Puppies and Oil

Did I ever tell you about Newt the dog who barked at his food bowl all day? This dog was so ridiculously paranoid he’d bark away intruders, even if the only intruders were me and maybe a visiting friend. He’d take a bite, chomp-chomp, and then yelp…bite, chomp-chomp and yelp…for like fifteen minutes straight. He ate very slowly.

I lived with this dog, back when I Craigslisted-it with this thirty-something Republican dude who owned guns and a semi-retarded dog named Newt. He had another dog, “T”, but T was pretty normal. Only, he had a red rocket the size of a dry-erase marker. But T was pretty sweet.

My Craigslister roomie was the one who first told me about the Subaru that I now own. He shouted from the kitchen, four Modelos deep, “Dude, that WRX hauls major ass! Best performance bargain on the market. Burp!” I now tell that to people I meet, sans burping.

Speaking of the car, I changed my oil for the first time ever. It only took three hours, a trip to Pep Boys, a ruined shirt and several bouts of diuretic anxiety, but hey, I did it. Why anxiety, you ask? Well, that’s because my landlord was hovering around the premises all day, fixing things, and wasn’t too keen on my pulling a Nascar pit maneuver in his driveway. He could tell from the onset that I was no pro.

At one point, I unscrewed the oil pan lugnut and released five quarts of oil into my shifty oil catching pan – all at once. About 4.9 quarts spilled over, onto my driveway, creating an oily cesspool. I stressed balls over that one. The best I could do was throw some rocks over it, but it still looks like rocks floating in oil. I hope that oil doesn’t end up in my Euro-style bath/shower that I use sitting down.

When I told my dad about the oil mixup, he said, “Son, I can’t count on one hand the number of times I didn’t spill some oil.”

Say Goodbye to Yesterday

Last night I chaperoned a semi-formal dance as per one of my job requirements. I had been told that I would be given a flashlight so’s I could “break up any untraditional dancing” that might be going on. Let’s hover around this little piece of information for a spell, OK?

One, the first thing I pictured when I heard “flashlight” was a light-saber, because you can’t physically break two people apart with just a flashlight. It’s just light, and nothing concrete that can create space. We didn’t get light sabers – we didn’t even get traditional flashlights. We were just told to go around and say, “Hey, leave some room for the Holy Ghost” or something along those lines.

Two, I cringed when I was told to interrupt dance floor mock-coitus. I mean, who am I to say, “You can’t rub up on her!” Back during my practically virginal high school days, I savored any chance to rub up on a girl, and usually this opportunity arose (ahem) during the school dances. It was dark in that gym, and anything was possible! Give me some rump-shakin’ music DJ! Hell, I’ll even take Boyz II Men if ya got it!

Three, I immediately dreaded the moment I would have to get near the floor, because I knew the pressure to dance would surface. One of the female teachers veered too close to a group of boys who obviously choreographed a little number, and she got swarmed like a honey pot near a beehive. She came running out of that pile like a GI racing for the Green Zone in Baghdad.

Times have changed, as best exemplified by the new moves out there on the floor. The days of simple grindin’ are over. I saw some introduce chairs, napkins, hats and a military jacket (don’t ask) into their routines. And you know what? I was impressed. I say let them have their shake and beat it, too.

EBS

I had some funny observations to pass on but I forgot them. There’s sooo much pressure when you’re at the MySpace Blog Center to write something funny. How about the whole setup process? If you forgot how incredibly CIA-like it is, quit and then rejoin. There’s a pop-up window that tells you the url name you’ve chosen can NEVER be changed. That’s malarkey - I just changed it. Uh huh.

When my phone is on silent and someone calls, but don’t want to talk at that moment, I get nervous listening to the vibrating sounds coming from my phone. If I’ve left it on a metallic surface, it’s reminiscent of a power drill. I count how many times it vibrates, thinking, “There’s NO way it’s going to buzz again.” And then, “Oh my God! It’s still buzzing!” It’s like when you call someone and put it on speakerphone, and in that split second when you were transferring from regular to speaker, they may have picked up, and there’s that really pregnant pause until the next ring – I always think the person has picked up and nervously yell, “HELLO! I’M HERE! HELLO!?” And then it rings and I feel foolish.

Which reminds me that I’ve been doing the “talking to the wrong person” thing a lot lately. This falls in line next to “waving at the stranger who is waving at someone behind me”. Someone will idly mutter at the vending machine, “Rough day, uh?” And I’ll start to say, “You’re not kidding” when another person across the room says, “Yeah”. This followed by awkward silence, and a resuming of the conversation already taking place. I feel like the Emergency Broadcast System alert in people’s lives sometimes.