Author: maggeh

First, the Good News

A 54-year-old woman who works four jobs, recently won $76 million in the lottery. She didn’t tell her bosses at first, because she’d just requested more hours and felt obligated to work them for awhile.

A gardener found $1,700 under a bush while he was working and actually turned it in to the police. It belonged to a woman who had been saving a dollar a day for a trip to Universal Studios with her son, and had also been holding on to her father’s savings from his Social Security so he could afford a car.

A Bellevue couple chopped up twenty-six trees on a public trail in an attempt to improve the view from their “hillside home.” They were caught in the act, and now they’ll be paying the city $150,000, publicly apologizing, and doing some community service time.

( All via Romenesko’s Obscure Store and Reading Room.)

Ciao, Baby

We flew to Italy out of New York a few days ago. The approximately 135-mile drive from Wilmington, Delaware to NYC took two hours. The last ten miles of New York traffic lasted three.

Half-an-hour worth of NYC traffic was within olfactory range of a truckload of spilled chicken that had obviously been rotting in the street for awhile. As Bryan said, only in New York does a pile of raw meat remain in the road long enough to make you dry heave as you pass.

The rental car, oddly, was infested with spiders. I realize this sounds like a detail from a drug-induced haze, but I have the bites to prove it. What’s more, my attempts to procure drugs in Keller, Virginia were surprisingly fruitless.

We’re in Milan now for the Adaptive Path Workshop. According to my guidebook, Italian men should have leapt at me as I got off the plane and refused to stop grabbing at my ass until I batted at them with rolled newspapers. I dutifully learned the suggested phrases to ward off unwanted advances:

At the cafe, where I’d like to read as I sip my wine, “Mi lasci en pace, per favore.” (Please leave me alone, in peace.)

On the train, where someone is bound to grope me, a loud, “Que schifo!” (How disgusting!)

And the charmingly all-purpose, “Adesso, basta!” (Enough already, buck-o.)

Sadly, I’ve yet to have a single Milanese man make an inappropriate advance. What’s more, all of them dress better than me. Italy is doing nothing for my self-esteem.

Congrats Rachel and Rosecrans!

We just left North Carolina. I’ve never been in the South before. It’s prettier over here, and the barbeque is better.

As you might expect, I’m eating a lot of fried stuff. Also, I don’t know what anything is. The waitress looked confused when I asked her what hush puppies were. The girl at the coffee shop was amazed when I asked what was in a moon pie. The girl at the breakfast place heartily recommended that I have the cheese grits instead of the regular grits. I can’t imagine that the cheese made much of a difference.

We crossed the border into Virginia late last night and spent two hours this morning trying to find a place to get an Internet connection. Finally we found WebCity. I’m currently sitting in a dark room with five guys who’ve been talking about how much ammo they have stored, how much they got paid for not killing that one guy, and so on, for the last hour.

Day Hike

Me: Which way should we go?

Ali: Let me check the map.

(Older male jogger appears on the trail.)

Me: Excuse me. Which trail leads back to the trailhead?

Him: Heh. You ever seen Deliverance?

Me: Yes.

Him: “You’re a long ways from home son.”

Me: Huh.

Him: I’m thinking of that toothless guy.

(Ali and I exchange glances.)

Me: Do you know which way leads to the trailhead?

Him: Yep. You take the trail on the left, cross a bridge, it’ll fork off to the right, but you don’t wanna go that way. Just keep going straight.

Ali: Thanks.

Him: No problem.

(He hesitates, then jogs off.)

Me: Yeah. Word to the wise, fella. When you come across two women alone in the woods, the Deliverance jokes aren’t gonna make an entirely favorable impression.

Ali: Seriously.

Me: Is my pocketknife in the pack?

Ali: I think so.

Me: I’m just gonna grab that.

Overheard

Scenario: Crowded mid-day bus.

Characters: Two men, one at the front of the bus, one near the back. Perhaps homeless, perhaps just a bit off.

Man 1: (Begins yelling suddenly.) K-JAMS on WYMX. WE GOTTA GRRRREEEAT SHOW FOR YOU FOLKS.

Man 2: Ha! Ha! That’s right!

Man 1: That’s right!

Man 2: Hey! Heeeeey! You know Lisa Jones?

Man 1: Yeah.

Man 2: Yeah!

Man 1: She fiddy.

Man 2: What that?

Man 1: She fiddy.

Man 2: She filthy?

Man1: Yeah.

Man 2: She ain’t filthy. She got money.

Man 1: No she ain’t.

Man 2: She got money. She got money. Get back here.

Man 1: All right.

(The two converse mostly inaudibly, except for occasional mimicry of various radio announcers.)

Man 1: This my stop.

Man 2: You gettin’ off?

Man 1: Yeah.

Man 2: No you ain’t. You gettin off up here where they got the restaurant.

Man 1: No. I got to get off. I got to get me a new T-shirt up here. One I got on all wet ’cause I spilled water on it this… this little bit earlier. I got to get a new one.

(Disembarks.)

Man 2: (Obviously annoyed. Loud.)You got to take a bath. That’s what you got to do. ‘Cause you smell. Smelly sonofabitch. I just washed up this morning. I took three showers. I wash my hair like three times with the soap, used the body wash, everything. Everything. I shampoo like three times, like five times. Like ten times! I got to make sure I smell nice.

Sunday

I only spent about ten minutes at Bay to Breakers this year. The best thing I saw was a guy sitting in a wheelchair, naked from the waist down, walking the chair up the street with his feet.

Later that day, I went to visit my grandmother.

FOOTRACE

Wanna come with us to Bay to Breakers?

I’m going.

Cool, wanna pull a keg with us?

Actually, I’m running it.

You’re running it? …Without beer?

Overheard

Scenario: Bus commute at about 9:30 a.m.

Characters: Two middle-aged men.

Guy 1: A lot of people are late for work today.

Guy 2: Oh, it seems like there’s a whole bunch of people who are on this schedule.

Guy 1: Or maybe a lot of people are late for work today.

Guy 2: By an hour?

(angry silence)

Guy 2: What are you doing for lunch?