It has been pointed out that in the past, I have been unkind to her. In order to make things fair, I have put together some campaign slogans for her, which she's welcome to use as my gift:
- Lean and Mean: I only eat 4 babies a day
- Clinton/Cheney 2020: Satan is on our side
- Because Queen Elizabath ain't the only reptilian on the planet
- My husband fucked a lot of ugly women. I'm going to fuck you ALL.
"lefty must've ordered something online."
How do you know?
"He seems very very mad and is about to unleash it on the blog."
For a moment there, I was the AntiTech: electrons somehow flowed around me, refusing to come near enough to actually perform any useful work.
I knew we needed Jeff Beck tickets - the concert is coming up. Missing Jeff Beck is unthinkable. It's a religious pilgrimage. Nobody in the house retains well, so I was all set to go, when I finally remembered what happens when I try to spend money online.... good friggin' luck. I really need to make notes with what finally worked, although that's subject to change.
So I started to shake a little, feeling that dread in the pit of my stomach, as if I had somehow signed up to fight Mike Tyson. Only Mike Tyson can theoretically be beaten: ticket vendors cannot. There is a distinct prejudice against linux, no matter what they tell you. They say to use X or Y browser. Here's some news, guys.. neither of them work, but they fail in different places.
On linux, my wide open browser, with no protection, accepting cookies, did not work. The next one found seats(!), let me select them, then sat there, with "Getting your seats ready" on the screen. Five minutes later, I used a Windows machine to do the same thing. It got past the hump and even to where I pay! I put in my credit card information, hit PURCHASE, then it told me I hadn't selected a card. Of course I selected a card - I spend the last few minutes typing in my information. To make this more fun, there is a timer. If you exceed the allotted time, it releases your seats and you have to start over again. So I typed in my info again, and again it told me I needed to put in payment info. I'm using Internet Explorer here, folks... what's the problem? I exceeded the time limit and was well past the end of my patience. There was much screaming.
I gave up on the first browser, which was still "Getting your seats ready" and tried a third browser, this time on linux. FINALLY I managed to select AND pay for the tickets. I felt like a conquering hero. A conquering hero who was completely beyond anyone's tolerance for absolute friggin' nonsense. I was ready to set fire to an orphanage by this point, Live Nation. All I had to do was print the tickets. You know where this is going, right? No paper. Reach down to a convenient pack of paper, pull out a handful of paper. With holes punched in it. Apparently you can buy pre-punched paper by the ream, not that I remember buying any. Go into next room to a pile of paper and promptly knock over a bunch of paper, none of it blank. The next pile was bright red paper, which is always welcome by the nice folks at the door. Finally got the white paper and printed two sets of tickets; the second to keep in the car when I forget the originals but am already at the stadium. Sometimes I outsmart myself.
So it's the next day and I am instructed to pick up some food at the store.
At the store, I call Wife to ask a question. Nothing. Zip. Not a ring. Hmmm... maybe it's my phone. Nope, good signal. Try again.... right to voicemail. Try a third time.. nothing. People ask my wife to let them know when I go food shopping because they like to watch what happens when I get agitated. We've all seen some person talking on a phone in a store. We haven't all seen someone using the phone as a sledgehammer, banging it on shelves and the floor, cursing up a cloud of #*@&@#%^ and questioning his effect on the universe. Just leave the kids at home, ok folks?
At home, I casually mention I called four times. When I say casually mention, I mean her hair actually blew horizontally and stayed there for 15 minutes, while she covered her ears from the sheer volume. "But my phone has been right here the whole time and hasn't rung." I believe her. I show her my outgoing call log. She believes me.
Fifteen minutes later I discover that someone 'assisted' her by putting the phone on airplane mode so she could rest. There is no bit of helpful technology that we can't screw up.
We already know I take a lot of crap for my socks. They're white bloody socks - how offensive or silly could they possibly be? They're the wrong height. I think they're supposed to either disappear into my shoe or come to my knees, like a gang member. Homey don't play dat. If I can buy the socks at CostCo, they're obviously not from the previous century.
It's time for some shorts and tank shirts. Since were just past the first major heat wave, I'm afraid the stores won't be carrying shorts now.. perhaps fall or winter gear. Cuz you don't want to buy summer clothes in the summer. And after I buy them, they're going to be the wrong length. Fortunately I won't take a lot of ribbing because I rarely leave the house. Because I grew up when I grew up, my shorts came down to roughly half my calf. Unfortunately someone decided that men's shorts needed to come to their knees or lower, like some sort of a skirt, again for gang members (or transvestites). I retain some shorts from before, but I am forbidden to wear them outside the house. Fair enough. I don't want to be the Weird Dude who wears 'child molester' shorts. I have two pairs of shorts in skirt length, in case I get caught out of doors.
My wife, a very smart and tolerant woman, enables me by finding swim shorts, which don't come in skirt length. Then I get laughed at for being out of the house in a bathing suit. Are you seeing a pattern here? Using our collective gray matter, we figured a 2nd hand store might be the place for me. People dumping their clothes from the 70s and 80s might agree with my very advanced fashion sense. Let's face it: it's only a matter of time til they come back in style, as if they were new and no one had ever seen them before. Of course it's difficult to get to the 2nd hand store when you're voluntarily agoraphobic and your wife is 12 hours behind your schedule. I'm typing, it's sunny out, and she's sleeping. I'm starting to think, after 20 years, it's personal. I catch on quick.
Knowing two of us being awake and leaving the house is something that just can't happen due to laws of physics, it was suggested I go online. Since I catch on real gud, it's only just occurring to me what a boon online shopping is. Never mind that a former VP at work said she loved it, about 20 years ago. Never mind that you can't try it on - just return it! There are pictures, largely indicating the shorts are not as short as I want, but still not extreme skirts. I like the concept of finding what you want by typing it in. Sometimes I'm really confused at the results for shorts, though...
 |
| NO. |
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| makes your package look bigger. Buy 2 for your bra! |
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| CHILDREN visit Amazon |
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| searching for men's shorts? |
Then there's the bike shorts (padded or no). For some reason, you are not allowed to get on a bicycle without these shorts. I know a female who wears these. I don't laugh at her because she wears them well. Since I don't ride a bike or even own a helmet, I'm not wearing those shorts. Oh yeah, no one wants to see me in them either. I'd get arrested, then the entire local police force would laugh at me. There are cargo shorts too. They seem ok to me, but are the butt of 25% of the jokes on social media, so they're out. There are running shorts, stretch shorts, flat front shorts (the others aren't flat in the front?), performance shorts, Wyoming shorts (presumably not available in 48 states and New Jersey), and one that sounds particularly like shorts I should have: dry print attack shorts. Shorts... FETCH! Shorts... ATTACK! In blue camo, no less. I have a soft spot for Ted Nugent but I ain't wearing his shorts. Tri shorts, golf shorts, Pounce short, and of course, workout fashion comfy shorts. So close.. if they just called them comfy shorts, I'd buy them. Workout shorts sound like they expect too much from me, and I wouldn't be caught dead in anything called fashion. I lead trends; I do not follow. Yes, I lead from 20 years back, but dammit, I still lead.
I had a much easier time with men's tank shirts. Or at least I thought I did. They kinda screwed up by making the models look fit. The ones that weren't fit had muscles on their muscles and looked like their day job involved pulling tree stumps from the ground by hand. They called them athletic shirts. They'd sell more if they called them couch shirts. Or dad shirts. Or no air conditioning shirts.
There's one thing I will not buy online: sneakers. It's not that I have a complex, difficult to fit foot.... it's that I have flat feet. And when I say flat feet, I mean the National Institute of Science and Technology uses my feet as a reference standard for flat. Companies calibrate delicate equipment to my feet. They're kinda wide too. Like a triple Q. I'm told many people wear a size 11 3/4. You'll like this: the best fitting sneakers I found are at CostCo. Of course they are - everything good comes from CostCo. My brother went in for hot dogs and came out with an airplane. However, CostCo got wind of my affinity for their sneakers and promptly stopped carrying them. They won't tell me that.. instead they claim they're out of stock and will be back 'in about a week or two.' They ask if I'd like a track shoe or a running shoe. Again, the marketing mistake. I want a sitting on the couch with the laptop shoe. Or an occasionally going to the kitchen for a soda shoe. The most heavy shoe I'll need is the going to Dairy Queen for a malt shoe.
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