Scenes from a classy restaurant

The following are actual conversations I overheard while in line at the classiest restaurant ever, and possible location for Mike and Alison's rehearsal dinner: Arby's.

There were two young brothers in line with with their parents in front of me. One was about eight, the other about six. The older brother was asking the younger one where various food items come from. Here are parts of their actual conversation:

Older Brother: Where does ham come from?

Younger Brother: Chicken!

Older Brother: Where does ketchup come from?

Younger Brother: Plants! (I'll give him partial credit for that one)

Older Brother: Where does bread come from?

Younger Brother: Oh, I know... Cows - the booby part!

HAHAHAHAHA! It took a lot for me not to bust out laughing. So maybe the kids weren't the brightest bulbs, but I have a feeling that it isn't their fault. While the kids were debating where chicken nuggets come from, their mother was placing their order at the counter:

Mother: I'll have a Bacon Beef & Cheddar with American cheese.

Cashier: Um, the Bacon Beef & Cheddar comes with cheddar cheese.

Mother: But I only like American cheese.

Cashier: We don't have American cheese here.

Mother: (disgusted sigh) You don't have any American cheese at all?

Cashier: No, only cheddar.

Mother: (after a long pause) FINE! Forget it. Give me an order of mozzarella sticks.

I'm surprised she didn't order the mozzarella sticks made with American cheese.

My Brain = Mush

Ugh, I have been such a blog slacker, but its not on purpose, I swear!

In the last two weeks, three of the eight people in my office decided to take their vacations all at once, leaving me to deal with way more BS than usual. In fact, the level of BS I have dealt with at work has far exceeded my threshold of how much BS I can take without (A) drinking or (B) punching someone in the face - yet miraculously I've only had a couple of sips of a chocolate martini and everyone in my office still has all of their facial bones in tact (for now). In addition, our database software, which contains oh, only all of the company’s operating data, decided to kick the bucket on the exact day that our entire database/IT department (all two of them) left for vacation. So I was left to deal with the disaster on my own, which was so much fun considering that I am neither a database person nor an IT person. It was great. I love my job.

I've also been insanely busy with my other job, otherwise known as the job in which I deal with The Most Aggravating People on the Planet, but I don't even have the heart to get into that right now. So, basically, my mind has turned to mush and I can barely put together a coherent sentence right now (as you can probably tell). I actually have a couple of posts in the works that I'll try to get up as soon as things get back to normal,* and I'll try to be a better blogger from now on. Thanks for your patience!

*"Normal" being a relative word, of course. As in, I only want to hurl my computer out of the window twice a day as opposed to the four to five times a day I do now.

Congratulations...

...To Mike and Alison!
Happy Engagement! Alison, we knew you were the right girl for Mike when you willingly agreed to make real snowmen in some strangers' front yard while they were on vacation - in the middle of September, in seventy-five degree weather. If that weren't impressive enough, you then endured hours upon hours of (Rock)band practice under the severe regime of the Band Nazi, and were no worse for the wear. You are a good sport!

A bit of advice to the bride and groom: Don't feel like you have to listen to any one's advice if you don't want to. It's your wedding, just do whatever floats your boat. And Mike, by the words "your wedding" I mean "Alison's wedding" of course, so just do whatever she wants! I can't wait 'til your wedding!

...To Michael Phelps!

Congratulations on wining your eleventy-seventh gold medal and making Olympic history, an amazing accomplishment at the age of 23! And I mean that with absolute sincerity. It's unfortunate, though, that your countless hours of intense training never included lessons on how to keep your tongue in your mouth. I guess the US Olympic swim team coaches can't cover everything....

JHabs, these are for you!

Helpful hint: Don't Google "Michael Phelps with his tongue sticking out" when you are at work. Or ever.

OK, this has to be an old picture, or else he has the fastest growing facial hair ever. I could just imagine NBC breaking in to their coverage of " 'Gymnastics', or whatever the hell they call that other sport that doesn't involve Michael Phelps" with breaking news: MICHAEL PHELPS FORGOT TO SHAVE TODAY! MICHAEL PHELPS FORGOT TO SHAVE TODAY! Here is Bob Costas with a live report! Also, his tongue is sticking out in this picture.

Nice action shot. So his tongue is not technically sticking out on this one, but you know it was on its way... Also, his goggles are creeping me out!

This is definitely NOT Michael Phelps. You can tell because there is no tongue sticking out of his mouth. Believe it or not, there are other men on the US Olympic swim team, including this fine young man named Ryan Lotche. I think I will make him my Olympics boyfriend, but I may have to fight off JHabs for him!

Sorry, Ricky.

$9.12

So, last week one of our venues/sales partners called because they were having trouble reconciling the commissions that our company has paid them over the last year. There were some things in the contract that were not too clear, and the director of the venue (whom I shall call Crazy Whacknut or CW for short) seemed to think we owed them more commissions than we had already paid. Because I had 72 better things to do nothing better to, my boss sent me to meet with CW to deal with it.

This is pretty much how the conversation went:

CW: You owe us this. Me: No, we owe you that.
CW: You pay 6%. Me: no we pay 5%.
CW: My records indicate... Me: Well, MY records indicate...
CW: Klq8cdhbaba. Me: Prhy74g!(*&Hhgjunnok/.
CW: Oh no she di'nt. Me: Oh yes she DID!

I must have missed legal contract decoding day at law school, because it was really difficult to determine what we actually owed. Oh wait, I didn't go to law school, so what the hell was I doing trying to figure this out? Anyway, after several hours we came to the agreement that we owed the vendor an additional $9.00 in commission, or about .00003% of the $3,000,000 sales for the year. Really. I'm not kidding.

Feeling half irritated that I had just wasted three hours of my life over $9.00 and half smug that we didn't owe them more, I went back to the office and asked accounting to cut a check for the $9.00. Then I emailed CW to confirm the payment and I sent her all of the backup information and calculations just to be safe.

The next day I got a reply from CW. Basically, it said that our numbers still didn't match exactly for the year, and because she is a "Type-A Personality" she wanted to let me know that the exact amount we owed was not $9.00, but $9.12.

$9.12

$9.12 ?!?

$9 EFFING .12??

Hmmm, I never knew that the "A" in "Type-A Personality" stood for "Asshat". I never gave CW the satisfaction of a reply. Instead, I found out from accounting that they had cut the original check for $9.00 but hadn't mailed it yet, so I took a dime and two pennies from my own purse and gave it to the accountant, who taped them to the check.

My employer can pay me back later.


(Note: I totally stole the word "Asshat" from this awesome blog...)