How Does Every Holiday Sale Devolve Into This?

Posted on December 22, 2014 by underwhelmer

The Christmas shopping season always makes me think. Companies all across the US are looking to unload their garbage onto you or your loved ones and they’re willing to use any tactic in the book. Holiday sales used to be just Black Friday and then Cyber Monday, but now they’ve added more days and weeks to the sales and I just can’t keep track of it all. It just seems to be a nonstop orgy of sales all the way between Thanksgiving and Christmas. As someone without a lot of people on my Christmas shopping list, I get my Holiday shopping done early and without much fuss. I then get to sit back and watch in complete awe as my phone, radio and email explode with special once in a lifetime offers for shit that I’ve never expressed any interest in whatsoever.

This is what every Holiday sales season feels like to me.

THE END.

P.S. I actually left out a few of the other holidays that have been steadily added to incrementally bloat Christmas Shopping Season over the years.

P.P.S. No imaginary creatures were harmed in the making of this post.

Iggy and the Bag.

Posted on April 7, 2013 by underwhelmer

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So there was this one thing I wanted to tell you about my new-ish cat, Iggy. We got Iggy as a rescue cat from a local shelter a few months ago. His name was Lewie, but we decided that name was not very exciting and changed it to Iggy after a funny story I heard about a comedian and his misadventures with a bunch of Russian mobsters. One mobster was named Igor.

I found out very quickly that Iggy is an astonishingly stupid cat. Not the kind of, “oh, that animal isn’t smart” variety of stupid. This was a level of stupidity that I had not seen in an animal before.

For example, let’s take the simple act of training the cat to stay off the sofa…

And so on it went. Iggy kept finding new ways to impress me with his stupidity.

or, one of my personal favorites…

One day, I came home with some groceries. I set the bags on the floor and I started putting the cold items in the fridge. Iggy was fascinated by this development and started hovering near me.

I finished putting the milk in the fridge and I turned around to see this staring up at me from the floor.

I thought it was really cute that Iggy had nestled himself into the bag. I picked up the cat-bag combo to show Wife, who was seated on the couch.

This act was a HUGE FUCKING MISTAKE.

Picking Iggy up while in the bag did several things simultaneously.

It proved to Iggy that the bag possessed the magical power of levitation.
It showed Iggy that the bag was a force of unseen power and was probably linked to many unsolved mysteries of the universe.
Since he couldn’t move easily while being lifted in the bag, there was also a good chance that the bag was immobilizing him as a precursory part of its feeding process.

All of these things made Iggy very unhappy, very quickly. It became clear that to me that Iggy did not want to be in the bag so I gently placed him on the ground. Iggy immediately sprinted away from the bag. There was one small catch though; one of the bag loops became wrapped around his little kitty waist. No matter how fast Iggy ran, the bag pursued him just as hard. As you can imagine, this produced one single emotional reaction in Iggy: sheer, undiluted terror.

Iggy was running so fast throughout the house that I had no hope of catching him. All I could do was watch in horror as my cat sprinted through the house at a speed only pure adrenaline could provide.

This went on for a solid minute or two until Iggy decided that fleeing wasn’t working so he tried to hide. Iggy threw himself under the couch in a last ditch effort to escape.

I eventually had to move the couch and unhook the bag from my poor, tired and scared-to-death little cat. Iggy then ran off to hide and recover from his ordeal. I went back to unloading the remainder of the groceries.

I put the eggs in the fridge and reached down to put away the carrots when my hand touched something warm and furry in the bag.

Stupid cat.

THE END.

P.S. Iggy was completely unharmed in this incident so don’t call PETA you wackos.

P.P.S. Iggy has since ruined my carpet, destroyed my TV and nearly killed himself trying to remove his collar. What this cat lacks in intelligence, he makes up for in sheer resilience & luck; I have to give him that.

The Other Half of the Idiom

Posted on June 3, 2012 by underwhelmer

I have this incredibly distracting habit where, in my own head, I automatically edit other people’s sentences. I don’t actually say anything or interrupt people; that’s just rude, but as a huge nerd and card-carrying smart ass, I mentally add things that are completely ridiculous and/or hilarious.

Here’s an example:

When someone asks, “Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was 6′ 4″ tall?”

I only hear, “Did you know that Abraham Lincoln…”

This is the point where the crazy part of my brain takes over and fills in the rest. My mind reassembles the sentence into something this:

“Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was 600 meters tall and could breathe fire?”

This, of course, leads to awkward pauses during conversation along with a lot of inappropriate grinning on my part.

I do this all the time and I can’t turn it off. The whole process reminds me of these “math machines” that I had to assemble in the second grade.

My second grade teacher made us construct math machines to teach us simple arithmetic. The math machines were these little boxes with two slots connected by a chute. You’d put a card in that would say 4×4 = ? on the front and on the back it would say 16. All this stupid box did was flip your card over, but to a 2^nd grader it was just short of witnessing magic in action.

I think this is similar to what the crazy part of my brain does with incoming sentences.

This whole automatic process happens more quickly with idioms. I think it’s because I’ve heard them more often than regular everyday sentences so my crazy, crazy brain has had more practice.

Anyway, I’ve decided to share some of these idiom alterations with you. I call it, “The Second Half of the Idiom” enjoy… oh, and they’ve got pictures too.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth because they spit acid.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, except for zombie outbreaks. They tend to spread.

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for life.

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Crossbreed fish and man and create an army of fish-monsters.

No time like the present.

No time like the present, well except in that cowboy themed parallel universe; it’s on pretty much the same timeline as ours, but with cowboys.

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. You could have a multi-chicken.

You can’t judge a book by its cover.

You can’t judge a book by its cover; except the Necronomicon. It’s bound in human skin so that’s a pretty good indicator of what’s inside.

THE END.

P.S. If you’ve got a second half of the idiom that you’d like to share, send it to cluegiver@gmail.com and I’ll pick a winner to showcase on next week’s post.

P.P.S Although pictures aren’t required, they’ll help your chances. 😉

The Great Migration Part II: Planes, Trains and Anguish

Posted on March 18, 2012 by underwhelmer

Part II: Planes, Trains and Anguish

With my medical exams and administrative block-checking completed, the next major obstacle was actually getting myself, Wife, Skittles and Other Cat across the Atlantic to the US.

Everything up to this point was going fairly smoothly. Wife had done a lot of research into what we needed to do to clear customs. We had the cat carriers ready. We had provisions for the long flight and we were all ready to go… until we received a call from our travel agent rearranging our flight itineraries hours before we were to depart.

I decided to strap on my metaphorical shit goggles because I knew it was about to hit the fan.

So here’s our original itinerary; Frankfurt, Germany to Atlanta, Georgia and then to Florida.

Here is the new itinerary with our new stop at JFK international airport.

Now, this wouldn’t have been so bad, but I had recently watched The Terminal and I knew there was an outside chance that we could, much like Tom Hanks’ character, be stranded at JFK indefinitely.

Wife and I had never been to JFK airport either. We had both heard rumors that it was a tangled maze of sadness and we weren’t excited about the prospect of having to clear JFK customs with our two neurotic cats.

The day of the flight, we got the cats ready and made our way to Frankfurt international airport. Immediately the plan began to unravel. Other Cat decided it was an opportune time to have a little kitty psychological meltdown. Other Cat began panicking and it was clear that she was not going to be able to fly in the cargo hold with Skittles and all the other pets without having a stroke.

We took Other Cat out of her hard carrier and bought (for the low, low price of $60) a soft carrier to put her in so we could take her with us on the plane.

Skittles looked on at this whole ordeal from her hard carrier with jealously. It became clear when the airport cargo workers showed up that Skittles was taking this whole chain of events as the ultimate betrayal. I still remember her coal-ember eyes of hate staring back at me as they wheeled her away.

We headed toward the plane and lined up in the queue for the security checkpoint. The helpful security people told me that I had to remove Other Cat from her carrier as I went through the X-ray machine. I was not happy. The exchange went something like this.

Airport Person: Sir, you must remove the cat from the carrier.

Me: Come again?

Airport Person: The cat can’t go through the carry-on bag X-ray machine in her carrier. You have to take her out and carry her through the people X-ray machine. It’s for her safety.

Me: They’re both X-ray machines. What the Hell does it matter?

Airport Person: If you don’t, I will have to call security.

Me: This cat is going to claw the crap out of me and/or get away. You know that, don’t you?

Airport Person: Please remove the cat, Sir.

I removed Other Cat from her carrier and she clung to me and shook like a giant spider coming down off of heroine.

* Spider Cat will not be appearing in any forthcoming comic books until her drug problem is under control.

Everyone at the security checkpoint was looking at me and wondering what awful things I did to this cat to make her this neurotic.

I made it through the security a little self-conscious, but no worse for wear. Wife, Other Cat and I got on the plane and I braced myself for the plane ride ahead.

At this point I think it would be nice to inform you, dear reader, that I hate flying. No, that’s not right; I f@cking despise flying. It physically hurts me.

Despite being darkly handsome and healthy, I have this condition called nasal polyps. Depending on whether or not I have a head cold, this condition can potentially take a pleasant plane ride and change it into hours of agony.

As soon as drinks were served I ordered as much whiskey as the flight attendant was allowed to give me and finished the flight in an alcohol induced coma.

We got off at JFK and we had roughly 40 minutes to make our connecting flight on the other end of the airport. We had to grab Skittles and all of our luggage from the cargo hold in order to clear customs and put the cat on the next plane. Time was tight. Wisely, we sought out an airport worker and found out where the tram was located. We were in luck; the tram was due in the next 5 minutes. We waited for 15 minutes for the tram before the tram sign informed us that the tram had broken down some time ago.

We had a vague notion of where we needed to go. Encumbered with our suitcases and carry-ons, it was time for a decision so Wife grabbed Other Cat and I grabbed all 14 pounds of Skittles and we high-tailed it outside across the bleak landscape that surrounds JFK airport to our terminal.

It wasn’t my proudest moment, but as my shoulder was beginning to give out under the girth of Skittles, I thought briefly about leaving her in the airport.

I was determined that we were all going to make it though and Skittles was not abandoned despite the protest of my muscles and joints.

We made it to the terminal in time and the customs agent asked to see Skittles. Wife took her out of the carrier and Skittles was well-behaved for the first time in her life. It was like a total transformation had taken place in past 16 hours. I fully expected Skittles to claw the customs agent’s face to ribbons in .02 seconds, but it didn’t happen. She just sat there, frozen to the spot under her little kitty bed.

The customs agent even commented on how docile and sweet Skittles was. He jokingly commented that we had given Skittles tequila to calm her down. We didn’t give her anything. Baffled, we placed Skittles back into her carrier and I began thinking about what could have possibly happened to affect such a change in her in such a short amount of time.

The only reasonable explanation was that something terrible had happened in the cargo hold of the plane on the flight from Frankfurt to JFK. I imagined that as soon as the door was shut to the cargo hold and the plane was at cruising altitude, some unspeakable horror unfurled itself from a dark corner and began ramming its proboscis into caged animals to feed on their life juices.

Skittles was spared only because the horrific creature had gotten its fill from that golden retriever next to her. I imagine that this close brush with death was the catalyst for dramatic personality change in my cat in such a short amount of time.

We got on the plane and the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful; discounting, of course, the bottles of booze, pain meds and parts two and three of Other Cat’s psychological meltdown.

We arrived at Wife’s parents’ house in Florida tired and burnt-out. We weren’t entirely sure how long the entire ordeal had taken. We estimated that it was somewhere between 24 to 36 hours. All I knew was that I wanted to curl up in a sock drawer and sleep for a week. This was not to be because I had just over a day before I had to go to Texas to begin my career search. Once again, things were just getting started.

THE END.

P.S. Other Cat and Skittles made the transition safely and are currently doing very well.

P.P.S Stay tuned for next week’s installment, Part III: The Career Search.