Tag Archives: Fun

fiction

My Wife, The Bartender

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Our little girl is 6 months old now, so it’s time for my wife to go back to work. To make sure one of us is always home, I work days and she has decided to go back to working nights as a bartender. Part time starting off, until she gets back into the groove.

Like most people, she was nervous going back to work after such a long break. She wasn’t sure if she would still be able to remember all the complicated drink mixtures or deal with all the tipsy weirdos touching her rear end every night (myself excluded). 

To help ingratiate herself to the friends on the staff, she decided to come up with a hit new drink that would knock everyone’s socks off. She obsessed over it. During the past week she has had me taste a number of concoctions. Some of them were okay, a lot of them weren’t—but the worst was yet to come. 

Earlier this afternoon she had been working on her masterpiece. “Come in here!” she yelled from across the house.

I came in there, hoping I wasn’t in trouble for something I had long forgotten. “Try this,” she said, passing me a suspicious looking mixture.

“What’s in it?” I ask, giving the red solo cup a little swirl.

“My own special blend. I decided to create a drink that no one else can! I call it” (pause for effect) “the ‘Naughty Mommy.’”

Huh, ‘The Naughty Mommy’ I thought to myself as I brought the cup to my lips. A familiar smell that I couldn’t quite place found its way into my nostrils as I took a big gulp. I swallowed quickly, then immediately regretted it. “What the—” I couldn’t finish my sentence through all the gagging.

“No good?” she said, wincing a little apologetically.

“No! What was in it?” I said, pouring the rest of it down the sink, and then rinsing out every last drop.

“Vodka and breast milk… Get it? The ‘Naughty Mommy?’” She said it with a cute smile that almost made me forgive her.

Yeah… clever.

fiction

Unseen Revenge

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They say that revenge is a dish best served cold. To me, the temperature of the dish matters not, for the ingredients themselves are far more important. The main ingredients in my delicious revenge are undetectability and pettiness. Revenge should be a dish served masquerading as forgiveness and maturity, but filled with malice that can’t be tasted.

To be clear, I am not speaking of vengeance for terrible wrongs that have been endured or suffered through. That is a dark topic I dare not broach. I am talking purely of petty revenge in the wake of a slight offense, which is usually more comical than tragic.

This is a tale of such pettiness:

Growing up with a much older brother who outmatched me in both wit and strength, I could not wage wars of a physical or direct nature. My offenses had to be subtle, indirect… deniable.

After one particularly heated exchange during my eighth year where my brother had spit in my face, I bottled my fury and waited. I waited for inspiration. I waited for an idea that would dissipate my anger without provoking his in return.

The idea came.

After a bit of fuming, it came time for me to wash up for dinner. There by the sink sat a blue and white toothbrush. His toothbrush. Without thinking I quickly grabbed it and scrubbed the inside of the toilet bowl with great vigor—so quickly did it occur that I scarcely knew what I was doing. I then replaced the toothbrush in the holder. My heart thumped, blood pounded rhythmically inside my skull so hard that I became light-headed. Despite the closed door, I had an irrational fear that I’d been seen. 

Several minutes passed before I was breathing normally and was once again calm. And then I smiled. I felt relieved. Not just relieved of my fear because I wasn’t caught, but I was also relieved of my anger because I got back at my brother for spitting in my face. He never knew it had even happened (and still doesn’t to this day), but I knew.

This was a revelation to me: that revenge isn’t about hurting the other person, it’s about feeling better after they have hurt you. I knew I had gotten him back, and that’s all that mattered.

Perhaps, dear reader, if you are a better person than I, then maybe you have found a way to feel better after being wronged that doesn’t involve revenge. As for me and my house, quiet revenge has worked thus far.

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Thoughts When Working From Home

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“I want to quit my job, but I’m not sure my wife will think that ‘They make us leave our cameras on during Zoom calls!’ is a strong enough grievance.”

“Do my coworkers hate me or have I just been conditioned to take it as a sign of aggression when someone ends a Slack message with a period and no emojis?”

“I wonder if the company put software on my computer that tracks my every move. I better wiggle the mouse and click around a bit to make sure they know I’m still here and working.”

“My boss probably thinks I do very little most of the day because they can’t physically check on me every 4 minutes… I actually do very little most of the day because I don’t have much work to do at the moment—and I am in a constant state of stress because of it.”

“Someone should tell Claire that even though she blurs the background on Zoom, we can still see her husband wandering around half-dressed and out of focus like some sort of underachieving bigfoot.”

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An Analysis of Green Eggs and Ham

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On the surface, Green Eggs and Ham is supposedly about a picky eater who refuses to eat a dish that he would end up enjoying simply because he thought it didn’t sound appetizing. Parents hold it up to their children as an example to try new things and keep an open mind about them.

That’s not what this analysis is about, however. It is about deeper-routed, and possibly sadder truths spoken by the book. The unnamed main character announces (prior to being offered anything) his dislike of Sam I Am. This seems reasonable to us as Sam I Am is shown to be riding past our unknown protagonist multiple times holding a sign that states his own name in giant letters—an objectively obnoxious thing to do.

Don’t believe me? Do this to literally anyone in your life. Right now… I’ll wait.

How did it go? Poorly, I bet.

Anyway, we have established a relationship between the two characters in the book where one dislikes and is reasonably annoyed by the second, named (or at least calls himself) Sam I Am. So, it would be fair to assume that the main character does not refuse the food solely based on being a picky eater, but rather that they are trying to avoid engaging with a person they don’t like and hoping for them to leave quickly (Spoiler: they don’t).

Another extrapolation that one could come to, and this is a sadder truth I referred to in the second paragraph, is that we as people often miss out on things we would enjoy simply because they were recommended to us by people we find in sufferable and whose opinion we distrust—usually for good reason (i.e. the person is annoying, intrusive, dumb, unbearable, or all of the above).

Here’s an example of what I mean: Imagine the guy in your office who constantly corners you to talk about his favorite Anime and seems pretty obsessed with Asian women for someone who’s not Asian and has never left the U.S., recommends that you watch Abbott Elementary. Having never heard of it, you would assume the show is awful because you are put-off by this guy who makes you uncomfortable. In reality though, you would probably love the show, and now won’t give it a shot because how good could a show recommended by that guy be?

I’m not saying we should be more open to suggestions from people we dislike—far from it. I’m saying irritating people should not be allowed to recommend good things. It throws off our judgment.

Long story short—the unnamed protagonist in Green Eggs and Ham is completely right to avoid the odd-looking dish presented by the loathsome Sam I Am. The odds of it turning out to be enjoyable were miniscule at best, and eating the meal would only prolong their interaction, which we have established, no one would want.

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Malaphors

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I have found out there is a word for when someone mixes up metaphors; the mixed-up phrase is called a malaphor. In celebration of this discovery, I thought I would offer up two of my favorite ones, both uttered in all sincerity by an old coworker:

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.” (“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it” and “Don’t burn too many bridges.”)

“This is the cross I’ll die on.” (“This is my cross to bear” and “This is the hill I die on.”)

If you have any malaphors that you are particularly fond of, please feel free to add them in the comments.

fiction

Doctor Visit

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“There’s nothing to be scared of,” the doctor said, apropo of nothing. That’s what worried me most. Not because doctors are notorious liars (I mean, I guess they could be), but because people don’t feel the need to reassure you when there’s actually nothing to be afraid of. 

To be fair, an appendectomy is generally considered a ‘minor procedure.’ I’ve certainly thought of it that way when it was happening to someone else—but this is me we’re talking about. Anyway, it made me wonder how important an organ had to be before they considered it a major procedure. 

I bet a kidney is pretty major. Is it because a kidney is bigger? Or because it does more? It didn’t seem like a good time to ask. Besides, I had other questions.

“Can I keep it?” I said, unsure of what I planned on doing with it, but it is mine after all. Why shouldn’t I keep it? Before the doctor could respond, I pointed with one finger at my lower abdomen where I thought my appendix would be and raised my eyebrows (I had to be sure we were on the same page of what I was talking about). 

“No… we need to remove it.” The doctor said, speaking a little slowly and annunciating every word. He didn’t get what I was saying.

I shook my head, “I mean afterward.” Again, I raised my eyebrows, indicating not only that I was hopeful, but also that it was his turn to talk.

He calmly explained some law or regulation that prevented me from being able to take my own organ home after the procedure. I just think that he didn’t want me to have it. He probably has a whole freezer full of these things.

Anyway, sorry for the long preamble. The surgery went fine, I give the hospital 3-stars. They won’t kill you, but they also won’t bend any rules for you.