Surprise Party

Yesterday we had a surprise party for one of our friends. Her husband planned it but a bunch of us girls were responsible for keeping her away from home for most of the day. There were some key elements to pulling this off:

Get together the night before so she thinks nothing will go on two nights in a row. Stay out until 2:00 AM.
Make the party beans when you get home at 2:15 AM.
Laugh uncontrollably while doing this with your partner in crime (one of the other girls) because you measure by the handful and make too many beans for the crock pot but ‘make them fit’.
Go to bed at 3:00 AM.
Get up at 6:00 AM to accompany one of the girls because she has to do 5 hair-dos for a wedding.
Fall asleep at her client’s house in the chair….twice….one time jerking awake as you had a dream you were falling.
Get to pedicure appointment around 9:30 to meet up with the other 7 girls.
Allow a very tiny woman to do your toenails and give you a leg ‘massage’. I use the term massage loosely as I think she’s a dominatrix at her second job.
Laugh the entire time at the salon because we’re a bunch that thinks most everything is funny.
Go to the grocery store and buy $130 worth of food for lunch at my house. Tip: Don’t go to the grocery store hungry and thirsty with someone else who is hungry and thirsty.
Spend an hour or so having lunch and drinks. Tip: Always have a house that’s presentable in case you decide to invite people over at the last minute.
Move the party out to the country to someone else’s house for drinks and haircuts.
Start panicking at 3:00 as a group as we’re supposed to have the birthday girl to her house in 30 minutes and we don’t have a story yet.
Almost get caught by the birthday girl several times trying to make plans.
Husband calls birthday girl saying he’s going to bbq for everyone at their house. Bring a can of beans. Well, one can of beans, the leftover lunch food and a cooler are packed to make it look legitimate. Us laughing at one can of beans almost spilled the beans about the party. We deserve Emmys.
Arrive at party an hour and a half late. But the birthday girl is completely surprised.
Eat too much.
Look at hilarious pictures of birthday girl and her family, missing the 80s.
Drink too much.
Talk smart with friends and family.
Sit by the ‘fire’. It was more of an inferno as we had to sit 25 feet away because it was so huge.
Watch birthday husband fall head first for no reason into a pile of wood in the dark.
Watch husband’s friend ‘check for injuries’ with the light from his cell phone while laughing hysterically.
Go inside to use the bathroom and see birthday relative with no pants on. Seriously, she was undressing with the door of the bedroom open right inside the door from outside!
Round up 5 people for the trek home at 11:30 because of the trama of the no pants incident.
Laugh all the way home at the stories from the day.
Sleep like a baby.

The key to success was a relaxed day, good friends, a little luck and lots of laughs.

Sidewalk Finds

Two coworkers of mine ran across a pair of dirty (and they meant DIRTY) men’s underwear on the sidewalk in downtown Duluth a couple of weeks ago. Now, this isn’t really what I was thinking I would write about when I started this blog but we couldn’t help but laugh thinking about the scenarios for why they would be there.

A homeless guy decided that enough was enough, he’d gotten the wear out of them he needed.
A drunk had an accident at some point and realized that he couldn’t go on any further without discarding them.
Some guy had Mexican for lunch and couldn’t quite make it back to the office.
It was laundry day and they were in the basket (God only knows why he would try to salvage these) and they fell out.
A homeless guy may have lost them out of a shopping cart or his pocket while he was walking, but again, why was he saving them? From the description the girls gave they were un-salvageable.
He could have put them there on purpose to cause just this sort of reaction. But again, I have to stress, they WERE NOT clean so he would have had to soil them at some point. I would think anyone would want to hide the evidence, not flaunt it.

Now, none of these scenarios is a good and here are the reasons why:

If someone had been wearing them and decided he couldn’t live with them anymore how in the hell did he get them off? He would have had to take his shoes and pants off, then the underwear, then put the pants and shoes back on. All in the middle of the sidewalk.
It could have been a cross-dresser and he just slipped them off from under a skirt.
If they had been in a laundry basket, there is not a laundry mat anywhere close so he perhaps had to get on a bus, which brings a whole new scenario.
The poor Clean and Safe Team, although it may not be the worst thing they’ve ever seen, give these good people a break.

My advice is throw them away people, bury them in the trash or burn them in the back yard. There is no need to share them with the world.

Bartending

Bartending is almost as good as going to the state fair or Wal-Mart, especially in west-end Duluth. It’s entertainment, an ego boost and exhausting all at the same time.

Yesterday started with me screwing up the popcorn, there was a miscommunication in the way it needed to be done. I was informed there was a ‘new’ way to do it which consisted of two glasses of oil. Well, two glasses of oil is enough to deep fry a Cornish hen and a couple of corn dogs, but okay. It became painfully obvious this wasn’t going to work so I was going to dump some of the oil out. Why wouldn’t I do that in a plastic glass? What a jackpot! Sometimes I wonder how I get through life. After a couple burns and a roll of paper towel I removed enough oil to get the job done. Come to find out, there was no ‘new’ way, it was the same old way I’ve always done it. I should have asked for clarification.

I brought two books with me today with intentions of getting them finished, well, that didn’t work out either, stayed just busy enough to be irritating. I didn’t feel it was appropriate to tell everyone to leave so I could read, I think that would have affected my tips.

We open at 10, which means most of my patrons have had a good 3 or more hours of drinking in, considering they go to Wisconsin to start drinking at 6. Yes, that’s 6 AM I’m talking about. They start in Wisconsin, move to next door about 8 and then move to me at 10.

Today the motorcycle club was having a party so they were all leaving from the bar, which is good because it kept me on my toes until about 12:30. After that a couple old guys, some regulars and two hilarious ladies kept me company until my shift ended.

The two ladies completely made my day, they were drinking PBR taps, eating pizza and writing dirty limericks. So funny. While I was chatting with them one of my old guys left but said he was going to be back, I look over at his glass and there was a bottle of lotion next to it. Lotion? Really? He had been there for quite some time, no lotion prior to this. Where did that bottle materialize from? The three of us found it hilarious and made up a few stories as to why it was there. Let’s just say none of the stories were good.

The other bit of good news is that I only had to cut one person off, which is odd, usually there’s a few of these. I didn’t have a choice, he couldn’t keep his eyes open and I could no longer understand what I can only assume was English coming out of his mouth. The speech was hindered by beer and a severe lack of teeth.

Gym-Bound

I’m going to join the gym, again. This obviously isn’t the first time and it will not be the last I’m sure. But right now, I’m doing it, I’m going to join the gym. I’m excited, I’m joining with one of my friends, I figure the buddy system is the best way to go, not only for moral support but to be there to document the good stuff.

Last time I was gym-bound I had a buddy as well but she didn’t always want to get up in the mornings so I would go by myself.

The following near death experience is why I quit going last time.

My normal workout was 45 minutes on the elliptical, sometimes I would even bike or walk the treadmill, I really thought I was doing great. One particular morning I decided on the treadmill, there was only one other ‘exerciser’ in the room.

Since I had been working out for months and could do a pretty good pace on the elliptical I thought I would try to jog, what a better time then when the place is empty, right? I walked at a pretty good pace for about 10 minutes and then upped it to a slow jog, now, when I say slow, it’s pretty darn slow. Here’s how it went:

This is great, I can do this
Watch out Grandma’s marathon, here I come
I wonder if I should speed it up a little
Whew, getting winded, wonder if it’s been 5 minutes?
This is harder than I thought, did this thing speed itself up?
Legs are tightening up
I wonder if the other exerciser can see me struggle?
I look over to see him through a blur.
Is this thing speeding up more?
I’m losing my eyesight, my God, I’m going blind!
I’m losing consciousness!
I wonder if the other exerciser will call 911?
I’m screaming for help but nothing is coming out
Apparently he’s not going to call 911 for me
I stab at the machine until it slows way down
I remove myself from the devil machine, looking around for oxygen
I drag a leg over to the water cooler
I look around wondering if he saw me
I check the time, so sure it’s been 10 minutes…….
47 seconds!
I almost died at 47 seconds from jogging
Eff this, I’m going back to the elliptical……

I sure hope my new workouts go better than my last. I will keep you posted.

People of Wal-Mart

Now, I refuse to post the people of Wal-Mart photos here as there is a website dedicated to them (click here). However, I received an email today with some new photos and I haven’t had one for a few months. I’m not going to lie, to see these boosts my ego. I sometimes wonder if these people are planted and they pose for these photos, today I realize a majority of them are probably true though. Here’s why:

Some heavy women tend to think they look good in anything, including fish net stockings and a mini-skirt that’s 3 sizes too small. You can find this at any state fair.
People don’t read what’s on their shirts, front or back. I have seen a VERY large woman in a restaurant with a shirt on that said “Big Daddy”. You really put that on to go into public?
Just because you’re skinny doesn’t mean you can show off everything, that includes muffin tops, tattoos, butt cracks and butt cheeks. I see this all the time, even at work.
I understand you might be crazy, but don’t advertise it by wearing your hospital gown, your pink size 13 high heels (men) or your lingerie to the store. I work in downtown Duluth, I see these things on a weekly basis.
No one would walk into a public place with a poop stain in the shorts willingly, no way, no how. No way that one is fake!

I believe these pictures could be labeled, People of the State Fair, People of the County Fair, People of My Hometown or People at the Flea Market. They are everywhere, some of us may even be these people from time to time, I have some items I wear walking that should not be for public consumption.

My advice to you: cover it up, buy it big enough, wear underwear smaller than your shorts, check out the damage after some bad gas and for the love of God read very carefully what your shirt says before you wear it in public.

Sleepless in Wisconsin II

Here we go again, watching the overnight bad news of the weekend and wondering why I’m not snuggled up and sleeping peacefully like my company. Nope, I’m awake, on the couch wishing once again someone had a large frying pan to knock me out with.

Tonight I won’t tell you what ridiculous things I’ve been thinking about but I will share some points of his visit.

Trip home through several construction zones
Meat raffle
Burgers at Anchor Bar
Strip club (nothing I can talk about here)
Headaches
McDonalds
Garage sales
Nap
Dinner with friends
Drinks with friends
A hilarious bear story (if I ever figure out how to make it half as funny as it was I will write about it)
Company mows my lawn (yes I felt guilty about it….for a minute)
A drive through construction to friends in Spooner
A bean bag tournament
A severely dislocated finger and a trip to the ER (the host of the day)
Stories around the fire (nothing that I can ever repeat here)
A drive through construction back home
A displaced rib (company)
Nap
Phone calls to friends for some sort of pain killers
Grilling and fire at home
Phone calls to chiropractors for help
Trip to chiropractor
Nap
Trip to chiropractor
Phone calls to more friends for more pain killers (yes I realize this is bad but he’s in some massive pain)
Trip to pick up said drugs
Dinner and fire with friends at home (discussing events from strip club)

After making this list I see we have spent a good portion of time in construction, napping and tending to injuries. I can’t decide if that’s a good or a bad thing. I do know we’ve done lots of laughing and we had a great time despite an injury that’s still killing him. I feel bad about sending him home like that.

I am now so delirious I’m contemplating stealing some pain killers from him that we ‘borrowed’ from someone else. I better go back to bed before I pilfer through his stuff…..I think the little shit is trying to hide them from me.

Hello!

Welcome to Following Funny

One of my coworkers said something to me the other day that kind of hit home. He said “something funny always happens to you, nothing funny ever happens to me”. My answer was “nothing funny happens to you because you don’t look for it”. And that got me thinking…..what is really funny? How do we notice funny? Am I the only one that sees funny things?

I do know that I am not the only one that sees funny things.

I also know that funny is everywhere, you just have to notice it. Hopefully you will follow funny and funny will start following you.