Creepy Situation: Averted. Thanks Mom!

The United States has an early alert system for terrorism. Terror levels are denoted by color – red is the highest, and on down from there. Towns have tornado sirens to let people know that a tornado is coming so they can prepare. My disaster alert? My mom.

Example. The other night when I was driving home, my mom called to tell me something, and as we were getting off the phone, she’s like “Don’t stop for any weirdos!” And I was like “Uh, okaaaaay.” So she tells me that apparently there’s a guy posing as a cop and pulling over young women (which I would know if I watched the news, but who needs it when I can just get the highlights from my mom, right?). So I said “Ok, mom. I won’t pull over for any cops. Only hobos.” And she’s like “What?” And I said “Hobos! Can I stop for hobos?” So she’s cracking up and is like “No. Don’t stop for anyone.” I said “What? What? I’m getting to a place where I’m going to lose you. I have to go – there’s a hobo I have to pick up.” I hung up as she was still laughing – it’s a good thing my mom understands me.

The most recent example was this morning at church. Here’s the thing – churches attract quite a cross-section of people, people who are educated, uneducated, wealthy, poor, EVERYONE is at a church. They’re there for a reason, and so it makes it difficult from the standpoint of dealing with them socially. Since I work there, it makes it even MORE difficult, because it would look so bad if one of the staff was rude or unkind to a church member.

So there’s this guy there. He’s the parent of one of the youth group kids, and he’s kind of a loner. Like I said, every church has it’s oddballs – ours is no different, and you just deal with them. But this guy? This guy creeps me out to no end. He’s one of those who doesn’t have a great amount of social skills, and is maybe not aware of the, um, level of appropriateness of certain comments. I’ll just say it – he hits on me and it freaks me out. Usually I can deal with the weirdos just fine, but there’s something about this guy that gives me the heebie jeebies. Plus, the rest of the weirdos don’t hit on me. It started about a month ago and I’ve avoided him ever since. He doesn’t seem to get it though. He hovers around outside my office, and if I’m somewhere talking to someone, he keeps walking by, trying to catch my eye. I pretend not to notice. So far, it’s worked great, especially since there is rarely a time when I’m by myself – I’m either talking to people or I have my posse of youth group kids with me. I’ve told my pastor (since she’s also my boss and I figured I should let her know) and I told my mom, since she’s there every Sunday as well. And because did I mention I’m so creeped out? Anyway.

This morning, I was sitting in my office talking to one of my girls, and my mom came in to say hi. As she was leaving, she walked through the outer office to the hallway, and I hear her say REALLY LOUDLY “HI (creepy guy’s name)! How ARE you?” I kicked my door shut, and me and my girl kept talking. Way to be mom. Thanks for the warning.

I’m not sure how long I’ll have to avoid this guy before he gets the picture. But as long as I have my protective kid force field and my early warning mom, well, I think I’ll be just fine.

I Like Pelicans.

So here’s a little bit of insight into something that started out as a simple comic that made me laugh and has evolved into a way of life.

The above comic is “Robotman” (now “Monty”) and it is circa 1994. I’m not sure how I got a hold of it, because it wasn’t published in the paper that I got at home. I was probably reading this other newspaper during class. I mean I was LEARNING. LEARNING. I was probably perusing the NEWS and accidentally glanced at the comics section. Oh no I wasn’t perusing the news. I was totally reading the comics -- I never read the news, especially not as a senior in high school, which is when this was.

Anyway. For some reason, this struck me as hilarious. HI-LARIOUS. Seriously – who hasn’t been in a situation where there was an awkward silence and in your desperation to think of something to say, something totally ridiculous comes out? Don’t lie – you know it’s totally happened to you. Hope and Alice -- I know you've got something for me here.

So I showed the comic to my girls, and they also thought it was funny. And so was born one of our “timeless catch phrases.” Whenever there was a long silence, someone would say “I like pelicans.” Whenever someone would say something random or out of the blue, the other ones would look at them and say “…and you like pelicans?” I get that a lot, which may come as a surprise to all of you, since I am always so LOGICAL and SENSIBLE. And not at all random.

My parents caught on to my amusement by this comic, mostly because they kept hearing “I like pelicans,” followed by loud laughter, and so a few years ago, they started buying me pelican paraphernalia. It got off to kind of a rocky start when they went to Mexico and brought me back a bracelet that was all penguins. I didn’t get the significance, which must have showed plainly on my face, because my mom said “it’s penguins. Because you always say ‘I like penguins.’” And I started laughing and said “It’s PELICANS, mom. I like PELICANS.” Oh mom, you're always good for a laugh since you usually only half listen to me. Anyway, so once my parents got it straight and my firends caught on, the pelican stuff started to filter in, because, lets face it, there isn’t a lot of demand for pelican merchandise in a landlocked state such as this one. But then we went on a family vacation to Virginia Beach 3 years ago. We always do the touristy shopping thing (and we did a lot that week because it rained the whole damn time) and since it IS a beach town, there were a LOT of pelican items to be had. Thanks to my dad, I’m pretty sure that I left with one of each of them. And what I didn’t get in VA, I got the next year when we went to Florida. Thanks, dad!

Anyhoo, that’s the story of how I started collecting pelican stuff. And also the story of the advent of one of the best catchphrases ever. In my opinion, that is. Feel free to use said catchphrase whenever the awkward situation warrants it.

Elevator Thinking

I thought maybe I'd regale you with my thoughts as I sat stuck in an elevator by myself for an hour one morning a couple of years ago. We had recently moved our office to the building we're in now, which is about one mile from our former building. I really loved our former building, because it had a little locker room in the bathroom, and I was pretty much the only person who ever used it. So one morning, I had just come from the gym and I decided that I would go to the old building and shower there, sharing the space with no one, rather than showering at the NEW building, where there were always other people. It sounded like the perfect plan. Until I got stuck in the elevator. Yes, on my way up to the 4th floor, the elevator just stopped. Ah yes, a smashing start to a Monday.

After I decided that abject panic and/or crying was not going to do any good, I rang the emergency elevator bell. Not without reluctance, because while I very much enjoy the spotlight, I would prefer it to be in a situation that isn’t embarrassing as all hell and also where I don’t look like something the cat dragged in. More on that later. "Help!" I said. "I'm stuck in the elevator!" Distant voices drifted down to me as the people who heard me sad that help was on the way. Super.

So I sat down, and I'm thinking to myself "Ok, what if the cable breaks and the elevator free falls to the bottom of the shaft??? What if there's sparks and it ignites and I'm trapped??? Oh wait, I'm in between the ground floor and the second floor, so I'm probably out of danger. Though I do bruise rather easily. Even so, I haven't heard a lot about those falling-half-a-floor elevator casualties, so I think I can breathe easy. Breathe easy?? Oh my god, is it me, or is the air getting thin in here? What if the elevator guy takes so long to get here that I suffocate because I only have this little box of air? I mean, how long can you go with only the air that is in this elevator RIGHT NOW -- oh yeah, and the air that I also noticed coming through the crack in the doors. Hmmm. I guess I'm doing ok in the oxygen department. I mean, if all else fails, I can put my mouth up to the door crack and breathe that way. Though that might look a little strange when whoever comes to rescue me gets here – ‘why no, I was NOT french kissing the elevator doors, I was simply trying to get some fresh air.’ Really, this situation just gets more and more humiliating by the minute.”

More thinking. “Ok, so if someone comes through the roof to rescue me, will he let me bring my boots? Those are my favorite boots. I guess I could put them on and leave behind my running shoes, but then again, those shoes were over $100. Oh wait. The elevator will eventually get fixed, whether I'm in it or not, so I think no matter what, I would get to keep both pairs of shoes. So what if the guy who comes to rescue me is like Mr. July in the firefighter calendar? That would be awesome. Wait, no, I haven't taken a shower yet and I just went running. And I slept on my hair funny and my mascara is at the bottom of my gym bag and I forgot to bring lip stuff. Plus, it's pretty dark. I don't know how it would turn out if I tried to apply any sort of makeup in this lighting. Probably not good. Not good at all. Here’s hoping for ugly and/or old and/or married firefighters. Or maybe one hot one who is enthralled by my natural beauty. Hmmm. No -- better stick to ugly/old/married.”

“Why oh why did I think this would be a good idea. This is what I get for being all high-maintenance and in the two years we were here before we moved our office, I've never talked to anyone else on the other floors of this building, and yet now they're all trying to be encouraging -- "hang in there!" and "you're ok!" Not to split hairs here, because I appreciate them not just leaving me here alone, but a) how do you KNOW I'm ok -- what if I had some horrible heart condition or I'm abnormally claustrophobic? I would be decidedly NOT ok if that were the case. And b) Hang in there? Really? Now I’m thinking of that poster of the cat hanging from the tree branch, and I’ve realized that my plight has been reduced to a punch line from a 1970s-era “humor” poster.”

“I wish my cell phone worked, because I’m getting pretty bored in here. Plus, I need to call work and explain to them why not only am I going to be late, but also why I’m going to have to be even later because I still have to take a shower. I’m thinking my boss is going to sigh and roll her eyes when she hears my excuse. Like a couple of weeks ago when I called to say I’d be late because I got lost on the way to the office. That’s right – lost. Granted, our office is in a new place, but it’s practically in the backyard of the old office that I’ve been coming to every day for the past TWO YEARS. And I got lost. See, what happened was I thought I’d miss this one traffic backup and take a detour, only it wasn’t as much of a straight shot as I thought, and well, I drove around for a while until finally I was like ‘AH HA! I know where I am now.’ I was like an hour late. I think everyone just smiles, shakes their head and says ‘it could only happen to Amber.’”

“Ok so what if I have to climb out of the elevator through the roof? And what if while I'm doing that (ever so gracefully, I’m sure), I fall? The paramedics would have to come and again, I hate calling attention to myself for stupid stuff. I swear, going to the gym today has just totally worked me over. Speaking of being worked over, remember in 'Silence of the Lambs' when Hannibal Lecter kills that guy and takes his face and puts his dead body on the roof of the elevator? Oh my god, what if the guy who comes through the roof is a psychotic killer who loves that movie? What if this isn't just an ordinary power outage? What if this is like some sort of plot concocted by someone who loves action and/or horror and/or psychological thriller-type movies involving elevator mishaps? Crap. I'd be screwed then.”

“Hey -- is this thing moving?”

Things that rhyme with "writer's block"

Lots of things rhyme with block. I won’t go into what they are right now, but lots of things do.

First of all, I’d like to show some love to the BRAND NEW EVEN MORE HIGH TECH ergonomic wireless keyboard. I don’t quite know how to work all of your bells and whistles yet, o keyboard my keyboard, but I will learn. Oh yes, I will learn.

Here’s something that I’m having a hard time with, though – this fancy new keyboard curves differently than my other one, and so until I get used to it, it’s typo city around here. I’m going to attempt to type the rest of this post and leave it just the way it is so that you too can enjoy the typing related hijinks. Chances are though, the Word OCD will kick in and I’ll have to change all the misspellings and weird punctuation because I just can’t stand it.

And now that I said that, I can’t think of anything else to write. Actually, I think I’m getting sick, and so Marlene gave me some Advil cold and sinus medicine and I now feel a little silly and probably even more random than usual. I’m warning you of that in advance as well. I’m just full of disclaimers today. Sorry. In advance.

Christmas is coming. I know that for those of you who live under rocks, this is going to come as a great shock, because apparently you didn’t walk into the aisle next to the Halloween costumes back in October and suddenly become confused because it was 70 degrees outside, yet Aisle 7 had already become a veritable winter wonderland. I was somewhere this weekend (yes, I know – that narrows it RIGHT down) and I all of the sudden had the urge to get out all my Christmas decorations. Marlene and I were somewhere recently (again, the specifics are mind-boggling) and I was saying how I was thinking about getting a Christmas tree again this year and she looked at me and said “Oh how quickly the memory fades.” She’s referring to the fact that last year I waged a full-on war against the pine needles in my house. They were EVERYWHERE. I came into work every day with an update of the odd places in which I found pine needles. The last straw (or needle, if you will. And I will) was one day after I had gotten rid of the tree. I was rejoicing over the fall of the pine needle regime, and part of the rejoicing involved taking a shower. I went to turn on the water, and lo and behold, in the bottom of my big bathtub, was one lone pine needle. Laying there, taunting me. Anyway, when Marlene reminded me of the pine needle debacle of ’04, I was like “sure, but this year I have a vacuum that actually WORKS.” What can I say. I’m a sucker for Christmas.

Ok, I’m going to leave you with a shout out to my girls Karen and Kendra – we had dinner with Kendra’s mom on Saturday night and as a result, I think Kendra has a future either as a mime (but I hope not because mimes are scary) or as one of those people who translate for the deaf. Could be either, but whatever it was, it was funny as hell. Even though the rocket scientist at the restaurant wouldn’t give us an ETA on those awesome smelling cinnamon rolls. Jerk.

And yes, no typos = Word OCD. I’m sorry, I just can’t do it.

Dear Wireless Ergonomic Keyboard

Sometimes when I type, I get good sentences because the keyboard does what I want it to. But sometimes, I can’t get it to do what I want it to and I don’t know why. Maybe it just hates me. Maybe it’s all in my head. Because I’ve been typing along for a couple of sentences now with no issues. Stupid keyboard. Make up your mind because I don’t need your intermittent crap. I have stuff to do and you are not being helpful. I want to like you because you are so high tech what with your ergonomic design and your wirelessness and your cool immediate buttons and your sleek black look. I want us to have a good relationship because, let’s be honest, I spend a lot of time here at my desk with you. I use you to do work and to write papers and emails and blogs and all kinds of stuff. You know, important stuff. And now here I’ve gotten through a whole paragraph and you’re acting as if I’m crazy for thinking that you aren’t working and so when the IT Guy shows up to check out the situation, I look like an idiot who doesn’t understand all of this newfangled technology and whatnot, and then you’re going to gloat for a while and then as soon as he leaves, you’ll start acting all wonky again and I’ll be forced to get REALLY ANGRY. Did you hear me keyboard? Angry. I’ve gotten veeeeery frustrated with you today – I mean, at first it was sort of amusing to see which letters you were going to choose to type. Like yesterday, when I was on IM with Linda. I accidentally sent her a message that was supposed to say “I swear” but actually said “swrgjsanjkfnsdjf” because I got mad that you wouldn’t let me type the necessary vowels and so I was hitting keys randomly, including the “enter” button. Oh ho ho – I know – soooo funny. But after a while, well, it got to be less and less funny and more and more angry-making. Maybe my anger makes you angry and then you become passive aggressive in order to put me in my place. If that’s the case, well, you can just stop it right now because I know people who do that and when they exhibit that sort of behavior, all it does is further piss me off and then I begin to look for fights because I hate it when people (and keyboards) are passive aggressive. However, the big difference is that with you, I can throw you across the room in anger. With other people, I just have to take it and hope that it passes. See what I have to deal with when I’m not dealing with you, keyboard? See how I want you to make my workday better and more comfortable? So that when I have to deal with mean people, at least I’m not already on the warpath because of all the keyboard frustrations I’ve had for THE ENTIRE day. I know you saw me working on actual work-related items, and I know you know that The Boss is here – no, not Bruce Springsteen, you idiot. I’m serious here – quit making jokes. The Boss is here and therefore I have stuff I need to get done. So why don’t you help me do that instead of sabotaging my every move? Can’t you be happy for me that I actually have stuff to do instead of just mindlessly staring at the screen as I google endless things? Just because you don’t have a boyfriend doesn’t mean that you should take it out on me. What do you mean what am I talking about. I’m talking about the fact that maybe this passive aggressive behavior is due to something rooted a little deeper than the water I spilled on you yesterday. Oh yes it was an accident, quit saying I did it on purpose. And quit trying to change the subject. What, now you just cannot be happy for me when I’m dating someone, and so you get all judgmental when I try to type stuff about it, so much so that eventually I just learn not to type about it here because it’s not worth the irritation. Yeah, you heard me – I have a laptop at home that I’m MORE THAN HAPPY to write stuff on if this behavior continues. You’ve been here when I typed all that stuff about the LOSERS I dated all summer, why can’t you just be cool when I want to write something NICE about someone? Instead of complaining that there are no decent guys out there by only letting me type the occasional vowel and alternate consonants. Well, there aren’t any decent guys out there – not if you keep being such a light bulb bitch and not getting yourself out there. Light bulb – on again, off again? I’m sorry, but a man is not going to magically appear on your doorstep with no effort put forth by you, and even if he did, chances are you would hate his shoes or the way he stands or how his left ear is a fraction of a centimeter higher than his right ear, or that he’s a hunt-and-peck typist instead of typing fast and with correct form. Because all of those are deal breakers. Yes, I realize that I was the one who purchased you at Office Depot, and had I known that this is how it was going to turn out, well, I would have left you there so that someone MALE and BETTER LOOKING would have bought you. Yes. Someone like The Guy With the Hottest Ass Ever. Exactly. But that didn’t happen now, did it. What, I already said I was sorry. Let’s get back to what I was telling you. Being picky is one thing, being scared is quite another. And denying that you’re scared will get you nowhere except a one way ticket to alone land, where you’ll be ALONE because you’ve become so bitter that you alienate all of your friends, even your faithful sidekick the ergonomic mouse. So think about that, keyboard. Don’t alienate me. Because I want to be your friend, but there comes a point when it gets to be too hard. And you know what? That point is today. After I post this, I’m taking you back to Office Depot and REPLACING YOU. Yes. So now you can have a second chance at the love you want that CLEARLY I am not capable of giving you. Don’t start with the crocodile tears. I know you’re secretly happy. Yes, we did have some good times – don’t cheapen it now by pretending you’re all broken up about it. And yes, if you must know. It’s NOT me – it’s you.*

*I got that from Paul