Broke Banker

Really, Banker Who Is “Broker Than The Ten Commandments”?

I don’t know much about banking, but I’ve played more than one game of OREGON TRAIL in my day, and I know that any banker worth his or her salt has at least $600 on his or her person at all times.  And that’s in mid-nineteenth-century Boston dollars!

Get with the times.  Like, the times of 1843.  Else you’re bound certain for a grave, thus:

Friend And Mobile Phone User

I’d be lying if I pretended that this was too much more than an indictment on the better part of the mobile-phone-using public (everyone), who seem to have forgotten what it means to make and keep plans.  Anyway…

Really, Buddy Who Was Supposed To Meet Us At The Restaurant Last Night?

We just made these plans earlier that day.  Certainly if they were to be canceled or changed, I’d have told you.  You called me, and I didn’t answer–about 45 minutes before our prescribed meeting time, mind you–and you just drove the half-hour home, without any intention of coming back out.

Is there a good reason (there isn’t) that you couldn’t just do as we had planned to do, not six hours before?  In the days before mobile phones, people made plans and then stuck with them.  You didn’t have to call or text someone every seven minutes to make sure the plans were still on, because you assumed they would be, since they were, you know, agreed upon at some point, and if they were off, you’d be notified, and if you weren’t, it wasn’t that big of a deal anyway.  As it wouldn’t have been in this case.  Especially since the plans went forth as discussed, without a hitch (except for your failure to show).

Good one.  Of course, by “good one,” I mean “Really?”

Ice Policy

So the landlord of your workplace won’t shell out to salt the walks on an icy day.

The company itself is, of course, far too cheap for that, too.

So you get to walk to work on icy patches you can’t even see, and the policy is one not of prevention, but of “if you fall and hurt yourself, contact HR for information on how to proceed.”

When you took that spill this morning, hitting your head on the pavement, you were in a bit of a daze for a second. As you came out of it to approach a proper level of awareness again, you could hardly help but wonder, Really?

(Propers to the feller that pulled over and offered to drive you the rest of the way into the office.)

Local Watering Hole

Really, Frequented Bar Whose Posted Closing Time Is 3:00AM?

I understand the need for “bar time”–the time indicated on clocks in bars, typically 10-20 minutes later than the actual time, to make sure that people are absolutely out and gone by the business’s closing time, to avoid mishap with liquor licenses and such.

3:00AM, though, your sign states you close.  Is there a good reason that the lights are coming up and the music has ended at what even your bar-time clocks indicate to be 2:10AM?

Really?

Lazy Neighbors IV: The Deadbeat Master(s)

Really, Four-Time-Losers? For those just joining us on the USS Really?, please cruise over to the original, the sequel, and/or the third installment to catch up on the glory propagated by these bastions, one and all, child and adult and all in between alike, of human dignity and nobility.

(If this column was capable of reading minds, and could tell exactly when you’d finished reading the above paragraph, I’d insert here a soundclip resembling human flatulence to play just then, for the record.)

It isn’t bad enough that your trash blows and/or is transported into my yard with some frequency and constancy. It isn’t bad enough that your band of feral children run amok on my property and every other on our block and the next over in every direction. It certainly isn’t bad enough that I’ve seen you in my front yard playing football with them on occasion. Absolutely, if you ever read this post, you could blame some of the indiscretion revealed herein on the wind, or a number of other factors, but the hard truth is, if there’s nothing there for the wind to blow around, the wind won’t blow anything around. Excuse me, I get ahead of myself.

So picture this: a blustery New Year’s Eve afternoon, and I’m raking leaves. Wait (and I know we typically only ask one very specific one-word question around here, but), What? By “What?” of course I refer to some degree of incredulity both that A) I’m spending my holiday afternoon raking leaves, but more so that B) I’m raking leaves in LATE DECEMBER? Which is, for anyone that knows anything about seasonal change, the rotation of the earth, yardwork, yard ownership, or anything else at all, far too late in the year to be rightfully raking leaves. You know what, though, Neighb’? I’m willing to accept these leaves as my own. They aren’t my own–they’re a rare (but decreasingly so) import from the throes of your own unkempt yard-space. I’ll suck it up on this one, partner. I want to be a good neighbor, and more importantly, a good person, so I’ll suck it up, rake ‘em, and dispose of ‘em properly.

Wait, though–as the title to this entry suggests, Lazy Neighbors, you’re just that–lazy. So naturally you’ve avoided raking or otherwise consolidating/removing the leaves that have fallen onto your lawn throughout the year, even once. A picture is beginning to form: whereas I’m concerned with being a good neighbor and person, you’re complacent with your current status, which scarcely elevates you above the worth-level of a parasitic moth (if that).

Why do I get the feeling that, come October or so, assuming I leave it to you, Lazy Neighbors, to take care of any leaves of yours that blow onto my property (you won’t), I’ll have a yard and patio full of your leaves, once again (I will)?

They say good fences make good neighbors, and boy, could I ever agree with that right now. If I ever have the spare capital to erect a fence between our respective properties, maybe I’ll consider painting each of seven panels thereof with large text characters on your side of the fence, spelling out R-E-A-L-L-Y-?

Critics Of Cinematic Adaptations Of Literary Works

Really, Those Who Continually Gripe About How “The Book Was So Much Better Than The Movie”?

Did it ever occur to you that chances are great the movie and the book are disparate enough entities that one isn’t necessarily even supposed to have that much to do with the other?  A lousy adaptation does not, by any means, a lousy cinematic experience make.  The sooner we can all realize that any given movie that is ostensibly a book adaptation, does not have to be, usually cannot be, and almost never will be, a very faithful adaptation (at least in terms of content), the sooner we can move on from the tired and faux-poignant non-axiom of “the book was better than the movie,” the better.

Do people that are intelligent, or even literate, enough to bother reading, actually fail to comprehend the lack of necessary connection between the literary form and its cinematic adaptations, existent or imagined?  Really?

Hickory Farms

Really, That Company Known Best Around “The Holidays” For Its Meat, Cheese, Cracker, And Strawberry Hard Candy Gift Sets?

At what point was it deemed appropriate by yourselves to repackage that product considered so unholy that junk mail has been named after it, calling it “cooked ham” and including it in many, or indeed any, of your gift sets?

The prestige of your company and the fine packaged sets associated therewith, especially at this time of year, are not lost on us, but if you’re gonna stick us with a disgusting jelly-laden product nary better than a can of Vienna sausages, that prestige does suffer a little.

I certainly hope never to find myself returning or otherwise rejecting any of your company’s products as gifted to me.  However, I doubt very much that anyone would cry too hard about an extra summer sausage, block of cheese, sleeve of crackers, or tiny jar of mustard (perhaps a slightly larger jar of the mustard?) in place of said “cooked ham,” in which case I’m inclined to ask, Really?

Lunch Commentator

Really, Lady Who Asks Me What That Is I’m Scooping Out Of A Tin Can?

…And, Upon My Answer That “It’s Ravioli,” Expresses Disgust?

So are you disgusted that it’s ravioli?  Wait, though–to be disgusted with something, surely you’d know what it was first, right, and wouldn’t have to ask?  Or maybe it was your soul twin that I encountered at that party the other day?  Do you maybe just go around insulting peoples’ lunches no matter how ordinary or innocuous?  Or perhaps ravioli is just that, too ordinary and innocuous for your pâté de foie gras and twenty-dollar-martini lunches?

No matter the case, keep it to yourself next time.  Instead of rude and unnecessary commentary on peoples’ lunches, try thinking of a good answer to Really?

Internet Jukebox

Really, Jukebox That Touts Its Ability To Download Any Popular Song That Isn’t Already On It?

I wonder what your definition of “popular” would be.

Let’s say there’s a song, we’ll call it, oh, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).”  This nameless mystery song has been covered by pop luminaries from Mariah Carey to Smash Mouth to Bon Jovi to U2 to Cher to Bruce Springsteen to Hanson to Joey Ramone to Death Cab For Cutie.  It originates from one of the most influential and popular albums (holiday-themed or otherwise) of all time.  The original singer thereof (we’ll call her, oh, “Darlene Love,” for example) still sings it on David Letterman’s show every single year, and it is one of her quintessential catalogue pieces (holiday-themed or otherwise).

Oh good, Internet Jukebox–I see you have two discs by our mystery artist.  One appears to be a “Greatest Hits” of sorts, and of course the song in question would be on that.  No?  Nowhere?  Strange…well, I’ll try this other disc, which appears to be a “Christmas Songs” collection and since this is far and away her most popular Christmas song (and in the running for most popular of her songs, period), that should be a no-brainer…

…

…nope, not there either.

What does it take to get pop music’s greatest holiday song of the past 45 years on a jukebox that claims to have it all and the capability to get the rest?

Really, though?

Partying Girl

Ready for another edition of “check out this exchange that occurred at a party the other night”?  Well okay, so maybe there hasn’t ever been a previous edition, but certainly you can already start to imagine the goldmine of Really? material that’s to be found within such a format:

[A song starts playing on the stereo.]
Partying Girl: Hey, Is this “Beautiful Nikki”?
Party Host: Uhh, you mean “Darling Nikki”?
Partying Girl: Yeah!  Yeah, that’s what I meant.
Me: Yes, this is “Darling Nikki.”
Partying Girl: Oh, I love this song!

Love it so much that you didn’t know what it was called and you couldn’t recognize it yourself upon hearing it?

Really?