11/9/05

Elevator etiquette and other tidbits

So I got on the elevator the other day, and this guy says "Hey, what's up?"

I say "Not much."

He says, "Where ya goin?"

I say, "Five, please."

He makes no move to hit the elevator button, which is clearly on his side, and is also clearly his responsibility, since he chose to stand directly in front of it.

He then says, "This place is killing me. I'm working like 60 hours this week."

I say, "Wow, man. That's rough. Hey, can you hit five?"

He looks at me, annoyed, and hits the button for floor 5.

He then says, "While you're there, could you pick me up a six-pack of Sam Adams? Yeah, the Porter."

That's when I realize he has a little wireless headset in the ear facing the wall, and he's carrying on a conversation with someone else.

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While I was typing up this elevator story, it reminded me of another one that happened a while back. My buddy Yort had just given me a copy of the new (at the time) Liz Phair CD.

If you know me at all, you know I'm pretty heavily into music, and I will get a song stuck in my head for days. I will go around humming and singing said song under my breath without even realizing it. In fact, one of Yort's favorite pastimes is to call me up and riff on a song that I hate, whereupon it will be instantly carved, using a large chisel and wooden mallet, into the soft tissue of my cerebral cortex. I will be looping it pretty much constantly until I go to sleep that night and my brain resets itself. I also go nowhere without my iPod, and strive to have a pair of ear buds jammed in my ears as often as humanly possible. I am pretty sure I have ear mushrooms from never allowing air to circulate in there.

So anyway, on this CD, there's an incredibly catchy song called H.W.C. For those of you who know the song, you can probably see where this is going.

Now picture this: It's six o'clock in the morning, and I am just arriving at work, and I have my iPod plugged into my head, and it's playing this CD, and in fact, this particular song. I get on the elevator, and the maintenance guy, who is also there early, follows me in. We are somewhere around floor 3 and half, and I notice he is looking at me very strangely.

I didn't figure it out at first, but when I got off the elevator, I realized that I had been whispering the chorus under my breath. That dude still runs the other way when he sees me.

Good times.

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It's official. One of my cats is a crack whore. Maggie, the small female who gets picked on unmercifully by the other 2 cats, has been on valium for about a month now to try to mellow her out and make her not so skittish. The other night, we inadvertently forgot to give her the nightly dose, and she meowed, non-stop, All Night Long.

We had no idea what the hell her problem was. It was like she was in heat, except that she's spayed, so we couldn't figure it out. We called the vet, and it turns out they get addicted to it, and then get all bent if they don't get their fix. I'm pretty sure that if it had gone on much longer, she would have broken out of the house. I would have found her cruising the neighborhood turning tricks in order to score some tabs.

Come to think of it, we did name her after an old, used-up hooker in a song by Rod Stewart, so it's not completely out of the question.

10 comments:

  1. Guilty! I'm one of those headset people. I <3 my Bluetooth headset.

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  2. damn all of you bluetooth people.

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  3. People who wear those units in public deserve to be scored, mocked and maybe even have gum put in their hair.

    "Hi, I'm SOOOOO important I need to be connected every effin second to a phone or else the company is going to go under!"

    I'm trying to invent a headset that can cut in on these bluetooth units and then I can ask them "do you want fries with that?"

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  4. Anonymous9:45 AM

    It's just wrong to have a song that's that catchy and that inappropriate at the same time. Especially for a guy to be singing along. Although I'd have paid good money to see the look you got if he could understand what you were singing.

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  5. Anonymous9:46 AM

    oh and I want a bluetooth headset that can control my ipod.

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  6. Shamus, I'd feel bad, except it's part of my job... And I <3 that job perk. That and the free cell phone that goes with it.

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  7. Johnny, I just found your blog & am completely hooked. Love it!

    Oh, and way to go, now I have the Eagles song "All Night Long" playing on an endless loop in my skull after reading your Maggie-Crack-Whore story!

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  8. i'm currently addicted to Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams. for some reason it puts me at peace.

    my boss (corporate uberpower VP)has a bluetooth thingie in her office that she's never taken out of the box. i covet it.

    p.s. my company blocks online lyrics :( if they block blogs in the future, i may have to quit this uberjob.

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  9. Chorus anecdote = still laughing.

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  10. Anonymous3:13 PM

    It must be a thing with small cats named Maggie. My cousin has one that fits that description to a T, right down to the “acts like she’s in heat even though she has been spayed.”

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