R. A. K.
Every now and then, once I'm pretty sure the human race is ready for me to give up on it, someone does something that is so random, so uncontrived and so selfless that it grabs me by the scruff of my neck and makes me think twice. Some people call moments like this a Warm Fuzzy, Good Deed For the Day or possibly a Misinterpretation Of Someone’s Attempt To Gain By Doing Something Nice For You. Whatever. I like to call these moments Random Acts of Kindness, RAK for the sake of easing my carpel tunnel.
Recent RAK #1:Part of my job is to visit really important attorneys that work for really important law firms that represent really important clients. If I haven’t told you, my job is, yes, really important. During these outings, I stop at some of the small shops on the ground floor of the really important office buildings that office the really important law firms for water or cough syrup or breath mints.
During one of these visits, I walk into a shop owned by Apu’s cousin or uncle and grab a bottle of Ozarka and 2 packages of peanut butte crackers. After asking when the slurpee machine would be repaired, I hand Apu’s kin my goodies and my debit card. In his best Apu dialect, he says “I am sorry, but we do not accept debit or credit cards.” “Oh, my bad” I say and I turn to put my snack away, but Apu puts his hand on my wrist and says “That’s ok. You can just pay me next time.”
It was only $2 worth of food and drink, but it was so unexpected and so altruistic that all I could do was smile HUGE, and offer my sincere thanks. I took my grub and smiled all the way to the car.
RAK Apu.
Recent RAK #2:
In yet another visit to a store inside a large office building, I grabbed 2 more packages of peanut butte crackers and a Gatorade for Women (AKA Propel). This store is part of a chain and this chain has their own Big Brother card to help them track the purchases of several demographics. Like Tom Thumb and Kroger, this chain tries to entice you to use their Big Brother tracking card by offering specials to their card’s holders. Incidentally, I don’t have one of these cards. At least, not to this particular chain.
On this day, this chain was offering 2 for 1 bottles of Gatorade for Women. Because I am not a Big Brother tracking card, I only took one bottle of Gatorade for Women to the counter. As the cashier rings up my morning snack, she tells me that the Gatorade for Women is 2 for 1.
“Thanks, but I don’t have a card” I say, kind of sheepishly.
She looks at me, furrows her brow in a “Hey, dumb ass” look and says “Do you want another one or not?”
“I’ll go get it”
RAK Shaniqua
Recent RAK #3:
I imagine that everyone has been to or even made a post on a web forum of some type. One of the forums I visit daily if for the Texas Bicycle Racing Association. I rarely post anything on this site but, when I do, I try to make sure it is as grammatically correct as possible so that the denizens of this forum don’t lose their focus on the message because they are too busy leering at my grammatical errors. Today I made a post and proofed it, but it wasn’t until I went back to reread it after I posted it that I realized I had made a few errors.
I followed this post by replying to my own post, preemptively calling out my own grammatical errors, hoping to keep the attention on the meat of the thread and not my use of loose over lose.
I return to my computer a few hours later and this message is in my Inbox. The subject line says grammar and the body of the message simply says: got your back, yo. The author of this simple note is one of the forum moderators. He had gone through my original post and corrected my errors, then removed my CYA post, sparing me from endless ridicule from the forum hacks.
RAK KANE
Darkness Rating System (DRS)
Again, in my attempt to be a full-service blogger, I have developed the Darkness Rating System, hereafter known as DRS. Knowing that not eberyone wants to read about my middle finger and who it may be pointing at, not to mention other couch-type moments, I'll attach a DRS rating to each and every post that may offend the happy people. Below is the DRS scale:
1 Dark, but in a light hearted way
2 Mildy dark. Will still make you smile
3 Kinda Dark, but not really. Actually, more gray, than dark
4 Pretty dark. May need a flashlight
5 Break out the night vision goggles
I will also accept complaints about incorrect DRS ratings. After all, I aim to please.
Does Time Make the Past Better? (Darkness Rating 1 out of 10)
When I was a kid, we used to eat
Sue Bee Honey on everything. If my mom would have let us, my brother and I would have used it as a condiment on our tofu burgers.
Sue Bee honey used to on the shelf at every Eagles and Piggly Wiggly we would shop, whether to stock the cubboards at home or fill the old Coleman cooler on a camping trip. I can't remember the last time I saw a tub available for sale, and I make a point to look every time I get more PB (Jiff, extra crunchy!)
A freshly bought tub of Sue Bee was generally a little frustrating, because it had the spreadability of a slice of refrigerated butter. This was problematic, because our bread of choice was Wonder Bread and Wonder Bread was only good if it was staright out of the bag, untoasted. The thick, coagulated honey would actually tear the soft bread as we tried to smear it. "Why didn't you nuke it, bro?" I can hear you axing. Dude, we're talking about the freaking 70s here, when music came on black circles made of vinyl, TVs had dials that you had to stand up and twist by hand to change channels, and the video game that had us mesmerized was called "Pong". No, nuking wasn't an option for us until the early 80s.
These kids are sitting waay too close to the TV and are likely blind today as a result.
Sue Bee was at her best on camping trips. Put the container in the rear window and let the sun do what microwaves do today, and you've got Ritz Cracker dip. UM-MUM, good cracker. I have no idea how many Ritz Crackers slathered with Sue Bee Andrew and I consumed in the back of the Plymouth Duster or the Ford Fiesta we would load up and take to the Rockies, but I bet we kept Andy Griffith and the Sioux nation in the black.
I'm, not sure why I haven't seen Sue Bee on the shelf at my local Tom Thumb. Which is pobably for the better, since the last thing I want to do is buy some and swipe it on a Ritz, only to find out that Sue Bee isn't as hot as I used to think she was.
Which got me wondering: How many other things that we thought were great as kids actually suck now? Did they suck all along, and we were just too niave to know better, or did it rule way back when but just got rusty with age? Where do these items of childhood greatness rank today?
Bubble Yum
Hungry Man TV Dinners
Bay City Rollers
BJ and the Bear
Johnny Quest
Kool-Aid
Kool Aid popsicles (made by pouring cherry or grape Kool-Aid into an ice cube tray, covered with plastic wrap and thespeared with toothpicks. The plastic wrap held the tooth picks in place while the Kool-Aid froze)
Home made Ice Cream
G.I. Joe and Big Jim dolls
Lee Majors and the 6 Million Dollar Man
Hot Farrah Fawcett
Dukes of Hazard
Fogg Hat and Slo Ride
Kiss
Sambo's
Happy Birthday, mom
75 years ago on April 8 my mom was born.
Somehow, it became tradition in the last 9 years or so that we would take her to dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. She would get the 7 oz Victoria’s Fillet, medium, the house salad with vinegar and oil (plus my discarded tomatoes), and a jacket potato with no sour cream. For desert, a Chocolate Thunder from Down Under was split. Being a germ-phobe, she was always very careful not to let her spoon touch a portion of the desert that someone else’s spoon may have come in contact with. All of that would be washed down with a 12 oz. Glass of Foster’s; 2 if she was feeling daring.
For 2 years now, my brother’s family and mine have gone to the Outback on the 8th day of April. She may not be at the table with us, but she is in our hearts and minds.
I’d like to take this opportunity to say FUCK YOU to Wesley Lohman, the man who is leaglly blind in his left eye but still felt like it was a good idea to take his good eye of the road to put his insurance card away in his sun visor.
Also, FUCK YOU to the grand jury that did not feel his behavior constituted a “gross deviation from ordinary care”.
Yes, FUCK YOU to the committee that heard the testimony of 3 people that have lost family members in the last few years as a result of being hit from behind by a motor vehicle while riding their bicycle on the road. This committee felt the testimony not compelling and gave us the Heisman regarding Senate Bill 859, also known as the
Safe Passing Bill.
Finally, a huge
FUCK YOU to God, because You are doing a shitty job. I used to not believe in you, but now I desperately hope you exist, because I want to blame you for all the shit you have fucked up. Thanks for all you’re doing for us: Nazi Germany; Viet Nam; Rowanda, 9-11; Iraq and the Tsunami, just to name a few.
Oh, yeah: where were you on May 8, 2004?
Ker-Plunk!
Taking a dump in jolly old England is not quite as easy as it is here in the good old US of A. “What?” you say; “Isn’t a dump a dump?” Well, it is and it isn’t. Yes, in both countries the bowels move, the sphincter clenches and wriggles and excrement is passed from the starfish. It’s once the poo leaves the friendly confines of my body and hits the air where things change, and not necessarily for the better.
I’m NOT one of those guys that thinks everything’s better here in the US, that the entire world should be exactly like it is here. On lots of things, I think the Brits got us beat – not to mention some other countries.
Take beer, for instance. Americans like that watered down crap that is served so cold you can’t taste how crappy it is, while the beer in England is served around 50 degrees so you can actually taste the ingredients. And the drinking age in the UK is 18. Only makes sense that someone that is old enough to enlist in the military and die for his or her country should be allowed to imbibe when they are on leave.
Now, back to my bowels.
The toilets in England are deep, cavernous pits with only a few inches of water in the bottom. Making a deposit is a lot like a high diver thats builds speed as he plummets towards the 5 gallon bucket of water. The crowd oos and ahs, waiting for the inevitable ker-plunk and the plume of water that jets upward from whence the diver came. No matter how I squirmed and tried to reposition myself on the seat, bow or aft, starboard or whatever, there was no way to avoid the back splash, and toilet water is the grossest type of backsplash I can think of. I even contemplated squatting over the seat like a woman in a porta-pot, but decided that was too gay, even for me.
My first instinct was that they are conserving water in the UK, so they fill their bowls with as little water as needed to allow for a target. That theory was quickly blown out of the water (HA!) the first time I flushed and a torrent of water, much like you would see when white-water rafting, came rushing through the plumbing. No, there’s no courtesy flush in England, unless the idea of a bidet-like purging is appealing to you. The only flushing experience more frightening is done at altitude in an airplane, where I hold on to the handicap rail when I do flush for fear of being sucked out of the plane and dropped over the Atlantic.
So memo to the limeys: a little more depth to the pool and a little less on the flush will make for a lot less ker-plunk.
