Never Trust Anyone in a Hawaiian Shirt

I know, I know, a rare flurry of mid-week activity from the "I'll only post on Mondays" Blogger, but I'm guest posting at Pseudo's place today, please go and pay her a visit.

The Lady In The Green Gown

This is the re-post of an old, old, old post, life is crazy busy so I won't get a chance to write for a few days.

"I'll have Earl Grey, please", said the lady in the green gown. "I did mention it in the email", she added. She glanced across at us with an eyebrow raised. I imagine that her email would have looked something like the following.


Dear Sir/Madam,

Following our recent booking I would like to confirm our particular dietary requirements. As members of the leisure classes, we drink only Earl Grey. Please ensure that this is available with our breakfast.

Yours Sincerely,

The Lady in the Green Gown


"Ooh, I think I fancy Earl Grey too", my wife said, and placed an order with the waitress. Green Gown looked across disapprovingly. How dare they. I'll bet they didn't request Earl Grey in an email.

Eyebrow still raised, she looked my pregnant wife up and down, and then said "Living dangerously, I see."

Erm, no, not really. Enjoying a "safe" weekend away six weeks before the baby is due, actually. The only person living dangerously is you. In danger of being mistaken for a goddess of the forest, and of being the most irritating person I've encountered on my holiday.

I didn't quite know what to say. "That's right", I muttered, and returned to my Full English breakfast.

Green Gown's husband was looking longingly at my fry-up. He had clearly only been allowed yogurt. His thoughts were easy to read. Sodding low-fat yogurt.

The Earl Grey arrived, accompanied by two pots of hot water. Intrigued, my wife said to me "How bizarre, I wonder why there is two pots". It was odd, because I already had my coffee. Green Gown turned our way, eyebrow raised of course. "One is for your friend", she said.

Friend? Did she think our wedding rings were a farce, or did she think we were having an affair? We ignored this strange women and enjoyed what was left of our breakfast.

The Lobster Incident

Today I have the pleasure of announcing the second round of our exciting triangular guestival. I'm posting over at Show My Face, Cate is posting at More Mindless Rambling, and Blognut is posting here. Our task was to tell our own version of "The Lobster Incident". When you're done here head over to More Mindless Rambling and Show My Face. And now, I bring you Blognut...

So here I am guest-posting at Mo’s, ‘cause… well… he’s letting me and it seemed like a good idea to defend myself. See… we’ve got this incident to explain and I know that Mo’s version will be all, “it’s not my fault,” and Cate’s version of the story will be all, “well, it’s not my fault, either,” and the truth is that it was both their faults and I’m completely innocent in this story. So here’s what REALLY happened:

The Lobster Incident

I’ll never learn, will I? All my life I’ve heard, “There are some people that you can dress up, but you shouldn’t take them out.” Admittedly, that comment was directed at me most of the time, but its meaning never really sunk in… until dinner with Mo and Cate.

I was psyched. I didn’t even care where we went for dinner; I was just excited to go. Mo wanted lobster, and by ‘wanted’ I mean ‘would accept nothing less.’ Cate just wanted gin, and well, you know she brought her own, right? She also pulled along one of those old-lady-wheeled-shopping-cart things, stacked with little plastic storage bins from Target. I don’t know what was in there, but it rattled like pills and she was keeping an eye on that cart as though it contained the NOC list from Mission Impossible.

When we arrived at the restaurant, Mo slipped the host $20 to get us in without a reservation. Now I’m pretty sure that the restaurant had severe reservations to seating the three of us anywhere, but the $20 did the trick. We got ourselves a table right near the kitchen and there was plenty of room for Cate’s cart so it all worked well.

After waiting an eternity, a waitress finally came over to take our order. Now I admit, I may have inadvertently upset her, but it wasn’t my fault. This poor thing looked like she had fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. My horrified gasp was out before I could do anything about it. I covered it up with a fake choking incident, and I think she may have bought it. Mo’s reaction was a bit more transparent. He threw holy water on her and said something in Latin. (I ask you, was that nice?) And Cate, well, you know Cate. She looked at the waitress, then looked at me, then looked at the waitress, then looked at me again. When she finally found her words, she said the unthinkable. “Am I so drunk that I don’t remember punching her in the face?” The mood was set.

We ordered drinks; I had water, Mo and Cate split a barrel of wine. What? I didn’t drink! (Shut up! It’s MY story.) We ordered food; I asked for a salad, Mo asked for a family of lobsters, and Cate pulled a frozen entrée out of one of her plastic bins and asked the waitress to microwave it for her. That last request got us our first visit from the restaurant’s manager. He insisted that if Cate wanted a microwave TV dinner, she could eat at home. I was so proud of Cate for not punching him in the face as she calmly slurred that she has severe allergies, is on conflicting medications, and could only eat certain foods or she gets ‘irregular.’ After some negotiating, a virtual trip through Cate’s large intestine, and another one of Mo’s $20 bills, it was agreed that she could eat her own food.

While we waited an eternity for the food to arrive, we sang pirate songs at full voice. At the next table were 6 fighter pilots (in flight suits!) who joined in our fun, and the liquor flowed. (I stuck to my water.) (Stop it! I will not tolerate your insolence while I’m telling my story.) Several times the manager came over and asked us to keep it down or we would have to leave, but Mo was never going to leave that restaurant without his lobster.

This brings me to the lobster incident itself…

When the meal was brought to the table, the waitress dropped one of the lobsters in Mo’s lap. Somehow the fates conspired for one of the lobster’s claws to clamp down on the poor fella’s junk. Mo jumped up from the table, knocking Cate’s microwave entrée to the floor, and sending my salad flying through the air. Mo was a sight to behold! Here he was standing there, slightly drunk, howling in pain, with a lobster clamped to his crotch.

The manager came running over to the table to find out about the commotion and all he saw was Cate holding onto that lobster attached to Mo in a kinky sort of way, and Mo yelling, “Get it off, get it off!” While I tried to calmly explain the situation to the manager, Mo decided there was no hope and took his trousers off in the middle of the restaurant. I’m guessing it was laundry day at Mo’s house, or the guy just likes free-ballin’, but you know he was missing his undergarments, right?

Horrified diners began to point, women cried, most of the men looked on with disgust, and the fighter pilots cheered. Apparently that was all the manager could take because he wrapped Mo in a tablecloth and pushed all three of us out the door, throwing Cate’s cart out behind us.

Needless to say, we won’t be going back there. Needless to say, we wouldn’t even be allowed to walk by the place. Needless to say, Mo went home in a tablecloth toga with no pants and isn’t allowed to have dinner with Cate or me ever again.

Needless to say, none of this was my fault.

The Hypothetical Hell Day

Today I have the pleasure of announcing an exciting triangular guestival. I'm posting over at More Mindless Rambling, blognut is posting at Show My Face, and Cate is posting here. Our task, which we chose to accept, was to post on our hypothetical hell day. When you're done here head over to More Mindless Rambling and Show My Face. And now, I bring you Cate...

It's me, Cate, taking over Mo's blog today. Our agreed-upon topic? Hypothetical Hell Day. For him, it could be that allowing me to run amok on his blog would be part of his day from hell but it's too late for that now! I mean, I kind of like it over here. I think I'll stay awhile!

For me, Hell Day would likely fall on a Wednesday. Most Wednesdays, I'm able to work from home. This means I am able to sleep in until about 7:59am. But on Hell Day, I would not be working from home for some reason, which already puts me in a foul mood. My husband, Joe, would not realize this, allowing me to snooze for far too long.

Nothing starts my day off on the wrong foot like rushing to make it to work on time. And I do mean "on time" - my boss is quite unforgiving with the 8 o'clock sharp thing.

On this particularly awful day, something would undoubtedly make me late despite driving 80+ mph (Google tells me this is 128.75+ kw/h for those of you on Mo's side of the universe). I'm guessing it would be a school bus in my path, stopping every 20 feet to pick up the little children who are so delicate that mommy had to drive them the half a block from their house to the corner because they can't wait in the cold. Which now means mommy has to help them from the car, hugs and kisses, do you have your lunch?, have a nice day before putting them on the bus. Ugh. When I was a pretty pretty princess, I had to walk to school, uphill both ways, in the snow!

Once at work, the boss would eat my face for arriving at 8:02 without calling. Yeah, I'll "work" an extra two minutes at lunch. Since there's rarely any work to be done, "work" is only differentiated from "lunch" by whether or not the door is pulled shut while I read blogs. Bossman would then proceed to visit my office every forty minutes or so to rant and rave about something I have no control over or interest in. My boss IS the drama llama.

By the time quitting time rolls around (at exactly 5:00 pm, of course), a stress migraine would be in full-blown marching band mode. Just for kicks, cue the heavy rain and idiot drivers for the commute home. The best part of hell day is realizing I'm in my garage, no idea how I got there, and crawling upstairs to bed for a nap until Joe shows up.

After slicing my finger or burning my hand, Joe will seize control of dinner, which is just as well because I'm not going to want to eat it anyway. And it's safer for everyone involved. Migraines + fire + sharp objects = trips to the emergency room. We learned that lesson the hard way.

The evening would end with me being too stubborn to go to bed early, instead watching television until President Bush (what, I know he's not President anymore but NOTHING is more hellish to me than that!) interrupts Lost to proclaim victory over his sweatpants. Mission accomplished for sure!

And that's about all I would be able to take. At that point, I'd finally succomb to the evil of Hell Day and retreat into bed. Rather than curling up next to me for a snuggle and purr, the cat would attack my feet, causing one final increase to my blood pressure and head throbbing before I give in to the medication and passing out.