Life in progress

Tag Archives: Humor


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L is for Lowly

I am but a lowly member of society. Lower than a proletariat – I’m not even working-class. I’ve been judged for the way I look, the way I dress… or at least I suppose that is why I was judged. I resemble a plebe.

It was about 21 years ago. I’d just moved into my own house, miles away from where my mother was trying to sell hers so that she could be closer to me. Since I was already in the area, I was shopping around new subdivisions for her. For a while we were considering sharing a home–a big one–so I went to my local bank manager to see what I could get pre-approved for. He gave me a number and so out I went.

I walked into one sales office and was looking over floor plans. There were two sales people, a man and a woman; both smiled at me and let me look, which was fine I supposed. Then a couple walked in. Both sales people pounced. Now here was a sale!! I waited patiently for the other potential customers to leave and then finally I guess the sales lady got tired of seeing me there (or assumed if she didn’t talk to me I’d never leave – I might even scare away real buyers!) and came over to ask if she could help me.

“This one,” I said, pointing.

“Yes, that’s a very nice house. The second largest.” She smiled, humoring me.

“I’m thinking about buying one. Can I see your lot layout?”

She stared at me.

“I’ve been pre-approved for $250,000…”

Never seen anyone move so fast in my life.

I took the information and left. I didn’t go back.

Among the synonyms for lowly, are average, dutiful, humble, modest, and unpretentious.

There are also these: common, inferior, poor, submissive, and unassuming. Ah, how ironic.


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H is for High-Spirited

I used to be very much a horse person. I loved horses as a kid – wanted to spend all my time with horses, so I talked my parents into sending me to horse camp where I learned how to ride. I remember being assigned my horse at the beginning of the week – the one I would ride twice a day. Oh how happy I was when I finally graduated to the more high-spirited horses!

I began of course with the ones that just plodded along. The ones that give the rider the illusion that he or she is in control but in fact there is nuthin’ that’s gonna change that beast’s mind about following the horse-bum in front of it. I swear sometimes those kinds of horses are sleep walking.

Years later as an adult I went back to farm where I had formerly gone to camp and got a job taking out trail rides. The number one rule for guiding a trail is to watch the customers, meaning that as a guide, I’d spend three quarters of my time twisted around in the saddle facing forward but looking back. This includes while trotting and galloping. I remember my first trail – my God was I nervous! Nervous as in I didn’t have a single drop of spit in my mouth nervous. Riding backwards while running turned out to be the least of my worries that day.

You see, every once in a while we’d get a real ass (and I’m not talking about a donkey) go out for a ride. It was normally a young guy who wanted to show off to his friends how skilled he was on horseback. Invariably the ass had no idea what he was doing. Normally we could spot them 100 miles off and stick them on one of the aforementioned plodders. No problem, right? I got one of these guys my very first trail ride ever. And somehow he managed to do the one thing that would get a plodder’s attention.

We had on the farm a thing we called “the gallop strip.” It was a stretch of trail facing away from the barn (because if you gallop a horse in the direction of the barn it ain’t gonna stop) that nine times out of ten the more high-spirited horses would behave themselves on, and the plodders would get up to a trot… which was hilarious when we got one of our macho men on one, because he’d be bouncing all over the place totally out of control. Not so much on my first time out.

My macho man managed to hold his horse back through sheer brutality when everyone else started to run. Me, not being experienced, tried but failed to slow everyone else down (a lesson I quickly learned). So when the plodder, freaked out that his horsey friends’ bums had left without him, he finally bolted. The horse passed the trail line, passed me and took off for the barn. There I was screaming at the guy as he’s getting farther and farther away (with not an ounce of spit which was difficult) to pull back on the reins and stop squeezing with his feet which was what was making the horse go faster, I couldn’t chase him because the rest of my trail would chase me…

Needless to say I ended my first trail ride as a guide in tears. But, as they say, you’ve just got to dust yourself off and get right back on, right? I loved that job; I did it for about five years. And I’ve got a million stories to go with it.

So much for my letter of the alphabet today, eh? Oh wait – one of the synonyms for “high-spirited” is “dashing.” That works. 😀

Me at 12 years old

Me, at 12 years old

 

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions


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G is for Glacial

Oooh, brrrr. Here’s a chilly subject. Appropriate considering we’re getting freezing rain here. Tiny little glaciers falling from the sky. The kind of weather that lifts your shoulders to your earlobes.

Speaking of cold shoulders, (what a segue, eh?) the first synonym in my thesaurus for glacial is antagonistic. Along those lines are also inimical (I absolutely cannot pronounce that word. Can you?) and unfriendly. This immediately brings trolls to my mind; the glacial denizens of the internet.

We’re all waiting to cross that bridge, aren’t we? If we haven’t already of course. That icy, slippery causeway to misery – commentary’s dip into a hostile Arctic abyss.

Or.

Just ignore them and they’ll go away.

The word, “glacial” also brings to mind my childhood and my favourite pasttime back then – figure skating. Although I practiced for eight years, I never did perfect the art of the axel. For those of you not too familiar, it’s a jump that involves taking off from a forward facing direction, spinning one and a half rotations (for a single axel) in the air and landing on the opposite foot facing the other direction. I simply didn’t have the guts to really give it 100% of my effort. I did enjoy coaching, though. Figure skating is one of those things that fits well into the adage, “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”

What are you better at teaching than doing?

 

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

 


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F is for Forefather

Up until now, the word “forefather” has always seemed a little redundant to me. Of course after I turned to it in my thesaurus as my word of the day, I looked it up to get a little more insight on what exactly it means, but in the past I was all like, “of course it’s a FOREfather. Can’t really be an AFTERfather, can it? Dad has to come first unless someone’s discovered the secret to time travel – and going down that road is just ewww…” *thinks of that episode of Futurama in which Fry discovers he’s his own grandfather* But now I’ve discovered it means every papa that came before dear ol’ dad it makes a little more sense.

I’ve never been much into family trees. I know I came from somewhere and while it would be nice to know whether or not I descend from royalty (my kids’ behaviour sometimes indicates that I actually may), since it doesn’t much help me one way or another I don’t really care enough to go delving. I understand there are cultures that are way into knowing where they come from and I think that’s very cool. Information like that, passed down through generations and not having to be discovered from scratch would be quite useful at times. Then again, finding out your predecessor was a dirty rotten scoundrel might be equally as disconcerting.

Before I sign off on this post I really REALLY have to mention one of the synonyms I found for “forefather.” I’m going to start using it any chance I get – it’s so cool. Ready?

PRIMOGENITOR

Seriously! Doesn’t it sound like some sort of awesome Transformer! Imagine, traveling back in time and meeting up with this ginormous dude made of space-aged plastic who bends down, and roars in a heavy, digitally enhanced bass, “I AM YOUR PRIMOGENITOR,” (with emphasis on the OR) and then picks you up and starts bouncing you on his knee.

Here’s a visual:

DSC00335

I’m happy I have primogenitors! Aren’t you?


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E is for Easy

And… this is the hardest word I’ve had to deal with yet. How ironic.

Actually, you know what? If you’re EVER looking for inspiration for something to write on your blog and you have an actual, physical thesaurus (because it’s not going to work with an online one), challenge yourself to write whatever you turn to. Even if you have to close your eyes, open the book and point. Whichever root word your finger lands on, write the first thing that comes into your head. Not good enough? Look at the synonyms! Everything you need to write a post is there.

Like this one – “easy.” The entry for this is full of not only words that mean the same thing, but there are phrases as well. For example: “easy as pie.” How easy is a pie? Have you ever made a pie from scratch? I haven’t. Why? It’s too damned hard! The phrase makes absolutely no sense to me. Or how about “like taking candy from a baby”? That’s not friggin’ easy! It’s cruel! Who the hell wants to take candy from a baby? If nothing else it disturbs the peace!

So what have I learned from this post? From this little exercise? That apparently the easiest thing of all to do today is get me into rant mode. Odd that some of the synonyms further down on the list are serene, tranquil, and untroubled. That’ll teach me to read the whole entry before I start typing next time, won’t it?

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

BATZAP by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

 


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C is for Commit

As you probably know, my words for this A-Z Challenge are coming at random from my thesaurus. I’m absolutely committed to sticking to the rule I set for myself to take whatever word I open the book to that is the second from the bottom on the left-hand page. This will not, by the way, apply to the letters X and Y and Z- there aren’t enough pages for those letters. But I digress. My main concern today for the letter C was one particular entry that just happens to be the second-last letter in the left hand column on page 104:

CAM00650

Yes, this could have been the word of the day. It was with a grimace and a prayer to the word gods of the planet Thesauri that I gingerly parted the pages of my big red book and believe me, it was with a sigh of relief that I discovered I wouldn’t have to talk about cocks. Luck was on my side; I landed instead on page 108 and the word “commit.”

I think to a certain extent we all have things that we’re compulsive over. One of my biggest compulsions is that I must stick to a commitment. I may even be worse–more determined–with the commitments I make to myself, though I’m pretty fierce when it comes to doing whatever I promised someone else I’d do. Which is why it just about kills me when I can’t keep up with these challenges I set for myself.

One of the synonyms for “commit” is “imprison.” I do, in a way, imprison myself when I dedicate myself to something. I box myself in but that’s really not all that bad. For an unemployed (at least in a 9-5 sense) woman, structure isn’t something my days are filled with. Yes, I have to get up when the rooster crows (see what I did there?) for my kids, and I have to be here when they come home, but what of the space in between when they’re at school? A commitment to something consigns me to a task. In the case of this particular commitment–blogging–you, my friends, are my overseers.

I wouldn’t let us down unless under duress.

What, apart from your family and your job are you committed to? And how far would you go to honour your commitment? I’d love to know.

 


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FLIP PHONE ON BED OF RICE

For a giggle AND a helpful tip, read this!
Note: Comments here are closed. Please comment on the original post.

rixlibris's avatarrixlibris

An Unintentional Experiment

Materials needed:

One flip phone, make and model optional.  I used a Huawei from Consumer Cellular.

Pair of jeans, label, size and style optional.  I opted for Levi’s traditional 501 button fly, size 32X32.

A household washing machine.

One large zip-lock sandwich bag.

A container of rice, Uncle Ben’s or brand of your choice.

Procedure sequence:

Load dark load into washing machine.  Strip pockets of jeans currently being worn and place all objects on dresser.  Answer ringing phone and engage in overly long conversation.  Upon concluding conversation place phone into hip pocket of jeans, right or left, your call.  Complete several chores before returning to laundry.  Slip out of jeans and add to dark load.  Start washing machine.  Allow an hour or so to pass and then return to laundry in order to place load into dryer.  Discover flip phone at bottom of washing machine.  Utter expletive or expletives…

View original post 162 more words


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A is for Aisle

Clean up in aisle two!

Don’t you hate it when you go into a store and the displays are set up so that the aisles are barely wide enough to get your cart through? And God forbid you should have a double stroller with two toddlers! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to back out of the narrow corridor that makes up the cereal section or worse, the cookies I just barely got my kids past in the first place.

I don’t understand why retailers can’t grasp the concept that shoppers are more likely to knock over their little cardboard shelving units than buy something off them. We don’t see the products on them – what we see are obstacles!

The above is my off-the-cuff response to my word of the day, found at random in my thesaurus on the left-hand, chosen-at-random page under “A”, second word from the bottom. I have, however, learned something new from this exercise.

One of the synonyms under the word “aisle” is the word “ambulatory.” As someone who has spent a great deal of time in hospitals, I’ve often heard the word in medical terms, as an adjective meaning to be able to walk or get around under one’s own steam. But apparently, used as a noun, it also means “a place to walk.”

Who knew?

Armed with this new knowledge, you can be sure the manager at my local grocery store will hear about it the next time he sticks an obstruction in the middle of the damned ambulatory.

Clean up in ambulatory two! Lady no longer ambulatory!


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One-Liner Wednesday – The Way a Writer’s Mind Works

My best friend John bought a loaf of Dempster’s Supergrain bread and left it on my counter. I didn’t notice what kind it was until early the next morning. I usually buy Seed Lover’s bread and so that’s what I was expecting – therefore, what I read in my early morning stupor was “Superseed,” which made me wonder if I should eat it before I finished the old loaf…
(supersede)

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Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Make it either funny or inspirational.

Have fun!


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Bedside Manner at the Dentist

I need your opinion on an important matter. First, the back-story.

Earlier this year I went to the dentist. I don’t like the dentist – this is something you need to know to truly understand where I’m coming from. In fact, “don’t like” is really a mild way of saying I’m a wuss.

It was my first time at this particular dentist and my first time in a long time at any dentist. I needed a filling. It all started great but then the dentist noticed my tooth was cracked. It needed some special attention. I, being who I am, let the dentist know in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t happy about what he was doing in my mouth. Suffice to say I said, “ouch” a few times.

It had already been determined that I needed two more fillings on the other side. The dentist suggested, quite strongly, that I should go to another dentist and get a general anaesthetic. I told him fine, I’d check and see how much it would cost.

Whoa.

So, I went back to the first dentist (to get a cleaning this time) and when I saw him I told him that I wanted him to do the other two fillings. He didn’t think this was a wise choice.

“But I can’t afford a general anaesthesia,” I told him.

“Well, you were in a lot of discomfort last time,” he said. “And besides, we have the other patients to consider…”

The other patients? I didn’t think I was that loud.

Dentists, even ones who don’t put you under, are expensive. The cleaning alone cost me hundreds of dollars, not to mention the fillings which were more costly. So here’s where your opinion comes in:

A) If you’re emptying your wallet at the dentist, do you have the right to be as loud as you want?

or

B) If you’re emptying your wallet at the dentist, do you have the right to a peaceful visit without someone in the next room wailing like a banshee/complaining that the dentist is trying to kill her/saying ouch?

or

C) Would you trust a dentist who had separate soundproof rooms?

or

D) All of the above.

or

E) None of the above.

Here’s a poll:

Please vote and add your two cents (or five, if you’re Canadian) in the comments. I need an answer to this conundrum!