Get Me To The Church On Time
Hello World,
Here is where I would normally be posing the musical question, "What is so rare as a day in June," except for the fact that, at least in these parts, we've been having the same crappy weather that we complained about in April and May. In fact, I stand by my assertion that it was actually warmer in April than it's been since then, which I would expect to be against the laws of nature, if not against the actual civil legal code in this jurisdiction, as it certainly should be. Of course, everyone knows that there's no standards any more, so it does no good to complain, and especially about the weather, heaven knows. But you know you're in bad shape when even CVS realizes that they can't sell beach balls and swim fins in this weather, and they've moved the entire display of them out of the seasonal aisle, and way into a back corner of the store by the wart removers and shoe polish.
I may as well get this off my chest right up front and say that I am disgusted with the whole lot of you, all of the cynics and nattering nabobs of negativism (boy, nobody remembers Spiro Agnew any more, I'll bet you!) and I just hope you're all satisfied. Everybody out there in the wide world (and don't think I don't know who you are) who said that our injured co-worker was just stringing us along for four months to use up all of her sick time, then come back part-time for a week to earn her pro-rated vacation time so that she could go to the Caribbean for two weeks at full pay, and when she came back from the islands, would just turn around and retire anyway, well, that's exactly what happened. I just hope you're happy, and thank you so not very much. Of course, people had been saying that among themselves for a while, and even more no doubt thinking the same thing, since the whole ordeal started way back in the middle of December. Call me naive (oh, go ahead) but I was about the only person who said that would never happen, because after all, how would that look? Well, it turns out that it was exactly the way it looked all along, and the cynics and nabobs hit the nail right on the head the first time. So after next week, we will find ourselves once again left in the lurch, and at this moment, just in time for vacation season, as the rest of us already have plans to be off in the next few weeks. So it should be interesting times ahead in the Purchasing department, I'm thinking, where often will be heard a discouraging word, and people who come to see me should not be surprised to find my evil twin instead.
In other health-related news, Bill wanted to buy some elastic stockings for me, to help with a problem I was having with my ankles, and found a handy web site that would send them in a jiffy and at a reasonable cost. When they arrived shortly thereafter, I pointed out that it said right on the package in plain sight, "Caution: Federal law restricts this device to sale by or on the order of a physician," so I couldn't understand why the web site would just go right ahead and sell these to any old schmo, and not Dr. Schmo like they were supposed to. But there they were, and my favorite part was when I opened them up and found they came with what they referred to as "Instructions for donning," as if anybody would use that term in real life. In fact, if it wasn't for that seasonal classic of "Deck the Halls," with its timeless invitation to "Don we now our gay apparel," no one would have any idea what "donning" means any more. On the other hand, I may as well admit that I don't happen to be of that school that believes that everyday items such as hairbrushes and stockings require instructions for use, and my personal feeling is that if you can't figure out how to put on stockings all by yourself, then no amount of instructions are going to be of much help to you.
Meanwhile, in what passes for international news in our local newspaper, The Journal News (their motto: "News, Schmooz") they ran a picture on the front page of the Colosseum with the headline, "Landmarks in Rome in Serious Disrepair." (DUH!) Honestly, you turn your back on something for 2,000 years, and it just falls completely to pieces on you. Then there was the television commercial that invited me to sign up for cosmetology classes at a beauty school they identified as "The House of Esthetics," apparently without irony, and certainly without a spell-checker. No thank you very much, I prefer my aesthetics "old school," if you know what I mean. That reminds me that in the parking lot at work, I've just noticed one of those old-fashioned foam hair rollers with the plastic side grippers on the ground, as if it just dropped out of a clear blue sky from a 1960's women's magazine or something, because I wouldn't even think you could buy those anymore. Of course, who would have believed that bell-bottoms would ever have come back in style, and short ones at that, so I suppose it only goes to prove that anything is possible.
Speaking of endless possibilities, we have our friends at Innovations Xtreme to thank for something that most of us would not have considered possible, and that is the inflatable church. Please feel free to visit their web site at www.inflatablechurch.com and see for yourself. This looks like your average gothic cathedral (except for the inflatable part, that is) in a gray stone-like design with turrets. They say the sanctuary area is about 20 feet wide and 22 feet high, while the tower in the chancel area is about 15 feet wide and 35 feet high. It features plastic "stained glass" windows and airbrush artwork which replicates the traditional church, and includes an inflatable organ, altar, pulpit, pews, candles and a gold cross, not to mention doors flanked by air-filled angels. They tell me the church can be built (their term) in two hours, and dis-assembled in less than one, and they take pains to point out that there's "no problem with high heels." This must be a real comfort to fashion-conscious brides everywhere who want to be married in an inflatable church, as I'm sure their name is legion. What I find most disturbing is in the beginning, where it says that this is "one of the world's very first inflatable churches," as if this sort of thing has been sprouting up all over, and they need to make this distinction to separate themselves from the rest of the thundering herd of inflatable churches. In fact, they go on to say that they're listed in the Guinness Book of Records as being the world's largest inflatable church, which would not be a category I would have expected much competition in, previous to this, but there you have it. Their motto seems to be, "Now we can bring the church to the bride, rather than the other way around." This is what I say: It's no wonder the terrorists hate us.
And just in case you find yourself near a church, inflatable or otherwise, and not sure if you'll fit in with the rest of the crowd, our friends at beliefnet want to help you, and you can also feel free to visit their web site at www.selectsmart.com to try out their handy Belief-O-Matic feature for yourself. It asks you a series of questions and then lets you know where your answers place you in comparison with various religions of the world. When Bill tried this, we found his answers aligned him 100% with Liberal Quakers, 99% with the Baha'i Faith, and 93% with Jehovah's Witnesses. That last one surprised me, because anyone who knows him will tell you that Bill would rather gnaw off his own arm than ring someone's doorbell, and would no more engage a stranger in a discussion of religious doctrine than he would start a fan club for umpires and referees. In an even more interesting coincidence, much farther down on the list and coming in at only 55% was a five-way tie with Eastern Orthodox, Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Roman Catholic and Sikhism, which you would think would be impossible to achieve even if you were trying, and really makes you wonder what type of answers you would have to give to get those sorts of results. In fact, you would expect that those five religions would be so far apart from each other that no set of answers would tie them together, and they'd be so all over the map that they wouldn't be in the same time zone, much less zip code. Quick! Get me an inflatable church on wheels!
Here is where I would normally be posing the musical question, "What is so rare as a day in June," except for the fact that, at least in these parts, we've been having the same crappy weather that we complained about in April and May. In fact, I stand by my assertion that it was actually warmer in April than it's been since then, which I would expect to be against the laws of nature, if not against the actual civil legal code in this jurisdiction, as it certainly should be. Of course, everyone knows that there's no standards any more, so it does no good to complain, and especially about the weather, heaven knows. But you know you're in bad shape when even CVS realizes that they can't sell beach balls and swim fins in this weather, and they've moved the entire display of them out of the seasonal aisle, and way into a back corner of the store by the wart removers and shoe polish.
I may as well get this off my chest right up front and say that I am disgusted with the whole lot of you, all of the cynics and nattering nabobs of negativism (boy, nobody remembers Spiro Agnew any more, I'll bet you!) and I just hope you're all satisfied. Everybody out there in the wide world (and don't think I don't know who you are) who said that our injured co-worker was just stringing us along for four months to use up all of her sick time, then come back part-time for a week to earn her pro-rated vacation time so that she could go to the Caribbean for two weeks at full pay, and when she came back from the islands, would just turn around and retire anyway, well, that's exactly what happened. I just hope you're happy, and thank you so not very much. Of course, people had been saying that among themselves for a while, and even more no doubt thinking the same thing, since the whole ordeal started way back in the middle of December. Call me naive (oh, go ahead) but I was about the only person who said that would never happen, because after all, how would that look? Well, it turns out that it was exactly the way it looked all along, and the cynics and nabobs hit the nail right on the head the first time. So after next week, we will find ourselves once again left in the lurch, and at this moment, just in time for vacation season, as the rest of us already have plans to be off in the next few weeks. So it should be interesting times ahead in the Purchasing department, I'm thinking, where often will be heard a discouraging word, and people who come to see me should not be surprised to find my evil twin instead.
In other health-related news, Bill wanted to buy some elastic stockings for me, to help with a problem I was having with my ankles, and found a handy web site that would send them in a jiffy and at a reasonable cost. When they arrived shortly thereafter, I pointed out that it said right on the package in plain sight, "Caution: Federal law restricts this device to sale by or on the order of a physician," so I couldn't understand why the web site would just go right ahead and sell these to any old schmo, and not Dr. Schmo like they were supposed to. But there they were, and my favorite part was when I opened them up and found they came with what they referred to as "Instructions for donning," as if anybody would use that term in real life. In fact, if it wasn't for that seasonal classic of "Deck the Halls," with its timeless invitation to "Don we now our gay apparel," no one would have any idea what "donning" means any more. On the other hand, I may as well admit that I don't happen to be of that school that believes that everyday items such as hairbrushes and stockings require instructions for use, and my personal feeling is that if you can't figure out how to put on stockings all by yourself, then no amount of instructions are going to be of much help to you.
Meanwhile, in what passes for international news in our local newspaper, The Journal News (their motto: "News, Schmooz") they ran a picture on the front page of the Colosseum with the headline, "Landmarks in Rome in Serious Disrepair." (DUH!) Honestly, you turn your back on something for 2,000 years, and it just falls completely to pieces on you. Then there was the television commercial that invited me to sign up for cosmetology classes at a beauty school they identified as "The House of Esthetics," apparently without irony, and certainly without a spell-checker. No thank you very much, I prefer my aesthetics "old school," if you know what I mean. That reminds me that in the parking lot at work, I've just noticed one of those old-fashioned foam hair rollers with the plastic side grippers on the ground, as if it just dropped out of a clear blue sky from a 1960's women's magazine or something, because I wouldn't even think you could buy those anymore. Of course, who would have believed that bell-bottoms would ever have come back in style, and short ones at that, so I suppose it only goes to prove that anything is possible.
Speaking of endless possibilities, we have our friends at Innovations Xtreme to thank for something that most of us would not have considered possible, and that is the inflatable church. Please feel free to visit their web site at www.inflatablechurch.com and see for yourself. This looks like your average gothic cathedral (except for the inflatable part, that is) in a gray stone-like design with turrets. They say the sanctuary area is about 20 feet wide and 22 feet high, while the tower in the chancel area is about 15 feet wide and 35 feet high. It features plastic "stained glass" windows and airbrush artwork which replicates the traditional church, and includes an inflatable organ, altar, pulpit, pews, candles and a gold cross, not to mention doors flanked by air-filled angels. They tell me the church can be built (their term) in two hours, and dis-assembled in less than one, and they take pains to point out that there's "no problem with high heels." This must be a real comfort to fashion-conscious brides everywhere who want to be married in an inflatable church, as I'm sure their name is legion. What I find most disturbing is in the beginning, where it says that this is "one of the world's very first inflatable churches," as if this sort of thing has been sprouting up all over, and they need to make this distinction to separate themselves from the rest of the thundering herd of inflatable churches. In fact, they go on to say that they're listed in the Guinness Book of Records as being the world's largest inflatable church, which would not be a category I would have expected much competition in, previous to this, but there you have it. Their motto seems to be, "Now we can bring the church to the bride, rather than the other way around." This is what I say: It's no wonder the terrorists hate us.
And just in case you find yourself near a church, inflatable or otherwise, and not sure if you'll fit in with the rest of the crowd, our friends at beliefnet want to help you, and you can also feel free to visit their web site at www.selectsmart.com to try out their handy Belief-O-Matic feature for yourself. It asks you a series of questions and then lets you know where your answers place you in comparison with various religions of the world. When Bill tried this, we found his answers aligned him 100% with Liberal Quakers, 99% with the Baha'i Faith, and 93% with Jehovah's Witnesses. That last one surprised me, because anyone who knows him will tell you that Bill would rather gnaw off his own arm than ring someone's doorbell, and would no more engage a stranger in a discussion of religious doctrine than he would start a fan club for umpires and referees. In an even more interesting coincidence, much farther down on the list and coming in at only 55% was a five-way tie with Eastern Orthodox, Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Roman Catholic and Sikhism, which you would think would be impossible to achieve even if you were trying, and really makes you wonder what type of answers you would have to give to get those sorts of results. In fact, you would expect that those five religions would be so far apart from each other that no set of answers would tie them together, and they'd be so all over the map that they wouldn't be in the same time zone, much less zip code. Quick! Get me an inflatable church on wheels!
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 9:40 PM
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