“My mortician is magnificent. He does lovely work. Would you like a card?”
That was what my co-worker said to me. At 40 years old, that might have offended me. However, at 20, I was intrigued. I had never known anyone that knew anyone, in that line of work.
Therefore, I immediately asked what jobs were the worst. She said her husband had a difficult time accepting deaths of babies. At that moment, a motorcycle went by very quickly,
“Oh, and he said motorcycle victims are the worst, especially when families want an open casket. The body is like ground hamburger meat. Very difficult to reconstruct.”
That comment has stayed with me forever. Every time I see someone riding one, I want to yell “Be careful or you might find yourself shredded hamburger!”
It’s funny, the unique individuals you come across in an office environment. She was our new receptionist and a bit odd. She was older than my mom, and never had kids. I had to cover her desk for breaks and she’d talk to me about this and that. Peculiar things. I wasn’t quite sure whether or not I liked her. She wasn’t someone who needed to work, often telling me,
“Oh, honey, this is just my mad money to spend shopping.” Wow. How nice was that.
One of the times I went to relieve her, she was telling me something and mid-sentence- answered/hung up the phone, jumped up, ran out the front door, and proceeded to wave to what appeared to be a field of grass. It wasn’t just a regular wave, but her arm fully extended and so exagerrated…arm swinging in a FULL BODY wave which wiggled her butt side-to-side.
Imagine my thoughts: Okay. That’s crazy behavior. What is she doing? Whatever it is, she’s very excited about it.
Of course, when she came back in, I had to inquire. She pointed across the grass field, past the storage unit buildings, up to the freeway.
her: “See the jag pulled off into the emergency lane. That’s my husband.”
me: “oh, did he break down?”
her: “No, I just told him where the office was, and he found me.”
me: “Why?”
her: “So we can wave to each other and say hi.”
Okay. cute? At first, I thought so until I found out they were doing it EVERYDAY. I suppose that’s romantic in a bizarre way. Then again, that might be normal “mortician” behavior.
At that moment she said:
“Oh, remind me to give you some of his business cards. Pass them out to your friends/family. They give him a photo, and he can make them look just like it. You pick out their favorite outfit and he makes them look lovely.”
Could you imagine me passing them out at the dinner table? “here, mom, put this on the refrigerator for later reference.”
You visit the library, and upon exiting, you point your van keys at the automatic sliding glass doors and press your “open door” button.
O- Omit Olfactory observation (A-Z Challenge)
A-Z Challenge. Where would we be without our sense of smell?
Some odors we notice, don’t necessarily need to be mentioned, such as passed gas in an elevator or room full of people, or classroom. We are trying to teach our 8-year-old son just because you smell something does not mean you have to find the culprit:
“Hey, who farted?”
It’s better to sometimes ignore these things. Well, this event falls within that same
category:
One morning, our 6-year-old daughter decided to come wake us. As she crawled on our bed to hug dad, her brother bounded into the room and leaped in front of her beating her to the mission of waking the folks…
…AND as 8-year-old boys tend to do, proceeded to put his rear end into her face because he thought it was funny and told her to smell his butt. Which of course, made Samantha angry and she yelled out:
“EWWWW! Gibbbbb! Your butt smells like daddy’s breath!”
Again, something that doesn’t need to be said aloud. I’d like to say we explained the whole morning breath and how to let someone know without hurting feelings and that putting one’s tushy in people’s faces is never appropriate. However, half asleep, it came out more like:
“Get your butt outta her face!”
(and I think that was all that was said)
**sigh** I can just see it now… “Yes, this is the school calling. We had an incident today where your child told another student they had Butt Breath.” Awesome.