An Inconvenient Something

First it was Al Gore bringing us "An Inconvenient Truth". Now Glenn Beck is bringing us "An Inconvenient Book". Well if these guys can make a fortune off of their inconveniences, why can't I?

Introducing, "An Inconvenient Something" - My list of inconveniences. (It should take me no time at all to come up with enough inconveniences to fill a book.)

- I find it inconvenient that my upper cupboards between the sink and the stove don't open in a logical direction. They open in the opposite direction you expect them to. Very inconvenient.

- It's inconvenient that my daughter always wakes up from her nap at just about the time I've finished getting everything done I needed to do while she was asleep, and my head has just hit the pillow for my own quick snooze. Very inconvenient.

- My car only has one speed on the intermittent wiper setting. Inconvenient. And it doesn't have keyless entry. Extremely inconvenient. I actually have to stick the key in the door and unlock it manually. I know, it's crazy huh? My wife's car AND my old beater Jeep both have keyless entry. What if some crazy psycho came after me in a parking lot? I'd have to sue Honda for not being able to get into my car quick enough to speed away from danger.

- It's very inconvenient to drink a Red Bull, then have your manager call a staff meeting that lasts an hour. And she can't figure out why you're not paying close attention and you get yelled at for not responding. The sprint down the hallway at the end of the meeting to the bathroom is the most inconvenient of all... it's too long.

- The lightswitches in our bedroom and bathroom are inconvenient. They're behind the doors. Inconvenient enough to warrant beating the architect who drew them there.

- Inconvenient is going all the way downstairs to the storage room only to get distracted by something in the room that you haven't seen in ages, and forgetting what you went into that room for in the first place. "So THAT'S where she hid that sweater I bought her for Christmas!"

- It's inconvenient that my sabre-toothed-crotch-crickets always seem to be most active as I crawl into bed at night, necessitating serious itching counter measures, and even more inconvenient that after a few minutes of this my wife has to ask, "Um, what are you doing?"

- A horrible dating inconvenience is being nervous and having a propensity for tummy rumbling, explosive gas. If you're lucky enough for her NOT to hear it as you walk around the back of the car, you'd better come up with something creative to stay out there long enough for her NOT to smell it when you get in. A related, and more serious, inconvenience is having your best friend blurt out to her the following Monday at school that when you got back to the car after dropping her off, you let it all out at him. "Ew! Is that what you guys do after you drop us off?" What did you expect? High fives for most awkward date in history? Puh-leeeaaaase. (Now you ladies know the truth about why we're not good listeners. Our concentration is elsewhere)

- It's SOOOO inconvenient to have a cop pull your wife over and cite her for no mudflaps on your Jeep, which she never drives and just happened to take to the store out of convenience of parking arrangement that day. It's even more inconvenient when a year-and-a-half later that same cop pulls over that same wife in that same Jeep for that same reason! Like he didn't have anything better to do.

More Inconvenient Somethings in future posts. Right now, I have to go feed my 2 year old and then put her in the bathtub. How inconvenient of her to interrupt my blogging brilliance.

Miscommunication - Part 2

"No, I said boots! Boots!"

Same idea as previous post, same person involved. My boss and her boss (VP of Sales) were interviewing a potential candidate for a sales position. The candidate was female, had worked in advertising sales before, but it became obvious rather quickly that she was not a good candidate. Judging by her provocative outfit, including a blouse SO low-cut it left little to the imagination, it was apparent she had most likely been hired at past jobs based on "other" qualifications, as opposed to "professional" qualifications. She was dumber than a bag of hammers. My boss, being a very straight forward Catholic-Italian-NewYorker, can be somewhat intimidating. She was asking some very routine fact finding questions to the lady, about accounts she had earned, average monthly revenue she was responsible for, how she hunted for new leads, etc. She could tell by the lady's stammering answers that she was making her uncomfortable, so she backed down to let the VP ask a few questions. When the conversation came back around to my boss, her attention had drifted elsewhere, which led the VP to jokingly ask if she was paying attention. Her reply as she looked at the lady, "Yeah, no I'm here. I could tell I was intimidating you so I decided to just sit here and stare at your boots." Unfortunately, both the lady and VP heard "boobs".

Luckily, we didn't end up with a lawsuit on our hands (see bag of hammers comment above), nor was the candidate hired, based on lack of "professional" qualifications. Which leads me to wonder how in the world I still have a job there. It ain't easy being this good lookin'.

Miscommunication - Part 1

LOL, BTW, BFF, LU2, ROFLMAO... I could go on and on. In this new era of text messages, IM, blogs and what have you, there is a lot of room for miscommunication and misunderstanding. Sometimes that can spell really bad news, other times it can be purdy darn funny.

Example - my boss is Catholic, Italian, and a New Yorker to boot. She's pretty straight forward, to say the least. But, like some of us, she's still in the learning curve with all the new lingo out there in the world. She didn't know what LOL meant. Our VP of Marketing tends to use the term occasionally. One day, after getting another email from him with LOL in it, she finally turned around and asked me, "What does LOL mean?" At that exact moment, a co-worker in the next office over burst out laughing quite loudly. (You can't make this stuff up). Needless to say, through my own laughter, I took advantage of the situation to simply point to the other guy who was guffawing and say "It means that!" To which she replied, "Laughing? It means laughing? Oh, and here all this time I thought he was referring to me as Little Old Lady and was trying to decide if I should be offended." (She'll be 50 this year and is not happy about it). After laughing so hard we were crying and our sides hurt, we were finally able to recover and go back to work. Needless to say, since that day I have not been able to see LOL without thinking about that day and actually LAUGHING OUT LOUD myself, making it all the more ironic that I actually LAUGH when I see LOL. Go figure.

Continuing the Tradition...

In the spirit of "Howcomes & Whyzits" -

1- Whyzit that banks charge a fee on "insufficient funds" when they know there is not enough money?

2- Howcome Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

3- Whyzit that no matter what color bubble bath you use the bubbles are always white?

4- Howcome I keep returning to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have magically appeared?

5- Howcome my daughter seems to think that dirt and bathwater are the same thing?

6- Howcome you never hear any father-in-law jokes?

7- Whyzit that the older I get, the more hair seems to fall off my head and onto places I really don't desire?

8- Howcome "indulging" has such a negative connotation when it can be so damn good?

9- Whyzit so much fun to laugh at other people's expense?

10- Whyzit called "Special K"? Who died and made K so special?