Laugh

Laugh

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Go Spot, Go


“Go where?”

“Spotify. You put the client on your desktop and you can listen to anything.”

“That sounds illegal. If I had a client on my desktop the only thing I would hear would be the sound of their lawyer threatening to take my house.”

“Mom. Get real. Nobody would willingly get on your desk.”

Kid One is attempting to enlighten me on the endless musical possibilities the Internet has to offer.  I’m attempting to decipher how the Internet is made up of enough nonsense words for Dr. Seuss to write a novel.

“I was quite a catch in my day.”

“You didn’t have a day. You had a decade of disco.  Besides, nobody would fit on your desk. You collect things.”

“I need everything that’s on that desk.”

“Three pencil cups?”

“They all have special meaning.  The elephant and the clown came from the circus and your aunt stole the flowered cup from a yard sale just for me.”

“It’s STOLEN?” He looks gleeful at the thought of a woman who wouldn’t take an after dinner mint without asking bending the law.

“Well, not technically.  It was hidden inside a coat she bought.”

“My life is a lie. I was raised in a den of thieves.”

“Thanks for the memories.”

“So what about that stack of ratty notebooks?”

“Those are my journals.  Everything from my first kiss to your first diaper is in that stack.”

“Sounds libelous.  Or slanderous.  Or whatever means that if you show them to my friends I’ll have to join the witness protection program.  They have to go.”

“No way. I’d sooner part with my tiara.”

 “That reminds me. Why do you have a tiara on your desk?”

“Why do you listen to Spotify?”

“So I can hear anything I want.  It takes me where ever I want to go.”

I popped the tiara on my head and transported immediately to a faraway island country where I reign as Queen and every inhabitant is over forty years of age and wears an overcoat over their swimsuit. The only sound was that of sales clerks marking clearance prices on boxes of HoHos.

“And with this I can hear what I want.”

“And what’s that?”

“Quiet.”

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Things Are Looking Up


It came to my attention today as I was blotting up a coffee spill with the Business section of the newspaper that

A)     If they reduce the page size any more, it will be like reading the headlines in the small print section of my Kia contract, and

B)     Rolls Royce, kiddie car of billionaires, is enjoying a boom in sales.

I’m not sure these two findings are unrelated.  Lifestyles vary between the Rolls Royce set and the “I hope it keeps rolling” set. Just look up the prices and you’ll understand the difference.

While newspapers are edging us toward the “squinting is in” theory to conserve money, Rolls Royce is doling out luxury cars like concessionaires deal $10 beers at the ball park.  To those of us still trying to work out a payment plan for the beer, the idea of dashing off a $400,000 check for a car, even one that has tiny overhead lights that make the roof look like a heaven of twinkling stars, would be like stuffing a gold bar into a birthday card for a niece we don’t have time to shop for.  “Can’t get away; buy yourself something nice.”

At the Dubai WalMart.

I realize that there are jobs that come with more perks than mine. What would I do with dental insurance that makes it possible to collect enough teeth to eat toasted pecans, enough time off to catch the red-eye flight to Paris, white-gloved butlers who serve tea with extra lumps?

The last time I got lumps at the office, I was crammed under my desk trying to figure out which wire to jiggle so the mouse would work.  Since I’m the only one there, I would get stuck up with red tape if I filed for Worker’s Comp, so I scolded myself for negligence and stuck a Band-Aid on the sore spot instead.

I’ve never figured out how to get one of those other jobs: jobs that pay dividends instead of money and come with enough compensation that you can hire someone to remember the secret password (Jeeves, what is my mother’s maiden name again?) to your Fandango account. Those are lifestyles and are referred to as something you’re into, not something you do.  (He’s into stocks and bonds or investment banking.)  By comparison, I’m not really into filing six months of committee reports, but I’ll be up to my agenda in paperwork if I don’t.

So it’s not likely that I’ll be pulling up to the office in a Rolls Royce Phantom any time soon.  But you can bet your Silver Shadow I know how to see the twinkling stars in the sky without paying extra.

Just look up.