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And this is how I got a criminal record…

15 Mar

Speedy Gonzales doesn't stand a chance of rolling this on the curve...

So one of the fun things about being on Captiva is that there are no cars here. Instead, everyone drives golf carts. (Side note: about a year ago I learned that my mom has something of a golf cart fetish… somehow she got a catalog of golf carts and – according to my dad – poured over it for hours. She would be in heaven here.)

Anyway, our house has two golf carts – both sporting our company’s logo. When we arrived yesterday, we each randomly chose a cart and took off for the house. Within minutes, it became obvious that my cart had a slightly more robust charge than Alan’s. I floored it and took off, bouncing along without a clue where I was going and assuming that Alan was hot on my trail. After rounding a bend, I turned around and looked for him – and saw nothing.

I waited – and waited – and waited. And finally, he came tooling around the corner looking about as amused as a wet cat. Both his arms were in the air making a “don’t ask me” gesture, making it clear that he wasn’t just being a cautious driver. I slowed my pace and we continued on, looking for our beach house.

Let’s just say that the island was significantly larger than I expected, because I assumed it would be a snap to get to our address. Instead, we cut encountered a slew of dead-ends and it seemed every turn we made took us right back past our starting point. This all would’ve been in good fun and in the spirit of exploration, had we both not needed to pee desperately and been saddled with a slow cart.

Frustrated, we decided to ditch Alan’s pokey cart at the check-in area, and join forces in mine. Alan drove and I navigated, and eventually we made it to the house. (It was obvious that our journey had, in fact, taken some time: our luggage and groceries had already been delivered to the house and we weren’t the first stop on the route.)

Rather than risk getting lost again, we decided to stay put for the remainder of the day and go back for the second cart in the morning. Fast forward to today… we woke up, drank coffee on the deck, then transitioned to mimosas. Bt 11am we had polished off a bottle of champagne and decided to head to pick up the cart and check out the pool.

On our way, it occurred to me to wonder about the legalities of operating a golf cart while under the influence of alcohol. Sure, drinking and driving are illegal, but what if it’s a battery-powered vehicle that tops out at 10 mph? (I posted this query to Facebook and received many immediate first-hand confirmations that indeed it IS possible to get a DUI in a golf cart. I had never realized so many of my friends a) had driven golf carts while intoxicated and b) apparently got arrested for it.)

We pulled into the clubhouse on the heels of another cart, driven by a crazed looking woman who kept turning around to give us furtive glances. We ignored her, parked, then stumbled upon a basketball hoop with a freshly inflated ball. Before retrieving the other cart or hopping in the pool, we decided to take a few shots.

We had just started passing the ball when the same woman and her two kids rode past us on bicycles. Immediately past the court, we saw her lay her bike down and check the tire for we assumed was a flat. In any event, she left her bike and daughters there and stomped off on foot. I lost track of her but was quickly reminded of her – when I heard a shocking BANG!

I turned and saw that she had put her cart in reverse and floored it – right into a pillar by the pool’s entrance. Her face read holy terror. Her daughters – still straddling their bikes – looked like they wanted to crawl under a rock and die from embarrassment. She recovered quickly and – without so much as a backwards glance or even pausing to talk to her daughters – floored it out of there.

Two women who looked like busy-bodies eyed the post she had hit, shaking their heads. Two feet next to it was the concrete stump of what – presumably – had been another post that had met a similar (but more scarring) fate. As I watched her speed away, I listened for sirens. I heard none. If she could get away with a hit and run, I decided our odds of dodging a DUI were pretty good. Mentally I began mixing mojitos for our next excursion.

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Reminder to Self: Even on your worst day…

14 Mar

… you don’t work in something that looks like this:

For fans of Arrested Development, this makes you think that perhaps George Michael (with his phallic banana stand) actually does have a soulmate in this world. And she happens to work right here, at Pineland Marina, in a yellow vented M&M.

To quote a wise man: never trust a fart.

26 Feb

This is about the last existing photo of WOW chips. Lay's has done an amazing job scrubbing any reference to WOWs from the internet. That's SEO well played.

Remember when WOW potato chips came out in the late 1990s? They were the first – and to my knowledge – ONLY food to ever bear the warning that they may cause anal leakage. At the time, they were the subject of many late night jokes, and my colleague Sara dared to test the warning by consuming an entire bag in one sitting.

Her response: “Wow!”

Apparently the chip was well named and the warning well phrased. Score one for marketers AND the USDA. (Ironically, they ended up re-branding as “Ruffles Light” because they became infamous: deduct one for both marketers and Olestra.)

It got me to thinking that THAT was a good practice. Why don’t companies include warnings on any food that might spoil a date (as opposed to simply including a spoiled-by date)?

Based on the number of times the word “shart” has worked itself into a text from one of my friends (and you know who you are), I’m thinking there are PLENTY of foods (or people) that would be well-served by a cautionary label.

I won’t share the stories that accompany these foods (must protect the innocent – at least until I have a bottle of wine in me) but here’s a list that may cause disastrous results if consumed:

  • Kashi frozen pizza
  • Kashi Go Lean Crunch
  • Fiber One bars
  • Atkins diet
  • Kielbasa and sauerkraut
  • More than three diet sodas in one day

This is by no means a complete list, but it’s a starting point. In any case, don’t say you haven’t been warned. And feel free to add to this list or add your own cautionary tales – consider it an act of citizenship.

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You buy, I fly?

27 Jan

I’m in Boston for our annual leadership meeting. Tuesday night, after a long day of meetings and workshops, we had dinner and drinks at Sel de la Terre, a hip French bistrot in Boston’s Back Bay. The food was great, and drinks were flowing generously. If I had one kir royale, I had five, so I was pretty buzzed up when our party bus pulled out at 8pm.

(I’m not exaggerating when I talk about a party bus… check out The Original Party Trolley if you doubt me.)

We were deposited back at the hotel around 8:30. I had every intention of going to my room, taking a bath and calling my boyfriend. Really, I did.

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Who’s Your Daddy?

10 Jan

Friday night I saw a double billing of the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band at the Warner Theatre in DC. The venue was packed, and we were seated next to a nice older couple on one side, and a crabby older couple on the other. (The woman looked like a dried apple, and when I said, “Excuse me,” because I needed to get out to use the bathroom, she shouted, “Gimme a minute! Yeesh!” as I stepped over her.)

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