Absquatulate

On Celebrity and Propriety

There is a big name person coming to our office this afternoon. I will refrain from saying who it is, but I'm certain my remarks will reveal her true identify.

This famous person was famous for, among many other things, being married to a man who cheated on her. It's a well known story that was splashed across newspapers and tv shows back in the halcyon days before WAR and 9.11. Ah, innocent times they were.... Sorry, back to my point. Now, this woman has many detractors, people who call her a carpet bagger &tc.

But when people hear that she is coming to our office, plainspoken jokes about Cuban cigars proliferate like the mold the blooms on my bathroom ceiling in the winter.

Now I ask you, gentle reader, what is it about this woman and her current job description that warrants people making fun of her because of her husband's indiscretion? Certainly, question her politics, question her ideas, question her decisions. That is her JOB. But I simply don't understand why people think that it's funny to deride her by suggesting that everyone light up Cubans in her presence simply because they 'hate her." Why is it that to them the strongest insult they can muster is to trot out reminders of a the infidelities of her husband of which her part in the matter was nonexistent? Why is it perceived that the strongest insult to her is to insult her personal life when she's here in an official capacity?

What the hell is wrong with you people?

I wonder what would happen if roles were reversed, that is, if she was a man coming to visit. I doubt anybody would think to trot out incriminating Joe Boxer shorts.

Socially Correct?

Is it vulgar to have Gourmet as your bathroom reading material?

Psst. Updates to the Archive.

See: the first turn :: Hear: Benny Goodman :: Feel: like I have a plan, for once :: Cook: oatmeal :: Read: Sir Thomas Mallory "Morte D'Artur" :: Go: hug your suga

BEHOLD the power of the internet!

ibid. ::

Tonight I get home for a productive yet ordinary day at work. I pet the cats and give them some food and relax with some Simpsons and a light dinner. I then trot upstairs to check what new marketing scammers left messages on our answering machines. This is usually merely a formality as we hardly ever get any phonecalls at all. So you can imagine my surprise when I hit "PLAY" and got... a real person.

And this time it wasn't a woman looking for Joan to tell her that someone had a stroke. It was a crackly message in which I could just barely make out my name.

My full name.

Strange. Not too many telemarketers know my full married name... who IS this? Repeated listening didn't reveal the caller or their location and lacking all that super 733t technogadgets you see so often on CSI or whatever I couldn't "Run the message through the computer" and then look serious and punch lots of keys on the keyboard while neat important looking graphics do neat and important things on my computer monitor, then hit a button and KAZAM! hear the call perfectly. I'm simply not that rich people (or the NYPD.) So I went about my evening and hoped that maybe the caller would call back.

Half way into dissecting Leto when the phone rings. I usually answer the phone hesitantly, because if it's long distance or another such ring and nobody says hello right away I hang up because it's a telemarketer (note: if I ever hang up on you, call back!) When the man on the other end asked for me by full name, I had to stop myself from saying my trademark, "She's not here right now, can I take a message?" and actually think to say, "This is she."

It turns out a friend of his was googling for him too, and found this here site. Mentioned it to him and he found my name in a UofR alumni directory.

It was the guy I mentioned in an earlier post here on absquatulate!

We're meeting for lunch tomorrow and I am still dragging my jaw on the floor.

So I thought that given this strange bit of internet karma I thought it would be nice if I in turn passed along to you a quick message from Sars of TomatoNaion fame: Sars is looking for a man named Don. The two of them were disaster buddies as they took refuge in a bank in downtown Manhattan two years ago today and she's trying to find him. If you are Don, know Don, or have friends who know Don, drop a note her way.

It's all about Karma, baby.