Wednesday, May 28, 2008

You must chill! You must chill! I have hidden your keys! Chill!

Hey, did you guys know that it's Wednesday already? It is! Crazy how that happened.

I don't know about you, but for me, a long weekend for once actually felt like a long weekend, and it was lovely: a fine mix of fun stuff with friends and sitting around enjoying doing pretty much nothing by myself, with not a single bit of household projectry thrown in for good measure. (There were plenty of tedious tasks I could have started, but I decided to be bold and rebellious lazy and apathetic and give myself the weekend off. Also, what do you mean "projectry" isn't a word, built-in Firefox spell checker? I see your little dotted red line, but I'm ignoring you. Twice. So there.)

I even managed to catch up (mostly) on my blog reading, and because nearly all of you were kind enough to take the weekend off, I managed to stay caught up, even through Tuesday night. Yay! We should organize group blogcations more often. In fact, until I saw my feed reader filling up again, I sort of thought we were still on one. You guys didn't get the memo about that? No? That was just me? OK fine.

You would think after a long and lovely weekend I would have all sorts of things to tell you about, but honestly the only thing that happened all weekend that seemed noteworthy or ridiculous enough to compel me to blog about it was when, in my run-of-the-mill brilliance and coordination, I managed to drop a sizable blort of hummus directly into the slot at the top of my paper shredder. In case you happen to pull something equally smart and graceful yourself some day, I will help you out and say that folding up a sheet of paper towel and running it through the shredder is not actually a terrible way to clean it up. If you are smarter than I am, a simpler solution might occur to you more quickly (Q-tip between the little metal slats, perhaps?), but if you know me at all, you know that the simplest solution is often the last solution my brain rests upon, so shredding paper towel is the method that seemed most logical to me at the time. If my unwanted credit card offers smell like garlic and chick peas from now on, I suppose it won't be hard to figure out why.

Incidentally, I am well aware that if hummus in my paper shredder was the portion of my weekend I deemed most bloggable, I either need to have more exciting weekends or need to quit blogging for good. I could actually tell you about my brief and recent return to meMarmony, wherein I decided on a whim to take advantage of the "Free Communication Weekend!" and reactivate matches in my old account. But whether there are any interesting stories to be told from that little experiment remains to be seen, so I'll just hold off on that for now.

Meanwhile, I did finally meet the possibly pretentious English professor, and it turns out the divide between his level of pretension and my level of pretension is quite probably smaller than I originally feared. I might even go so far as to say it was a... good(??) date, but I'd best hold off there, too. Jinxes and no-takebacks and all that.

Oh. Also, today I got yelled at on my way home by an angry man on a motorcycle who could maybe channel some of his rage into DRIVING FASTER rather than sending it all towards me. After turning around to glare at me twice in the two-mile stretch for which I was following him, he pulled up next to me at the subsequent stoplight and started shouting towards my car. I glanced over at him, eyebrows raised and head shaking in what I thought was the universal sign for, "You are a crazy person; hence, I am ignoring you." Unfortunately, he kept right on yelling until I finally leaned across and rolled down my passenger side window. (Yes, I said leaned across and rolled down. I am so old school that my Saturn's windows are the rolly-crank type. Also, I use an abacus to balance my checkbook, which maybe accounts for all the bothersome errors I mentioned.)

ANYWAY. So I rolled down my window, and said, "WHAT?" and he launched into a rant about my need to tailgate him. (As in, "You don't need to tailgate like that. You don't need to do that!") Yes, let's talk about needs, sir. No, I did not NEED to tailgate you. I don't NEED to drink wine, either, but sometimes it makes me feel better, OK? And while we're playing this "don't need to" game, might I also add that you don't NEED to drive 15 miles below the speed limit, particularly if you're going to do so in that maddening "lurch forward quickly, then pull back immediately thereafter" style? You have your way of being an asshole and I have mine, OK?

(Disclaimer: I actually do not believe I was unsafely tailgating him. Following maybe a wee bit close, yes, but I actually find it rather hard NOT to do that when the person in front of me is driving FIFTEEN MILES UNDER THE SPEED LIMIT (particularly when doing so in the inconstant, lurch forward, pull back method I described). Also, when I say he was going fifteen miles under the speed limit, I do not mean that the posted limit was 55 and I preferred that he go 70 instead. No, I mean that the number on the sign said 55, but his odometer needle was clinging to 40 like his vehicle would blow up if he went any faster. Maybe he thought he was in that movie... Remember? I think it was called "The bus that couldn't slow down.")

In addition to the above disclaimers, I would also like to point out that I did not give Angry Man the satisfaction of fighting with him. I am proud to say that I replied in a calm voice, "I actually think I had enough space, but I apologize if I upset you. Also, you were driving fifteen miles under the speed limit." And then I rolled up my window, turned up my radio, and went on with my life. I hope he did the same, but I am pretty sure he instead seethed all the way home and then relayed the whole angry tale to his unfortunate wife or Labrador retriever or whoever was waiting for him there. Or maybe he did exactly what I did and just told the Internet about it instead. (Hello, Pot? This is Kettle. You're black.)

And I think that about catches you up. What's new with all of you? Did you indulge in snobbery and pretension over the weekend? Get yelled at by a stranger anywhere? Do tell.

12 comments:

Megan said...

This morning, my seven-year-old was thinking deep thoughts.

"I know how to find out if there's a God," he informed me.

I was a bit nervous about where this might be going, but played along: "Yeah? How?"

"When someone dies, wait a few years, then dig up the grave and see if anyone's in it. That would be like science."

I'm not sure whether finding the body would be proof of a deity's existence or non-existence.

shelleycoughlin said...

I managed not to get yelled at all weekend, but then started the week on a high note by getting bitched at by the school secretary, and then getting into a fight with Chris because he was insensitive to me getting bitched at by said secretary.

Sigh.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the Simpons reference.

I was thinking about taking an extended blog vacation as well, since not commenting or writing over the weekend was so relaxing. But then I thought of something to write about

lizgwiz said...

Well, your "boring" weekend sounds much more exciting than mine, I have to say. I mean...I ATE hummus, but I didn't SHRED it. ;)

Anonymous said...

H has roll-up windows too.

I did not have any fights or do anything dramatic this weekend. Maybe Labor Day will be more exciting.

Aaron said...

Hummus in the shredder? Really? That's a pretty amazing feat, Stefanie; you should be proud.

Wouldn't the joke have been on biker-man if you'd just rear-ended him and sent him sprawling? And then ran him over?

I've probably been on the road too much this week.

L Sass said...

Do you watch The Office? There was once a very funny scene involving a shredder and lettuce.

Poppy said...

"Or maybe he did exactly what I did and just told the Internet about it instead."

THAT made me laugh my tiny little head off in the office. Kudos for pointing out a very likely funny (used in noun form, please), Stef.

Mickey said...

Be proud of your crank-down windows. In a former job, I had the opportunity to observe how often automatic windows break and people are stuck awkwardly opening their door at drive-throughs and toll booths. That's right, through not thru.

Courtney said...

I don't think I've ever seen anyone on a motorcycle going too slow. I usually see them zipping around like they've got a death wish.

No snobbery or pretension in my weekend, although I did buy some wine in a box. Now that's classy.

Sizzle said...

I just needed to say- excellent title from most excellent movie. Go Say Anything!

Anonymous said...

I think it is hilarious that you actually rolled your window down to talk to the angry motorcyclist.