had a conversation with a man who was trying to defraud me of many hundreds of dollars today. Since I was onto his game and was already filing a complaint, I went ahead and returned his threatening phone call. Our conversation went something like this:
Him (in nearly unintelligible South Asian accent): Hello?
Me: (with a severe head cold): Yes, what company do you represent?
Him: Tell me your name.Me: No. You tell me your company's name first.
Him: No. You tell me your name and then I tell you company name fuhst. {sic}
Me: Let's try this again. I want to know whom you represent.
Him: Ma'am, tell me your name NOW! I don't have to tell you nothing.
Me: Okay, since you asked nicely, Rachel Anderson. But you should know that, since you called me first.
Him: Spell that, please.Me: T-H-A-T
Him: Spell name, please MA'AM!!!Me: Oh, I see. Well, Rachel is spelled just like it sounds, and Anderson is pretty common so you should get that no problem.
Him: SPELL NAME PLEASE!!!
Me: No. Guess.Him: LISA LISA LISA MA'AM!!!
Me: Who's "Lisa?" My name is Rachel.
Him: Spell name FOR MY CONVENIENCE!
Me: Oh, I don't think I'll do that.
End transmission
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Saturday, August 18, 2007
The Stupid
All of us, every day, function in close proximity to The Stupid. I capitalized the term to illustrate the privileged position that The Stupid occupy in our society. The power of The Stupid was revealed to me today; by virtue of their inability to process information, The Stupid are empowered to ignore completely any sound argument the Non-Stupid put forth to them. I discovered this in today, when I broke my rule of never engaging The Stupid in logical discussion. The Stupid and I went round and round in a sick dance in which I repeated my argument (ten times!) in every way I could possibly think to make him understand, and he repeated his argument in exactly the same way - ten times. By the end, I was irritated to the point of striking him. He had broken me, and made me just as Stupid as he.
Categories of Stupid:
1.The Wily Stupid - Like the one I dealt with today, they will pull you into their web of Stupidity and make you one of them.
2.The Hateful Stupid - These are malicious. Even when they don't understand what mean thing they have said/done, they do understand that they are being harmful in some way.
3.The Drunken Stupid - Most of us have been this.
4..The Happy Stupid - They are happy to be stupid and to know that you think that they're stupid.
5.George W. Bush
Categories of Stupid:
1.The Wily Stupid - Like the one I dealt with today, they will pull you into their web of Stupidity and make you one of them.
2.The Hateful Stupid - These are malicious. Even when they don't understand what mean thing they have said/done, they do understand that they are being harmful in some way.
3.The Drunken Stupid - Most of us have been this.
4..The Happy Stupid - They are happy to be stupid and to know that you think that they're stupid.
5.George W. Bush
Sunday, June 17, 2007
The Secret 2, Electric Bugaloo
The Secret advises You (author's caps, not mine) to speak only your desires aloud, and the Universe (their caps, again) will respond.
Try the fun things I've been doing for a couple days now:
Announce aloud, "I eat whatever I want and am my ideal weight," in between mouthfuls of chimichanga.
Announce to your partner frequently, "See that clear lane of traffic/green light/image of St. Francis of Assissi in tire grease? I manifested that."
Assert that everything you want is on its way. When someone asks "When?", remind him or her that the Universe doesn't recognize time. This works especially well if you work at the post office or DPS.
Try the fun things I've been doing for a couple days now:
Announce aloud, "I eat whatever I want and am my ideal weight," in between mouthfuls of chimichanga.
Announce to your partner frequently, "See that clear lane of traffic/green light/image of St. Francis of Assissi in tire grease? I manifested that."
Assert that everything you want is on its way. When someone asks "When?", remind him or her that the Universe doesn't recognize time. This works especially well if you work at the post office or DPS.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
The Secret
The Secret, a self-empowerment book that's being flung about in book circles and touted as nothing short of miraculous, was gifted to me. Not to be left out of a trend, I've been trying out some of the suggestions. One passage suggests that, before sleep, I replay all the events of the day and, "If any events or moments did not got the way you wanted, replay them in your mind in a way that thrills you." Here are some events from my day that I thought might could use a rewrite:
1. In an effort to get through a restaurant meal with a tired 4-year old, I would not have succumbed to the hot judgment of the woman at the adjacent table and her three silent children and, when my daughter refused to stop dancing in the aisle and eat her damn burrito, I might have given her a little pat on the head, rather than dragging her into the bathroom and threatening to burn all of her toys.
2. During a Rockwellian moment of drinking coffee and humoring my mother by reading aloud from Robert Pinsky's America's Favorite Poems, I would not have taken her bait and entered in a heated argument about home decor. In this conflict, I implied that the four paintings she demanded I hang in the living room were painted by a no-name ass clown and would serve the decor best if they were mounted in the following locations: beneath the litter box, in one of the toilet tanks, on the ceiling of the guest bathroom, and on the topmost branch of the tree in the backyard, respectively. I haven't thought of an alternate ending for this one.
1. In an effort to get through a restaurant meal with a tired 4-year old, I would not have succumbed to the hot judgment of the woman at the adjacent table and her three silent children and, when my daughter refused to stop dancing in the aisle and eat her damn burrito, I might have given her a little pat on the head, rather than dragging her into the bathroom and threatening to burn all of her toys.
2. During a Rockwellian moment of drinking coffee and humoring my mother by reading aloud from Robert Pinsky's America's Favorite Poems, I would not have taken her bait and entered in a heated argument about home decor. In this conflict, I implied that the four paintings she demanded I hang in the living room were painted by a no-name ass clown and would serve the decor best if they were mounted in the following locations: beneath the litter box, in one of the toilet tanks, on the ceiling of the guest bathroom, and on the topmost branch of the tree in the backyard, respectively. I haven't thought of an alternate ending for this one.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Hey, Old Man
Hey, Old Man.
I see you, Old Man, at the end of the bar.
I think you're kinda cute
The way you gob a whiskey
And how you're trying hard to chew.
Hey, Old Man.
Are you busy later on?I wanna go off-roading with you.
I plan to king your checkers
And wear your blue bathrobe
I'll feed you tapioca
If you let me take you home.
They call me one sick puppy
When I tell 'em your my man
Hop up on my scooter
We'll make them understand.
Hey, Old Man.
© R. Adame/L. Lee 1998 Lyrics appear courtesy of 25 Whores LLC
I see you, Old Man, at the end of the bar.
I think you're kinda cute
The way you gob a whiskey
And how you're trying hard to chew.
Hey, Old Man.
Are you busy later on?I wanna go off-roading with you.
I plan to king your checkers
And wear your blue bathrobe
I'll feed you tapioca
If you let me take you home.
They call me one sick puppy
When I tell 'em your my man
Hop up on my scooter
We'll make them understand.
Hey, Old Man.
© R. Adame/L. Lee 1998 Lyrics appear courtesy of 25 Whores LLC
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Los Angeles
What I once chalked up to NYC/SF bias is now firmly cemented in my opinion as incontrovertable truth: L.A. will strip you of the will to live. Immediately upon exiting baggage claim at LAX, one gets the distinct feeling that the ground will open up and suck the traveler straight into Hell. Or maybe that's just me. I trod lightly on the pavement so as not to activate some hidden latch into the underworld, dodging bottle blondes and aging hipsters whose cell phones appeared to be attached to their heads by an expoxy comprised of ambition and exhibitionism. I was a passenger for four days, and the car window was a viewfinder through which I felt I was watching the last minutes of my life unfold; changing lanes on La Cienega is something you don't want to do without first writing out a DNR and seeing a priest.
The friends whom I was visiting were NYC transplants, mostly. Talking to them gave me the sense that they'd undergone personality transplants as part of the contract with Los Angeles. One friend, who in New York found it hard to walk to the corner bodega, spoke at length of his training regimen for the L.A. marathon. I was party to no fewer than five heated discussions about the merits of various gyms, and whether Winsor Pilates was superior to Ballet Hip Hop Yoga classes. At every social encounter, introductory pleasantries were followed by a cursory discussion of everyone's choice in cellular/PDA technology.
The nightlife incongruously ends at 2 A.M.: The better part of the evening involves parking. I had forgotten that L.A. is a clothing-optional metropolis. I was insulted by a male stranger more horribly than I had ever been by any subway transient. That was my fault - I hadn't gotten my Botox injection yet.
Everything and everyone there looks newly-laminated.Maybe it's just that I prefer cities with a more obvious veneer of outward decay and industrialization: Chicago, New York, London. In Los Angeles, the dissipation is strictly moral, and instead of being etched on the buildings, it is imprinted on the glassy eyes of Los Angelenos.
On coming home, I still feel (two days later) as though my soul need a deep-cleaning, but the only lavage available is the passage of time, whereby the taint of L.A. dissipates and is carried on the wind back to its place of origin.
The friends whom I was visiting were NYC transplants, mostly. Talking to them gave me the sense that they'd undergone personality transplants as part of the contract with Los Angeles. One friend, who in New York found it hard to walk to the corner bodega, spoke at length of his training regimen for the L.A. marathon. I was party to no fewer than five heated discussions about the merits of various gyms, and whether Winsor Pilates was superior to Ballet Hip Hop Yoga classes. At every social encounter, introductory pleasantries were followed by a cursory discussion of everyone's choice in cellular/PDA technology.
The nightlife incongruously ends at 2 A.M.: The better part of the evening involves parking. I had forgotten that L.A. is a clothing-optional metropolis. I was insulted by a male stranger more horribly than I had ever been by any subway transient. That was my fault - I hadn't gotten my Botox injection yet.
Everything and everyone there looks newly-laminated.Maybe it's just that I prefer cities with a more obvious veneer of outward decay and industrialization: Chicago, New York, London. In Los Angeles, the dissipation is strictly moral, and instead of being etched on the buildings, it is imprinted on the glassy eyes of Los Angelenos.
On coming home, I still feel (two days later) as though my soul need a deep-cleaning, but the only lavage available is the passage of time, whereby the taint of L.A. dissipates and is carried on the wind back to its place of origin.
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