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Corn: It’s a movement. (But not like you think.)

25 Jul

I have a new-found respect for kindergartner's art skills. Corn is not easy to work with.

So in the wake of my run-in at the farmer’s market, I decided to make corn a dirty word.

This should trouble you on many levels. Let me enumerate count them:

  1. I had a run-in at a farmer’s market. How is this even possible? 
  2. I already swear a lot. Do I need another word in my arsenal? Does a bear eat corn? Probably, if it is hungry enough. 
  3. Corn is a ridiculous word. Is it actually swear-worthy? For the love of corn, yes. 
  4. Really? I was annoyed enough that I need to seek revenge by starting a corn movement? Frankly, yes. 

You know the expression, “Mess with the bull and you’ll get the horn?” Well, my new motto is: Mess with me and you’ll get the corn.

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I’m developing an interview-ready Rorschach…

27 Apr

Observation: Sometimes, when it’s not a true disability, it’s actually funny when people can’t see or hear well.

Case in point – my new team was in training for two days in Chicago. My boss pulled out her iPad to share some photos with us. The first photo was of her dog, lying on a doggie bed. One person she showed it to said, “That’s adorable. And it’s so classical looking because it’s in black and white.”

Um. The thing is, the photo wasn’t in black and white. Nothing about it lacked color, from any angle. I’m pretty sure I wrinkled my brow trying to squint my eyes and see it in every possible way, and I could see my boss, shifting the iPad in every direction to see if it appeared even sepia when blurred. It did not.

We both silently shrugged it off, until the next picture popped up, featuring a dog on a different (red) doggie bed with paw prints all over it. “So cute!” the woman exclaimed. “It looks like a ladybug!”

Again with the record scratch. A ladybug?!?

I’m open to creative interpretations – trust me, I LIKE to find animal faces in wood paneling knots – but I just wasn’t seeing this. Then, thirty seconds later she exclaimed, “Oh! There’s a dog there!”

WHAT??? What did you think she was showing us, a pillow?

I’ll cut her some slack – she’s new, she was tired, and she was viewing it on an iPad held at an odd angle across a table. But it still made me giggle.

Given all the psychological evaluations employers perform now to ensure they’re not hiring a freak, it occurred to me that we could patent our own test, using random photos and an iPad. “What do you see here?” I imagine us asking.

Then we present the following image:

And in my mind, the ad promoting this new app I’ve developed sounds like a cross between a Mastercard and an Apple commercial.

Want to find out if your new co-worker is a whack-job?

There’s an app for that.

Confirming she finds butt-humor as funny as you do?

Priceless.

I just learned a new word.

3 Feb

I wish I hadn’t.

Here’s the word I wish I could scrub from my vocabulary: VAJAZZLING.

If you don’t know what it is, think, “Beadazzler meets bikini area.” Um, yeah.

Seriously? I’m pretty sure our pioneer ancestors would have neutered themselves, had they known their descendants would actually spend time and mental energy on such a thing.

Although, who knows? Maybe pioneer women stuck corn kernels to their nether regions for a little bedtime bling.

What goes, “Knock, knock, bang, bang?” My washer.

18 Nov

My mom has always sworn that you can fix almost anything with duct tape and a staple gun. I’m pretty sure I posted about “hemming” my pants with duct tape earlier this year (but can’t find it for the life of me), so it’s safe to assume I’m squarely in Mom’s camp on this one.

Today I solved YET ANOTHER household problem with duct tape.

Here’s the problem: two weeks ago, my washer started making horrific noises while on the spin cycle. When I say, horrific, I mean, it sounded like someone was driving a sledgehammer into the wall repeatedly. “I don’t remember it being THIS loud,” I thought to myself as it started. Then a few minutes later, as jugs of detergent came raining down off the top of my dryer, “Hell no, it hasn’t been this loud!”

I realized it was broken and did what most people do when faced with a potentially expensive problem: decided to ignore it. The week passed, my clothes piled up, and finally – this weekend – I decided to give it another go, thinking, “Who knows? Maybe it just needed a little time and has now healed itself?!”

It hadn’t. If anything, it had dug itself deeper into the ditch. Had it been a whale, it would’ve been heaving itself out of the ocean, making tragic noises while beaching itself to die. I was concerned that my neighbors might come pound on my door, so I decided to beat them to the punch, preparing handwritten notes to slide under their doors that said:

Hi! Something is wrong with my washer. It is thumping much louder than usual on the spin cycle. I’ll get it repaired this week, but in the meantime need to do two loads of laundry. I’ll wait until this afternoon when there’s the smallest chance of disturbing anyone, but if I pick a bad time (like when you’re napping) and you’d like me to hold off, please text me… Alison

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I could get my MBA. Or I could prove why I don’t need one.

3 Aug

At the pool this weekend, Alan and I each floated around lazily on a styrofoam water noodle. You know what I’m talking about, right? One of these things:

The water noodles are the awesome yellow things supporting my equally awesome parents.

Let’s talk about how awesome they are. They are simple, yet they support your entire body weight, making it possible to sit, stand or just float without expending any effort. We got to talking about how much weight they could support, and Alan noted that we may be pushing the single-noodle limit.

It was about this time that I said that if I were the manufacturer, I would sell a larger noodle, and I would call it the “Super Noodle.”

And the slogan would be:

The Super Noodle: for Super People!

Except, to make it funny, I would actually want the slogan to read:

“The Super Noodle: for Super (Big) People!”

Do you see what I did there, with the subliminal (big) reference? Makes it funny, doesn’t it?

I asked Alan how many I would sell. “A lot,” he guessed. But then he went on to add, “Skinny people would buy them.”

And you know what? I think he’s right. Super Noodles and Diet Coke.

Go figure.

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