The True Test of a Person’s Character is What She Does When No One is Watching But She Thinks They Are

I can be a considerate person when pressed, but most of the time, I just do nice things because I’m afraid I’m on a reality show.

I’m sitting here at Starbucks trying to figure out a fabulous topic for today’s post.  I had one, but it involved Dimples.  She always gets final say-so on any stories featuring her, and she put the big kibosh on this one.

So, instead, I’m staring forlornly at my iPad screen, and a man gets up from one of the tables, inadvertently hitting some kind of brochure holder full of pamphlets, sending them flying all over the floor.

“Oh, darn,” he says.  And, no, I did not censor that.  I. KNOW!  I didn’t know people still say that, either.

Then he walks to the employee door in the back of the store and disappears.

I look at the mess on the floor.  I look at the employees working behind the bar.  I look back at the mess on the floor.  Not one person seems inclined to pick it up.

I just know I’m being featured on some hidden camera show.  They’re trying to bust people who ignore pamphlets strewn all over the floor – to reveal the callous behavior of people who drink skinny, decaf mochas as they try to pass the time while their daughters who have editorial control over their blogs practice synchronized swimming.

This is my chance to show my heroic side.  I casually get up and walk over to the mess.  I collect all of the brochures, straighten them out, and put them back into the holder, placing it carefully in its spot behind the basket of creamer or sugar or whatever it is that I don’t use.

I walk back to my seat.  No one claps.  No one jumps out of the back room saying, “You’re the first person today to actually pick that up!  You wouldn’t believe how many times we’ve done this skit and people completely ignored the mess!  It just proves what a sad world we live in that no one cares about brochures scattered all over the floor.”

I know what you’re thinking.  “This lady is a saint.  Some day, they are going to write on her tombstone, ‘Here lies Mrs. Cap’n Firepants, the Mother Teresa of the 21st century.  She saved spiders and snakes and credit card advertisements.  And just because she did it out of fear of being featured on What Would You Do? with John Quinones doesn’t make her any less of role model.  May the Force be With You.'”

or, I guess it could say,

“Here lies a woman who kept picking up random things and we couldn’t raise enough money on Kickstarter to buy more than this brick to mark her grave.  Please take a Mastercard application before you leave.”

Who cares?  At least I won’t have to worry about hidden cameras when I’m dead.

I hope.

Bookmark this Post in Case I Suddenly Disappear. Or Convert to Mormonism.

I think that someone who is following me is following me.

Okay, I don’t really think that – mostly – but I thought of that sentence, and it sounded kind of fun and confusingly ironic.  So, there it is.

I mostly don’t think the follower is following me, but there is a tiny bit of me that wonders.  And I usually like to display those tiny bits on this blog for the entertainment of others – and just in case something happens to me and I end up missing and you need some clues to find my body.

So, what happened was that the whole family made a trip to Half Price Books on Sunday.  We brought a trainload of books to sell on THE EXACT SAME DAY THE REST OF SAN ANTONIO DECIDED TO SELL THEIR BOOKS.  And, of course we were not first in line.  And, of course, Half Price Books has this silly little policy that you need to remain in the store until they call you with a quote.

So, we spent twelve hours in the store.

Okay, it might have been just 63 minutes.  But it was just long enough for us to find enough books so that the quote that we got was for exactly $1 less than the price of the books we were going to buy.

And long enough for a perfect stranger, dressed in a suit, to address me as I walked down an aisle to find my daughter, with, “Well, hello.”

Now I’ve been out of the game for awhile, but I seem to remember that when a person who is completely unknown to me finds a reason to say, “Well, hello,” putting an accent on the “lo” part, and there is no one else around but me, that they are trying to start a conversation with me.  And the only reason to start a conversation with me is to: sell me something, preach to me about salvation, or pick me up.

I didn’t wait around to find out which of those three actions Mr. Suit had in mind.  I mumbled something, and made a beeline for my daughter.

“Why would someone try to sell me something in the middle of Half Price Books?” I thought.  And then I realized I had been standing in the Religion section – completely by accident, I swear – and I thought, “Oh, he is probably on a mission to save me from becoming a Jedi Knight.”  And then I remembered I’d forgotten to wear my wedding ring.

“Oh my God.  He was hitting on me!” I thought.  Because, let’s face it – how would he know of my intentions to be a Jedi Knight?  It’s not like I carry a light saber around with me.

So then I spent the rest of our interminable time trying to avoid Mr. Suit, who eyed me knowingly every time I rounded a corner.

Now here is where the follower following me part comes in.

I went home, and that night my professional blog had a new follower.  And, I swear to Yoda, his little mini-profile picture looks like Mr. Suit.  

Now, admittedly, I am a very paranoid, yet strangely unobservant person.  And, it’s possible that I just think they look alike because they are both male and wearing suits.  It’s unlikely they are the same person because Blog Follower dude lives in New York according to my extensive Google detective work.

But I’ve definitely learned my lesson.

From now on, I must always wear my wedding ring when I go to Half Price Books.

And start carrying my light saber.

I’m pretty sure it was not David Letterman. Well, mostly sure.

Stop Following Me

Zazzle.com Knows How I Feel

I mean it.  You there.  Stop it.  You’re creeping me out. Shoo.

No, not you, Loyal Blog Reader.  You’re fine.  Stay right there.  It’s the Other People I’m trying to get rid of.

You know.  The ones who started following me with absolutely no kind of invitation or wearing of provocative clothing, I swear.

It’s those darn Pinterest People.

So, here’s the thing.  I heard about how great Pinterest was, and how I just “had to get an invite”, so I begged someone to invite me, and created an account.  Because I totally missed the Facebook bandwagon (this is why I haven’t liked you, in case you’re wondering), and I didn’t want to get left in the dust on anything else.

But then I didn’t have time to actually use my account.  And then I forgot my account name and password.

And then someone was showing me again how it cool it is, and I thought I should really try to figure out WTF my name is.  My Pinterest name, I mean.  I only forget my own name when in the presence of people who – well, I digress.

Shockingly, I figured it out after three tries, and there it was.  My empty bulletin boards just waiting for some pins.

And then I noticed that there were 11 people following me.

I couldn’t believe it.  I mean, I literally had like three things pinned on my boards AND ELEVEN PEOPLE thought I was worthy enough of following.

It’s kind of insulting.

Why, you may ask, do I find this insulting?

Because I didn’t do anything.  I just saw things I liked on other people’s boards, and hit a button to pin it to mine.

Yet, here on my blog, day in and day out, I work my tail off trying to achieve a Following of Biblical Proportions.  While I may have managed to eke out more than 11 followers here on WordPress, it’s certainly taken a heckuva lot more work than clicking on the mouse three times.  That’s a total of 9 mouse clicks I did to gain 11 followers  on Pinterest.

So, let’s see, if I remember my Algebra correctly:

9 over 11 = 6000 over x

Carry the 1 and subtract -16 and take the square root.  Multiply by an imaginary number, and I should have, proportionately, like over 7300 followers by now on this blog.

I don’t.

But I have a plan.

I’m going right now into my Pinterest account, if I can remember what it is, and I’m going to find my blog and pin THAT to one of my boards.

Apparently

Haha!  Take that, you Weird People who Follow Me for Showing No Productivity, Creativity, or Even Originality in Naming My Own Virtual Bulletin Boards.

Not you, Dear Reader.  Carry on.

Excuse You

Apparently this app exists. But I don't have it. I swear.

My iPad has started burping music.

I downloaded iOS 5, being eager to attempt “mirroring” my iPad on our T.V.

Ever since the new download, the iPad has worked flawlessly, except for an infrequent sound that I can seriously only describe it as a musical burp.

The first time it happened, I thought I had accidentally hit the iPod icon on my iPad. But it has happened several times now, and since there is no reason that I should suddenly be quite that inept, I’m thinking my iPad is either feeling gassy or attempting to communicate with me.

What?  Are you suggesting that is an incredible leap of logic?  What reasonable explanation do you have for this phenomena?

With the introduction of the Siri app on the iPhone 4s, I honestly don’t think it’s reaching too far to suspect that my iPad is going rogue and trying to speak to me on its own.  I’m not sure what it would be trying to tell me, but it could be something like, “Tell Wonderbutt to stop trying to lick my screen.”

If you think that’s too far-fetched (the iPad conversing with me part; you should all know, by now, that Wonderbutt is perfectly capable and more than a little prone to licking whatever he feels like), listen to what happened the other day:

Our Apple T.V. Box was rebooting (apparently it decided to upgrade itself when I turned it on).  Wonderbutt was happily bullying Mrs. P.I.B. by stealing the orange Kong sphere and then literally rubbing it in her face.  When the Apple logo appeared on the screen, Wonderbutt suddenly froze.  He dropped the ball, and raced to the T.V., flattened his already smushed-in face against the screen, and tried to bite the apple.

I kid you not.  Right where there is a bite already taken out of the apple, Wonderbutt gnashed his teeth.  Dimples and I fell on the floor laughing.

Cap’n Firepants raced to save his T.V.

Now, I’m not telling this story to give you more proof of Wonderbutt’s adorable insanity.  I’m thinking Wonderbutt suspects something.  He knows Apple is trying to take over the world and that he, Wonderbutt, is the only one who can save us from this evil menace.  Especially since his idiot family keeps buying iStuff.

So, I’m becoming a bit more wary of my burping iPad, which Wonderbutt would also gleefully chomp if I left it in his vicinity.  I don’t believe in coincidence.  The iPad, the Apple T.V., even Big Mean Kitty; it’s all beginning to make sense.  From now on, the only operating system that gets upgraded is my own.