MY BEST POST EVER, AND IT'S ALL TRUE!

This is a revised version of a post I did way back in 2007. I'm very busy and cheats like this will allow me to continue posting for the next week. I don't feel guilty, though. It's the best post I ever did, and it reads a lot better now. Here goes...

My friend Mike hates fast food restaurants. He won't set foot in them. I understand that: most of them are crowded and noisy, with plastic seats and bad food, and who needs that? Alright, they can be terrible, but my local Carl's Jr. isn't like that. For at least half the day it's quiet and comfortable, and you can nurse a cup of coffee while reading, and nobody'll bother you.

Anyway, one day I caught Mike in a weak moment and he let me talk him into going to Carl's. Big mistake! I picked the wrong time because the place was full of retar...er, "mentally challenged" people...with shopping carts filled with "Lion King" memorabilia.  Maybe they'd raided a dumpster. Maybe there was a convention nearby, I don't know.  They were all shouting incoherently and arguing about who owned what, and of course they all gravitated to Mike.

I tried to take Mike's mind off the din by talking about movies and what not, but it was hard to tune out what was going on all around us. At the door a man appeared with a Lion King doll, but he couldn't get in. I don't think he understood the concept of doors. He could see his friends inside, but there was this big old slab (the door) in the way.

After making a few tentative little pushes he opened the door about 20% of the way, then tried to squeeze in through the narrow opening. The door, which had a normal amount of spring tension, began to close on him every time he stopped pushing, and it pinned him by the shoulders. The frightened man turned sideways to get more room but the door closed on him in that position too. Finally he  painstakingly wheedled through sideways, like a crab.

I'm ashamed to say that I was so surprised by what I was seeing that I forgot to offer to help. Besides I was distracted by a little kid who was trying to hit Mike with an empty DVD box.

Things got worse. A man settled into a booth nearby with a cup of coffee and looked wistfully out the window. Nothing wrong with that, I thought, just a citizen enjoying a cup of coffee. "Ah!" you could hear him thinking, "Life is good!" He took a sip then went to take another sip and was shocked to discover that his cup was empty. He glared at the kitchen then got up and filled it again...but with only a little bit of liquid.

Back in the booth he took another long, relaxed sip. "Aaaaah!", he thought again, "That's good!" But wait a minute! He went to take a another sip and the cup was empty all over again! Wha...? What kind of scam was this place running!!!??? Once again he stormed up to the counter to get more coffee.

This went on and on, with him looking surprised that his cup was empty then filling it again with the wrong amount of coffee. Once again I didn't offer to help because the kid was back hitting Mike with the DVD box again.

I should add that Mike was sitting close to the aisle. Every time the coffee man passed he would fart in Mike's face. And when I say "passed," I mean passed in both directions. Mike would get a fart in the face on the guy's way up, and a fart in the face on the guy's way back.

I suggested to Mike that we slide farther in on our seats so we could get away from the aisle, but when we did it was revealed that the woman in the booth behind us was regarding Mike with a murderous stare. Maybe he reminded her of the father who abused her and who now deserved to be stabbed. It was really intense. Regretfully we slid back to the aisle where Mike was promptly farted on again.

So that was my lunch with food snob Mike. (Sigh!) I guess we won't be eating at Carl's again any time soon.


BTW......many, many thanks to Charles Brubaker for the nifty spinner. What a hoot! I'll post a picture of it when I'm able. I can't wait to use it!

THE PRINCESS & THE GIANT (REVISED) (PART I)

EXT. PRINCESS CASTLE:

PRINCESS (V.O.):  "Why can't all men be like giants?"

PRINCESS: "Giants are gentle and nice...not stuck up like that stupid Count Frisbee. I wouldn't go out with him again if he were the last man on Earth!

PRINCESS: "He thinks he's God's Gift to Women...and you know that he's probably always thinking about doing the nasty!"

PRINCESS: "Hey, I'm a Princess! I could have his fingers pulled off! Ha, ha, just kidding!"

PRINCESS: "Giants are so docile and friendly. Why can't all men be like giants?"

PRINCESS: "Hey, I have an idea! Let's take a walk! We'll be gone when Frisbee gets here, and when he sees that nobody's home, maybe he'll get the hint that he's not wanted around here!!

PRINCESS: "I'll just change real fast!"

PRINCESS: "Take these shoes, will 'ya?"

PRINCESS: "I don't need Count Conceited, or whatever his name is."

PRINCESS: "What do I need men for, anyway?"

PRINCESS: "Here, take this scarf."

PRINCESS: "Everybody thinks you find happiness by finding one special person that you share your life with, but I don't think that's how it works. Look at all the people who believe in that. They're all still looking, you know?" 

PRINCESS: "Me, I greet life with a smile. I feel the sensation of the morning dew on my skin. I wait for the sun to come up and fill me with love energy! I don't need Mr. Right!" 

PRINCESS (V.O.): "All I need is a friend like you. Someone I can...you know.... share everything with. 

PRINCESS: "It's all about Karmic energy!"

PRINCESS: "Get rid of this will 'ya? Where's my other dress?"

PRINCESS: "I mean, the only time you can ever feel strong and secure is when you're giving it to others instead of wishing they would give it to you!"

PRINCESS: "Give it to others, I say! Give it to others!"

PRINCESS: "I just want to share!"

PRINCESS (V.O.): "That's all I want..."

PRINCESS: "I just desperately want to...SHARE! Um, do you know where my socks are?"

GIANT: (He wordlessly mouths, "Thank you, God! Thank you!")

 ON THE DOOR:

SFX: KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

*******TO BE CONTINUED*******

THE PRINCESS & THE GIANT (PART II)

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

GIANT: "Huh?"

PRINCESS: "Count Frisbee! Is that you? You're early!"

COUNT FRISBEE: "Yes, darling...I couldn't wait any longer!"

COUNT FRISBEE: "I just had to see you! I was going out of my mind!"

COUNT FRISBEE: "I couldn't even think without you! I didn't get any sleep last night!"

PRINCESS: "I know how you felt, Darling! I couldn't sleep either!"

COUNT FRISBEE: "That silly quarrel we had...it was all my fault! I'm so sorry!"

PRINCESS: "No, no! It was totally my fault! I feel so ashamed!"

COUNT FRISBEE: "It's so good to be together again! Maybe...maybe it's time we made this permanent."

PRINCESS: "It always was permanent, Darling. It always was. Let's find a grotto somewhere and hold hands!"

PRINCESS (V.O.): "Giant, clean this place up while we're gone, will you? It's a mess!"

SHOPPING FOR CHAIRS WITH MIKE

I recently went with Mike to shop for chairs for his living room. Mike likes modern stuff, and we we ended up at some pretty weird places. If you thought this kind of furniture was replaced by something else, think again. There's a lot of it out there and it still sells!

Mike rejected furniture like this (above), but only because it didn't come in leather. 

Is there really gender specific furniture? I did see a couple of chairs with separate cushions for each buttock. 

Hmmmmmmm.

50s modern is still out there. I wouldn't be surprised if you could get chairs like the ones above at Ikea. 

Maybe I was too hasty when I said that all modernism is still with us.  Box furniture like the example above is gone forever.  It used to be popular. You could even buy box beds. I guess people were so taken by their TVs that they wanted to live in them.  This style was ridiculed by later modernists who preferred to live in eggs.

Poor Mike couldn't get this (above) in leather either.

Thank God none of the stores had one of these (above). If they had, I'd have had to buy one, and my family would have moved out.

Ditto this chair (above). Some things must be acquired regardless of the consequences. 

I used to like chairs like this (above), but I didn't see them this time around. Can you still get them?

REST IN PEACE: DENIS DUTTON

Nothing special to post today. I'm bummed out because I just discovered that Denis Dutton, the founder of "Arts and Letters Daily," died. That was one of my favorite sites on the net. Free, too...The Chronicle of Higher Education picked up the tab.

Denis was one of the Los Angeles Duttons, a super achieving family that ran an indispensable chain of used book stores in L.A. I wish I knew more about them. 

The Arts and Letters Daily site: http://www.aldaily.com/