Asking our GPS for a destination is sort of like writing a letter to Santa. You express your heartfelt wishes and desires and hope that you’ve been good enough to get results. My GPS makes me address it as if it were the deity in charge of merge lanes and yield signs. Forget about Rest Areas. You’re better off packing an empty coffee can and a Do Not Disturb sign.
The Captain of our compact Conestoga fired up all four cylinders at the same time recently and to celebrate, we decided to take an actual trip.
Me: Oh great GPS, would you direct us to the path that leads to the beach?
GPS: No.
Me: Please? I won’t ask for anything else. Ever.
GPS: What have you done to deserve this trip? I get no respect. You even put my batteries in upside down.
Me: Sorry. But I didn’t put hair remover in the Captain’s shampoo for April Fool’s Day this time, and I didn’t mention the ferret in the dishwasher.
Captain: There’s a ferret in the dishwasher?
GPS: There WAS a ferret in the dishwasher.
Kid One: You found my ferret!
Me: The point is, I’ve been good. Please tell me how to get to the beach.
GPS: Did you pack a towel?
Me: Yes.
GPS: And clean underwear?
Me. I can buy new ones when I get there.
GPS: Read the fine print. It’s against my Code of Ethics to take you anywhere without clean underwear.
Me: Fine. (I leave the car and return shortly, having taken a precautionary pit stop.) Now will you tell me?
GPS: You left the overnight bag in the guest bath.
Me: I also flushed the house key by accident.
GPS: Did you jiggle the handle?
Me: Yes. Can’t I just buy underwear when I get there?
GPS: Oh sure, and I guess you’re going to parade around all day in that thing you call a swimsuit. Did you pack a cover up?
Captain: You’re not taking underwear?
Kids One and Two: You’re going to wear a BATHING SUIT? We’re not going.
GPS: Don’t talk to your mother that way. That’s my job.
Captain: You’re not taking underwear?
Me: I have to take that bathing suit. It’s the only one I have.
GPS: That might have been a bathing suit in 1975. Today it is a rubber band with sand in the crotch.
Me: Fine, I’ll look for a new one when we get to the beach.
Kid One: Can we take the ferret?
GPS: That ferret won’t be going anywhere, kiddo. Not after a spin through the potscrubber cycle.
Kid One: MOM!
Me: The vet says he’s going to be just fine, honey. He said he’d never seen anybody give CPR to a ferret before.
GPS: CPR? That was more like LOL. That ferret looked like a sprinkler hose.
Kid One: MOM!
Me: He’s kidding. The vet will have him all patched up in no time. Let’s just hit the road, shall we?
Captain: You’re not taking underwear? Are we staying in the same room as the kids?
GPS: And what about that ratty bathing suit? It looks like a freeway-bound retread just before it leaves the tire.
Me: You take that back!
Captain: Sorry. I just thought separate rooms would be better.
Kid One: Can we go by the vet’s office on the way out of town?
Me: No, honey, we don’t have time.
Captain: How much time does it take to get a room?
GPS: I sure wouldn’t stay in a room with a woman in a ragged bathing suit and no underwear.
Me: He just needs a little extra care.
Captain: That’s what I’m saying.
Me: Not you. The ferret.
Kid One: How much?
Captain: That’s what I want to know.
GPS: That’s it. Find your own way to the beach. I quit!
Me: Fine! I’m giving these new batteries to the iPod.
And that’s how we ended up staying home during vacation time this year. Although we did download a vacation planner and mapping application, and bought new underwear for everyone in the family online. We also got a new GPS.
One that’s guaranteed not to talk back.
Laugh
Showing posts with label batteries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label batteries. Show all posts
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Monday, December 27, 2010
Resolution Revolution
Now that we're two dress sizes away from having to form our resolutions for the New Year, I'd like to observe a moment of sarcasm for last year's goals. Looking back over this list from last year, I realize that I did accomplish one thing. See Resolution #3. I discovered that Taco Tiara handles the job nicely. (However they're not the A-Team for Leprechauns or buckets of gold)
The Resolution Trend is upon us, and much like the leg-warmer trend of the seventies, it crawls up your leg and leaves you with cold feet. But if Resolving is the thing to do, I may as well jump right in and point out my shortcomings. Lord knows if I don’t do it, the teenagers will.
Feel free to jump right in. The rules are simple: No setting goals that involve Paris Hilton in appearance or scope, no setting goals that involve such a vast amount of weight loss that a colon cleanse is indicated, and no setting goals that will prove detrimental to your overall lifestyle - honestly, it will not make you a better person to bake like Paula Deen. You’ll just spend more time in the kitchen, you’d have to expand to more extensive stretchy pants, and while you’re at it take a look at a recent picture. The woman is obviously a zombie. I haven’t seen eyes like that since Mystery Science Theatre 3000 ruled the airwaves.
So, with our ground rules, if not our sanity, intact, here are my Resolutions for the year:
1. To eat at least one meal without sharing with the dogs. How many bites does it take before the Labrador remembers that he still doesn’t like olives?
2. To go ahead and take the batteries out of the TV remote/game controller/digital camera before the boys beat me to it. Personal satisfaction is the name of the game here.
3. Find one easy-to-prepare meal that everyone in the family will eat. Perhaps I’ll also go in search of Leprechauns and buckets of gold.
4. To come home from any destination (including a trip to the mailbox) at least once without heading immediately to the bathroom. Honestly, predictability is so last year.
5. To go a full day without complaining about the speed of my Internet access, all the while bemoaning the days when people had to rely on the Pony Express or fax machines to deliver information.
6. Not to make more resolutions that I can feasibly accomplish. Which I automatically failed to do in Resolution Number One. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make the dog a sandwich. Extra pastrami, no olives.
The Resolution Trend is upon us, and much like the leg-warmer trend of the seventies, it crawls up your leg and leaves you with cold feet. But if Resolving is the thing to do, I may as well jump right in and point out my shortcomings. Lord knows if I don’t do it, the teenagers will.
Feel free to jump right in. The rules are simple: No setting goals that involve Paris Hilton in appearance or scope, no setting goals that involve such a vast amount of weight loss that a colon cleanse is indicated, and no setting goals that will prove detrimental to your overall lifestyle - honestly, it will not make you a better person to bake like Paula Deen. You’ll just spend more time in the kitchen, you’d have to expand to more extensive stretchy pants, and while you’re at it take a look at a recent picture. The woman is obviously a zombie. I haven’t seen eyes like that since Mystery Science Theatre 3000 ruled the airwaves.
So, with our ground rules, if not our sanity, intact, here are my Resolutions for the year:
1. To eat at least one meal without sharing with the dogs. How many bites does it take before the Labrador remembers that he still doesn’t like olives?
2. To go ahead and take the batteries out of the TV remote/game controller/digital camera before the boys beat me to it. Personal satisfaction is the name of the game here.
3. Find one easy-to-prepare meal that everyone in the family will eat. Perhaps I’ll also go in search of Leprechauns and buckets of gold.
4. To come home from any destination (including a trip to the mailbox) at least once without heading immediately to the bathroom. Honestly, predictability is so last year.
5. To go a full day without complaining about the speed of my Internet access, all the while bemoaning the days when people had to rely on the Pony Express or fax machines to deliver information.
6. Not to make more resolutions that I can feasibly accomplish. Which I automatically failed to do in Resolution Number One. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make the dog a sandwich. Extra pastrami, no olives.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Merry Christmas Anyway
I’m a little bit of a late bloomer when it comes to getting ready for Christmas, kind of like those bulbs you have to plant in your flower garden in the dead of winter to turn into flowers come spring. Or maybe it’s the seeds you plant. The point is, you’ll find me getting ready for Christmas just about the time WalMart begins laying in fertilzer and peat moss with an eye toward the bulging wallets and wish lists of early gardeners.
I started shopping before Christmas this year, though. I was going to wait, but the operators were standing by and I had to call right away to get the bonus Ginsu knives which I desperately need because I’ve lost the key to the rented storage building where I keep the reindeer for the yard and if those knives can cut through a soda can like they show on TV, I’m sure they can handle that cheap padlock the manager of the storage place put on the door.
Although I don’t go full out in the decorating area, you can tell it’s Christmas around my house by subtle changes in the décor. Just keep an eye out for mutations in the dust patterns and you can tell where I’ve turned an eye toward holiday preparation.
I’ve moved the nativity scene that I forgot to put away last year from the shelf in the laundry room to the top of the entertainment center, dusted off the baby Jesus and removed the dryer sheet from the shepherd’s staff. It made him look like a flagboy on race day anyway, even though it gave the whole scene an air of celebration.
What appears to be stray branches connected by lumps of unkempt fur in one corner of the living room is actually a small Frasier fir holding up under the strain of the investigative processes of two Labradors, three cats, and an inquisitive Dachshund sporting a Christmas tree skirt. Occasionally the tree gives a shudder and deposits various small animals on the floor like a pile of cast-off inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys. The version of that Christmas tale that boasts “not a creature was stirring” never had a cat who took personal offense at live greenery that was not scented to match the litterbox.
There are 1,467 gift bags of assorted sizes and heritage covering every available flat surface, along with several containers of used bows that are perfectly suitable for family gifts if you affix them to packages with a loop of Scotch tape. At least one of the bags is surrounded by shredded tissue paper. (See the “not a creature was stirring” reference in the previous paragraph.) There is no Scotch tape anywhere in the house, not even in the junk drawer. There are several dozen wood screws of assorted sizes in the junk drawer, but repeated attempts at giftwrap show that wood screws are not effective for this purpose.
The kitchen table is covered with bits of burned sugar cookies and ingredients for partially assembled gelatin salads and casseroles that will bear offerings of melted cheese and Ritz crackers come Christmas day. This is not considered untidiness in the kitchen, but rather food preparation decorations with holiday flair.
There is a wreath on the outside of the closet door instead of the inside of the closet door. The wreath boasts a giddy snowman who is on the verge of bursting into the songs of the season just as soon as Bill Dear tells me where he hid the batteries.
There is a car in the driveway awaiting new tires, a replacement windshield wiper, or an oil change. Nothing says Merry Christmas at our house quite like a car in need of body work. There is not a sense of urgency for the repairs, however, due to the fact that I’m fairly certain that the key to the car is locked in the storage building with the yard-bound reindeer.
So for all of you folks who have every Martha Stewartesque napkin folded into snowflakes, don’t judge me on my lack of handmade ornaments and scented candles. Christmas at my house might have a different flavor and a smell that tends more toward PineSol than pine branches, but the spirit is the same.
Merry Christmas!
I started shopping before Christmas this year, though. I was going to wait, but the operators were standing by and I had to call right away to get the bonus Ginsu knives which I desperately need because I’ve lost the key to the rented storage building where I keep the reindeer for the yard and if those knives can cut through a soda can like they show on TV, I’m sure they can handle that cheap padlock the manager of the storage place put on the door.
Although I don’t go full out in the decorating area, you can tell it’s Christmas around my house by subtle changes in the décor. Just keep an eye out for mutations in the dust patterns and you can tell where I’ve turned an eye toward holiday preparation.
I’ve moved the nativity scene that I forgot to put away last year from the shelf in the laundry room to the top of the entertainment center, dusted off the baby Jesus and removed the dryer sheet from the shepherd’s staff. It made him look like a flagboy on race day anyway, even though it gave the whole scene an air of celebration.
What appears to be stray branches connected by lumps of unkempt fur in one corner of the living room is actually a small Frasier fir holding up under the strain of the investigative processes of two Labradors, three cats, and an inquisitive Dachshund sporting a Christmas tree skirt. Occasionally the tree gives a shudder and deposits various small animals on the floor like a pile of cast-off inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys. The version of that Christmas tale that boasts “not a creature was stirring” never had a cat who took personal offense at live greenery that was not scented to match the litterbox.
There are 1,467 gift bags of assorted sizes and heritage covering every available flat surface, along with several containers of used bows that are perfectly suitable for family gifts if you affix them to packages with a loop of Scotch tape. At least one of the bags is surrounded by shredded tissue paper. (See the “not a creature was stirring” reference in the previous paragraph.) There is no Scotch tape anywhere in the house, not even in the junk drawer. There are several dozen wood screws of assorted sizes in the junk drawer, but repeated attempts at giftwrap show that wood screws are not effective for this purpose.
The kitchen table is covered with bits of burned sugar cookies and ingredients for partially assembled gelatin salads and casseroles that will bear offerings of melted cheese and Ritz crackers come Christmas day. This is not considered untidiness in the kitchen, but rather food preparation decorations with holiday flair.
There is a wreath on the outside of the closet door instead of the inside of the closet door. The wreath boasts a giddy snowman who is on the verge of bursting into the songs of the season just as soon as Bill Dear tells me where he hid the batteries.
There is a car in the driveway awaiting new tires, a replacement windshield wiper, or an oil change. Nothing says Merry Christmas at our house quite like a car in need of body work. There is not a sense of urgency for the repairs, however, due to the fact that I’m fairly certain that the key to the car is locked in the storage building with the yard-bound reindeer.
So for all of you folks who have every Martha Stewartesque napkin folded into snowflakes, don’t judge me on my lack of handmade ornaments and scented candles. Christmas at my house might have a different flavor and a smell that tends more toward PineSol than pine branches, but the spirit is the same.
Merry Christmas!
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