A Kid, a Puppy, and a Pointless Story

I was looking over my blog and thought I might go ahead and update you about the dog situation. Quick recap: Excited puppy too much for 11-year-old girl to cope with.

When my sister calmed down, she decided to have a puppy/kid training lesson, and it was a success. The puppy got treats for keeping her paws on the floor instead of jumping, and since it was a specific lesson with specific instructions, my daughter concentrated and obeyed. By the end, she was able to walk across the room without squealing, the puppy was able to follow her without jumping, and she could feed the puppy a treat from her bare hand, though she tended to drop it more often than not.

Another success began with a recent question: How come nobody ever takes me to the movies?

The answer, of course, is: one time, you went to the movies with grandpa and ran out crying during a preview for Coraline. He didn't catch you until you were outside, and you were maybe seven years old. You then began refusing to go into movie theaters.

That's not what I said, though. I said, "Why, do you want to go to the movies?" She did, so we went, and it was a normal movie experience. Since this is all rather anticlimactic, here's a cheese factory story:

One time, at the cheese factory, a coworker told us that he'd heard a completely pointless story once, and it had inspired him to learn to tell completely pointless stories. Here is his story:

He was under the influence of a mind-altering substance and had locked himself out of his apartment. Since he was locked out, he went for a walk. He realized at some point that he wasn't at all sober and he'd wandered into a very bad neighborhood. He was lost and very possibly in danger, so he called the cops on himself. They took him in and locked him up.

An older man there who was very friendly asked him, "Do you like boys, or girls?"

That was pretty much the end of the story. We all looked at each other in confusion. A story like that had to have an ending, didn't it? No, apparently it didn't.

"Well, did you get back into your apartment?"

Yes.

"How?!"

Oh, I'd left the window unlocked. I climbed through.

Mr. Former-Coworker, if you ever read this, thank you. I've told that story so many times, and the looks it gets me are priceless.

The Key Debacle

Part I

I have locked myself out of the house. You'll find once you've known me a while that things like this happen with striking regularity. I am Sod's Law embodied, absent-minded enough to miss things like the keys I keep by the door (so I can't forget them), yet focused enough to write a blog on my phone while walking to the student housing office and stopping, as appropriate, at all street corners and crosswalks to check for traffic.

Why not go find your RA? you may ask, since you apparently live somewhere on campus?

Ah, I reply. I don't live ON campus, not in a dorm, anyway. I live in school-owned apartments for non-traditional students. But we'll deal with that another time. Point is, no RA.

There's a Student Apartment Manager, but as I write, it's 8 a.m. and I'm not sure which apartment they live in. I suppose I could walk door-to-door, knocking and asking like I did during the summer, but somehow I doubt people will be very friendly and eager to help if I wake them from a sound sleep. I should probably have the S.A.M.'s number in my phone, but I don't, because I'm just that good.

I've done this before. The response is, Come to Student Housing and get a spare key. So I'm walking and I'm almost there, and at this point not only am I getting my month's worth of exercise, but I'm also determined to find a bloody place to hide my spare key outside, since the tape thing didn't work. Let me digress a moment.

I locked myself out of this very same apartment on Labor Day. This means that very few people were home as I walked through the stifling heat in sweats, a New Kids on the Block t-shirt, and flip-flops. I didn't find the S.A.M., but I did find someone who'd been a locksmith at some point, and after he failed to get my door open (the locks are sturdy here, nice to know, and cannot be fooled by credit cards), he called Public Safety for me.

Immediately upon getting into my house, I drank a ton of water. Then I got my spare key, went outside, and taped it somewhere so this would never happen again. Well, I live in the Midwest and tape doesn't like humidity. They key fell, and there was literally nowhere else I could hide it. My porch is slats of wood, so hiding it under a doormat (besides being the first place I'd look if I were going to burgle myself) would be a surefire way to lose the key entirely. And I'm not tall enough to reach the top of the door frame, so no putting it there. My spare key, therefore, might as well not have existed, and so I was fated to repeat history.

Part II

Did I mention that, aside from jeans and a winter coat (it's 52°F, but you know how it feels colder when you're sleepy), I'm wearing a fuzzy purple pajama top? Yep, fuzzy, purple, and very obviously pajamas. For those of you who haven't tried this, power-walking plus hardcore-new-plushie-flannel plus a coat equals sweat. 

It's a college campus at 8 a.m., everyone's in their pj's, take off your coat, you moron!

No.

I'm vain enough that bedhead is plenty. I can pretend that I have a really awesome, enviable mane of flowing locks, but the moment the coat comes off, I'd look like I was taking a Walk of Shame. I'd rather boil, because I hear enough about my imaginary sex life/preferences without adding fuel to the fire. I can see it now;

Oh my gooooosh, I haven't seen you in forever! What were you doing walking across campus half-dressed? *wink wink, nudge nudge*

See, I forgot my key in the...

Hahaha, riiiiiight.

No, seriously, I...

Mhm, just keep saying that.

Okay, fine, I was at some barely-18's dorm room, shagging them silly all night, and I sneaked out at dawn to creep home.

*eye roll* No, you weren't. And no, you didn't.

Uh-huh, and it was awesome because I'm an effing God in bed.

Nuh-uhhh.

Yeah-huh, and you wouldn't know anyway.

So why were you really walking around?

Grrrr! By the way, I have these imaginary conversations all the time, and no, it's not schizophrenic, though that's been suggested to me as well. Healthy imagination is a completely different animal. Apparently I have the most perfect reactions to being teased though, and it's soooo much fun. No matter how much I expect it, or how much I'm aware of it happening, I almost always take the bait. There are, of course, the odd occasions when I fight back.

So, since you're not gettin' any, me and your cousin thought we'd get you a gigolo for your birthday.

I'm saving myself for H~ (an out-of-state friend). We're in love, and you can't break us up.

*pauses, eying me like I just grew a second head, then turns to someone else for new convo*

Honestly, if you can't take it, don't dish it out, and yes, I see the irony in that. Hush, you.

Part III

I made it home and got into the apartment without a problem. I've been talking about making a blog for a while, and I guess I finally wrote something that entertained me enough to want to share it. Now I should be job-searching. While spell-checking the horror that was me typing all this on my phone as I walked, I got a phone call from the school reminding me that I owe them my soul, and they want it in monetary form now. I'm tired of school, but that's a story for another post.

I promise I'll figure out the formatting at some point so you can read these things, and here's to hoping your morning was better than mine, or at least that my adventure gave you a moment of schadenfreude. ;)