BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

As promised, I am throwing together a few blogs about our adventures on vacation. Please make note that they won’t necessarily be in chronological order as far as the vacation itself went. They are actually in “transcribed jotted down note order,” which makes sense to me, but not really everyone else. At any rate, this is number two in the series…

You just can’t trust anyone these days… Not even family. Seriously. They will rat you out on something in a New York Minute. Which begs the question, what exactly is a New York Minute? Is it slower or faster than a regular minute? If so do they have to sell special watches and clocks in New York? If it’s faster, is that why they have the New Years celebration there, so they can get it over with quicker? Do you have “time lag” if you go to New York then return to the temporal dimension that governs everyone else?

Could make you crazy just thinking about it, ya’know?

Anywho, back to the ratting out thing.

Gratuitious "Tourist Snapshot" of walkway atop Signal Mountain

After our Snake River Adventure with Philosopher Steve (which is on my schedule to blog about) we took his advice and went up to the top of Signal Mountain. Great view, but why is it called Signal Mountain? Well… I don’t know quite how it originally got its name, but there does happen to be a rather large cell tower on top of it, and you can definitely get signal there.

However… After going up a mountain there’s very little left to do other than go back down, which eventually, we did. On the way we kept on the lookout for wildlife so that we could go “Ooh, Ahh, never seen one of those…” and then take pictures like typical tourists. In point of fact, my Brother-in-Law was on a mission to take pictures of a Bear (or three, or four, or five…) He had come to Wyoming, as he said, “Loaded for Bear”… Judging from some of the lenses he was packing, I certainly couldn’t dispute that.

And so, as we traveled down the mountain, watching out the windows, we eventually came upon some wildlife. This particular wildlife took the form of a small clutch of German tourists. They were stopped along the side of the road snapping pictures, so we pulled up slowly so as to not spook whatever it was that happened to be the subject of the picture taking. This is when we discovered they were German. By this I mean, one of them stood there nodding her head and smiling at us, while a couple of the others kept saying to us, “Ja… Ja… Das Cinnamon Bayer…”

The other few behind them were also nodding and saying, “Ja… Ja…”

It was sort of sad. Not them. I mean us. Why? Because none of us could speak German. Well… THEY could, but we couldn’t…

From lookout at end of walkway: Jackson Lake with Grand Tetons

Either way, we parked, climbed out, and milled around waiting to see if we could get a picture of “Smokey the Bear.” Unfortunately, if Cinnamon (Nutmeg, Turmeric, Ginger, or even Mary Ann) bears were in the vicinity we never got to see them. Why? Because of the horn honkers. But we’ll talk about them in a different blog. Right now we need to talk about me being ratted out.

And so… Due to the horn honkers we climbed back into the rental Jeep and started back down the mountain. We hadn’t traveled more than 200 yards when the seatbelt chime began to ding, dong, squeal, and otherwise demand we pay attention to it.

E K, who was in charge of driving (as we’ve already established, what with her control issues and all) said, “All right. Who doesn’t have their seatbelt on?”

Our Sister-in-Law replied, “It’s John.”

John, being my Brother-in-Law you understand, announces, “Neither does Murv!”

Guess which one of us got smacked by the redhead…

Okay, guess I should wrap it up for this installment… Gotta go get the stitches taken out in a bit…

More to come…

Murv

Disclaimers… We’ve all seen and heard them. We’ve all sat back and wondered at the stupidity of people who sue over hot coffee because they hadn’t been told that the hot coffee was hot. Even worse, the stupidity of the jurors in the trial who saw fit to judge in favor of the idiot who didn’t know hot coffee would be… well… HOT.

Then there are the disclaimers we just sort of wonder about, because otherwise we would just burst into uncontrolled laughter… Of course, sometimes we do anyway… You know the ones I mean. “DO NOT USE IN SHOWER” emblazoned across the label on a portable electric hand mixer, as if I might happen to be mixing up some cake batter while I’m washing my hair. Of course, I suppose there could be all manner of kinky ramifications there, but I don’t want to think about that. It makes me feel all kinds of dirty. Even in the shower.

The thing is, you just KNOW they had to put that on there because some frootloop decided it would be a good idea to attach a Loofah to the beaters and use the mixer as a power exfoliation device in the shower. Hence, the disclaimer. What it should REALLY say is, “We know you’re an idiot, here’s your Darwin Award (Posthumously, of course).”

But then, there are those disclaimers that really are necessary. I mean the kind where a boatload of common sense might get you through, but for a multitude of reasons you cannot depend upon Sherlockian Common Sense to be in play. And, there are even those times when people truly have no clue what to expect, therefore a disclaimer is in order.

That’s why I have several. You can see one of them just to the left beneath my picture. It is there to let you know that this is a satire blog and taking it seriously, unless a particular post is labeled as serious, makes you not particularly savvy. After all, it says it right there…

I should make note, however, that among my disclaimers, none of them say “contents hot.” That would be EKay’s disclaimer, (along with may bite, prone to random acts of beating you severely, failure to bow and worship will result in extreme punishment, etc…) – There IS a “contents MAY be hot” in the footer of the blog, but note that it says MAY BE. It pretty much refers to posts where E K is involved…

But let’s get back to me. After all, it’s my blog, not hers… Well… Okay, I just use it… Don’t tell her I said that it was mine, okay? So… anyway… Among my disclaimers is one that I rattle off at the beginning of every workshop I present while at an event or bookstore. If you’ve ever attended one of my seminars it is highly likely you have heard some version of it. I usually ask who hasn’t heard it, but even if I get no hands raised I recite it anyway. It’s just safer for all involved.

So, just for drill, here is my workshop/seminar disclaimer. If you ever attend one of my workshops – not panels, mind you, those are different (although I sometimes work it in) – you will hear this, or the version of it that is current for that moment…

M. R. SELLARS’ DISCLAIMER

First off, I am a fiction author. This means I lie for a living. It’s what I get paid to do. Think about that… Okay, now that you’ve given it some thought, I’ll explain further – I write FICTION. What this means is that 99% of what I am about to say to you is probably bullshit. I’m making it up as I go along. My one goal here is to entertain you for the next 90 minutes and keep you occupied so that the staff of this event can finish preparing lunch [dinner, setting up XYZ, insert function here]. If you plan on taking notes, feel free. Just know that you are most likely transcribing fiction.

Second – I am irreverent.  I am also foul-mouthed when necessary. I know cuss words in several languages and I am not afraid to use them. In fact, they will sometimes just randomly fall out of my mouth, especially if you startle me. If you think this is going to offend you to the point where it is going to ruin your whole day, do us both a favor- get up and leave now. Regarding those last two points – If you sit through my entire workshop after having heard this disclaimer, then go to the event organizer and complain that I have ruined your whole day, I will find you. I don’t think I need to say anymore. Just know that I will find you. So you need to ask yourself if you really want to take that chance. I mean, after all, I warned you. If you get offended it’s your fault now, not mine. As to getting up and leaving, if you elect to do so AFTER I begin the actual workshop, I will make fun of you. The only exceptions to that rule are true medical emergencies. Needing to take a piss because you drank 14 cups of coffee and didn’t make a pit stop before coming in here does NOT qualify.

Third – I tend to not stand still and I talk with my hands. I will likely be right out in the middle of the crowd with you, as well as bouncing around the stage. This is how I get my exercise.

Fourth – I am an interactive speaker. What this means is that at times during this workshop/seminar, depending upon the topic, I am likely to ask you, as a group, a question. If I do this, I expect an answer. Allow me to clarify – I want the answer now. As in during the actual workshop. I do not want you to go home, ruminate about it for two weeks, and then email me an answer. At that point the workshop is over and it does none of us any good. If you don’t answer me at all, understand that I will just make up some more shit and say that you said it.

Fifth – During the next 90 minutes [120 min, 60 min, ??] I will say things that I personally think are funny. I expect you to think they are funny too. If I say something that I find funny and you don’t laugh, I will repeat it. That is your cue. Be on the lookout for it. Why? Because if you don’t laugh when I repeat it, I will then explain it. Believe me, you do NOT want to get as far as me explaining my jokes.

Okay, now that I have that out of the way, are we all in agreement? If not, this is your chance to leave unscathed…

I realize that there are some folks out there who are going to read this and be highly offended. They are going to think that I am a big asshole, probably because it is hard to impart the comic timing of the verbal delivery of this disclaimer via the written word in a short space like a blog. However, there are people who get offended by it in person too, and storm out of my workshop/seminar space in a huff…

You know what? They weren’t going to find me all that entertaining anyway so it’s just as well. I think that’s why their faces are all pinched up and pouty. Or I supposed it could be that they eschew disclaimers, and they are all pinched up and pouty because they take Preparation H orally…

Either way, I’m sure they’ll be picking up their Darwin Awards soon enough…

More to come…

Murv