CONVERSATIONAL CONVERSATIONS
A few days ago, Mel sent me out to buy toilet paper, as we were starting to run low, and let’s face it, that’s not the sort of thing you want to suddenly discover you have nothing left of after the fact. This immediately, strangely brings us to
Today’s Lesson: apparently there is a science to toilet paper.
I know, I was astounded by this myself.
Mel had detailed specs about the toilet paper we should bring into our home, and since I spend more time in a mall than here (which has given me a healthy loathing of your average shopping mall…unless it’s one populated by zombies and I’ve just found the
Chainsaws N’ Stuff store), it was left up to me to shop around and find the better price.
I did so, and was quite pleased with myself for having stuck through the details as I relayed the information over the phone to Mel. This is almost verbatim how the conversation went:
Me: [so proud of my skills] “Okay, I checked out the brands you said. For a 24-pack of two-ply Royale, it’s $10.50, and for the same of Cashmere it’s only $10.”
Mel: “Great. Were any of these double rolls?”
Me: “…what?”
Mel: “Double rolls. You know, double rolls are bigger than standard ones. More for your money.”
It was at this point I decided to cleverly hide my confusion behind blind panic, which prompted me sputter: “I don’t know! Was I supposed to look for that? I didn’t see anything on any of the labels that said either way!”
With a sigh, Mel then talked to me in that way a parent speaks to a child who’s tried very hard at something but botched up anyways. “That’s okay,” she told me. “I’ll be stopping by on Friday to see you, so we can look then.”
I feel rather chagrined to admit that I have somehow managed to fail at toilet paper intel-gathering.
On the other hand, we also have another conversation that almost borders on mimetic mutation. It all began in Connecticut, where Mel discovered a Coach purse that her younger sister, Meaghan, had used all but once. And it was in fact a very pretty blue purse. The thing to bear in mind is this: Coach brand is expensive. Very expensive.
As in, you go to a Coach store in the States, and all thirty pieces of their entire merchandise are out on display, and if you are very, very lucky, you’ll discover that the least expensive item in there is the $150 leather watch strap.
The purse that Mel really liked was $250 USD. This translates to: ooh, I really like that purse…but holy crap, not that much! This brings us back to the paragraph starting this particular conversation: it was an expensive purse, but Mel’s sister had used it all but a single time since she had purchased it…over six months ago. (I have been informed that she has since moved on to other purses that may or may not be just as trendy and/or expensive.)
Since the purse was just sitting around collecting dust, Mel asked if she could claim ownership of the purse. Meaghan graciously agreed to exchange the purse for one single, specific request: she wanted to get some burned DVD copies of the first two seasons of Sailormoon. Here’s how the next few lines of dialogue between them went:
Mel: “Okay, can do.”
Meaghan: “But it needs to be the dubbed version of those two seasons.”
Mel: [eyebrow twitch!] “Okay…but, why?”
Never the less, a deal was struck and Mel was honour-bound to deliver the episodes to her sister in due time. But first, she relayed the details of the trade-off to me. Everything was fine until…
Mel: “Oh, there’s just one other thing.”
Me: “And that is?”
Mel: “The episodes need to be the dubbed one.”
Me: [eyebrow twitch!] “Okay…but, why?”
Fast-forward to a week after we got back from CT, where Mel contacted our friendly neighbourhood Servo-man to see if he could use his magical torrent skills and dredge up the episodes for burninating. And everything was fine until…
Mel: “Oh, there’s just one other thing.”
Kevin: ^-^ “Name it.”
Mel: “The episodes need to be the dubbed one.”
Kevin: [eyebrow twitch!] “Okay…but, why?”
So here we now are: I have toilet paper, Mel has a Coach purse, her sister will soon have burned DVDs of the DIC-dubbed Sailormoon, and Kevin has space on his computer currently being occupied by an evil force that could very well rise up and drive us insane before devouring us all (and we’re not talking about the Chibi-thulhu plushie sitting near the computer tower).
Oh, sweet circle of life. How you move in such strange, strange ways.
...and in other news, this gives me hope beyond hope:
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40492Labels: burninating dubbed SM instead of just burning it, can the Muppets be funny again, how do you make toilet paper sound funny in a tab without resorting to dirty words?
posted by Phillip at 4:41 AM
