Smell my finger

I recently visited a specialty store to purchase Effusion Lamps and scented oils for my dear friends Lexi, Bernie, and Josie.  It was fun looking through all the different sparkly colored lamps.  I was lucky enough to find each of them lamps that were all different but the same, matching their unique and colorful sparkly personalities.  Once I selected the lamps it was time to smell all of the various aromas to find the best of the best just like my girls.  I settled on Juniper Breeze and Creme Brulee, only 1 more left.  There was one scent that did not have a tester, it was Love Spell.  I picked up the bottle but the oil is so concentrated all I could smell was alcohol.  One of the workers asked me if they could assist me, I mentioned there was no tester and I really wanted to smell this scent.  She looked around and could not find the tester. (this is the conversation that ensued)
Me:  "Do you have anything you can dip into the bottle, like a Q-tip?"
Worker:  "No, I don't have anything.  Here, I will dip my finger in the bottle!"
Me:   "When I woke up this morning I did not think I was going to get the opportunity to smell             anyone's finger today.  Is there any way I can avoid smelling your finger?"
Worker: (smiling) "How about if I wash my hands?"
Me:  (laughing) "OK, go ahead."
The worker went to the back for a moment, then returned holding her hands up and said, "All clean!"  She walked over to the display, picked up the bottle, removed the cap, and stuck her index finger into the bottle of scented oil.  She began wiggling her finger around and kind of shaking the bottle.  I said, "Do I need to shake the oil before using it?"  She said, "Um, no, it's just, I kind of, ouch! My finger is stuck!"  I couldn't believe it!  She began pulling harder and harder on the bottle and gasping in pain.  I asked, "Are you OK?  Does it burn?"  She said, "No, I just can't get my finger out!"  I kept a safe distance because I know once oil gets into your clothes, there is slim to no change of ever getting it out.  Finally, her phalange was free!  After a big sigh of relief she began waving her tortured finger in front of my nose and said, "Here, how does this smell?"  It was distracting to try to smell her finger while it quickly flailed about directly in front of my face.  In order to take a good smell, I had to hold her hand still.  Of course, as I stood there holding her hand and smelling her finger, a gentleman walked by.  The sight of us stopped him in his tracks.  For a brief moment the three of us stood there looking at each other.  I said to the gentleman, "Originally she asked me to pull it, but I thought that would be just silly."  They both laughed.  Eventually the aroma of the oil came through and smelled pretty good.  Ultimately, I bought the scent.  Deep down, I thought it would be kind of funny if after all of her time and effort I said, "Nah, smells to much like hand."

Rollback red herring

One day two of my friends Tiffany M., Much, and I wanted to put our courage to the test.  We each put on navy blue shirts and khaki pants, and went to a very popular super center to see if we can impersonate workers without being asked to leave the store.  It is pretty safe to say of the three of us I was definitely the most hesitant.  We walked into the store and headed straight for the back (mostly because I was terrified).  We went to the toy section and began straightening, it only took a few minutes before people began walking up to us asking various questions.  Every time someone asked Much where they could locate an item, he sent them in the opposite direction of the item's actual location.  We sat in the employee break room for 15 minutes.  I was still terrified and uncomfortable, Tiffany calmly looked through magazines, Much appeared right at home and was as comfortable as he could be.  The three of us walked around the store, on two separate occasions walked right by 2 different managers one of which actually smiled and said "Hello."  We went to the front of the store and initiated conversation with actual associates taking a smoke break.  After that we went back inside and Tiffany started greeting customers as they entered the store.  I was shocked and could not stop laughing when she stopped two different shoppers to check their receipts, and sent one of them to the customer service desk.  When Tiffany began checking receipts I thought it was in our best interest to leave very soon. Partly because I couldn't stop laughing, but more so because I literally felt a chill run down my spine when I saw Much walk confidently into the bakery, behind the counter, and help a girl pick up a large amount of cookies she accidentally dropped.  Each of the two times we walked by a manager I thought we were in trouble for sure.  We were there at least an hour and not even one actual associate or manager questioned us.  When we reminisce about this we laugh, Tiffany and Much could probably do things like this on a daily basis, I however am too chicken.   

Screaming emergency procedures

At one of my previous places of employment when we had a bunch of new hires the management staff would rotate in and out of the training room teaching our own various areas of specialty. One of my areas of specialty was Emergency Procedures. I was fighting to over come a respiratory infection and ended up with clogged/muffled ears. As a result, it was a little harder for me to hear than normal. I just received medication from the doctor that Thursday to speed up the recovery process. I trained the new hires the following Friday, only day 2 taking the medication and still muffled. Unbeknownst to me, as a direct result of my clogged ears I ended up screaming at these poor new hires the entire time I was with them. None of them said anything or gave me any kind of a heads up. I literally screamed at these poor people for hours. At the beginning of each new week a member of our management staff that did not train the prior week would come in and ask the class how their training was going and for any feedback. The new hires said I was nice, however I yelled at them the entire day. After hearing that, the manager tracked me down and filled me in. I was very surprised and couldn't believe they thought I was yelling at them. We ended up going back into the class room together to get some more information. After asking more and more questions and doing more and more talking, not to mention someone pointing out that I was not yelling at them right then and there. We slowly figured out it was my temporarily distorted hearing that made me speak louder than normal. I guess I thought if I couldn't hear me they really couldn't hear me. We finally got it all straightened out. After that, when anyone in that class would see me in passing they would yell out a greeting and chuckle.

Tickle me Jesus

I am very ticklish, even the slightest little tickle sends me into hysterics.  Years ago, back in my junior high and high school days, I regularly served as an altar girl at our church.  The usage of cell phones and pagers was not allowed during any church services.  One particular Sunday, instead of turning off my pager, I chose to simply silence all sounds and keep it on my side under my robe.  Church service was moving along nicely, and right on schedule it was time for communion.  As Pastor and I stood in front of our large congregation my pager began to vibrate.  I almost never set it to vibrate so I had no idea just how strong the setting was.  I immediately begin squirming and doing my best to maintain composure.  The vibration of the pager directly on my side was in prime tickle zone, making it almost unbearable and impossible to get to under my robe.  Right when I almost lost my poise the pager stopped.  A big wave of relieve came over me, as I did not want to spill any of the wine, and the congregation was already lining up to receive communion.  Little did I know, my pager had a offering of it's own.  Exactly one minute later and once every minute thereafter my pager vibrated a reminder for about 3 seconds.  By the time communion was over, as a direct result of my repeated giggles and flinching, I am pretty sure a nice handful of our church goers thought I suffered from some type of tourettes or thought I was completely insane.  Needless to say, moving forward I turned my pager off during church.

Hidden hotel heinousness

Lexi, Lani, and I went to Georgia for the weekend to go sight seeing. The first thing we did was check into the hotel. As usual I had to use the restroom, Lexi, knows me almost better than anyone and knew I would make a run for it as soon as we entered our room. Of course that is exactly what happened. She also knows that I feel obligated to inspect my hotel room for cleanliness and damage of any sort, every single time I stay in one. As predicted I did just that, I looked all over the room, during my inspection I asked Lani, "Where did Lexi go?" she said, "She had to run back down to the car." It just so happened that the closet was the last place I chose to look. I walked up the the closet and slid open the door. At first all I saw was the silhouette of a person standing in a dark closet. Lexi illuminated the display on her phone and held it under her chin so the light would shine up and distort her face. It took a second for what I was seeing to actually register mentally, when it finally did I screamed, slammed shut the closet door, and began to run out of the hotel room. Lani also knows me very well, & knew I was a runner. She jumped in my way and grabbed me so I couldn't escape. Lexi emerged from the closet laughing so hard she started coughing, at this point Lani was also laughing hysterically and her face was a crimson red. As I realized it was just Lexi in the closet my fear slowly went away, however the distinctly urgent and all too familiar urge to visit the restroom returned.

Semi scared spouse

I went to spend the weekend at my dear friend Stacey's house. We played games, made dinner, danced & listened to music. Aside from the fact that her husband played a mean and scary joke on both of us, we had a great night. The next day the three of us took a mini road trip to visit a museum located about 2 hours away. Stacey was nice enough to drive, her husband was in the front seat, and I sat in the back. Stacey's hubby fell asleep, leaving us no choice but to try to think of a way to pay him back for the scare he gave us the night before. We thought of a few things none of which seemed good enough. All of the sudden Stacey said, "I got it watch this!" We saw one semi cab pulling another semi cab. Neither cab had a storage compartment attached to it, and at a glance it looked like two semi cabs were connected at the back wheels. Stacey drove our car up closer than normal to the backwards facing semi, so we could see the word MACK very clearly and closely. Then she started screaming as loudly as she could! Her snoozing spouse quickly woke up, immediately saw the semi directly in front of the car, flinched and screamed in terror. Stacey quickly put a safe distance between our vehicle and the semi in tote and began laughing hysterically. Her husband sat wild eyed and shaking from fright, I was laughing so hard I almost had a little accident of my own. I am pretty sure that to this day Stacey's husband has never played another joke on her, and he will most likely think twice before doing it ever again.

The frustrated, the quivering, & the senseless

At one point in time, my buddy CK and I used to work together.  A major part of our job description required us to speak to a large amount on people on a daily basis.  While sitting in the break room with another coworker whom we didn't know very well, CK began to calmly vent saying "One of my biggest pet peeves on a daily basis is the amount of people that don't know that a couple is 2, a few is 2 to 4, and several is 5 or more."  Laughing, and amused with his frustration, I agreed.  The coworker chimed in saying, "Yeah, what is their problem?  They must be Mormon."  I sat there looking at him wild-eyed and muted in disbelief.  I thought to myself, 'Did he really just say that?'  I also silently wondered what Mormons have to do with CK's statement?  CK, being the exceedingly clever person that he is said, "Hey, take it easy, my wives are Mormon!"  I sat there quivering, trying to contain my laughter, while the coworker looked at CK with a very surprised and embarrassed look on his face.  The coworker fumbled to excuse himself and quickly disappeared from the break room.  Well played CK, well played.

Father knows best

Of course when I was very young & too little to attend school my first teachers were my parents.  My Dad taught me many many things.  Thanks to his comedic mind some of the things he taught me were real and some were less than accurate.  He being a military man, taught me military time.  Our home clocks were all set to military time as well.  He also taught me that if I kissed my elbow I would turn into a boy.  He said dinosaurs are extinct because they were smokers.  My Dad is my Mom's senior by 8 years however he insists they met because she used to babysit him.  It wasn't until I was in school that I realized after twelve hundred hours, the numbers started over again with one.  Initially after hearing this  I was certain my teacher was a complete imbecile and couldn't wait to get home to tell my father about the insanity she tried to instill.  My Dad laughed as I tried to convince him just how crazy my teacher was.  After this happened a few more times, I thought it would be wise to verify some of his teachings with my Mom.