Tag Archives: Jeopardy!

I Should Do My Laundry At Home

14 Nov

from March 17, 2008

Now the thing to remember is that I was very tired.

It was pretty empty at the Laundromat today. I usually go there on Wednesday but I had a huge amount of towels to wash and it couldn’t wait. In fact, I was using four medium machines, and two of them were just towels, but that’s not relevant. (And while were not being relevant, what is ring spun cotton? I know I can just look it up on line but I don’t want to. I bought a package of underwear the other day. I won’t go into detail about my underwear [you can give me a private call if you want to get kinky that way, what the heck?] and it was “now made with ring spun cotton.” Not that it mattered either way. I usually buy either Hanes or Fruit of the Loom, whichever the store has. If the store has both its a toss up. Anyway, whatever this “ring spinning” does, it does make a nice soft pair of underwear.)

So this was Monday and most people come in on Wednesday for the discount (1/2 PRICE! Medium loaders! Until 3:00 ONLY! EARLY BIRD SPECIAL!) but since I don’t get there until around about four it doesn’t matter to me. Except that on Wednesdays the crowd that came in “early bird” are still there hogging the dryers when I get in. C’mon people- who needs one dryer for one sheet and another dryer for your socks? Put them all in one, you selfish bastards! I need to dry my ring spun underwear!

So like I said I was tired. I woke at up a 4:07 a.m. (I looked at he clock) from a strange dream. I dreamed that I was working at LHS until late at night and had to sleep on a cot. I also dreamed that I had an office of my own and a couple of other teachers were working late and had to sleep on cots too. Anyway, when I woke up I never did get back to sleep and sort of drifted in and out until I got out of bed at 6:31 (I looked at the clock) and that was that.

I was at the Laundromat earlier than usual too, so that meant that I’d be long gone by the time Jeopardy! came on, and that may have been a good thing since I may have come within a hair of being popped by a guy dressed all in red last time it came on. (No, by the way, by “guy dressed all in red” I don’t mean Satan. At least he didn’t seem to be Satan. He looked kind of stupid actually, but he did have a Yankee cap and that is probably what Satan would wear so who knows?)

I was sitting there watching the dryers spin and a strange pair of women walked in front of me. They were anywhere from 36 to 180 years old. You know what I mean, the kind of women who lived hard lives (drunks) and every second of it showed on their faces. Badly dyed hair, too much makeup, and absolutely covered in bad tattoos. Ugh. They were wearing t-shirts from some tattoo artist so maybe they were examples of his work. Or maybe they were the artists. Either way there was no way I would risk getting hep B from a dirty needle to look like that when I’m old and used up.

Now bear in mind that I was tired and also that I had been reading a Nero Wolfe story this morning and that may explain why I, for some unfathomable reason, I came off like Archie Goodwin here. (Don’t read Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe? You are missing out, pilgrim. [Pilgrim? What am I, John Wayne?]) (And I really am tired if I’m doing the brackets/parenthesis thing. And now the slash thing too. Sheesh and ugh, am I drawing out a simple story here.)

Well, I’m sitting there In my nylon Mets windbreaker. Remember Peter DeLuise from 21 Jump Street? After a couple of seasons he was too old to play a high school kid so they gave him a windbreaker and a whistle and presto! He was a gym teacher. Anyway, I was rocking the Doug Penhall look.

Back to wherever it was I was going before I got so easily derailed. Remember I said I was tried? Well, I still am.

So I’m there and one of these tattooed Methuselahs gimps over to me and asks me what I think of tattoos.  So, here’s what I said. It just came out of my mouth and I am not sure what I meant by it:

“You mean on me or you?”

Was I being insulting? Was I trying a line? Was I going to make conversation? I have no clue. I know I half-smiled when I said it, and I was just as confused as you when it came out, so your guess is as good as mine as to what was going on in my head.

She said. “We can talk about me later honey. I have all kinds of piercings  too.”

I said “Huh, uh, uh huh.”

She: “You want a tattoo?”

Me: “No.”

She: “Maybe a (and she said something that sounded like “shlegmire” here.) right on your arm” and them she traced an outline on my bicep. The shriveled thing touched me!

I said no thanks and got up and walked away. OK, I jogged. (I was wearing a windbreaker after all, so I should at least pretend to be athletic.) I spent the next almost 10 minutes sitting in my car until the dryer was done, then I got my clothes and my huge load of towels and wheeled them across the store and folded them about as far as I could get from the tattooed circus freaks.

Morale of the story? I don’t know. Point of the story? Nope, don’t know either.

But I have strange luck at the Laundromat

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BONUS!.

OUT-OF-CONTEXT QUOTE OF THE WEEK!

This is an exact quote, said today, taken out of context:

“YOU made him gay, I made him a pedophile!”

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Pathetic Paper Airplanes AKA The Jeopardy Blog

13 Nov

from January 17, 2008

I had one of those brilliant moments of clarity yesterday. You know the ones I mean, the kind that usually come too late to be of any use. For example, George Costanza two hours later coming up with “the jerk store called and they’re out of you.” (Somehow, just the words “jerk store” have become an insult. I can’t explain it.)

GUY IN CAR YOU JUST HIT: “Hey asshole! Didn’t you see the red light? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

YOU: “Jerk store!”

But I had the moment of clarity at the exact right time. What’s more, it lasted nearly an hour.

I was at the Laundromat last night doing, don’t be shocked now, my laundry. While my laundry was spinning around in the dryers I sat and watched TV. Normally I’d listen to my iPod (iPods rock, but the new Touch makes my video ipod look like betamax.) but I came straight from work and didn’t have it. Jeopardy came on. Jeopardy is maybe the best game show on TV aimed at 70-year olds. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not ragging on Jeopardy, I’m a fan, but since Bob Barker left TV Alex Trebek has had to pick up the workload of being the pin-up favorite of nursing homes across the country. Drew Carey, um, not so much.

I tend to do fairly well on Jeopardy but it is hit or miss. Sometimes the categories fall right and I can answer everything. Sometimes I can answer nothing, but usually I do OK. Last night, wow, last night was great. I answered about 90% of the questions and only missed three. I knew “who was Archduke Franz Ferdinand?” I knew “what is sashimi?” I knew “who was Voltaire?” The final Jeopardy question was “what was Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon?” and I said it before the words had passed out of Alex Trebek’s formerly mustachioed lips.

Cool right? It gets better. There was a guy there also watching the show. Guy was middle aged, about 50, as opposed to the not-quite-yet middle aged 37 but with the soul of a young weird child that I am. He was standing at the other end of the washers. He was dressed in a way that I can’t stand: Red baseball cap. (Yankees, ugh.) Red t-shirt. Red zippered sweat shirt. Red sneakers. The guy looked like one of the Star Trek security guys who get killed before the credits roll. NOTE TO EVERYONE: Dressing all in one color makes you look like a jerk store. Don’t do it.

 Now he was intently watching the show, while I was slouched down in chair reading the paper while I watched. He looked serious, I looked, um, like I usually look, suavely distracted with an aura of mystery. But I was saying the answers out loud. Not loud enough to draw attention to myself, but loudly enough to be heard. I didn’t begin doing it on purpose, but I soon continued on purpose. I was answering almost as an afterthought, barely glancing up from the paper long enough to say “what is cesium?” But the red dude didn’t get as single answer. (If he did he didn’t say anything.) Problem was, Mr. Serious Player started shooting glances my way, slightly angry glances.

I didn’t care. How often do I get a chance to be a Laundromat Jeopardy bully? Come to think of it, how often does anybody get to be a Laundromat Jeopardy bully? I couldn’t stop.

The more I knew the more it bothered the guy. “What is the atomic weight of gold?”  “Who is King Kamehameha?” Clearly, he hated me. At sometime before Double Jeopardy I put my wash in the dryer’ so that when Final Jeopardy came up I was standing only about three feet from the guy. As soon as I had the answer I said it aloud, almost right in the guy’s ear. Being the sensitive type I said it low. (I knew it would piss him off.) To the guys credit, he didn’t say a word, but turned almost as red as his stupid hat.

Before Wheel of Fortune (a show that makes average brains turn to compost) channel 7 did the lottery numbers. The guy said, loudly, to someone near him “I bet that guy hit the numbers too!” He was pissed. And it got worse when I solved all of the Wheel of Fortune puzzles before he did too. (Not a hard thing. That show is crap. But did you ever read Pat Sajak’s blog? Seriously, the guy may be the sanest and most level-headed guy in show business. Who would have guessed?)

Eventually my wash was done, dried, folded, and it was time to leave. On my way out I glanced at another TV, one that was showing The Beverly Hillbillies. Just to annoy the guy, I turned to some random woman near the set and said “they’re showing the one with the kangaroo again?” just to twist the knife in the guy and show him that I know everything.

Don’t feel sorry for the guy, he got what he deserved for dressing so badly.

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