I’m Doing The A To Z April Challenge 2016: For Better Or Worse

March 29, 2016May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 45 Comments

Just the facts, ma’am…

I’ve joined the A to Z April Challenge 2016. I’m in the mid-1500s on the list, should you care to find me. There’s still time for any of you, my gentle readers, to join in. Never let it be said that I didn’t invite you.

I’ve never tried to do this challenge before. When it comes to The Spectacled Bean, I tend to fly by the seat of my pants, so following a schedule, which this challenge requires, looks suspiciously like work to me. But I’ll do my best to keep on track.

My theme for this challenge will be FOOD: Talking The Talk. I plan on sharing sayings, such as proverbs, idioms, or slang phrases, and a few quotes or product names as examples of how we talk about food, even when we’re not necessarily talking about food.

I promise, as I go through the alphabet, that I will not be pedantic. In fact, I imagine that this sort of challenge will allow me to flaunt my natural tendency toward flapdoodle and twaddle. With a little snark thrown in for good measure. And occasionally, a few facts.

… That is all.

A 3-Question Pop Quiz On Guttering & Muttering

March 15, 2016March 15, 2016 / Ally Bean / 36 Comments

Q1: What is wrong with this picture?

A. Not a thing… did I ever mention my favorite artist is Salvador Dali?

B. How clever! You’ve built a sliding board for Fuzzy the Squirrel.

C. It looks like some more of the gutter has fallen off the back of your house… AGAIN.

D. What’s wrong with this?! Every stinking thing. The end of the world is nigh.

# # #

Q2: What caused this gutter to come undone?

A. I don’t understand the question… you know Dali painted some surreal works with absurd off-kilter angles just like this gutter.

B. A squirrel jumped up and down about a hundred thousand times on the gutter.

C. Ally Bean allowed herself to dream of buying a new laptop computer for herself, not because she needs one, but because she WANTS one.

D. What caused this to come undone?! Every stinking thing. The end of the world is nigh.

# # #

Q3: What did Ally Bean mutter when she saw what had happened?

A. I imagine, like Salvador’s work, her words were a bizarre juxtaposition of pathos and profundity, of oddness and obviousness. A mélange of commonplace utterances and curse words.

B. Where is that damned squirrel!

C. Holy Fricking Mole-y! I gotta call Z-D, who is, of course, out-of-town on business, to tell him I’M. NOT. HAPPY.

D. What did she say?! Every stinking thing. The end of the world is nigh.

# # #

Shopping For Tile: A Tale Of Snobbery & Comeuppance

March 11, 2016January 9, 2017 / Ally Bean / 51 Comments

In and of itself what happened when I went shopping at the fancy tile store, where we bought all of our tile for this house when we had it built years ago, was no big deal.

I’m not unfamiliar with snobby sales clerks in the big city.

But this particular indifferent, snobby sales clerk, who I shall call Gumdrop, was sixty years old, if a day, and she went out of her way to ignore me. She said “hello” when I walked into the store, then before I could reply she went back to looking at her smart phone.

I did not exist.

# # #

I started walking around the lovely, well-organized, upscale tile store, hoping that when Gumdrop finished not helping me, she’d help me.

I dream. What can I say?

Eventually, after I’d explored the drawers, shelves, and wall displays of tiles on my own, I went over to Gumdrop and forced her to listen to me. I told her we were going to replace the tile around our fireplace in the family room, a room that is open into the kitchen.

Did she have some suggestions?

# # #

Without a single word, and this is where it gets interesting, Gumdrop took me to one small display of khaki/tan ceramic tiles, and said “this.”

She didn’t ask about our color scheme, the size of the room, the scale of the fireplace. She didn’t ask about our style preferences.

She just told me to buy what she was pointing at.

# # #

In what I can only describe as a delightful irony of ironies, the inexpensive ho-hum tile that Gumdrop pointed to is what we have on the floor in the laundry room.

The floor, people. THAT’S THE TYPE OF TILE SHE ASSUMED WAS APPROPRIATE FOR ME TO HAVE AROUND THE FIREPLACE IN MY HOME.

I mentioned that I was familiar with the tile she was pointing at because I walk on it every day. Then I asked her to show me something else.

She did this while grumbling that I could easily pull out any of the tile displays from the wall. And I agreed that I could, but I wasn’t going to. That was her job.

So do it, Gumdrop.

# # #

I believe it is at this point that it began to dawn on Gumdrop, who works on commission, that she might have screwed the pooch with me. Suddenly she was inquiring about the details of our project, but I was no longer interested in dealing with her.

So, mentioning that money was no object but obviously there was nothing in this store for me, I politely left the store, discouraged that I’d bothered to drive to a fancy tile store in the middle of an industrial district on a snowy afternoon, to be snubbed.

Humph.

# # #

But ultimately the joke is on Gumdrop and the fancy tile store because my small little fireplace project was just the beginning. Yep, we’re going to be redoing our 14′ x 12′ master bathroom sometime in the next few years and there’ll be lots of tile involved.

Oodles of it, which up until this incident I would have purchased at the fancy tile store. But now? Not going to happen.

Big mistake, Gumdrop. Big mistake.

We’re Both Polite, But There’s Some Nuttiness Going On

February 18, 2016January 9, 2017 / Ally Bean / 57 Comments

I’m the first to admit that I can be slightly nutty. So when I realized a pleasant casual acquaintance behaved in way that struck me as nutty, I started wondering: who’s the nutty one here? Naturally I turned to a friend for her take on this.

Here’s what Acquaintance does that Friend and I think is odd.

Whenever Acquaintance sees you she starts the conversation by stating what you’re wearing. She’ll say things like: you have on a red t-shirt… you’re carrying a brown purse… your jeans are faded.

Then she’ll just stare at you, saying nothing more. There’s no comment, pro or con, about your clothes, your accessories.

Only her looking at you.

This makes Friend and I feel awkward, like we’ve done something wrong, but we’re not sure what it is.

I’ve taken to parroting back what Acquaintance says to me.

That is, I’ll repeat exactly what she has said back to her in a declarative sentence: yes, I have on a red t-shirt… am carrying a brown purse… my jeans are faded.

Friend thinks my approach to Acquaintance is brilliant because it allows me to seem to be chatting. Of course, in reality I’m feeling unnerved about how this peculiar conversation is starting.

Again.

Friend and I have our theories about why Acquaintance behaves like she does, but we are curious to know what you, gentle readers, think is going on with Acquaintance.

Is Acquaintance’s behavior normal or nutty? Do you know anyone who starts conversations like this? Are Friend and I being overly weirded out by this? And if so, why?