Today's interaction of note

Sometimes we get involved in a conversation that goes in such a stupid direction that we must share it with you. Like this one:


Us: Wow, this bill is 630 days overdue.

Mr. Ed: Oh man, that's almost a year.

Us: 

 
What do you even say to something as dumb as that?

Who cares about you

If you live anywhere near the Northeast, if you've been paying any attention to any sort of news media, you know about the snow storm that went through. They started tossing around the word blizzard over the weekend. 

With predictions of more than a foot of snow in under 24 hours we Tartarus employees were eagerly anticipating at least one day off from work. Most businesses in our town decided no later than Monday morning that they would not open at all Tuesday or Wednesday. 

Imagine our shock then when we opened an email from the Hutt first thing Monday morning that read "FYI, I will not be making any decisions about being open or closed in the morning until tomorrow. If we decided to close, Shoes or I will call you first thing." Now, the Hutt posted about the storm on Facebook all weekend, completely freaked out about what was coming. Why, then, not make the call to close? Instead, we all had to wake up early and wait for a phone call.

The Hutt even went so far as to cancel all of it's appointments for Tuesday and Wednesday because "it won't be safe for people to come to Tartarus." So what is staff, then? Automatons? Soulless shades? 

The whole thing just leaves us scratching our heads.

Space for letters, not people

It's time once again for Stuff Out of Context. Today's line is:
You can't live at the post office.

Yum, air beaks.

Usually our stories of stupidity center around Tartarus. For a change, though, we bring you a tale from a certain large chain store. While shopping this weekend we encountered a woman handing out samples of coffee. 

"This is great coffee," she said proudly. "Only $7 a bag and it's made from real Arabica beans. The other sample giver and I really love it."

Sounds pretty normal, right? Now, if you know anything about coffee you know the word is pronounced "uh-rab-i-cuh". What makes this story funny is that the woman was saying it "air-uh-bee-cuh". To us this sounds like a person. We dub her Airubeekuh Talulu Winklestein.

 

It's Mo Monday!

With the extreme cold of winter, we made the mistake of inviting Mo inside to warm up for a little while. He immediately jumped into a pile of laundry and refused to move.

Go ahead. Try and take a shirt. You might find you have one less finger.

For once, though, Mo was not as smart as he thought. It was a simple matter to scoop him up into a laundry basket.

Not sure how long that mesh will hold him though.

You have your J months confused

Every year Tartarus hosts special summer programming.

"Spoof and Speck," you are saying, "why are you talking about summer? It's January. Summer is, like, months away."

Oh friends, we are well aware of that fact. We have absolutely no desire to be thinking about summer events. Blame Shoes.

Today Shoes cornered Spoof. "Where is the clipart cd that came with our programming packet," said Shoes. "I NEED that cd."

Can no one bring me a clipart cd?!

"I dunno," said Spoof. "I stuck it somewhere. I'll look for it sometime. Maybe March."

"No," insisted Shoes. "Look for it now."

"Shoes, why in the world do you need the cd now?"

"I'm so far behind," said Shoes. "I haven't even started my summer brochures yet."

Readers, have you ever made a brochure? Most word processing programs have a decent brochure template. Even messing with fonts and images, a basic brochure like we use at Tartarus shouldn't even take an hour. Why, then is Shoes starting on them now?

We must admit, though, that if events hold true to history Shoes will still be working on those brochures in May.

Talk about a sticky wicket

Note: wicket is literally the only croquet term we know, never having actually played the game. And we can't be bothered to learn any more.

It's Mo Wednesday!

That's right, Mo Wednesday. If you check your calendar, you will see that today is National Squirrel Appreciation Day. Mo certainly wasn't going to let us forget that. So, here is a photo of Mo with one of his squirrel friends/minions.

Have you appreciated your squirrel today?

Coincidentally, it is also national hug day. We do not, though, recommend hugging any squirrels. You never know if they might be in league with Mo. If you value your face, DO NOT hug squirrels.

It's Mo Monday!

We came across this abandoned building today. Mo was instantly enamored with it. "This is my new lair," he proclaimed.
"But Mo," we said, "look at it. That floor is covered in broken glass. The ceiling is falling in."
He rubbed his paws together. "Isn't it marvelous. Ready made traps."
After that, we quietly crept away. He's kind of terrifying sometimes, that Mo.

Plague of the Day

Today Plague was sporting: Black pants, black and white sneakers, a chocolate brown scoop neck shirt, a pink green and brown geometric striped tunic, a pink blue and grey striped knit cowl, and an ivory scarf with silver sequins.

Poor little whatever that is

It's time once again for Stuff Out of Context!
Today we bring you a conversation out of context:
-What's a poo-pay?
-I don't know, but it's sad whatever it is.

Dunce corner

Here's a feature we haven't done in a while. As a reminder, Dunce Corner is where we gather stupid things we've read and overheard in Tartarus.

Is he trying to come in when we aren't open?

Do the numbers need to be capitalized too?

It's Mo Monday!

While thrift shopping this weekend, we found this strange wooden object. We debated whether it was meant to look like a computer or perhaps some kind of sound equipment. Mo, on the other hand, insisted that it was a doomsday device. Not a prop, but a real device. We were going to convince him otherwise, but it occurred to us that so long as he believed that, he wasn’t trying to kill people. It’s not likely to last long but we’ll take the reprieve while we can.

The 3 P's

Yesterday we told you about the Hutt's weird behavior at our staff meeting. That was actually only part of the story. 

For several days now, the Hutt has been hinting that there is someone important intending to visit Tartarus. "A VIP," is all we are being told. In preparation of this apparently oh so important visit, we were given a list of things we should be doing. Things we probably should be doing all of the time, not just when a "VIP" comes around. Things like keeping work spaces neat. And looking professional. And using good customer service skills.

Part of this list was something labeled "the three p's":
     -Passionate about our work
     -Positive in thoughts, feelings and actions
     -Professional in respect, communication, and support of patrons and fellow staff

We have substituted our own, more accurate, p's:
     -Passionless
     -Pessimistic
     -Pointless

You can't be okay

We readily admit that many things confuse us. What we find most mystifying, though, is the Hutt. Consider this.

At the beginning of our staff meeting today Speck sat down at the table opposite of the Hutt. "Hi Speck," the Hutt said in an incredibly smarmy tone. "How are you?"

Speck has been sick with a cold for several days and is only beginning to feel better. "I'm alright," said Speck.

The Hutt said nothing to this, only stared at Speck with a suspicious glare.

What exactly was Speck meant to say? Lie and claim to be fantastic? Lie in the other direction and claim to be half dead? Apparently, even when you tell the truth at Tartarus, you lose.
 

Spoof has a shot at birdie

Thanks a bunch

This year, your friends Spoof and Speck were tasked with writing thank you cards for the gifts of food the staff received this year. It is a largely harmless, if annoying, job. As we looked through the list, though, we spied the name Pterry. “Hey Shoes,” we said, “is this the Pterry who works here?”

“It is,” said Shoes. “Pterry brought in so many treats. I thought it would be nice if we thanked her.”

“We already thanked her,” we said. “We thanked her when she brought them. Besides, Turtle brought in a lot of food too. You didn’t put Turtle on the list.”

Shoes sort of glared at us. “Well, if you don’t think Pterry is worthy of a card, don’t right one. I just thought a written thank you would be nice.”

And so we didn't. Not because Pterry isn't worth but because it was a stupid idea. So there.

It's Mo Monday!

Out for a walk this weekend we spotted Mo. We’re a little afraid of what he might have been doing. It’s possible he was scolding passing pet owners. It’s equally possible that he was attempting to, shall we say, leave a deposit at the base of that sign in order to defy authority. We didn’t stick around long enough to find out.

Ignoring people isn't funny

We know that our coworkers don’t respect us. Speck is essentially invisible. We didn’t realize until today just how deeply that disrespect was ingrained.

A patron asked Zebra about an upcoming event happening in February. At the end of February. We hadn’t even heard about it yet. Zebra informed the patron that there was no such event and that she must have gotten it confused with a class series starting next week. It just so happened that Speck had spent the last hour working with the upcoming calendar and had noticed said event. “No, she’s right,” interjected Speck. “I just saw it. It’s probably something Shoes set up.”
“No, I don’t think that’s something we’re doing,” continued Zebra to the patron.
“I saw it in your newsletter,” said the patron. “I’d like to sign up.”
“I don’t think there’s a sign-up sheet yet,” said Speck to the patron, trying to bypass Zebra entirely. “Probably not until the end of January. You’d have to check with Shoes.”
At this point Mr. Ed, who had been on the phone, got involved. “Can I help in some way?”
So of course Zebra tried to explain the situation, getting all of the details wrong, and the patron tried to explain what she had read. So, they went through it all again. The patron asking for a sign-up sheet, Mr. Ed telling her that the event did not exist, and Speck trying to relay the correct information directly to the patron. At last, Speck managed to get the patron to understand: the sign-up sheet would probably be out in a few weeks. Mr. Ed didn’t get it. He sat down (at Speck’s work station somehow) and started to copy the date and time of the event for the patron, information that, if he’d been listening, he would have realized the patron already had.

This was annoying. What made it rage inducing was what happened a few minutes later, after  the patron had left.

Zebra walked up to Speck, laughing. “Boy,” he said, “nobody was listening to you. That was really funny.”

Because being ignored is freaking hilarious.

Our New Year's Resolutions

Yeah, we're bowing to social pressure. Here are our goals for this new year.
 
1.Don’t strangle anybody. We haven’t done it yet and would like to keep our prison-free record.
2.New features. We’d like to try out new content in the next few months. As you see new stuff here on Falling Down the Death Stare, please let us know what you think.
3. More original artwork. We’re discussing bringing back our altered paintings. And there’s been some discussion of comic strips…
4. Ideally, we’d like to bring you a new song each quarter….At least, we’d like to try. We’ll see.
Most importantly:
5.Twitter. We’ve been talking for at least six months now about bringing the Death Stare to Twitter. This is the year. We’ll update you as soon as that is reality.

So, that’s generally what is in store for you this year on Falling Down the Death Stare. We hope it’s the best year yet.