Go add your brilliant humor to the rest at the first, but not last, international Raising Hell Caption Contest. I did.

Cotton swab is the official name for Q-Tip, right? (Q-Tip facts here). As everyone knows, you don’t use Q-Tips for cleaning ears. I was reminded of this when I was cleaning my ears with Q-Tips, or cotton swabs for those of you from foreign countries, this morning.

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Something interesting happened last night, I guess not for the last time since I have two daughters. The phone rang and before Alpha or I could even put down our forks, both girls yelled, “I’ll get it!” and raced for the phone. Gamma won, although she’s only five, because she had been sitting on the side of the table nearest the phone. It was more an explosion of activity than a flurry of activity, triggered by a bell ringing, like Pavlov’s salivating dogs, only more fun to watch. It was for Beta, though, and Gamma had to surrender the phone.

The night before, and this is what this post is actually about, the phone rang and Beta was first. It was for her mother, though. It was The Man From The Dance School (TMFTDS).

Alpha: Hello?
TMFTDS: [Bossy, domineering tone of voice, to which Alpha is allergic] You wanted to register for a ballroom dance class?
Alpha: Yes, for beginners, on Friday.
TMFTDS: The Friday class is overbooked. I’m going to have to split it up into extra classes on Sunday and Thursday.
Alpha: I see. But we prefer Friday.
TMFTDS: Also, you’ll have to come into the school to register.
Alpha: Sorry, no time.
TMFTDS: It’s a matter of pre-payment for enrollment.
Alpha: We’ll pay when we come to the class.
TMFTDS: But you can’t register by phone.
Alpha: Sure I can. I’m doing it right now.
TMFTDS: Uh, well, uh. But I still have to move you, what about Thursday?
Alpha: No, absolutely not. Friday. We’re in the Friday class.
TMFTDS: Well, I guess I could move someone else to Thursday…
Alpha: Thanks for calling.
TMFTDS: Eh, sure. See you Friday.

Alpha did this all *naked* since she’d been in the shower when the call came: how am I supposed to learn to *lead* her?

Although in full Bug mode again today, I managed to irritate fewer people because I was at a meeting this morning. It was basically the same as every other meeting I’ve been to, and you too, probably. Colleagues from work sat around a big table in a meeting room writing notes and asking questions, and I spaced out pretty completely. They might as well have been speaking a foreign language of which I had no knowledge.

In fact, it turned out they *were* speaking a foreign language of which I have no knowledge. But it made absolutely no difference! Try this at your next meeting: speak in tongues. Speak backwards like the dwarf on Twin Peaks. Report back to Feral Living.

Coming soon: handling snakes with colleagues and supervisors: do’s and don’t’s.

Raising Hell is experiencing technical difficulties. Please stay tuned.

I wish I could write like the people linked on Riley Dog. On a related note, I’ll be redesigning this site sooner or later to focus more on text, and I may be signing up for Nanowrimo as well this year, although I’ve made fun of it in the past.

October is sugar beet harvesting season in my part of Austria and since a large sugar refinery is situated between my house and the freeway, my commutes to work take longer this time of year due to tractors slowly pulling overloaded trailers down the street. There seems to be no law requiring them to pull over and let traffic past if they are holding up more than a certain maximum number of cars, as would be the case in some other countries. The situation is better in recent years as more beets are transported in large dump trucks, which move faster and don’t hold things up as much, but there is still congestion and the remaining tractors still do a good job of fucking up traffic.

Compounding this are drivers who, stuck behind such tractors, execute dangerous passing maneuvers. Normally this only pisses me off, but today one didn’t make it completely past the tractor and traffic came to a complete stop for over an hour while the fire department extracted his wreckage from the site of the accident. There was a detour, but it was also congested and it took me an extra hour to get to work.

While that is an irritating start to a Monday, I suppose the person who totaled one or more cars is even more irritated, if they survived. Probably even if they’re dead, assuming there’s an afterlife, who knows.

Fucking sugar beets.