Inch Of Dark Calls My Bluff

 

 

“More people will come if they think we’ll have punch and pie!” ~ South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (1999)

I am going to share with you a tale of humor and humility.

I suppose that I would have to admit that with my love for live music, I’ve been kind of a super troll lately towards local bands whenever they are promoting/announcing an upcoming show.

They are only doing what they can in order to get people into the venues. It’s their job. I know that. But whenever I see something like that, I always ask if there will be “punch and pie”.

This past weekend I went out to see several bands play live. One of which was “Skunkfest 2018”. Ten glorious rocking bands at one venue. One of those bands is “Inch of Dark”.

In the days leading up to the event, the band would just promote, promote, promote all over social media. And I kept messing with them about having “punch and pie”.

Well, I think the promotions worked because there were so many people there. It was so hot outside in the Texas summer heat that I wanted to go back inside, but there were so many bodies inside that it drove me almost crazy.

I had received a message several hours from one of the band members of Inch of Dark, and they said that they had a surprise for me when I showed up. 

Inch of Dark wasn’t playing. They called me out to the max!

As I arrived at “Skunkfest 2018” I saw so many people that I knew that it was hard to say hello to all of them.

Then I saw members of Inch of Dark and they began to laugh and said “Wait here!”

They LITERALLY bought a pie and a bottle of Hawaiian Punch!! And they had saved me some. (I do wonder what happened to the rest of it.)

I was busted….

I was grateful for the surprise, even if it was a joke.

Inch of Dark is a bunch of great guys.  And I think even greater music. But I warn you, don’t mess with them because they will mess with you right back!!

I look forward to seeing them play live once more.

Check them out:

Inch Of Dark

 

 

 

 

Banned From A Bakery

“All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much.”~ George Harrison

The Blog Train rolls. Next stop: A little bit of humor before hitting the town of serious and confusion.

A few weeks ago, I went to the grocery store with many of my neighbors and was rolling around in the bakery.

Side story: If you know me, you know that I LOVE red velvet cake. I go crazy for it.

I even was going to have a red velvet groom’s cake way back when.

So as I was meandering, I saw red velvet cakes on display.

However, they were only bundt cakes. And not the full sized  cakes that I was used to seeing. I WANTED the full sized cake. I didn’t want a bundt cake.

The other thing that I noticed about it was the fact that there was only frosting on the top and nothing on the sides of the cake.

I sat there in awe of the missing frosting. I kept wondering what was going on. And why the heck would I pay almost $8.00 for this freakin’ thing when there’s only cake on the top??

Maybe that’s how bundt cakes work. I don’t know. I just know that I wasn’t happy with being ripped off of that creamy and sugary deliciousness.

As I began to fall into a daze, a bakery employee came up to me and asked if I needed any assistance.

I picked up the cake and asked them to double check the price. And they said that it was the real price.

I snarled to myself. What a robbery!!! And you haven’t even finished with the frosting!!!! 

I curled up to them nice and close and pointed to the empty center of the cake as is a bundt.

I asked them, “Where is the rest of the cake?” and what happened next was truly amazing.

Yes, I was being sarcastic but I was also being sincere at the same time as I wanted MORE cake.

They were confused. Until I made a nuisance of myself at poking at the cover of the cake at the center, telling them that the center of the cake was missing and the frosting was missing as well. Let me tell you that they were none too happy about the question and they couldn’t believe that I was being that serious about it.

I told them that I just couldn’t see myself paying that much for a cake that had a hole in it, because they baked it that way on purpose.

I was told to leave the bakery section of the grocery store and never to return. They were so upset about my question that they felt it to be a huge waste of time.

I mentioned this fact when it happened on Facebook. All I got was a bunch of perverted queries about baguettes. Shame on you all!!!

I do not think that I am asking for too much. Just put frosting all over the cake. NOT just the top. I don’t care if it is bundt or not. Spread that stuff, baby!!!!! Be a good Samaritan to those who want to purchase your delicious bakery items and give them their worth of money if you are going to insist on being a rapist of wallets and purses and bank accounts.

Give what the customer wants!! Hell, I had time. You probably could have baked a fresh cake and drowned it all in frosting. But no… you got offended.

Sad.

My Facebook Was Hacked

This afternoon I received a telephone call from my sister. She said she was nearby and wanted to stop by to visit, bringing the 2 year old (my niece) with her. I certainly didn’t mind that so I told her to come on by. She stopped and grabbed a bite to eat before she finally had arrived.

I happened to be going through Facebook around the time she showed up.

A few minutes later, I moved away from the computer. It allowed my sister to move in place and be in front of my computer. I certainly didn’t mind. But I would find out rather quickly that I probably should have.

What she did, caused about a half an hour of a laugh riot shared between her and I. Even though I ran the risk of pissing off a few people that could have led to them to the action of  “unfriending” me.

Instead of my sister moving on to do something else like, check her e-mail, look up something on the Internet, check her bank account, or even log me off and log into her own account, she began to wonder what she could do to sabotage me and see what the result would do.

Luckily for me, my sister was thinking far too hard to come up with something so outlandish to write on my Facebook profile and by the time I was finished doing what I was doing,  I was back inside and watching her.

She was attempting to make me sound either ignorant, offensive, or as a homosexual.

She tagged other people’s names in the posts that she was able to come up with. And for her, the reaction was not coming in fast enough. Up until the point where I had received a text message with the question of “What’s going on?”.

At first, I didn’t respond. I wanted to see just how far my sister would go with her practical joke. Deep down believing that NOBODY would believe that it was me behind the keyboard typing these silly Facebook statuses. Eventually, I would confess that my sister was behind the keyboard and just having a little fun.

Such as the following:

“Sled hockey is for wimps.”

“I like princesses and rainbows.”

“Majic Mike is the best porno ever!”

And so on. Then the others came when she tagged people whom she could remember that were mutual friends between her and I. And it just grew from there.

Some people saw it, and well… I honestly don’t know what they were thinking. My cell phone began to grow with activity from a flurry of text messages and then there were others who were writing messages in the inbox on Facebook, asking what in the heck was going on.

The reality of the situation, I was monitoring and supervising what she had written on my Facebook wall. She would come up with an idea, and then I would tell her that NOBODY would believe that it was me. She obviously was looking for that level of “assumed sincerity”, trying to sound like it was me. But it just didn’t work for her. Nothing she put on my Facebook wall was something that I did not approve of.

I left everything up for several hours. Some people even clicked “LIKE” on a few of them. Others offered comments. So when my sister finally left, I wrote that my sister had a little fun at my expense. I had began to delete some of the things she had written.

But ultimately everything she wrote, was all deleted. Including my admission that it was my sister having some fun.

Really, it wasn’t “hacked”. But it was monitored. And it provided a bit of entertainment for a while. Once people started to realize what was going on (that they had figured out on their own), the fun quickly died down.

At any rate, the things we do to entertain often must come at the expenses of ourselves rather than others.

El Jefe: In Memoriam

“Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men.”~ Quintus Ennius

In memory of my neighbor and friend.

So far I have made it through with all that has been going on. Even though my shoulders still carry a heavy load upon them.

We put to rest my neighbor and friend. His immediate family referred to him as “Jefe”, as did I.

But it has been strange and difficult not having him around. Countless times in these past few days, I’ve gone through the urge of giving him a call to let him in on what’s been going on in my world. Then I would stop and think that he’s not here any more, and calling him would be futile. I’m having a lot of trouble with that at the moment.

Yesterday, we said our final farewells to Jefe. A lot of people actually showed up to pay their respects. It was just as impressive as his own obituary was. The biggest thing that people had to say about him is that when they read the obituary, they didn’t realize just how connected to the community and all of the things that he had accomplished in life of 65 years. One of which was his military career. Leaving the United States Army as an officer rank of Major. The surprise came by people of what he had done surrounding his military career. Including a marriage of 44 years.

Since the news of his passing early last Friday morning, I have been surrounded by the family. His wife and his children. Hell, I was even there when they were putting together his obituary. Sitting with his wife and family and going along with them through the good and bad times of the past several days.

But Jefe and his wife had always thought of me as a “son”. They had five children of their own. But it was his wife who endeared me as a son more than he did. For many years, I actually have been regarded as and even introduced as their son. Even to their own family members. It got to the point where it was explained that their five children were brought to them by stork, and I was brought to them by the mail man.

I had a lot of people come up to me and introduce themselves and when I gave them my name, they would say, “Ohh, your their surrogate son. I’ve heard so much about you. Nice to finally meet you.”

But what am I going to really do? In a place where many were mourning. Was I going to fight them? No.

I was kind of surprised when the priest had mentioned my name in the list of his children. Then again, should I have been since they had spent many years claiming as such?

I have a lot of memories of Jefe that it would be too difficult to list them all. Many times going out to eat together, or watching a movie at their home, having a few drinks or whatever.

Being there yesterday just brought back so much to my own mind. Losing my mother and other people in my life, it was definitely a difficult burden to wear yesterday.

Near the end of the service, they played an audio recording of the 21 Gun Salute as Jefe’s sons couldn’t get the approval of the U.S. military for an actual one. And then the playing of TAPS. And it was the playing of TAPS at which point, I broke down into tears. Some tears fell, others simply welled up in my eyes and did not descend across my face.

And with the knowledge that Jefe and his family referred to me as part of theirs, the neighbors were looking at me with strange looks when they saw my tears. I did not understand why they would do that. Considering how many times Jefe’s wife verbally would speak to me as if I was part of their family. But I’m just going to have to let that go.

Jefe was the one that taught me how to improve on my Spanish speaking skills. I had always feared that he would tell me one thing and as a joke, and it would mean another. If you have seen the movie, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, then you know what I am talking about. But he did not do that. Whenever I asked him how to say something in Spanish, he did help.

He told jokes all of the time. A majority of them, dirty and vulgar. But that’s what he liked to do was tell jokes.

However for myself and most likely for his family, we’ll go on and on with memories of Jefe. Time shall heal our wounds to where we will no longer need to mourn, but to remember. And be rejoicing the fact that I knew him and that he was a part of my life for these past few years. Knowing his pain and suffering is over. And ours one day, will be too.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s A Time And Place

“I’m not Mr. Debonair Suave. I’m just a regular boy who goofs around, pulls pranks, and makes jokes. That doesn’t sound very hot to me.”~ Jensen Ackles

This is probably the most disturbing story I have ever told on this blog. Mainly because it is probably the most disturbing story that I have read about in the past six months.

A woman called her husband to see if he was on his way home from work. The husband replied that he did not suspect that he would make it home for at least another hour. Disappointed because she wanted her husband home, she called him again ten minutes later, asking him to please hurry because something was going on in the house.

Twenty-five minutes later, the husband arrived home. Five minutes after he had been home it turned into a crime scene with one dead body, two injured.

Here’s the fully story of what I remembered reading:

The husband and wife were always playing pranks on one another. They had done that ever since they started dating. After a few years of marriage, the pranks continued. Some really good, others not so classic.

The wife’s desire to have her husband home was enough for her to call her husband back and pull another prank on him because she knew that it would definitely bring him back into her arms a lot sooner than an hour.

She had told him over the phone that there was a man in the house. Someone they both knew. It had been a man that had been hitting on her and flirting, even though the man knew that she was married. She told her husband that the man had come by the house and was intending on having sex with her while the husband was still an hour away from being home.

The husband believed his wife’s horrendous joke, and came home immediately. In the process he got a citation for speeding by the police. The husband however, retrieved a gun that was in the glove box of his vehicle and stormed into the house.

In a jealous rage, he shot the house up with bullet holes. Damaging and destroying a lot of their things. He stormed through the house and shot up the closet door in which he had suspected the “other man” to be hiding in. But there was nobody there.

When he couldn’t find the “other man”, the husband started to fight with his wife about her activities while he was at work. He wouldn’t listen to reason to her, so he pointed the gun at her and shot her.

After the rage had passed, the husband saw what he had done. He looked inside the closet only to find his five year old daughter laying on the floor. The bullets that he fired into the closet without aim, caused a shelf to come undone and all of the heavier contents landed on the child’s neck, breaking it.

It was the child’s special hiding place. Particularly when the husband and wife would argue and fight. She felt safe and secure inside of their bedroom closet. But it ended up not being safe at all in this case.

Then he went back and saw his wife laying there in a pool of blood and not moving. Remorse and guilt had set in, and so therefore he turned the gun on himself.

When the police arrived, the husband was dead. The wife and child would be taken to the hospital to be treated for their injuries. The child would survive her injuries and sent to live with her grandmother. The wife would become permanently disabled as a quadraplegic and unable to care for herself. When she was shot, the bullet hit her spine.

The family was torn to bits. All because the wife wanted her husband to be home sooner than later. She pulled a prank on her husband. Actually, told a lie to him in the hopes of getting him home faster. Initially one could argue that she was successful however the results of her words were harmful and deadly.

There is a time and there is a place for pranks and jokes. In this story, it was not the right time or place. It is something that is tragic and the prank should’ve never happened.

Pranks and jokes are always funny, at least when they do not happen to us. Usually when we become the victim of a joke, we don’t think it is necessarily funny when it happens. A lot of the times though we look back and think, “Okay that was kinda funny.”

If only we knew when those times were. If we think first before we react, then I believe that we can avoid having to deal with a similar situation like what happened with this family.

Yes, I know that a lot of jokes are funnier when it is done “on the spot”. But sometimes, these situations can get out of control and have the opposite reaction to what we were hoping, just to get a laugh.

Just the other day, I was a victim to a joke. It was one of those (what I call) “jumper” videos. Something that seems innocent at first, but then it suddenly something else JUMPS OUT on the screen, screaming. Yeah, I jumped so bad!!

I understand that they can be fun.

But to pull a prank on someone like that, just because you are wanting to change the fate of time? That is absolutely unnecessary.

So remember there is always a time and a place for everything. Have fun with your friends with jokes and pranks and what not, but be smart about it. If it is unsafe or at any point potentially dangerous- then you probably should pass on the prank and wait for the next opportunity to have fun at someone else’s expense.

 

 

 

Humor Fired For Effect

“Now I may be an idiot, but there’s one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot.”~Peter Griffin in “Family Guy”.

This story is too funny not to share, I think.

I went out to dinner a few nights ago with my sister and her family. For whatever reason, there was a spike in activity upon my cell phone with text messages from sea to shining sea. Why exactly at that point, I’ll never know.

So as we’re driving along and trying to find a restaurant that was not closed, these flurries of text messages were coming in. Finally, when we selected one place to eat and we were getting out of the vehicle, my cell phone began to ring. I knew exactly who it was without the need to look at my phone. And I said to myself, “Ohh this will be good!”.

I didn’t begin with the opening salutation with the common response. I did not say, “hello?”, I did not say, “hey there!?”.

I answered the phone with “Hey baby!!”. My sister almost had an immediate reaction with confusion piled on with intrigue. Her husband started laughing because he doesn’t hear me talking like that a lot.

I said to the person on the other line that I was with family, having dinner and that I would call her back later. Then my ending salutation was “Love you!!”. And I hung up.

By this time, my sister went into 20,000 questions mode. Her husband still laughing and yet curious as to why in the world I would talk like that. The rest of the night, the two of them kept on and on. Relentlessly asking questions about who it was that I was talking to. I only had answered one question and that was whether or not the person I was speaking with, was my girlfriend. No, she isn’t my girlfriend.

I think that only fueled their curious nature and definitely confused them. Why in the hell would I say that to someone who wasn’t my girlfriend??

I LOVED IT! I gave a text message to the one who had called me and was laughing about it, explaining that I had given them “shock & awe”. But my female friend is used to that kind of banter and talk coming from me. We’ve been friends for years now.

I am just the kind of guy that will tell my friends that I do love them. At least those whom I know will be able to handle such a sentiment without having to Google it, and trying to define what it is I am saying to them or insinuating that the intimate expression is implied with more meaning than its face value that I am offering. Although to be fair, I don’t always use the endearing term, “baby” with them a lot either. Once again, something of banter and I know she’s used to it and doesn’t go overboard taking it too much to heart.

I realized that for one, my sister and her family don’t really know too much about what’s going on with me because they are not around me a lot to understand who it is I associate with and how it can be that I would speak to people in such a way. Besides, I don’t understand all of the time the things that they say and do either. So what one glove will fit a hand, the other will fit as well on the other.

Yet I knew all of this was going to happen as soon as the cell phone began to ring.

I’m sure by now, the gossip has spread amongst the rest of my family that I had done this. And that’s just too bad. They don’t have to like it.

And if people do not like the way that I speak or communicate with them, then they either need to make me aware of it in a kind and mature manner or they can walk away.

I am who I am, and not even the great confusion of family who grows an opinion of what they think I should do or say is going to change that. Everyone in my life is there for a purpose, and I love them for whatever purpose that may be.

I just knew that this was going to happen. So I pulled the biggest joke on my sister and her family that I ever had in years. And still was remaining true to myself and how I behave.

Still though, it was pretty funny!

 

Excusez-moi?

When the summer heat gets this bad and you start to believe that it is going to melt your body into a nice puddle, one must find their own diversion and fun.

I took the liberty to order some food to be delivered via the Internet.

Twenty-one minutes after I completed my order online, they called me. Apparently a little lost, so I gave them the right directions to get to where I am.

When the driver showed up, I grabbed my wallet, snickering to myself and trying to hold it together.

I picked on the delivery driver in the WORST way. When he arrived at my door, I had a bit of fun with him.

I did not speak to him in English. Instead, I spoke to him TOTALLY IN FRENCH!!

It was not all that difficult. It was not the kind of practical joke that would take years and years of studying another language. At first, it was mainly me answering questions with “YES”… or in this case, “oui!”.

Then when I told him in French that I was really hungry and thank you, the poor guy stared at me as if I was about to cut off his head with the Sword of Solomon. It scared him half to death.

I signed the credit card receipt and signed it, writing in very large numbers that there was nothing to be added for gratuity. I could see the poor frightened squirrel of a man just want to disappear.

But in the end I gave him a cash tip of about 27% of the total bill.

I never once broke character. I even had French music playing when he arrived. He should have looked around and seen the things that were all in English.

It doesn’t end there though.

Almost an hour later, the store calls me. I answered the telephone in English. They asked for my name and if I had actually ordered food for delivery. When I told them that I had, and they had already delivered it, the manager of the store says to me, “Okay sir. Sorry to bother you. We just wanted to make sure that we had the right delivery to you, and not some crazy French man in a wheelchair.”

I did all that I could do to bite down hard on my lip and just go on like I did not know what he was talking about. I think though that the manager wasn’t too thrilled at the whole idea. I could hear the deliver guy in the background cussing me out and everything.

A crazy French man, eh??

Hilarious!!!!

Oh well. I might order from them again. It was just too much temptation not to have a little fun on this very warm July evening.