Friday, September 07, 2007

Friday 4 + 1

Four things that made me laugh this week, and one thing that did not.

  1. The toddler girl in the gym locker room who, when her mother said the stain on her shirt likely wasn't going to come out, replied, in a squeaky and unassuming and innocent voice, "Oh. Damnit." Incidentally, the mother didn't think it was nearly as cute as I did. I tried to stifle my giggling as she gasped and reprimanded the girl, but I can't help it: little kids saying swear words is way funnier than it really should be.*

    * I know someone else wrote about this once, and also linked to a very wrong but hilarious sketch featuring a foul-mouthed little girl. I have no idea which of you it was, though, or where to find it. Feel free to remind me in the comments if this rings a bell.

  2. The following text conversation with my friend Carrie the other night:

    Carrie: I'm at Walgreens, standing in front of the lip gloss. Stop the madness!
    Me: We all have our demons. Luckily, no one's gonna send us to Betty Ford for that one.
    Carrie: Brilliant! Thanks, coach.

    (Well, you know, I do my part... Being an enabler can be fun.)

  3. This t-shirt. Word-nerd humor AND a Venn diagram, plus clever copywriting to boot? Novelty t-shirt sites don't get much better than that.

  4. The titles (and cover art) for the DVDs on the Free-with-Purchase rack at the sex toy shop I visited yesterday. The store we went to (in search of fun stuff for a friend's bachelorette party this weekend) bills itself as sort of the clean, well-lighted place of sex shops, but that does not mean they're above the obviously tacky and downright absurd. It was hard to choose between Tit in a Wringer (featuring, appropriately enough, a tit being squeezed through a wringer) and Muffalicious, but eventually we made our selections and left with our bag of booty. ("Booty" is, in this case, a bit more, um, literal than usual.)

  5. The portions of my day (and the dollars from my bank account) that I lost when I blew a tire on my way to work yesterday. In case you're curious, losing a tire is (like so many things in life) nothing at all like in the movies. Art imitates life my ass. I did not hear any sort of pop or bang and find myself trying to keep my car from veering into the ditch suddenly and without warning. Instead, I heard just sort of a low ticking noise, to which my response was, "Crap. What the heck is wrong with my car? Better stop at Saturn to have that looked at on my way home." Then the noise got a little louder and more insistent, and I thought, "Crap. Better drive straight to a shop right now, actually."

    Within another minute or so, the rattling and rhythmic thwap-thwap-thwapping got so alarming that I realized I should probably pull over to investigate post-haste, but it still wasn't obvious to me that my tire was the problem. I figured I'd get out, pop the hood, and stare inside thinking, "Yep. Engine's still there. Beats me just what the problem is." Instead, I got out, walked around my car, and said, "Oh! Well, I know exactly what the problem is!" Unfortunately, by that point, my tire was so shredded that the remnants of it had started whipping around and flinging themselves against the underside of my car, causing $120 worth of body damage that I now have to get repaired. I also had to endure the suspicious looks of both the tow truck driver and the tire shop guy, subtly smirking as if to say, "You stupid woman. Didn't you know you were driving on your tire rim??" No, sirs. No, I did not. Now kindly suck it, would you?

So then. Anyone want to take a wild guess which of those items falls into the "not laughing" category? It's a pretty tough call, I know.

13 comments:

lizgwiz said...

There must be something in the air. I just had to take an early lunch to go pick up Mr. New Guy from the tire place where HE'D just been towed and take him to work. I fear for my tires!

A free with purchase rack at a sex toy shop? How nice of them. ;)

I was once in an "adult" bookstore with some friends (to get some "poppers," this was the 80s) and there was a...rack on sale. Greatly discounted. Maybe used? We stood there laughing and pointing, wondering who'd want to buy such a thing when the guy who'd just purchased it came up to haul it out to his car. Awk-ward!

-R- said...

Oh, the tire thing sucks. I have had my tire go flat and not realized what the noise was as well. Although I did pull over right away since I was on a small neighborhood street.

You are a lip gloss coach now? Cool.

Anonymous said...

And Muffalicious was going to be the original name of my blog!* I love porn title names. Darren and I once spent an evening at Virgin in New York snickering at them.

Was the video this one?
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/74

*NO, not really!

L Sass said...

I also have a recent tire story to share! En route to Delaware two weeks ago, my friends got TWO flat tires (on different wheels) in their rental car. I guess the moon is in "Flat Tire" right now.

Jess said...

Oh man, that sucks about your tire! I was next to a truck on the interstate once when its tire blew out. And it did make a huge bang, and rubber bits flew all over the highway, and it scared the shit out of me and nearly caused several accidents among the cars behind the truck. But it was fine. I guess that's why they have 18 wheels.

Unrelatedly, I was a potty-mouthed kid. My mom loves to tell the story about when I dropped my fork in a restaurant at age three and screamed, "DAMN IT!" All the other patrons were horrified but apparently my parents barely noticed. We're the swearing type of family, it seems.

Anonymous said...

"Art imitates life my ass." I love it. I want to make this my quote on MySpace. I'll give you credit, of course!

3carnations said...

I can't stand when kids swear. It makes me mad at the parents, not the child. The child learned it somewhere. I stopped swearing altogether before I was even pregnant, so I don't have to censor myself. As you know, there are many, many words out there...I can express my disdain equally well with words that aren't profane.

The driving on the flat tire without knowing thing - You aren't the first to do that. It happened to me once on the way to work. I only live a mile from work, so I said to myself "Wow...When I get to work I'd better ask one of the guys if they know what's making that 'bump, bump'". As I'm driving down the street, someone in the lane next to me motioned to me to roll down my window. He then shouted "You have a flat tire!" Thankfully he didn't follow it with something along the lines of "You moron!" :)

Stacey Brandow said...

It is NOT funny that you blew a tire. But it is a funny story the way you tell it.

It must be in the air, although mine are slow leaks that need to be plugged. Yes, leakS, apparently I ran over 1 nail with the front tire and then one second later, ran over the nails brother with my back tire. Lovely.

Anonymous said...

1. I'm guessing the last item was the not funny one, but the way that you told it made me chuckle out loud, so I'm not really sure.

2. It's okay that you were in an adult store. You don't have to make up some bachelorette party just to impress us...

3. I don't know if I ever told this story on my blog, but one time at summer camp one of the 10 year olds got up on the porch and started yelling "shit, shit, shit, shit," I think just because she knew it was bad. A very smart counselor walked up to her and said, "do you know what that word means?" When the girl said no, the counselor said, "it means 'hit me.'" The girl stopped posthaste.

Whiskeymarie said...

If it makes you feel better, I once had a tire blow on the way to Duluth (going 70+ mph) and it DID make the pop sound and I did have to fight to not lose control.
It happens.
Good times...

And that t-shirt is awesome.

don't call me MA'AM said...

Ack! I hate when tires go wrong. We were driving cross country one summer and blew a tire driving 75 on the interstate. On a Sunday. In nowhere Wyoming.

I know it's not supposed to be funny when little kids swear, but it IS just a little funny. Or a lot. Especially when it's not your kid. ;-)

metalia said...

That SUCKS about your tire; boo. The porn titles, however, made me giggle. God, I love that stuff.

Stefanie said...

Liz--You're going to have to give "Mr. New Guy" a blog alias soon, you know. "New Guy" won't work forever! :-)

R--Well, it's nice when friends play to your strengths (or, in this case, your weaknesses).

Nabbalicious--Yes! That's the video. Hilarious. :-)

L Sass--Oh, man. TWO flats?? There must be something in the air indeed.

Jess--Good point about that being why trucks have 18 wheels. Unfortunately, with only four, you definitely miss one when it's gone.

Jamie--Go ahead and take it, my friend.

3Cs--You live only a mile from work? Man, I envy that commute. I'd probably just walk most days. (I could walk and STILL be able to sleep later than I do now!)

BMC--Man, like L Sass said, the moon must be in "Flat Tire." Bummer.

Noelle--Heh. It's fun to mess with children sometimes, isn't it? ;-)

WM--Oh, wow. Your situation probably sucked a bit worse than mine.

DCMM--Exactly. It would probably be a lot less amusing if it were my kid. Or even if it weren't such an angelic and innocent-looking kid.

Metalia--I forgot a lot of them shortly after leaving the store, but there were some awesome ones there. "Granny is a Tranny" just came to mind...