Chinese

小气鬼

When Mark lived in Florida he was the lead system operator for the county court house computer system. Despite having the skill to run that big computer system, Mark finds ordering Chinese food online impossible. Last night, just about the time the evening news came on, Mark tried to order from the China Palace. I didn't pay much attention, but from the periphery I could hear whining and bitching.

"Something wrong?"

"I can't figure out how to order on this stupid web site. I put in a two dollar and fifty cent tip but it won't take it.... Oh, wait.... Okay, it took."

So the hot and sour soup, crab Rangoon, and Mongolian beef should arrive in about forty minutes. One hour and fifteen minutes later I called the China Palace direct and asked where the hell was our order. A lady with a very, very heavy accent answered the phone.

"Indecipherable.. indecipherable.. we no have that order... indecipherable... three hours... indecipherable.."

So I hung up and walked over to Mark's computer. The order was still on the screen with that two dollar and fifty cent tip highlighted in red. The order had not gone through. I clicked on the tip box and changed it to three dollars. The red went away, the screen flashed and the word 'confirmed' popped up. Apparently if you do not tip China Palace enough they will not take your business. Again, I figured that in about forty minutes we'd have dinner. One hour and thirty minutes later I called them again. The same lady answered the phone.

"Indecipherable.. indecipherable.. we no have that order... indecipherable... four hours... indecipherable.. You want to order now?"

No I did not want to order again. I was over it and planned on walking over to Wolfy's for some hotdogs. Just as I was berating the woman on the phone about how horrible their service was, the dogs went insane and the doorbell rang. It was our food from China Palace. It was all there, everything we ordered and it was still hot. So I told the lady on the phone that all was fine. She responded...

"So you want to order now?"

Happy Holidays, The Longest Month

7:45 on Sunday. I took both dogs out to the back yard to go potty. According to the forecasters yesterday, there should be a few inches of snow out there. There is none. Copious amounts of rain, but no snow. So I send the dogs out there and Scout cheerfully does her thing, squat and pee, then run around a bit trying to get Chandler to play. Chandler runs out into the yard, stops, then turns around and runs back to me so he can bury his face between my legs. Chandler hates rain. He hates snow, he hates airplanes rats and garbage trucks. Chandler hates a lot of things, but he loves me and my dry pants where he is now trying to wipe the rain off his face. I'm sure when I wake up in the morning there will be some snow out in the yard, but I'm not so sure we'll have the foot of snow the television people are breathlessly predicting.

What I can predict is that by Monday afternoon I will be so sick of turkey and all the side dishes that go with it, that I will be tossing what's left in the garbage. By the end of the week I will be totally sick of Christmas shopping and the blowing up of my budget and I will put a freeze on spending. I will also become Mark's Christmas servant. I will be forced to drag all the Christmas crap up from the basement and help Mark put up the Christmas tree. Here is the worst part of the coming month. It's not the tree, not the shopping, not the fact that I will eat too much food, or the possibility of snow. No, the worst part is my upcoming birthday. I hate birthdays.

First Blood

I've had a mole/beauty mark, on my upper lip for many years. I first noticed it about forty years ago and thought nothing of it, until the day I shaved it off. Sliced that thing right off my face. Blood ran down my lip for hours. I don't know why but a shaving cut just does not stop bleeding. You would think that was that, the mole was now gone. But it came right back a few months later. As I have got older, the mole has become more noticeable and a bit larger. So far I've been told not to worry about it by my doctor, it's not cancer. He did say it could be removed. I thought about that, but I told him no. I'm having second thoughts about that. Sure, it's part of my visage and people have got used to seeing it. I remember how sad I was when Enrique Iglesias had his mole removed. It gave him some character. Anyway, I cut the damn thing off my face again yesterday. With a yelp and loud curse, it was gone. So maybe I should have it removed. The only other solution to my mole problem that I can think of is facial hair. But that brings up another thing that I've been aware of for over forty years. I can't grow facial hair. Not with any volume that would look good. Just little sparse patches of hair here and there. Oh, and it will probably be patchy gray too. 

The Paperboy

Every Sunday I make breakfast and set up the breakfast table for Mark. I put his coffee out on the table, serve him something special like pancakes, and always make sure the Sunday paper is right there next to him. The Sunday paper is something that's been in my life forever. There's just something about Sunday papers, I love them. From the time I can remember, I've always looked forward to that paper. As a little kid it was the comics I lusted after. Blondie, Dick Tracy, and Li'l Abner. I loved Li'l Abner, that comic strip was so quirky. As I got older the other sections of the paper became important to me.

I mentioned to Mark how small and thin the Sunday paper has become. Seventy two pages, that's all it was yesterday. That's when I remembered, there is one thing about the Sunday paper I used to hate when I was a kid. Something that made me dread Sundays. I was a paperboy back in the early 1960s. I had a weekday paper route and for a couple of years I also had a weekend paper route. Today's Sunday paper weighs about one ounce. A Sunday paper in 1964 probably weighed near fifty pounds. They were thick, they were large, and I was the guy who delivered them on my bicycle. Okay, maybe they didn't weigh fifty pounds, but I'll bet you they were at least two pounds each. I would have to put a rubber band around each paper, and it hurt like a son of a bitch when one of those rubber bands snapped back on my hand or snapped off into my eye. I would then have to stuff all those papers into the basket on the front of my bike, into the saddlebag baskets at the rear of my bike, and on some Sundays I had to attach my little brother's wagon to the back of the bicycle. Me on my bicycle, in rain and snow, peddling over a hundred pounds of newspapers all around our old neighborhood. Oh, and god forbid if I didn't get the paper on the doorstep. Those people would call and complain, and by the time I got home my parents would have already got the call from the delivery company. I believe I got paid a penny a paper for the thrill of being in the news business.

I don't ever see the person who delivers our paper on Sunday. They come by early and always leave the paper right up against the door. I suspect it's an adult in a car, probably with some kind of newspaper gun shooting newspapers out the car window at my door. I also suspect that they're still only paid a penny per paper.

I Buy New Underpants

On Monday Mark and I went out shopping. I loaded Mark into the car and off we went to Marshall's. It's Mark's favorite cheapo store for all kinds of crap. We have a Ross's store right near us, but he refuses to go there. Just not the right class of cheapskate there. Anyway, Mark got some sheets, some Christmas cards, and a bunch of other stuff that he tossed into the cart. I, remembering that many of my underpants were getting old, grabbed a box of four and threw that into the cart. I'm very particular about my underpants. They have to be made out of at least ninety five percent cotton. Nothing worse than polyester underpants. Also, they cannot be too tight or too loose. Things need to breathe, yet not be choked. The box of four that I tossed into the cart seemed to fill the bill. That was until I wore one of them yesterday. I drove out to Mom's house and after an hour of driving I had to go. When I got to Mom's, I ran directly into the bathroom, opened the fly on my pants, and then started feeling for the opening on the new underpants. Sonofabitch, there was no barn door. No way to take a pee without dropping my drawers and my underpants. What kind of idiot designed men's underpants without a barn door? Yes, I know some men like to sit and pee, but for krissakes they should warn a guy. Right there on the outside of the box of underpants it should say in big bold letters, 'NO BARN DOOR'. So I don't know what I should do with these things. I can't return them because I already washed them and threw away the box they came in. I'm thinking of the tailor over on Peterson Avenue. Maybe I could get her create a barn door for me. Possibly sew in a zipper or maybe even Velcro. Or, I could give them to a female who likes the cut of men's underpants.