Step on it

I think it’s cute when microwavable products have an extra step on the tail end of their preparation directions that reads, “Enjoy.”

And here I was planning to painfully stomach the ravioli that I voluntarily made for my own satisfaction in a manner that resembles a whiny baby mouthing unhappily the pink medicine that is being forced upon him by his mother. Shucks.

A Thousand Words

I just got back from getting my senior portrait taken at the local photography studio. It took about 50 minutes, 45 of which consisted of standing in the waiting room and reading car magazines.

During my wait, I got to listen to the conversations of multiple whining menopausal mothers who thought that the process was taking far too long. Granted, the sitting took a good while, but on the post card they received in the mail months ago that remained ignored until presently, it warns of a wait of about an hour.

Did they realize that Bryn-Alan Photography is in charge of each and every senior’s portrait every year? And did they realize that the photographers can only work in one studio because that is all they have? Probably not, as they are not necessarily in positions to be privy to that knowledge.

They failed to take into consideration the fact that these people were not sitting in the back and playing Yahtzee – they work their tails off to get children in and out in an attempt to make things go quasi smoothly.

I realize that I’m treading potentially hypocritical ground here, but I thought that such a social observation would be necessary before any of you jokers walk in to get your senior portrait and start complaining.

Swingtown

Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time carting my great friend Ying around town because she needed a chauffeur whilst her car was being repaired at the Honda dealership in Pinellas Park. Because we were in South County already, we decided to make a stop at her “favorite fast food restaurant”:http://www.evos.com/home.cfm and then, because we are a couple of crazy kids, we found a nifty park wherein we could play on the swings.

I swear, these swings were like rocking death seats. With every glide back and forth, these things would let out a piercing sound that, from what I could guess, resembled the mating call of a blue whale. The seats were so low and awkwardly bent just enough to make the pain in our butts noticeable without actually causing them to go numb after a few minutes of swinging.

Other than that, though, the overall swinging experience was fun. That is, of course, until it tuckered us out – an occurrence that didn’t take ten minutes to become a reality. At the end of our swing session, my biceps were strained from grabbing, by legs were dead from kicking, and my ambition was ripped at the seams. I just wanted to sit on a bench somewhere.

Seriously, how do little kids do it? They can tackle monkey bars, teeter-totters, slides, and swings like they claim the local playground as the primary residence on their 1040 form in May. They must be little balls of insane amounts of energy. Either that or they constantly snort cocaine.

Faster than a speeding bird

At minor league baseball games, there are usually a bunch of scouts with radar guns behind home plate who keep track of how pitchers perform.

Tonight, one of them clocked me at a depressing .86 miles per hour during my nightly race around the bases with some lucky kid. They say, though, that I improved since my last race, which was run at .84 miles per hour.

The sad thing about all of this is the fact that during the competition, even though I must lose, _I’m trying_.

Almost Famous

In my line of work, you get to meet some pretty unique people. There are the regulars, the grumps, and even the quasi famous.

My good friend Calvin is a regular and has been going to A league baseball games ever since I was a baby watching the Clearwater Phillies from the comfort of my dad’s arms in the bleachers at “Jack Russel Stadium”:http://www.ballparkwatch.com/stadiums/past/jack_russell.htm. The Phillies have since relocated to a fancier ballpark, changed their name, and got really, really bad, but Calvin remains steadfast in his support of local baseball. Now, he comes to every Dunedin Blue Jays game, every time sporting a ball cap with the logo of any team _but_ the Jays. But I don’t mind; his quirkiness gives me something to do every day.

There’s also Bob. Bob sits two rows directly in front of Calvin and is a man of about 60 years. Peering out of his thick rimmed black glasses, Bob takes it upon himself to inform me nightly that “I’m going in after this inning.” While this could have the potential to get old after a short while, it doesn’t. I like Bob, so I let it pass. One time, I accidentally knocked over his cup of Mountain Dew, so in addition to his suggestion that I will soon become the star pitcher of the Dunedin Blue Jays (a notion that is actually not so far-fetched with this team), we have a running gag that if I’m within twenty feet of his soda, he and Calvin surround the cup with their hands as if it were a flame that they did not want to be snuffed. That’s always a gas.

There’s also Annellen, who sits on the third base side, a strange location for a local that pulls for the home team. Usually, the third base side is over populated with visiting fans and ballplayers’ hot girlfriends. Anyhow, Annellen is my favorite. She’s about 55, is as skinny as a rail, and has short, dirty blonde hair in the form of a bowl cut that sometimes covers the top of her gold rimmed glasses. Our inside joke is that she always arrives late. Without fail, if it’s the middle of the second inning, you can probably look over and see her walking up the steps to her seat from her smoking sanctuary on the main concourse. Her greatest attribute, though, is her laugh. Remember how Urkel chuckled? You get all of that snorty goodness and more when Annellen lets out a hearty guffaw. It’s wonderful.

There are more regulars, but I have yet to learn their names. There’s Man Who Sits On First Base Side Who Calls Me A Giant Blue Chicken; there’s Woman With Way Too Much Makeup And Outrageously Large Diamond Rings Who Sits Behind Home Plate; and who could forget Man With Randy Savage Mustache Who Repeatedly Suggests That I Trip The Kid During My Race Around The Bases. Oh, how I love my newfound family. Christmas’ll suck when I have to buy greeting cards, though.

In addition to the local yokels who come to support their team, there is the occasional party pooper.

For example, on the first night of my new profession, a man slapped together a string of curses that would make Eminim blush and violently pushed me, threatening to knock my defenseless avian block completely off. He didn’t use the word “avian,” though; he was sufficiently smashed from $1 beer Thursday.

You also shouldn’t mess with scouts from the visiting team. But they look so lonely out there behind home plate with their little radar guns and their scorecards. If you so much as touch one that doesn’t want to play with you, though, they can get awful intimidating.

However, all the negative Nancies that make my job less entertaining lose their effectiveness when I get to meet certain people. Mind you, I use the term “meet” very loosely: I’m not allowed to speak under my giant idiot suit. That said, I have been able, in the course of my working life, to be in contact with some nifty personalities.

The first week of my job, I played with Roberto Alomar, the 12-time All-Star that played with the Devil Rays for what seems like ten minutes at the beginning of the season. Later that month, I met the Hooters Calendar Girl of the Year. Her name escapes me at the moment, but when it comes to really good looking women, names don’t really matter anyway.

But Saturday night, and this is the greatest of my achievements, I got to entertain Mr. Brian Goff. The name probably doesn’t strike any chords, but in the Peterson household, Goff’s reporting on Fox 13 has been a staple for years. I remember watching him on the early morning news when I was a wee lad in the fifth grade. It was interesting to get to be in actual contact with him; it was even cool until he got a few beers into him and, as he walked down toward the concourse, announced to me so eloquently that “he had to pee.”

It’s tough to be a celebrity sometimes. To always be in the limelight and rub elbows with people of such caliber is a demanding life. But you know, I deal with it. So, if you’d like to do lunch at Sardi’s or discuss some contractual hubbub, have your people call my people.

The pain means it's working

Today, I was just minding my own business and sitting at my computer when all of a sudden I leaned back and my computer chair broke in half. Literally. My head hit the tile floor, my legs and feet kicked up and slammed against the bottom of the table upon which my PC sits, and a slew of extra computer chair parts began digging into my body.

!http://www.sociallyconsciousbird.com/storage/images/chair01.jpg!

Perhaps this is God’s way of telling me that I spend too much time using the computer.

Tricky, tricky

Dear United Cab Company:

I realize that you’re a taxi service and therefore a common vehicular design is necessary for name recognition, but do you really have to paint all of your cars black and white and slap your logo on the side?

Every time I see one of your cabs, I panic and downshift because I think you’re The Fuzz. Then, after you pass, I curse your name and swear never to use your service.

Because really, who wants to get charged $.40 for every additional mile while carting around in the back of a pseudo patrol car?

Love,
Casey

Escaping Reality

You know, every time I see that advertisement on television for Geico Auto Insurance that starts out by introducing a new reality show in which a newly married couple live in a miniature version of a house and their trials and tribulations, my hopes are absolutely obliterated when I find out that it was just a gag to get me to buy insurance. That would be a really, really funny show.

Mind you, I am the kind of guy who has never once seen an episode of _Survivor_, been entertained by _The Apprentice_, nor laughed at Joe Rogan. I mean, I’ve seen _Fear Factor_, but Joe Rogan is not funny.

Anyway, I digress. I think that, given a hefty paycheck, Fox could hire me as a conceptual program designer. I mean, I’ve got an eye for both the ideas that do not suck (such as the forthcoming list) and the ideas that blow (such as every reality show on television except for that one where the girl had to choose which guy was really her father – that was genius).

So, Fox executives, consider this list of the greatest television program ideas my application to your team. I expect a salary of at least $150,000 annually with a $100,000 signing bonus and my own parking space. The latter is nonnegotiable.

# Okay, so you get a young married couple that is looking to adopt some kids, right? Then, you get 20 orphans from the local orphanage and have them participate in competitions, during which time they are eliminated one by one until the winner is decided. The winner gets a new home and family, while his 19 counterparts get to go back and spend the rest of their lives with the evil Miss Hanigan.
# Okay, so you get a group of twenty or so young people, right? Then, you surgically detach their legs and put them back on backwards. Then you could let them all live in one house (see _The Real World_). Of course, you would have to get a whole slew of conflicting personalities: the prissy cheerleader; the gnarly surfer type who might be exploring the different nooks and crannies of his sexuality; the tramp-like 24 year old who looks two times her age; the raging black dude who resents the fact that he’s the only African American in the house; the big fat party animal; and a skinny little nerdly boy who has a big, fat high school crush on anything within thirty feet sporting a vagina.
# Okay, so you get a group of monkeys together, right? Then, put them in a house together that they are not permitted to leave (see _Big Brother_). Then, because there would be no truly significant value in the show at this point, get “Bob Saget”:http://www.bobsagetisgod.com/ to come in and do voiceovers for each of the individual primates within the house – all in the exact same voice. That should pull this show out of the gutter; it worked for America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. These ideas are not funny, with the exceptions of item one and the last part of item three. But are you telling me that if someone was to put these gems on your boob tube, you would rather watch The Weather Channel or Lifetime? I think not.

So, bring it on, Fox. I have the power to turn every television set in America into an unavoidable idiot magnet.

Good Morning, Good Morning

Today I woke up to the cellular phone call of two of my lovely female friends in my kitchen who took it upon themselves to let themselves into my house in the wee hours of the morning. Well, I guess all of that would have to depend on your definition of “wee hours,” but my 11:00 AM wakeup call was a bit difficult to cope with. That just goes to show what summer vacation will do to a boy.

Either way, I’m grateful to have such close friends that would wake me up like so. It’s better than a silly alarm clock and more efficient than waiting for your body to wake itself.

As much as I consider awakening, I cannot bar myself from inevitably delving into the hypothetical realm of consciousness that considers awakening’s fundamental opposite: falling asleep. And that only leads me to consider death. I know: this newfound dreary and depressed funk I’m in does strange things to my thought patterns.

Anyhow, after considering the possibilities, I would like to die in a similar manner, surrounded by my closest friends. But there should be more chicks. Wearing cheerleader outfits. That brought pizza.