Category: Funny

I’m Being Stalked.

Stefanie Snider

It happened again.

dark side stalker

I was meandering through the dictionary (I knew I spelled “whininess” correctly, even though my spell check claimed there was no such word. I’m editing a story and it may or may not make the final cut, but the point is I WAS RIGHT.)

And there it was: Dark Side staring at me from another ad.

I love this, make no mistake, but it’s feeling a little… aggressive. Wherever I go, it’s already there. Waiting.

 

 

And the next thing you know…

 

 

dark side door

This Week in Sniderville: 12

Stefanie Snider

The Balut Incident

I like to think I’m adventurous. I like to think I’m always up for a new challenge, to push my limits and try new things.

Sometimes that gets me in trouble.

Like when a coworker and I were talking about all the weird and wonderful exotic foods we’d be willing to try, and balut came up.

What’s balut? A fertilized duck egg. Big deal, right? We eat eggs all the time. Except the eggs in the grocery store are just eggs: dormant, neutral, never ever going to be anything else. Fertilized eggs, well…

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…they start to develop baby birds.

Squishy, chewy baby birds. Considered a delicacy in places like the Philippines and eaten intact: feathers, beak, and all.

Eaten on Fear Factor in North America.

The next day another coworker happened to bring them in and ate them while the rest of us gathered, horrified, and watched. First Coworker heard about it afterwards and was disappointed he’d missed out. Promises were made for more balut to be obtained, and the next thing you know somehow I had agreed to join in.

I talk a big talk.

Tuesday came, “Egg Day”, and I started having second thoughts. Big, feathery, crunchy thoughts. But I said I’d do it. I tried to quiet my rolling stomach. I didn’t manage breakfast.

I sauntered into DayJob, full of machismo.
Oh, the egg is here? Cool, yeah, I’m totally down. Pffft, it’s just an egg.

And I sat, and I tried to concentrate on my work, and I thought way too long and hard about textures and the probable unpleasantness thereof, and…

I — if you’ll pardon the expression — chickened out. I hadn’t even said I’d eat the thing, just that I’d stuff it in my mouth, but even that was too much. I thought about going through with it anyway; I thought about vomiting in front of my coworkers. Eventually I had to admit defeat and watch as Second Coworker fulfilled his end of the deal and chowed down, proclaiming it “Good” and worthy of eating again.

I have no shame, and I still have my stomach inside where it belongs.

How was your week?

(photo by laurababycake on Instagram)

How to Confuse a Bank Teller

Stefanie Snider

It’s fun! It’s easy! Let’s play!

1. Pick a bank with branches in your city. Open an account in your native currency. Let’s say, oh, Canadian funds.

2. Write. Sell writing.

3. Receive payments by cheque, in foreign currencies and from foreign lands.
3b. Bonus points if they’re also written in a foreign language.

4. Take said cheques to your bank.

5. Stand in line behind a man who coincidentally has the same uncommon type of account as you do. Wait while he asks the teller to perform an intricate and complicated dance routine of withdrawals and deposits all to that one rare account. Pray quietly that the voice box of the customer complaining loudly at the next wicket will magically snap in two, rendering her silent and the bank much more peaceful. Wait until the teller manning your line’s wicket is thoroughly flustered and unable to concentrate.

6. This is the step that makes it or breaks it, folks! Hand the teller your bank card. Hand the teller your cheques (in Euros! With commas instead of decimals! Ho-ho, what fun!). Ask politely to deposit these cheques into this account.

7. Watch her struggle with the currency conversion. Agree that no, the comma is not our country’s common delineating punctuation w/r/t which is the dollar and which is the cent. Yes, how very strange indeed.

8. The game is almost complete, wait for it…

9. Sign the deposit slip, noting nothing amiss, since no one in their right mind memorizes their account numbers and since deposit slips show only amount deposited and not total balance, and…

10. You did it! You won! Through no doing of your own, and after having signed your acknowledgement of the deposit of said funds into said account, watch in delight as the teller realizes she SOMEHOW PUT YOUR CHEQUES INTO THAT LAST CUSTOMER’S ACCOUNT! Whoo! Exhilarating!

You’ve won! You’ve confused the teller! You have to share the points with the other customers since, let’s be honest, the game would have been lost without them, but between the three of you you played a good game out there. Keep your chin up, kid, it’ll only take another ten minutes to straighten out. And sure, you’ll lose another smidgen of your somewhat depleted trust in the banking system, but hey! Everything’s fun if you play the game right.