As some of you may know, or have been able to deduce by now, I don't always say the appropriate thing. An example of this would be the now infamous “No one has ever told me I sing well…” incident. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just trust me it was bad, and maybe the next time I see you I’ll tell you, but I’m not ready to commit this story to print) Well it was a lifetime of incidents like that that led me to spend $10 on a pack of conversation starter cards. Maybe they could help me?... At the very least this pack of cards can provide me with a bloggable topic whenever I don't have time to rage against something I saw on TV.
So to begin this grand experiment, I pulled a card from this deck of 52 cards; I found this appropriate President's day gem:
"If you had one week to show George Washington the country today, what would want to show him?"
Day 1 I welcome George to the 21st century with a huge bright smile -- he instantly feels ill at ease as he only has crappy wooden teeth. Next, I make him take a bath since he smells bad. I try to get him to change into jeans but he prefers his tights, which I try to explain to him is a little less than manly but he doesn't buy it. He gets scared when I listen to the radio and watch TV, and accuses me of being a witch, which I thought was just a Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure myth, but now I know better.
Day 2 Feeling bad about the whole TV-witch debacle, I try to slow things down a bit for George. We chat over tea about his feelings on the other founding fathers (John Adams was impotent and Jefferson was a pompous douche bag -- his words not mine). I ask him about Martha, though I don't ask him what I really want to know: is she really as ugly as she looked in all her portraits?? I take this day to share with him all the best things that the future has to offer, like velour sweat suits, space foam beds, plastic surgery, Gore-Tex fabrics, hot showers, instant pudding, and non stick pans. His favorite inventions? beer in aluminum cans and tennis shoes.
Day 3 After showing Georgie (he says it's okay to call him that) an updated map of the country, I ask him what he wants to see. After the fifth time he refers to people who don't live in the original colonies as heathens, I figure it's best if we just stick to the East Coast. Besides, I couldn't afford airfare to Washington, which unsurprisingly was the state he wanted to see most. So I book us a flight to New York City in an attempt at getting him to marvel at all the tall buildings a la Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee. Georgie ends up getting tazed by the air marshall after he pitches a fit right before take off because "it is impossible for a metal bird to fly." I take this time to introduce Georgie to another 21st century gem: sedatives.
Day 4 Georgie and I wander the streets of NYC. By this time, he's already getting on my nerves, what with all his inappropriate gawking at everything (freed slaves?! women out of the home?! chinamen?!) and making me explain every little thing (so the inside is like a tootsie roll, but it's also a lolly pop??). He's kind of like a 6-foot-plus-wig-and-tight-wearing toddler because he doesn't know how anything works and just keeps asking about every damn thing. And all his dumb questions about "horseless carriages" and "switchable candles" are asked in a weird, affected, 18th-century way. The hotel staff gets pretty pissed too, since he overflowed the hotel room toilet four times by overflushing. As we're in the elevator to go to the top of the Empire State building he asks me about the magic lifting box we're in, I lose it and tell him how much I wish that Jefferson had come to visit instead of him. We don't speak the rest of the day.
Day 5 After a quick trip to a book store to pick up a kid's book on how things work, me and Georgie are getting along a lot better. We return to DC on this day, and we take the train back since that seems slightly less scary than the plane. We bond over how ugly the view of New Jersey is from the train and George tells me all about crossing the Delaware river -- which I have to feign interest in since it seems to mean so much to him. The entire time he's talking I can't stop staring at his wooden dentures.
Day 6 I take George to Mount Vernon to show him where I smushed raisins into his carpet as a child, and to freak out all the old ladies who give tours there. They go crazy and contact his family members and an impromptu party is held for George. With everyone ooh-ing and ahh-ing over him I can't stand George. He's all "Did I ever tell you about the time I won the war and started this country? Blah Blah Blah" and since no one else there has had to listen this crap for the last 5 days they're into it. The historian at Mount Vernon asks to host George for the night and I gladly agree since Georgie is beginning to smell again -- he hasn't bathed since Day 1.
Day 7 After a day with the historian, George is completely unbearable. He's so self-important and won't stop talking about himself. Whenever I try to change the topic of conversation he won't let me because my "face isn't on the dollar bill." Just because of that I don’t take him to see the Washington monument, which I tell him was a monument for Ben Franklin instead. After lunch I send him on his way -- a little earlier than expected but I couldn't handle one more comment about how it's not normal for a woman to wear pants.
So to begin this grand experiment, I pulled a card from this deck of 52 cards; I found this appropriate President's day gem:
"If you had one week to show George Washington the country today, what would want to show him?"
Day 1 I welcome George to the 21st century with a huge bright smile -- he instantly feels ill at ease as he only has crappy wooden teeth. Next, I make him take a bath since he smells bad. I try to get him to change into jeans but he prefers his tights, which I try to explain to him is a little less than manly but he doesn't buy it. He gets scared when I listen to the radio and watch TV, and accuses me of being a witch, which I thought was just a Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure myth, but now I know better.
Day 2 Feeling bad about the whole TV-witch debacle, I try to slow things down a bit for George. We chat over tea about his feelings on the other founding fathers (John Adams was impotent and Jefferson was a pompous douche bag -- his words not mine). I ask him about Martha, though I don't ask him what I really want to know: is she really as ugly as she looked in all her portraits?? I take this day to share with him all the best things that the future has to offer, like velour sweat suits, space foam beds, plastic surgery, Gore-Tex fabrics, hot showers, instant pudding, and non stick pans. His favorite inventions? beer in aluminum cans and tennis shoes.
Day 3 After showing Georgie (he says it's okay to call him that) an updated map of the country, I ask him what he wants to see. After the fifth time he refers to people who don't live in the original colonies as heathens, I figure it's best if we just stick to the East Coast. Besides, I couldn't afford airfare to Washington, which unsurprisingly was the state he wanted to see most. So I book us a flight to New York City in an attempt at getting him to marvel at all the tall buildings a la Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee. Georgie ends up getting tazed by the air marshall after he pitches a fit right before take off because "it is impossible for a metal bird to fly." I take this time to introduce Georgie to another 21st century gem: sedatives.
Day 4 Georgie and I wander the streets of NYC. By this time, he's already getting on my nerves, what with all his inappropriate gawking at everything (freed slaves?! women out of the home?! chinamen?!) and making me explain every little thing (so the inside is like a tootsie roll, but it's also a lolly pop??). He's kind of like a 6-foot-plus-wig-and-tight-wearing toddler because he doesn't know how anything works and just keeps asking about every damn thing. And all his dumb questions about "horseless carriages" and "switchable candles" are asked in a weird, affected, 18th-century way. The hotel staff gets pretty pissed too, since he overflowed the hotel room toilet four times by overflushing. As we're in the elevator to go to the top of the Empire State building he asks me about the magic lifting box we're in, I lose it and tell him how much I wish that Jefferson had come to visit instead of him. We don't speak the rest of the day.
Day 5 After a quick trip to a book store to pick up a kid's book on how things work, me and Georgie are getting along a lot better. We return to DC on this day, and we take the train back since that seems slightly less scary than the plane. We bond over how ugly the view of New Jersey is from the train and George tells me all about crossing the Delaware river -- which I have to feign interest in since it seems to mean so much to him. The entire time he's talking I can't stop staring at his wooden dentures.
Day 6 I take George to Mount Vernon to show him where I smushed raisins into his carpet as a child, and to freak out all the old ladies who give tours there. They go crazy and contact his family members and an impromptu party is held for George. With everyone ooh-ing and ahh-ing over him I can't stand George. He's all "Did I ever tell you about the time I won the war and started this country? Blah Blah Blah" and since no one else there has had to listen this crap for the last 5 days they're into it. The historian at Mount Vernon asks to host George for the night and I gladly agree since Georgie is beginning to smell again -- he hasn't bathed since Day 1.
Day 7 After a day with the historian, George is completely unbearable. He's so self-important and won't stop talking about himself. Whenever I try to change the topic of conversation he won't let me because my "face isn't on the dollar bill." Just because of that I don’t take him to see the Washington monument, which I tell him was a monument for Ben Franklin instead. After lunch I send him on his way -- a little earlier than expected but I couldn't handle one more comment about how it's not normal for a woman to wear pants.
2 comments:
For those nerdlingers out there who dare to question the veracity of my blog, which was clearly based in reality and truth, I do concede that I stretched the truth a bit about Georgie's teeth: they were in fact made of a combo of horse teeth, gold, ivory and lead. If you ask me, he'd be lucky to have wooden teeth as opposed to known neural toxin, but that's just me. Read here for more info: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6875436/
I heard that despite the teeth, George was pretty good looking. So umm, maybe you two would have made out?
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