It’s All About The Attitude

Well, it’s been an exciting week at the mydangblog household. First, I got it into my head suddenly, and I mean VERY suddenly, that it would be an amazing idea if I did a live reading for my new short story collection in August. And if you know anything at all about me, you’ll know that like most things I do (e.g. the quilt), I went into it with a lot of determination but without a single clue about how it should be done. I messaged a couple of friends (thanks Susan and Cecilia!) and got some advice, but still ended up spamming all my friends, not once but twice, with Facebook invites. I really have no idea what I’m doing and whether or not it will work, but if you’d like to join me on Wednesday, August 11 at 7 pm Eastern Time, you can access the reading by either going to the Feasting Upon The Bones Live Reading Facebook page or join via this link even if you don’t have Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/108877348159254/live_videos/

I hope some of you will come, either to see me read some stories and drink wine or watch dead air and imagine me frantically trying to figure out how to get the live stream going whilst simultaneously drinking wine. Either way, there will be wine.

And I’ve been getting great feedback on the short story collection, so again, I’d super-appreciate if anyone could leave even a short review on Amazon or Goodreads or whatnot, or even just some stars. I know a couple of you have already and it totally made my day.

In other news, we took down the old side porch on our house last week because the columns were rotting and discovered that most of the old side porch structure was also rotting, so it was extremely fortunate that we’d embarked upon this particular reno project before one of us fell through the balcony. As Ken was dismantling the roof, he found a champagne cork sliced open with a penny stuck in it tucked next to one of the rafters:

Ken: What do you think this is for?
Me: Some kind of weird superstition? A sacrifice to Dionysus?
Ken: I’ve never heard of that. Let me google…champagne cork with—oh, it autofilled. Guess it’s a thing after all.
Me: Well, we have to keep it and put it back once we’re done. Ooh, we could pop another bottle and do it with a second champagne cork for double the luck!
Ken: And drink the champagne.
Me: Obviously drink the champagne, KEN.

Photo of a cork with a penny in it.

And in honour of our rotten porch, I present to you three other inanimate objects that have attitudes of their own, according to these ads:

Photo of a very nice bird house with the description Obnoxious bird house - make an offer

1) This birdhouse looks really cute and rustic but apparently appearances can be deceiving:

Me: Ooh, I love your birdhouse. Could I offer you twenty-five dollars for it?
Birdhouse: Twenty-five dollars?! F*ck off, lady.
Owner: I’m so sorry. My birdhouse is a bit of a dick.
Birdhouse: You can f*ck right off too, JANICE.
Me: What an obnoxious bird house.
Owner: Hence the ad.

Photo of a child's bicycle with the description Huffy bike

2) In the same vein, this little bike is adorable but…

Buyer: What a lovely little bike. And only ten dollars!
Bike: Hmph.
Buyer: What’s wrong?
Seller: Oh, don’t mind the bike. He’s in one of “his moods”, that’s all.
Bike: HMPH.
Buyer: Does he get like that a lot?
Seller: He’s just a little huffy because I wouldn’t take his training wheels off for the ad.
Bike: I don’t NEED THEM, STANLEY.
Seller: Yes, but they make you MORE MARKETABLE, BRIAN.
Bike: HMPH!

Photo of a sign that says "Please inform one of our staff if this room is in need of some attention."

3) And finally—I’ve seen warehouses with self-esteem issues but this bathroom is a bit of a drama queen:

Customer: Excuse me, but I think your bathroom needs some attention.
Staff person: Good lord, what’s it doing now?
Customer: It’s a little weepy. But when I asked what was wrong, it said, “Oh, nothing. Don’t worry about ME. Obviously I’m JUST FINE”.
Staff: Sigh. Yes, it can be quite passive-aggressive when it’s unhappy. Look, I hate to pry, but were you in there for a…(whispers) poo?
Customer: I—uh—well, yes. But it was just a small one.
Staff: That explains it. Time for the lavender air freshener. That usually does the trick.

44 thoughts on “It’s All About The Attitude”

  3. I can’t wait for the live reading!! I don’t have Facebook but I’m using that link, and in solidarity I’ll be drinking wine as well. As for the obnoxious birdhouse, maybe the birdhouse itself isn’t obnoxious, but a place for obnoxious birds, you know like pigeons (stupid flying rats with wings) can be assholes. Love the little Huffy ad 🤣😝

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  5. I’m going to try that with beer and a penny. Except beer doesn’t have a cork. And I don’t keep pennies around anywhere. F* it, I’m just gonna have a beer. For luck. If that doesn’t work I’ll have another. I’ll just keep drinking beer until my luck changes because, as Mrs C loves to say (perhaps a little too sardonically at times) “Beer solves everything.”

    Obviously, that gets me huffy. Nothing a beer won’t fix!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. I have been super miffed because your book hasn’t shown up in the mail, but I just realized that I ordered the kindle version, and it’s been waiting for me to read! 🤦🏻‍♀️ It isn’t easy being me. BUT, thankfully, I have it and can dive right in! I don’t know what the cork thing means, but I now feel an overwhelming need stick a penny in a cork. What fun! So I might get blitzed on champagne later today just to achieve that goal. Congratulations again, Suzanne. I am so happy and excited for you!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. Um, when one finds a coin secreted away in a secret place, one is obligated to de-secret the date of the coin, you know?

    Got your book. Read the stories. Enjoyed it. Will post a review here shortly.

    Will try and join your soiree’, sounds fun.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  12. Putting a penny in a cork to bring good luck seems like a fine and good tradition, especially since it’s a Canadian penny which I find much cooler than American pennies, or at least they were before Canada abandoned the penny. It’s a shame because I really liked the leaf design, and also the bird on 1967 Canadian pennies.
    Still that’s the sort of tradition that makes me wonder if you can get five times as much luck if you put in a nickel, or ten times as much luck if you use a dime. You’d probably want to stop there–anything higher would be greedy, especially a half dollar. I actually have a 1967 Canadian half dollar that I finally found after looking for one for ten years, so it seems pretty lucky all by itself.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Ooh the 67 ones are nice because I think they’re still real silver. But I don’t think I even have any pennies so it might have to be a loonie (that’s a Canuck 1 dollar coin. We call it that because it has a loon on it. We call the 2 dollar coins toonies). I’ll take all the luck I can get!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  14. I didn’t know a coin in a champagne bottle was a thing either. Glad you found the rot, and that Ken has another big project to keep him happy. Congrats on the book too, Suzanne. I hope to dive into the read soon! And avoid those high-maintenance, ornery for-sale items. The sellers should pay you to take them off their hands. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  15. I was intrigued by the Penny-in-the-Champagne-Cork thing (hadn’t heard of it before) so I did an online search, and Google says people also ask how many people die per year from champagne corks – usually at weddings, for pete sake. Those things can travel at 55 mph!

    I’m bringing a helmet to the next wedding I’m invited to.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s