Friday, October 9, 2009

Memo to Oslo

My wife cancelled the ground-line phone service we'd been getting via the cable company, without realizing that this would also require us to get a new cable-modem connection for the high-speed DSL Internet service.

So Friday morning, I had no Internet and -- because my wife was working lunch shift as the school cafeteria lady -- it fell my duty to go to the cable company and get this mess straightened out, a task for which my impatient temperament makes me particularly ill-suited. (Please hit the tip jar, so I can hire an intern to deal with mundane crap like this.)

After a 10-minute wait behind the herd of mouth-breathing subliterates demanding service -- Why did the cable company cancel their pro-wrestling premium pay-per-view? Can payment be made in food stamps? -- until it was my turn to talk to the friendly woman at the counter named Vonda, who accepted the old Internet modem I was turning in and disappeared into the backroom.

Tempus fugits and time is money, and every minute I waste standing in line at the cable company is a minute I'm not doing something for which I might be paid money. By contrast, Vonda is being paid $20 an hour, no matter how slowly and inefficiently she performs her job, but can't be fired unless her employer is prepared to spend the money necessary to fight a wrongful-termination suit.

Vonda is a woman and is therefore a "protected class" under state and federal law. She has full benefits and a salary, but any actual work she does is strictly optional. Her company has a government-licensed monopoly on cable service in our county, and I can't even get online to rattle the tip jar. (Thanks to Randall in Ohio, Eric in Texas, and Barry in Missouri for their contributions. Whether it's $1, $10, $25 or $50, every donation is appreciated by my wife and six kids.)

Welcome to the 21st century, you see. So my time is wasted while Vonda goes to the backroom and I stand there at the counter amid the mouth-breathing wrestling fans. Well, as my late father said, "Whoever told you life was supposed to be fair, son?"

Vonda returns to tell me that it will be a few minutes before the new modem is ready. Does this mean I'll have time enough to go smoke a cigarette? Yes, probably, says Vonda.

So I go outside, fire up a Parliament Light and start flipping through my cell-phone, trying to find someone I need to call, perhaps to get some usefulness out of this time I'm being forced to waste at the cable company. (Fact: Hunter S. Thompson never had to deal with this kind of two-bit crap.)

Ah, Stogie at Saberpoint! I call to thank him for his services and -- since I haven't seen any news the past 14 hours -- ask him what's up. He tells me that Obama has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. We talk a few more minutes before Vonda comes trotting out the front door of the cable company office, waving some paperwork I need to sign.

Great. Well, good-bye, Stogie. Hello, Vonda.

No justice in the world, you see? Even Obama admits he's done nothing to merit the Nobel Prize, while I'm compelled to deal with Vonda and the cable company, merely to get my Internet service re-connected. He's the Leader of the Free World, the object of worldwide admiration, and I'm an inconsequential peon, dealing with the cable company.

People ignore my e-mails and don't return my phone calls. Allahpundit hasn't linked me in months and you can go count the trackbacks at my Hot Air Greenroom special report to see how little interest conservative bloggers have paid to my reporting on the Sparkman case in Kentucky. Even Moe Lane won't link it.

Why? Because I suck, which is why Erik Telford makes sure I'm never invited to attend important conferences like the Defending the Dream Summit.

Dad was right. Life is unfair. You'd think a middle-aged man would be mature enough to deal with that. And now Obama is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Because I suck.

Ah, well, I've still got the Paco Award. They can't take that away from me, can they? Hit the tip jar.

UPDATE: 5:25 p.m.: Michelle Malkin notices that the DNC Humor Commissars have now classified sarcasm as terrorism, which means we're all doomed to be waterboarded at the Blogospheric Gitmo.

31 comments:

  1. Remember MacReady's comments about the Norweigans in The Thing (1982)?

    "Hey Swedes!"

    Whisky tango Foxtrot?! I've woken up in Bizarro world.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's been a national joke since Carter and Gore got theirs. It's nice to see it progress to an international realization.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What is the area code for Hell?

    ReplyDelete
  4. When the going gets weird...

    ...the weird get Nobel Prizes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Rich Fader said...
    When the going gets weird...

    Lewis Grizzard once wrote a bestseller titled, I Haven't Understood Anything Since 1962. Of course, I was only 3 years old in 1962, but the basic point is true. The evil forces of Modern Progress are such that, the longer you live, the less the world makes sense.

    Damn, I miss ol' Lewis . . .

    ReplyDelete
  6. It's always most ludicrous until you're proven right. I keep thinking we're at the tipping point, and then we get to an even MORE tipping point.

    I will say that my constant switching from rage to depression has made an interesting impression at my office.

    ReplyDelete
  7. William said: I will say that my constant switching from rage to depression has made an interesting impression at my office."

    Always safest to stick with bitter sarcasm, William. When life becomes a joke, the real winner is he who supplies the most cynical punchline.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Did you ever see the movie Falling Down staring Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall?

    ReplyDelete
  9. "When life becomes a joke, the real winner is he who supplies the most cynical punchline."

    Yeah. Right!

    (Do I win anything???)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Is it Peace Prize, or Piece Prize (or Pizza Prize), I wasn't to sure this morning.
    Keep your chin up, anybody that emulates Hunter S. know when to going get weird, the weird turn pro.
    http://www.sloshspot.com/blog/12-31-2008/Hunter-S-Thompson-Motivational-Posters-98

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thompson had to race all over town trying to find a mojo wire. And not be diverted by a bar before he found it. You young whippersnappers and your internets never had to deal with that!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'd link to ya, Mr. McCain, but I ain't got no place to do so. I did tell my dogs how great you are and they wagged their tails, so you got that goin' for ya!

    Seriously, don't fret (I've always wanted to use that word) you're pissing people off right and left which means you're bound to get death threats and pies in the face soon.

    Thanks for the laughs and for the hard work. You are doing folks like me a great service and it's much appreciated.

    ReplyDelete
  13. RS. Things could be worse. Imagine accepting a Nobel Peace prize on the world stage being fully aware that you did nothing to earn it? How does the man sleep at night?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Jerry said...
    Thompson had to race all over town trying to find a mojo wire.
    I believe you mean the Goddamned Mojo Wire, which Thompson officially named, a courtesy for which the ungrateful swine at Xerox never paid him a red cent.

    But Thompson had Crouse to operate the Goddamned Mojo Wire for him, to say nothing of the vodka, Dunhills, grapefuit and other necessary journalistic accoutrements supplied by his publishers, which I can't afford because Allah hates me and hasn't linked me once since this past March. Why? Because I told Charles Freaking Johnson to stop slagging Pamela Geller and Ann Coulter, like the gutless liberal worm he's since proven himself to be. The fact that CJ has since dispatched his minions to attack Hot Air and Michelle Malkin has done nothing to mitigate Allah's hatred of me. And this hatred -- like Erik Telford's spitefulness -- is entirely a one-way street, since I have nothing but admiration for Allah, or Telford.

    But there is no justice in this world, yet you dare not even mention the sadistic insults directed unjustly toward you, or you'll be accused of "whining."

    Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  15. People ignore my e-mails and don't return my phone calls. Allahpundit hasn't linked me in months and you can go count the trackbacks at my Hot Air Greenroom special report to see how little interest conservative bloggers have paid to my reporting on the Sparkman case in Kentucky. Even Moe Lane won't link it.

    Why? Because I suck....


    Hey...you think you got it bad? My friend never even acknowledged the gift I sent him on his recent birthday--not even a 'Hey, thanks pal'. If you suck, I suck more.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Oh, and by the way, don;t worry 'bout me, folks. As a 'friend' once said: 'I'm chopped liver and chopped liver doesn't have feelings'.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I don't know what else to say but, (1) I feel your pain, and (2) you have one of these and I don't:
    http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/09/worlds-cutest-child-discovered.html

    ReplyDelete
  18. Well, Stacy, I'm very glad to see you're still alive, for I thought you must have surely met an untimely end when I jumped online this morning and didn't see a new post from you. I had visions of you accidentally driving your car into oncoming traffic or catching yourself on fire with your lighter as you suffered spasms of hysterical and uncontrollable laughter at the thought of Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize (a prize which is now so irrelevant that it will be available in millions of cereal boxes by early next year).

    ReplyDelete
  19. Classic. You don't suck but I'll probably blog that you do because I'm perverse that way. I wondered where you were this momentous morning. It's been an awesome, awesome day.

    ReplyDelete
  20. What a story Stacy and I sure was wondering where the heck you were with the s$%t hitting the fan this morning. I was like, come on now, RSM and Smit aren't on this thing? I would have thought that you would have been transcribin' and typing away at the crack of dawn when this hit....

    Now I know, keep up the good fight.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Ah yes, dealing with burracracy! BTW, I bet that Vonda was about as helpful as a DMV worker. Just a guess! Love the "memo" from Alfred Nobel. I swear that tomorrow we will wake up and be told "April Fools" over the Dear Leader getting the Nobel Peace prize. No other explanation.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Vote for Barack Obama for the 2009 Heisman Trophy award winner here:

    http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/contests/theheismanvote/2009/

    And, yes, hit the tip jar.

    ReplyDelete
  23. If you ever want me to hit the tip jar you will immediately cease and desist with the "sigh" bullshit. Real men don't do the "sigh" thing and I have every reason to believe you are a real man. Please don't let me down.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Why do my links to you never show up?

    I was wonderin' why you hadn't posted yet on the comedy gold. I figured you were getting new tires or brakes, some manly car related stuff, considering all the trips you've made lately!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Canada Corner wrote: Real men don't do the "sigh" thing . . .

    Well, what am I to say when confronted with people who are clearly orchestrating an effort to destroy the commercial potential of an enterprise into which I (and my comrade Smitty and various other supporters) have invested so much labor over the past 19 months?

    Even when I put 4,000 words of exclusive reporting into the Hot Air Greenroom, Allah refuses even to grant it a headline link.

    If you had done such work, and has been given the back of the hand -- over and over and over again, all because you refused to kneel at the altar of Charles Johnsonism -- what would you say?

    ReplyDelete
  26. Stacy: Your "Awesomeness in Blogging Award" is safe and sound! In fact, you have an excellent shot at repeating in 2010!

    ReplyDelete
  27. Belvedere wrote: As a 'friend' once said: 'I'm chopped liver and chopped liver doesn't have feelings'.

    My apologies, Bob. One of these days, we'll both have those super-cool Wordpress sites with the universal built-in trackback feature, and then the FMJRA's will be automatic. And I'll have a full-time staff of shapely young blog interns to help me keep track of my overloaded e-mail inbox, my neglected voice-mail account, my numerous creditors, etc.

    In the meantime, I'll keep trying to deliver the reach-arounds with regularity, but I've only got two hands, and must keep one hand free for smacking around Charles Johnson, David Brooks, et al.

    So many douchebags, so little time . . .

    ReplyDelete
  28. RSM wrote: then the FMJRA's will be automatic

    Apparently you don't fear the Porch Manqué Union sufficiently, bourgeois oppressor!

    ReplyDelete
  29. I get plenty of FMJRA's from you folks--no complaint there--and I'm real appreciative. It was just I wanted to know if you liked your gift, that's all. If you didn't, I'd give it another try.

    Yours truly,
    Concerned in Cancun

    PS: What about the other hand?...or do we really want to know?

    ReplyDelete