The Rants of Mister P

Cash Stash Bash

I thought it would be a good idea to keep some "emergency money" in my car. Considering how often I lose my wallet, having twenty bucks stashed some place could get me out of a jam some day. I was trying to figure out where to put it, and decided it should go behind a fabric flap attached to the visor. Apparently this was the perfect place for the money because when I went to put the $20 there I found... Sixty dollars.

I have no recollection of putting the money there. I could understand if it was $20; then I'd just assume I thought about doing an emergency stash before and forgot about it. But $60? I don't know why I would hide that much. Maybe I forgot about my stash 3 times and I just keep stuffing twenties up there.

Financial Management has never been my forte.

Basic Instinct

I am starting to agree with many of you that there may actually be something wrong with me. Tonight, I sort of forgot to eat dinner.

I didn't forget all of it. I had a dinner roll and a small amount of pasta. I had a steak that I cooked on a George Foreman Grill clone. I cut off a few pieces to give to the cat, and left the rest on the counter. Then I went and ate my roll while the pasta was still boiling. When the pasta was done I ate that. Then just now (10:15pm) I went into the kitchen to get some water and saw the steak still sitting there.

I mean, isn't there supposed to be some sort of primitive instinct that says "HUNGRY: MUST EAT"? Cause apparently I'm missing it.

When life hands you a lemon, make a Grand Latte

I went to Starbucks today, which might as well be a foreign country as far as I'm concerned. I don't understand how it works and I don't understand the language there, but I heard they had lemonade so I thought I would give it try.

I asked the cashier/waitress/barista/whatever "Do you have lemonade?"

She tells me something along the lines of "we have herbal teas, chai teas, iced coffee, and we can make all of them with lemonade."

Being from a foreign land, I didn't quite understand this custom. "How do you make them 'with' lemonade?"

"We can do half-and-half, mix them together."

So I asked what apparently was not an obvious question, "Can you just make the lemonade?"

This seemed to blow her mind. "You want just lemonade?". "Yes." "Well, I guess we could do that." She then turned to the other cashier/waitress/barista/translator/whatever and asked her "have you ever had just a lemonade?" "Yeah, it's good".

I got a cup with liquid in it and it tasted like lemonade. I just don't understand why my request was so odd. Is Starbucks that snooty that they have trouble making something as beneath them as a lemonade?

Attack!



I survived my first ocean attack today.

The sea was angry this morning my friends, like an old man trying to return soup at a deli. We were doing our weekly swim in Santa Monica and I had made it past the buoy and turned north for the voyage up the coast. Little did I know what was lurking in the depths below. The cold, murky waters obscured my vision so that by the time I finally saw the Savage Beast it was too late; this was his dominion, and I was an intruder. I tried to turn away from the demonic minion of Neptune but my fate was sealed.

And that's pretty much when the jellyfish stung me. It sort of felt like a pin cushion being thrown at my forearm, only with all the points sticking outward. It was not a terrible pain, but it did sting a bit. And then the itching started. Not severe, but constant and annoying. Staying in the water didn't help.

It's funny how your mind likes teasing you. As I noticed how far out I was from shore, in the back of my mind I was thinking "hmmm... now is a bad time to find out if I have allergic reactions to jellyfish stings." After a while, my arm started getting tired, and I wondered: is my arm weakening because of the poisonous toxins surging through my bloodstream? Or was it tired because, dude, you're swimming in the freaking ocean? I may never know.

I finished the swim (well, most of it, I cheated a bit and cut in a little early) and went to the lifeguard to get something for the itching. I was hoping he'd have some kind of emergency kit which he'd open up, pull out a special foil-wrapped cloth and tell me to rub briskly for 5 minutes. Instead, he grabbed a beat-up spray-bottle with a piece of masking tape that read "jellyfish" and squirted my arm. It's a diluted vinegar mixture. It did stop the itching for a bit, but it wasn't completely gone for about 2 hours.

My advice? Stay out of the ocean. The Beasts have sampled human flesh, and surely they will be coming for more.

(Further adventures on Neoprene Wedgie)

If I see that commercial for Charlie and the Damn Chocolate Factory one more time I think I'm going to start Wonking heads. Can you believe the movie hasn't even opened yet? It seems like it's been playing for months already.

The War isn't over

Do you have a mother or grandmother who is very stingy with things like sugar or butter? They'll try to tell you "You have to save up... back during The War we had rationing and we couldn't get sugar whenever we wanted it." And you have to say "The war's over Grams, now pass the sugarbowl and nobody will get hurt."

I've realized that I am a car-air-conditioning miser.

I drove around for a few years in an old Firebird that had no air conditioning. It was an old freon system which could not be (legally) recharged. The car also had a problem with overheating so I would often drive around Los Angeles in the summer with the heat on to help cool the engine. I learned to appreciate the value of air conditioning.

My current car is less than 2 years old, yet I still find myself fearful of the air conditioning. If I have passengers in the car I'll gladly turn it on, but when I'm by myself I feel guilty using it. I will drive around with the vent on and all the windows open, then finally decide that maybe a little AC wouldn't hurt.