think that there was simply something very funny about giving this to an obviously Jewish girl.
I am thinking of getting her an I heart Buddha shot glass for Hannukah, what do you think?
Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.
Filed under absurdities, college, conversations, humor, Jana
i could cry but i don't have time 