Overheard in My Office This Week

"These just don't look edible to me, even if they were real."

"Wait, I get it!  The horizontal stripes mean you clear a horizontal line!  How do I get horizontal lines?"

"What is a 'jelly' anyway?  Is it like a gummy worm?  I hate gummy worms."

"I wonder if they would taste like their colors:  purple is grape, etc?  You want me to sign what?  Okay.  So how do you think these would taste?  If they were real, I mean."

"This is pretty addicting, actually.  But the music is annoying."

"Okay, what is with Level 70?  There is no way to clear this level.  Hey, [innocent colleague / victim], have you tried Level 70?  Level 70 of what?  Never mind."

"Level 70 is evil.  I will look up hints on the google before class.  Hmmm..."

"Hi!  Sure, yes, I can lend you that book.  Did you know that if you don't like your board, you can exit from the game without losing a life?  You just said 'yes,' but you actually have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?  Just take your book and go."

"The google is no help.  There is no way out of Level 70."

[shouting] "That's it!  I am not playing any damn game in which chocolate is the enemy!  That's just sick!"

[one hour later]  "Oh, I have three more lives! Level 70, here I come..."

Real Conversations with Mom: Respectability

Mom:  "I want you to steal that guy's hat for me."

Me:  "You're always encouraging me to commit crime.  I can't do that."

Mom:  "Why not?"

Me:  "Because I'm a respectable citizen."

Mom:  "Well, I'm not, and I want that hat!"

Me:  "Thief!"

Mom:  "You steal pens."

Me:  "I do not!  I've only taken a pen by accident."

Mom:  "Accident?  Not me.  I look at the pen, and if it's a nice pen, then I take it."

Me:  "Wait.  You don't do this on accident?  You deliberately steal people's pens?!"

Mom:  "Only if they are nice.  But sometimes I don't have to.  I just say, 'Oh, that is a nice pen!' and people give them to me."

Me: "So you are sneaky and a thief."

Mom:  "No, I am cute, so people give me things.  Deal with it."

Real Conversations with Mom: At the Local Diner

Mom to Waitress:  "Oh, you poor sweet baby!  Mice got into your closet and chewed holes in your jeans!"

Me: <cringe and attempt to activate cloaking device>

Mom <not using her inside voice>:  "You know, I look better in my t-shirt than she does."

Me:  "Mom!  That's rude!"

Mom:  "It's true, though."

Me:  "Why do you think you look better in that shirt than she does?"

Mom:  "Because I have big boobs."

Me: ?!

Waitress:  "That's okay, she's still my favorite."

Me:  "I do not understand."

Mom:  "What's to understand?  I'm wonderful.  And I have big boobs."

So How Did Your Morning Go?

So, gentle readers, I am once again feeling out of sorts with the universe.  Here is a summary of my morning.  Please forgive me for the lack of subjects for my verbs; I just don't have the energy for real sentences tonight.

• 3:15am: hit alarm clock to stop it from ringing.  Get up.  Bang knee into open dresser drawer.  Fall down.  Discover that it is 3:15am.  Check to see that alarm is set correctly. Go back to bed.
• 3:30am: hit alarm clock again.  Shake it viciously.  Go back to bed.
• 3:45am:  scream obscenities at alarm clock.  Realize it is actually my cell phone that is ringing.  Answer it.  Turn down offer for exciting Florida vacation.  Go back to bed.
• 4:00am:  bolt from bed.  Put cell phone on silent.  Go back to bed.
• 6:30am:  Get up, not feeling refreshed and ready to meet the day.  Pour cup of hot tea in mug.  Attempt to pick up mug.  End up with only mug handle.  Stare in confusion.  Pour tea into small cereal bowl instead.
• 8:13am:  walk from car to office building.  Gasp and duck as campus hawk dive bombs me instead of campus squirrels.  Spill briefcase on the sidewalk while ducking.  Endure vicious taunting by campus squirrels.
• 8:17am:  curse when pressing electronic car key does not open office door.  Drop keys.
• 8:18am:  sigh deeply when house key also fails to open office door.  Spill briefcase outside office door.  Unlock office door and trip over spilled briefcase.  
• 8:20am:  Sit on office floor contemplating giving up and going home.  
• 8:22am: Make foolish decision to soldier on.
• 8:26am:  Break off file cabinet key in desk drawer lock.  Pry broken  half of key out of lock.  Avoid looking at now permanently locked file cabinet.
• 9:15am: knock dragon off of bookshelf, breaking it into three pieces.
• 9:21am:  accidentally photocopy 30 copies of 1-page handout upsidedown, resulting in 30 pieces of blank paper.  Rearrange original.  Photocopy again.  Get 30 more blank pieces, this time collated and stapled into five documents.  Decide to go paperless today.
• 9:28am: cut foot stepping on pieces of broken dragon tail.
• 9:31am: accidentally spill box of bandaids all over the floor. Pick them up, one by one.  Knock them over again reaching for bowl of tea.
• 9:45am:  give up and go to campus meeting where it's safe.  Probably.

More Funniest Facebook Statuses

...and thank you, everyone, because I really needed them to distract me from the alarming sounds of my giant dead trees being cut down at last.

1. ...of COURSE that's where they keep the really cool wicker shotgun their lesbian great-great-aunties used to shoot a dude who clearly needed shootin'.  I mean, right? 
2. I have a new phobia! Wolf attacks.
3. I really appreciate the incompetence around me this morning. 
4. AND THERE ARE CRABS RUNNING FREE. 
5. I just met our Cengage rep, and he's just a little feller!
6.  Please, god, forgive me, I like a Miley song. 
7. I can hardly be bothered. It is August, after all.
8. What are the odds that someone else had a bat on his face within the last week?
9. The peppers they were selling were gorgeous, if genderless 
10. Mmm. This worm is good.

The Week's Funniest Facebook Statuses

Er, I think the title is self-explanatory, but this has been a very strange week in my facebook feed, gentle readers, and I just had to share some of the crazy with you.  All status updates taken completely out of context, of course:

1. Gettin' my hair cut!   
2. Winning a $140 lotion for coming to training camp? 
3. There are times I wish I were an archaeologist!! Or a badger.
4.  I do not sweat well.
5.  Someone please send this clueless bastard to my house, that I may bite him in the kneecaps repeatedly and without mercy.
6. What I'm trying to find out, for real, is if it's too early to go to bed. 
7. Ugh is this all we have this is godly shampoo I can't use this
8.  I just bought a small printing press. I believe I am dammed for all eternity. 
9. Is there Puppy and Me yoga?
10. Ferrets are sweet and soft, folks!

Does Anyone Else Know How I Feel?

So, do you, darling readers, know how it feels when your beloved mom kindly takes you to the garage to pick up your car after an oil change, and even though it is a more-or-less clear day and you've been going to this same garage for a decade, you take one step, catch your incredibly cute silver sandal in a crack in the cement, and then plunge to the ground, smacking your right knee harder than it, poor joint, has ever been smacked before?

And you know how you lie there on the burning concrete hoping that the sound you hear is the TARDIS arriving to take you back in time ten minutes to when you thought you knew how to walk?  Even though you know that you're not supposed to cross your own timeline or something but you can't think about that right then because your knee is sending fiery bursts of pain up and down your leg?  And then, you know how it feels when you realize that noise is actually your mother gunning the engine as she drives off leaving you wounded and alone?  And probably maimed for life?

Remember how that feels?

And tell me you know how it feels when your pretty-good-looking mechanic rushes over to try to get you to your feet when you really just want to roast for a while on the concrete and curse yourself for daring to walk in public, but you feel compelled to try to stand up so that he doesn't have to call the paramedics like the last time you did this (though you were bleeding that time and the bloodstains never really washed out and you still hope that's not why they moved the garage to a different location).  You know this feeling, right?

And I'm sure you remember what it's like when you've been icing your knee for three days and are celebrating that you can walk again (sort of) by having a nice drink and destroying three months of junk mail, but then you find out that some junk mail is sharp and that you can burn out a paper shredder by bleeding all over it and then dropping a gin and tonic into its teeth?  I mean, I can't be the only one to feel that feeling or smell that smell, right?

I mean, c'mon beautiful readers, tell me you empathize here?  You've been there, right?

And since I know you know how I feel, please tell me that you too have had to explain the loss of a favorite mug and the bandages on your wrist because you dropped a ten dollar bill into your hot tea when you spilled your purse into the bathtub...this is a perfectly normal thing that everybody goes through at one time or another right?

A relatively normal thing, then?

A thing that happens?  Or that you hear about happening? 

Maybe?