The Curmudgeon Curse

My full name is Beverly and my husband's full name is Arthur. Arthur and Beverly – we sound like two retirees living in Boca, him in his plaid pants, me in my moo moo. He's complaining about taxes and I'm just complaining.

But names cycle around, so by the time I really am an old retiree living in Florida, Beverly and Arthur will be the hip, cool, young names. So we'll be able to get in all the hot clubs. Bouncers will be expecting young sexy people, and I'll show up with my walker, Art with his cane.

And I know when I do get old, I'm gonna throw a hip out. And I don't want it to happen while I'm getting milk out of the frig, or trying to open a cabinet. I want it to happen when I'm doing something memorable, like cage dancing in South Beach.

Out-souped at The Soup Man

Tonight I was ordering a soup combo at The Soup Man. And if you're not familiar with the Soup Man, he's the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, who tried to sue Seinfeld. That didn't pan out, so he took the 'if you can't beat them, join them approach' and has now created a franchise soup empire with the overstated tagline of "The soup that made Seinfeld famous." Same soup from Seinfeld, except now the restaurants try to be overly friendly to get away from the Nazi reputation.

That's the background.

Tonight I ordered Chicken Vegetable soup, and the girl behind the counter told me to pick any salad I wanted. I picked out my salad and she said, "Oh, not that one." While I'm picking out a different salad, and another man came in and ordered the same soup as me.

So I'm waiting for my order and the friendly manager comes up and explains that they're out of the Chicken Vegetable soup. And I was all, "but I just sampled it and it was delicious!" And behind the manager, I see the other guy who ordered the same soup walking out the door as the manager says, "Yeah, we just ran out."

I call it like I see it, "That guy just out-souped me! You let the soup swindler get my soup!"

He laughed and tried to sell me on the, "Chicken Barooh" which he claimed was "very popular."

"What?"

He repeated it again, "Chicken Barooh, very popular." I had never had barooh before, but my options were dwindling as other soup snatchers were starting to trickle in the place. Turns out he was saying Chicken Barley. I decided to settle, "Alright, mix the chicken barooh with the vegetable soup."

That's when I saw the true Soup Nazi colors. Everyone behind the counter got wide-eyed, as he explained, "We're not allowed to mix the soups. You can buy two soups and when you get home mix them together."

I spared no sarcasm as I smiled and said, "because it might taint the special secret recipe?"

Mr. Chicken Barooh grinned and nodded.

It just goes to show, you can take the soup out of the Nazi, but you can't take the Nazi out of the soup.

Begging for Beyonce

On my way to lunch today, I saw a homeless guy making his cardboard sign. He stood out because he looked new to the homeless community. He was cute and clean-cut, but he also stood out because he was asking passer-byers "Excuse me, how do you spell Beyonce?"

The more people who passed ignoring him, the more annoyed he became. He finally took out his frustration on a man in his late 60's, who I'm quite certain, wasn't familiar with Beyonce, much less how to spell it, but he lost it and yelled at him anyway, "Beyonce? BEYONCE! How do you spell Be-YONCE?"

Out of curiousity on my way back from lunch, I walked past him again to see what he has written. An hour later, he was still writing! He had written paragraphs. A cardboard blog, if you will, most of which was illegible.

Clearly this kid didn't know about street-saavy marketing. He was in mid-town, where there's a lot of people competing for pocket change. He needed to brand himself. You know, like the crazy guy who will give you custom insults for a dollar, or the homeless comedian, or the spitter. You've gotta have a shtick.

I thought about giving him money, then I remembered the old saying, "Give a man some change and you feed him for a day, teach a man how to beg for change, you feed him for a lifetime."

Redefining Define

So, this weekend I decided to splurge on a pair of jeans at this little boutique in Hoboken.

As I'm paying for them, I ask the sales guy, "If these don't fit, can I return them?" And he's like, "Oh sure, just bring them back in 7 days."

So, I come home, try them on for Art. I'm facing him and he says, "Those look good, turn to the side." So I turn to the side and he says, "Yeah, I like those." I'm feeling good about myself, feeling sassy, and he says, "Let me see the back." And I turn and he says, "Ewwwh...uh...um...they make your ass look...uh... weird." I run to the mirror and sure enough, it looks like I've been rear-ended by an Escalade. My ass is all poofy at the top and flat as a pancake at the bottom.

I won't make any bones about it, I've got a big round booty. When you buy jeans, you want your butt to either maintain status quo, or look better...but never car-wreck ass.

So, the very next day, I take the jeans back. Same guy is there and says that they don't do refunds....

Say what?

I had my receipt and everything. Normally, I would have let it go, but I've got a cold, haven't slept in days, PMS and quite frankly, I'm feeling a little pissy. I ask who the store owner was...he was the store owner.

The no-refund policy would have been good information the previous day when I was paying for them, because I wouldn't have bought the ass-wreck jeans.

He kindly explains that this is the policy, incase they can't sell the items again. Which makes me think that I'm the only sucker in the world willing to buy jeans from this place. And I'm like, "What? But I'm giving you the jeans back and you will be able to resell them." And he smirks and says, "Yeah, I know...but what if they did't resell." So now, I'm roped into some pyramid scheme and am strangely responsible for the retail fate of these jeans.

Then he goes on to say, which is my personal favorite, that this is his policy because denim is very expensive and stores don't make money on jeans. But, but, denim...it's made out of cotton, the same thing is in q-tips, and t-shirts...

So the moral of the story is...beware of the boutique, and when you drop a few hundred on jeans, make sure it looks like you could bounce a quarter off your ass.

*For your viewing pleasure, I added a pic of the guido store owner that I pulled from his myspace page, back at cha, Roberto!

Sleeping with the Devil

My husband has a cold this week. He's been up coughing all night for the past 3 nights. I'm sympathetic, I'm compassionate, I'm exhausted.

(By the way, if that graphic is driving you nuts, you can click on it and it stops.)

Last night while we 'slept' he alternated between trying to breath through his nose, then his mouth, which sounded like the audio from a martial arts movie. "Heeeii-yahhhh...uuuooohhhhh."

He coughed, he turned, he coughed, he turned. He'd turn and cough at the same time, spraying gusts of hot infectious air all over the room. It was like sleeping with the Tasmanian Devil.

I reinacted my Tasmanian Devil impression of him this morning. He laughed and said, "That's good, that sounds exactly like him, I can't believe you can remember what he sounded like."

Stunned, "Remember what he sounded like? I just listened to him for 8 hours straight!"

On a Roll...

I took this picture just so I could e-mail friends and say, "Hey, look at this asswipe I met during lunch."