Scooter My Daisy Heads

Guess what today is? If you said Monday, you'd be wrong, because it's Friday. See, it says so right up there in the date line. August 5th. Would the date line lie? I think not. And today, the 5th, is my dad's birthday. I can't think of a more heart-felt and cheap gift than to share some dad stories with my closest internet friends and a couple of other people who stumbled onto this site by Googling "d'artagnan cartoon porn." Seriously, people do searches for some freaky stuff to end up here. Once my page came up after someone did a search for "pantsless man and an excited donkey." Yikes. Just...yikes.

Anyway, here's a little background information. When he was growing up, my dad wasn't allowed to do much of anything. There was a dip in the road in front of his house that would fill with water after rainstorms. All the other kids in the neighborhood used to swim and splash around in it on hot summer days, but my grandmother (not the one who was in the car accident) kept him away. "Sure, you can go play in the water with the other kids...if you want polio!" So my dad stayed inside and sweated out the heat. To his knowledge, none of the other kids ever got polio.

Nana wouldn't let my dad or his sisters eat popcorn at the movie theater, either. She said they'd choke in the dark. She invents things to worry about. I used to stay with her and my aunt on the weekends. It was great, because every Saturday morning, my aunt would take me to Toys "R" Us, and Child World. We'd come back with the back seat loaded with toys. Although my mom may have seen differently, the toys were a necessity. Nana didn't want me to playing in the back yard, because there was a well back there that I could fall into. And I couldn't play in the front yard because I could get hit by a car. She might as well have drawn a circle on the floor around me and said, "Here, you can play anywhere you want. As long as it's in this spot." The only thing I could do while I was there was play with my new Legos in the saftey of the living room.

Nowadays, my dad eats popcorn in the dark with reckless abandon. I'm not sure if she knows that or not. I can only imagine what she said when he told her he was going to Viet Nam.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I think he kinda looks like George Washington. Or he did until his face got all droopy. Geez, it's like he's melting.



My dad has the uncanny ability to somehow screw up any story he's trying to tell. For example, remember those Sprint PCS commercials from a few years ago, where everyone misheard everyone else until that guy that looks like Judd Nelson introduced them to the Sprint PCS Free & Clear plan? Well, dimple monkey twice the pudding octopi for tango man. I mean, one night my mom told Glenn to take out all the Chinese food for dinner, but he thought she said "shiny spoons," so when she got to the kitchen, all the spoons where on the counter and the leftover Chinese food was still in the refrigerator. It was just like something out of one of those commercials, so we all started laughing, even though "take out all the shiny spoons" seems like an odd request. Now here's my dad's version of that story when he told my aunt about it a couple of days later:

Debbie told Glenn to take out the Chinese food, but he thought she said to take out the Chinese silverware....

See how it's not quite the same? There was another commercial a few years ago for McDonalds that had an Asian guy saying "quarter pounder with cheese" really fast in broken English, so it sounded like "quarter pounder witchies." Again, we all laughed about it, but when my dad told someone about it, the phrase inexplicably changed to "bacon egg and cheese." Bacon egg and cheese isn't funny! Well, now it is, I guess. But the whole point was the guy was saying witchies. Quarter pounder witchies! How do you get bacon egg and cheese out of that?

Glenn has one of those Gorbachev marks on his head. You can't really tell it's there because his hair covers it, but one time my mom noticed there was a little fleshy thing on it. So she asked my dad to point it out to the doctor when he takes Glenn for a check up. She wanted to know if he could remove it because she was worried that it would get ripped off with a comb. So the doctor removed the fleshy thing and sent it out for a biopsy. The reply came in the mail. Dad read it to Glenn:

UNTRULY BENIGN. FOLLOW UP IS NEEDED.

My dad told him that he had a brain tumor. Glenn was horrified. Untruly benign! That sounds bad. The poor kid sat in tears on the steps, waiting for my mom to come home. He thought he was going to die.

When my mom got home, he told her what it said. "Untruly? Is that even a word?" She looked at the paper.

ENTIRELY BENIGN. FOLLOW UP AS NEEDED.

So anyway, be sure to say "Happy Birthday" to my dad today. Just be sure to say it really loud.

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The Experiment

I've been working at this graphic design company since January, 2001, when I started as an intern. That summer, a woman who had been there a few years announced she was moving to Connecticut. Two freelancers were hired on until a suitable replacement could be found. One of them was an older woman who the company had used in the past, but ultimately turned out to be a little slow when it came to computers. To her credit, in her day she was the best damn telegraph operator John D. Rockefeller had in his employ. The other freelancer, the one that ended up with the job, was Joe.

Joe seemed to be a perfect fit for the company. He had spent years as production director at his previous company, and had a vast knowledge of the business. And he was pretty friendly, albeit a little on the loud side. But everyone has their quirks.

The fourth line on the phone was designated for the fax, and whenever the phone rang and fourth line lit up, Joe would say "Faxinating!" Sometimes, he'd chase it with "Should I answer it?" You could write it off as just another quirk at first, but after a while, these "quirks" started to multiply exponentially. One day, out of the blue, he announced, "You sir, are a dickhead," to absolutely no one in particular. Just another quirk, I guess. With every utterance, each quirk entered into a chrysalis of "minor irritation," until finally emerging as a beautiful, full-blown annoyance.

Day in, day out, it was the same few phrases. Over and over again.

"Hassan Chop!"

"Are you my special friend?"

"Na na na, na nana na, na na na na nananna na. The Banana Splits. Arhrhrhrahgghg"
The guy was relentless. It was like Chinese water torture. As the one sitting the closest to him, it was only a matter of time before I started to catalog how many times he'd spout his "Joe-isms" a day. It was either that or hit him repeatedly with bricks.

So I posted my grievances on a message board I frequent. Almost immediately, people began to sympathize and share their own office stories. Before long, people all over the world knew about Joe. "Holy D'Artagnan, Batman!" and "Arrurruurrghgh!" popped up all over people's signatures. There was even an "I know Joe" club. Somehow, Joe became a phenomenon. An anti-hero for the working masses. When I started this blog, I incorporated a lot of the Joe stuff, including the Joe-kus, and even more people got in on it.

I have to admit, I feel more than a little guilty about it all. The thing is, he really is a nice guy. He always asks how you're doing, but he does it while standing two centimeters from your face. No regard for personal space. But he genuinely wants to know. And he's always willing to help. If you were trapped in a burning building, Joe would run right in and rescue you without a second thought. But then he'd remind you about it every day until one of you was dead.

"Hey, remember that time I rescued you?"

"Yeah, I almost died. You tend not to forget things like that."
That's Joe. The man who wore sandals to work last week. The man who continues to pronounce the "s" in "Illinois," no matter how many times he's corrected. The man who speaks fake Spanish. Loudly.

Anyway, I was looking back at some of the stuff that I'd written down over the past few years. One of my favorites was when he announced that "Jen and J-Lo" had broken up. And who could forget when he sang Springtime for Hitler all day? Actually, he just said "Springtime...for Hilter...and Ger-man-ee!" for three minutes straight. I don't know if that really counts as singing. Eventually, we realized he was never going to stop saying stupid stuff. We decided to make the most of it by creating a game, Jingo.

Jingo, was basically Bingo. Clandestinely, Jingo sheets where handed out each morning, each with the 25 most-used Joe-isms arranged differently. Throughout the day, we'd listen for Joe to say one of the 25 words or phrases, and the first with five in a row would be the winner. Surprisingly enough, after playing for a week, no one got a Jingo yet. I was always just one away from a Jingo. "C'mon, say Arrghgrhrghr! It's you're signature thing!"

Jingo proved to make working with Joe a little more palatable. But we were still tired with the same old, same old. But...but what if we could somehow get him to at least say new stupid stuff? That's how "the experiment" began.

Like Jingo, it was a game; a contest. The object was to try to coax Joe into working some new sayings into his oeuvre. We each came up with a well-known phrase. John T. chose "Time to make the donuts." John M. went with "L'eggo my Eggo!" Mine was "I'm not going to pay a lot for this muffler," which may sound long, but my logic was that it lent itself perfectly to be followed by his infamous "Arruurrghrgrurggrahh."

John T. kicked things off, by talking about a deadline for a job he was working on, followed by, "Well, I guess it's time to make the donuts." Oh, that sneaky little bugger. After that, we all began sporadically saying our phrases to see how long it would take Joe to mimic them. A day later, Joe said "Let go my Eggo." John M. stood up and cheered, but the ruling on the field was that the actual line is "L'eggo my Eggo". He has to say the correct line for it to count. Likewise, a few days later, he said "Time to make donuts."

It's "Time to make THE donuts!" THE! THE! Geez. I was starting to think no one was ever going to win this thing. He did eventually say it right, but by that time we pretty much stopped caring. Or I did, anyway. And even though John T. got him to say his phrase, he hasn't really said it since then, making the whole experiment a bust. Oh, well. At least we still have Jingo.

Hmm...I wonder if Joe saw this article? Thanks again to janey_13 for the assist.

More about Joe:
The Tao of Joe, The Tao of Joe II, Eminem Knows Joe?, It Looks More Like Aztek to Me, Joe Rides Again, Joe-kus

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I Still Hate the T!

I didn't have enough time to vent about the sorry state of public transportation yesterday, because said public transportation kept me from coming in to work early enough to write about it. But I suppose I can't really blame the MBTA. Anyone who rides it with any regularity should know that if they need to be somewhere, they need to leave at least two hours early to account for the inevitable delays, switching problems, out-of-service trains, and other intangibles that make up the T experience. Sometimes I feel like I'm Mario, work is the Princess, and the MBTA is Donkey Kong, hurling barrel after barrel at me to keep me from my destination. That probably wasn't the best metaphor. Plus, now I've got that damn song stuck in my head.

Boston has the oldest subway system in the country. Given the amount of time they've had to perfect it, you'd think ours would be one of the most innovative and well-mechanized systems out there. Instead, it seems like they're still using the trains they had in 1897. At least once a day, the train stops dead on the tracks for a few minutes for a "schedule adjustment." There's been a few times when either the train ahead of us broke down, and ours had to push it to the next station, or another train was pushing my own disabled train.

It's been HOT recently. Hot and muggy. The other day, while I was slowly liquifying, Michele was quick to point out that "it's even hotter in South Carolina." Gee thanks, Al, now let's go back to the studio with Matt and Katie. I don't care if it's hotter in South Carolina. It's hotter on the sun, too, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm sweating like...um...some kid with hyperactive sweat glands. Yeah. They probably did a show like that on Dateline NBC once.

I brought that up because last week, for two days straight, I stood on the sweltering, un-air-conditioned platform under Park Street and watched as two Ashmont trains in a row pulled in. The trains are supposed to alternate between Ashmont and Braintree, but somehow another Ashmont train snuck in front of the Braintree one. Twice.

Even though I haven't compiled enough evidence, I'm seriously entertaining the idea that the T actually hates me personally. Park Street is the only stop on the Red Line where the doors open on both sides of the train. What else other than a personal grudge could account for the fact that no matter what side of the tracks I'm on when the train pulls in, the doors on the other side open first? It should be a fifty/fifty chance, right? But the doors on the opposite always open first. What did I do wrong?

Or how about last week, when I got to the platform to find a train sitting idle, with all the doors on my side closed and the ones on the other side wide open? I kept thinking about racing upstairs and coming back down on the other side before those doors closed, but I didn't think I'd make it in time. As it turned out, it stayed at the station with the doors open for two or three minutes, not counting however long it had been there before I got there.

But in all honesty, it's not all bad. Sure, the system has it's faults. And for whatever reason, I can't seem to read the paper and keep my balance at the same time. Every morning I awkwardly remove my hand from the railing, trying not to hit the heads of the overwhelmingly shorter population of the train, and try with surgical precision to turn the page. Most of the time, I end up dangerously close to toppling over and taking a few of my fellow passengers with me. But sometimes the T can offer entertainment that you just can't find anywhere else. Like me trying to read the paper, for starters.

I missed it last week when, on the heels of the bombings in London, the governor rode the T to prove that it's safe. He showed how in touch he is with us common folk by not even knowing the price of a token. "A buck," he said. When he found out it was actually $1.25, he chipped in another quarter and went on a ride from Park Street to Downtown Crossing. For you out-of-towners, not only is Downtown Crossing the next stop after Park Street, but it's probably the shortest ride of all the T lines. I don't see how riding the train for thirty seconds surrounded by bodyguards is supposed to prove anything. Romney is most likely running for president in 2008, so most people think it might have been a "political move." That might be the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Of course it's a political move, you meatheads! He's a politician! Everything they do is political, it's kind of their job. If a baseball team trades for a player, does anyone say, "I think that might be a baseball move"?

Oh, and for some reason, that weird lady with all the dead cats was there, heckling him. She was yelling, "You killed my cats!" Which may or may not have been followed by, "I wanted to do it myself, you big jerk!" My question is, what was she even doing there? It's like The Simpsons when they throw all the obscure characters into the crowd scenes. If Romney thought it was a PR disaster before, he must have really been embarrassed when Sideshow Mel and Bumblebee Man started laughing at him.

I've already told you about the bean bag kid and the crazy old man that asked some woman if she wanted him to take his shoes off so she could see his toes. But one of the weirdest things happened two Summers ago on the way home from work. The train stopped just a few hundred feet away from Quincy Adams. Every three minutes or so, a voice came over the loud speaker to let us know we'd be standing by for a few more minutes. Why were we sitting there, when the station was right there? People where getting visibly frustrated, whipping out cellphones to tell their loved ones they'd be late for dinner/soccer practice/whatever. Over in the corner, a stumpy little old guy sat quietly, taking his Metro newspaper and ripping it into strips. Then he ripped the strips again, and again, until he had a pile of newspaper squares at his feet. When he ran out of paper, he took the Metro sitting on the empty seat next to him, and started ripping that one up, too.

Eventually, I heard some muttering near the other end of the car and saw more and more people peering out the window. I turned around to see what they were looking at, and sure enough, I saw a cop running down the tracks, then a few more. I was sitting in the first car, so the conductor open the door to come out and tell us what was going on. He said the police were looking for a suspect on the tracks. He looked over at the guy with the pile of little newspaper squares in front of him.

"Why did you do that?"

"I was bored."

The conductor told him to clean it up, and went back behind the door. I went back to looking out the window. Every once in a while, a police officer would run past, but not much else was going on out there. I looked back over at the stumpy old guy. He looked like a Weeble. He hadn't picked up the newspapers like he was told. Instead, he grabbed the horizontal bar above his seat and started doing chin-ups.

Back outside the window, an MBTA cop climbed up onto the front of our train and got inside. He talked with the conductor for a while, who then came back out to give us an update. He opened the door and saw the Weeble guy doing chin-ups.

"Sir, get down from there."

"No."

"Sir, please get down, you're going to hurt yourself."

"Then I'll sue."

"You're NOT going to sue us, sir."

The Weeble guy got down, and while the conductor was talking to us, he made his way over to the double doors. He spent a bit of time opening, then closing, the compartment above the doors. When he got bored with that, he motioned towards the "Emergency Door Release" lever.

"Sir, don't touch that. Please stay in your seat.

I swear, he motioned like he was going to pull it anyway, but he sat back in his seat and pretty much stayed there from that point on.

I can't remember how long it was before we were able to pull in to the station. When I finally did get home, I turned on the news to see what was going on. Apparently, some guy robbed a bank and then took off on foot. We were stuck on the train because he was armed and they didn't want to risk anyone getting hurt. He was finally caught at Home Depot, which is right next to Quincy Adams station.

I've seen that Weeble guy before that day, and I've seen him a few times since then. He always seemed like a normal guy. But if he has to wait more than five minutes for the train to move... Bam! He turns into Margot Kidder.

So I guess sometimes the T can be alright. What it lacks in service, it more than makes up for in entertainment value.

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I Hate the T!

I've been perversely busy at work lately, so I wanted to get to work early today. I got to the platform at 7:05, just as a train was leaving the station. So I waited for five minutes for the next one, which pulled in already completely full. As it sat idle at the station for a few minutes, I noticed a herd of people headed towards the rear of the train. It seems there was one car left inexplicably empty that they graciously decided to open. It was about two-thirds full by the time I got to it, just in time to the doors close in my face.

Some time after 7:30, another train decided to show up. This time, I didn't have any trouble getting on, but it didn't matter, because I should have already been at work at that point. So much for going in early. I actually worked up a sweat, I was so aggrivated. Then I noticed everyone else was sweating to, and realized there was no AC in the train. Well that's just great.

If you've ever been on the highway in or around Boston, you've seen the billboards. Don't drive. Take the T. I think that's better than their original, more truthfull slogan, Why be late for work, when you can be late for work AND smell like 300 other people?

My stop is Park Street, and as I was getting off the train I heard over the loud speakers, "Last stop. This train is coming out of service. We regret any inconvenience this may cause." Hopefully, anyone who had to get off and wait for the next train to get to where they're going was at least able to get an air-conditioned car.

That's all I have time for right now. Please be sure to wish Michele a happy birthday. She's feeling kind of down today and I can't be there with her. I love you, baby! Even more than I hate the T.

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Hangin' In a Chow Line

There was a Good Times marathon on TV Land this weekend. I was still swimming around in my dad's pants when this show was on the air, so this was my first time seeing it. Anyway, in one of the episodes, the Evans' are standing around in the living room when the father tells the younger son to go to his room, to which the kid replies, "Dad, this is my room. Remember me, the kid that sleeps on the couch?"

I found that line rather interesting, not only because of the slightly uncomfortable feeling I got from laughing at a lower class black family, but also because I'd just spent two nights sleeping on my parents' couch. And it looks like I will be for the foreseeable future.

Wait. Let's back up for a minute. Remember last month when my grandmother was in a car accident? After that, it seemed clear that at 86 years old, she should really have someone living with her to take care of her. I asked my mom if she thought it would be a good idea if Michele, Brianna and I moved in with her. My mom agreed, and we approached 'Olly about it. We went to her house and explained how we could help around the house, cook dinner, and drive her anywhere she needed to go. I told her we could move our stuff into the basement, and all we'd need to do is seal it and put up a few walls. Brianna could sleep in the guest room across 'Olly's. She was all for it, even suggesting that we could move our furniture into the guest room and use the small room where she watches TV as Brianna's bedroom.

We stayed there overnight, and the next morning my grandmother told my mom how nice it was to have people in the house again and she hadn't slept so well in years. She went grocery shopping with my mom the next day and started buying all kinds of food. My mom asked her what it was for, and she said, "It's for the kids." My mom told her that we wouldn't be moving until August.

Once everything was settled, we told our landlord that we'd be moving at the end of the month. He said he just needed it in writing. So we drove over to 'Olly's house to do some more cleaning and let her know that we gave the landlord our notice.

"Oh...I don't know if I really want anybody living here. I'm so used to being alone."

"WHAT?!!"

She went on to say that she goes to bed at eleven and wakes up at eight. I still have no idea what that has to do with anything, but I know my chest started to tighten as she said it. She said she didn't want her taxes to go up, and that she forgets things, and to be honest, I don't really remember what else she said. I only remember feeling really uncomfortable. Michele and I took Brianna and went back over to my parent's house. My uncle, who as at my grandmother's house just before we got there, was talking to my mom. They were all talking in the living room and no one was talking to me or Michele. What the hell was going on?

We drove back to Quincy. I knocked on the landlord's door and told him that we weren't moving after all, at least not yet. Over those few days, we had become convinced that moving back to Weymouth would be the best thing we could do. Aside from taking care of my grandmother, it would really help us get some bills payed off. We'd be closer to a lot of things; Michele's work, my parents and my friends. And Brianna would be able to play with the two girls that live next to my parents. She's always over there whenever we visit, and it's good for her to have friends. She's so lonely at our apartment. If we lived over there, she'd have other kids to play with whenever she wanted. She'd have a bigger room, and she'd go to the same elementary school I went to. I was really excited about that one.

I called my mom and asked what happened. She said she didn't know. My grandmother most have overthought the whole thing. For some reason, she thought we were going to be putting an addition on her house and making all these changes. No one ever said that! I said we'd put up a few walls over the existing cement ones in the basement. That's not an addition, and you don't have to pay any more in taxes for it. And even if she did, we'd be the one's who would pay for it. We didn't even have to do anything to change her house; we could have slept on the floor. As long as we were there to make sure she didn't leave the oven on or try to feed the coyotes in the woods out back some Chef Boy-Ar-Dee.

None of it made any sense. One of her excuses for wanting to live alone was that she forgets things. That was the whole point of us being there in the first place! Somehow, she completely changed her mind, and ever since then, everything that could possibly went wrong, did. In droves.

Michele's car became a money-eating machine. For two straight weeks, it consumed several hundred dollars in repairs. It wouldn't have mattered if we were moving, since the last month's rent was paid for when we moved in. But we were left trying to scrounge up enough money for rent. My family has subtlety approached the topic of us moving in to my grandmother a few times, but it's always met with, "Well,...."

So this weekend we decided that the only thing we can do is put our stuff in storage and move in with my parents until we can get back on our feet. I'm going to go back to the landlord and tell him we really are moving this time. I'm really going to miss my bed. The new sleeping arrangements are going to take some getting used to. I'll be sleeping on the couch in the TV room. Michele's going to be on a different couch, partly because couches aren't big enough for two people to sleep on, but also because my dad threw a huge hissy fit when he found out Michele slept in my room one night when I was living there last year. I was a mere 25-year-old lad, so you can imagine the scandal. Brianna gets to sleep on a queen-size air mattress. I tried sleeping on it, but it killed my back. I'm okay with the couch. But I'm really going to miss my bed.

We spent the weekend there, getting used to the new conditions. On Sunday Nick, Hedie and Jose came over. We played a few rounds of Cranium, and Wah-Kee showed up a little later, just in time for some ribs. At dusk, which I don't think I get to say nearly enough, we played wiffle ball. Not real wiffle ball, it was sort of a make-up-the-rules-as-you-go-along wiffle ball. There were no bases, and no position players. Just a pitcher, a catcher, and someone standing in the outfield, i.e. a few feet behind the pitcher. We did eventually garb a newspaper to use as home plate, to make it easier to call a ball or a strike. We might refine it a bit next week, but the real reason I brought it up today was to point out that at one point, an easy pop up was missed by Wah-Kee in the outfield because he had a cigarette in his hand. Oh, and also, I'm a pretty good hitter, but I don't think I'll be pitching next week. Unless we want to go for some sort of hit batters record. In that case, I'm your man.

So anyway, for better or worse, I'll be moving back to Weymouth by September 1. At least I'll be closer to my friends. Except Nick and Hedie. After about five years in the chicken shack (with all of their wedding gifts in storage since April), they'll be moving by September...to Quincy!

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