They say the third time's the charm

Apparently I am not just her boss. I also fill the role of her granddaughter's school. Yep, she called again. I wasn't able to understand much of the message due to the woman's overly thick Southern accent, but I was able to gather that Kim--her name is Kim, not Jean...oops--wanted the school to allow her granddaughter to ride home on the bus today. It looks as if somebody is not getting home today!

I am beginning to wonder whether or not Kim has my phone number on speed-dial. Of course, that can't explain the fact that she has now left me messages intended for two different people, but it's a thought. I guess my number could be programmed under every possible speed-dial key. Then again, she does have a granddaughter. I guess it is safe to assume that she is a little more advanced in age. That, combined with the fact that she lives in North Carolina (she has a very distinctive accent), leads me to believe that Ms. Kim is of little mental capacity*.

Maybe I'll be fortunate enough to answer the phone one time when she calls (so far, she has only called very early in the morning or during classes), and be able to set her straight. For now, though, Kim provides me with a bit of entertainment every couple of days. In fact, I quite enjoy attempting to decipher her messages.

On a slightly unrelated note, aren't noses weird? I overheard someone exclaiming to another person how much she liked the other's nose, and though that somewhat odd. I've never found noses to be that attractive. In fact, they seem, like ears, to be after-the-fact additions to the human physique. Try staring at a nose for a small length of time, and I am confident that you will understand. That is all.

*I am not implying that the elderly are any less intelligent that young people. In that thought, I was putting more emphasis on the fact that she was from the back woods of the South--the delirious, half-mad, rather stupid mother in law of the United States, if you will.

You guarantee what?

Yesterday I saw a Quizno's advertisement on tv, and it struck me as kind of odd. Most companies offer guarantees in the form of "100% satisfaction, or you money back...guaranteed!" In the case of Quizno's, however, they offer something far less useful. At the end of the ad from yesterday, instead of offering customers their money back, the following offer was made:

100% satisfaction guaranteed or get another sub for FREE!

Now, I ask you, if I don't like a sandwich after trying it at Quizno's, why in the world would I want another one? On most occasions, if I dislike something, I try to avoid whatever it is in the future. How many of you, for instance, have tried Marmite and thought, "wow, this is truly awful," and then proceeded to ask yourself where you can get another jar for free? No one? Really?

Seems to me that most people who go into Quizno's and dislike the food would just like their money back. When offered another free sub instead, I foresee unhappy customers simply saying, "No thanks!" and leaving the store. Ooooh! That must be the whole idea behind the guarantee! A promise to customers that nobody will ever bother to collect on. What a brilliant way to save money! Quizno's has it all figured out. Way to go!

No, really, you have the wrong number

She called back. This is the third time! I erased the second message by accident, but here is a rough reproduction of the latest message.

Yes Lory, this is Jean. I was calling, Mr. Jornigan has called me, and needs some insight on the situation of the stock that was changed. He's wantin' to know if 582's gon' be pickin' them up in the mornin'. Christina's father and herself went back up to the school this afternoon, and he's got some questions that need to be answered. If you could please call him? Thank you.

I wonder if she is ever going to figure out that she is leaving messages on the wrong machine. I think it is kind of funny, but I'm sure she's going to get into some trouble if it keeps up. Oh well.

Also, I'm not going to be posting anything from Edd on the weekends, so keep a look out for your next dose on Monday.

You have not reached the voicemail of whom you intended

When I got back up to school on Sunday night, I still had a huge amount of homework to do. In fact, I still had some homework to do that was supposed to be turned in last Friday. Because I am such a wonderful student, I sat down at my computer around 12:30am (on Monday) to begin the work.

All of the homework was for English class. I had four reading journal entries for Crime and Punishment to complete, as well as entire part of that book to begin. After a healthy mix of procrastination and work, I finally finished all the work at about 2:30am, and got ready for bed. I set my alarm for 8:15am (my first class is at 9:10am!), and closed my eyes. At 5:45am, my phone rang. I was so pissed off, that I didn't even bother to look at who it was calling me. I tried to press the silence button to no avail, so I just threw my phone on the ground--that did the trick!

After waking up to my alarm that morning and taking a shower, I decided to check on who had disturbed my oh-so-deep sleep. The number was marked unavailable, but the person had left a message. Please allow me to recreate, to the best of my ability, the entirety of the message. (*Note, the message was left in an exceedingly thick and annoying Southern accent.)

Hey Lori, its Jean. I hate to do it, shit, but I reckon I got to add one more day at least. Uh, my granddaughter's woke up sick this mornin' and I'm still not feelin' totally the way up to par. So, I guess I might better take at least one more day. I was s'posed to sign that time sheet with Cherie today but, would you let her know I'm not g'be able to be in. I don't know what I need to do or what have you, but I guess I might better try to go on and, uh, be out one more day. Hopefully she'll be better tomorrow. You have a good day, now.

Looks like somebody is going to be in some trouble with their boss today, ha ha! I swear that if their number had been left, I would have called Jean back to inform her of the mistake, but, alas! I guess there are two lessons you should take away from this. First, it is a bad move to wake me up before 7:00am under any circumstances. Ok, fine, if you are presently bleeding to death, then it is acceptable to call at 6:15am--but no earlier! Secondly, if you are going to call your boss to let him or her know that you will be absent from work, make sure you listen to the voice and message on the machine in which you plan on placing your trust. If you call a number, and get the following message:

Hi. This is Logan. I'm not here right now, but if you leave your name and number, I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

You are most likely leaving me a message.

Up later today, the first "Daily Eddism". (I realize now that "Eddism" is actually a real philosophy. Therefore, the title of this series will henceforth be changed to, "Daily Dose of Ed".)

Ecstasy, thy name is muffin!

After finally going to sleep at 5:00am this morning, I slept until 2 o'clock in the afternoon. -Doink Doink. (*That, of course, would be the Law & Order sound.*)

Shower! Warm water. Ahhh. Wake up! Dry off. Get dressed--no, not those socks. Open window-how cold? Sweater...my only friend!

Ohhhh. Hungry. Must eat. Cafeteria closed! Oh no!

What to do, what to do? Snack Bar time? Ok. Fine. Pickle Jar it is.

What to get, what to get? BLT? No. Cheese Sticks? Don't think so.

Pour the diet pepsi. Think, think. Aha! Blueberry muffin! Sara Lee, you are so beautiful to me-e-e..can't you see-e-e? It is everything I hope(d) for! Everything I nee-e-ed(ed)!

Open wrapper--don't forget a napkin--take off paper. Top or bottom first? Top-no bottom-no top-no bottom! Bottom! Yum.

Oh muffin! How wonderful you are!

Sweet and gooey,
Yes you are.
I could put you in a car.

Sweet and gooey,
Yes you be.
I could put you on TV.

Soft and squishy
Like a mouse,
I could put you in my house.

You always do
Catch my eye.
I could put you in the sky.

On a clown or
In a tree,
You would go well with some brie.

Muffin muffin
You're so yummy,
I'd like to put you in my tummy!

(I'll be awaiting my Pulitzer Prize, thank you.)

Lucky numbers 8, 9, 10, 31, 32, 33

*Spoiler Alert: The following post has no sense of continuity whatsoever.

I live in Pinehurst, NC, and my dad just got a job in Connecticut. He's leaving this coming Monday to start working up there, and my family and I will follow at the end of the school year. Seeing as I spend most of my time up in Winston-Salem, and I will likely not be home on the weekends that my dad comes back to visit, we decided that it would be good to spend some time together today.

Wednesday's are always light days as far as my class schedule goes; in fact, I only have one hour in which I am required to be somewhere. So, today at 3:30 in the afternoon, my dad came and picked me up at school. We went to Barnes & Noble for a little while, drove around a bit, spent some time at REI pretending that we are outdoors kind of people, and ate dinner at the fabulous P.F. Chang's Chinese Bistro. It was delicious. Thanks for asking.

For the first time in, well, a long time, my dad and I got along quite well. We didn't get into a single argument, and I think we actually laughed on more than one occasion. By the time dinner was over it was about 9:00, and all that was left to do was open our fortune cookies and get back to NCSA.

My dad's fortune cookie was something stupid. I think it was along the lines of:

Spicy food tastes good.

That's right. I'm not kidding. Mine, although not quite as useless, proved just as funny:

Enjoy life! It is better to be happy than wise.

Hmm. It all makes sense now! Stupid people have it all figured out! Be a dip shit...it doesn't matter! As long as you're happy, who cares?! Live life to the fullest, and don't worry if you can't speak or write legibly.

Oh. A tidbit for all of you who don't want to be happy morons--Chuan means "ship" in Chinese.

It's never too early to spread the word

This morning I went to pick up some cream cheese at Harris Teeter, and one of the most incredible things happened to me--in the sense that the word "incredible" means "funny". As I was walking from my car (that I had to park eight miles away, since eight o'clock on Saturday morning is apparently prime time for grocery shopping), I saw one of those tables set up out front that Girls Scouts usually use to sell their boxes of orgasm-inducers. At this table, though, there were no prepubescent girls clad in beige. This table was surrounded by a gaggle of post-sixty year old women wearing their Sunday best a day early. From where I was parked, I couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but every once in a while, a sort of yelp would emerge from one of the women.

As I got closer to the table, it became clear what this was all about. The yelps I heard from further away were actually some of the women asking loudly, "Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior?" On the table were what looked like little Jesus dolls wrapped in plastic, and behind the whole mess was a big sign for one of the Christ Churches (First, Second, Fourteenth?). I, a person who has no intention of ever accepting a dead man as his "savior", was thinking of the best way to tell this group of bible-toters that, in fact, Jesus has already come back, but I thought he was just some hobo when he knocked on my door (no doubt looking for some water to turn in to wine), so I hit him over the head with a statue of Buddha and now he's in the freezer in my garage, when I noticed something that threw me completely off.

The Jesus dolls on the table were actually the Jesus equivalent of chocolate bunnies! Now I had an entirely new mission...I wanted some free chocolate! I walked over to the largest person behind the table, knowing that she must be the one in charge, and told her that I was having some trouble with my faith lately, and that maybe a chocolate Jesus would help. The problem, I continued to explain, was that I only had enough money to buy some bread for my starving brother and sister (I had messed up my hair on the way over to the table as a convincer), and I simply couldn't afford the $5 price tag that came with the Jesus chocolate. This nice and fooled woman handed me, out of the goodness of her heart--not, she said, for another get-into-heaven-free pass--a free chocolate Jesus.

I said thank you, and walked towards the wonderfully secular sliding door of Harris Teeter, and opened up my new treat. Immediately biting off the head (where else does one begin?), I became disappointed and confused. (Oh, and strangely, I stubbed my toe at that same moment...must not have been paying attention to where I was walking!) The Jesus was hollow damn it! Who skimps on a chocolate image of Jesus?! Of course bunnies would be hollow--bunnies are stupid! Jesus though? He's supposed to be the damned son (maybe not the best choice of words) of God! At least have the decency to make him out of solid chocolate!

Mark my words. That is the last time I ever accept food from a group of people promoting Jesus. If there is going to be no effort put into making a quality chocolate idol of the "Lord and Savior", I shouldn't be expected to even consider accepting the dead version of that chocolate man as anything but a dead guy.

Oh, and just and case any of you were worried...I did get the cream cheese. Its expiration date doesn't arrive for another whole week! Be afraid English muffins. Be very afraid.