The Junk Drawer

There are a lot of things that irritate me. In fact, I have a whole category on Junk Drawer devoted to “Stuff I Hate.” That doesn’t sound healthy, does it?

Anyway, fewer things annoy me more right now than the jingle at the end of the Empire Today carpet commercial that runs in my area. For all I know it may run nationally and everyone else’s ears are bleeding, too.

Or maybe it doesn’t bother you and I’m the only one who needs to sign up for crankiness management classes.

Mind you, it’s not the whole commercial I hate. It’s just the jingle at the end.

The saving grace is that I can see or hear the commercial coming on and have ample time to dive for the remote to change the channel or mute it.

So what’s wrong with the jingle?

It’s a singing phone number jingle and I hate those so much that I want to cry. I know. That’s not a sane reaction. I shouldn’t be this bothered.

But I am.

What’s worse is that I still have a problem when I’m visiting my mother and it comes on her TV.

There, I’m in a Remote Control Unawareness Zone.

It seems to move a lot. At any given time, I don’t know where her remote is, so I can’t get to it fast enough to change the channel.

And then I have to hear it against my will.

I have to hear this.

And I hate it.

Hate.

It.

So.

Much.

The singing phone number jingle:

Also? Empire people? You think you’ve won by writing a singing jingle? You think that phone number of yours will get stuck in my head and you’ll be the first ones I call when I need carpeting?

No. I specifically avoid you, avoid hearing your number, and now you done gone and made me blog about how annoying it is.

It’s a wonder you can sleep at night.

Now where do I sign up for those Cranky McCrankster classes?

My husband left me a love note this morning.

Translation: I love you and your ten fingers. Please don’t stick your hand in the dishwasher and slice one of them off with the machete I used to cut vegetables last night.

He knows I have a problem with knives.

Thanks, dear. I like all my ten fingers, too.

Dear Homeowner and Servant,

I wish to inform you that the new food you’ve been serving me is not at all to my liking.

Yes, I know the [claw air quote] vet [claw air quote] said you should feed me that nasty wet venison and dry food so I have better poops.

But you see, I’m not really fond of either selection.

Therefore, this is what you can expect to find in the morning, afternoon and evening. The ones you found on Monday and Wednesday were just the beginning.

Nice trick bringing one downstairs for you to find, eh?

Whatever roll you leave out gets the treatment. I have all day to work on it. And my claws and teeth go deep. Just sayin’.

Please refrain from all attempts to encourage me to eat this new food. I know what it is. You know what it is.

I miss my old stuff.

Yes, I understand you are very happy with the state of my poop situation with this new diet, but you would be wise to give into my demands, lest you find more than toilet paper destroyed.

You have a whole walk-in closet full of clothing I haven’t even touched yet.

Regards,

The Cat

So I was talking to a client at work today. I had just reconfigured her laptop and mentioned that for her to connect to her home wireless network again, she’d have to remember her network password.

Uh-oh. No one ever remembers that.

We joked that it’s good for at least one person in any household to be the Rememberer of Passwords and other impossible things.

That person in my house is me. I’m also tech support for all our equipment, except the monstrous TV setup that only my husband understands.

If he goes, I’m screwed, because I can’t understand how to work the controls for that bastard.

But for home computing, I’m your man.

Which means if I go first, this is the ad my husband will place on Match.com to find a new mate:

WANTED: SWF with tech support skills. Must be able to disinfect viruses, keep all software up-to-date, troubleshoot problems big and small, install all new systems as needed and remember passwords for everything. Mac skills a plus, because I’m thinking about getting one. It helps if you have a Barbie doll figure, but seriously, if you can manage my home network and answer all my techy questions, your hardware doesn’t matter.

So who’s the tech support in your house?

Dufus sumo erratum vehiculum: informally, Latin for “idiot picks the wrong car”

Definition: to walk up to a car you think is yours, stick your key in the door, only to realize it’s just a car that looks like yours, and happens to be parked in a space you normally use, then try to figure out how you can look like you meant to do that and walk a block away to where you really parked your car and hope that no one saw you do it.

I’m looking forward to buying a new car one day. The kind where you point and shoot a device that makes your car scream out “Over here, moron.”

Yeah, I need that.