Railroaded, Food Porn and Foul Legacies

Railroaded, 

Food Porn

and

Foul Legacies

1. Railroad/US: It has recently come to my attention that there were elections. During these election people were cast into "Stalls" where those cast people cast votes. With all this casting I find it remarkable that so little fish were caught. I mean seriously have you seen the prices of fish at the supermarket. Its outrageous. I would also like to congratulate the American people on voting. Good Job. I hope you received an adequately patriotic sticker for your trouble. From my experience you should have all written in that you would like to see less commercials. Or more facts in said commercials, or happier negative commercials. I honestly believe that I am negative enough for every-one. I was actually considering medicinal mood alterations for awhile. But its over now and you have no one to blame but yourself.
2. Food porn: I am a fan. I will also be attempting to make this. Cannibal Apple Pie or Cannapple Pie. I will post pictures when I have them.
3. A Foul Legacy: As whenever this time of year comes around I like bring a few things to your attention. First of all, Turkeys are horrible monstrous being that deserve what they get. Most of you know about the mythical first Thanksgiving, American's dressed in ridiculous garb got together for a big meal. The Native population almost attacked the (Must be said like John Wayne) "Pilgrums" when they were found in the woods speed loading blunderbuss' and killing Turkey's wholesale. What most of you don't know is why they had the feast in the first place. No it wasn't because lack of appropriate refrigeration would mean that all those birds they has slaughtered would go waste in about 48 hours. It was because the dark and evil "Turkey Overlords" had held the Native Population as their slaves for thousands of years. Then in one afternoon they were all set free. And what goes best with freedom? Food and lots of it, followed by the slow and deliberate re-enslavement and having their land stolen, then opening Casino's.

Getting Served

Getting Served

or

The Reason Sarcasm is now banned from WaWa.

*Disclaimer: The specific Starbucks employee mentioned was fired the next day. Oops.

Moving on....I happen to be a very easy going person. I don't ask for

much, in fact most of the time I don't really try and have a

conversation with people at all. The sound of people weeping gets on

my nerves and seems to follow me around any day I feel chatty. However,

this particular day all I wanted was a simple coffee. I like coffee.

Coffee likes me. We get along great, as long as no one tries to

converse with either of us until we get together for our morning

ritual. I either hit my usual Wawa (where the coffee is usually made with the

tender loving care of other religious coffee drinkers) or, if I'm feeling spendy,

I will hit the Starbucks, which is along the same route to work.

Well, on this particular day, I had to take a different path than I usually do, so I stopped at a relatively new Wawa in my area. Used to the good quality

brew I find at this franchise, I made my black, lightly sweet, cup of coffee,

and took my place in the check out line queue. Some of you are groaning right now. He hasn't paid for it yet, why is he drinking it already? Well, frankly, I made my cup of Joe all by myself, just the way I like it. I may not have filled the water reservoir, or scooped the grounds into the filter, but I poured the resulting liquid smile into the cup, added just the right amount of sugar, and stirred till the granules dissolved. They aren't going to put it back in the pot at this point, are they?

No, of course not. So, logically, standing at the counter waiting to check out is the perfect place to take the edge my early morning stabbie feelings. Two birds, one stone, and all that. Normally, this action would have resulted in a deep, throaty groan, closed eyes, and a small smile. On this day, however, I gagged. You can imagine my disappointment to discover the coffee was ice cold, and at a closer glance had black flakes of something floating in it. Please don't get me wrong, I enjoy a delicious glass of

iced coffee as much as any other addict. Floaties though? Not so much.

I know, it was probably just burned coffee from a pot left on the warmer too long, no biggie right? Well, to me, it most certainly IS a biggie. You see, I come from a long line of coffeinds.We are a rare breed of human who require the achingly sweet embrace of caffeine on a daily basis to ward off a murderous demon that resides deep within us. This demon, if not appeased, makes my normal sarcastic self seem like Bob Hope

in a Christmas special, with Jerry's kids, Santa Clause, and 6000 Puppies thrown in for that extra "if I wasn’t sure I wanted to kill myself before" effect.

We like our coffee hot, fresh, and not burned.

I started to walk back to dump out my cup, and try and find a fresh pot

of hot coffee. Before I could, some clerk, who will be forever known to me as dick face lumpy chins, stopped me and declared in a nasally power mad voice, "You drank from that CUP!!!".

Now, with the entire store staring at us, and the other coffee loving patrons

staring at me like I had something wrong with me, I explained to the

clerk that I had all intentions of purchasing said cup of coffee until

I realized they must have used frozen piss to make this batch of

coffee and I was going to go back to find a decent cup of coffee from

their plethora of coffee dispensers and then purchase a cup when and if I

found one. At this point the other patrons began to try theirs, and

several looks of disgust ruled out the Hazelnut, Irish cream, and

Jamaican Blend from the options available to me. As the clerk

berated me for about 2 minutes for abusing the serve yourself kindness of his establishment, I watched as several future customers set their coffee cups on the counter and left. I pointed to the counter then to the clerk and said. "Your service sucks, your coffee sucks, and now everyone who is in here knows it too." I handed him my cup of coffee and left.

Luckily there is a Starbucks down the road. Well, at least usually that

is a good thing. While waiting in line at the drive through window,

the common thing to do is listen to music and think about what you are

going to order. The person in front me however felt the need to yell.

I assume her screams of anger were at a person on the other end of a

cell phone although she had no cell phone in hand, no kids in the

backseat and no passenger, unless they happened to be invisible. I

suppose she could be an actor, and any play with that kind of language

is going to be high on my must watch list, but I doubted it. So with

the drama unfolding before me we crept slowly in the manufactured

circle of service around the Starbucks. The screamer pleasantly

ordered something with too many names to be called a coffee, and I

ordered my usual heart bursting caffeine overload. When I finally

reached the window, I paid for the white and green cup, and waited for them to finish making my coffee. The clerk who took my money set my cup of coffee on the little metal counter just inside the window. I knew it was my cup because the espresso box was marked with a number 6, followed by 3 question marks.

And then she left. Walked away. Leaving my cup of coffee all by itself,

alone, without handing it out the window to me. There sat my hot

cup of coffee, slowly getting colder, kept from me by only a glass and

metal frame. That was locked by the way! I tried to open it but it

wouldn't open.

About 2 minutes later I noticed the woman working the drive through window was standing at the corner having a cigarette, and talking on her cell phone. And there I sat. So I did the only thing I deemed to be the least violent, much to the chagrin of my inner demon, who would’ve preferred I smashed the drive through window and retrieve my cup of coffee. I got out of my truck, locked the doors, and went in to talk to the manager. About the time I got inside they were all asking about the truck sitting in the drive through. I explained that it was mine and I had been forced to stare at my coffee sitting in the window in front of me for the last five minutes without bothering to hand it to me before she took a smoke break out behind the Starbucks. I think I went on for a little while because I blacked out with rage at this point and found myself walking back to my truck with a gift card and a fresh cup of coffee in hand. So there I was, a fresh cup of coffee in hand, and more free cups to come in the future, walking past the clerk who had snubbed and forgotten me. Well, obviously, there was only one thing to do. I got in my truck, rolled down my window and drove up to where she was.

I poured my coffee on the ground about where her feet were and drove

next door to Dunkin’ Donuts and got a cup of coffee there.

I have not been back to the WaWa. However, the manager of the Starbucks remembered me, apologized again and gave me another free cup of coffee. Cool guy, he also fired the clerk. That's justice, and the Sarcasm Way.

So remember, Customer service is not dead, with the appropriate amount

of rage it comes back rather quickly, with bonus prizes.

Ballad of the wing-men..

I am not a follower of the "Bro" Bible as founded by Barney Stinson on "How I met your mother." In fact I have been out of the dating game for some time. Well, 12 years is more than some time, but that is a conversation for another time. But, as a married man, when hanging out with single men, you are going to be the wing-man 99.9% of the time, and it is a responsibility I take seriously. Unlike single men, married men have nothing to prove, and nothing to lose by walking up to an attractive women with the trademarked, "Ha-a-a-ave you met Ted?" If they shoot us down it doesn't effect our ego because we already have a beautiful wife we are committed to back home, so nothing is lost to us.

For the last 6 months, I have been working a contract with the US Navy as a Graphic Designer on board an Air Craft Carrier. With my civilian rank, I find myself spending more time with pilots and officers. This always guarantees a good time, and stories to share with the wife and friends back home. While we have been busy and have only stopped at a few liberty ports, I feel it is my duty to share some lessons learned as the permanent on hand wing-man.

First: Your responsibility as a wing-man (as it pertains to flying wing-man for Naval aviators; there is a difference trust me). Accept your call sign. Mine was "Cash". This is important to aviators. They will have entire conversations with you using this name. This is your new name, accept it, embrace it, and respond accordingly. You can miss very important details about the path your night is going to take if you do not pay close attention. For example: "Cash, you'll need to talk to the one with a mustache so she doesn't get bored and take all the hot women home with them." This small missed phrase almost lost my friends the chance to spend some quality time with very attractive Swedish teachers. It is called jumping on the hand-grenade. As the wing man, who has no interest in the pursuit, this is your responsibility to deal with. Be funny, interesting, and keep the pattern full. Once the the rest of your group has paired off and separated from the hand-grenade, you politely excuse yourself, or mention your wife and kids. Hand-grenade defused, you can carry on with the rest of your night filled with people watching, dancing, copious amounts of imbibing......or whatever your thing is.

Second: If you are all headed back to the hotel, and the cab only has room for 4 people, and you are the fifth, as the wing-man it is your responsibility to catch the next cab. As a note, this cab should not arrive at the hotel for at least 2 hours. Arriving early can cause some unsavory mind burning trauma, should you arrive too early and find your single room has been commandeered for the greater good. So, be prepared to have extra money for time at the hotel bar, or have a visual code, like the universally understood sock on the door handle, and make sure your roomies set your laptop by the door so you can at least peruse the inter-webs while they "Call in the alert 30 strike package." On a second note, if your pilots are slapped and left naked following an also naked, quickly dressing, British female down the hotel hallway after the last phrase is shouted during intercourse, it is in no way your fault if she makes it out the front door of the hotel and into a cab. Holding people any where against their will is kidnapping, and always will be. If you have to explain this, it is time to call in a replacement pilot. You do not want to be associated with this one anymore, no matter how funny it is to watch him try to explain to the military police and local authorities why he is bare naked on the street, screaming at a cab that left 20 minutes ago.

Third: Pilots should have respect for the wing man. I walked up and talked to the women first, kept the conversation funny and personable every time the conversation died, sacrificed sleep, and at times, pride, so that you could pursue your conquest of an exotic goddess in a foreign land. You owe the wing man. He lied, bribed, sacrificed, and sweated so you could have your fun. This is a list of things you should not ask your wing man to do.

#1: Permanent forfeiture of hotel room based on "falling in love". Quite frankly, "FUCK YOU". This is most important when you have been on a US Naval Vessel for the last 6 months. Get your own damn room if you are in love, and want to spend the last 2 days of liberty with your Spanish beauty you only met last night in that topless bar. You can't have my room. You wanted to share a room, and feel uncomfortable when your roommate walks in on you.

#2: If you order a round, you ordered the round, and therefore you pay for said round out of your money. Just because my call sign is "CASH" doesn't give me the ability to shit money and cover your idiocy.

#3: If you get her drunk, you have to clean up after her. That is not my job. If I have to, I will curse your name the entire time I hold her hair back as she pukes, while you try to pick up her friend down at the bar.

#4: Any failure on your part to close the deal is not my fault. I don't care how close you got, what went wrong, what you said about the hair on her nipples, or shouting random ass thoughts while in mid-coitus. NOT MY FAULT. This is not potty training, or summer camp. I am not Yoda. I am not going to call a time out and slap the shit out of you before you abruptly slap her ass and knock her off the crappy box springs on wheels they call beds in your small cheap ass room. However, if you wake me up, or approach me while I'm eating, to go into detail about what went wrong, right, or ask what an STD looks like, I will fucking stab you in the face.

#5: During the down time of the cruise at our hotel, if I am in my room, using the internet to talk to my kids, wife or mother, and you walk in and expose yourself to any of my family, punishment will be dealt out when you are drunk, and at your most vulnerable. For 50 Euros, most janitors will jump into bed with you while you are passed out. Many will do it butt ass naked wearing lipstick, and will kiss you awake for 150. While you sew your oats, I want the time to talk with my family. I respect your fun. Please respect mine, or suffer the consequences.

Holidaze

For the sake of sanity and frankly because I don't believe in working during the holidays we will be coming back to you on the 3rd of January with more of our dry wit and satire in the meantime I hope that you can find something to do with yourself.

If not you can always wait here and hold your breath. We will be more than happy to pick up and dispose of any bodies (dead or not) upon our return. I have to have something to feed Cthulhu.

So from the Sarcasm Family to yours.

Little Cthulhu

Sarcasm's Sister Vol. 2

Every Sunday morning, while my dear Grampa is watching from the west side of the mountains, my Mom, here on the east side, watches CBS Sunday Morning. They’ve watched this show “together” for years now. It’s a beautiful thing, really, knowing that even though they aren’t in the same room, they are both tuning in at the same time each week.

I don’t always watch the show, but today I sat still long enough to enjoy it with them, and Oh am I glad I did. Today they did a feature about the creators of the website AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. For today's blog post, instead of posting an angry and/or sarcastic rant about whatever is irritating me this week, I’d like to post a few of the photos I laughed at the most, along with the comments of the people who posted the photos. When we were growing up, our Mom would get us all dressed up, and we’d go get our own Family Photo’s taken for the year. I won’t be posting any of ours, but I thought some free publicity for Mike and Doug at AFP would be a great Thank You to them for this genius idea of theirs. This is the week before Christmas, after all.
Enjoy! (as much as I did, I hope) Remember, the comments and photos are not mine. They are just some of the comments and photos posted on the site.


You actually will shoot your eye out, kid.

You should hear her play the screwdriver.

If he couldn’t blow out the candles, his father was always there to back him up.

This young man had blinked for the last time.

A reminder never to use a baby as a bookend.

“My in-laws live on a farm in central Virginia. One particular afternoon I wanted to get some photos of my father-in-law. Naturally he was outside tending to his horses. This horse needed some shots and we all know horses don’t comply when they see the ‘needle.’”

This horse was very upset when he heard he wasn’t a part of the “bridal” party.


There is a theory that people look like their pets.

Barley had been upstaged for the last time.

Don’t say I never did anything nice for you......

Once upon a time, in the land of make believe, lived a young, beautiful girl, who just happened to be lucky enough to be raised with good manners. She was taught very important things, like brushing her teeth, bathing regularly, saying please, thank you, yes ma’am, no ma’am, and to eat all her limabeans. For many years life was fairly uneventful, and the young girl lived a happy life, full of happy thoughts, with a smile on her face.

Until one day, while foraging for food for her poor, hungry family, she entered a dark and scary wood. Although she was trepidacious, she knew her little puppy was hungry too, so she gathered all her bravery, and stepped into the ominous trees.

The going was rough, due to the darkness and fallen trees all over, but otherwise uneventful...........at first. The young girl felt that she had been walking for miles and miles, and was becoming very tired, when suddenly light began to shine through the trees. Feeling that she must finally be coming to the other side of the dark wood, the girl walked a bit faster. Breaking through the darkness into the light, the girl came upon a small field of sagebrush. She pushed through the sagebrush, scratching her arms and catching her clothes, but finally she made it to the other side. When she looked up she could see a huge archway, with a gigantic door inside it, a big red cowboy hat on the front, with A R B Y ‘ S written inside. “What could this be?”, she thought. The door was so large, so large that she thought there would be no way she could open it herself, as she was small of frame, and weak in muscle. That’s when the smell of curly fries, roast beef, cheddar-melts, potato cakes, and chocolate turnovers touched her nose, and suddenly she knew she must get in! She took a step back, appraised the door to decide the best angle in which to open it, and then started to reach for the handle.

Just as she had a good grip, and was ready to pull with all her might, she heard a noise from behind her. Looking in that direction, the girl saw an older woman heading toward the very same door the girl was about to open. The woman looked frail, and downright sickly, and the young girl knew immediately what she should do. Gritting her teeth, and digging her heels into the ground, the girl pulled on the door with all the strength she could muster. At first the door wouldn’t budge, but then with a loud squelch, the door began to swing open, slowly at first, and then faster, it’s own weight pushing it open. After what seemed like forever, the door was finally open wide enough to walk through. The young girl stepped to the other side of it, propping it open with her own body weight, and turned to smile at the older woman, as if to say, “Please, you go first!”

At first the woman didn’t say anything, just stood looking at the young girl. But then she began to move, at her own lazy pace as people her age do, and started to head into the open doorway. The young girl pushed back on the door, which was very heavy, but kept smiling, holding it open for the older woman to walk through, knowing that she was doing the right thing by helping the woman. As the woman got closer, the young girl could see that she was not frail at all, nor was she sickly. This woman had obviously had a rough life, and her wrinkly face told a story of too much drink, and too much sun. But having been taught from a young age to be kind to everyone, no matter who they may be, the young girl just kept smiling away, pressing all of her weight against the heavy door to keep it open.

Just as the older woman stepped just inside the doorway, face to face with the young girl, she stopped, turned and with a grumpy face, and a sour tongue, said to the girl, “Finally, people your age are starting to do things for everyone else.”

The young girl could not believe her ears. Was she smiling? Check. Were her feet out of the way so the woman could pass? Check. Was the doorway wide enough for the woman to get through? Check. Well, alrighty then.

The young girl looked the older woman dead in the eye, and said, “I was raised to be kind. I was raised to be giving. I was raised to help those less fortunate than myself.” The older woman raised her eyebrows and started to say something else, but before she could, the young woman interrupted her and said, “However, I was also raised not to put up with anyone's crap, no matter who they are, and especially if I did nothing to deserve it. So, because you suck, you can open your own damn door.”

And with that, the young girl straightened herself, released the door, and walked on through. Head held high, with a smile on her face, the girl heard a cry of pain and disbelief from behind her as the door slammed into the only thing blocking it’s path.

Moral of the story: Be grateful. Be gracious. Be humble. Honor other people. Be kind whenever possible, and always say thank you. Don’t judge. Never forget everyone is an individual. Get to know them, you may be surprised. And don’t be all shocked and dismayed if your rudeness is thrown back in your face. You earn what you get.

~ A Little Sarcasm

Yesterdays Blog post was written By my dear friend Sardnicism, and today my Little Sister Sarcasm had something to say about an experience at Arbys. Some people can;t be happy, unfortunately for this old she encountered "A Little Sarcasm".

Driving or "Top 5 ways I know we are complete tools"

The peaceful lull of the road, the vast openness, the interconnecting expanse connecting everyone to everything; the quintessential veins of America. Is there anything truly as majestic as the open road? It’s serene nature filling my heart with.........

What the fuck man!!??? Really??? Really guy??? How in the hell did you get a license!!???

Haven’t we all been there? Just when we start taking the system for granted it comes back and rears it’s ugly head and shoves humanity’s lack of social skills right in our face. I, of course, am talking about driving or better yet OTHER DRIVERS.

We all know we can drive. We’re the best at what we do, and what we do is drive. We were born to do this. It’s everyone else that can’t drive. I was raised on driving in snow, it’s easy. I’m a natural at driving fast. I got this.

Apparently not.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, we have been living a lie. The worst lie of all: the one you tell yourself. We can’t drive. We are horrible drivers. We are small squishy pink meat-bags sitting between 2,000 pounds of “Oh-no-he-didn’t”. Oh yes, he did.

Now individually, we might be the Mario Andretti’s of the motorized world. We can handle 16 inches of snow, pelting sleet, torrential downpours and winds in excess of 87 knots. But collectively....wow....we suck. It’s like we all take this massive brain dump when we merge into traffic. We forget everything our father’s (or drunken grandfathers) taught us about 10 and 2, polite street manners and passing on the right-hand side and replace it with....”Must break land-speed record, must not let asshole pass me”.

It is to this effect that I present to you the top 5 reasons we; the collective driving world, are complete tools.

5. Lanes merge...we don’t. You see it every day. That douche-bag who rides out the last 17 miles of road that he drives EVERYDAY and knows damn well ends in a merge. 60% of the cars got over and are patiently awaiting traffic to die down so they can get to little Timmy and that roast duck. But not this guy. He’s got it all planned out. He’ll just slide in there and take that 2 foot gap between the patient cars. He’ll save LOADS of time. He’s a douche and guess what....so are we. What do we do to Mr. Impatient....we put our asses bumper-to-bumper...that will show em. Get in front of me now asshole.

4. Get out of my way, I’m a terribly important man on a terribly important, critical mission from God. I’m going to go 175 in a 55. I’m going to swerve in and out of traffic like they were parked cars in a game of Frogger. I’m going to get about 2 millimeters from your Garfield suction cup window ornament and you’re not going to do a damn thing about it. Why? Because I’m important. I’m in a hurry and you’re shit out of luck. Or are we? Because I know the secret to infuriating you: Mr. Importante`...meet Mr. Brake Pedal. Oh yeah. Here’s to you cruising past me now. Stuck between Garfield on one side and Grandma on the other. You’re screwed now. Good luck getting that organ to the hospital on time now, loser.

3. Well, he’s speeding, so I might as well. The “screener”, the “guinea pig”, the “guy-more-likely-to-get-a-ticket-than-you”; whatever you want to call it. For some reason it seems perfectly logical to get behind Mr. Get-out-of-my-way and cruise on in the home plate. After all, he’s doing all the leg work, you’re just riding on his coattails. Nevermind that the logic makes no sense and that most cops tag the person BEHIND the person speeding. That just makes too much sense.

2. Stop signs really are optional if you stop and think about it...good thing I didn’t. Stop signs, yield signs, (slow) children at play signs...you name it, chances are you’ve ignored one in the last 24 hours. It’s ok, we all suck...not just you. We all KNOW they’re important. We all KNOW they serve a purpose and a reason for existing...we just don’t care. Why should we, the last 137 people rolling through them didn’t? What was that rule about the person to the right of the 4-way stop sign....oh, I remember, the person to the right doesn’t have to stop, right?

And the number one reason:

1. Gimmie a break, Gimmie a break, break me off a piece of that...car in front of me.....just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? You’re driving on the Interstate (insert random odd and or even numbers here), going breakneck speed, observing all of the wonderful items from steps 5 through 2 when suddenly, that jerk in the fast lane decides to perform the “Brake of Death” and slow you down (what an asshole, right?). He brakes, you brake, the person behind you brakes, Jimmy Joe Sue behind that person brakes, Billy Bob, yup..he brakes too. But Curly Jimbo...he can’t brake. He can’t break because he’s already at a complete stop on the interstate. He can’t brake because the other 12,000 motorists in front of him had to brake. Each one slowing down a little more until they get to Curly. Yup...that’s how traffic jams happen. Yup...that’s how organs don’t get delivered to orphans. Yup, that’s why we all suck at driving. Because you had to be a dick and slow me down when I wanted to drive fast in the fast lane.

You should be ashamed of yourself.