Momisms (Part 2)

I am of the firm belief that there isn't anyone who hasn't been embarrassed by their parents, either by actions or by words, at one time or another.

Take my mom, for instance.  She mixes metaphors and analogies, misuses words and/or phrases, loses her train of thought, etc., but she is otherwise very intelligent and generally serious so much so that she doesn't get the punchline some of the time.   I've already introduced you to Momisms (Part 1), so here is a continuation of her flubs:

One day we were discussing gardening with one of our employees and the subject of fertilizing and composting came up.  Some people use horse manure, worm casings, chicken shit, vegetable waste among others.  Then my mom piped up with, "Bat iguana is supposed to be very good for the garden".  Bat iguana??  She meant "bat guano".

Heh.

Her explanation for my fast eating habit?  When I went to a boarding school for a couple of years, I developed a habit of eating quickly because of the little amount of time allotted between lining up at the dining hall, eating, having a smoke and then getting back to class or to go and spend some free time with my friends before the dreaded "study hall".  So, if someone would ask why I finished dinner long before anyone else, she'd say, "She sniffs her food".  No mom, I "inhale" my food.

Heh, heh.

This one is priceless:  The government here took a census last year.  A woman from the census came by one night but we did not hear her at the gate (one is supposed to announce their arrival here by honking their horns) so she left a note to call her at her office.  The following night, mom called and answered the census questionnaire over the phone.  When asked about my educational details, mom told her that I graduated "phi-beta-kappa".  Rolling my eyes and cackling,  I quickly corrected her:  "It's summa cum laude".

Bwhahahaha!

Yes, she reads this blog.

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Note:  While reviewing my article history, I discovered that my "Bloggaversary" was three days ago.  I know, I'm three days late -  again.  I'm going to have to start setting my calendar ahead three days (I used to set my watch ahead 20 minutes because I was always 10 minutes late).  Anyway,  I also discovered that I had not posted this even though I wrote it almost a year ago.  I don't know why.

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The Dozo Zone

Imagine, if you will, a house situated in a quiet neighbourhood, in which lives three occupants:  a woman, her husband and her daughter from a previous marriage.

During the time they live in Scarborough, every Sunday without fail, the stepfather complains about the numerous cars parked on the other side of the street in front of their house.

Their next door neighbour is of Some Religious Order who, with his congregation, holds Sunday services in his home, hence the volume of vehicles clogging up the road.

The stepfather, a highly intelligent man of questionable veracity, is always wanting to be the centre of attention. He fabricates stories and complains about anything just so someone will, at the very least, tell him to "shut the fuck up".  As long as he is acknowledged, the manner in which it is expressed isn't important to him.

One particular Sunday unfolds as follows:

The Players:
Antagonist: The stepfather. A lawyer with a diabolical sense of humour and a dubious storyteller, has an annoying need for constant recognition. He knows how to push buttons. He knows how to push your buttons. He pushes the buttons of the daughter too far this one morning. We will call him Satan.

The Extra: The mom. She is too involved in her newspaper to acknowledge anything worthy of her attention. Really, she doesn't care. She does this on purpose. She knows Satan too well. We will call her Mom.

Protagonist:  The daughter.  She is not a morning person by any means, especially after a late night, and doesn't engage in any meaningful conversation before her first cup of coffee. She is slightly hung over this morning.  She has a short temper. Unlike Mom, the daughter has yet to develop the skills necessary to ignore Satan. We will call her The Idiot.

The Scene:
Sunday morning: Two family members are drinking coffee, Mom is at the table reading the Sunday paper, Satan is skulking around from room to room, also reading the paper and babbling on about something or other every time he enters the kitchen. Sometimes he just babbles to himself while he wanders about. We attribute this to attention-seeking behaviour or a symptom of schizophrenia.

Enter The Idiot wearing a ratty twelve year old, hospital-issued, knee-length terrycloth robe that is fraying around the edges and which is sporting soon-to-become embarrassingly situated holes in the chest area. The robe is flagged for the rag bag.

The Story:
"M'rnin'", mumbles The Idiot, stumbling into the kitchen.  “Morning”, replies Mom who doesn’t look up from her paper.

Satan is off in some other room.

The Idiot gets her coffee, sits down at the table and grabs a section of the paper already discarded by the other two.

"Oh my God!”, loudly exclaims Satan from somewhere near the foyer. “There are cars everywhere!", referring to the congregation's vehicles. Mom is oblivious to the statement. The Idiot, annoyed at being distracted from her reading, rolls her eyes.

Satan enters the kitchen. "They've blocked off the entire street!", complains Satan, again, in case nobody heard it mere seconds ago. "Whatever", says The Idiot, irked and uninterested.

Satan shuffles in and out of the kitchen for the next half hour, breaking the periodic silence with his verbal diarrhea about the Blue Jays' recent loss, the exchange rate of the Yen, or the climatic conditions currently plaguing the penguins in Antarctica.   Sometimes he just makes nasal honking noises.  This continues off and on, annoying The Idiot who is still trying to enjoy a morning coffee and newspaper despite her hangover. Satan has become aware of The Idiot’s post-inebriated condition.

About ten minutes later, the random ramblings return to the parking situation.  "Oh my God! They have not only taken over the street, but they have taken over our driveway!", rants Satan.

The Idiot, who has not even been able to finish the article she originally started to read when she first picked up the paper, erupts with rage and stomps to the front door, certain that Satan is spewing lies. To her surprise, there is a strange car parked in the driveway right behind Satan's car. From the rear-view mirror hangs an icon of Jesus. Satan is Jewish, but the family is not religious.

Fueled by Satan's accusations and innuendo, not to mention the dangling pious figure, The Idiot believes the car belongs to one of the members visiting next door. She flings the front door open in anger - anger not so much intended for the car owner, but toward Satan who has really pissed her off to no end - and traipses barefoot across the lawn with disheveled hair and tattered holey robe, and knocks on the neighbours' door.

Dressed in his Sunday's finest, the neighbour answers the door.  "Does that car possibly belong to one of your members?", asks The Idiot, pointing to the mysterious vehicle in her driveway. The man, shocked and confused at The Idiot's appearance, cautiously ventures out of his house to take a look.  Before he can utter a word, two people emerge from the far side of The Idiot's house.  She immediately recognizes them.  Retrieving her jaw from the ground and thinking that any explanation, at this point, would sound more ridiculous than she looks, The Idiot apologizes profusely to the neighbour.  Unceremoniously, The Idiot retraces her steps back to her house, seething in anger and mutters to herself, "I AM going to kill him", and greets the unexpected visitors very red faced.

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We had  moved into the house in Scarborough about three months earlier. The surprise visitors decided to take a peek around the grounds before they announced their arrival.  It was their car in the driveway.  I was extremely embarrassed. Yes, I  wanted to shoot myself.  But not before I shot Satan.

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Note to readers: The preceding post was NOT intended to offend any fathers on this, their honoured day. Because this story co-incidentally happened on a Sunday, I decided to post it today. But, to all of you dads out there:

Happy Father's Day!

Yes, She Reads This Blog - Momisms (Part 1)

I've read in several blogs and comments where some people are reluctant to tell their friends, family and co-workers, etc. about their blog for various reasons. I would have to agree with some of those reasons. Having an online journal imparts writers the freedom to say whatever they want and, in some cases, gives them the anonymity they wish to enjoy should they ever malign write about their friends, family, etc.

But unlike some relatives, my mom enjoys reading my blog.  She also reads many of the others that I follow and thinks one person is "totally nuts" - but in a good way.   I even have her proofread some of my stuff for errors (usually grammatical) or for some other constructive criticism.

Sorry about your luck mom, you won't be proofreading this one.

My mother's "Momisms" include, but are not limited to, the comments, words, expressions, questions, mixed metaphors, etc. that escape her lips from time to time.  And since I'm in a sharing mood:

We were having some problems with our Internet provider and their e-mail services wherein we were not able to send or receive.  The IP tech said they would look into it and gave us an alternate DNS Server number that would circumvent the issue in the meantime.  I was experiencing the same problem just recently and was cursing aloud that I couldn't even get connected to the net.  She said, "Try using that other DNA number".   There are times I wish we didn't share the same DNA:  this was one of those times.

I don't know if it's her age or the fact she has too much shit in her ears, but she's going deaf.  I, on the other hand, can hear a Palmetto bug fart in the next room.  Occasionally I make stir-fry for dinner with either rice or Thai noodles, so I opted for the noodles the other night.  She complemented me on the dinner, for which I  thanked her, but I pointed out, "I think I overcooked the Thai noodles", to which she responded, "There are pine needles in this??".

The thermometer incident (no, it's not what you may think):  I finally went out and bought a digital thermometer.  Whoever invented those mercury-type ones should have one stuck in his eye.  "Yeah,  I'll bet you can read it NOW, asshole".  At any rate, I mentioned that I had bought a DIGITAL thermometer that day.  She asked, "What does it read out?".  WTF??  I had no idea what she was asking.  I thought about it for a few seconds and I was still confused.  Did she mean the temperature, the digits, the language, does it speak to you?  The only response I had was, "Um...Chinese?", or something to that effect.  Granted, she has been living here for about 15 years so I could blame it on a Bahamianism, but I don't know - I'm still scratching my head at that one.

I would be remiss if I didn't share one of my own flubs: We were talking about broccoli one night and the fact that she doesn't like how the florets 'feel' in certain dishes. I like broccoli and try to prepare dishes that would be to her liking, so she mentioned that there was a soup recipe that I might try sometime. I asked if it was a cold soup like "gestapo": what I meant was "gazpacho".  Apparently it IS in the DNA.

Going back to my opening paragraph, my mom, evidently, did not read those posts and comments about  'sharing' their blogs with relatives and the like:  She e-mailed a link to to my blog to (OMG!) my uncle,  and a couple of other people.  In the reference line of the e-mail she wrote, " RE:  (myrealname's)  BLO".


Apparently I "BLO".

Foot-in-Mouth Disease (Size 22)

Yeah,  I know it should say, "Part 2", but I'm talking about a foot, after all.

As a short follow-up to my last post, the power company made the following statements and/or assertions in the last couple of days (this is according to the local newspaper):

• (Friday):   After its apologizes for the inconveniences, it said the same inconveniences were "expected to continue into next week."
• (Saturday):  It was reported that the problems were fixed,  regular service had been restored and that no one should experience any further inconveniences.
• (Monday - we don't get a Sunday paper):  A notice is published to advise its customers their "fuel surcharge for the month of May" would be considerably higher.  WTF? Three days of questionable power supply equates to an entire month?  And since it isn't burning fuel to supply power, again, WTF?
• (Monday, again):  It admitted that it wasn't so quite up-and-running as previously claimed,  but it was going to rotate the inconveniences to randomly inconvenience those who weren't already inconvenienced.

It's now Tuesday.  It was just after 7 p.m. when one of these inconveniences was bestowed upon us. This time Bionic Bob advised us in a  pre-recorded message that we would be without power for about 2 to 4 hours (in other words, "until it reach").

Because of Hurricane Frances, we bought a generator - I just hope we have enough fuel on hand.

Foot-in-Mouth Disease

I think we've all been there, done that, etc.

I'll try to keep this short, but I really couldn't wait to post this:

For the past few days, we've been experiencing power outages all over the island.  It's been as hot as Hades here recently,  unusual for May,  which does nothing to alleviate the growing anger at the power company.

At the onset of this dilemma, we, like many others, called the customer service department (ad nauseum) to ascertain when power would be restored.  They first started out with some cock-'n-bull story about,   "dumping loads".  No shit! (and pun definitely intended).  Eventually, they got 'Bionic Betty' (my term for those automated answering systems) to spew out some pre-recorded excuse for the lack of service:

"Please accept our apologies but we are experiencing some technical and mechanical difficulties at this time.  We are working on restoring the power to your area as quickly as possible.  The Grand Bahama Power Company wishes to thank you for conserving power."

"...conserving power."  Really??   Like we have a choice?!?!?

Oy vey.

So, yesterday they had two articles in our one and only local newspaper (The Freeport News) about the power situation.  One of the articles quotes the Chief of the power company remarking, among other things, this gem:

"We apologize for any inconvenience that this is causing our customers.  We are trying to spread out the inconvenience as much as possible."

Really!  I shit you not!

Stupidity is E.Z.

"Mondo Blondo Moments" that may or may not necessarily be mine. Gotta love 'em.

Having had to check-up on an online application I recently made to a government office, the over-the-phone verification process included questions like, "what is your name, "what is your mother's date of birth?", "have you ever had sex with your boss?", etc. (o.k., so I made that last one up).  THEN they asked what my middle name was. This immediately brought up two memories:

1. Some Americans do not understand the term "zed".

2. Stupidity's middle name is "E.Z.".

To explain:

1. I did a stint at a private school in the southern U.S. in my early teens, at which time I joined the spelling bee team. While practicing with another teamate, she quizzed me on the word magazine.  Promptly and, I might add, I accurately spelled the word. If she had not been wearing glasses, I'm sure her eyeballs would popped straight out of her head and onto the floor. She said (in her southern accent), "what in 'tarnations is a"zed""? I explained that I was (am) Canadian, etc. (And yes, she was blonde.)

2. Some years later, I needed to acquire house insurance. My mother, who knew and dealt with several insurance companies, offerred to arrange same for me. Naturally, they ask the usual questions like, "first name", "last name", "middle name", "address", "did you ever sleep with your boss?", etc. (ya, again...sorry).  My middle name is Elizabeth and, since some people spell it with an "S", it was made clear to the info-taker at the insurance company (definitely blonde, if not at birth, by osmosis) that it was supposed to be spelled with a "Z" and not an "S".  All was well and good until the Policy Arrived In The Mail addressed to:

(myfirstname) E.Z. (mylastname)

Visually, we interpreted the 'zed' as a 'zee'.

Hilarity ensued.  Unfortunatley, this happened in the early morning as I was drinking coffee. Fortunately, no one, including my nostrils, was scalded.

F.Y.I.: I am not "E.Z.", nor easy.  Just sayin'.