washwords

Ah commuting, so loverly.
Here are some things I am not a fan of on my commute (I’m talkin to you ORANGE LINE!)

• People who run. It’s work, people. That’s why they call it work, not happy fun time place. What’s the hurry? Today, new one, someone RAN onto the elevator. RAN. Full steam ahead, panting. N.B.: There are about 10 elevators at my Ginormous gov. office building. In EACH bank. There’s gonna be another one. Ditto trains. Which brings me to…
• People who jam-pack the trains. Folks, see the little handy sign with the neon letters. See how it says “1 minute.” One. Minute. Seriously?? Seriously. You’d rather jam your self and your twenty giant bags (each seeming to contain a disproportionate amount of right angled objects, stabbing me in the head) into the train, then wait … a minute… for the next one.
• Sneezers, wheezers, and other germ-festians. Stay home. Seriously. Here’s the latest grossest thing observed, just yesterday: Sneezer dude PICKED his nose, right on the trade, not even a sneak pick either, full on pickage! and then… that’s right, with the SAME HAND, he held onto the ring for standers on the train. Ohhhh.
• Seat sprawlers. There are several methods for this. My latest least fave: bag abusers. The other a.m., on the orange line, megas galore, hogging and sprawling, finally i get a seat. It is tight and I find myself needing to sit sideways into the aisle. I blame the widening of America and well, let’s be honest, the widening of me. But when I get off the train? I notice … noooo, Sprawly McSprawlington had his red boxy (note the many right angles in a rectangle) LUNCH box on my seat. Didn’t even pretend to try to swoop it up before the person before me or I sat down. Even though I had my bad ON MY LAP as he was taking up all floor space and arm span space with his paper opening and foot tapping. Harumph. I still need to get to the gym though.

XXXX OOOOO, your pal grump a lot.

Technorati Tags: commuting, Metro, WMATA, orange line, gross, megas, commuting, public transit, selfishness, self-absorbtion

We have colds, chores, tasks
sniffling snow, chugging juice
and we are giddy

Sometimes the best trip
is no trip at all, rather
you, me, woofs, crossword

We shop ikea,
hit DMV, mall, grocery
and laugh, how we laugh

I feel lucky and
you say, “not lucky, right” We
are right, we are right

(mwah “some guy named me”)

for more Washwords’ (and friends) haikus see Haiku You

Tea pots. Tea kettles.

Useful little gadgets, right? Especially when one’s sick and sniffley.

[Photo “teapot” on Flickr by Xassa]

In the move, I could have sworn I packed (and boxed and reboxed) at least 3 of them. Yah, in the great combining households after 25, we have doubles and triples of everrrything.

And yet?

Can’t find a one. Tore up the basement and the closets, untaping all those boxes so neatly labeled “give away.” Sneezing and whispering, I would have even settled for one of the many things I angrily threw in tubs, in my “get this out of here! I do not want any of these things! Next crystal bowl or vase is getting guillotined. Don’t try me? You wanna battle candlestick???? Throw them away NOW!” phase (sometimes I channel my mother. 🙂 Hi mom! This one’s for you!)

Still none. So, I’m at the mall, remember oh yah, Macy’s, they have housewares… teapots. Trot along between the ghost-town that was formerly known as major department store, to the one aisle of housewares in the sea of jampacked juniors “fashions” largely consisting of purple beaded tops and XXL “housecoats” always popular with the juniors… and voila, a not bad, pretty cute actually “martha stewart essentials” turquoise teapot. Price? $80.

Let me say that again. Eight TEE. Doll ARS. seriously.

I blinked. Further investigation revealed … it was on sale. For $63. For a tea pot!?

Had I been living in a cave? Was I the George Bush Sr. of my generation and in the years since I registered (for all those agljagjklagjlk crystal bowls), this is now what kitchen stuff cost? I wandered on and squashed, shamed in a corner with the other rif-raff appliances (“low-end mixers, kept farrr away from their kitchenaid superiors; “regular” coffeemakers that didn’t even make cappucino (as IF!), I found another teapot. $59.

I took the box down to examine – did these teapots have magical properties? come with boyfriends? insta-flu remedies? get outta work free cards? Nope. I just couldn’t do it.

Three hours later at a store whose name may have the initials B, B, and B (and is NOT buy buy baby), we found our teapot. a “curling stone” after the canadian sport, though I prefer to call it a curling iron. It’s white and doesn’t quite whistle right and the handle gets a little hot to the touch. But hey for $25, what do you want?

It was the tea kettle steal of the century apparently.

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