Sunday, March 01, 2009

Random Things that Amuse Me

I haven't really got much to blog about lately, but a couple of things have happened that don't really fit anywhere else and I thought maybe they'd be fun as a post on their own.

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The other day, I was gassing up at a Sheetz during my regular work day. As part of the state's business practices, when you gas up your state car you have to enter a series of codes into the gas pump before it allows you to pump gas. One of these is the odometer reading, which I am always silently repeating to myself over and over and over again so that I won't forget it while entering in the other numbers. (I like WaWa by the way because their pumps make you enter the odometer reading first.)

So I had just started the complex ballet of number crunching when I hear from the pump next to me, "Hey there darlin', can you help me out a minute?" in a smooth talkin' southern accent. (Incidentally, since I've dropped 64 pounds, I've gone from being "ma'am" to "darlin'" in a heartbeat with men.)

My northern instincts immediately kicked in and I sized this dude up, but so did my Commonwealth of Virginia Employee instincts, which I feel mandate me to be cheerful and polite to everyone until I have to kick them in the nuts. So I put a smile on my face and ask the guy, "What's happening?"

"I been strugglin' with this damn thing all day, can you help me put it on?" And he hands me a bracelet.

I think my eyebrows shot up into one of those, "Are you f'ing kidding me?!" type of looks because he looked at me kind of pleadingly and said, "It's the darnedest thing, I just can't work the clasp."

This dude was driving a pick up on steroids, blaring out the C&W music, and wearing a cowboy hat, I am not making this up. But he was stymied by a lobster clasp on a bracelet.

"Ok," I said, and took the bracelet from him and clasped it on his wrist. "There you go."

"Thank ya. You all have a great day now," he said and got back in his truck and took off.

Go figure.

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One of my husband's favorite games in the car is to play "Who sings this, Susan?" He knows I'm incredibly pathetic at knowing band names, and also at knowing songs. Very often, he'll say something like, "Don't you love that song 'This House'?" and I'll be like, "I don't know that song" and he'll play it and of course I know it. But even more fun is putting on a random radio station that caters to classic rock or oldies and making me guess who the hell is singing.

I pride myself on playing with panache, if not accuracy. I've never made up a band name, but I've been tempted, since after a couple of hours of being wrong, it can get a bit tiresome.

But the other week we were driving up north for some reason and we were listening to 95.9, Fredericksburg's Classic Rock Station and a song came on. And he starts. "Who's this, Susan?" I didn't know the song playing, but to me it sounded like Mick Jagger, so I said, "It's the Stones."

He was positively gleeful at my lack of musical knowledge. "That's not the Stones!" he mocked me.

Well, the announcer came on and, you guessed it, announced that it was, indeed, the Stones, and the song was "Under My Thumb" I think? That is officially my favorite Stones song ever now. Thanks, Mick and the boys!

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