The unbearable lightness of peeing

Howdy folks, it's your friendly neighborhood Peter here welcoming you to another day at UOPTA. No, that doesn't stand for, "Undulating Orifices Preparing To Amuse," and frankly, I'm appalled that you would even consider that to be a possibility. Great, now I feel icky. (Oh yeah, thanks for sending that UOPTA in, Mom. You never cease to amaze me. Friends, if you want to send your own UOPTA in and cleanse your mental palette, ptklein@gmail.com is where to send it.) Instead, this UOPTA is where I write some thoughts and stories. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the random shyte I have for you today.

Recently, something changed in the bathroom at my work. I walked up to the middle of the three urinals and noticed a new deodorizing thing hanging below the top lip area. It's a brick of some green substance in a white boxy structure, positioned high up so that no one would pee on it (unless trying to do so). On the box, in small letters, it says "PeePod." "That's cute, if that's what they're going for," I thought to myself. Later that day, I went to the bathroom again (I know, I'm such a glutton). This time however, I used the urinal to the far left because the middle one was occupied. Sure enough, what looked to be an identical deodorizing thing was there. I looked in more detail and saw that in place of "PeePod," it read, "Deotec." This made me wonder about why the text was different on products that clearly had come from the same company. To me there are only three possible answers:

1. They came out with this product branded as "Deotec" first. Then, one day, a brave soul in the boardroom saw a better opportunity to attract eyeballs: The pun! "No one will remember their pee smelling better from a Deotec...but with a PeePod, my friends, we're all walking away fresher than ever, like Mother Nature's own hand removed the stench of urine. Yes we can!" Others agreed, and before too long, they came out with a new and catchier name on their product.

2. The opposite: They created the "PeePod" line first. And then, something that had been bubbling inside one of the higher-up executives finally exploded. "This isn't us!" he yelled. "We're not cutesy, we're not punny. We're supposed to be a respected pillar of the urinal odor neutralizing community, and we cheapen ourselves by going at it this way. Let's do it like we always have - like my father would have - and stand behind Deotec. Our name signifies quality and a job done right...for things that take away pee stink."

3. The company was concurrently running two product lines at different price points. This happens often, and we consumers probably fall for it all the time. Here's how this one could've happened: In the world of janitorial supplies and product enhancements, let's say there are two big catalogs of product. (Yes, I'm making 100% of this up, but I might be onto something.) The first one caters to the everyman, and it's where owners of diners, gas stations, and other similar establishments go to get new urinal cakes, protective toilet seat covers, etc. There, they advertise "The PeePod" with some catchy slogan and sell them for...let's say $9.99 each when you order 12. The other catalog caters to resorts, fancy hotels, expensive restaurants, and high-end businesses. There you'll find monogrammed toilet paper roll covers, electronic soap dispensers, and "The Deotec 5000 XTR" that promises to use the latest technology to neutralize odor before it begins. That product costs...$19.99 each in packs of 12, and comes with a handy installation guide. In reality, the products are exactly the same, and the "installation guide" is a completely unnecessary half-page diagram that comes in both packages. So my building (oh yeah, that's where I was going with this) was looking through the fancier catalog and thought, "Yeah, we could totally use those" and ordered a dozen to check them out. The next day, that person hit him/herself in the head and thought, "I should've checked to see if the cheaper catalog had these too before buying them," and proceeded to buy the rest from there. When the time came to put them in the urinals, the janitorial staff just had a big pile of them and grabbed whatever was on the top, thereby enabling me to have a "Deotec" one next to a "PeePod."

Whew! Nothing further, your honor.

Last week, I wrote about the pager/beeper and how its place is almost nonexistent in today's world due to advanced technology. Somehow, I know not how, that discussion made me think of a movie: "EDtv." Remember that movie? The premise seemed a little outlandish at the time, but my my, how things have changed. In the movie, a network want to - get this - FILM SOMEONE'S LIFE 24 HOURS A DAY! Can you believe it? Oh wait, yes you can, since this is currently being done to probably hundreds of people on dozens of crappy television shows. This came out in 1999, but before we start calling it prescient or anything, please note that "The Real World" started its 8th season that year. In any case, I find it funny to think about that movie's concept ever seeming "new and exciting" since it's terribly run-of-the-mill by today's standards. On the plus side, it gave us the totally believable pair of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as brothers in the film. I like when I can believe that two people could be siblings, like Julia Roberts and Kyra Sedgwick in "Something to Talk About." Can you think of any other good or particularly bad sibling pairs on screen?

I've got some more random items before proceeding to the Car Watch. Here's a short one: I went to a little Mexican food place last week, and I was waiting for my order when another man walked up to register. "Um, does the a la carte taco come with anything?" he asked. I found that amusing, since the guy clearly wasn't familiar with the definition of "a la carte" and immediately emailed myself that line. I was half expecting his next line to be, "Does the pie a la mode come with ice cream?" or "Is there any rice or chicken in the 'arroz con pollo?'"

From the "Oh Please Make it Stop" category: QVC had their "Countdown to Christmas" special earlier this week. Yes, in frickin' AUGUST. I don't think the answer to "WWJD?" is, "Celebrate my birthday four months in advance." I'm just sayin'.

I heard a commercial on the radio, and something in it really stuck out to me. I don't remember the actual product or service the company offered (so clearly it was a great commercial), but it was called Renaissance Whatever. Let's say Mudflaps for the fun of it. At the end of the spot, the voiceover guy said, "Just go to Renaissance Mudflaps.com." And he didn't spell "Renaissance." Here's the thing: I'm a good speller. In fact, I was just telling my lovely wife earlier this week that I didn't miss a single word on a spelling test in all of fifth grade, which landed me a shitload of gold stars and a McDonald's lunch. My point is that I didn't know how to spell "Renaissance" off-hand. I took a stab at it, and it turns out that I was wrong. (I put the I after the second A instead of the first. I got the one N and two S part right, if that counts for anything.) So if the former gold star accumulator can't go to their website after hearing their radio commercial, they probably have an uphill battle in generating web traffic. I think their campaign needs a "rebirth," if you will.

And with that, let's make bilingual puns on over to the Car Watch.

First up, my homey Rockabye sent me this license plate: "BROKHRT." How sad is that? I understand that people can break up and be rightfully devastated over that...for a while. But to put that on your license plate is telling the entire viewing public, "I'm eternally sad, so don't even bother trying to change that." Even if that's not the reason for the owner having that plate, can you imagine walking out to that car after a first date with the owner? Yikes.

I can't remember who sent me this license plate, but based on the few clues I have, it was either another from my homey Rockabye or from Dusty (who is getting married in less than a month). It read, "GO FLOSS." Ah, you just gotta love demanding dentists whose reach extends far beyond their own offices. How dare the driver assume that everyone being him/her doesn't floss? I'm sure s/he has a better sense of those percentages than I do, but if it were my mom and her "perfect home dental hygiene" behind that car, she'd be wicked pissed.

Speaking of maternal figures, I saw this license plate recently: "IGR8MOM." Yep, that's an I and not the number 1. There should be an additional message on the plate frame or on a bumper sticker below that reads, "But I not so good at grammar."

Ok, that's it for me today. You all have a great weekend and week until we meet up again next Friday. Happy Birthday on Sunday to our friend Ceil (who I call "The Foca"), and...that's all I see on my trusty calendar in terms of Happy Announcements. Shaloha, and peace out.

Turning the page

Bienvenidos mis amiguitos, and it's good to see you here once again at UOPTA. No, that doesn't stand for "Uniting Old People Through Aromatherapy," but I'm curious as to which scents would be the most effective. Chicken noodle soup? Freshly-cut Social Security checks? I need more time to think about this. (Thanks to my homey Rockabye for supplying that UOPTA. You can send your own into ptklein@gmail.com, if you should be so bold.) Instead, this UOPTA is an aromatherapy-free zone in which I write down some thoughts and stories. If you're up for (and down with) that, please proceed to the next paragraph.

Ah, glad you made it over the treacherous white space. (I don't think I use the word "treacherous" nearly enough; it's a good one.) So I have a little topic to discuss today. Last week, the same homey Rockabye IMd me asking for our friend Greg's number because it wasn't going through. I wrote him back saying that he had a new number, and then I supplied it. He said that he had that number listed in his phone as Greg's pager number. I told him that he must have entered it into the wrong field, because neither Greg nor anyone else I know currently has a pager. He then suggested that I write something about pagers and old technology. Ta-frickin-dah!

By a show of hands, how many of you have owned a pager? Great, and of those, how many still own and operate one? If your hand is still up, I assume you're a doctor who's on call. In the past decade, I have only handled a pager when given to me at a busy restaurant to notify me when my table is ready. Before that though, there was a time in which pagers played an important role in my life (although I never owned one). That time was high school.

It was the early 90s, and my dad's giant (and wired) car phone was still relevant in the world of technology. Some super cool people had the "cellular telephones" the size of one of Shaq's shoes, but they were still far from common. So the most prevalent way of locating someone was via pager, and it had a whole culture around it. In fact, my friend Dusty and I listened a lot to a tape (yes, as in cassette) by A Tribe Called Quest that not only had a song about a pager ("Skypager") complete with dialing sounds and an automated woman's voice, but the first song on the tape ("Excursions") started with these words:

"Back in the days when I was a teenager/before I had status and before I had a pager."

So it was pretty cool. In fact, the pager in the early 90s is the only item I can think of that symbolized both the medical and the hip hop communities. I find that to be impressive. (Oh sure, many professions besides those two employed the use of pagers too, but will you agree with me that those were the ones most associated with them? What if I say please? What if I comment on Dr. Dre perfectly straddling both genres?) In any case, Dusty got a pager. It's a bit laughable now when I think about the extra step of calling someone's device to say, "Call me," instead of just reaching him right then, but that was what we were working with. Additionally, we were limited to paging someone with a combination of the numbers 0-9, so communicating a message was very difficult.

The general message was assumed to be, "Call me," but there were times that more needed to be said. The first step was having an identifying number sequence. I was at an age in which I thought fake Satan worshiping was funny/cool/dark/ridiculous, so I would page Dusty with "666" to ask him to call me at home. If I was elsewhere, I'd put the home number of where I wanted him to call and then 666. Because of the obvious limitations, some people created codes for saying things like, "I love you." I don't remember trying to write things in upside-down numbers, but I'm sure that happened. I just don't know how helpful, "LOOSE," "BOOBLESS," or similar words would've been at the time. (As a side note, I was wide awake in the middle of the night earlier this week and realized that I could write a whole sentence with upside-down numbers: "He loses his shoes." Without spaces, but not bad, right?)

There was only one other code that I knew, and I used it on just one occasion: 911. Yes, the dreaded, "THIS IS IMPORTANT" page. One Saturday, a friend from high school had scheduled a get-together for her birthday. It was lunch at a place wayyyyy out in Santa Monica. (As an adult, I now know that I really didn't go all that far, but it was out of my very small knowledge base of streets.) I had to be at work back in The Valley at 1pm, and this thing was called for 11. No problem, right? I ate, hung out, and left myself 45 minutes to get somewhere that shouldn't take nearly that amount of time on a Saturday. "How do I get to the freeway?" I asked. A friend told me directions that were unfortunately too vague for me. They involved that hated phrase, "You can't miss it." Oh really? Trust me, I can miss it just fine.

I made the first turn, then chose one of the next few streets to make the second (I was told I had options), and then had no idea where I was and saw no freeway in any direction. Crap. I kept driving, looking for a green sign to point me to a freeway, and said many an expletive out loud. After a few minutes, I figured I must be going the wrong way and turned around. Ten minutes later, and I was sweating and watching the minutes tick by to my expected arrival at work. I pulled over and went into a gas station to ask for directions. To my horror, the guy gave me a four-step process without all of the street names.

15 minutes later, I was more lost and frantic than ever. I was supposed to be at work any minute, and as far as I knew, I would be stuck on that side of town for the rest of my life. I pulled over and found a pay phone (remember those?). I dialed Dusty's pager number, put the number of the pay phone, 666, and then 911. I thought that if he called me, I could tell him the street signs near me, have him use his Thomas Guide or something, and get me the hell out of there. Then I paced for about ten minutes. I called again and did the same thing. After waiting a little while longer, I gave up and went into the next gas station I saw. "Oh, you're real close," the guy said. "Just continue on this street and the onramp's on the right." He was right, and once on the freeway, my "I'm lost" anxiety was completely replaced by "I'm late" anxiety.

I devised a plan: I was a good kid who was never ever late and obeyed all rules. If I played it right, I should be able to say that I was supposed to be there at 2 instead of 1 and no one would question me. It might work, right? I walked into work at 1:58pm (which is a little later than I'd normally get there for a 2pm start time), playing it as cool as possible. I strolled nonchalantly into the back and ran into my boss. "Hey," he said. "Hey," I said back. "Were you supposed to be here at 1?" "No, 2 to closing today," I said matter-of-factly. "Oh, I thought we had you down for 1. Huh." Then he walked away. The drama was over, but my heart remained pounding for the next hour or so.

I found out the next day that Dusty had gotten my 911 pages, but he was in the middle of taking a practice SAT and couldn't leave without voiding his entire test. I told him I took care of everything, and neglected to mention that it was the most stressful two-hour period of my entire life.

I have another, shorter pager-related story. My senior year of high school, I briefly dated a girl who was in a school play with me. She was very private and never really talked about herself, her family, or her friends. I asked for her phone number, and she gave me her pager number instead. "What if I want to call you?" I asked. "Just page me. I'll call you back," she said. I thought that was a little strange, but didn't think too much about it. She let me come over to her mom's place one afternoon, and we were talking about the play when her pager buzzed. "Hold on," she said, and she went over and started dialing a phone. Here is her side of the conversation, as I recall it:

"Hey it's me. Yeah. How much do you want? Yeah, I can get that. Same price as last time. Cool, I'll meet up with you tomorrow. Bye."

I had to say something, so I went with, "Uh, gee, what was that about?" "Nothing. Just a friend," she said. So in addition to being extremely private and likely a drug dealer, she apparently also thought I was stupid. A week or so later, I told her I just wanted to be friends, with one of the biggest "It's-not-you-it's-me" lies in the history of mankind. It was her. It was toooootally her.

With that, let's lie our asses off as we move over to the Car Watch.

I was driving around last weekend, and I noticed that the license plate frame in front of me said, "Tight Butts/Drive Me Nuts." I saw that it was a man driving. "Wow, he really wants that to be known," I thought. Then I looked at the actual plate on the car: "XY 2 XY." Ah, maybe he likes tight butts...on men. I'm not the only one reading it that way, am I? Either way, the dude has a preference and no problem telling us in rhyming fashion. I'm cool with that. (On second thought, maybe this guy just wanted to one-up R&B stars Boyz 2 Men. Yeah, that's probably it. My bad.)

My homey Rockabye sent me this plate that he spied: "DRANGRY." Sadly, I can only think of one reason why a doctor would want to be known as "Dr. Angry," and that's if it's his/her unfortunate surname. Otherwise, who wants an angry doctor? ("Dr. Angry, paging Dr. Angry.") I just spent the last five minutes trying to think of what kind of doctor I'd least want to be angry while seeing me. Oh sure, a dentist wouldn't be fun, but I'm gonna have to go with proctologist on this one. Or laser eye surgeon. I think I could deal with an angry podiatrist though. (I just stopped myself from making a forced pun about "putting my foot down." You're welcome.)

Lastly, I saw a bumper sticker that I really enjoyed: "There's something funny about my kid." In smaller letters beneath that, it said, "Comedy Sportz High School League." That's the improv league I was a part of for my junior and senior year of high school, so it pleased me quite a bit. I used to have a Comedy Sportz bumper sticker of my own on my Bronco II back in high school. It said, "My parents went to Comedy Sportz and all I got was this lousy car." I thought it was hilarious, but a weird neighbor of mine didn't get it and once asked me why I didn't like my car. I tried to explain, but realized that was only making matters worse.

Ok, I'm spent. Get out of here, and enjoy your weekends and weeks. I'll be back next Friday with the stuff that I actually planned to write about for this post. In the meantime: Happy birthday today to my father-in-law, and happy 6th anniversary on Monday to my favorite brother and his wife Weezie. That's all I got. See you next time, friends.

Don't do the twist

Good day to you, kind sirs and madams, and welcome yet again to UOPTA. No, that doesn't stand for, "Ululating Octogenarians Preparing To Assimilate," but that would be a nice change of pace to some (hopefully) more age-appropriate behavior. (Thanks to Beth - a non-relative! - for supplying this week's UOPTA. You can too: ptklein@gmail.com.) Instead, this UOPTA is where I write down things that have crossed my mind enough times to make their escape through my fingers. In fact, this is the 350th post here at this UOPTA. That's a nice round number, don't ya think? I have two immediate (and very different) associations with the number 350. The first is that it's a good batting average in baseball. It's true, but I don't know why I jump to that right off the bat (get it, bat?). The second is a hilarious South Park episode from years ago. All you need to know is that Chef's old father says, "I ain't givin' you no tree fiddy you goddamn Loch Ness Monster!" Frickin' geniuses, those guys.

Friends, I'd like to spend some time today talking about twist endings. Without them, the loaf of bread gets stale much more quickly. (Thank you, thank you.) No, of course I mean the kind of twists that one finds at the end of films or t.v. shows that are intended to change everything you knew up to that point. This came to mind because of a trailer I saw recently for "A Perfect Getaway." It ended with the voiceover guy saying something to the effect of, "Long after the movie is over, the twist that will keep you talking for days." See, I hate that shit. Allow me to explain.

When I went to the movies to see "The Sixth Sense" years ago, here's what I knew about the movie: "A freaky-looking kid says that he can see dead people. Bruce Willis stars." When the movie was over, my mind was sufficiently blown by the twist I truly never saw coming. At the time, I thought, "Oh man, I sure hope people don't go around talking about the 'shocking twist ending' before others have seen it." To be clear, I didn't just want the ending to remain secret; I wanted the fact that there was a twist to remain secret. Here's why: people view movies through twist-seeking glasses when they know something is going to happen. I have two different examples that I hope will combine to prove my point.

Example 1: "The Letdown." In 1998, a then-unknown-to-me actor named Clive Owen was the lead in a movie called "Croupier." My aunt and uncle saw the movie and raved about it to my parents, saying that it had twists and turns throughout and a big one at the end. So my family went to see it, because we like that kind of thing. I sat there, watching every minute detail. When a character put something down on a table, I quickly scanned the photos nearby to see if there were any clues as to what would happen next. At the end of the movie, yeah, there was a little twist, but nothing compared to what I was expecting. A character was more deeply (and might I add, unbelievably) involved than we had known, but it was weak and disappointing. I had spent the whole time over-thinking (uh oh) what was going on and if I could predict the shocking twist before it was revealed. Instead, it was a rather ho-hum reveal that left us all shaking our heads and wondering why it had been billed as such by our relatives. In this case, knowing that there was a twist ruined the movie because it didn't come close to living up to the expectations I'd built.

Example 2: "The I-Called-It!" Much like with "The Sixth Sense," when I walked into "The Usual Suspects," I had no idea that my mind was about to be blown. When that happened, the movie instantly became one of my favorites (because I was already enjoying the dialogue and story up to that point). Again, I hoped that word wouldn't get out about the existence of a twist, but it did. That meant that everyone who watched it from that point on was waiting for it, and like me with "Croupier," trying to get there first. What's the harm in this? Those people start thinking about possibilities that they never would've considered. "Oh, maybe that person is really bad," they'll think with no evidence pointing that way yet. Unless they can somehow turn that part of their brains off, then they're forced to consider every possible twisty outcome before it happens. If a character seems sheepish, why not lean over to a friend and say, "I bet he's the killer." You'd never go there without the knowledge of said twist, but since something's bound to happen, why not get on the record early with the least likely scenarios? Then you can tell all your friends that you saw it coming when none of them did. Good for you.

So when people walk into "A Perfect Getaway," I have a feeling that one or both of those examples will come into effect. They've promised to blow our minds with their shocking twist, but I suspect it won't end that way. If I'm getting the gist of the plot correctly from the trailer, then one of six people is "the killer." Unless I'm way off (which is possible since I'm basing this all on very little), I expect people to walk out thinking, "Well, it had to be one of them so I wasn't really surprised," or, "I totally guessed it was him/her!" I guess my longwinded point to all of this can be summed up as so: I don't think it's a good idea to base an entire marketing strategy around the fact that there's a "big twist." If you're expecting something big to happen the whole time, it's not a twist. We just call that "story." I firmly believe that a well-crafted story with an unexpected plot twist will create a greater buzz from word-of-mouth referrals than simply screaming "There's a twist!" in the trailers. But I guess that doesn't get people in the door in the first place, and that's probably why I'm not a studio marketing guy.

For my money, the best twists I've ever seen were in "The Twilight Zone." If you watched that series (even decades after they originally aired like I did), you can probably come up with three shows off the top of your head that are better than anything you've seen on the big screen this decade. (My immediate three are "To Serve Man," the one with the pig faces, and the one in the diner where they're trying to figure out who the alien is.) If that series was brand new and airing now, I can't imagine what the internet chatter would be like the morning after each episode. Crazy shit, I tell ya. They had great stories and occasionally ended with a mind-melting twist. That's how it's done right, my friends. Since then, I'd argue that "Amazing Stories," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," and "Lost" have come closest to capturing that art. Others like "Heroes" and "24" have come up short, with the former suddenly making everyone related and the latter making everyone spontaneously evil. That's not gonna cut it.

And with that, let's make a completely unexpected turn to the Car Watch.

My friend Greg wrote me this email a little while ago (with a preface saying that he wasn't sure if it was Car Watch material or not): "There is an Audi TT that generally parks near my car at work. Conservatively, I see it 3 days out of the week. The plate reads 'TT4DEB.' Not clever or interesting at all. What I find interesting, is that I can't look at it without saying "TT For Deb" under my breath in a robotic voice several times. Oh, and the robot has a South American, 'Tattoo-esque' accent. WTF?" I completely understand, my friend. In fact, I have found myself saying "TT For Deb" in what I have to imagine is a similar voice after spying a TT that didn't even belong to Deb. It's catchy. When it works, I occasionally like the use of "4" in plates. The ones I usually approve of have some element of continuity. For example, if I saw a Saturn ION that said, "ION4IAN," I'd totally dig that. I haven't though. I must admit, part of me wants to get a PT Cruiser just so I could have "PTC4PTK" as my plate. Too bad I think they're hideous.

My homey Rockabye sent me a plate and asked what my first thought was. It read, "SLTPNTS." My thoughts came rapid-fire: "Slit pants," "Slot pants," "Salty pants," and then finally, "Salty peanuts." He had a similar progression of thoughts. So I guess this plate is successful in the sense that we both eventually picked up what the driver was putting down, but I wonder how many people out there think that the driver has salty pants. I guess they'd stay fresh longer, right?

Lastly, I saw this plate with my own two eyes: "EZTO PLZ." Is that really what you want to be putting out there? Let's take the potential sexual meanings and leave them off to the side for now. If we solely look at it in terms of life experiences, the driver really can't afford to be stubborn or difficult about anything without being a hypocrite. "I feel like Chinese tonight," his/her partner might say." "Eh, I had that for lunch." "Easy to please, my ass!" At least that's how I would respond.

Ok, that's it for me. I hope you enjoyed this week's post and that you'll meet me here again next Friday for more of...this kind of stuff. In the meantime, happy half-Valentine's Day today, and happy half-birthday on Wednesday to Stacy, my Bratty Kid Sister. If you'd like to email me with any Car Watch items, random thoughts, funny stories, or even insults, ptklein@gmail.com is a surefire way to know that I'll read it. Be happy and healthy, my homepeople, and I'll see you next week. By the way, I'm really an alien who has been dead for 150 years but was the mastermind behind the whole government conspiracy. "POW!" (That was your head exploding from that killer revelation.)

Letter imperfect

I wish a good morning to all of my readers, ranging from homebabies to the homelderly. We're here again at UOPTA. No, that doesn't stand for Ungainly, Obese Penguins Taking Aerobics, but that would be pretty amusing to watch, don't ya think? Instead, this UOPTA is where I deposit some thoughts and stories and wait for your eyeballs to pick them up later. Sound good? (Hey, I can't keep coming up with these UOPTAs by myself; think of one, send it to ptklein@gmail.com, and see your name as I thank you in this top paragraph. Isn't that what you've always dreamed of?)

Today's post, my friends, is a long-ass-long time coming. When I started this blog a scant 349 posts ago, I made a long list of things I would someday cover in this space. One topic came to mind, but I didn't write it down on the list. Why not? Because I didn't think I'd be able to write about it without getting myself into some sort of trouble. Last weekend at Dusty's bachelor party, he asked me if I'd written about that topic yet. After explaining my rationale, he convinced me that by omitting certain identifying names of people and businesses, I'd be covering myself just fine. (And hopefully there's a short statute of limitations on these things.) Allow me to explain:

Years ago (hence the statute of limitations comment), I held a shitty job for a little while. It was incredibly boring work for very little pay, and it came with a fairly long drive from my abode, and two occasions in which I heard anti-Semitic comments (including one to my face). On the plus side, I knew it was only temporary, a few of the people were nice (including my boss), and I had the good sense to illegally photocopy some material that passed through my hands. You're intrigued now, right? Well, I'm not talking about private stock information, trade secrets, or anything that one might use to his advantage in one way or another. Instead, I'm talking about complaint emails.

Without going into much detail, the company for which I worked has many branches throughout the U.S. As the headquarters of the company, every complaint email was directed to our building. Someone else got the emails, replied with a form letter, copied a regional manager to follow-up, and then printed each one out and put the stack on my desk. My fabulously interesting job was to type each emailer's name, email address, city, date, and category of email into a spreadsheet before filing it away. Pretty useless, right? Well, it would be if some of the emails weren't so amazingly entertaining that I'd sneak to the copy machine, duplicate them, and then slyly fold one copy up and slip it into my pocket. I couldn't keep these from my friends; I just couldn't.

The ones that I kept all fall into three overlapping categories: angry, strange, and my favorite, the horribly written. The degrees vary in each, but I'll try to classify the emails. Ready to see how I entertained myself for several months? I will replace certain information with general terms, but I will leave all spelling and grammatical choices as they were originally written.

This one taught me a new term, and I have happily used it ever since:
"im glad to know you fucktards can say 'abuse' and fuck me over on (product). i guess you can take the (product) and shove it up your ass...iv already told all my family and friends to go to (competitor), they are WAY better. id like a response, because ive got a big ass problem with you girls."
I think the order of that one's components is Angry, Horribly Written, and then Strange. He gets a tip of my imaginary cap for introducing me to "fucktards."

This one came from an employee of one of the branches and refers to the District Manager:
"Our DM came into our store and gave us a rubber chicken and said we were all looser. I would like someone to reply to this, I think it is unprofessional and out of line."
Strange is definitely first here, but I think that it's a tie between Angry and Horribly Written. There's no way around the rubber chicken thing being strange. The lone typo adds a lot though, for being "looser" in that scenario makes even less sense than "a loser." I agree that whatever happened there sounds unprofessional on the surface.

Here's a fairly rare compliment from a customer:
"i recently e-mail you guy's on the 28th of February in the PM. with the run in that i had encounter would sensually like to let you know that with in hours of my e-mail i had received a phone call. he was sincerely consider about the ordeal that had happen to me he said he would get to the bottom of this. he was xstemly fast on taking care my problem he offer to send me a giftcertificet i told him i was not out get something for this."
Horribly Written wins this one hands down, then Strange. No Angry here. This guy confuses me. He knows "encounter," "sincerely," and "ordeal," but not how to put anything in the past tense or form a pesky sentence. And then there's the baffling use of "sensually," and to a lesser degree, "xstemly."

Here's a long one that I'm going to abridge so you just get the highlights:
"So I call that (company) back and see when they close they said 9. I started walking to them three miles away and I was in a really bad fall in 2001, I can not run and I am in pain always...the next day I try to catch a bus, I tried to lok to rent a bike or something, I finally after 4 hours off waitingfind a bus that will take me near the (company) and this guy gets on the bus and sits right beside me 24 other seats on the bus, but he sits near me. He tells me that I am pretty I said thanks and asked me if I was married, I said Yes sir. So I pull the button to get off the bus 1 mile away."
Horribly Written takes this one, closely followed by Strange, with Angry finishing third. Oh sure, this guy can't write very well and he's always in pain, but he sounds like a fine-looking man.

I'm just gonna let this one speak for itself:
"i bowl witha person named (Name) he claims to have workedwith your company out of (City) and fro mwhat he is telling ppl he saids he is tryingt o milk your company dry he saids he was in accident with one of yoru trucks and hirt his bak which if he did how can he be bowling with a bad back andanother thing he going telling ppl is that his daughter was in car with him but he saids it isnt so i was there when he told a bunch of ppl while bowling last week i dont want him to know i eimailed u casue he looks and acts like he is nuts"
Another easy victory for Horribly Written. I say Strange gets the two spot, and the underlying anger issues aren't enough to pull Angry out of third. Way to give bowlers a bad name, lady.

Just three more for now. I like this one:
"if check get hold for 8 days then tell, no say, yes get money back in 3 hrs. i was good customer, and (Name) good manager, but company policy and comunication thereof not good. will shop at (competitor) till get un-mad."
Horribly Written is on a tear, closely followed by Angry, with Strange trailing by a few lengths. I don't know what I like the most about this one. Is it the attempt to differentiate "tell" from "say," or the use "thereof"? Nah, it's gotta be "till get un-mad." Who am I kidding?

In this one, the caps lock button was clearly working fine, but there's no evidence of a comma or period button:
"HELLO I NEED TO BE CONTACTED IN A PROBLEM OF REIMBURSING MONEY LOSTAND THANKSGIVING LOST DO TO A (PRODUCT) YOUR STORE HAS SOLD ME I AM LOST WHY WOULD YOU FIRE A PERSON IN TRYING TO HELP ME IF I CLAIM THE MONEY AND FAMILY HOLIDAY LOST TO A PIESE OF YOUR PRODUCT THAT FAILED IT HAS COST ME A LOT OF MONEY AND PRICELESS FAMILY HOLIDAY NOT SURE WHAT YOU CAN GIVE ME ON THAT PLEASE EMAIL ME BACK."
Ooh, tough call. I'm going with Angry narrowly edging out Horribly Written, with Strange in third. I'm a little lostand Thanksgiving lost on this one.

And lastly, this one gives me infinite joy, so it's going in its own block quote. That's all I'll say as an intro:

I am very displeased to comment on my visit today to this location that your employee was verbally and disrespectul, using "profanity" while talking on "his" cell phone. The worst part was when I commented did he work there to three co-workers who replied yes, not one of them said anyhing to the offensive employee ro discontinue "his rude and offensive" conversation. I certainly have no desire to return to that location, if this type of behavior is "professional."

I don't even know how to write about this one. Is the complete lack of ability to correctly use quotation marks enough to pull Horribly Written ahead of Angry? Probably not. Is it profanity or not? It's in quotes, so I can't tell. And "his" cell phone? Does she believe that it doesn't really belong to him? I love that "his rude and offensive" is in quotes, but not the noun being modified. Ah, good times, good times.

I'm stopping here with those. I have a few more, but they'd be harder to make general enough that I'd feel comfortable including them. I know one thing for sure: these emails were the highlight of my time there. Without them, I would've felt like looser.

And with that, let's "make our way" on over to "the" Car "Watch."

My Bratty Kid Sister sent me a plate that read, "RAR BEAR." Is that supposed to be "rare bear?" If it's a bear that drives, than that is indeed rare. If it's "rar bear," just as it's written, is that like "WUFF DOG?" I'm confused.

Next up, I saw a van for a pest control company while I was driving . The business name was Ecola. My first thought was that it sounds like a combination between e coli and Ebola. Oh great; yes, please come into my house.

Last but not least, my homey Rockabye was behind a car with this license plate: "ISUEYOU." Way to play directly into the stereotypes of your profession, buddy. I'd really have to fight the urge to give that guy the finger; he's just begging for it.

That, my friends, is all he wrote. Well not really, but it will be in another couple of sentences. First though, let's see what happiness is happening between now and next Friday when I write again. Hmmm, I don't see much besides International Left-Handers' Day next Thursday. Good, that deserves its own shout-out. Fellow lefties, let's do it up, yo. Have a great weekend and week, mis amiguitos, and be happy and healthy in all that you do. Shaloha.