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Kissing Ronald

My first job (not counting a couple of paper routes I had) was as a cook at McDonalds. Nothing glamorous, but I earned some extra cash and got out of the house a bit more.

We used to get a meal break every shift we worked, and they were nice enough to give us a free meal. Of course I was never hungry by the time my break came. We made Big Macs six at a time, and if you “dropped’ one by accident, you would only put up five for the shift manager. Did you know you can eat a Big Mac in about three bites if you are in a hurry? And after 4 or 5 of them, you really don’t want a meal on your break.

There were other things we did for fun while working. After we closed at night there was usually a french fry fight. Those little onion rings really hurt after they have been under the heater for awhile. I later learned in chemistry class that this has to do with some property of oil and vegetables. Ouch!!!

Those ketchup and mustard bottles make good squeeze weapons as well. You can sneak up on someone and fill an ear with condiments in a split second.

One of my favorites was that every time we did something with food in the kitchen we would announce it to the shift manager. “Dropping fries!” “Six Quarter pounders on the turn!” We served fish sandwiches, as usual, so I would yell, “Shark Down!” This never failed to get a reaction out of the shift manager. We didn’t sell shark burgers after all. Some people have no sense of humor.

But the most fun was when we had a lunch break. Out back of the restaurant was a storage shed. This was used for various tools, bread storage and drink syrups. There was also a large helium tank out there. It was used to inflate balloons for birthday parties for the little kids. It had a big Ronald McDonald head on it so that it looked like Ronald was blowing up the balloons for the precious little crumb snatchers.

The other employees and I would sit in this storage shed and breath helium for our break. Kissing Ronald became the secret phrase for this activity so that the managers wouldn’t know what we were doing. That is also exactly what it looked like.

You would put your hand behind Ronald’s head to turn the valve, and you would put your lips to Ronald’s mouth, where the helium was released. We would catch a big lungful of H and lean back and say, “I love you Ronald”, in that high pitched voice.

Call it latent homosexuality if you will, but I will always remember the feeling I would get when someone would look at me at work and ask if I wanted to go kiss Ronald.

Those were the days.

-P

Tangents

Hey everyone,

At the urging of my other half (and I am not talking about the voice in my head), I have created another blog.

Left Brains Unite

Please take a look.  It is probably not for everyone, but what is.  I will continue my hit and miss postings here.  Where else can I sound like a complete idiot and still have people leave me comments.

Thanks everyone.

-P

Sing, sing a song...

My last few posts have been a little on the dark side, so I am going to try and write about something a little lighter in tone.

I have a terrible habit.  I almost hate to admit it here in public.  My wife is driven to distraction by what I do, but I can’t seem to help myself.

Grab your children and cover their eyes…er, ears…

I sing the wrong lyrics…on purpose…to songs on the radio.

And not just the wrong lyrics, but the wrong lyrics with a dirty undertone.  Kind of a perverted Weird Al channel if you will.

There have been a lot of misinterpretations of song lyrics over the years.  Louie Louie by The Kingsmen is probably the most famous example.  The Monkeys (Sweet Young Thing), CCR (Lookin Out My Back Door), and Pearl Jam (Glorified G), all come to mind.  If anyone wants to discuss what I am hearing when I listen to these song, feel free to ask.

But my problem is not one of misunderstanding.  I go out of my way to change the lyrics even if it is quite obvious what the actual words are.  Here, let me unlock this dark and cobwebby place in my head and show you.

Melissa Etheridge has a great song out called “It Only Hurts when I Breath”.  I love this song, I think it is one of her best.  But when I hear it I can’t help but sing:

It’s alright, it’s alright…it only hurts when I pee…

Seems kind of obvious to me.  But really pisses the wife off.  There are some songs that she can’t listen to anymore because she now hears my rewritten version instead of the original.  Here’s another example.

The Cranberries Song “Linger”.  While the skinny little Cranberry tart is singing “do you have to let it linger”, I am belting out, “do you have to pull my finger”.  It can change the entire mood of the song.

Every song is open to reinterpretation by me, I pull no punches and allow no one to slip under my musical sights.  Probably the only music that I can’t do anything with is country, it already makes fun of itself so I’ve got nothing.  We were watching a couple of minutes of the CMA’s the other night and Trace Atkins sang a song.  “You were looking out the window, of our SUV…”, how Americana can you get…(retch, gag, blow nose)

Sorry, I hate to get some of my lunch caught in a nostril.

Anyway, any song that tells you how many times to breath in a minute and when to swallow and blink your eyes is already to far gone to be messed with.

(Disclaimer – I love bands like Big & Rich, Lyle Lovette and Dwight Yoakam…go figure)

But anyway…even the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Alice In Chains, rock Gods that they may be, are not beyond the scope of my dementia.  I ought to write all this stuff down someday.  I know Weird Al has already made a killing off of it, but I just can’t help myself.  I have even found myself changing the lyrics to his rewritten lyrics.  

I have been quite tame here.  I am sure that most of the stuff I blurt out in the car would never make it past the censers.  Of course there is satellite radio now.  They even let Howard Stern talk without a loop button.  Hmmmm….

-P

Wordless Wednesday

Poetic License: Get to Know Me

Poetic License: Get to Know Me

I keep getting tagged with these things.  For someone who exists almost exclusively in a blog vacuum I sure am popular.

The idea behind this one is to tell six things about yourself that everyone else might not know.  I will try not to get to personal...lol

This one has some rules, so I will include them here.  I am also supposed to pick 6 people to have do this meme.  I don’t think I know 6 people in person, never mind online.  So, if you feel like doing this, please, be my guest.  Don’t forget to link to me if you do.

The Rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you (that's me!).

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Write six random things about you in your blog post.

4. Tag six people in your post.

5. Let each person know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

6. Let the tagger know your entry is up. 

Ok, here goes…

1. I have a patent.  It is for an optical memory chip.  The number is 6,873,560.  I tried to get funding to develop my idea but I was told that the idea was to advanced.  My patent has actually been referenced by another patent.  I guess it can't be to ahead of the curve. If anyone wants to buy it, drop me a note.

2. When I was 14 years old there was a fire at the house next door to mine.  I was watching tv and noticed the kids huddled outside in their pajamas.  I ran out side and they told me there was a fire.  I ran into their house and their grandmother was trying to carry a pot of water up the stairs, I think she was in shock.  I got her out side and called the fire department.  I wasn't very popular at school so all the other kids said that I started the fire just so I could see the fire trucks.  The upstairs of their house had to be gutted.

3. My grandmother died when I was about 7.  We were very close and I was extremely upset at her passing.  I did not attend the viewings or the funeral.  I asked to go at one point thinking that my parents would have to buy me a suit.  I always thought that wearing a suit was a very grown up thing.  Everyone who was important and grown up wore suits, even the Beatles.  My mom asked if I really want to go, because I could if I wanted to.  I thought about it for a second and decided that wearing a suit was not a good enough reason to see my grandmother lying in a casket.  I still remember her as being alive to this day.

4. I had a girlfriend in the fourth grade named Beth Johnson.  We used to talk on the phone everyday after school.  When I moved from North Carolina to Minnesota we promised that we would meet in Florida when we were 18 and sail away on a sailboat.  I still want to live on a sailboat, but I doubt Beth would remember any of that.

5. I have a foot fetish.  Not just any feet mind you.  They have to be female feet (sorry guys).  The foot has to be well shaped with a nice arch.  The toes have to be the proper length, I hate when the second toe is longer then the rest.  The pinky toe has to be well formed, no stubby twisted little things.  And they must be clean. Sorry, everyone has a dark side.

6. I have always has a fascination with flying.  I used to take a bed sheet and use it as a parachute while jumping out of a tree in the back yard.  I came up with a design for the X-Prize that used a modified F-5B Tiger.  Burt Rutan has a way of spoiling everyones dreams.

There ya go.  I bet you're sorry you read this one...lol

-P