Category Archives: Fun

10 Things to Do Before Christmas

Hello, Friend!
If I did everything right you should be receiving this a few days before Christmas. As I sit here in the past writing typing, my mind is racing with gift ideas just for you. “What is it you, the readers of my blog, would like this Christmas season?” I spent many an hour pondering this, and other queries. For instance:

1. Do people who don’t draft business contracts or instructions for microwave manuals even use the word query in real-life talk these days?
Hard to say. Most of my friends went to school to draft business contracts and write instructions for microwave manuals. So from my experience, yes, yes they most certainly do.

2. Is cold, hard cash the best gift I could give?
Sure, cash would acceptable, but it is so cliché. It just screams of something your uncle would do when he’s at your house and, forgetting it’s your birthday, excuses himself, races to the nearest WinCo, buys a Secretaries Day card by mistake, races back to your house, slips a $5 bill with as many coins as he can scrounge from the change holder in his car into the card, and hands it to you like he planned it the whole time. But deep down you know what really happened. You both do.

3. Or I could make a cheesy list of the top 10 ways to spend the days leading up to Christmas.
Bingo! We have a winner!!!

So, in the spirit of 1,997th Christmas (the year Seinfeld aired the now classic episode about Festivus, which has more holiday cheer per capita than Frosty the Snowman, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Rudolph combined) here is my gift to you: “10 Ways to Spend the Days Leading Up to Christmas”

1. Buy a partridge in a pair tree, wrap it up, and give it to that special someone on Christmas Day. We’ve all thought about it, but you’d be the first one to actually do it. This single act will forever reserve you a place in the annals of Christmas Awesomeness. You’ll be a legend! Just keep it on the DL so PETA doesn’t get wind.

2. Ring a bell till 100 angels get their wings. Lots of work now, but it’s one of those big picture, living for eternity things you’ll be glad you did later.

3. Build a time machine, travel back in time, and unmake the Jim Carey version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

4. Don’t shoot your eye out. If you do, the Bumpuses’ dogs will eat that delicious dinner you spent all day slaving over and you’ll be the only family in town eating Duck at Panda Express. They’ll try to cheer you up by singing Deck the Halls but it just won’t be the same.

5. Make Santa something healthy to eat, like vegan gingerbread cookies and soymilk. He may not like it at first but if it keeps the old guy around breaking into our houses and stalking children longer then…well, when you put it that way, maybe we DON’T want him hanging around anymore. Never-mind.

6. Buy a little kid two front teeth. It’s really all they want for Christmas.

7. Read A Christmas Carol in a British accent, have someone video you while you do it, and post it on Facebook so we can all share in the holiday cheer, Charles Dickens style.

8. Have your picture taken with the Easter Bunny. Everyone’s having their picture taken with Santa. Those lines are long and annoying. The Easter Bunny lines are much shorter. I promise (Canadian Scout’s Honor).

9. Call your local Zoo and ask what their Holiday Hippo Lease policy is like.

10. Enjoy this time. I know it’s busy. I know it’s crazy. I also know it can be a fun and miraculous time, if you let it. Thank you for being your amazingly awesome self.

I hope in my own weird little way this helped you laugh, even a little bit. If not, feel free to print up this post and recycle it as a napkin, Kleenex, or litter box lining for the neighborhood cat.

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10 People You’ll Meet in Line at the Grocery Store (Pt 2)

Three is a crowd

Picking up where we left off in Part 1, here are 5 more people you’ll (unfortunately) meet in line at the grocery store:

6. The Price Checker
No, the numbers on the price tag did not suddenly rearrange themselves when you picked it up like letters on your iPhone do when you shake it playing Words With Friends. The cashier is not your doctor, so please don’t make him ask the manager for a second opinion on the price of Cap’n Crunch, OK?

7. The Phone Multi-Tasker
Apparently he is emailing Jack Bauer the abort code for a thermonuclear device that’s been planted by terrorists and about to go off on aisle 5 in 2 minutes. At least that’s the only kind of email I can think of that would warrant bringing a line full of people with perishable goods to a screeching halt.

8. The Magazine Reader
This person is apparently confusing the line here at Stater Bros with the mini Starbucks that’s tucked aways inside Barnes and Noble. No, no, you finish that article on Lady Gaga. I don’t spend enough time waiting in lines anyway. You just take your time and enjoy. I’ll wait.

9. The Coupon Collector
This person has enough coupons stockpiled to make George Costanza’s wallet look like a Four Spiritual Laws Tract. No human being should have single-handedly amassed such a vast assortment of dead tree paraphernalia.

10. The Express Lane Violator (courtesy of Tripp & Tyler)

Who did I leave out?

10 People You’ll Meet in Line at the Grocery Store (Pt 1)

Walmart Grocery Checkout Line in Gladstone, Missouri

Standing in line at the grocery store is excruciating. It can feel like you’re a Forty-niner panning Stutter’s Mill for just one nugget of gold fortune (or in my case a line at WinCo that I can get out of before my milk gets chunky). Unless your last visit was at age five when your mom let you ride the little rocket ship out front, chances are good that you’ve encountered one of these ten people:

1. The Chit Chatter
Anything from discourse on the most recent Rapture False Alarm to showing pictures from their granddaughter’s tonsillectomy is fair game. I’ve found that using the Fake-A-Call app on my iPhone or pretending to be deaf are the quickest ways to sever ties here.

2. The Spiller
This person is most commonly found trying to pull a gallon-sized pickle jar from the bottom of their cart while setting up the little bar that separates their stuff from your stuff and writing a check, all at the same time. It’s like their practicing to win the gold for the Grocery Checkout Triathlon. The best response is to give them lots of space and start looking for another line.

3. The Exact Changer
Typically a retiree or a young 20-something who just completed Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. They’re secretly hoping the cashier will bestow upon them some sort of exact change trophy while trying to finally ditch that Canadian penny they got from the waiter at Red Robin, without getting caught.

4. The PDAer
Completely oblivious to the fact they’re in a grocery store where children are present. In this case it’s best just to pick another line. Any line will do. Better soggy Klondike Bars than the uncomfortable conversation you and your wife will have with little Billy later that night.

5. The Over Packer
Are aliens coming from Alpha Centauri to turn all our grocery stores into factories for their robot armies, forcing the human race to forage through dumpsters for whatever scraps of food remnants we can find? That’s the first thing that comes to my mind when looking at your carts (yes, CARTS). It’s OK if you have to make more than one trip to the store per decade.

I’ll post the other five next week. In the meantime, who else should be added to this list? Write your ideas below.