This Year's Funniest Responses to My Facebook Posts

So several of you have decided to use the spirit of this holiday weekend to chastise me for not posting more often.  I am, now, deeply ashamed.  However, Mom has decreed that ALL the laundry shall be done before Monday, so I really didn't have the time or energy to be creative today.  It was a serious conundrum, my friends, which vexed me for almost thirty-five unbearable minutes.  Then it finally occurred to me that you all are both energetic and creative, especially when it comes to writing snarky, humorous or confounding responses to my status updates on facebook.  Hence, I collected my ten favorite from 2014, and I present them to you for your amusement:

This Year's Funniest Responses to My Facebook Posts

1. How many squirrels had to make the ultimate sacrifice for those Christmas towels to be purchased? 
2.  I've never thought about threatening to burn skin off of faces. The things I learn from my online colleagues.
3. All I got was a piece of candy cane stuck to my foot.
4. Hey, Troilus, is that a love letter in your pocket, or...well...sorry.
5. Perhaps one of the extra stockings belongs to Flamingo?
6. I hesitate to wonder what a Dalek bathroom would entail.  Eliminate! Eliminate!!
7. It looks like it would hold plenty of dead squirrels.
8. Gnat, a raging angel.  Just right. [Note:  this one is funny because it was posted by my provost.  Who understands me all too well.]
9. Well, we all know that penis-sucking-vaginas are real people-pleasers.  [Note:  not posted by my provost.] 
10. I have plenty of unused lampshades since I have given up wearing them lately.

Actually, these aren't as funny out of context as I thought they would be.  In fact, this whole post kind of sucks.  But I'm going to hit the little "publish" button anyway, so I can go do more laundry and throw some pots without some guilt-trip bringing me down. Satisfied?  Good.

Black Friday Texts to My Cousin Beth

Greetings and Happy Holidays, Beloved Readers!  It has been too, too long.  As I compose this cheery missive, I am curled up in Mom's broken recliner (the new one is being delivered this afternoon, the fourth in ten years.  Don't ask me.  I  have no idea what she gets up to when I'm at work, but whatever it is, it's rough on those recliners), sipping holiday tea and recovering from an exhilarating* morning Christmas shopping or, as many of my friends will no doubt remind me, contributing to the consumerist destruction of civilized society.

I wore black and red.  You know, because if sales are good, then shops go from being in the red to being in the black?  Get it?  That's okay.  Nobody else did either.

My cousin Beth had planned to engage in this same ritual, but she was feeling sick today and had to stay at home.  I, therefore, decided to amuse and appall her by sending periodic text messages updating her on the progress of my own shopping expedition.  And now, because I love you all so much, I present those texts to you as well.

6:57am:  Off to the stores!  First stop:  the bookstore!

7:15am:  Ah! My hunt was delayed, for I had to turn around and go back to put out the garbage can.  The holiday schedule is my bane.

7:25am:  I have now run over a squirrel, poor victim of crass consumerism.

7:42am:  The ad said that this book store opened at 6am, but they are not opening until 8am.  Great is the wrath of impatient shoppers crowding the sidewalk!  I will leave this place and venture into the most dangerous realm of all:  the Mall.

8:45am:  Have been shopping for over an hour now.  Everything I've bought so far has been for me.  I am going to have a good Christmas, apparently.

9:03am:  Thought about getting a cinnebon,**  but it looks too much like the squirrel I have slain.

9:20am:  People keep waving me into good parking spaces.  Just realized that I have Mom's car and am displaying her handicapped tag.***  The guilt just keeps piling up.

9:59am:  Stray dog just peed on the tire of Mom's car.  Don't tell her.

10:12am:  Dog made me need to pee.  Headed back to bookstore.

10:33am: Successfully peed, thanks for asking.  Put Mom's tag in glove compartment.  Got flipped off by someone in a Lexis.  Feel better about myself.

10:37am:  Starting to get crowded out here.  Everyone must have finally found what they wanted at Best Buy.

10:48am:  Stopped for tea.  My parents couldn't afford to buy me legos when I was a kid, and now that I am an adult, I can't afford to buy the expensive adult lego sets of famous buildings.  Lego might be my arch nemesis.

11:22am:  Almost all shopping done, except for Mom.  Now entering the terror which is the Kohl's parking lot.

11:39am: Kohl's is vicious.  Heard a manager begging customers to stop yelling at him.  Thought about giving him a hug, but didn't want to lose my place in line.

11:57am:  Stepped in gum.  Tried to get it off and kicked shoe across parking lot.  Car ran over shoe.  Time to call it a day.


*Did everybody else know that there were two A's in that word? 
**This word should have a U, but it doesn't.  I am orthographically confused today.
***I did not park in any handicapped spaces.  I am a squirrel-murderer, but not a sociopath.

Real Conversations with Mom: Gardening

Mom:  "Listen!  If you don't do what I tell you, your ass is grass, and I am the lawnmower!"

Me:  "Mom!  Where did you hear that?"

Mom:  "I've known it for a long time.  A long, long time."

Me:  "Fine, well, could you carry this folder inside while I get the bags?"

Mom:  "I don't know.  That might be too heavy for me.  I am delicate, you know."

Me:  "The sarcasm is running pretty thick today."

Mom:  "Vroom-vroom!  Vroom-vroom!"

Me:  "What?"

Mom:  "Vroom-vroom!  I am the lawnmower, and don't you forget it!"

The Office Door

Hello, beloved readers!  Today, I must confess, I have gotten a bit out of hand.  You know how sometimes you have a good idea, one that is slightly funny or witty, but which, once you get it going, you find yourself unable to stop until you swerve into a fast lane of ridiculousness that overwhelms your sense of self preservation, dignity and good sense?

Okay, well, it happens to me all the time.

For example, I am teaching an independent study this fall on Old English (no, not Shakespeare.  No, not Chaucer.  Never mind.  If you want to know, you can take the class), and, unfortunately, my dedicated and brilliant students kept getting interrupted by people wandering into my office.   So the solution we came up with was to hang a little sign on my office door.  Voilà!

Of course, once I had such a sign, and I saw that it was reversible, I had to add something to the, well, reverse:

But there's more!  You see, these lovely door signs came in a package of eight, so, of course, I had to fill them out with increasingly stranger and more inappropriate messages.  I tried to stop.  I really did.  But I just couldn't.  Please don't judge me.

Worlds Collide

Hello, delightful readers!  Today was an unusual day, for I find myself in a quandary, a confusing confluence of events, and I need your help.

In preparing for class today, I noticed these lines from a 15th century Middle English romance about King Arthur (I have translated them for you, good readers, as some of you, sadly, do not read of the Middle English):

"Sir Perceval and Sir Gawain;
Sir Gaheris and Sir Agravain;
And Sir Lancelot du Lake;
Sir Kay and Sir Yvain
(who could fight well on the field
and undertake battles!)
King Ban and King Bors
(who had a such a great reputation
that men never saw their like)
Sir Galafré and Sir Launfal,
About whom a noble tale
awakens for us!"

Now, some of you, loyal readers, are thinking, "Okay, so what?  Nothing actually happens in those lines.  It's just a list of knights."  But others of you, those who bear the weight of heavy nerdosity, are thinking, "Wait!  Wait!  Sir who?!"

To which I respond, "Sir Galafré, that's who!  Or, possibly, Who!"

And now, many of you are thinking, "I don't get it.  What is this post about?  Can't we hear more about your mom? I like those posts."  But others, those dearest to my heart, are standing up and shouting, "?!?!"

And indeed, those who are speechlessly shouting in punctuation, you are my people.  For the rest of you, let me explain:  Galafré--or, in Modern English, Gallifrey, is the home planet of the Time Lords.

Moreover, when I first read this romance, precious readers, generally referred to as Sir Launfal, for my oral examinations in grad school, I read it repeatedly, and I read it well.   And yet, I have no memory of this Sir Gallifrey.  And why do I have no memory of him?  Is it because I am getting old and forgetting those things I once knew?  Or...is it because a certain Man with a Blue Box, not satisfied with his role as Merlin (see "Battlefield," Season 26) also became, between the time I got my Ph.D. and now, a knight of the round table?!

Now, I know what you're thinking, beloved readers.  You're thinking, "But nay!  If such a thing had happened, your memories would have been altered, just as the text of yon medieval romance was altered."  And, yes, they should have been!  So why, why have my memories of an alternate version of the romance with no Sir Gallifrey remained intact?  There can be only one conclusion.

At some point in my future, I too will enter the Blue Box, journey to the time of Arthur and meet this Sir Gallifrey, therefore becoming a part of what is clearly a fixed point in time.

So from now on, you may call me Sir Natalie, Knight of the Decorated Pots.

Technical Difficulties

Greetings, oh, readers of mine!  Today has not been a happy day.  Today has been a day of technical difficulties.  This morning I bent a spade in half, and then a wheel came off of my garbage can and rolled around desultorily before collapsing with exhaustion in a compost pile.

That was not an enjoyable sight.

Then I came to work and, well, there are computers here, and they are not doing what they are supposed to do, or, rather, they are only doing what humans tell them to do, and humans are apparently telling them to frak with my life.  Repeatedly.

Luckily, when the machines let you down, there is always human contact to billow you up, and today's billowiness comes from my beloved mother, who left a note in my lunch.  Looking at it, I thought, "More adults should get notes from their parents in their lunches.  And cute little indecipherable drawings.  I know!  I will billow up everyone's mood by sharing a collection of napkins from Mom!"  And as it was thought, so it is done.  Enjoy!

Mom's happiness on Mondays can be disconcerting

Mom had an injured hand and wanted me to think of her suffering

Mom does not approve of Black Friday

Mom does approve of Spike the Cat

And Mom likes to leave warnings when I get out of hand

The Danger of Accessories

My doctor:  "So, it says here that you've come in today because you think...um...you think you have a brain tumor?"

Me:  "Yes!  There are two lumps growing on the back of my head!"

My doctor:  "Have you had any other symptoms?"

Me:  "Anxiety, steadily increasing towards panic."

My doctor:  "Let's take a look.  Ah.  Hmm.  Right here?"

Me:  "Yes!  That's it!"

My doctor:  "Okay, well, let me ask you something:  how often do you wear this hair barrette?"

Me:  "The one I have in now?  Lots!  It's my favorite."

My doctor:  "This exact hair barrette?  This metal hair barrette with very pointed edges?"

[Long pause]

Me:  "Oh.  Wow."

My doctor:  "Maybe you could rotate hair accessories from day to day."

Me:  "Um.  So my diagnosis is hair barrette too pointy.  That's what you're saying?"

My doctor:  "Yes.  In fact, I'm putting it right into your patient file:  avoid pointy hair accessories for one week."

Me:  "This is a pretty humiliating experience."

My doctor:  "At least you don't have a brain tumor."