Monday, June 9, 2008

If your daddy parts are orange...


It's not every day that you get stopped by two young people frantically running across the street and asking you to tell a joke to someone on the phone so they can win a scavenger hunt.  ("It's not every day you're dressed as a homeless clown," S. might say, to which I would say, "Yes, it is.")  "I only know dirty jokes," I protested.  "That's okay," they assured me.

They dialled, and delightedly handed me the phone.  A friendly-sounding guy answered.  I said, "Hi, my name is Claire, and I'm here with [insert names here] and I'm supposed to tell you a funny joke."

"Right," he said.

"What's the best part about having sex with twenty eight year olds?"

"I don't know, tell me," he said.

"There's twenty of them," I said, and gleefully watched the faces of everyone around me twist in horror.

"Nice," he said.  "Very classy."

I'm a classy girl.

I'm back in Canada after a whirlwind trip down to Pittsburgh to go to Bernie's surprise thirtieth birthday party, which I can finally talk about.  It's hard to keep secrets for two months.  Poor Bernie couldn't understand why no-one was available to watch her dogs.  It was because they were all lurking in the undergrowth at her friend Jason's house, eating all the commemorative M&Ms and tiny meatballs.

While in Pittsburgh, I also went to the Jonathan Coulton concert ("All we want to do is eat your brains!"), opened for by the incomparable Paul and Storm.  Justin told me he loved Paul and Storm, and now, I do too.  You have to love anyone who shouts, "Do we have any computer engineers in the house?  Of course we do, we're at a Jonathan Coulton concert!"  Seriously, this was the nerdiest show I've ever been to; for one thing, when Paul and Storm sang their pirate song ("Everyone, excited arrr!  Dejected arrr!") and they told everyone to do "pi arrr", the whole crowd went, "Arr, arr, arr, a-"  Yep, exactly 3.14156 arrrrrs.  It would have been a great place to meet guys, since everyone probably read Heinlein, watched Battlestar Galactica, and made more money than I ever will.  Rich and dorky, just the way I like 'em; only way it could have been better is if they were all Jewish.  I like a little Jew in my man (I was about to say I like a little Jew in *me*, but that would be tasteless).

The trip was uneventful, if long, although traveling with B and S is immensely fun.  The border guard crossing into the States had the most amazing smile I've ever seen; he was like a jolly postman.  The sum total of questions he asked us was: a) do you have any alcohol?  b) How about tobacco?  c) Any illegal aliens in the trunk?

"No, but we brought some tinfoil hats," B said.

"Wrong kind of aliens," I stage whispered.  I wanted to leap out of the car and be friends with the border guard.  He looked so happy.  I bet he had room in that little booth.  I could have told him jokes.

1 comment:

Kevin Ross said...

I remember an old Calvin and Hobbes strip -- no, really I just remember the last panel -- anyway, Calvin is saying something about how it's his job to make everybody's day just a little more surreal.

That's our Claire.

I am ripping off that joke; hope you don't mind. I just turned thirty-eight, you see...