I don’t know what’s going on with Andy (Black Lips Houlihan), our fantastic border collie, but he smells like all the asses. Every one of them, combined. He’s extremely elderly, like the dog version of one of those 127 year old Chinese women, and hasn’t smelled too pleasant for the past couple of years. Toney thinks he’s starting to decompose while he’s still alive. I’m not sure about that, but the pungency has certainly kicked up a notch during the past few months. It’s nothing short of breathtaking. And it’s not gas — Andy has never been a farty dog — it’s his breath. As my dad would say, it’s enough to gag a maggot. There’s a lot of panting, too. So, he basically sits around and pumps the funk, like a humidifier of unspeakable stench. We’ll probably be forced to instigate a controlled-burn and completely do away with the house before it’s all over. The stink has likely seeped into the lumber by now.
For the record, my dad would sometimes go with the extended version: “gag a maggot on a gut wagon.” I’m unclear what a gut wagon is, but have a picture of one in my head. It’s been there for many years. Also, whenever he sees a certain kind of ugly woman with wild, disheveled hair he’ll say she “looks like Eeka.” It’s reportedly a reference to something he saw in a carnival sideshow when he was a kid: Eeka the Snake Woman, or somesuch. He said they kept her in a mud hole filled with snakes, and they’d throw live chickens to her and she’d eat them. People would pay a dime to stand around and look at her for a few minutes, wallowing in the mud with the snakes, biting off chicken heads and whatnot. Hell, I’d pay five dollars to see something like that. My dad has a lot of sayings, many of them completely baffling.
I had a dream a couple of nights ago that I was eating dinner in a restaurant, and they asked me to leave because I wasn’t dressed appropriately. At first they were trying to be nice about it, and I felt pressure to finish my meal and get out of there. But it was taking too long, I guess, and they finally just told me to go. No charge, just leave the premises immediately.
For the record, I was dressed exactly the way I do for work. And when I looked around… it seemed like most other people were dressed the same as me. It was confusing, but I walked out of there in disgrace. The staff was all up in arms about it, whispering to each other and shooting looks my way. When woke up I was upset and embarrassed.
My sleep is FULL of anxiety, these days. I worry my way through every night. Especially since I parted ways with alcohol. I’m going to sleep my way to a sucking ulcer before it’s all over, mark my words. Pass the root beer nuts.
When I was a kid there was a guy listed in the Charleston phone book named Hogjaw Twaddle. The man was a local legend, because of his name. It was literally listed: Twaddle, Hogjaw. We thought that was a riot, and would sometimes call his house. But he was good natured about it, and would never get mad. So, where’s the fun in that? There was also somebody in there with the last name Zitzelberger, and they weren’t as agreeable. So we never stopped calling them: “Can I get two Zitzelbergers to go, please, with extra cheese?” The fury… the threats… the profanity… Yeah, that one went STRAIGHT to the “call often” list.
You know what bugs me more than most things? When people say “I seen.” Like “I seen on the news where they’re opening a new store…” What the hell, man? That one makes my whole disposition go rigid. And you know what’s even worse? When they actually write it that way. Sweet sainted mother of Warren Cromartie!
I snapped this picture in Wegmans a few days ago. Yeah, I’m a bit on the husky side myself, but try not to dress to accentuate it. Know what I mean? I would never leave the house with a bolt of fabric suctioned to my ass that made me look like the Pink Floyd Laser Spectacular from behind. Right? It’s all about choices, people.
I watched the Amanda Knox documentary on Netflix last night. It’s pretty graphic, and shows seemingly raw and uncut video footage of the murder scene. There’s a lot of blood and gore, but when they went into the bathroom I saw something that TRULY disturbed me: a load of coal black feces in the toilet. What the?! For one thing, if something of that consistency and color came out of my body, I’d call 911. Maybe even 922. Also, why? Who left it? The killer? It’s never explained, but Amanda herself said it freaked her out. And I’m right there with her. It’s how she finally realized something wasn’t right, she claimed. The idea of someone taking a dump during or immediately following a brutal murder disturbs me, for reasons I can’t explain. It’s bizarre, right? Plus, whoever did it might want to start introducing a few vegetables into their diet, and an occasional glass of water wouldn’t hurt, either. Sweet Maria.
I saw an article, that I’m now unable to locate, about different things people call their TV remotes. I’m only familiar with two: the remote and the clicker. We go with the former, but I’ve heard plenty of folks use the latter. Well, there are apparently all manner of words people use for that device. Like the driver? What the hell? And the numbers? I’ve never, in all my life, heard of such a thing. Do you call it anything other than a remote or a clicker? If so, please share in the comments.
I’ll leave you now with another question… What public restroom behaviors annoy you? I have many, as you might imagine. Including people who stand at the urinal with both fists on their waist, like Captain America. Or spread their legs and lean way forward with one palm on the wall. Or snap their underwear at the end, as a jaunty sort of urination punctuation. I also don’t like when there’s a whole row of urinals available, yet somebody bellies right up to the one next to me. And I don’t approve of any kind of talking, unless it’s at the sinks. What about you? Please share your public restroom pet peeves in the comments section, and also feel free to weigh in on any of the other ridiculous crap I covered today.
And I’m going to call it a day, my friends.
I’ll see you again soon!
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We call it the TV changer. Makes sound like simpleton’s, doesn’t it.
Great post. Seems like old times….
Urination punctuation…. Hilarious.
Magnesium. Not the cheapo kind, but magnesium glycinate and magnesium citrate. This will help a great deal with anxiety-disturbed sleep. The best is a product called “Calm,” which is magnesium citrate in a powder, but I can’t take it due to teeth sensitivity (it is too acidic). Instead, I used the cream/lotion version of “Calm,” and I also use sea salt flakes (Ancient Minerals is one brand) in my bath. These are great ways to get magnesium transdermally, and they work fast!
As for bathroom pet peeves, I hate going into a bathroom at work (or wherever) and hearing someone toil away with grunting and moaning. Sounds like they’re in labor. Geeze! In addition, I HATE when people talk on their cellphones on the toilet at work. I never hear them tell the person on the other line “I’m in the bathroom,” so I wonder what that person will think when they hear the tinkling of urine, flushing of toilets, or moaning of the constipated person?! One time I was held hostage in the toilet stall because a VIP at my employer came into the bathroom and was on the phone with our chief executive! I knew that I couldn’t flush, as the VIP would be humiliated, so I sat there for a good 15 minutes until she wrapped up the convo. Since that time, I’ve adopted a policy of making as much flushing and paper towel cranking noise as possible to embarrass the person on the phone, no matter who it is, ’cause they deserve it. I refuse to be held hostage in a toilet stall ever again!!
Oh, yeah, and I hate when a whole long row of toilet stalls are available, yet someone will plunk down in the one right next to me (especially if they go #2). WTF?! I can only imagine how much worse it would be if someone pulled up next to the urinal I was at for no good reason–at least the stalls offer a bit of a barrier.
Reminds me of when I was the only passenger on a bus one time in college, and someone boarded the bus, walked back to my row, and sat down right next to me. I’ve rarely felt so violated!!!
We had a moron at worked who constantly entered the restroom talking on his phone. He could walk in and transition into a defecation stance without missing a beat. My office was right across the hallway and would often get up and flush the toilet next to his but he never got any smarter.
Walter,
Those last five words describe 60% of the people with whom I’ve worked over a 40 year corporate career, gender adjusted.
John
Sat down on the toilet at work the other day for my daily, and the guy in the next stall ( the deluxe handicapped one) was eating a snack while shitting! I heard the sounds of the bowel movement, followed by the crinkling of cellophane, then by chomping. I’ve never experienced that before. Who does this?
That is freaking me out, man!
I too have heard this at work – the crinkling chip bag and chewing, and even someone eating an apple. On the crapper. While crapping.
And once a guy walked into the restroom eating a salad off of a plate. He marched right up to a urinal, stood in position while finishing the salad, then put the plate on top of the porcelain, did his business, then left.
I can’t even brush my teeth in there, the stench is so bad. But eating?? I think most animals even know better…
I’ve seen a lot of disgusting behavior out of humanity, but eating a salad in the bathroom has to be an ultimate low. The idea gives me a full body shiver. Eating anything is bad, but a plate and fork just adds to it.
Had the exact same thing happen. It was a bag of chips/crisps. It made me think of Idiocracy – our species will just end up sat on combination sofa toilets watching TV while stuffing our faces with junk food.
Great update!
I work with extremely smart people who butcher the verb “see”. I seen them do it all the time….
“I seen on the news…” Is pretty typical.
They can conjugate the fuck out of most of the other verbs, but “see, saw seen” seems to be an insurmountable obstacle.
You don’t work with extremely smart people.
I love the phrase “gag a maggot”.
I hate women making a huge spectacle of washing their hands after pissing. You’re not about to perform surgery so knock it off. These are the same people who whip out the hand sanitizer before handling anything from a menu to a jar full of pens. Blow it out your well scrubbed ass.
And someone in my office gargles or whatever and leaves spots of teal mouthwash all over the sink. For the love of all that’s holy, wipe the sink after your daily oral ritual.
Skimming the comments, “…from a menu to a jar full of pens” read as “from a menu to a penis.” Sorry about that. Must have been the line breaks.
Sorry to hear about Andy – he’s a tough one for sure, but time does take its toll.
Public restroom behavior, female edition: not flushing, not throwing your sanitary items away, peeing on the seat and not wiping it up, HIDING your sanitary items behind the john, throwing paper towels on the floor, being a pig in general. Girls can be gross.
What tiff said! Women are disgusting.
The term “clicker” for the remote control has to come from the 1950’s remotes that actually clicked. Need to lose that term. I have to admit that any attempted conversation in the restroom is completely unacceptable. Just do your business and get out.
Andy’s problem could be as simple as dental issues. I’d recommend getting him to a vet for a checkup.
As for restrooms (female version), I loathe hoverers who don’t clean up after themselvcs. Yeah, we know, Princess Precious, your regal behind is just TOO dainty to touch a seat that’s cleaned multiple times/day (at least where I work, janitors are in there 4x/day to clean), but the next person to use that stall does NOT consider it an honor to have to dry YOUR body fluids off the seat before she can use it.
Also, about all using a pound or so of TP, seat covers, etc. to mummify the seat accomplishes is wasting the resources that went into supplying that paper, plus probably clogging the plumbing. Paper is porous, thus NOT an effective germ barrier.
Also second the hate for cell phone yakkers in the restroom, from the POV of the person on the other end of the call. I work in a call center, and listening to people eating while on the phone is quite bad enough. I really don’t want to hear output hitting water or flushing while I’m trying to handle YOUR business call, TYVM.
I just started a new job, and I’m still getting used to this multiuser bathroom thing. The other day I went to empty my bladder, and there was a guy at the other urinal doing all kinds of grunting and sighing as he did his business. Not quite of the sexual gratification type, but still a lot of “unnh” and “mmm” and “aah.” I did not care for it.
It sounds like Andy might have some tooth decay going on. That would account for horrible smells, and it could be causing him pain as well, and possibly making him disinclined to eat. I think a visit to the V-E-T might be in order.
How about some work place bathroom antics? Turning out the lights or shooting bottle rockets at people when they’re on the pot. Ever done an upper decker? When you take a dump in the tank. A couple I’ve done witch can be funny. Get in a stall and when someone comes in, stand on the seat, grunt and moan then drop a couple of baseballs in the toilet. Then breath a big sigh of relief. Another one is get in a stall when someone comes in start spitting and gagging and then say, ” that tasted terrible, I shouldn’t have put my lips on that” or ” man, that really does taste like shit” . It’s a great laugh, complete anonymity.
“remote”
“clicker”
“that damn thing”
Jeff,
As far as I can tell, we both live in blue counties in blue states, but our experiences with hearing “seen” used as past tense differs. I have as many blue collar friends as white- or flannel-collared, but I rarely hear this particular fuckup. I do hear conjunctions abused, e.g., “she’s killer-beautiful plus she has money minus she has herpes”, but I figure it’s just an oblique grammatical implementation of a Boolean gate based on the local InfoTech industry.
John
I hate when the guy next to me at the sink has a high fade haircut , covered in tattoos and is wearing mom jeans. Oh that’s right, Target allows that now.
I also hate when the guy before me has pulled an upper decker. Don’t like the beef stew look on my shoes.
I called Hogjaw Twaddle a lot as a young hicklet. I forgot all about that guy.
I wrote a dissertation on the topics and lost it while watching the debate.
Channel changer.
Andy has bad teeth. At his age I don’t think you should put him through a cleaning. They’ll end up pulling most of his teeth.
I’m a conjugation/grammar nazi. ( shitty in the punctuation/spelling department ) Jeff has screwed up some verbs from time to time but seen hasn’t been one. My personal hair puller is go, went, gone.
A busy ladies room? You need to rub Vicks under your nose before entering. Women are gas bags!! Hubster is in airports weekly and has never seen the Captan America pose. I figure he poses like that and never noticed. If you knew Hubster you would be laughing your ass off right now.
Agreed on the teeth. The vet will want to knock him out to pull a bunch and clean the rest, that’s hard on an old man, cook his pasta more.
When I saw that Wegman’s picture that you took, my first thought was that she must have some kind of circulation problem from wearing her clothes too tightly! My theory is that most people don’t own a full-length mirror. Either that, or they have one they stole from a carnival fun house!
Being a person of size myself, I make every attempt to blend in and not advertise the fact that I’m carrying around an extra layer of fat for the winter!
I hate urinal troughs. Fenway Park used to have these to collect all of the filtered/metabolized Narragansett beer. Watering your donkey in the 3rd inning was usually uneventful. By the 7th inning, there would be a comatose drunk lying in the trough. To pee or not to pee? The less discriminating, more inebriated fans took this as an opportunity. Normal fans were suitably disgusted. Security would be called and trough flow would be restored The whole setup had a POW, slit trench kind of feel. I hated it enough to consider not drinking beer at Fenway.
Nobody mentioned “command module” for the remote control! I remember this starting in college (late 80’s), probably from a book or movie. I’ve only heard it a couple times since leaving campus for the real world, coming from a source other than my own mouth that is. It still comes out on occasion, without any conscious decision on word choice being made.
That’s a reasonable word, but people, especially males, over 55 wouldn’t use the phrase “command module” to describe anything but a component of the Apollo program spacecraft. The Command Module was where the astronauts spent their time when two of them weren’t in the Lunar Module (sometimes called the Lunar Excursion Module) on their way from lunar orbit to the moon, on the moon, or on their way back to lunar orbit. (The third module was the Service Module, which remained part of the Command Module to form the Command/Service Module until it was cast off just prior to Earth atmosphere re-entry.)
It’s remarkable how many people of an age remember details and naming conventions from the first three NASA space programs. It’s also remarkable that these enormous programs (Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo) actually accomplished their objectives pretty close to schedule. It was a fun time to be a nerdy American.
John
Serious. A Command Module needs to be in orbit around the moon, not wedged in the couch cushions.
Viva Skylab, ‘n’ stuff.
Take Andy to the vet. he may not need his teeth cleaned, maybe they can give you chews to help. And if it’s gum disease, it may be related to his heart/lungs if his panting. they can make him feel better.
If you google Eeka the Snake Woman, the Smoking Fish is amongst the results.
” “Have you seen Eeka strange sight of a lifetime? She wiggles, she giggles, she walks, she talks, and she crawls on her belly like a reptile. Your mind will fail to believe what your eyes will see. She’s not all there, but she’s in here, and she’s alive! Eeka is completely surrounded by venomous reptiles. She may be the missing link, more animal than human.”
From; sideshowworld.com
—-
Are you feeding Andy canned dog food? My dog stank like rotting corpses after a few of those things. He was promptly put back on dry dog food and smell disappated after a few days.
I am glad the oversized folks are comfortable enough in their skin to wear too small and too tight garments, but damn, a little self discipline when going out in public please.
Ran across this info on bad breath in dogs. Andy may need a visit to the vet.
http://www.littlethings.com/surprising-causes-of-dog-bad-breath/?utm_source=ildog&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dog
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but bad breath was the first symptom of my late dog’s cancer. I took him to the vet expecting him to need dental work, but he had a toomah. They were able to give him antibiotics and steroids and the stink went away…and he lived for a year longer. Good luck to ole blacklips, he seems like the best doggie!
Our 14yr old yellow lab stinks to high heaven and constantly pants. It’s a sign of old age. We know our time is limited.
Women’s bathrooms are grosser than you’d expect.
I get entertained by the poo stand-off…when you have two ladies who want to poo, but neither will do so with others in the room, so they sit quietly and wait for the other person to give up and leave.
Unfortunately,since I work in a relatively quiet and sparsely populated section of my building, the bathroom on my hall has become the “poo bathroom” for ladies from other areas, even floors. I can’t imagine walking 300 yards of hallways and down 3 flights of stairs just to crap in a bathroom with different co workers. We even have one lady who has claimed the disabled stall, stocking it with magazines and other personal items.
Phone use is constant in our bathroom. Since we work in an area that doesn’t allow phones, we have to lock them in lockers in the hall. Everybody grabs their phone to check email, calls, texts, facebook etc when they head out to the restroom. I used to try and be polite about my bodily noises, but I don’t give a rip anymore. You brought your phone to the bathroom, deal with it.
We call it a controller.
Also, your dream reminds me of something that happened at Great Clips years ago (which wasn’t a dream but felt like one). I was nearing the end of my haircut and the stylist clipped a mole on my neck, causing it to bleed. She immediately treated me like I had the bubonic plague, finishing the haircut quickly and then shooing me out. She took it upon herself to announce to everyone, including the customers waiting, that “we’ve got a bleeder.” I tried to pay but she wouldn’t take it, and I was left standing awkwardly in the middle of the room for something that wasn’t my fault. Now my wife cuts my hair. It costs far less, and there’s less chance of public ridicule.
I’m tired of the hockey player and the 37, so perhaps a brief statement. You can decide whether it’s a political statement. I wish you well.
John
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE3kKUEY5WU
Bond-girl names:
Sabrina Kuntslinger
Faustina Vag
Dutchess Morass
Claire DuLes
I generally despise anyone who takes a dump in a public restroom. I just don’t do it. Ever.
I think everyone should hold it and blow up their own friggin’ bathroom.
I currently have a “situation” at work that myself and some co-workers refer to as “Shitgate”. As a TV makeup artist, I have to go out to the studio at the same time each day for tapings. It is during the 1/2 which takes me away from the makeup room each day, that someone I work with decides to pollute the bathroom adjacent to my room with his/her noxious funk. It makes me completely insane and Utterly disgusted. I don’t and have never pooped at work. I don’t understand why people can’t get a hold of their bowels. I’ve recruited some co-workers to help me figure out who the culprit is so I can “Shit shame” them.
BTW Jeff, I rarely comment these days but I’ve just figured out its been about 13 years that I’ve been reading WVSR. Is that even possible??? When was the Piazza check incident?