Because of the great computer upgrade of dickety-aught-ein-dickety, I cannot draw pictures for awhile.
Prepare to read, losers!
Uh, in your face, visually impaired people! FACE!
Anyhoo, I am sitting here on my lunch break, and Lulu, the very large African American girl who is my only friend, is on the computer next to me.
She is playing some game where you move the mouse over Elmo and he laughs uproariously.
Her face is less than an inch from the screen and she is whispering something over and over again.
I lean in to listen.
"Meet my ass, girlfriend," she is saying, in her breathy, Billie Holiday-gets-a-piggyback-on-Fat-Albert voice.
"Why are you saying that?" I ask.
She shrugs and answers, "I don't know."
Elmo laughs like a complete idiot in the background.
Meet my ass, girlfriend.
I am sculpting the mashed potatoes of Lulu's echolalic thinking and my only conclusion is that, by God, this means something.
Back last week when I could draw stuff, I had an idea for a post about a spelling bee.
I even invented a new character, the Under Qualified Spelling Bee Monitor guy.
The whole story revolved around me having a spelling bee showdown with my arch-rival, Steven Fung.
This was in the late eighties, when Asians were just beginning their domination of the verbal sports.
Steve's final word was "ventriloquism" and of course he nailed it.
Mine was shillelagh (pronounced shill-lay-lee).
I felt the awful despair unique to those who mount the squared podium of the spelling bee arena of spelling.
"Can you use it in a sentence, please?" My voice sounded so much like a girl's back in the 80s. Things were different then, more innocent, more full of hair and lean of trunk.
Cue first appearance of Under Qualified Spelling Bee Monitor man.
When I ask him to use shillelagh in a sentence, he looks down nervously and shuffles his papers.
He clears his throat and fiddles with the faux-emerald rock seated atop his class ring.
"Er...there's a shillelagh right there.....man."
Not even the vacuum of space could be as hushed as that auditorium.
Sweat runs over my eyes, burning, and all I can see is Steven Fung's smug countenance.
He writes a word in the air with his finger, then karate chops it to pieces.
We both know what he is implying; that I can't spell the word and I will karate chop my chance of victory into tiny invisible particles that disperse themselves into the air.
That bastard.
"Mr. Monitor, can you use it in a different sentence?"
By now, the monitor is so uncomfortable in his seat that he has twisted himself into the exact position that little girls assume when they have to pee but refuse to stop playing dollies.
His fellow monitors watch in horror.
After a long, pained sigh, he says, "Last night...." pauses to halfheartedly shoo an invisible fly then continues, "last night was sure shillelagh."
When he's finished, he lifts his arms in a gesture of triumph and relief.
With nothing to go on, I completely bungle the spelling and Steven Fung wins.
He pulls one faded dollar bill from his pocket and throws it into the air. The dollar flutters around for a second before awkwardly settling at his feet.
"Cash money make it rain," he shouts. "Hey you," he says to me, "you can New Jack swing onto deeze nuts." One of his fingers points downwards to his private place.
Then he laughs evilly, him and all of his friends, some of whom are cosplaying as Dr.Wily's evil robots from Megaman 2.
I thought of all this, but a few problematic elements arose when even considering such a post.
For one, it is not at all true, as I have never been in a spelling bee; and in fact the whole idea came about because the word "shillelagh" popped into my head while eating my lunch.
And also between that potential post, and the one I did about Blevin the Chinese Minivan Seller, people who are of a sensitive persuasion might have ammunition with which to accuse me of being prejudicial towards Asians.
Heh.
Hate to play the race card on you politically correct fascists, but I happen to be one-sixteenth Japanese....so how bok that choy, whitey??!?
I love you blog long time.
ReplyDeleteum, that's offensive.
DeleteBest response ever. I'm so glad you got here first.
DeleteI totally agree with Marianne.
DeleteI love this: "By now, the monitor is so uncomfortable in his seat that he has twisted himself into the exact position that little girls assume when they have to pee but refuse to stop playing dollies."
ReplyDeleteI only have boys, but they do a similar twisting and contorting in order to avoid using the pee-pee room. Then there's the 5 year old who suddenly decides it's time to jump and run and do crazy things in order to avoid the bathroom.
Kids are weird.
I only have boys myself. I used my knowledge of how I myself dance and squirm while posing my action figures and refusing to admit the need to tinkle, in order to create the image.
DeleteI have nothing to say to that, as the only minority I am one-sixteenth part is Native American, and basically, so is everyone else. And the fact that I had a couple of blonde children kind of makes that point moo, for some reason. (A moo point: A cow's opinion. FYI.)
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, did I mention that I am ecstatically happy that you are off of hiatus?
It's like Christmas in September!
Awe thank you! Really though I am just writing whatever stupid thing I think of-its all very self-serving
DeleteThat's the definition of blogging. Everything I write is merely to amuse myself.
DeleteWatch out, he's got a shillelagh!
ReplyDeleteAnd he's blinking well going to use it.
When researching this post, I had to look up what a shillelagh was. I always thought it was some kind of a sausage, like a bratwurst or something.
DeleteYou can use it as a sausage.
DeleteTruth: I won a shillelagh in a beard growing contest.
DeleteI wish the Debby Stick had been a shillelagh. I'm also pissed that my spell check knows the word shillelagh, but not wasabi. That is some bs right there.
ReplyDeleteSpell check is racist.
DeleteHa ha I forgot about the Debby Stick..
Delete"This post wil go viral" a buck fifty.
ReplyDelete"Billie Holiday-gets-a-piggyback-on-Fat-Albert voice" priceless!
I was just reading about this guy's post about Autism and Target that went viral, and the idea of a completely pointless, short, and random post going viral struck me as amusing....I just hope no one interpreted it as really dunderheaded confidence on my part
DeleteShould I be relieved or terrified that I am not the only person into whose mind the word "shillelagh" pops whilst eating lunch?
ReplyDeleteIt is symptomatic of something not too good, but I am not sure what that might be
DeleteOh man! That cracked me up. I thoroughly enjoy your illustrations, but the written word takes me back to Gweenbrick's humble beginnings. I had forgotten about Bevin. Can you add a hyperlink back to that post?
ReplyDeleteI'll have to go back and link it-it might have been Blevin, can't remember
DeleteI am a speLLing bee eXpert. WeLL, I was a looooong time ago ... for about eight years ... that is why I stiLL remember the word schottische.
ReplyDeleteLovely story, I hope I speLLed that strange word correctly.
Oh, I hope you know I meant that your blog post was a lovely story, not my speLLing bee memory. It is just a fuzzy memory.
DeleteThat does not surprise me at all that you would be an excellent speller. But...what does schottische mean?
DeleteIt means Scottish in German, and was in the list of harder English words for the speLLing bee several years ago. It is a form of dance. There is a wikipedia article for it.
DeleteAre you sure Mr ESB I am from Scotland and it is a new word to me..
DeleteAnd I am leaving a comment on the gweenbrick blog, sorry about that I dont like to annoy folk so I will run away again.......
Mr.Rob Z Tobor, what on earth do you mean "I dont like to annoy folk so I will run away again"? I hope you don't think you have ever annoyed me! I am unannoyable, at least on the internet. Please please comment here whenever you like, and never feel unwelcome!
DeleteI hope you are able to resume putting illustrations on the blog soon. Not that I don't enjoy your text-only posts, but I am longing to see a picture of "Under Qualified Spelling Bee Guy".
ReplyDeletewww.pcpproject.com
One thing about no pictures though is I can post stuff faster and more frequently. Yay?
DeleteI was once accused of being a racist when I was a retail manager. There was this boy from Peru who worked for me and I had mentioned to him once that my husband is Peruvian. After that, for quite literally an entire year, every time I told him to do something, he would jokingly say "it's because I'm Peruvian, right?". I went along with the joke and always agree that yes, it was obviously because he was Peruvian.
ReplyDeleteAfter a year of making that joke, I had to write this boy up for being late all the time. The very next day, my boss called me into her office and told me that he had accused me of making comments about his race.
The thing that makes it extra funny is that my husband was working for the same company at the time, so everyone knew him and knew he was Peruvian. I was also 8 months pregnant with my half-Peruvian daughter at the time.
Also, I realize this entire comment is absolutely irrelevant to your post. You're welcome.
That boy should have accused you of sexual harassment. What, with the whole company knowing that you were so hot for Peruvians and all.
DeleteI should've been a lawyer...SIGH.
Do you know any good Peruvian jokes? Seems like they would be a little obscure, but I am up for one.
DeleteMeet my ass, girlfriend?!?! Looks like I've got a new catch phrase!That's gold right there!
ReplyDeletebut what does it mean?
Deletemaybe she's gunna fart on the girl...
Deleteooorrrrr- maybe it's just a powerful "here I am"
DeleteRereading the beautiful genius that is the Blevin post made me think of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql-N3F1FhW4
ReplyDeleteCan't get youtube at work, so i will have to check at home, but I will preemptively say 'yes!'
DeleteI just have one question: Is it hard to be a genius?
ReplyDeleteOh hush your mouth
DeleteSo funny you are. Thank you for the giggle. I just love the way you take something mundane and sometimes sad from life and show us how bitter sweet and cute it can be.
ReplyDelete