Towards More Picturesque Speech

Stupid, Silly, Pithy or Whatever Things I've Overheard During the Last Two Weeks:

• "Overheard" at the airport (about 500 times): "Maintain control over your carryon items to prevent introduction of dangerous articles by unknown persons."

Ok, so much is wrong with this! A) maintain control? is your carryon likely to jump up and flail around? B) introduction of dangerous articles? just too silly! C) unknown persons? this seems to imply persons that cannot be known, like, uh, aliens (of the the ET sort, of course, not Mexicans or Arabs), and if they're unknown, would you know they had made an introduction? How about: "Don't let strangers put shit in your bags!" This gobbledy-gook is likely the product of some over-educated, under-employed creative writing MFAer getting her rocks off at her stupid and disappointing technical writing job.

• Overheard standing in line to get my cap and gown, spoken by a fellow soon-to-be-college-graduate: "Yeah, I kicked him out on his butt last week, but he said he had a right to see his children and anyways his parents own the house, so I can't really say nuthin'. And so I told him to get his ass up off the couch and fix the kids some dinner and maybe vaccuum the fucking floor or something. He better have not drank up all the beer before I get home. I'm gonna drink a six-pack on the way so I'll be drunk enough to deal with him when I get there."

Ah, nothing like a college education to separate us from the brutes!

• Spoken by my sister the house-sitter: "I think thost two bottles of bloody mary mix were expired - it made me puke all afternoon."

Do you think, just maybe, it was the gallon of vodka in the bloody mary mix that made you sick?

• Spoken by same sister: "I didn't tell you that Mother's cocker spaniel would also be staying the weekend because I knew you wouldn't like it."

Um, if you knew I wouldn't like it WHY THE FUCK DID YOU BRING THAT NASTY BEAST INTO MY HOUSE TO RUIN MY COUCH?????!!!!!

• Spoken by the friend driving us around Philadelphia (to which none of us had been before) while I got progressively more and more carsick: "No, we didn't get a map, and I hate to ask directions. I just have a feeling this is the right way to go."

RALPH!!!

• Spoken by same friend who brought her nine year old daughter to a party to which we arrived at 10:30 pm (after, of course, having gotten completely lost): "She was quite well behaved, don't you think?

I'm not a big kid fan, and this was almost more than I could handle. They let her run amuk and just chit chat with everyone at the (very adult) party for several hours - easily convinced that she wasn't bothering anyone. I nearly had a nervous breakdown because our arrival at said party with said nine year old implied our complicity in and approval of this situation. Egads!