Archive for the Short Stories Category
I don’t lie to my mother – I omit the truth sometimes. This particular truth omission revolved around a little place called Seattle, where I was scheduled to attend a large gaming convention. Since my mother hates when I fly and does not understand what I do for a living, saying something like, “I’m going to
PAX to do
AVGN coverage and a
Mr. Bucket stunt,” would blow her mind.
After playing a delicate dancing game around my week’s plans, I set off for my Seattle trip without a hitch. I thought it was a bit odd that all of my friends’ planes were delayed due to “Hurricane Irene,” but I figured it was just an overly marketed thunderstorm and decided to hang out at a local brewery while I waited for them to land.
I turned on my phone for the first time that day – 12 missed called, 5 new voicemails. All from my mom. Ruh roh.
“Mom, is everything okay?”
“Vhy is it so loud? Are you at a bar?”
“Uh…”
“Vhat are you, a vacko? Dere’s trees flyink everyvhere...
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It's always bothered me how my mother and grandmother are treated in retail establishments because of their accents. As a result, I've always been the one to have to "take it up with the manager" or "write a letter" when injustice happens. Combine this with the fact that I'm a writer and sort of an ass, and it makes for interesting letters written on contact forms. So....enjoy.
Dear Dollar Tree, Inc.,
Let me tell you a story.
A story about $1 glowsticks.
Back in March, I was planning a non-profit event that required the purchase of large number of non-toxic glowsticks. As I stood in the middle of the isle, baffled by your sea of chemiluminescent of assorted plastic tubes, a kindly store clerk asked me if I needed assistance. What I needed help with was some simple mathematical forecasting. Probably not the best thing to ask from a retail clerk wearing a Spiderman band-aid to cover her eyebrow ring (thus drawing more attention to the eyebrow ring) but I give everyone a shot. And it really was a cool band-aid.
My equation was this:
My quarterly events with $0 cover charge...
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(*apologizes to my cousin in advance who will probably get really mad at me for writing this. But it's funny an educational! Don't kill me. *)
“My back is killing me,” my cousin said as she placed her baby into the stroller.
“Eh, you’ll feel better after you get in the hot tub," I replied. We had already spent a full day at Bible Camp and were looking forward to the solitude of "Adult Swim," an hour long open hot tub and swimming pool session for adults-only.
“That sounds pretty good. But wait…is it safe to go into the hot tub? I’m still breastfeeding.”
“What could go wrong?"
“I know this sounds stupid, but I don’t want to get into super-hot-tub and have my milk supply go bad somehow. Not just from the heat, but there's all kinds of bacteria in the water that can get into your milk duct and cause an infection.”
“The things they don’t tell you about pregnancy in health class…”
“You don't know the half of it."
“Well, you're the first person with a baby that I've ever hung out with, so I don't know squat. But I have a fancy cellphone with...
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After getting over the language barrier in Kindergarten
(read that story here), I spoke English fluently...but vit un accent and a stah-studd-stutter. I had to attend an English as a Second Language (ESL) class until middle school in order to get over my linguistic problems.
I always hated going to ESL because they would make me color. Even at that young age, I couldn’t understand how coloring would help me learn English and I had no patience for the arduous activity. To make matters worse, they forced me to recite tongue twisters in front of five other kids, and I was the worst one in the group.
One day, my kindergarten teacher was reading everyone a story about owls on the magic circular carpet, and my ESL teachers came to collect me.
"Stephie, time for your speech lessons,” my teacher said, getting ready to flip to the next page of the storybook.
“No! I na…na…na…need to know vhat's gonna happen to dah ovl!”
"No, it's time for you to learn to speak English properly!"
Everyone was looking at me. I didn't like that. "Pa-pa-pa-pleaase, I just vant to know..."
This escalated in volume (and...
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Like every other year, I went to Long Beach Island to "Bible Camp" with my family for Mother's Day weekend.
(Read horrible-but-hilarious past Bible Camp stories here).
The struggle with Bible Camp never revolves around the actual Camp itself, which is a well-maintained old hotel with a clean beach and little harbor.
The problem is always the BEHAVIOR of just a few of my family members, who go out of their way to act outlandish in this fairly conservative and relaxed setting. I think that if it weren't for the polite nature of our fellow campers, my brood would have been kicked out long ago.
For those of you not on the American Goulash Twitter or Facebook, here are some of the Top Live-Tweets from the weekend, mostly by my hilarious & fabulous mother, Anyu:
--
"Good ting you're unemployed so you could go on vacation today."
Me: "I worked today! I run my own business."
::scoffs:: "Dat's not a REAL job."
--
(about three hours into the vacation:)
Me: I've decided that it's OK to tweet from the toilet if you're not actually going to the bathroom. You see, I'm hiding...
--
"Look, Stephie! Dey peeled all of dese hardboiled...
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May 11th,2011
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