The Big DumpTruck

Throwing Little Thought Pebbles at Your Windshield Since 1996

Category: humor

I Am Special

I always knew I was special; my mom told me so, and she’s always right. (Trust me. You do not want to argue with her about this.)

HOWEVER, there are times when I don’t want to be special. Do. Not. Want. Today was one of those days. Some people might tell me that I should buy a lottery ticket (I assume they work for the lottery commission?) and some people will say it’s fate, because I’m special. This is the problem.

Today I took my car in for the 30k service, and to have them do the recall check. You know, I own a Mazda 6 and I got a letter about spiders. Spiders building webs in the fuel systems of beloved vehicles that might cause fuel tanks to explode or something. You know, spiders being spiders… being terrorists.

According to my dealership, I’m officially the first customer to bring in a Mazda 6 that ACTUALLY HAD THE SPIDER WEB IN THE FUEL VENT LINE!  I’m SPECIAL!!!!

Out of 65,000 cars recalled, I have the problem. As of a month ago, only 20 cars had a web. I assume there will be more, but what if I’m only 21 out of 65000? What kind of crazy is that? I should celebrate with, I don’t know, pizza and beer? I think that’s how you celebrate the horrible knowlege that a yellow sac spider has it out for you and wants your car to go up in flames. Stupid spider. Stupid being special.

3 Comments by on April 7, 2011
filed in complaint department, humor, stuff
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Accident or Murder?

It is with heavy heart that Phantom Puppy LaFerriere announces the death and removal to a landfill of Baby, his beloved green dinosaur toy. Given to him by his human cousins for Christmas 2010, Baby was carried all over the house, one of the few toys to receive this level of love and attention. As ugly as the toy was, we had grown very attached to it simply because the dog loved it as much as he did.

Yesterday, Phantom’s mom made the horrifying misstep of mentioning how long the dinosaur had lasted, and within 10 minutes, the head was ripped open and fiberfill was flying.

We snuck it away from him and he actually spent 30 minutes HUNTING for the damned dino, and then actually seemed depressed about not finding it. Wouldn’t play fetch. We feel awful. Then again, we’re not the one who RIPPED IT’S HEAD OPEN WITH OUR SHARP DOG TEETH!

Due to Monday trash pickup, there are no calling hours.

No Comments by on March 21, 2011
filed in humor
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Showbiz

My son, the previously mentioned 13-year-old who owns all the socks festooning my home, is an actor. He gets this from his father. I tried to act in high school. My God, I wanted to be a great actress so badly I could taste it. I took theater as an elective and I tried out for all the class plays and the musicals. I was never more than chorus in the musicals, and was only cast in one of the class plays. I still remember one of my lines from it, and I’m not even going to mention how many years it’s been.

Water, water in the kitchen
All around the sink
But you are in the living room
And not a drop to drink.

I played Lettie, an insane poet. It was a murder mystery. I’ll give you two guesses which insane poet was the murderer.

I don’t know that I did a good job. I made people laugh, but that’s because I was the comic relief. I’m pretty sure I spent a lot of the play wearing a shiny yellow raincoat. I don’t think I screwed anything up so badly that I destroyed the production, but I probably chewed on quite a bit of scenery. I think I’d be a much better actress now, because I understand how it’s supposed to work, if someone wants to give me a chance. I’d prefer not to be typecast as a psycho poet, but I’m sure if you happened to SEE me in that production, you might be tempted.

Where was I going with this? Oh, I was discussing my son, whose father used to have an Equity card . He is the tree from which this apple fell. The boy has the lead in one musical (The Sound of Music) and a supporting role (with 4 songs) in another (13: The Musical). He memorizes lines like there’s no tomorrow; another difference between us. (This paragraph could use more parenthesis.) He played Scrooge in the Middle school production of A Christmas Carol and was really good. And I’m not just saying that. Well, I did just say it, but I meant it, you know?

There are rehearsals for one or more shows 5-6 days a week. Tomorrow, he has SoM rehearsal from 9-11 and 13 rehearsal from 1:30-5, which is actually nice because it was supposed to be 12-5 and the drive between rehearsals is about 35 minutes. He’s at 13 rehearsals until 10pm tonight. This child is BUSY.

I can’t wait until he starts getting paid the big bucks for acting because I would REALLY like a house down on the Cape. Maybe something that looks like a castle with turrets and ramparts and whatever else a castle has. But made of glass so I can see the ocean. Ya, that sounds practical! Well, except for the bathroom. Maybe we can have real walls for the bathroom. But everything else should be glass. I don’t want an obstructed view. Also, he’ll have to make enough money for us to invest heavily in Windex. I’m just sayin’.

1 Comment by on March 11, 2011
filed in humor, parenting
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One Million Little Things

My hard drive is full. Well, it was full. One of my external hard drives was also full. (As are all my closets, drawers, and countertops. I am nothing if not consistent.)

So I decided this is the weekend I clean up my hard drive, make some badly-needed backups, etc. You know, the kind of thing I should be doing in my house, but it requires so much more work and possible dishpan hands. So I’m focusing on my computer storage issues. I think that’s fair, and if you don’t, you can only tell me/bitch me out if you first provide me with gifts of some sort. For the record, Girl Scout Cookies are currency in my world.

I set up a different external hard drive, and actually dusted off the Time Capsule server that we have and I hadn’t been using (probably because I hadn’t figured out the benefit yet) and looked at my Time Machine backups to make sure I was in a good spot to start removing things. I wasn’t; it had been a year since I’d run a Time Machine backup. Okay, so I’ll use the Time Capsule to store my backup (because the drive I had been using is full and full is bad and useless).  I set it up and tell it to run a backup. It parses my computer’s hard drive and tells me how many things it has to back up.

997,759 files

How is that even possible? There are almost a MILLION files on my hard drive that have to be backed up? Oh my Lord, no wonder it’s full. How can it even function? How can I find the files I don’t need to delete them?

In the mean time, the biggest problem is moving 109 gig of backup over my wifi network. It almost looks smokey in here, there is so much data floating over my head. I wonder if the people who do those ghost-hunting TV shows would get a reading off the air in my living room? “I’m getting the image of a child playing on your kitchen floor with Matchbox cars, and a Finn Brother’s song…”  “Yes! Yes! Those are being backed up off my hard drive!”

997,759 files. I laugh at your attempts to get me to lead an organized life!

No Comments by on February 20, 2011
filed in humor, stuff
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Useless Writing Advice

I do not have the ability to give advice on being a better writer. I have the ability to give advice on just about anything and everything else, including how to choose a tomato (no skin flaws and it should smell like a tomato), but being  better writer? Well, I suppose I could try, if that’s what you’d like.

Expensive Equipment Helps Create Better Prose

I think this is a gimme. You need the most expensive writing equipment you can find. Take out loans. You need top of the line everything. There’s a pen for sale at the local mall for $10,000. You need that pen. Everything you write with that Bic you stole from a waitress is pure crap. Gerbils can’t even be bothered to shred the paper you write on with your less-than-10k pen. You’ll also need a top of the line Mac laptop, iPad and an iPhone 4. As for the latter, if it isn’t white, you should go turn in your MFA.

Live in a Home with a Real Working Fireplace

If you can’t simulate the working conditions of Charles Dickens or Emily Bronte, what hope do you have of ever convincing a soul that your writing is even passable? You need the sound of a crackling fire as background noise. You need to poke at the embers when you’re having a hard time trying to come up with a new way to describe the angst of the twenty-something. You should just stop writing and call a Realtor. Now.

Burn Candles that Smell Like Lemons

This is a controversial one. I know there are people who would argue with me on this, but you’ve come to me for useless writing advice, so you had best listen to me. Get some lemon-scented candles. You see, what these will do is to trigger strong memories of your mother/aunt/grandmother with the Lemon Pledge obsession and you will get some great material out of remember how much you hated that your mother/aunt/grandmother couldn’t cook/clean/express love. It’s great stuff!

Buy New Camera Equipment

I don’t know that it will really help your writing, but I’m trying to justify a few purchases I’ve made in the past year, so just indulge me, would you?

Get a Metric Ton of Sleep. Nap Like You Mean It.

I can’t say enough about naps and sleeping. I bought flannel sheets and I could live in my bed for the rest of my life. I could be Grandma Georgina, and we would start to wonder again how the four elderly people who never left the bed went to the bathroom after eating cabbage soup 3 meals a day. I promise not to eat cabbage, but I still will probably need to go to the bathroom. Some things can’t be helped.

I think this will help you write better. I won’t know, because I’ll be too busy sleeping to read your book.

2 Comments by on January 17, 2011
filed in humor, lists
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The Secret to Attracting Spammers

I have been on the Internet for about 16 years now. The Internet as we define it today. Prior to that, I ran a BBS out of my bedroom on a dedicated phone line. One person could be logged in at a time. It was great fun, but can you even imagine if the Internet could only support one user at a time? I’d be so annoyed at the busy signals!

Since moving to WordPress (when Blogger inexplicably kicked anyone with their own domain and server space to the curb – Ev wouldn’t have let this happen back when he owned the company. Back then, I even paid extra for my level of membership, because I thought it was worth it. But I seriously digress.) I haven’t had much trouble with spammers. I actually haven’t had many comments at all. Or readers. I think that might be my fault, for neglecting the site while I went crazy playing with Twitter. Banging out 140 characters is easy. Writing longer pieces takes more work, and who on earth wants to have to put effort into anything these days? Hell, I just watched an episode of Victorious on Nick because it was set to record on the DVR and the TV changed channels and I was too lazy to get up to find the remote. That would be work.

And then, Loyal Reader Angie pointed out in an email that my comment functionality was turned off. That happened during an upgrade, I swear. So I think I fixed it. Well, I know I did, because I’ve gotten hammered (for me, anyway) with spammy comments on one single item on the blog. Not across all articles, just on the one. You don’t see them because I set all comments to be approved by me until you’ve previously had one approved. The post in question was about a little Mexican girl who hangs out with a monkey and a backpack. I won’t mention her name because I don’t want to have the spammers attack this post. Of course, they could have picked the word monkey as a trigger and now this one will be a problem too. We’ll see.

So in conclusion, if you want spammers, write about Ora-day. She’s popular.

No Comments by on January 16, 2011
filed in complaint department, humor
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I’m Too Young For This Shit

I know, the movie quote is “I’m too old for this shit” but really, my point is that I’m too young for it. I’m almost a baby! I’m pretty sure I just graduated from kindergarten a year or two ago. I remember we put cream in a Mason jar and everyone in the class took turns shaking the jar until we made butter. We made butter, I tell you! A group of 5 and 6 year olds! It was my single greatest accomplishment from my public school career. I don’t even think it was better than the time I made a terrarium in elementary school (during the same program where I learned how to decoupage and do macrame. Ahh, the 70s.) But wait, I am far too young to have ever been in school (or even BORN!) in the 70s!

You know what? Let’s forget I even mentioned it. Carry on.

No Comments by on January 8, 2011
filed in complaint department, humor, stuff

Dora the Explorer Dinner Discussion

Quick disclaimer: I haven’t watched Dora in years. I haven’t ever watched the spin-off Go, Diego Go. Or whatever it’s called. But I used to watch Dora. My niece was obsessed, and in fact, one year she insisted I needed a Dora cake for my birthday. Which I did. I also didn’t do research to see if these plot holes were address (or raised) on other websites. This is actually a re-creation of a conversation between my son his friend (both middle-schoolers, represented below as “Boy” because I can’t remember who said what) and me at dinner last night.

[The conversation begins with one of them asking why people say Mazel Tov, which segued into asking what Cinco de Mayo means. Which segued into a question about the Day of the Dead, which featured a comment that Dora the Explorer had a show about going to Mexico for the  Day of the Dead. Or something.]

Boy: Dora lives somewhere in South America.

Me: I don’t think so. Pretty sure she’s American.

Boy: She hangs out with a Monkey, so she must live near a jungle.

Me: She doesn’t live in South America.

Boy: She’s from Mexico, originally, but she came over the border and her fox followed her.

Me: It’s not “her” fox. And no. He doesn’t even have an accent. What about the monkey?

Boy: She took it with her.

Me: You can’t just bring a Monkey into this country like that. It’s against the law. You can’t just go through a border check with a monkey and not get stopped.

Boy: She did. Where else would she get a monkey?

Me: ….

Boy: I still don’t think she lives in America.

Me: I’m just concerned that Boots will eventually chew her face off. I don’t think monkeys make good pets.

No Comments by on November 15, 2010
filed in humor
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My Loss is Your Gain

I entered a writing contest a month or so ago, to get a regular column on a fairly popular and trendy website. I liked the idea I had for the column, but I don’t think it was edgy enough. Or the sample column good enough to be brought forth on the national stage. Plus there were 1000 other people trying for the same 4 spots, and well, I may be pretty good, but out of a thousand people I would expect there to be four if not better, equal to me.

So I’ve decided to start writing up some of them and posting them here, possibly giving them a new heading up in the menu at the top. If you’re good.

No Comments by on October 14, 2010
filed in humor, stuff, writing

Stuck In Traffic

Hey everyone. Sorry for not posting. I’ve been stuck in a traffic jam for the last 10 days and, well, you know AT&T coverage – it’s nothing if not spotty out here, so I apologize for the radio silence!

Sure, it seems unfathomable that a traffic jam would last 10 days, but you have to admit, we’re a persistent lot. I don’t want to leave my car to go look for food and shelter, because, what if the line starts to move? It could start to move any second, and I don’t want my car blocking the way.

I’ve been passing the time playing Angry Birds on my iPhone, writing in my journal, and trying to figure out how to poop without 10 miles of other people seeing me. That’s actually what most of my journal entries are about, to be honest. It’s riveting reading.

Luckily, we have plenty of food. Someone passed out Walmart sandwich meat and Hillandale Farms eggs. I think eating this food will take my mind off thoughts of going to the bathroom.

In the mean time, I’m going to go play some more Angry Birds. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to finish level 3-6 any day now!

1 Comment by on August 25, 2010
filed in humor
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