Yesterday, he told me that he takes a shower before bed for two reasons:
a. He want to get clean.
b. He gets “dusty” during the day.
I’m not sure how a human (like a shelf!) can get dusty. But he has managed to figure it out.
Another favorite mall-time activity. Lookin' good.
Every time LO and I walk up to a cash register, I hold my breath for just a few seconds. Waiting. Because, odds are, he’s about to say something interesting/entertaining/emberassing. Most likely, all of the above.
A few exaples from this past weekend in London:
1. The Polish store.
We went there to buy a slice of his favorite poppy seed cake. As we’re walking in, LO nudges me and says, “Okay, let’s not get carried away here!’ Fifteen minutes later, as we’re standing with out basket that HE packed with TWO cakes and at least 10 candy bars, he decides that he wants to get weiners, and hot pepperettes, and some cheese (yeah, totally NOT getting carried away). So we line up at the deli counter.
Now, the thing with the deli counter is that neither of us really understands the “weights” that the meats/cheese come in. We never order “10 grams” of cheese; we order “10 slices”. Which is weird enough. But then LO decides to make his order like this (while holding his cake box opened in hand, eating with a plastic fork even before he leaves the store):
Girl: What would you like?
LO: Some cheese.
Girl: Which type?
LO: Umm, a good one. With holes.
Girl: (looking confused, eyes scanning the line-up of at least 10 cheeses with holes in the display and points to one). Is this one okay?
LO: Yeah, that looks good.
Girl: How much?
LO: 2-3 centimeters
Girl: (confused) Centimeters?
LO: Yes. Two or three.
Bet that was the first time in the history of this girl’s deli career that she had to fill an order for “2-3 centimetres of a cheese with holes”.
2. Blockbuster
Before we walk into the rental place, LO likes to call it from the road and speak to someone about what new movies are out. The thing is, it doesn’t matter who picks up the phone, he’ll go all into “Hey, Lisa, how’s it going?” as if he’s known them forever, then talk for five minutes about what he/she thinks about My Sister’s Keeper (calling it “the cancerous girl” instead of its real title), then leaving a few movies on hold for us under a ridiculous nickname, such as Yogi Bear. This gets funny sometimes when he walks in and the person he spoke to is no longer in, and the new girl gives him the best “what the fuck is wrong with you?” look when he asks for the movies under that name.
3. Clothing store
I was cashing out some sweaters at the mall, when LO adds on a pair of pajamas, which he has chosen by placing them against him waist because he doesn’t feel like trying them on. As the girl is ringing me up, she tells him that he can exchange them or return them if he gets home and they don’t fit well. Now, any normal person would nod and smile and say something like “okay then”, but LO turns to her and says, in a serious face, “Unless they have pee stains, right?” The girl didn’t get it, and responds with, “Oh no! These have never been worn. They are clean”, thinking he meant that he might find the pants soiled when he gets them home. The joke had failed, so in my head, I’m thinking, “Okay, this could have been a lot more emberassing if the girl got the joke!”. But, instead of walking away, LO just can’t live it down. “No, no,” he says. “I meant MY pee stains. I meant I can’t return them if I leave my pee stains in them. RIGHT?” A look fills the girl’s face. She isn’t impressed, but she’s trying not to be rude. She makes one of those smiles that people make when they see a baby spit all over itself, like “Ohh, no, then you can’t return them,” she says. And a smile fills LO’s face. She got it.
So, apparently, he tried Lays Baked chips at Subway on his way down here this weekend, so it became his goal to find a bag of them in human size and eat them up.
Our attempts at getting a bag were foiled at Shopper’s Drug Mart and at Wal-Mart, but Loblaws had not one, but THREE different kinds of these chips. Not to mention the rest of the aisle, which was crowded with fancy flavours like southwestern ranch, babyback ribs, wasabi and others.
While analyzing the various chip options with excitement in his face, he pauses and says in his typical “smart” voice:
“WOW! The chip industry has expanded so much!!”
I don’t know why, but I found this really funny.
Side note: He also decided to open up a Snuggle church. And, while talking about people who go into a coma and lose weight (yes, we find many interesting topics of conversation), he makes the following random statement: “It’s wrong to sexually abuse children who are in a coma”. I had to giggle, and clarify that it’s wrong to sexually abuse children, period.
The end.
When I checked my voicemail this afternoon, I found this little gem from LO.
This is the kind of stuff he makes up at the sound of the beep, in a Bob Barker-ish voice:
(A little back history – I hate rodents. He loves them.)
Hi, I’m calling from the Rodents for Life foundation. Here at Rodents for Life, we take pride in our animals of this great country of ours..you generally see them as raccoons, skunks, squirrels, often road kill.
What we’re promoting is little 2-foot-high fences on the edge of every road to prevent these little critters from getting hurt by vehicles.
All we’re asking for is a $5 donation from every person.
Think! If you save a critter, how would you feel? We will send you posters and videos of various rodents that you saved. Perhaps you will even have a rodent pen pal! We are now working on a special genetic process to allow raccoons and squirrels to write! Thaaaat’s right! To write a letter to YOU! This has never happened before in history, where you will see the intimate thoughts, stories and beliefs of a rodent. Unnnnbelievable! I know what you’re thinking!
This package is available now for only $24.99. However, if you just wish to participate in the Save-a-Rodent fence, $5 is sufficient. Please call 1-800-save-a-rodent. We can’t wait to hear from you! All the critters are just chirping away. They can’t wait. They want to be saved. You need to save them. It’s your job as a decent human being. Save the rodents!
(At least it’s better than when he calls and just meows into the phone until the machine cuts him off!)
I really didn't have an appropriate image for this post. So take this one instead.
When dealing with telemarketers, there are certain “rules of engagement” followed by the regular population: We screen the calls, we say we aren’t home, we hang up before they get to the third Bell reference.
But, to LO, each time the phone rings and an obscure 1-800 number pops up on the call display, it’s like Christmas.
The first time it happened, we were in the kitchen.
The phone rings. The display spells out “telemarketer”. So LO picks it up immediately.
“Gypsy Caravan. Would you like to buy treasure?” he says in his best Borat impression.
It was obvious that the person on the other line was startled.
He started going into his sales pitch briefly, before being interrupted by LO with a rushed, “So, you buy treasure?”
It was the funniest thing to listen to over the speaker phone, because this person kept trying to be polite and refuse the treasure while trying to push the company’s product at the same time. Every time he would pause, LO would completely disregard the last two minutes of his speech and say something like, “If you buy treasure today, I give you good deal!” and the guy would struggle to swing the conversation back towards his product.
At the end of the conversation, it was the telemarketer who was trying to get off the line, and LO holding him on with his hilarious made-up phone infomercial. It was the first time I heard a telemarketer so eager to end the call.
After the success of this first phone conversation, LO became inspired to continue messing with telemarketers. The next time a lady called from a cable company, she asked him whether he has kids, and he said yes. The rest of the pitch went something like this:
Lady: “We have a great children’s programming package”
LO: “We tell our kids to go to their friend’s house when they want to watch TV.”
Lady: “What about internet? Who is your current provider?”
LO: “Oh, we just steal from the neighbor.”
………………………………
He pretty much had a response to everything, and the conversation ended with him saying that he can’t commit to anything without first confirming with his wife because she would beat him up, then going into detail about his fake abusive relationship and the special ways in which his fake wife hits him. He then began screaming, saying “Oh, oh, she’s home! She’s coming!” then screaming into the phone and hanging up abruptly. When the lady got off the line, I wasn’t sure if she was going to continue making telemarketing calls or give a ring to some kind of police hotline. What really cracked us up was that the woman actually called back, and my mom picked up the phone. And probably said her husband wasn’t home (my dad was at work). Still not sure why there weren’t any cruisers at my door within the hour.
LO and I were leaving Chapters when we noticed a stack of $3.99 horoscope books. Seeing as it was his birthday, he got all excited, picked up a Scorpio edition, and started reading about our “compatibility” based on our astrological signs (weirdly accurate, as it discussed the way that cancers and scorpios complement each other well due to their similarities and also their differences).
Then, realizing that the book also contained a daily horoscope section, he flipped to it and read out something about success in business on the horizon, but that he also has to watch out to make sure he doesn’t “spread himself too thin”.
He looks up from the book, with this intellectual look on his face, then scrunches it and says, pretty seriously:
“What the fuck am I? PEANUT BUTTER?”
AHahahahhahahaaaaaaa. I laughed hard.
At some point a few months ago, I received a Facebook “poke” from LO.
I thought he was being playful, so I poked him back, and we’ve been playing this game back and forth since. I don’t usually poke people while I engage in social networking (I mostly blog and update my status about how much I want to punch Lady Gaga in the face!), but I kind of thought this little interaction was cute. It showed that we are thinking of each other. That, even between snooping on other people’s photos, we were eye-to-eye {insert that little action where you point your two fingers square at your eyes, then at someone elses}. I thought it was fun.
Then, this past weekend, while I’m kicking around in bed and LO is checking his Facebook, he makes a loud sigh as his home page opens.
“Why do you keep poking me on Facebook?” he asks.
This kind of throws me off. Especially because he has his “serious face” on.
“Ummmm, because YOU poked ME first,” I reply.
At this moment, LO’s face becomes whiney. Like a little kid who’s trying to get his younger brother to stop hanging out with his friends. Or like when I gave him a gag gift for his birthday, which was a banana, wrapped distinctly in a banana shape with a bow on top, and he kept squishing it through the paper and asking, “Is this a banana?” and then, finally, defeated and with a little pout when he saw the yellow skin poking through, “It’s a banana…” (fyi: I got him a blender).
The conversation continues on for a few minutes like this:
LO: “NO. You poked ME. I was just poking you back.”
Me: “NO. I was just poking YOU back. Because you poked me first.”
LO: “NO. NO. I remember, you started it.”
Me: “NO. YOU started it.”
LO: “You and {insert name of another friend}. You guys both just keep poking and poking me. Don’t poke me anymore.”
Me: “What’s the big deal with poking you, anyway?”
LO: {starting off into empty space, but speaking with real emotion to signify that he is about to say something profound} “I’m not much of a poker.”
Just like that. With no further explanations. He just isn’t much of one.
Well, then.
A few years ago, I saw a woman knitting in her car. At a red light. No joke.
We pulled up next to her and, while a friend’s boyfriend rolled down the window and asked her whether she was cold (it was July), I just sat there laughing and thinking that she was a fucking idiot.
So imagine the look of terror on my face as, one fine long weekend Monday, LO is driving the two of us back from London in my car and rolls down the window, then proceeds to stick his foot out. While going something over 100. And switching lanes.
Okay, I was an asshole. I took a photo to document it.
Naturally, I begin to scream at him to place his limb back into the vehicle, but this just gets him more excited and inspired to wave and wiggle his foot at other cars in the next lane. He is having the time of his life, bragging about his multi-tasking and saying something about how this will air out his socks when we hear a police siren behind us.
Fantastic.
And a few minutes later…
That doesn't look like the face of regret.
When the cop cames by, LO is able to talk down the ticket from careless driving to improper lane change, but I am not impressed. Because, while the police man might be a sucker for this particular type of innocent charm, I know. I know that this is the guy capable of such other driving-related offenses as:
Eating poppy seed cake from the Polish store TWO MINUTES after buying it because home is too far away.
Snuggling.
Exploiting his awesome girlfriend by taking cute couple shots after she falls asleep (yes, while driving!) and not telling her about them until she finds them the next day while uploading her pictures (Unfortunately, I have several photos like this, from several different days. I should really start drinking coffee before getting into a car with this guy).
EDIT: I just realized, from looking at the photos, that LO was also not wearing a shirt when this foot incident occured. It’s a wonder he wasn’t asked to do a breath test!
Let’s say you’re currently five hours away from your girlfriend. You know she’s had a pretty rough day. And you find yourself on the web cam. What do you do to cheer her up?
Tell her you love her? Blow her a kiss? Show her a nipple?
If you’re LO, these are all just warm-ups (and do actually take place, including the nipple)
Instead, you pull your sweater over your face and type in:
“this is my burka”
“will you marry me?”
Then, place a t-shirt around the top of your head and type:
“i’m a genie in a bottle!”
Out of the blue.
You then proceed to wrap the whole t-shirt around your head so as to look like Mother Terera and mouth religious words and hold your hands in an “Amen” pose (unfortunately not pictured because your girlfriend was laughing too hard to push the “Print Screen” button on her laptop).
Also out of the blue.
This is really quite funny to her, but still does not beat the time you did this:
(I cannot remember WTF this furry object was…)
Even as a (coughcough) “writer”, I find “new baby” and “wedding” greeting cards really difficult to fill out. I mean, what do you really have to tell someone besides CONGRATULATIONS?
A lot, apparently.
Because every time LO fills out a card, there just isn’t enough room for all the heartfelt sentiments he wishes to express. Literally – he nearly runs out of space every time!
When we were attending one of his friend’s weddings last summer, I noticed the envelope was pretty thick. When I asked him what was inside, he pulled out a millitary work order form (not its technical name but whatever)- something that gets filled out when a piece of equipment is broken.
“Huh?” you might think to yourself, as I did. “WTF does that have to do with a wedding?”
He filled out the card for the groom’s penis and signed it as the bride.
“Ahhh…riiiiight!”
And the “new baby” card? I would have stared at it for minutes, trying to find synonyms for “congratulations!” in my head. But not LO. He takes it out of the envelope and starts writing right away.
I’m thinking something along the lines of, “Felicitations!” (it’s. a. word), “All the best!” or “Yay!”
But when I look over at the card, he’s already got it started, his way:
“We are thrilled you have decided to produce offspring!”
Well, then.
