Now That’s the “Woist” Tasting Pickle I ever “Hoiyd”

I went to the Carnegie Deli the other day with some friends. This place is known for it’s ridiculously large sandwiches. I’m not much into sandwiches usually, but there is something rather “Flintstones” about the size of them as they weigh down the arm of the waiter who speaks little English but does it so quietly that you can’t hear the broken syllables. All good if you ask me! It’s part of the New York City experience. The plate of pickles arrived on the scene during the 4 ½ minutes that you have to wait for them to prepare your sandwich. (yeah…their turn around on these $23 sandwiches is quite good!) For those of you who can’t picture what I mean by this, imagine a line of people outside the door being shuffled in in groups of 4 to 10 to a bread basket full of pickles and sandwiches with 4 Lbs. of beef on them that can’t be wrapped up to go because, logically, what would you do with a pocket full of beef while you walk around NYC for the day? –All in 20 minute intervals! It was really fun though. I reached for one of the pickles and took a crunchy bite….um…what the heck?…I paused to figure out if I had accidentally bit off the handle of a porta-john flusher….nope…No porta-john. Hmm…I took another bite to be sure I hadn’t been too hasty in making the rash decision that it indeed did not taste good…Nope. I was right!…It sucked. I tried to rationalize it in my own head so I wouldn’t be grossed out the rest of the day. It was like those jelly beans that they make to taste like things other than chewy sugary candy?…hamburger flavored jelly beans, popcorn flavored jelly beans…etc…It somehow makes it okay after you figure out what the original taste intention was before you spit it out on the floor. I decided that this pickle must’ve been meant to taste like nacho Doritos or something…no…still didn’t help the memory of it’s taste to not make me spit up in my mouth a little. My sister smelled it and laughed. She said, “I only put my nose on it and I knew that it was not a good pickle.”…We replayed the incident all throughout the night saying, “That was not a good pickle.” Again, my sister would laugh at me and reiterate that she didn’t even taste it and even she knew how bad it was. After laughing and discussing the incident about 14 times, I replied, “No. You don’t know how bad it was. Not only did you not taste it once, you did not taste it twice in order to come to terms with its badness.”…Bottom line though- it was one crappy-ass pickle! I’m not sure I’ll ever try another nacho pickle in my life….It was not good.

I suppose the point is that as much as I talk about people not learning their lessons, it seems that even I still have to go back for more before I know that something isn’t good. What is it about human nature that makes us need to prove to ourselves that something is bad? The same thing applies in dating. People meet each other and the signal goes off in their head on the first date: “Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding! I hate this guy. From what he’s just told me about all of his previous relationships, he appears to be a lying sack of cheating crap!…But I bet he won’t cheat on me! I should see if I could change him.” …For God’s sake, set the skanky pickle back on the plate and move on to the sandwich that will soon be delivered to you with a mouth-quenching beverage. Don’t put the pickle back into your mouth! I guess it’s a good lesson to learn though. For some reason my sister knew not to even taste the pickle. Maybe because she is divorced and already knows that sometimes things just suck and it’s just not worth the time or energy to try to make a square pickle fit in a round hole. I, as a single girl who has never been married and ironically doesn’t believe in divorce with no basis for judgment having never walked in someone who has been married’s shoes, have a view of life that believes that you keep trying and just get a bigger and bigger glass of water to wash it down until you die! I suppose each case is different, but in this one, she was right…and now I have a life-long memory of a really bad nacho-porta-john flavored pickle at the Carnegie deli.

You Live How You Eat!

I recently heard this statement and the more I think about it, the more true I believe it to be. Have you ever noticed that food is the center of all gatherings? We could really tell a lot about people if we only observed them when they eat. My grandmother always “dishes up” a ridiculously small portion and talks about how she could “never eat as much as that!”…um…okay Nannie…Then I’ll take the rest of your portion when I’m finished with mine. Does that mean that she is frugal and I am gluttonous?…Wait a minute…I think it might. But what I was getting at was that she lives with the thought in mind that a huge storm may come up and wash us all away and we may need our extra rations of food to survive for an extra hundred years. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that it’s not going to taste as good the next day and am fully prepared to make something else when it’s gone out of the ingredients provided to me from the surge of the storm! Okay…so how about the person who refuses to eat vegetables and lives on chocolate and junk food?…Will that person ever be health conscious or does it simply not matter whether or not there’s a well-balanced diet on the table? She would likely find it easier to wait until the last minute when she’s really hungry and just stop off for some fast-food French fries? I could never do that! I always have a plan! I will stay up all night picking out an outfit for the next day so I will have one that matches. Will the fast food person simply pick a couple things off the floor of her bedroom? - Probably…and not only that, it will most likely work for her and look just fine.

The point is that our personality dictates the way we eat. If we are compulsive, overachievers, we probably wake up thinking of what ingredients are in the house for dinner that night. If we are laid-back and relaxed, we will most likely wait until we get hungry and decide what to eat. So why is food the center of every single occasion then? We know that everyone likes pizza right?…well…not my mother. She’s not a fan of pizza or pasta….which is why I’m still searching for my real mother…I haven’t figured out what the problem there is. I do look exactly like all of my sisters and have seen baby pictures…but no pizza or pasta?…You have got to be kidding Mom! I wonder what that says about her?…Oh! I just figured it out! It’s not that she doesn’t like pizza or pasta. The issue is that everyone else does and she likes to stand out from the crowd by having needs that are a little bit different. Personally, I could eat sauce and cheese on anything. They could serve me sauce and cheese on a rat and I’d say, “Yum! Rat Parm! Are you going to eat yours?”…See that…there I go thinking about where the next serving of rat parm will come from before I’ve eaten two bites of my own delectable treat!

So what can we do to not allow people to know so much about us from our food choices?…and more importantly, why do I always hang out with people who won’t order their own dinners but insist on eating off my plate?…No matter…I’ll figure that out later! Possibly my original choice of staying in my own house without anyone there who will try to take my stuff before I get a chance to use it myself suggests the mindset of a girl who had many family members and sometimes just wants a little something that only belongs to her? Who knows?…But I couldn’t help but notice that my sister was wearing my pants this morning when I saw her…I thought they were in my closet?…hmm…I suppose I must be imagining things and this whole food concept is way off base…BUT…I know those pants were put together in an outfit for work next week in my closet next to the color coded subdivision for “work” and “going out” outfits…and she hasn’t been here when I have been…though I did notice a glass in my sink the other day that I didn’t remember leaving there…weird…

The Amazon World...

I have to say that I have definitely fallen prey to the “amazon” way….hee hee…fun rhyme huh?…I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it!…Oh geez…I’m on a roll today. Anyway…I really like to be able to quickly go online and order the annoying little things that most people are forced to drive around and pick up for themselves. Ie: toilet paper, makeup, shampoo…sneakers…As a matter of fact, if it can’t be shipped to me so it’s on my porch when I get home the next day, I really don’t need it.

This lack of love for running errands has recently presented a problem with my Dentist. I got a bill in the mail so I called them to pay it the second I got it out of my mailbox. I have a “flex” medical visa that holds funds for all uncovered medical expenses. Most everyone does it this way now. Apparently even the best health insurance coverage generally thinks that $50 for the dentist to walk into the room is more than it wants to pay for him. So even with a “Cadillac” plan, I still owed about $100. Don’t worry though…I’m certain that once the government health insurance plan kicks in and I have to pay for everyone else’s insurance, I won’t get my teeth cleaned at all. This will really open up the doctor’s schedule for the people who haven’t had a cleaning in 25 years. I wonder what “fair and equitable” on a full mouth restorative procedure will be when the government controls it?…Thank God there are no “pre-existing condition” laws anymore! I’m quite certain that “having a mouth” is one…Oh well…I’ll get my teeth cleaned while I still can.

The point of the story is that my dental office wouldn’t take my card number over the phone. They said that it costs them more to do it that way and wanted me to drive the card there. They asked if I could do it that day…um…nah…It would cost me more to drive the 3 hours from where I called from than the $1.50 it would’ve cost them. I suppose I will just hand them the card at my next cleaning in 6 months. The only trouble is that I have to wonder if they will still be open by then if they won’t accept payment? I hope so. I do like them at that office.

Oh well…in a world full of conveniences, we are still saddled with inconveniences due to the costs of “new, easier” ways. Maybe eventually we could just do a retinal scan or an oral x-ray that will link to all of our accounts so we don’t have to open our wallets. I just hope our teeth won’t be able to be hacked. I suppose they will have to develop some sort of firewall for them! Sounds like the healthcare field is inventing new jobs for us already! Ah! The world is good!

How Do You Use this thing?

I believe in making life easier with acronyms and memory games. In fact, I used to have a business card that gave out my phone number in binary code. I always figured that this would be the best way to weed out the riff raff that wasn’t familiar with basic math skills. This actually didn’t work very well. As it turns out, the hottest guys aren't always the smartest ones... but that is a story for another time. Oh well...I bring this up because I was just trying to dial customer service for my cellular provider from my blackberry. I looked at the numbers on the keypad….um…where are the letters? How exactly am I supposed to know how to dial a word? There are no letters on a keypad with a full keyboard. Technology has made 1-800-DIAL-US so that it may as well be 1-800-YOU’RE SCREWED CAUSE THERE ARE NO LETTERS ON THESE KEYS!…I can hear the operator voice response now: “The number you have reached, 8,0,0, 1,9,6,4,2,5,6,7,2,3,5,6,9,1,0,7,7,8, has been changed. Please hang up, check the number and dial again.” …Excellent. Thank you.

I was in my office today and noticed that someone had apparently used my corded phone. I could tell because apparently the next generation has no idea how to hang up a phone with a cord. The cord was wrapped around to the other side of the phone. There was no semblance of order. I felt huge discontentment and wondered how anyone could not know that the cord doesn’t get tangled around the desk chair, up underneath the back of the table, around the front of the phone and over the dial. Who the heck had done this? I bet that same person puts the toilet paper on the roll so it comes from underneath. Again…this is just common sense in my book. Maybe it’s just preference though. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Some of us just have more ritualistic tendencies like…say…putting on shoes in the morning…I mean…Who would know unless they had been taught how to actually do it?…I ran into a teenager the other day who thought that the word “bambino” meant “a tiny deer.”…I guess it makes sense. Bambi was a deer. Who could fight him on his deduction?

The point is that the world is full of old traditions that are being lost in the translation from generation to generation. I still say, “roll down the window” on a car. I bet there are kids who have no idea what I’m talking about. What can you do though? It is much easier to push a button to get your window open…unless of course your electrical system isn’t working in which case, you could be stuck in your car forever…at least until On-star contacts someone to come get you out! Very handy if you ask me! In my parent’s day, driving cars that didn’t go above 45mph with saran wrap covering the windows that wouldn’t stay up prevented people from getting stuck in them due to technology. Not to mention the fact that the am radio that buzzed through the speakers and changed pitch when you hit the brakes kept you from falling asleep on the highway! All good!

Oh well! I do love technological advances and my gadgets are the joy of my life. I hope this world continues to grow in that way…at least until we all get stuck in our cars and robots take over the earth…or Obama does…

Enter the "Beautiful People!"

Lately I have had some very beautiful young girls who have started to come to see our band. They are so sweet and fun and really add a badly missing energy to a bar that has grown stale over the years. We absolutely love having them there not only because they are having fun, but also because the young guys come in to watch them having fun. Actually…the old guys are even sticking around to watch them “having fun” too…which, come to think of it, is a little gross. Watching 40, 50 and 60-year-old men drooling over 21-year-old girls dance is a little bit obscene. They actually line up around the dance floor to watch them. Um…can you say child molester? Oh well…the girls seem to have a handle on it. They get the old guys to buy them drinks all night and even pull them onto the dance floor as each one soaks up the negative attention as he puffs himself and his self-image up to believe that these young girls think he’s “still got it!”…Oh well…in reality, the girls all end up going home to their boyfriends at the end of the evening.

The night continued as I watched some of the regulars disappear from the dance floor and slip out of the bar. Had we gone too far in our attempt to add some youth to this desperate scene? Before these beautiful girls walked in, the older crowd at least had a chance at feeling like someone would notice them….Nope…not with these girls there. A 40or 50-year-old woman wouldn’t have a shot with anyone other than with one of the young boys who was looking for a one night stand with a cougar…and actually those boys existed there now too. But all in all, it was a great night with all sorts of entertainment for the singer who didn’t really feel like mustering up a trashy act to entice the old guys into buying more drinks. I was sort of lost on the guy who would try to pick me up for a night. I had a reputation that had been long established as cute and funny but not necessarily someone a guy would want to say something stupid to without going home without “his balls tied up over his head.”…not my phrase…one coined by a long-time bartender who would try to protect unsuspecting strangers to the scene from thinking that the bouncy girl on the stage would give him the attention he so badly lacked from his long-term relationship or broken narcissistic personality struggles. These beautiful, fresh girls picked up where I left off so I could do the real job at hand- singing, dancing, and having a great time!

I enjoy having these girls around. They have added a whole new dimension to the fun. The old timers may need to find somewhere else to go, but these girls are just what the doctor ordered to give a fresh perspective to a badly lacking night scene. I’d love to keep the secure ladies who love to come out and dance to a fun band around. They are also very special to me! A mixture of ages and good people make an evening fun. It’s the slippery ones who were only looking for someone to make them feel good for a moment as they perpetuate the stereotype of the older, lonely woman who will allow men to hook up and disappear instead of committing to someone and making it stick, that I can do without! I like the new scene as long as these young girls stay in control of the situation! If only young girls knew all that we have learned through our wisdom of an extra 10 years of getting screwed over. Too bad we all need to learn for ourselves huh?…Oh well…for now, it seems like they have a handle on it! Thank you so much ladies for bringing the evening to life! Just let me know if any guy gets out of line! I’d be happy to pull out a little of my cunning quippery to make his head spin long enough for you to get away!

The Hands-free Breakfast Sandwich

It is interesting how the hands-free law decides what is safe to do when you’re driving. I watched a lady eating a breakfast sandwich on the highway today and wondered how she was steering with her elbows. I could actually smell the egg and cheese as it dripped out onto her blouse…of course, now it appeared that I wasn’t watching the road anymore either…It was as though her breakfast sandwich was also distracting me from the task at hand. I sort of wanted a sandwich now though…so I picked up my phone and called my sister instead. I thought that would help me get back on focus!…hee hee…no…I’m just kidding. I don’t even talk on my phone in my house without my bluetooth. It may not be cool, but I don’t use it in public so why not be free to not hold a small computer next to my face? I can do dishes, I can cook, I can even workout. It’s extremely convenient if you ask me!

The other day, I watched a lady pulling into the parking lot while she held her open smartphone in front of her face instead of next to her ear…um…no…you are not going “hands-free” just because you have your phone set to speaker phone if you are still holding it in the air with your hands. I have sort of a little test that helps me to know if I’m following the “hands-free” law or not. Here it is: If I am using my hands to hold the phone, I am not “hands-free!”…See how easy that is? It’s really the word “hands” that I focus on so that I don’t misinterpret my actions. “Oh. I didn’t know that officer,” only works if you are completely stupid…and who wants a policeman to think you’re completely stupid? Come to think of it, there should be a ticket for that! It would really cut down on the accidents! “Driving while stupid”: 10 points on your license and a fine of roadside litter in the equivalent value of $500…It would really cut down on roadside litter if you ask me!

The Meeting

I was sitting in a meeting yesterday. These meetings never apply to me for some reason. I get a little bored and instead of sleeping, I observe the going ons! Don’t get me wrong…I don’t mind meetings as long as they aren’t simply held to absorb a certain amount of contractual time by making random announcements and doing unnecessary tasks transparently invented to hold me captive so the “higher ups” get their money’s worth from me. I’m certain that many people feel this way but it’s just the way it is so it really matters very little that I feel exactly like the rest of the world feels in this regard…even the “higher ups” I assume.

One lady walked in with a half gallon of ice cream. Judging from the cookies in the middle of the table, I guessed that she must’ve been making some punch or something. I moved on to something more entertaining at the time…now that I think about it, I can’t remember what distracted me…likely a noise or a “hang in there” kitten poster on the wall or something. Some time had passed when I became aware of the meeting again. I noticed the lady with the half-gallon of ice cream. She had it in front of her and was eating out of it with a tablespoon. I interrupted the meeting and asked, “Are you really eating a half gallon of ice cream?”…She responded by telling me that she needed something cold on her throat and it had been on sale at the Price Chopper on the way. Everyone looked at me and laughed. I wasn’t sure what they were laughing at. Had I been the only one who was curious? It was clear to me that she would have to finish the entire half-gallon during this meeting because I was pretty sure she didn’t have a freezer in her purse. I suppose a half-gallon is doable, though I’ve never done it in front of 25 people! Good for her!

The meeting got back on track to its holding pattern of un-captivating. The boss was addressing one of the guys across the table from me. He kept clicking and staring at his blackberry while he spoke back to her. I thought, “Balzy! Even I am hiding my phone under the table to text and play tetris! He was doing it right in front of her face.”…I tuned into the conversation and from what I could assess, he was looking at dates in his calendar that she was asking him about. This made a little more sense. People don’t tend to have that much audacity! …I glanced over to my colleague eating the ice cream…yep…still going with only a small puddle of creamy condensation on the table underneath the melting, warm cardboard container.

The meeting drew to a close and I had cleared 4 levels of tetris. Not bad actually considering that my trackball was getting worn out. That reminded me…stop at AT&T on the way home and have that fixed. I had another meeting next week and had just downloaded space invaders.