The West Virginia Surf Report!

One-Armed Drummers and Crackpot Hypotheticals

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I have an appointment with the eye doctor today at 2:20.  Hopefully he can get me out of these glasses soon, because two people at work have already said I look “professorial.”  Can you imagine my horror?  Plus, the whole world is in soft focus, like a Hallmark sympathy card.  And I can’t have that.

There’s also a snow storm bearing down on us, and it’s supposed to be at the height of its shittiness between midnight and 5 am.  Considering that I’ll be driving home from work at 1:30 am… I see some white knuckles in my future.  And a vigorous Kegel workout.

I heard someone at work making the tired, old complaint about still writing the previous year on their checks.  “How long does it take until that stops?  A month?” she laughed.  And I thought, “Who in the hell still writes checks?  What is this, 1979?”

I think Toney is forced to write a few checks, to pay bills.  But we pay as much as possible, online.  And I use my bank card for everything.  Last night (for instance), in the cafeteria at work I bought a cup of soup and a Snapple, and paid with my bank card.  It cost less than three dollars, but I almost never have cash.

And I don’t even know where my checkbook is.  I haven’t used it in a year.  Do you still write checks for anything?  It feels like a throwback to a different era to me.  Like party lines and Tony Orlando.

Brad sent me something this morning that made me laugh: this pic.  Apparently Pyromania is going to be an authentic Def Leppard tribute band.  Unlike those poseurs in Love Bites.  Their drummer just tucks his arm inside his shirt, and pins up his sleeve.  But you can totally see it under there… so fake.

Yeah, I’m just talking out my ass; I have no idea if there’s a band called Love Bites.  But I can hear that comment being made, inside my head.  Ya know? And it’s hard to tell, but did the guy actually misspell Def Leppard on that flyer?  Wotta dotard.

Here’s some semi-related hilarity, from a few years back.

Back during a previous lifetime I was involved with a girl for many years, and we were engaged to be married.  It never happened, of course, which is a good thing for all parties involved.  But she used to ask me these really weird questions, and I was wondering if any of you have ever encountered such a thing.

Maybe once every six months, she’d launch into this thing where she’d come up with tragic scenarios, and ask if I’d still love her if they should ever come true.

She might say, for instance, “If I had a stroke, and was paralyzed on one side of my body, and had to drag my right foot around, would you still love me?”  Or “If I had to have my arms and legs amputated, would you still love me?”  Or “If my face was completely burned-off in a fire, would you still love me?”

What the hell, man??  I probably endured ten of those sessions, over a six year period.  And during the early days I’d always say, “Of course I would.”  But near the end I started asking for more information, before offering an answer.  Like, “Your whole face, or just part of it?  Would you be able to get away with wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask?”  Yeah, she didn’t much care for the follow-ups.

Have you ever gone through anything like this?  Or was my girlfriend just especially strange?  Have you ever had a significant other who liked to hit you with ridiculous hypotheticals?  Or any kind of ritualistic questioning?  Please tell us about it in the comments.

And I need to call it a day now, and get ready to put my chin on the tissue paper.

I’ll see you guys again tomorrow!

Now playing in the bunker

Read the story of Jeff's last six months in West Virginia!

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Comments

  1. My ex used to do the whole, would you still love me if… very annoying. He would also get angry with me if he dreamed i was unfaithful.
    dotard…haven’t heard that in years.

    • My response “I would love you a whole lot more if you did not ask me stupid questions”.

  3. I don’t think I’ve ever dated anyone that asked those kinds of questions. That may be because I always dated the dope fiends…

    On the flip side, however, my husband has given instructions on that sort of thing. Should he ever become a vegetable, or catatonic…or ‘beyond repair’…I am to pull the plug and not feel guilty about it.

    He has the same instructions from me.

    • If there is no chance why waste (waist?) away?

      All I ask is that before the plug is pulled play with my wiener one last time. If I don’t wake up pull it and harvest my organs (if they are still useful).

      And seriously kill me, don’t just remove my feeding tube.

  4. Congratulations on not eventually having to divorce that woman, Jeff, that’s just unbalanced behaviour.

  8. I have never asked those kinds of questions or been asked (at least I don’t remember!) but in the back of my mind I’ve often wondered weird shit like that when I read about horrible events online or something.
    Like, recently there was a horribly story about a Seattle couple that went to Puerto Rico where his family was from to announce their engagement & his uncle went psycho & lit everyone on fire & they all died. The end and very, very sad. But what got me was the couple stayed alive for a couple days and in the back of my mind I kept wondering if they made it, would they stay together since they both had drastic physical/emotional changes.
    Same thing with this congresswoman who was shot. I wondered if I were to ever be strapped in a hospital bed like that would my boyfriend be there the whole time. Then I thought how stupid that was because this past year I’ve had surgery & was in for a week & have been in for various heart issues & he was there the whole time, even when the drugs made me look & act like Bette Davis just a bit.
    Now I’m off to see a psychiatrist, as after reading this post I think I need one! 🙂

    • Good lucck with your heart issues, Bette – I men Melissa. (which bette – the Whatever Happened to Baby Jane version or The Nanny version?)

    • She’s got Bette Davis behavior? Do you suddenly smoke 4 packs of Camels per day?

      Melissa from Kansas?

  9. I was too busy trying to ignore my marriage to be troubled with any of the ex’s trivial bullshit, but I don’t think she ever went that route. However it seems like she would convince herself that similar things were a very real possibility for her (cancer) but I never bought in.

  10. Professorial? You mean like Nostrils?

    I have to write checks for daycare and various child-related activities (little league, cub scouts, etc.) Otherwise I don’t write checks anymore.

  11. I rarely write checks. I have to write them if I want to eat the feasts at the medieval reenactments I attend because you have to reserve you spot by pre-paying; but that is pretty much the only time I write them.

  13. I used to have a girlfriend that did that shit to me. I never played along and she hated it. I’d find myself saying things like, “Well, just don’t get you vagina burned closed with acid and we won’t have a problem.” Ridiculous.

    We’re paralyzed with snow here in Alabama. It came fast and hard, so be careful out there. We’re just sitting around eating white bread and whatnot.

    • We got it pretty bad in our part of the state. My husband had to work all night Sunday night, so the offspring and I had a family pajama party at my parents’ house. They have a gas stove, so we could at least have food if the the power went out. Luckily, none of us lost power, but the roads around here were slicker than crap.

  14. I’ve told my husband that if he ever becomes paralyzed, drooling, wheelchair bound vegetable that I would put him in a home and get on with my life. A NICE home and I would visit regularly, but I’m just not cut out for that kind of shit. Besides, who has the money to make a 700 y/o stone house wheelchair friendly?

    Oh, and I would expect the same thing from him if it happened to me.

    Happy Tuesday, Surfers!

    • I’m with you. I’ve gone so far as to tell my wife that when she turns 50, I’m trading her in for two 25’s. How do you think that went over?

      If you put them in a “home” make sure that it’s far enough away that they can’t take a cab back to your place. Hahaha!

      • Whenshe who must be feared and obeyed turned 40 I said I would trade her in for two twenty year olds. She reminded me that I wasn’t wired for 220.

    • 700 years old? No shit ? That would be so cool to live in a house that old. Think of all the people who passed over those steps. Mind blowing to me that you could own a house that old.

    • I don’t write checks unless absolutely necessary. Pain. In. The. Ass. In fact the only check I can think of off hand is when I get my hair did. They don’t want the tip added on to the debit/charge. Since I never carry cash, I write a check.

      Working in a plastic surgeon’s office, we see everything…..burns (chemical, fire, electrical), trauma, mastectomy patients, you name it. I have noticed that the girlfriends/wives seem to stick it out with their significant other. Stand by your man. Unfortunately, our female patients are not as fortunate. Especially our mastectomy patients. Some (not all) men can’t “handle” the cancer diagnosis and run.

      Anyway, I have never had anyone ask me those “would you still love me if….” And I don’t ever remember torturing over it anyone either.

      Good luck at the eye doc’s. Are you getting those drops in your eyes that dilates your pupil? I love how they do that shit then expect you to drive home. The last time I had those drops the effects lasted for HOURS and needed those glaucoma sunglasses.

      • Oops…didn’t mean for this post as a reply to Knucklehead’s post…..

        K: 700 yo house? Really? OMG that would be a dream for me. Right up my alley. Have you gone shopping at any of the flea markets there? One of my dreams!

      • When I have an eye exam, I take my husband along to do the driving home part. No way can I drive until the dilation wears off.

      • The more I think about this the more amazed I get, think of all the people that could have stepped foot in that house…Columbus, Michelangelo and so on.

  15. I write only two or three checks a month… just for paying certain bills.

    The funny thing is that I pay my mortgage via check, even though my mortgage and my bank accounts are all with Wells Fargo. When I log into their online system, everything shows up (which is a bit depressing). I can’t give a good excuse for why I don’t pay that electronically.

    I also almost never carry cash with me. Who needs it, since everybody takes credit/debit cards these days? Occasionally I’ll go out with my girlfriend, and I won’t have any dollar bills to tip the valet… so I end up having to ask her for a buck. She’ll roll her eyes at this inconvenience… even though it usually happens right after I’ve just paid $60 or so for dinner.

    • Oh, also… no work yesterday or today here in Atlanta, due to The Great Blizzard of 2011. Excellent start to the work week!

  16. Oh yeah, I can’t remember the last time I wrote a check. When I opened our account here in Italy, I didn’t even ask if they had checking accounts. You pay all your bills here at the post office or in the bank.

  17. I still write a fair number of checks. The Princess thinks I’m crazy; after all – why did she get me to change to BofA if I wasn’t going to bank exclusively on-line?

    Like you said Jeff – good thing you didn’t marry that psycho. She was sure that at some time or some limit, you wouldn’t really love her. These quizzes were both an attempt to find this out and proof of her boundless insecurity.

  18. I write about 2 checks per year. My checkbook still has an address from 2002, and it’s misspelled at that.

  20. I write 2 checks per month and I have 1 check left so I actually have to order a box. I can’t recall the last time I had to do that.

    Never dated anyone who went the Stephen King route on me. I think if anything life crippling happened to Beloved, I’d probably have to go to Bed-Stuy and score and let him soar to the clouds on a Comfortably Numb ride. Then again, Fuck Bed-Stuy – I could probably just find what I need at the local high school.

    • I recently bought two boxes of checks and did some quick math, they may be the last checks I ever need to buy.

  21. Nothing on ritualistic questioning.

    I write maybe five or six checks a year. Usually takes me an hour or two to figure out where I last left my checkbook. I’ll always write two checks a year, property taxes, I hate paying property taxes. The county recently offered an EFT feature or somesuch but giving them bloodsuckers access to my account would take all the fun out of hating to pay my property taxes.

    • That’s what I use checks for, too. I don’t want those bastards putting my house in the legals cause the money didn’t “credit properly.” I’ve been in the 9800s in my checkbook for the past three years–17 years to get there, probably never getting out. I also always include a SASE–I want a paid stamped receipt in hand the day after the money posts.

      Other than that, I sit down on the 1st of each and every month and post all of our bills in Bill Pay 5 days before they’re due–excellent credit scores just keep rolling in. I love living in in this fancy, newfangled age.

  22. I don’t do checks, ever. I do have a checking account with a local bank because they pay great interest if you keep a certain balance and get at least one direct deposit per month, but I asked them to stop sending boxes of checks long ago. I do, however, carry cash. Some good people still won’t take the card (prostitutes, drug dealers, people selling stolen human organs, etc.)

    Hey! Did you guys know that you can write your account number, routing number, and so forth on a napkin and it would work as a check?

  23. Checks? No way. I use my Amex blue for all my bills, purchase, etc except the local water company who doesn’t accept charges. It’s a great way to track expenses as long as you have enough discipline to pay it off every month to avoid interest.

    No annual charge for the card and last year I got $650 cash back on my yearly anniversary. It’s a no brainer.

  24. I’ve never asked those kinds of questions and never been asked. Probably wouldn’t like the answer I would give anyways.

    A couple times a year I will have to write a check. Usually for stuff for the kids at school. But I see them adding a way to pay for that stuff online in the near future. They already have a system where you pay for the kids lunches online and then the kids pay for lunch with a pin number.

    I pay all my bills online. I never carry cash with me either. There is one Chinese restaurant that I like that only takes cash so i have to plan ahead if I want to go eat there and stop by an ATM.

  25. You know who still writes checks? Every FUCKING person in front of me in line at the cashier when I’m trying to check out in a hurry at the local Wal-Mart! (ANY Wal-Mart!)

    Can I get an AMEN??

  27. At a Phish concert over the summer, the retard 19 year old girl that we got stuck into going with (my boyfriend’s buddy’s new girlfriend), was badgering him with questions such as this. As we were tailgaiting in the parking lot, enjoying our beers, sunshine and what not, she, being a very small girl and have downed about 6 shots of vodka or somesuch, suddenly becomes angry and asks, ‘If we were at a concert, and I got caught for underaged drinking and brought to jail, would you leave the concert to come bail me out?’

    His response, “That depends on what concert it is. If it’s an Umphrey’s McGee Halloween show, absolutely not.” Of course this was the wrong answer which only started her on a path of destruction. She went off on him for a good 15 minutes, throwing her arms in the air, stomping her feet, cussing him out, and finally my boyfriend yelled, “Hey Buzz Killington, shut the hell up!” She folded her arms and pouted until the concert started and then her boyfriend ‘got lost’ on his way back from the bathroom, so she cryed and begged us to help her go look for him the entire show. Man we were pissed. When the show was over, amazingly enough, he was waiting next to my car for us and we hit up a McDonalds, which she got kicked out of because the dumb ass never wears shoes apparently. Moral of the story is, do not give immature 19 year old, shoeless, cry babies, vodka and especially do not go to concerts with them that you have been looking forward too for a year.

    I still write checks too. I have to send in checks to pay my car payment and loan payment. Otherwise, I never write checks at stores or anything. It’s all online.

  28. I also apparently cannot spell Asshole crackpot and replace it with Asshole crockpots. Thanks for catching that yesterday guys, got me laughing pretty good 😀

  29. My wife used to ask those questions. I always answered something like “Oh, lord no! I can barely stand you now.”

    Eventually she got her sarcasm detector fixed.

  31. Back in highschool I heard those questions. Can’t say as I’ve had the cripple inquisition since.
    Occasional cheque use to the tune of maybe 2 or 3 a year.

  32. Whole world in soft focus? Pretend you’re in ’70s Penthouse pictorial. Boomchickawowwow

  33. Tonight I am going to ask my wife “would you still love me if I lost my arms and could not write checks”‘

  34. White bread tastes like whatever you put in it. I am not a believer that a person should be able to taste their bread. I think it’s what goes on it or in it that matters, and that the bread should simply be the method of delivery.

    Bread is simply an edible spoon.

  36. Checks: Only for haircuts (to be accurate, I should say “the salon where I get my hair cut”, but “haircuts” sounds so much better, and a helluva lot less gay) and a couple of bills for which the online payment option (their website, not my bank’s) would include a couple of bucks for “convenience”. So when I’ve procrastinated to the point that my mailed check will get to them before my bank’s mailed check will, I go that route.

    As for doomsday questions from the significant other (in my case TW–meaning either The Wife or The Wrath, depending): we’ve been married for almost 32 years (technical term: forfuckingever) and such questions generally fall into one of two categories: those over 10 years ago, which I don’t remember (selective memory), and those less than 10 years ago, which I’ve stopped listening to (selective hearing). I believe that the general term for this phenomenon is “self-preservation”. And I just noticed that the sentence above has two colons, which probably could be the result of an overactive colon, but I won’t try to figure that one out (my brain is tired. See: “married for almost 32 years”, supra).

    That’s my 2 cents, for what it’s worth (and I couldn’t tell you what 2 cents is worth today–I haven’t checked the market).

  37. I try not to use the check card very often.

    I say this as I learned that a fee has to be paid when the cards are used and it can take a toll on a small business.

    I don’t carry a lot of money around though.

    I pay rent and other utilities by check. I suppose someday I will go for the automatic utility pay.

  38. Prosthetics was spelled wrong too.

    I’ve had that conversation. I don’t think you can honestly answer until you are in that situation.

    Until it happens you say yes to keep the peace. Once she’s missing a big toe or right shoulder blade you can GTFO.

    And this is for a previous post, sorry if it’s been said.
    Maybe someone threw Mama from the train?

  40. I write checks when I cant find my debit card…..rarely. I do still write checks now and then. You should always bring them just in case. (In Ohio) I think you should ALWAYS have 1 or 2 hundred cash dollars around the house . If there is another blackout…… Or something happens and the power grid goes down, cash will be the only thing you could use!

  42. Those silly questions are red flags, for sure. Yikes.

    We write a fair number of checks every month, for various things. Checkbooks are proliferating around here, in fact. Bank, credit union, bidness accounts, non-profit account because I attended too many meetings and was given a job as punishment, and so on. Fortunately, most of the accounts are free ones. Too bad the checks are not.

  43. I write a few checks a month, for certain bills, but *never* in a store. Other than that I pay cash probably more than most people.

    I’ve never asked or been asked any of those “would you still love me” questions. I do have a buddy whose wife made him promise to outlive her, so she wouldn’t have to go through the “losing a spouse” experience. There’s insecurity for you.
    .

  44. As far as writing checks, I do that for church donations (much more convenient than cash, really) and rent (property management company only does checks).

  45. I remain puzzled why cash is considered so inconvenient. I don’t have much of a net worth these days, but I usually carry $2-300 in my wallet. For whatever reason, when I see a woman swipe her card for a latte I see someone who isn’t able to manage her spending. When I see a man swipe his card for a latte, I see a woman.

    Men of my generation carry cash.

    jtb

    • Men of your generation are old and soft, and are easy targets for mugging.

      A person that swipes a card requires greater fiscal control and mental capacity due to the open ended nature of both debit and credit cards.

      By manually limiting yourself to cash available on hand you make one subtraction and subsequently limit your own spending power.

      You are also creating a barrier for yourself and limiting the amount of money you have on hand. It’s like you are a sheep who will wander aimlessly with no control if you don’t have that fence made of cash; instead of a human who can control what they do and where they go.

      • Nice thought, Ice. Of course I also carry credit cards and a debit card. My point was not using cash for big purchases, but for very small ones. And I was simply stating a fact about the general preferences of men of a certain age. I certainly have no problem if you want to use only plastic.

        But thanks for analyzing my behavior problems.

        jtb

        • And aren’t we getting just a little bit touchy about a random observation about cash and cash surrogates? Sheep wandering aimlessly? My goodness.

          jtb

        • Exactly. I’m with jtb here. And there are places where you can’t swipe a card. The place where I have a storage unit for instance. So I pay cash there. And if I need a pack of Winstons I don’t fool with a debit card even though I have one, and some places place a lower limit on card purchases. Cash is still good. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a check. Not sure I even have any.

      • I only carry gold doubloons. It’s a very effective way to manage money as I can’t actually spend them anywhere.

        • WB…

          Tacoma’s new downtown parking meters take ANY method of payment. I once found myself out of change and inserted a doubloon instead. The meter gave me 317 days of parking so I had to leave my car downtown for over 10 months. Moving it wouldn’t have been cost effective.

          jtb

  47. A little later today I’ll be writing a check to my sister to pay for some Reds season tickets. I’ll also be addressing an envelope and applying a stamp. We learned proper check writing and envelope addressing in the third grade. We were asked to bring a check from home. The teacher sent a note for the reason. She drew the ‘how to’s on the blackboard and we followed along making the check out to ourself for $2.00 and the envelope to ourself. We applied a stamp (4 cents?). We all passed them in and the envelopes were looked over for accuracy and that was that. Two days later the envelopes showed up at our houses and then our folks would take us to the bank to cash them to get our two bucks. Looking back that was genius in how to show a kid how the whole picture of the process works. And two bucks was about twenty cents over our weekly lunch money but I’m sure most kids got to keep their two bucks for the ice cream truck.

    I keep $20-$30 cash on me as “opertaing money”. Small stuff here and there. Besides…a buck fifty Rolling Rock at Happy Hour should be paid for with cash and fifty cents pushed back to the bartender.

    So I’m guessing you’re not a good candidate for LASAK or not a fan? Me?…not a fan. You?…maybe a way out. They can reshape the football and make something a little more…preky than pointy.

    • I only use stamps once a year. Christmas. That’s it. Needless to say with the constant value increases, I always have plenty lying around that are in the .30 range.

      I’m too lazy to buy .2 cent stamps or whatever I may need to make up the difference, so they usually end up in the hands of my young children and they use them as stickers.

      Besides, no one wants to get a Christmas card with five or six stamps across the top right hand corner anyway.

  48. I actually live about 5 miles from The Arkansas School for the Deaf (really gets my goat for people here to call it the “Deaf School” the school isn’t deaf………no school can hear) Any-who when I was in grade school we actually played the Deaf Leopards in football………no shit! Their cheerleaders cheer to the beat of a drum and scream inaudible things while doing so. They feel the vibration from that big drum and cheer along. Im not making that up, I couldn’t come up with something like that if I tried!

  49. So..what kind of glasses do you have, Jeff? My boss recently lost a contact and had to dig out a pair of glasses to wear. He’s almost 50 & I think his glasses were from his college days, because they were these HUGE pie plate tortoise shell, looking things. I literally jumped when he came around the corner in his vintage 1982 windshield glasses. Why was everything so crazy big in the ’80’s? Hair styles, glasses, women in linebacker shoulder pads. What a nutty decade..
    Anyway, what were we talking about..?

    • To quote David Lee Roth:

      “In the 80s the music Smiled! The clothes Smiled!”