WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?: Adventures in Ping Pong?

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Bri

Gentlemen, this may sound harsh or unfair, but YOU DO NOT YELL AT A WOMAN! IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES! And I mean *ANYYYYYYY* circumstances! You don’t yell at a woman, you don’t scream at a woman and you DEFINITELY don’t shout the F-bomb so angrily she can see the spit flying out of your mouth! You just don’t!

DO YOU HEAR WHAT I’M SAYING? ASSHOLE?

Just don’t do it. I know there have probably been a few times in your life when you have found a woman so frustrating, so infuriating and just so flipping maddening that you couldn’t help it! You popped your cork, blew a gasket and let her have it, stopping just short of ringing her neck. Controlling your temper is hard with women sometimes, I understand that. But gentlemen, of all the times you’ve ever, ever lost your temper at a woman, has it ever *once* been over PING PONG?

FREAKING PING PONG?

* * *

I’ve never been good at sports. My whole life, I have been stuck in the outfield and picked dead last for any team, in any sport- I accept this. I am no good at anything that requires too much concentration or coordination or much use of even rudimentary motor skills- I can’t help it, I’m sorry. In grade school, I was yelled at and bullied, hated and blamed for fumbling a ball or striking out and costing my team the win. But then it just stopped mattering.

As I got older, I began to notice very little was expected of me in this department- you need an article written, call Brianne. You want help losing weight, call Brianne. Relationship advice, help getting back at your scum sucking boyfriend or designing a float for a parade- Brianne can help you with all of that. You want someone to help get you motivated at the gym, Brianne’s your girl . . .

But if you want someone to play ping pong with? Please call someone else.

* * *

That was actually the first thing I told a neighbor of mine when he invited me over to play ping pong: “I am not very good at playing ping pong.”

“No, it’s okay, we’ll teach you. We’re having beer and music and it’s just gonna be a good time. It’ll be fun.”

Now I don’t want to name names or anything, but this rat? His first name kind of sounds like JAY and his last name kind of sounds like BIRD.

JAY BIRD. THE BIGGEST JERK IN TOWN.

* * *

I *did* end up going over to his house to play ping pong, but he realized very quickly that hey- I wasn’t lying. I really couldn’t play ping pong. He wasn’t even very nice about it, he cut me down, kicked me out of the game, called someone to replace me and I was banished to the sidelines to drink beer. Which was fine, until some point over the evening, when the following words were said to me:

“You gotta suck dick to play ping pong.”

Really. Someone said that to me. Swear up and down, sideways and backwards.

I did not get angry, did not get upset, I just picked up my stuff and left without a word. Screw hanging around if jerks thought it was okay to speak to me like that. Unacceptable.

Over the next few days, I made sure everyone between his house and mine (and I mean EVERYONE) knew exactly what had gone down when JAY BIRD had invited ME over to play ping pong! On the third day, there was a knock on my door at eight am, so I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, put on a robe and opened the door- I didn’t even have it opened all the way before JAY BIRD barged right in and started spitting in my face. Again.

“Bri, I’m sorry for anything anyone said to you at my house. Last I saw, you were laughing and having fun, but that guy talked to you and said something. It wasn’t me, that was the first time those people had ever come over. I’d never met them! I would never disrespect you! You are a very good looking woman . . . you just can’t play ping pong. I’m sorry.”

I accepted. But he didn’t shutup.

“Bri, you are a very, very good looking woman, so it’s *okay* you can’t play ping pong! Anyone was a dick to you, they won’t be invited back. No one will disrespect you at my house. You just gotta come over soon, we can throw back a few and I can give you some PRIVATE LESSONS.”

“Private lessons.” It’s ALWAYS “private lessons.”

(Thank you, neighbor.)

I accepted his apology (no matter how inappropriate barging into my home at the butt crack of dawn had been), but I never went back. Until yesterday.

I did some shopping downtown and was walking home, when I noticed JAY BIRD had friends over and they were all outside playing ping pong again. I took this as my cue to walk faster. Then some random pudgy guy decided to flag me down: “Hey! You there! Wanna play ping pong?”

“No!” I called back. “I do NOT want to play ping pong!”

“Are you SURE?”

“I am not *allowed* to play ping pong!”

“Well, come have a beer!”

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. Why the heck not?

“You are BE YOO TA FUL, Bri,” said a tubby man in a hat. “You’re on my team!”

“I’m not allowed to play ping pong,” I repeated matter of factly.

The tubby man handed me a beer, then reached back and slowly peeled off his shirt to reveal pale, sweaty rolls and a hairy chest, winking as though it would tempt me. “Are you sure you don’t want to play ping pong?”

I really did NOT want to play ping pong. I said to JAY BIRD, “I’ll hang out, dude, but if anyone is rude to me, I swear . . . I am going to punch them.”

He laughed. “Oh, don’t worry! NO ONE is going to be rude to you. He’s got *hours* left of drinking before he’s drunk!”

“Okay. I’ll have a few beers.”

So I had a few beers and a few more and a few more. People kept asking me to play ping pong, but I knew better.

Bri. Is. Not. Allowed.

I just hung out. There was an interesting woman who showed up and I talked to her a lot because she was not playing either- pretty soon, I was in tears because her seventeen year old son committed suicide . . . in 1995.

“Why couldn’t he just wait?” I sobbed, tears pouring out of my eyes and onto my dress. “Dammit. In the morning, maybe he wouldn’t have done it?”

I was really upset. Don’t make fun of me, I’m sensitive! And in fact, I’m so sensitive, that five minutes later, there were wet spots all over my dress and my eyes burned with salt- I had to go home and change into something dry, take my contacts out so my eyes would stop stinging . . .

I just keep forgetting I don’t look great in glasses.

Then no one seemed to think I was BE YOO TA FUL anymore.

* * *

By the time I returned, the group of ping pongers had dwindled down, only two people were playing now. Jay Bird and Tubby were ping ponging back and forth on the porch, two girls sat in a truck smoking and the interesting woman who made me cry had gone home to turn off a pool. I sat on the porch playing w my phone and drinking a beer . . . obviously because there was nothing else to do.

Tubby looked at me as though I were a piece of discarded rubbish and said, “Why is she here if all she is going to do is play on her phone?”

Jay Bird laughed. “All she ever does is play on her phone. It’s so rude she come to my house and done nothing but play on her phone, but it’s not like she can play ping pong.”

Jesus. Ping pong.

“I think I’m going home now,” I sighed. Some Saturday night!

Tubby pointed out that I couldn’t go home because the pool lady I had been talking to was coming back to see me. I did not want to disrespect JAY BIRD by playing on my phone on his porch though, so I went inside and drank beer while I played on an exercise bike that looked like it hadn’t been used in decades. I have no idea how long I was inside, but eventually the girls came and got me because Tubby and another girl had gone off; they needed a fourth.

“No,” I said. “No, no, no. JAY BIRD is SO MEAN when I try to play ping pong.”

“Well, there’s no one else, you’re it. You gotta’ play ping pong with us.”

I hesitantly joined them and picked up a paddle, while JAY BIRD narrowed his eyes. “Hey, Miss America here can’t play no ping pong. Not on my porch!”

It was down to all women besides JAY BIRD; me, and two other girls. One of the girls explained there was no one else and she handed me a ball. “Here,” she whispered. “Serve. Show him how good you can be!”

I took a deep breath. The pressure was really on and everyone was looking at me- I figured what was the worst that could happen? I played badly, I’d just get kicked out of the game and sent back to the exercise bike with a slap on the wrist? Right? Right?

Oh, how I wish!

I bounced the ball off the table, took a swing to serve and missed it completely. Before the ball even hit the table again, Jay Bird was roaring:

“Nooooooooooo! Noooooooo! Nooooooo! Four eyed bitch! You can’t go to someone’s house and disrespect them by not knowing PING PONG! Just because you’re good looking, it don’t mean you can play no PING PONG! NoooooO!”

“But-” I started.

“Noooooo! Get your fat ass off my porch, four eyes! Now! Go the fuck home, stupid woman! Gooooooo! You can be good looking, IT DON’T MEAN YOU CAN PLAY NO PING PONG!”

OH, MY! WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD!

This was totally stupid. I had never made any connection between my looks and my ping pong abilities before, but being screamed at about it by a little old man was ridiculous. IT WAS THOUGH I HAD COMMITTED THE UNFORGIVABLE SIN, DESECRATING HIS WONDERFUL PING PONG TABLE WITH MY ABOMINABLE LACK OF SKILL!

I did not react, no one did. We all just kind of stared at this wrinkly old man with stringy hair, all red in the face and screaming bloody murder. He was so completely serious too! He started waving the paddle at me menacingly.

“Fucking bitch, get off my porch! PUT DOWN THE PADDLE, WOMAN! Take your ass home and don’t come back!” He stopped and thought, then warbled on and on in his dissonant little old man voice. “No, sorry, ma’am, I don’t mean no disrespect- go to the fridge, get your stupid ass a cold beer, take it with you and GET THE FUCK OFF MY PORCH! TAKE YOUR ASS HOME!”

I muffled a giggle and gazed at him with nothing but pity. He was so old and skinny, so pathetic; so completely impotent as he was screaming violent threats at a woman! Not just ANY woman either, a little blonde chick in a pink “My Little Pony” shirt and pigtails? Who had spent the night crying because someone’s son put a bullet in his mouth? In 1995?

What kind of sick man would do that? What kind of “man” gets his jollies by making girls cry?

Except I wasn’t going to cry.

Now normally I would have socked the bastard in the mouth, but he was so weak and feeble and sad, so delicate! I just couldn’t do it. I started laughing hysterically, I couldn’t help it.

He waved the paddle at me even harder and the sight was just too much. I couldn’t stay or I would die laughing. He told me to take a beer and there were about seven left, so I went to the fridge and took them all. Then I walked out to the road, calling behind me, “Bye bye, pussycat!”

* * *

Now I realize this story may seem a little anti climactic and that there is no big slam bang finish to it, but that isn’t the point! Boys, the next time you’re close to freaking out and losing your temper at a woman, think back to JAY BIRD and remember how utterly silly and laughable this pitiful excuse for a man looked as he flipped out and lost his ping pong balls . . . at a woman in pink? With pigtails?

Don’t do it, boys. GROW SOME PING PONG BALLS.

Thank you for reading.

That’s all I have to say about that.

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DON’T CALL ME HOLLY! (by Mother Holly Princess Golightly Snow Bunny SaBRIna Colette Zipperer Maria)

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Bri

Happy afternoon, everybody. Today I went to Office Depot to buy a pink pen and some White Out- I was not there thirteen seconds before someone shouted at me, “OH, HOLLYYYYY!!! I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT YOU!!!”

Again? Please.

“Holly Golightly” is NOT my name. It never was.

Before there was Holly Golightly, there was Brianne Sloan. And Brianne Sloan discarded the iconic “Miss Holiday Golightly” five years ago because it just wasn’t “iconic” enough- people in my age range did not recognize it. It was a joke no one got.

See years ago, while I was making my first MySpace account (no snickering! You had one too!), *Breakfast at Tiffany’s* was starting on AMC. I was trying to think of a name to go by, a pen name to hide behind (mainly to deflect stalkers), when I heard that miserable, greasy, unattractive Sid Arbuck say to Miss Holly Golightly:

“You take off for the powder room and that’s the last I see ya’!”

BAM! That’s MY move, kids! Even today, I pull that exact move whenever some miserable, greasy, unattractive excuse for a man tries to stick me with the check! I go to the bathroom and never come back! Holly Golightly and I have something in common!

So I had my name. That’s all it meant.

I only ever took it because I wanted to stay hidden, did not want anything I wrote to follow me or haunt me, or even be traced back to me down the line when I became a “real writer”! Just think of what *Captain Quesadilla* would have done to Jane Austen’s career!

Eventually I would choose something more people knew to be a made up title- a friend suggested “Princess Buttercup” from a movie I had never seen. When I was growing up you had your “Princess Bride” kids and your “Neverending Story” kids. I was a proud “Neverending Story” girl, but I thought the name “Princess Buttercup” was kind of adorable- it was also obviously not my real name (though had I seen the movie, I would have understood why so many boys got fresh and told me not to damage my “perfect breasts”)- but “Princess Buttercup didn’t stick. It’s Holly GoLightly that STILL follows me- I am routinely called “Holly” about once or twice a month. Even now.

Holly Golightly won’t die, man. She just won’t die!

I’d like to kill her myself.

Now (six years later) I’m still Miss Holly Golightly, fourteen years old, stealing turkey eggs and running through a briar patch!

(And WOOSH! And no one got that joke, huh?)

I swear, one day I shall write my autobiography; it will be called “Don’t Call Me Holly.”

No more Holly Golightly. There’s a new sheriff in town!

Officially Yours,

Mother Holly Princess Golightly Snow Bunny SaBRIna Colette Zipperer Maria

XoXoXo!

P.S. Yes. “Mother Holly Princess Golightly Snow Bunny SaBRIna Colette Zipperer Maria” – that’s officially my new pen name. Print it up.

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I Had a BetaMax and a Video8! BUT I NEVER HEARD OF A “VHS PLAYER!”

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Bri

Have you ever heard anyone drop the term “VHS PLAYER”? I hear it more and more with each passing year and it is starting to make me furious!

Heavens to Murgatroyd!

WHAT in Christ is a “VHS Player”? I never heard of such a thing! I recall an antiquated device which played VHS tapes, but we never called them “VHS tapes”. We called them “videos”! Or plain tapes! The device which played them was a VCR, I TELL YOU! A *VCR*!

You couldn’t “skip back”! You had to REWIND! It wasn’t instant, you had to wait! I still recall the desperate plea printed on every single cassette tape Blockbuster rented out:

“Be kind. Rewind.”

(RedBox? Yeah, right! When Pauly Shore flies!)

But if someone forgot, it was not any sort of terrible inconvenience- you rewound it yourself and made popcorn while you waited THREE WHOLE MINUTES for the tape to rewind. Some tapes even took as long as five minutes!

Again it was not even terrible! Tedious, yes, but such was the world we lived in! It was all we knew! We were thankful! There was no menu, no bloopers, no deleted scenes- it was two hours straight of solid film! But a VCR did so much MORE than merely “play” VHS tapes! We could set up a recording when we weren’t home! That was great! We could even pirate free movies with little effort! If we rented a movie we liked, we could copy it- all it took was two VCRs, a blank tape and a set of AC/DC cables- the only thing rotten about it was that you had to sit through the movie again. Or wait an hour and a half to watch anything else.

That was how it was, it was the height of technology for suburban consumers! We accepted it, didn’t question it! Never dared imagine anything better!

The VCR was a magnificent commodity in its day, some people didn’t even *have* them! As a kid, I was lucky enough to have my own two hundred dollar tv with a built in VCR! It was amazing for awhile, but when it stopped amazing me, I traded it to my brother for a twelve dollar Wrigley Field sign! TO THIS DAY, he still says it was the *worst* trade of his life.

For the sign is timeless! While every VCR in the world died a terrible death!

Yet please remember the VCR gave us over three decades of consumer level viewing pleasure! There was something called a laser disc, but you only saw those in classrooms or on first class plane rides! MOST OF LITTLE AMERICA NEVER EVEN CAME CLOSE TO DISCOVISION! Forget about BetaMax! BetaScan? Video8? No way! VHS tapes were the only solution! To play them, you had a Video Casette Recorder!

A VCR! A VCR! A VCR!

On But on December 31, 2008, the final truckload in the USA of recorded programming on VHS tapes rolled out of a warehouse owned by Ryan Kugler, the last major supplier of VHS recorded videos.

He said: “It’s dead! This is it, this is the last Christmas! Without a doubt! I was the last one buying VHS and the last one selling it! I’m done! Anything left in warehouse we’ll just give away or throw away.”

And he was right. Isn’t all that bad enough?

The VCR died a long, humiliating death. The switch was total, if anyone hung on to a VCR at all it was because they lived in a poor immigrant community and old videos are abundant and usually free! Or because most of Generation X has no other way to watch their weddings!

No one cried, no one looked back! No last words were said, no vigils were held! We should at least treat the MEMORY with dignity!

Please. Don’t disrespect the VCR’s legacy by calling it a “VHS Player”.

At least let it rest in peace.

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THINGS I WRITE ABOUT WHEN I’M NOT DATING!

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Bri

It is time to come clean:

I am an outlaw. The other night I narrowly escaped an arrest! Whoooooo eeeeeee! It was a close one!

* * *

It was early evening on a weeknight and I had to go to the gym. I knew I would want a daquiri of some sort later that night, but I also knew that ABC would be closed by the time I got home from pumping iron- eh. May as well pick up the vodka on the way. While inside the booze store, I accidentally knocked over a display of Cruzan Rum- eh. I did not think much of it, the same thing happened once at Wal Mart with a display of KY Jelly!

(but it very definitely caused me to SMELL like alcohol!)

I bought the [cheap, cheap, very cheap] brand of vodka, got on my bike and started pedaling off into the future. Unfortunately I hit a discarded cigarette lighter and flew a foot in the air! Luckily I landed okay, but something had happened to my bike- it started vibrating and making a weird noise! So I started cracking up. Of COURSE, right? But whatever.

I was still laughing as I approached the crosswalk, almost doubling over at my rotten luck. Figures. As I pressed the button, I noticed (in an indirect, roundabout way) a man on a motorcycle pull up and pause at the red light. Next to him, this big old cop jeep pulled up and sat quietly, like a paperweight. I was still laughing at my luck and hardly noticed.

As the “WALK!” light came on, I walked (rather than rode) my bike across the street! But the outlaw looking man on that bike was doing at least ninety, so I hopped on the bike and jumped onto the sidewalk, if only to save my life from the barreling monster! He passed by and I was safe . . . until the POLICE JEEP drove by!

But he didn’t want the speed demon.

Next I knew, sirens were blaring and lights were flashing! And I was being pulled over! On a BICYCLE!

(and it wasn’t even the first time!)

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

Um.

I only had the back light on my bike, as the front one had run out of batteries, so I thought that was why this oily bohunk was ruining my night. But no. The cop definitely thought I was drunk. And underage.

“Have you ever been arrested?”

“Once,” I said, still not catching on. “It was nothing, just one of those things where you DON’T REALLY REALIZE you’re eighteen yet.” Then I sighed.

“Oh. So you’re a trouble maker?”

“Um. What do you mean, Mister?”

“Address me as ‘Sir’, missy. Do your parents know you’re out, buying liquor at this hour? How did you get that bottle? Friends in LOW places?” He eyed my ABC bag and took a big whiff of the rum I had spilled.

I sighed and decided I really needed to stop wearing pigtails. It’s always the pigtails.

“Sir, I am not drunk, I was getting this for later. I just walked in and bought it, it was that easy. I have been of age awhile now, Sir. I don’t know what’s wrong with the bike though, Sir. It happened five minutes ago. Sir.”

Sir. Sir. Sir.

“It isn’t legal to ride a bike on the sidewalk! You could run over pedestrians! That biker almost hit you!”

“Sir! That maniac is why I’m on the sidewalk! He was speeding, not ME! SIR!”

“You’re drunk, aren’t you? You smell like a brewery. Get on the bike and do three laps around the cop car!”

This was really happening.

I did so, my bike shaking like a bad carnival ride the whole time. There was *obviously* something wrong with it and not me. So at this point he realized that I was PROBABLY telling the truth. I came back around and handed him my ID.

“OH! Birth date ’84! Let me have the boys down at the station run this through, then if all this comes back clear, you’re free to go! I’ve got my eye on you though!” I felt relieved until he spat out, “Your license has been suspended since 2010!”

“Do I need a license to ride a BICYCLE, sir?” I sighed and thrust my wrists up at him. “Go ahead and cuff me, Krupke! Let’s get this over with so I can get to the gym and-”

“No more of your lip, Sloan!” he interjected harshly. Then he shuffled. “You are free to go, BUT YOU NEED TO BE MORE CAREFUL! I don’t want you splattered all over this road! That kind of cleanup costs the city a lot of money.”

Well, I’ll be damned.

What a nice fellow!

“Okay, okay. Bye, Officer Friendly! SIR!”
* * *

After that I went to Winn Dixie to get mustard, coffee creamer, Kraft Deli Deluxe and three hundred dollars in cash. Winn Dixie only lets you take out one hundred at a time though, which made me a little angry. I realize now it probably has to do with the amount of money kept in the registers, but at the time, it did not seem reasonable.

“I can only take out ONE hundred at a time? Well, it’s MY money and I need three hundred. One hundred will not help me.”

“I cannot help you then. You can only take out a max of one hundred per transaction. I am not a bank.”

“I KNOW, the bank charges two dollars to use their ATM! There are three items here. How about we do a separate transaction for each item and then you can let me take out a hundred each time?”

“Okay. But to be fair to the other guests, you’re going to have to go to the end of the line in between each item. And wait.”

Now she was just being a pill.

It was not worth it. I took my five measly twenties and continued on my way to the gym. Surprisingly nothing weird happened while I was working out, except I did not have a lock for the locker and someone stole the my money. At this point, all I could feel was gratitude towards that bitchy cashier who only let me take out five twenties instead of fifteen.

The witch saved me two hundred dollars. TEN twenties!

Phew!

But then it hit me:

There had been a crime! At the gym!

I then realized that if cops weren’t so busy chasing after people on broken bikes, things like THIS could be prevented! It was terrible! The gym is supposed to be a sanctuary! A safe haven where you can go to run away from your problems and lift all your sorrows away!

THE GYM WAS ALMOST HOLY!

And I’ll be damned.

Where was Officer Krupke now?

(End of Part 1. There was only supposed to be ONE part, but I’m really tired. Sorry.)

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LOOK AT THAT!

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Bri

I haven’t written in NINE days!

(That has to be some kind of record!)

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MOTHER BRI RETIRES HER BLOG!

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Bri

Hello, children. It is time to retire my dating blog, the negativity is driving me mad. What do I even *do* anyway? I go out with boys, give them trashy nicknames and make fun of them on the internet? For what? To attempt to *teach* bumbling neanderthals how to date? Please.

This is not noble! This is not productive!

*I* don’t even know how to date . . .

What does anyone want *my* advice for anyway? I was proposed to at Cracker Barrel, the First Annual Pirate Gathering and once on one of those stupid trolley things at Busch Gardens! And romance? ROMANCE?

(Do you really want to go there? Are you even ready for this?)

Someone ran me a bubble bath with roses in the bubbles- he forgot to remove the thorns and I got my big toe stuck in the faucet. He yelled inappropriate Valentine’s obscenities because we missed our dinner reservations! Someone picked me up in a carriage at my house another Valentine’s Day, he was a teenager wearing a tail coat and eating a Snicker’s Bar. What was left of the Snicker’s Bar at the end of the ride, he gave the driver as a tip. The five dozen roses that were delivered to me in a cardboard box on another Valentine’s Day may have been okay . . . if they hadn’t been dead. With a card for another girl.

Look. I can only tell men what NOT to do. I don’t know what they should be doing . . . I’ve never seen anybody *do* it.

The great loves of Brianne Sloan’s life?: the gym, a pretty puppy named Lily and a pretty little eighteen year old bag boy when I was sixteen! Last I heard, my bag boy was living in Titusville with the love of *his* life: Hank.

And you’re listening to me WHY?

I’m no expert and this blog is affecting my life! I write about bad dates, I get *more* bad dates.

I had a year long project of going out on a hundred dates and listen- I made it to THIRTEEN. That is not a good number! So I called it and started writing serial killers because I’d rather write and phone and get to be LIFELONG PALS with serial killer RICHARD RAMIREZ . . . than go on another date. With you.

Then I realized I’ve always had a knack for writing about something and having it magically materialize; sometimes whatever I’ve written pops up out of the blue . . . sometimes it’s pretty, sometimes it’s not.

As I mentioned before, if I write about bad dates, I get *more* bad dates . . .

So what happens if I start writing serial killers?

Think about THAT! I’m between a rock and another rock. I am doing what I’ve got to do.

If I had any guts, I would delete my PLENTYOFFISH profile, but I am not going to! I am leaving it as a symbol! A marker! A testament to the unthinkable atrocities that befell me! Kind of like how the Americans left the flag on the moon.

Keep your Flag, Plentyoffish! I have a long list of places you could stick it too, but I’m too much of a lady to say!

I am retiring. Spread the word.

Yours in Christ,

(or whatever)

Mother Bri

(incase the convent ever realizes what a catastrophic mistake it made rejecting me!)

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“OVER FORTY” RANT- This World Doesn’t Sound that Bad!

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Bri

I did not write this and I don’t know who to give credit to, but I have seen it flying all over the place lately- being part of the copy-and-paste generation, I am sharing. I am not quite this old, of course, but I too can recall a time when the whole world knew what a DIAL TONE sounded like! I truly remember a few short years of this world! I really do!

In my opinion, this world was better.

Once you’ve seen the internet, nothing will surprise you ever again.

And please- can we all stop actually *getting together* to sit in the living room and play on our phones? I actually start to lose brain cells. There is nothing in the world that makes me feel dumber.

Thank you. Enjoy.

* * *

SOMEONE ELSE’S ARTICLE:

If you are 36, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning…. Uphill… Barefoot… BOTH ways…yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!

But now that I’m over the ripe old age of forty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today. They’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, They live in a virtual Utopia! And I hate to say it, but the kids today, don’t know how good they ‘ve got it!

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter – with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our behinds! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3′s or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We’d play our favorite tape and “eject” it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that’s how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

6) We didn’t have fancy stuff like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that’s it!

7) There weren’t any cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn’t make a call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your “friends”. OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror… not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there’s TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please!

You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent… you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn’t have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what’s the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I’m saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons!

12) And we didn’t have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play… all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside… you were doing chores!

And car seats – oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the “safety arm” across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling “shot gun” in the first place!

See! That’s exactly what I’m talking about! the kids today have got it too easy. They’re spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd

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Why I Wouldn’t Mind Dying in CASABLANCA!

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Bri

I love old movies! I have always been an endless treasure trove of classic movie quotes and useless pop culture trivia- Mae West is my girl and Cary Grant can come on up and see me any old time! I’m a blonde because I know gentlemen prefer it and trust me, I *know* how to marry a millionaire! I have followed the yellow brick road, lassoed the moon and I could have been a contender! I EVEN KNOW WHAT “ROSEBUD” MEANS!

So how about breakfast? We’ll go to Tiffany’s!

I’m sure you get the idea, but alas! I never *saw* CASABLANCA until I was 26, I had hardly even *heard* of it! I am still amazed I somehow missed this age old movie phenomenon until then, but it is so.

I still can’t believe it myself.

It all started while I was home for Christmas one year; the cable was out for whatever reason, so I had to choose something from my mother’s dvd collection- slim pickings, I’ll tell you what! I found CASABLANCA and watched it, simply because I had *heard* of the movie and had tried to watch it several times before, but always fell asleep during the credits; while that blabber mouth announcer blabbered on and on (and on!) about the coming of the Second World War.

This time however, I stayed awake! My first words to my mother the next morning?:

“This movie is coming with me. You’ll never see it again.”

And she never would.

I had a new favorite movie! Watching it for the first time was like meeting an old friend! Or rather, like having a chance encounter with a pen pal you had exchanged letters with your whole life, but had never actually gotten around to meeting- I knew the characters, the dialogue, even the settings! I had known my whole life that everybody came to Rick’s . . . but I never knew WHY! I had said “Play it, Sam!” to people named JERRY for years . . . but I had never even wondered *what* Sam was playing!

Perhaps I’d seen CARROTBLANCA once or twice as time went by, but as far as I was concerned, KID had *always* looked at ME!

It was like coming home! Or finding gold! Or finding GOD! It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and I could not wait to tell everyone! I had to alert the entire world to the existence of this iconic cinema masterpiece! I was so very excited I had discovered this treasure!

But I’ll be damned! No one was surprised, no one was impressed. No one wanted to hear about it, let alone *watch* it! My newfound infatuation with this movie was driving my friends batty . . . because they’d all seen it years before.

I was late getting on the plane! I guess there’d been a light ground fog! My CASABLANCA poster was old news!

For all the stars in my eyes and all my useless knowledge of Classic Hollywood, all the times I snap into movie mode and bust out some dramatic monologue no one’s ever heard, I was suddenly a fraud. I could stand outside and yell “STELLA!” until I was blue in the face! I could ape Bergman from other movies, taunt you with a knife, screaming, “Have I gone MAD, my husband?!” Mr. DeMille knows I’m always ready for my closeup and if people want me, all they got to do is whistle! But let’s face facts:

I was that shameful loser who’s still amazed Bruce Willis was a ghost.

You must never underestimate American blundering and I’ll admit that *this* cynical American was the last to know. But I’m not just *any* woman and this isn’t Germany or Unoccupied France! I’m a citizen of the world, dammit! It’s not like the Gestapo was waiting for me or anything, you all were some pretty bad watchdogs! No one told me to watch the damn thing, I had to find CASABLANCA via my OWN roundabout refugee trail! So go ahead and shoot, suckers! You’ll be doing me a favor!

Here’s looking at YOU, kids!

(If you don’t say it, I will!)

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Until Mankind is Peaceful Enough Not to Have Violence on the News . . .

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Bri

I can’t watch the news. I seriously can’t, I refuse- it’s too hard. I decided this years ago, when they showed a clip they definitely should not have shown on CNN- it was an American soldier in fatigues in the desert, on his knees, begging for his life. Then without a word, a Middle Eastern man in black shot him in the head, execution style. Just like that.

Then it cut to something about Britney Spears shaving her head, like they’d never even shown the clip. The transition was alarming and it killed the news for me forever. How can the world keep turning when these awful things are happening? I saw the man’s face for weeks; some guy begged for his life and got his entire head blown off . . . and I’m supposed to care that Britney Spears lost a few strands of hair?

That was it. No more news.

I don’t even have cable or a radio, I can’t take it. I don’t have any interest and for the record, I only like *incarcerated* serial killers, stories of things that happened a long time ago- I do not want to know about any current murder sprees, thank you.

Yet there’s still my mother.

The moment I get in the car with her, it starts- she spits out the most awful things she has heard on the news before she even says hello. I spent one night trying to figure out what I wanted to say in a letter to Richard Ramirez, if I dared even write him. A man whose only mission in life was to do evil? Who broke into strangers’ homes and slaughtered them, killed them in their own beds . . . I thought it was the worst thing in the world.

Until my mother came out the next day and told me about some guy whose entire bedroom got sucked into a sinkhole!

Jesus, Mom! Why do I need to know that? There is nothing *I* can do to help!

Then last week, she came out and told me about a woman who was pushing her baby in a stroller without a care in the world when two teenagers just rolled up to her and shot her baby between his little eyes! AGAIN I COULD NOT HELP! And her other son was stabbed to death at eighteen? My god!

I could have gone the rest of my life without knowing any of that!

These are things I don’t forget- I once heard a story about a bartender who set a bar hopper up with her mother. Then when the mother dumped him, he handcuffed her and her daughter to the stove, so that if they moved the oven door would open and he would hear them. . He went and got a gun, yelled: “You took something from me! I’m gonna take something from you!”

Then he shot the daughter in the face. Her brains splattered all over the mother, then he went outside and shot himself.

Broke my heart. No one in the world benefited from my hearing that story . . . but it’s going to be with me the rest of my life.

Unless there is something I can do to *help* with something bad that’s going on in the universe, I don’t want to know. This is not a lot to ask the world. Maybe it seems callous, but it’s actually the opposite- the world has forgotten by now that Britney Spears ever shaved her head, but years later, I still think about that soldier. I wonder about what his life would have been like, about his family who had to watch that clip. His children, his wife. I understand that bad things happen in the world and that sometimes soldiers get shot . . .

But why in the world would anyone want to *film* it? That’s sick.

I don’t believe there has to be this much BAD in the world. Albert Einstein often wondered if we live in a friendly universe. *I* say we do . . . but our negativity is killing it.

If we don’t straighten up, God is going to send another flood.

THE END

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The Trouble With Confessing to a Taxi Cab!

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Bri

I don’t like to be drunk in public. Ever, under any circumstances. You’ll almost never see me drunk in public because I think it’s trashy, but last night I came close. Not only was I very intoxicated, I was angry. I have a lot of pep when I am angry and I suddenly have to tell everybody how I got that way. I become the friendliest person in the world!

(alerting everyone and their bartender of my super classy condition!)

Last night was not so bad, I did not get into much trouble after being ditched at the Art Walk, I just woke up to a bunch of shopping bags containing two leopard print throw pillows, a rhinestone tiara, a copy of *Arsenic and Old Lace* and a bunch of bananas. While out, I was feeling gregarious! I definitely told everyone about it at every gallery from King and Riberia to the end of Aviles! Being tipsy in public and telling all my problems to complete strangers reminded me of something! Another time when I was [beyond, beyond, way beyond] tipsy in public! When I told all my problems to a complete stranger!

* * *

Once upon a time (back in 2010 I think), I was at a Panama Hattie’s with an old friend I used to work at Burger King with and the guy I was “seeing”, for lack of a better term. I think it was flip night or sink or swim or something, one of those nights where you get trashed for cheap. I was feeling pretty good and having fun, but then I realized something:

I was sort of *half* dating this nutbag who used his the sob story of his dead wife to lure women. He did not care who they were or what they looked like, he looked into their eyes, told them about how they had so many “unseen facets” to their personalities and how they didn’t even know it . . . then BAM! They’d get the dead wife smack to the head! Hook, line, sinker!

I fell for it too! But I was the first, so I got a big helping of DRAMA on the side.

I could have cared less about the guy, it was the drama I liked. His friends all ganged up on me and spat out horrible, vicious names and I hung around because I fancied myself some sort of great, tortured heroine; I thought it was all very tragic and romantic.

Til the night I realized it wasn’t.

* * *

No one had ever been so cruel to me before, so calculating, so spiteful. I have never intentionally hurt anyone in my whole life and suddenly people were following me, threatening me! Plotting to get rid of me! Spying on me! I caught a fat woman in my mailbox! With her baby!

OH, THE FREAK WAS *ALLOWING* IT TOO! He would always apologize after the fact, sometimes even conjuring up tears, but truthfully he was not doing a single thing to stop these wretched women from harassing me! Not one single thing! These women were all thirty plus years older than me and they acted like ridiculous children! He was talking to them about me, feeding the fires with every mundane detail of our non existent sex life- I’d looked up “dating a widower” on eHow (romantic, I know) and it told me to withhold sex indefinitely. This little detail seems extremely important when people are hissing the word “SLUT!” when you pass by.

Speaking of sluts, do you know the cellulite covered redheaded one who owns the Centennial House? The one with the frizzy head who looks like she urinated on an electric fence? While smoking? Beverlee something whose hubby dresses like a pirate for no reason? She made me cry; she discussed cooking and the B and B biz with my mother, complemented my “beauty and brains”, hugged me, then in a flash started spewing venom! Turned into an obese and hairy volcano of bad insults!

“Fat slut” was the best she had.

She accused me of weaseling my way into his life for his car and his money, called me hideous names you would not believe! A woman whose under arms hung down to her waist when she raised them called ME fat?! While he just sat there and *watched*?

I was sticking around for THAT!?!

It was damn “tragic” all right! I was being an idiot and for what? A mediocre guy I did not care about, who didn’t give two hoots about me? An idiot who did not own a hairbrush and spoke with a FAKE BRITISH ACCENT?!

Hello!?

At some point on this night at Panama Hattie’s, I looked at him and realized he thought I was in love. He thought I was in love and he was still allowing his friends to treat me that way? How sick is that? I then realized I was getting absolutely NOTHING out of it and that on top of everything, he wasn’t even cute! I SO did not have to take the abuse! So I stood up and left the bar without a word.

* * *

Once I did this, I hit a little snag- no one came after me (obviously) and I was not downtown, didn’t have a ride.

Well, shit. I didn’t think this through at all, now did I?

I sat down on the curb and weighed my options. Going back inside and rejoining the jerk was absolutely off the table, it would destroy the point I had made with my dramatic exit; plus no one came after me, he TEXTED me to come back! Going back would be humiliating, I had too much pride. I had no cash for a cab and no one was going to pick up their phone at midnight on a Friday, let alone drop what they were doing to go pick up a drunk chick from the island.

I was going to have to walk. Dammit.

Yet a stumbling drunk chick walking down the road at midnight never gets very far.

I only made it about fifty yards a cab stopped and picked me up; I did not have any money, but he was a Christian and not only was he willing to drive me home, he invited me to bible study and wanted to hear all about what had happened to me to make me so upset. Being drunk and stupid, I went into the whooooole dramatic story. Believe me, I had a hell of a lot to say too. I went into the whole story about how I was annoyed with a guy I was seeing and I wasn’t going to take being treated like crap and compared to a dead woman anymore . . .

But he misheard me. He heard it like I was some poor girl upset because her boyfriend had broken up with her.

Can you guess how I know this?

Let’s just say I missed this episode of Taxi Cab Confessions!

* * *

Back at the bar, those two losers were still partying. I have no idea how long they stayed, but I stopped getting worried texts around three. Because that was the time they found out I was okay.

It seems they’d had a lot of beer and like me, they had some trouble getting home. Matt was driving, already swerving all over the road and the whole time texting like a fifteen year old girl. I forget whether he drove into a ditch or ran a red light or what, but in any case they got pulled over . . .

They had to call a cab.

Now the driver they ended up with was particularly chatty. I don’t even think the guys had a chance to mention they had been [halfheartedly] looking for a girl and the driver certainly did not have time to pick up on the fake British accent! Right away he launched into a story about how he’d picked up a girl who was crying because her widower boyfriend had dumped her at Panama Hattie’s!

“Did you happen to catch her name?”

“Bri . . . wait a minute! You’re the jerk who dumped that poor girl?”

Talk about ways to ruin a good deed! Not only did this evil driver think it was okay to tell them *everything* I had said, he got it all WRONG too!

But I digress!

You think he thought I was in love with him at the bar? It took a *month* of trying to undo the damage that cab driver did before I realized I did not care what he thought of me.

* * *

In conclusion, I would like to say that when I get into a taxi cab, I view it like a confessional! The driver should be a steel trap! Before one becomes a professional cab driver, he should take an oath! Make PROMISES!

This disclaimer should be on every dashboard in every cab across the country!:

“You, me and the road. There is no in between.”

Learn it. Know it. Respect it.

THE END!

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