amusing grace

I think I told a lie today. . .

I think I told a lie today.  And to a stranger nonetheless -– someone I’ll probably never talk to again.  He was just doing his job; calling me to ask if I wanted to take a survey about cell phones.  I said “I don’t think so, but I appreciate your call.”  That was the lie.  That last part.  I didn’t appreciate his call at all.  I didn’t even like his call.  In my effort to be polite, I inadvertently told him a falsehood.  Right after I hung up, I realized it. 

At the time it seemed so much easier to say “I appreciate your call”, and then in turn, have a guilt-free way to quickly hang up.  If I had been totally truthful, I would have said something more along the lines of. . .

“Mr. Survey-man, I’ve got to be really honest with you.  When you called, I was lying comfortably in the living room floor, wearing my favorite sweat pants –- the broken-in ones that are almost too ragged to even work out in.  My wife is on her way home from yoga class, and she’s bringing me a large sweet tea with that really good crushed ice that looks like little heavenly frozen pellets.  Moreover, I am in the middle of a really good chapter in a really good book.  And as if that weren’t enough to make me not want to take a phone survey:  Right now, just as you called -– just as I was reading a really good chapter in a really good book while anxiously awaiting my beautiful, sweaty wife to bring me a syrupy sweet tea with incredible ice -- my little two-year-old moppet was standing and balancing himself on the small of my back and laughing in such a cute way that I can’t even explain how magical it was.  So sir, I understand that you are just doing your job this evening.  And I understand that you, too, long to get home to your possibly sweaty wife and beverage of choice.  But surely you must understand that at this particularly blissful moment in my day, I don’t even remotely want to take time out to tell you how many minutes per day I talk on the distraction that we call cell phones.”

. . .or something like that.

I wonder if he would have really listened to me, or found a dishonest but polite way to quickly hang up.

Hail hath no fury. . .

I sometimes wonder how some of our more trivial customs came about. 

Who is responsible for the discrepancy between the number of hot dogs in a package and the number of buns? 

Why did we start calling her the “First Lady”?  Why not the “Really Important Wife”?

What “thrifty” restaurant first decided that a small orange juice would forever be slightly larger than a thimble?

Yes, my mind wanders.  Some great thinkers like Albert Einstein and George Washington Carver had wandering minds as well.  The only difference is that their minds wandered off onto things that sort of mattered, like the size of the universe and how to make a record needle out of a peanut.

Back to the topic at hand (sorry, I wandered off for a moment):  The curious custom that has cajoled my consciousness as of late has been about the weather; more specifically –- hailstones.  I’m curious why a “sports ball metaphor” is always the standard when it comes to describing the size of hailstones.  “Golf-ball-sized” hail is probably the most popular one.  To me, it seems wrong to associate something as enjoyable as sports with the inevitable damage that a 6-ounce piece of ice can cause to the hood of a ’65 Mustang.   

Of course, there are obvious reasons why sports balls are the metaphor of choice.  Like hail, they are round.  And there are many different sizes (baseballs, bowling balls, etc.)  These qualities give sports balls the upper hand over, let’s say. . . chips.  “The lower east-side of Atlanta was pelted with Cheetoh-sized hail today.”  Ummm. . . I don’t think so. 

And for some reason weathermen favor the tougher sports.  You’re not going to hear any reports of “ping-pong-ball-sized hail” –- which is really a missed opportunity, because ping-pong balls really do look a lot like hail.

Whenever hail gets too small for sports analogies, we tend to switch to the legume family (“pea-sized”, for example).  Sometimes, if it gets really tiny, you may even hear the rarely used “BB-sized hail” –- but by this time they really should just downgrade it to “snow”, don’t you think? 

Personally, I think fruit has been largely overlooked when it comes to hail size comparisons.  “Plum-sized” has a nice ring to it.  However, if we used fruit to describe hail, what would we use to describe the sizes of our internal growths (such as a “grapefruit-sized mass” or a “pear-shaped ulcer”)? 

I know this is not an important national issue, like Brangelina’s baby or something.  But like Einstein, I can’t always monitor where my mind wanders off to.  Frankly, the whole thing gives me a tether-ball-sized headache.     

Carey's leftovers #3

For those of you anxious to jumpstart your career, I want to encourage you -- it doesn’t take that much.  Michelle Pfeiffer’s career was jumpstarted by Grease 2.

Things you'd rather not hear your doctor say during surgery . . .

10. Better save that. We might need it later.

9. Someone call the janitor - we're going to need a mop.

8. Well, folks, here goes nothing.

7. Wait a minute. If this is his spleen, then what's that?

6. Hand me that...uh...sharp silver thingie.

5. Uh-oh!  Hey, has anyone ever survived 500ml of this stuff before?

4. Everybody stand back - I lost my contact lens.

3. Could you stop that thing from thumping; it's throwing my concentration off.

2. Cool!  Did you guys see that?  Now, I'm gonna make his leg twitch?

1. Bad dog!  Come back with that!

A follow-up story. . .

For those of you who enjoyed my post entitled What's in a Name?, you’ll be glad to hear that today I received an American Express card application addressed to Mrs. Carol Dyer.  The saga continues. . .

Totally rad quiz answers. . .

Okay, gang –- here are the official answers to the “Ultimate 80’s Quiz-o-rama.”  Congrats to the 80’s nerds (like myself) who actually knew most or all of the answers. 

            

1. Cobra Kai

The dojo with all of the mean, preppy dudes in The Karate Kid.  This was the movie where we all discovered that you could learn black-belt-level karate by doing household chores.  “Daniel-son, show me paint-the-fence (while I sit in hammock and read latest issue of How to Fix Up Your Deck).”

2. “We’ll do it for Johnny, man.  We’ll do it for Johnny.”

Getting psyched for a rumble, this quote was uttered by a hospitalized Matt Dillon in The Outsiders.  If you get Matt Dillon and Matt Damon mixed up, Dillon is the one who squints.  Incidentally, the “greasers” did in fact “do it for Johnny.”

3. Mushmouth

This was the funny-talking guy from Fat Albert.  For no apparent reason, he always wore a winter hat, no matter what time of year it was.  He must’ve been cold-natured, like Scooby Doo’s Fred, with his year-round white sweater.

4. “And knowing is half the battle!”

This was the life-changing message at the end of every episode of G.I. Joe.  I think their public service announcement at the end was to pacify the parents who were concerned about all of the gun-play.  It’s like, “Hey, let’s blow up a tank.  By the way, kids, don’t smoke.” 

5. Lolly, ,lolly, lolly ___  ____  _______  ____. 

. . . get your adverbs here.  Kids in the late 70’s and early 80’s learned about 75% of their basic math and grammar skills from Schoolhouse Rock.

6. 2600 and 5200

These were the numeric names of the first two versions of the Atari video game system.  Games like Combat came with the system -– but if you wanted the really cool graphics, you could go nuts and get Pitfall!

7. “You ain’t bad -– you ain’t nothin’!”

This was spoken to Michael Jackson by a thug in the Bad video.  Evidently, if you really want to go “street” on somebody, you meet up at the turnstyles in a parking garage.

8. 867-5309

Duh!  This was probably the easiest question.  This is Jenny’s number from that “stuck-in-your-head” song by Tommy Tutone.  Okay, confession is good for the soul -– who actually tried to dial it at least once?!

9. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

This is one of Inigo Montoya’s slightly lesser-known lines in The Princess Bride, his most famous being:  “Hello.  My name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die.”  If you haven’t seen this movie, don’t walk -– run to the rental store now!

10. “I’ve fallen, ___  _  ____  ___  __!”

. . . and I can’t get up.  The famous line from the campy Life Alert medical alarm commercials.  I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure this was the same lady that did “Where’s the beef?”

11. *Bonus question: “Ariel, Ookla – riiiide!!!” (I don’t expect anyone to get this one:-)

Okay, okay, you guys win!  I was surprised to find out that several of you were familiar with the battle cry of Thundarr the Barbarian, one of my childhood Saturday morning staples.  I guess I didn’t know just who I was dealing with –- you people really are as weird as me!  For the next quiz, I’m gonna dig a little deeper.  So spike your hair, put on your leg-warmers, and get ready.  Coming soon to a blog near you. . .