How to Suck the Life Out of a Joke

Setting: Phone call between my sister and me.

Sister: Did you receive that last text message I sent you?

Me: Yeah I did. It was a joke or something…

Sister: Yeah it was…Why didn’t you reply back?

Me: Umm…Do I have to?

Sister: Well how am I supposed to know that you read it?

Me: Well it’s a joke; I just read it and laughed…

Sister: You should’ve replied back so I know you received it…

Me: Aha…All right, I’ll just send a “Haha” next time…

Sister: Mhmm…Okay…

MP3's...
John Lennon - Woman
No Doubt - Just a Girl
Tripping Daisy - I Got a Girl
Duran Duran - Girls on Film
Stevie Wonder - She's a Bad Mamma Jamma
Ida Cox - Wild Women Don't Have the Blues

at 4:00 AM 12 comments

Restroom Nightmare

Before I headed to an empty stall, I scurried over to the public restroom’s mirror to fix myself up when a woman with her son came in. The woman, a brassy blonde probably in her late thirties, was dressed in brown and embellished with loud, gaudy gold jewelry. Her son, a chubby twelve-year-old, was rather old to be hauled into the women’s restroom with his mother. “He cannot come in here madam,” the obese Egyptian cleaning lady called out before taking another puff from her cigarette. The mother ignored her and dragged her silent son into the stall next to mine.

“Thiba7tni enta! Kil mara lazim ana awatheek! Tara kobart 3ala hal sowalif! Yala saw caca! You’re such a nuisance! You’re too old to have me cleaning your behind every time you go the bathroom! Sit down and make number two!” I quietly went about in the stall adjacent to theirs while the mother’s voice shook the walls. She spoke Kuwaiti but there was something about her accent that was a little bit off. “Mafini caca…I don’t want to make number two,” her son whimpered in fear. “Khala9! Ma agdar! KHALA9! That’s it! I CAN’T!” I heard a couple of punches and thuds and soon afterwards, the son started to cry in a rather girlish way. “El 9aber ya madam, el 9aber! Have patience madam!”

I heard their door opening and the son running to one side of the restroom while the mother remained in the stall. I walked out only to see the son sobbing on the shoulder of the elderly Indian cleaning lady perched up on an empty red bucket turned upside down.

The mother finally stepped out in a huff and snapped at her son to follow her, “Ta3al! Come here!” He miserably shuffled behind his mother between sniffles.

I was washing my hands while trying to absorb the crime that just happened. I sighed and frowned at the child’s blackened future since his mother’s treatment will probably have an extremely negative impact on his life forever. I turned around and faced the two cleaning ladies who looked as distraught and disturbed as I was. “What a loss” I thought, “What a shame.”

MP3's...
Miles Davis - It Never Entered My Mind
Ella Fitzgerald - But Not For Me
Dinah Washington - Since I Fell For You
Miles Davis & Ella Fitzgerald - Prelude to a Kiss
Miles Davis - I Fall in Love Too Easily
Duke Ellington & John Coltrane - The Feeling of Jazz
Ray Charles & Ella Fitzgerald - Baby, It's Cold Outside
Miles Daviz - Cool Jazz
Dinah Washington & Brooke Benton - A Rockin' Good Way
Duke Ellington - I'm Just a Lucky So and So
Billie Holiday - As Time Goes By
Ray Charles - You Don't Know Me one of my favorites...

at 9:32 PM 18 comments