No Laughing Matter, Yet, I Laugh

Okay before I begin, a quick word. The following may seem cruel, or just plain wrong. I do not mean it this way. Hurricane Charley was a devastating force. It did serious damage and took many lives. Florida will never be the same for it, and for that, I am truly saddened. I really do feel for everyone in Florida. I love Florida, it's a gorgeous state. I have friends who actually had JUST moved there before Charley hit, and I spent the weekend worrying. So the following column has nothing to do with Florida. I support Florida in it's time of need, it's citizens are in my thoughts, and I know they will band together to make it through this disaster. If I could, I would get out there at sea and redirect every hurricane away from them, buying them time to get their lives back in order. I can only hope that Mother Nature will be so kind. So Florida is not involved in the following humor at all. Florida had every reason to do the things it did, and the things I may be about to mock slightly. They knew they were going to get nailed with the worst of the storm, so they are right in their actions.

Now that that's been said, I bring you: Hurricane Season In My Area. As you know, unless you live under a rock in which case glad you have internet access so I can inform you, it is Hurricane season. In the area I live in, the mere words send everyone into a tizzy. Radios are always on, the news is watched, the hit count on local network websites increases dramatically. All eyes are on the tropics. Each depression is monitored and tracked with painstaking accuracy, not only by trained and qualified meteorologists, but by everyday folk. Hurricane Information days are given. Storm tracking maps are handed out at every store. People start stocking up on canned goods when they're on sale.

Then one forms. It becomes a great topic of conversation. "Hey, have you seen Danielle? Oh yeah, she's a beaut. She's a two now you know, they're expectin' she'll make three. They say she won't hit land, but they're just weathermen, what do they know? I'll be happy once it's past us." Then comes the traffic, and the parking lots being full, and the grocery store lines a mile long, and when I do finally get to the bread row I have to fight for the last loaf of rye bread from a lady with a cartful already when I don't even like rye bread! But by then I'm just too dang frustrated to go searching other stores for bread I do like. I'm tunnelvisioned. I have one goal, and one goal only. Get bread, buy bread, go home with bread, make sandwich, watch Weather Channel with sandwich.

And oh boy just you wait 'til they predict one for our area. If you thought the bread was hard to come by you try finding plywood, Spaghetti O's, Spam, gas, and propane. It is not pretty, and the store owners will gouge you every chance they get. Every other yard has some guy out in it with two saw horses, a stack of plywood and a tape measure. The stores and banks are digging out their wood from their storage buildings and matching it with the window it went to last time "The Big One" rolled through. And whew, if it's a real big one, I suggest filling every damn thing you can with gas, because you're going to need it in the traffic jam you'll be stuck in between the highway and Tennessee.

Are you scratching your head going "What are you talking about categories and size and crap?" Well then howdy midwesterner, see over here in the east, where we sip our smok-a-lot-ehs from the Starcash and swim the intranet well, we got these things called hurricanes. They're really big spinning storms. No, not tornados, bigger. Yeah, now you're scared aren't ya. We classify these hurricanes into categories, much like you do tornados with your f1's and f4's. Our hurricanes have 5 categories. To make it easy on you to understand, I will compare them to your average freshman bullying. A Category 1, is a swirlie. You know, when the big kid stuck your head in that nasty toilet and flushed it? Category 2, is a good ol' fashioned locker stuffing, and in a category two, well you might just like being in such an enclosed space. A Category 3 is a fist fight in the middle of the hall. A couple punches and a teacher breaks it up, one of you has a black eye, the other a split lip, and both of ya bloody noses. A Category 4 is a good ol' fashioned smackdown. Being ambushed on the way home from school, just you and the bully, no adults, surrounded by your peers chanting "Fight, fight, fight, fight." A Category 5, is the king. A category five is your ol' fashioned smackdown, but a mugger who'll either rape you or stab you before running off with your cash, your credit cards, and your cell phone.

Modern Day Phone Tag

We've come a long way from the days of carrier pigeons and party lines, but one thing has remained the same throughout the centuries. Phone tag. Give it any name, it doesn't matter, the endless game of communicating back and forth without actually talking to each other. It's been around for eons. back in the 1880's Marcus would go up to the door and knock and Mrs. Black would answer and Marcus would ask if Kevin were there and Kevin wouldn't be there, but Mrs. Black could give him a message, which would then send Kevin the three miles to Marcus' house where he would find that he was not home, but the missus could take a message. And so on, and so forth.

Eventually it moved on to the wonderful age of technology, and instead of walking the three miles, Marcus' son Mark could call up Kevin's son Ken and leave a message with his mother. This saved a lot on shoes. Soon answering machines came into the picture, and then people began screening their calls. Then the internet came into play.

I'm of the opinion that e-mail is based on phone tag. Really, I mean, you type this thing up, send it to a friend, leave your desk, do a dance, make a sandwich, watch a rerun of Law and Order(because they're ALWAYS on) and when you come back, whoa, your friend e-mailed while you were gone. Strange though, how so many people get frustrated with phone tag, but never with e-mail.

Now it's even gotten to the point where we're playing IM tag, people get online, log on, and then put up away messages saying things like "I'm at school! Leave one." or "I'm sleeping! Zzzz. Leave me something nice." Isn't that the same as e-mailing? I know I for one can't just leave one. To me, sentences are like Pringles, once I pop, I just can't stop. People also say things on their IM away messages like "Sleeping, call the cell if you need me." or "Went to the store, call the cell." In the first example, why would you ask people to call and wake you up if you're sleeping. But aside from that, then, if you do really need to talk, or sometimes are just bored, you call the cell, only to recieve voice mail. It's ridiculous.

Pop Culture Queen

You might as well call me the Pop Culture Queen. I am so entertainment oriented I find a way to work pop culture into every conversation. Most of the time subconciously. Drawing comparissons from Television Show plotlines. How long I would last in reality TV. Even throwing out obscure movie and tv quotes.

Fortunately for me my friends are also pop culture fanatics. One friend and I quote song lyrics at each other, and frequently use them in our away messages. Another understands my random TV quotes. Yet another will get into an indepth conversation on exactly what the IQ of every contestant on Big Brother is.

Often I speculate on the plot of television shows with my friends and even my father. I also compare events happening in my real life to those on tv. I love to watch ET on MTV/VH1, and Best Week Ever. And VH1's I Love The _____ series is my crack.

One of my new favorite shows is Entourage, since it's like double the guilty pleasure. It's a TV show, ABOUT the inside of the entertainment industry, I can't lose. Plus there's cool cameos all the time. It's fantastic. Except, Jessica Alba does NOT look good blonde. I know, she did it for her three new movies (Into The Blue, The Fantastic Four and Sin City) but still, she needs to change back as soon as they're done.

The best, most prime example of this is today. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, and the topic turned to another friend of mine. Now, my friend doesn't know this friend, but knows of him. At any rate, I made the comment, "He gives me a toothache." At which point she responded "Okay, Cher." Now, I should have understood, it should have been a quote, but it wasn't. It was just my subconcious inserting it into my speech, and I had to ask "Huh?" before she reminded me about Cher's line in Clueless. "He said you gave him a toothache." "How'd I do that?" "It's an expression! It means he thinks your sweet." Maybe I am more like Cher than I thought, clueless.

So, anytime you're ready to give me my official Pop Culture Queen crown, I'm ready. Or maybe just a comment telling me what a loser I am, and how I need to get out more. Well you listen here! I've been around the world! I mean, seriously, haven't you ever seen The Amazing Race?!