Me: (looking at a Facebook friend request) Hey Brandon, do I know ______?

Brandon: Um, yeah. He came over to our apartment multiple times after we got married. Remember? You baked cookies.

Me: Oh. I guess I know him then. I’ll befriend him.

Commercial for pregnancy test: …It is the most sophisticated piece of technology that you will ever pee on.

Brandon: Says you!

Wendy: Is that a promise or a threat?

Brandon: That’s a promise.

Brandon: This is a really pretty area. I’ve never driven through here before.

Wendy: It is pretty. I don’t know if I’ve been here before; it seems familiar. I’ve probably gotten lost here at some point.

Brandon: You have.

Wendy: (laughing)

Brandon: No really, you have. I remember tracking it on Google maps.

Wendy: Seriously? I have the best sense of direction.

“Let me get this one, I know you’re struggling financially right now. But your ska-country band is going to make it big someday, and then you can pay for dinner.”

He totally loved that. I think he’s sort of sad that Bank of America finally got around to mailing him his new debit card.

“Should I still wear my wedding ring even though you won’t be there?” He asked jokingly.

“No way,” I replied, “I’d hate for you to miss out on the chance to hit on some indie girls. Here, I’ll even give you a line: Hey baby, I noticed that you wear glasses. I too am an intellectual with highly developed individuality. How’s about we mock mainstream music somewhere quieter.”

“Perfect.”

“I couldn’t help noticing that you look like a professional. What do you do for a living?”

“I’m an editor.” I said this with a little pleasure that I didn’t have to say receptionist or administrative assistant, which would have been my answer less than 2 years ago.

“Well I am from Mary Kay and we are looking for professionals just like you to be coaches for our salespeople. I know that when you think of Mary Kay you think of the Mary Kay parties.” Now she looked professional. Perfectly applied makeup, clothes that certainly didn’t come from Old Navy, a Coach purse. She smiled pleasantly and continued, “Would you be interested in a job where you could make up to six figures?”

This might have been a little more convincing, was I not dressed in a tee shirt, jeans, and flip flops. As for makeup, I had only a little more on than mascara. Yeah. I looked like a professional.

“No, thank you,” I responded, “I love my job.” She nodded, thanked me for my time, and walked away.

Did I mention that I had a very similar experience at Target a year ago? Same pitch, similar lady, except I was on my lunch break and had on dress clothes and heels, so the “professional” comment wasn’t quite as ridiculous. I walked away laughing to myself, and continuing to muse about it all the way to the car.
Good fun.

There are the people who do. Usually cantankerous old guys who will tell you exactly how they are doing. They have a boil on their butt the size of a quarter, their medicine costs an arm and a leg, the hired help is stealing from them, and the grandkids only come around when they want something.

And usually people who do give you a negative response are downers, so you just smile and maybe remark about the weather and act distracted.

There are the people who just don’t answer. You say, “hello, how are you?” They say, “good morning.” At least it’s polite I guess.

And of course, there are the set answers, the safe ones, the ones you come to expect. Fine, alright, good, or doing well (I always feel pressured to say that, “doing well,” because I’m a junior editor, so I want people to be assured that I know how to talk good). Responses to “how’s it going?” are about the same, except those people who say “it’s going” to either be mildly funny or passively imply that their day sucks.

So, to the point. My day sucks. I think the last two days should be eligible for do-overs. (Except last night, last night was cool because we went to a friend’s house and played the new GTA, and if there’s a cure for horrible days, that game would be high on the list.) So when people say, “how are you?” It would be far more truthful to say that I need a stiff drink and a good cry. But I have no beef with the grandkids. No, not yet anyway.

Commercial: It’s like art nouveau flower patterns from the 30’s, but like how they used them in the 70’s?

Brandon: Who are they? That’s so ambiguous! Use the passive! 

Now I ask you, doesn’t that make you envy me for having such a cool husband? One that’s more concerned about grammar than how lame the commercial is and how brilliant the creators of the “ironic” clothesline think they are?

He’s mine, ladies. All mine.

When I’m upset or sad, I start sounding very southern. I noticed this last April when I had a car accident and had to talk to the police officer. Something about being very scared not only brought back my “yes sirs” but made me sound like a southern belle in distress. And even as I spoke I knew I was doing it, but I thought maybe it’s good to appear this way to earn the sympathy of this very southern policeman who wanted to give me a ticket for not keeping control of my car in heavy, heavy rain while tractor trailers raced by me in my tiny economy car. At any rate, he didn’t give me a ticket. So… That was good.

Two days ago I had just gotten out of my car at the supermarket and was talking on my cell phone to my friend Shanna when I heard someone honk twice at me. I turned around, and this guy pulled up and said “hey, I fix the dent on your car for $500.” Let me give a little backstory. That dent is a sore subject. Someone ran into our parked car at a very traumatic time in our life and didn’t leave a note. And for some strange reason, we have a ton of other things we’d rather do with $500 than fix that dent. Plus, we’d been approached multiple times by the same company (or scam artists, as I suspect) offering to fix the dent every time we went to that parking lot. And they’re persistent. One time they followed us, honking their horn and flashing their headlights. So when that guy approached me two days ago, I immediately switched to a Valley Girl accent. I don’t know why; it just happened. And what followed had my friend Shanna laughing for a good five minutes. “NO I’M NOT INTERESTED. I DON’T WANT TO FIX THAT DENT, YOU GUYS HAVE ASKED ME THAT A BILLION TIMES BEFORE, GO AWAY.” “Oh no, that wasn’t me, I haven’t asked you that before.” “GO AWAY. LEAVE ME ALONE, I’M SERIOUS, GO AWAY.” “I’m just trying to help–” “I SAID GO! GET AWAY FROM ME. GO! LEAVE.” This included emphatic gestures and my very serious angry face. I’m really not a confrontational person, but next time I may give him a dent to fix for $500. And report his license plate number.

So yeah. If I have a heavy accent either way, you can pretty much bet I’m having a bad day. Just thought I’d let you know.

Brandon: So what, we listen to Fergie now?

Wendy: (raised eyebrow) How do you know this is Fergie?

B: (shrugs)

W: Besides, this doesn’t sound like the chick whose London-London bridge want to go down.

B: I know, but this song is actually from that same album. All of her songs sound so different.

W: How did you know that the songs are from the same album?

B: They were talking about it on Mtv.

W: Since when do you watch Mtv?

B: I was watching it the other day when I was flipping through channels.

W: Huh. That’s dangerous stuff.

So yeah, my husband knows more about Fergie than I do. Do you know what that means? Both of us need lobotomies.