Channel My Inner Greek

With the success of the Canada trip, in that she was able to leave the country and come back again, my wife has already started making plans for a trip to Greece at the end of the summer. She wants to go for about a month, which unfortunately I can't do. I suppose I will tag along for the 2 weeks I have and then come home alone. I guess I really need to get cracking on my Greek! Although I still don't know enough to carry on a "useful" conversation. I mean, who really cares that I drank a glass of milk at school or that my cantaloupe is green?

Incognito

I had to cut my hair last night. I actually cut it pretty short. I needed to change my look completely…to become unrecognizable. You see, I’m on the run. I placed a bad bet on a bad tip during the Synchronized Swimming Championships. I put it all on China, and then they got disqualified when it was revealed that three of their team members were only seven years old.

Apparently, disqualification still counts as a loss to a bookie, and now he wants me to pay up. Where am I supposed to get that kind of cash? It’s not like I have $22.65 just sitting around somewhere! I don’t know what I’m going to do. These guys are serious!

Shouldn't Leave Me Alone

My wife is leaving for a week to attend a conference in Whistler, Canada. This means that for a week I can have everything in the house exactly the way I want them. Simply put, this means the theme for the week is “Pants are Optional!”

Man Jailed for Throwing Shoe

I heard on the radio today that some guy in Iraq who was arrested for throwing a shoe at President Bush back in December got three years in prison. Apparently, in the Mideast, displaying the soles of your shoes to someone else is considered offensive, while throwing your shoes at someone else is extremely offensive.

Apparently, the Iraqi reporter could have gotten as much as fifteen years in prison for throwing his shoe. I suppose he only got three because he missed…with both shoes.

It cracks me up to hear about a society where hijacking planes and blowing up a building with a bomb strapped to your chest are taught as a higher calling, but throwing a shoe is offensive. Seriously? Throwing a shoe is worse than killing someone? “When you shot that guy, we were willing to overlook it. But you threw a shoe, and that, we cannot tolerate!”

It’s not all bad, though. The shoe company claiming to have made the shoes had to hire one hundred more people to be able to keep up with the demand for that particular model of shoe!

Church Bells

When I came in this morning, the church bells across the street were ringing happily. I like to think they are thanking God for getting us all through another night and allowing us to see another beautiful day.

I met J.C. coming in, and she commented how pretty the bells sounded. She said that was why she always came in a few minutes late each day, so she could hear the bells. I quickly agreed, thinking that it surely couldn’t be the sleeping in late, absurdly thinking that eating breakfast was important, watching TV just five minutes too long, the unexpected bowel movement that crept up on me, spending an extra few minutes admiring my potato physique in the mirror, or the traffic through the three construction zones I have to drive through. It has to be to hear the bells that brings me in late every morning. Yeah, that’s it.

Boquillas del Carmen

When I was a kid, I found myself on a family vacation in Big Bend National Park, which is in southwest Texas and runs right up to the Mexico border. This was back in the days when border crossing was more common and less restrictive. My dad decided that since we were so close to Mexico that we should visit Boquillas del Carmen, a little village just across the Rio Grande River. We hired a guy to drag us across the river in his boat…yes, he simply walked across the river. The Rio Grande River was not the deterrent and safety wall that some people thought it was.

After a twelve-second burro ride up the hill (which we also paid for), we found ourselves in the village of Boquillas del Carmen. Needless to say, it left a lot to be desired. The entire village consisted of three buildings: two saloons and a restaurant. We paid a guy to “show us the town,” and we were led on a tour of the aforementioned three buildings, the village Coke machine, the village water well, and the pig sty located right next to the village water well. (This was the main reason we opted for a Coke out of the machine rather than the offered glass of water.)

At the time, Boquillas del Carmen had one pig living in the village pig sty, and that pig only had three legs. When we asked the guide about this, he smiled his crooked, yellow smile and said, “We’re eating ‘im one leg at a time.”

Marriage Aroma

I have long believed that my inability to attract the attention of the opposite sex stemmed from the fact that I wore a wedding ring. However, recent experiments of going shopping without my wedding ring have shown that belief to be false. I still am unable to get ogled. This has led me to establish a new theory.

I must be reeking of what I like to call the “marriage aroma.” This aroma, while completely invisible to me, must be evident to every woman out there. It identifies me immediately as being married and wards off any potential attention I might get. If it isn’t something that all husbands get when they say, “I do,” then I suspect that it is something that my wife has concocted to protect her “investment.”

The “marriage aroma” is really the only plausible explanation. A few of the guys at work have suggested that maybe I’m just not attractive to the opposite sex…which is just absurd. Everyone knows I’m God’s gift to women. So, it must be the “marriage aroma.”

New On-Site Technical Support

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7 Habits

I’m in this training class at work, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. While the book has incredibly good content, it is best to read it in stages. I found this out the hard way. I tried reading some of the book during my lunch hour. I made pretty good headway, but somewhere along the way I started dozing off. I tried to fight it, but apparently I lost. I say apparently, because I don’t recall falling asleep, I only recall the brisk shaking of my co-worker as he aroused me out of my slumber.

I sat up, wiped the drool off my cheek, wiped the drool off the book, wiped the drool off the desk, wiped my foot across the drool on the floor, and stared at him in annoyance. “I’m trying to read here. What do you need?”

“Class is about to start back up, and I didn’t want you to sleep through it.”

“Oh,” I said a little chagrined. “Thanks.”

Perhaps it was because of the way I had talked to him. Perhaps it was for some past offense that I’m unaware of. Perhaps it is just in his nature. But while this co-worker made sure to wake me for class, he didn’t find the time to mention that I had an embossed “7” on my cheek from sleeping on the cover of the book! Luckily, the teacher just thought I was really gung-ho about the class.