So Water is Magnetic? Who Knew!

The shop manager at work (let's call him Randy, since that's his name) called me to come over and fix his computer.  Apparently, the Boss had been in over the weekend and used Randy's computer and somehow things got screwy.  The Boss has admitted before that he thinks he has some type of force field around him that screws up computers.  I used to think that was silly, but as the years go by, I'm starting to see why he feels that way.  Anyway, I walked into the shop office and noticed a silver bowl filled with water on the floor by the water cooler.  I know the Boss has a dog, so perhaps he had brought it with him that weekend?  We may never know because at this point, the following conversation took place.  Seriously.


Me: "Was there a dog in your office?"
Randy: "No, why?"
Me: "There's a water dish on the floor."
Randy: "That's not a water dish."
Me: "It's not?"
Randy: "No, it's a magnetic parts bowl."
Me: "Oh... why is it on the floor?"
Randy: "I dunno, but it's not a water dish."
Me: "Why is there water in it?"
Randy: "I dunno."
Me: "I think it's a water dish..."
Randy: "It's not a water dish."
Me: "Okay."


My job might not be the most exciting in the world, but my coworkers definitely make it bearable!

Why I Hate Telemarketers, Part Two

I'm enjoying a nice, quiet evening at home while Hubby is out bowling when the house phone rings.  We rarely use the land line anymore, so when it rings it's always a surprise, and since it was ten at night, I was immediately on edge: phone calls at that hour are usually bad news.  This caller, however, asks for Hubby by his full name, a giveaway that this is a sales, survey, or donate-to-our-cause call.  I consider them all telemarketers.  And I have no patience for any of them.  I've jumped through all the hoops to get on the "don't call" lists so when one slips through, it makes me mad enough to kick a bunny.  I tell her he's not available and WHY IS SHE CALLING AT TEN AT NIGHT?  Poor girl, I think I scared the beans outta her.  She stutters, "I'm... uh... I... um... I don't know?"   Really?  You don't know why you're calling my house?  I guess it's better than offering to waive an activation fee...

Crime Doesn't Pay and Sometimes, Neither Does Law-Abidedness. Law-Abidingness? Law-Abidability? Wait... Law-Abidosity!

On my lunch break today, I decided to pick up a few things at Walmart.  On my way to the checkout, I grabbed some chewing gum.  The cashier asked if I wanted her to leave the gum out of the bag, but I told her to go ahead and put it in with the other items.  Then I paid and headed out the door.  As I’m putting the receipt in the bag, I happened to notice there were three items on it, and I knew I had four items in my bag.  On closer inspection, I discovered that she hadn’t actually rung up the gum so I turned around and went back to point it out to her.  Since she had other customers by this time, she thanked me and asked if I could take it over to the customer service desk.  I did, and proceeded to stand in line for several minutes before finally getting my turn.  I explained the situation to the girl behind the counter and paid for the gum.  At this point, I was now going to be five minutes late getting back to work, but that was okay, I thought, because I had a clear conscience, knowing I had done the right thing.

Then I get in my car and search everywhere for my sunglasses.  Nothing; I’d somehow lost them in the store and didn’t have time to go back to look for them.  Now this stupid gum has cost me $1.88, five minutes over on my lunch break, AND my sunglasses.  Oh well, I thought.  It was still the right thing to do.  So as I pulled out of the parking lot, I popped a piece of gum in my mouth.  It was yucky!  Are you kidding me?  I just spent $1.88, lost five minutes of work-time (and pay), and lost my sunglasses for icky gum???  Wrigley's is SO gonna hear about this...

Never Trust a Hypnotist Offering Jelly Beans

You know how in movies or on TV or whatever, someone will be trying to hypnotize someone else and tell them to "empty your mind"?  I can't.  And I bet you can't either.  What do they mean, anyway?  I think that if I stop thinking, I'll die.  Not that I died from NOT thinking, but that the only way to stop thinking is to be dead.  Or male.  I'm not being mean to men, they admit it themselves!  Go ahead and ask a man, "what're you thinking about?"  They'll say, "Nothing".  94.67% of the time.  Okay, I made up the statistic, but it's kinda true.

I've tried to stop thinking before, but first I realize that I'm thinking about not thinking and about what it would feel like to actually not think.  Then I'll think, "No seriously, STOP THINKING." And then I'll start daydreaming, which of course is still thinking, just more of a thinking-in-the-back-of-my-mind kind of thought.

Did you know that thinking is one of those weird words where, if you write it a lot, it stops looking like a word?  Yeah, I was just thinking about that.  See?  This is what happens when I eat too many jelly beans.  See, I really wanted jelly beans so I asked Hubby to pick some up last night but they didn't have any, so he brought home Rolos instead.  Don't get me wrong, I like Rolos; chocolate and caramel is pretty much awesome.  But Rolos are not jelly beans.  They have absolutely no effect on the jelly bean center of the brain.  So today, I went to the store and bought a bag of jelly beans and ate most of them while surfing the internet and writing this blog.  It is definitely impossible to NOT think when you're strung out on jelly beans.  In fact, jelly beans probably speed up the thought-process about eleventy percent.  The downside is none of your thoughts make sense to anyone else.  And when you write them down, like I'm doing now, once the jelly beans are out of your system, it won't make sense to you either.  I recently realized that my name, Julie Kean, sounds a little like Jelly Bean.  That was the most awesome thought I've had in a while.  Having your name sound like your favorite candy just proves that you married the right man; otherwise your name would be something different, and you might end up sounding like sauerkraut or hummus and that's not cool at all.  Even if you like those foods.  My blood sugar is starting to crash, I better end this post now.

Why I Hate Telemarketers, Part One

So I was home alone one night and decided to make myself a burger with onions.  Apparently  the chopped onions I found in the fridge had been there longer than I thought.  I went to bed feeling  just fine but woke up at 1 in the morning with the most horrific food poisoning known to man.  Or at least to me.  I'll spare you the nasty details, but just say that this was one of those nights where the only place you can stand to be is on the bathroom floor with the cool tile under you and a towel for a blanket.  And you can barely stand that.  And you've talked to God more in the past hour than in the past twenty-three days combined.  By nine A.M. I thought I was dying.  Or maybe I just wished that I would die and get it over with.  Whichever it was, it was bad enough that I decided maybe I should go to the hospital.  I didn't even know if you're supposed to go to the  hospital for food poisoning, I just needed it to  STOP!  I called Hubby at work and asked him to come home and take me to the ER.  The thought of going to the hospital looking the way I imagined I looked gave me just enough energy to stand up so I could change out of my  nightgown into some real clothes.  I've been to the ER before; I remember what people look like there.  I didn't want to look like that.  Well, okay, I probably already DID look like that, but I certainly didn't want anyone seeing me like that!  So anyway, I'm standing there, trying to remember how clothes work, when the phone rings.  I assumed Hubby was calling me back, so I answered it.  Instead, it was a  Discover Card telemarketer on the line to whom I semi-politely said, "I'm sorry I can't  talk right now."  When he kept talking, I said, "Listen, I really can't talk now,  I'm very sick."  To which HE said, "Why did you answer the phone if you're  sick?"  And not in a polite, concerned about my health and well-being way but in a way that said he  thought I was lying.  I snapped, "Because I thought it might be my  husband who is on his way here to take me to the hospital.  Where do YOU get off asking me that, anyway?"  He then said, "Well, Mrs. Kean, I'm  authorized to waive the activation fee..." and I hung up.  Did he really think he still had a chance for a sale?  I can just imagine his thought process: "Ooh, maybe she has a fever.  If I keep her on the phone long enough, she might become delirious and sign up for the Super Platinum Deluxe Card with the Mega-Executive Insurance Protection Package!"   Seriously, though... now that I think about it, waiving the activation fee is probably the number one suggestion in the telemarketers handbook, "101 Ways to Tick People Off Before Realizing There are Better Career Paths".  I mean seriously, how better to win over an ornery, on-her-death-bed customer than to WAIVE THE ACTIVATION FEE?  It's brilliant! OR... perhaps it was a reasonable answer to my question.  Maybe the fact that he holds such powerful authorization automatically gives him the right to question my motivation for answering the phone.  In fact, the more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to realize that perhaps I'M the one who was out of line and maybe I should call Discover Card back and apologize.  I wonder if they'll still waive the activation fee?