Harnessing the healing power of snark
If you have read this blog for any length of time, you will probably have formed a pretty accurate picture of the kind of person I am. While I love my life and love being me, I realize that who and how I’ve chosen to be would not necessarily be everyone‘s first choice. I’ll never appear on anyone’s lists for what is New, Hot, Sexy, or Popular. But then again, I will also never appear on any lists detailing all the women who have, for whatever reason, revealed their hoo-ha’s for the entire world to see. So it goes both ways.
I just sort of assumed that everyone saw me in the same way, but apparently that is not always the case if the following story is any indication.
As I mentioned before we had dinner with one of The Gamers last weekend, but before eating we went to her house because she and her mom just got a new kitten and of course, we had to go and play with it. As we were getting ready to leave, her mom (who incidentally has known me for the last seven years, ever since we worked together as booksellers, so it’s not like she’s never met me before) asked where we were going to eat.
“We’re going over to Firehouse Subs,” I told her.
She frowned like she didn’t know what I was talking about, which I thought was odd since she was the one who had first introduced me to Firehouse a few years ago.
“Where?” she asked again.
“You know, Firehouse. Over by the Walmart.”
Her frown increased, and then she tentatively asked, “The biker bar?” [Read more…] about As Chandler Bing Would Say, “Could You Be More Wrong?!”
Thirteen Funny Moments With My Students
1. The Student: “My teacher hates me.”
Me: “Why do you think that?”
The Student: “Well, I was just sitting there in class, and then suddenly my jacket was on fire.”
Me: (Silently) Yeah, she probably does.
2. Me: “Back in the 70’s, when I was growing up…”
My student: Gasps so hard in stunned amazement at how old I am that he almost turns his head inside out.
3. Me: “Oh, I see we’re getting ready to start the chapter on…THE PLANE.”
Me: Waiting expectantly.
My student: Stares at me blankly.
Me: “THE PLANE”.
The Student: Nothing.
Me: “Tattoo? Fantasy Island?”
My student: Looks at me quizzically.
Me: Feeling like a total idiot. “Uh, never mind.”
4. Anytime I try to use “Top Gun” and Tom Cruise as examples of knowing what’s “cool” when you’re a teenager.
5. Student: “Will you take me to get my belly button pierced?”
Me: “No.”
Student: “Why not? I really thought you would.”
Me: What?! Why?!
Me (silently): frantically reviewing every interaction I’d previously had with this student, wondering how I’d possibly given out the message that I was someone who would accompany teenagers as they voluntarily allowed others to drive very sharp needles through various parts of their body.
6. Usually I am pretty good at getting in the last word. Words are what I was trained in, and now words are my business. But yesterday I met my match.
I was working with a tutoring client and trying to elicit some information from him in a process which, incidentally, has given me entirely new insights into the phrase, “blood from a stone.”
I asked him if he was this difficult in all of his conversations with others, and he said that he liked to present people with a challenge.
Me:” Well, that’s just like waving a red flag in front of a bull” (I love a good challenge).
Him: “Yes, but then it’s just like in the cartoons when I pull the flag away, and there’s an anvil there instead.”
He won.
7. My Student: “I should never be given the power of invincibility, because if I were invincible I would go around hurting everyone else just because I could.”
Me: “Hm, interesting.”
Me (silently): OK, Universe, are you listening here?
Me: “So, you’d really be more of a super villain than a super hero.”
My Student: “Exactly.”
Me: “And then you’d need a super hero to come against you.”
My Student: “But no one could, because I’d be invincible.”
Me: “Ah, but everyone has a weakness. There’s Superman and kryptonite…”
My Student(interrupting): “Well, I guess you could bore me to death.”
(I still haven’t figured out if he just meant people in general, or if he was talking to me specifically at that moment. So I haven’t decided yet whether or not I’m offended.)
8. Today has been a mixture of tutoring some students in Spanish and getting ready to go out of town for a conference.
I guess getting ready for my trip has put me a little on edge, because by my last tutoring session my answers to the student’s questions had become a bit flippant and sarcastic.
This caused him to stop, put down his pen, look at me, and say, “Hm, apparently smartass is catching. Who knew?”
9. Yesterday I saw one of my students for their final Spanish tutoring session ever. It’s good for both of us; for him, because he HATES Spanish; for me, because I am no longer responsible for shepherding him through academia now that he has discovered the magical sugary-caffeinated elixir that is a Tall Vanilla Latte.
As he was pacing around my office and working off his coffee high he began closely inspecting everything on my shelves, including my collection of cat figurines.
“Oh, don’t look at those,” I said. “I don’t want you to think that I’m a crazy cat lady.”
“Oh I already know you are,” he replied. “Three’s the magic number!”
He is very lucky that I am not the person in charge of grading his final Spanish exam.
10. Me: “What is the correct form of this verb?”
My student: Answers incorrectly.
Me: “No, it’s this.”
My student: “You’re right.”
Me: HEAVILY sarcastic. “Yeah, I KNOW!.”
11. My student: “I think I’m not gonna start drinking until I’m older.’
Me: “What?”
My student: “Well, my parents didn’t start needing to have wine every night with dinner until my brother and I were born.”
12. A new student arrives for their first tutoring session.
Me: “OK, let me see your book.”
The student: “Oh. I was supposed to bring my book?”
Me (to myself): Why is it that I don’t drink, again?
13. Me: “OK, so are you going to look over these vocabulary words again tonight so you’ll be ready for your test?”
My student: “Mmm, nope.”
Me: “Well, at least you’re honest.”
My husband and I just went to the grocery store to buy some dessert. As we were standing in the ice cream aisle, perusing all the choices, we heard the high-pitched sound of a little boy talking to his dad. Neither one of us really paid any attention to it, until we noticed that it wasn’t stopping. So we both looked up at the exact same moment, just in time to hear him yell, “The witch, daddy, the witch!” over and over again. And he was pointing? Directly at me.
Earlier in the week some friends and I were talking, and we were sharing all of the different things about ourselves that made us feel like the “black sheep” in our families. We each offered various examples of our “black sheep-ness” until one friend piped up with her contribution.
“Unless you’ve been arrested,” she told us, “unless you’ve seen prison, I win.”
This weekend we spent time with a friend we hadn’t seen in a while. Her job recently came to an end, and knowing that she would soon no longer be seeing these people every day she spent her remaining time with them collecting the funny things they said. Here, for your reading enjoyment, are a few of those gems.
Two Guys Discussing A “Man Law”:
Guy One: “Dammit, [Guy Two], you never listen to Luther Vandross when other guys are around!”
Two Women Discussing The Projected Path Of A Potential Relationship:
Woman One (to Woman Two): “It starts off where you’re dressing up as Little Bo Peep, and the next thing you know he’s wearing your skin.”
English As A Second Language:
Guy One (who is from America): “Hey, [Guy Two], your desk looks like crap.”
Guy Two (who is from China): “What?”
Guy One: “Your desk. It looks like crap.”
Guy Two: “No. My desk look more like lobster.”
Guy One: “No. CRAP!”
Guy Two: “I know crap! Crap have eight legs and live in ocean!”
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Today I participated in a humorous speech competition (and won second place, thank you very much!)
To keep the crowd entertained while the judges tallied the ballots, the moderator brought up all the contestants to be interviewed one by one.
He got to a woman who had given a speech about her life as an American in Greece, and with his questions the moderator invited her to give the audience some more information about Greek words, phrases, and gestures.
“Well in Greece you never do this,” she told us, as she made the hand gesture that in America means “bye-bye”.
“Why not?” asked the moderator.
“Because in Greece that means, ‘I crap on your next five generations.”
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Yesterday we once again played host to The Gamers,and dedicated as I am to bringing the world entertaining stories from my everyday life, I decided to listen to what they said during game play and take notes for my blog.
So today I present to you, “The Best Things I Heard This Weekend: The Gamers Edition”.
1. Gamer 1:I just got donkey punched by the abominable snowman.
Gamer 2: That’s not the abominable snowman. That’s the abominable WTF?!
2. Gamer 2: Say no to ice-wielding zombies.
Gamer 3: Say no to zombies, period.
3. Gamer 1: OK, take the bone-studded choker.
Gamer 3: Yes, pick up the boner.
4. Who else needs to be slayed?
5. (Earlier in the evening someone had expressed their belief that having sex steals your soul. Later during game play someone’s character killed a wild boar and we all watched as the boar’s soul left its body.)
Gamer 1: Hey, that pig had a soul.
Gamer 2: I guess it didn’t have sex today.
Gamer 3: Or else it was a virgin.
