Reid About It

Catching up on some television over the weekend, I think I’ve hit upon why real life is so frustrating. There are things that happen all the time on television that just don’t happen to us in real life.

Cars Exploding - I’ve mentioned this one before, but cars explode on every single cop and detective show on TV. Every week, a dozen cars go up in a giant fireball. I’ve never seen one, not even once. I feel like I’ve been gypped.

People Angrily Leaving a Restaurant Without Eating - This happens a lot, especially in romantic comedies. there’s a meal, the food is served, and then someone gets upset and storms out. I don’t think I’ve ever been angry enough to leave without eating. And for that matter, who’s paying for that meal? I don’t care how angry you get during the appetizer, most maitre d’ are instructed to tackle you if you try to leave without paying for that prime rib you ordered.

Overturning A Table - Here’s another one. I’ve been waiting for somebody to get in an argument and flip a table ever since I saw Duran Duran’s “Rio” video. Doesn’t happen in real life, at least not on purpose.

Phone Manners - Nobody ever says “good-bye” on the phone. They just hang up and walk off. I can’t help but imagine the person on the other end of that call saying “Hello? Hello? Why, you rude bastard!”

Paternity Tests - I’ve never known anybody who needed one except Anna Nicole Smith, but there’s one a month on soap operas. And also, every paternity test is wrong. Every single one is compromised. No soap opera fan was surprised when OJ was acquitted,because they’re used to things always being wrong.

Haircuts - No one every gets a haircut in an episode, nor does anyone’s hair ever change from episode to episode unless it’s a plot point.

Groceries in Paper Bags - I know as viewers, we have to see that somebody’s bought groceries. Apparently we’re too stupid to know that unless we see the characters walking in with the same type of grocery-carrying-apparatus that June Cleaver used forty years ago. To heck with recycling.

– Reid Kerr likes the old TV shows where Andy Griffith, Fred Flintstone, and Granny Clampett smoked.

About two months ago, I got a bill for a toll from the Texas Tollways TXDOT (Texas Department of Transportation) folks.

The bill:
1) Didn’t list when the infraction occurred. I don’t remember ever driving on a toll road, and since I’m a cheap bastard, I doubt I did.
2) Didn’t list where the infraction occurred, no mention of where it happened or even which toll road it was on. The state is 268,000 square miles, I’d like a little more of a specific location than “Somewhere in Texas.”
3) Didn’t list the vehicle. There was no description, and no license plate. My car title note doesn’t even come to my apartment, it still goes to the old house, so I doubt it’s mine.
4) Didn’t have the correct name on the account. The bill was sent to my apartment for “Reid Jamie Elaine FloydFred Allen.” Only one of those names is mine, and it’s not even the important one.

I called the number on the invoice, and TXDOT couldn’t tell me when or where the violation occurred, on to what vehicle. The woman apologized, and told me to write a letter on the bill that explained that person wasn’t at this address and to send it back in.

I did that. Since then, I’ve received six more bills from TXDOT, each adding another dollar to my bill for an “Invoice Fee.” Right now, Mr. or Mrs. Reid Jamie Elaine FloydFred Allen owes the state about ten bucks.

I don’t know if anyone else has had anything similar happen, but it seems to me the great state of Texas isn’t using my tax money effectively. If this is how we’re going to pay for our roads, we might want to consider having a bake sale.

– Reid Kerr is a Highway Star.

As I wrote last week, I bought my house about two years ago. It was a fun process, in the same way that most long drawn-out painful expensive processes are. It was like passing a stone that you’ll be paying for for the next twenty years.

At the time, I was under the impression the market was down, and sellers would be bending over backwards to get us to purchase their houses. All I heard from the news is how bad the market was, and that people were running screaming from their houses and tossing their keys to anybody with fifty bucks and cabfare, and how there hadn’t been this many houses for sale since the day after the final plague in Egypt.

Yeah, that was a load of hooey. The houses I saw were either accompanied by an astonishing amount of pride in the price tag, or a frightening amount of lack of attention to detail, cleanliness, and hygiene. It’s like some of these houses were maintained by color-blind trolls.

Again, here’s some tips I gleaned from the process. Every one of these pictures was taken during my great house-hunt.

If your room is painted in non-traditional colors like, say, green and purple, you might want to run a coat of off white across it before you open the doors to strangers. If not, you might think about including in the disclosure that one room is painted like a clown, or perhaps a cartoon duck.

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A pool should be a selling point for a house. However, whoever is responsible for the house (owner/realtor/bank/squatter/whatever) should on occasion, drop by and pour a couple of chemicals into the water. Otherwise, it very quickly turns into something that looks like it should be home to reptilian humanoid creatures, hungering for human flesh.

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I know you want to show off your furniture, but pay attention to how you arrange them. I look at this picture of the gas range set up on the bar right next to the purple chair, and all I can imagine is Uncle Leo’s hairpiece catching fire in Christmas Vacation.

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If there’s something big with the house that will probably be noticed eventually, such as, say, a big freakin’ tarp covering a hole in the roof, it’s best to mention that up front. A little advance notice will keep me from abandoning hope and sprinting out of your backyard.

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Bear in mind your choice of decor will influence opinions. What your child may think of as a canopy might lead a prospective buyer to forever associate that room with mosquito netting.

– Reid Kerr is in the house.

Tiger Woods is leading a golf tournament called “The Barclays”. Why do we still have a golf tournament named for a product that nobody buys? Barclay is probably something like the fourteenth best seller for RJ Reynolds, does Lark or Viceroy still have a major endorsement somewhere?

That’s like Frito-Lay shelling out big bucks to sponsor a tournament, and calling it the “Munchos Invitational.”

– Reid Kerr is amazed at Munchos, never advertised, always sold.

One upon a time, I had to go out West to Abilene for a friend’s wedding and stay in a hotel room.

Me: That’s a reservation for Kerr.
Mr. Best Western: Uh…here you go. We’ve got you for two nights.
M: We just need the one.
BW: Okay. Here’s your bill, we’ll need to see some ID. We’ve got you on the third floor, smoking.
M: I didn’t ask for a smoking room.
BW: Did you order online or over the phone?
M: The phone.
BW: They say you requested smoking, and we’re full up.
M: May I speak to “the phone” please? I have a six year-old child with me. It should be against the law for me to even request a smoking room.
BW: Sorry, sir, there’s nothing I can do.
M: So I reserve a non-smoking room, and in return, you give me a room that smells like Ron White’s index finger and you tell me there’s nothing that can be done?
BW: Actually, we have another room reserved for 6:00pm if you’d like to wait in the lobby and see if they don’t show up.
M: What are the odds I’m going to want to sit here for four hours on the off chance that somebody else will stiff you?
BW: Not good, sir. In fact, I was laughing under my breath as I said it.
M: Fine. We’ll go on up and check out our room, if it’s not passable I’ll call you.
BW: There’s no phone in your room, sir.
M: Eh?
BW: You didn’t request a phone.
M: I requested a suite, non-smoking king sized bed with a pull-out couch. There’s four of us staying.
BW: According to your reservations, I have you down for a single room, no couch, smoking, phoneless, no toilet, and two queen sized hammocks.
M: Can we change any of that?
BW: …Huh? Dude, sorry, I’m on break. I wasn’t even supposed to be here today, but that other lady called in sick.

If this is the “Best” Western, I can only assume the Western in second place had you staying in unairconditioned rooms, watching a puppet show and eating grass for entertainment while fire alarm bells and sirens went off every ten minutes.

– Reid Kerr would like a non-breathing room, please.

For two years, I lived in an apartment the size of a prison cell. My apartment was so small, you could stand in the middle and touch both sides of it, although you certainly wouldn’t want to without a tetanus shot.

However, one good thing about living somewhere small enough to qualify as a P.O. box was that cleaning was a breeze, and not just for the fact that you can clean the walls with the spray from the kitchen faucet.

Here’s a few easy cleaning tips, all inspired from desperation.

• If you have a small kitchen, it may be best to not waste counter space on appliances. It may be prudent to outsource your toast.
• Stains in the microwave are easy to loosen up. First, cook a wet sponge on high for two minutes, then wipe the microwave down thoroughly and place a plate of bacon in there. Because, you know, bacon’s really good and cleaning makes you hungry.
• Whatever that is in on the bottom of the oven, it can be treated with a mixture of baking soda and water. If not, it’s best to move and never speak of it again.
• If your dryer doesn’t vent outside, place a tub of water underneath the exhaust to catch the lint. If your washer doesn’t vent outside, you should probably buy some flippers and a snorkel.
• Lipstick on clothing can be removed with petroleum jelly, vegetable shortening, or by hiring a higher class of prostitute.
• To clean a George Foreman Grill, wet a paper towel and put it inside the grill for a half hour while it cools. To clean George Foreman, scrub him vigorously behind the ears with a loofah and let him air dry.
• Clean your rings with toothpaste and a toothbrush. It will make both your rings and your teeth much shinier.
• To get rid of bathroom odors in the short term, place an opened box of baking soda behind the toilet. In the long term, stop eating more than a pound of red meat and taking a year’s worth of Sports Illustrated into the john at a time.
• If a child has drawn on your walls in crayon, it can be removed with WD-40. Barring that, you can always put a frame around it and pretend the little bugger was being cute.
• To remove cat hair, wrap a piece of tape around your fingers and pat down your shirt or blouse. Then, wrap the cat in the remainder of the tape and deposit him on the back porch.
• Instead of paper towels, clean your windows with crumpled up newspaper funnies. The leftover angst from “Peanuts” will keep your glass shiny and gleaming.

– Reid Kerr is lean, mean, and clean, although really not any of those.

Two years ago, I bought my house after a comically long process of house-hunting. Here’s some tips I gleaned from dozens of hours spent walking around houses so awful they could have been from “Fight Club.”

I promise you, all of these are real pictures from real houses that real people really wanted us to buy.

If you’re going to use one of your allotted pictures to show a selling point of your house, you’d better damn sure make sure people can tell what it is.

Would I buy this house? Well, the first thing I’d find out is if the rug goes with the house, or is it’s just for display purposes. Otherwise, I don’t have any idea why I’m seeing a picture of it.

It sure does spruce up that random corner of the house, doesn’t it?

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If it’s not something that people would want in their house, don’t promote it.

When I’m looking for a house, I want to see pictures of living spaces, floors, and kitchens. I’m not hoping to find a picture like this, which just screams out “NOW AVAILABLE! THE WORLD’S BIGGEST GNARLED BRUSH PILE! Tangled foliage will convey with a full price offer.”

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Again, weird colors should be avoided. If you’ve decided to paint up one of your bedrooms like a big blue Easter Egg so you and your wife can go hoppin’ down the bunny trail all year long, perhaps you might want to slap a coat of eggshell white on it and pretend it never happened.

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That’s also a good thing to consider if the previous bedroom belonged to a Washington Redskins fan.

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The repainting tip is also a good one if you kept one of your bedrooms decorated just in case Prince wanted to come over and spend the night.

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And finally, bear in mind that small decor changes can make a big difference. For example, in the above picture, perhaps a darker curtain on the door by the toilet would give a better first impression of the bathroom.

Not only would it set the room off, but it would also keep the light from shining through the windows on that French door, and also keep me from realizing that toilet sits right next to an exterior door.

That’s really not a selling point for me. If I’m looking specifically for a house with a toilet as the very first thing I encounter when I enter, perhaps I should just reduce the amount of bran in my diet. Maybe eating a wicker basket for breakfast isn’t getting my day started in the right way.

– Reid Kerr likes the house he bought even more now that he remembers the ones that didn’t make the cut.

It’s come to my attention that my website isn’t as high in the search engines, and thus doesn’t get as much traffic as others, because I have elected not to have links to every awful website, link farm, and spam factory littering my pages. Somehow, the fact that I ignored a link request from sites like EskimoGoatSx.com is hurting my ability to attract new readers.

Here’s my offer, if you’re a reader of ReidAboutIt and have a website and I’m not already linking to you, just make a comment to this blog and I’ll add a link to you both here and at my sports-related sarcasm site, Fistful of Sports.com. Please link to me at both sites, also.

Apparently, being linked on a bunch of pages is the best thing in the world for a website, better than regular updates, funny content, and pictures of Jenna Jameson all rolled together. Being linked on other pages drives traffic, stimulates the economy, and helps keep the democracy alive. Proper linkage means more page views, easy weight loss, and male enhancement.

Drop me a line. We bloggers are all in this together.

By the way, today’s picture of Jenna Jameson? Yes, it was a totally gratuitous plug for traffic. Please don’t think ill of me.

– Reid Kerr is constantly amused by the search terms that lead people to his site, which once included “Rosie O’Donnell nude”.

I don’t know any witty way to start off this story, but a man was arrested for having sex with a table.

Yep. A table. I’m going to let that sink in a little.

Watch the video of the police chief for more hilarity. Just watch it, so you can tell your grandkids you’ve actually seen another human being say the sentence “He was completely nude, and he used the hole for the umbrella to have sex with the table.”

Some of you may be thinking that it’s a victimless crime, or that the table was asking for it because she was wearing a short table skirt.

To begin with, I’m not even sure how to report something like that. If I ever see a guy having sex with a picnic table, I wouldn’t know whether I should call the cops, or the sheriff, or a park ranger.

I think the wife should have known. When he cancelled his subscription to Playboy and started disappearing into the bathroom with the Ikea catalog, she should have figured something was up.

– Reid Kerr just isn’t into furniture sex, although he bets he gets some weird Google results out of that sentence.

This poorly-worded advertisement was on the counter of my local Taco Bell/KFC the other night. My local taco emporium is looking for “Customer Maniacs.”

I know they’re trying to make the lucrative field of taco preparation seem exciting, but I think they’ve gone too far. I don’t want a “maniac” preparing my food.

Yeah, that’s all I need. Some crazed maniac, loose in the Taco Bell with that giant sour cream/caulk gun. I’m not sure I’m going in if there’s the slightest chance that someone with some form of dementia working behind the counter, talking to aliens and taking a dump on my chalupa.

I can appreciate them wanting people who are energetic about their jobs, but I think there must be a better word for it. Perhaps “Go-Getter.” “Go-Getters” work extra hard to keep the tables wiped down and clean. “Maniacs” kill people, and keep their ears.

And another thing, why do they think I want to buy bad tacos and chicken at the same counter? It unnerves me to see people who don’t have the fine art of taco assembly down being entrusted with my chicken preparation. Bad tacos will make you sick, bad chicken can kill you.

– Reid Kerr gets ticked when they forget to cut the lettuce, because all they have to do is not put their hand in the stinkin’ lettuce.

Waiting in the drive-through line at Jack In The Box, this preprinted sign was in the window.

“For your safety, walk-up guests wll not be served at the drive-through window. This includes guests on coasting devices and non-motorized vehicles that have been altered.”

Does that seem a bit unnecessarily specific to anybody else? So I can’t blow through the lane in a sailboat? I can’t don roller blades and jam a mast up my ass and get a Jumbo Jack? I’m not permitted to catamaran the flying dutchman through the drive-through and grab a Deli Trio Panido?

I’m always interested in why certain things happen. Why did the central management of the Jack In The Box corporation Worldwide feel the need to have these signs written, drafted, typeset, proofed, corrected, printed, and shipped to every restaurant on the planet? Was there a major problem with guys on skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs, and Rascals clogging the lane?

By the way, I had plenty of time to take notes on the drive-through signage, since it took forever for them to reach me with my food. Jack In The Box’s slogan is “We Don’t Make It Until We’ve Noticed You Ordered it.”

– Reid Kerr would like fries with that, thanks for asking.

This is a New Choice Pregnancy Test from the Dollar Tree store, costing a grand total of…one dollar.

Offhand, what do you think the failure rate of a dollar’s worth of pregnancy test is? I’m guessing you could probably get similar results from peeing on a stick you found in your yard.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say if you’ve only budgeted a buck for your pregnancy test, you’re probably not going to have too much savings kicked back for the unborn’s eventual education. That poor kid’s not going to see a college unless it has the words “junior” or “clown” in it.

– Reid Kerr doesn’t recommend peeing on anything unless it costs at least ten bucks.