You can quote me on that!

Quite often MD, Al and I are together, and someone says something stupidly funny. Sometimes it's also stupidly rude, so we agree it's out of bounds for the bloggisphere. Sometimes it's not just funny, but it makes you think: "Could that be true?"
Either way, more often than not, we chorus together: "I'm blogging about that one!"

So, here are a few I thought could be opened up for discussion and comment:

MD: As most of you know, MD is off on a trip to Sweden shortly. When I asked her recently why she had cut down on the wine, started eating way too much salad, and begun getting up at stupid o'clock in the morning to exercise, she simply said: "Because Deb, you can't be fat in Sweden". Being that MD is far from fat, I really do wonder if there is anyone under a size 8 in Sweden. I mean, does she really have a point?

Al: After spending the day at his local drinking establishment in the upper end of town, Al came to work complaining how it had been taken over by gay men. I reckon I have a pretty good gaydar, and (obviously) Al is gay, however, I still naively asked him how he knew everyone there was gay. His response: "Because Deb, every one of them owns an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt, G-Star jeans and Prada sunglasses". Can this be true?

Then there is another friend of mine who recently said to me (about my ex Jack): "Sometimes his head is so big, he can't get it through the car door". Seriously, did she make that up, or have any of you heard that before?

And here is one I thought was common, but apparently my family made it up. When something fits really well (like when tightly squeezing a piece of furniture into an alcove and it has no room to spare on either side) I would say: "Fits like a bum in a bucket".

So, the list could go on, but I ask you my good friends, what are your quotes?

My Package

Now that MD and Al have had a good laugh about this silly situation, I thought you might appreciate an update on my package.
Ladies and gentlemen, my package has been found! Nearly 2 weeks after it’s disappearance, I received a phone call at work. A phone call from Michelle. I have no idea who Michelle is, however, she says during said phone call (quite fast and without taking a breath): “I know this might sound like a strange question, but did you send me a DVD? It’s just that the note inside says it’s from Deb and you are the first Deb in the work directory, so I thought I’d ring you and ask you if you sent me a DVD….” I had to stop the poor girl, she was in such a tizz. I confirmed that yes, the package was sent from me, and no, it was not for her. She seemed a little disappointed, but told me she’d drop the package to me at my desk.

20 seconds after hanging up, she was at my desk.
Turns out Michelle is new, and sits about 15 metres away from me.

All that stress of wondering where my package was, and worrying who had received it, and it was that close all along.
Dorothy was right, you should never go looking any further than your own back yard.

Taxi Tales

With MD and Al both posting blogs about taxi rides, I would like to join in on this particular subject. While they both spend much time in taxi's - my role demands I spend most time in taxi's. This, I believe, allows me to be quite the expert on taxi capers.
Whilst I am fortunate enough to not have been in a situation such as MD found herself in, I can certainly relate to Al and the fear he holds for his life when entering into the yellow capsule. It's like Russian Roulette - we may have survived thus far, but one day that bullet will come up. It's incomprehensible that these people are trusted with our lives and hold such little regard for this small fact.
As well as the dangerous driving, there is also the dangerous environment. I've been in a cab where the driving was OK, but the state of the cab made me grateful that I always have a travel size Dettol sanitizing gel in my handbag. Seriously. The vinyl seats were ripped, the back vents were non existent, gaffa tape was holding several things together, and the roof (and pretty much everything else) was covered in grubby hand marks. How is this allowed? What if I was new to Melbourne and this was my first experience of a taxi? Not acceptable! I regret that in my haste to leave the taxi, I didn't get the taxi number to report it.
Then there is the problem of the smelly taxi. This has happened on several occasions. I'm not talking about "unpleasant", I'm talking about "I don't care if it's snowing outside, I'm opening all 4 windows because I need the air (and possibly somewhere to vomit)". Again, not acceptable.
And here's a new one: The taxi with no fuel. This week alone I have been in 4 cabs that have their petrol light on. One even loudly beeped the whole 30 minute journey as if begging it's driver to hydrate it. How the driver ignored this I do not know, but it made my journey most unpleasant as I resisted the urge to tell the driver to fill up just to stop that blasted beeping! I mean it's stressful enough not knowing if I'm going to make it to my destination alive, let alone with the added stress that if I do make it, I'll be late because the driver had to pull into a Caltex....

Indivi-dual-ity

Words...have you ever thought about them? I mean, we use them all the time, but really, the beauty of words is that most of us don't even think about how we use them - they just....get used. Some are over used. I work in a corporate world, and I can tell you (moving forward), that some words (in the current climate) get so over used (so to speak), that they loose all meaning. Most meetings, phone calls, emails & memo's could take half the time if such superlatives were just omitted. If we have to use so many words in a day, could we not (at the very least) find new words to replace the old? It really would make the work place so much more educational. I mean, thesaurus's were invented for a reason...
I think of this because I do work with some very intelligent people. I work very closely with a migrant (we'll call her Dallas), who - despite her not arriving in Australia until 3 years ago - has a better grasp on the English language than I do. This perturbs me somewhat. Instead of saying "we get along together as the relationship works for the both of us" she will instead say "we share reciprocity".
Then there are the other two characters you probably know - MD and Al.
MD has almost been banned from Friday night quiz. As if her English wasn't good enough, she can also answer in another - somewhat exotic - European language (not sure if you'd like me to give away what this language is MD- is that getting too personal?). Then she could probably tell you the country of origin of where that question came from, and the history of any related fact...anyway - MD just has a way with words.
Then there is Al. He walks up to my desk ranting and raving about whatever the latest thing to rant and rave about is, and somehow manages to throw "duplicitous" into his descriptive. This made me feel somewhat offended, and at the same time, in awe of the somewhat adventurous use of such a descriptive adjective (tautological I know, but I like to get my point across doubly so).
Oh words.....don't even get me started on double entendre's, oxymoron's, acronyms and thing-a-lings...and what's the word for when you put two words together and somehow it makes sense (read: "Spork = implement that converges spoon and fork)??