humans are funny

Category: eavesdropping

  • If you buy culottes at noon on a Tuesday, I will hex you.


    I’m unemployed again.
    Yay!
    I was able to hold a job for three weeks.
    This time, I didn’t technically get fired like I did here. But my job ‘ended early,’ as they say. Actually they don’t say, but whatever. The point is that I’m back to sitting in cafes and eavesdropping.

    Some great quotes so far:

    “This song is Timbaland with Elton John! Elton John is getting good.”
    “If I take off my fairy costume, the magic is over.” (you must imagine the silky pastel dress that accompanied this comment.)
    “Should we get a breakfast burrito and roll the bootie dice?”

    Bootie Dice? Gross.

    Yesterday I decided not to head into a coffeehouse because I realized that spending ten bucks for hipster coffee from Papua New Guinea every day is really stupid when I’m on an unemployment budget. Plus, I know those guys in Papua New Guinea and they would never charge me 10 bucks a day for a couple coffees. Actually, they would ask me for 10 bucks a day and I would artfully whittle them down to at least 8.50.

    Instead, I took myself to Border’s in the mall. And man all mighty, the mall parking lot was full. FULL. At 11:30am on a Tuesday. Packed cafes and crowded malls: What is it that I’m not getting? There’s a secret society of the self-employed in LA and none will let me in. What is the fucking secret? How do these people earn livings and never have to walk into a cubicle?

    I saw a gaggle of women excitedly exiting Nordstrom Rack, and I yelled to them, ‘Hey ladies! How do you make money? How do you live in this city and pay your bills and your damn student loans and still laugh your morning away in Nordstrom Rack looking for deals on Laura Ashley culottes? How do you do it?’
    They ran away from me.
    But I put a hex on them, yes I did. Who’s smiling now, middle aged shoppers? Who?

    Then I made some guesses:

    1. These people have no shame in acquiring sugar daddies or mommas. If this is the case, I have very much no future in being a woman of leisure. I can’t do it. I feel guilty when my mom pays for me. There’s no way I could actually let a man say, ‘Baby, don’t work anymore. I’ll pay for everything.’ Gross. I would feel like I owed this man something– that I had to give him blow jobs on command. I would hate that. Sometimes I’m tired after work and I just don’t want to. Oh, wait. I wouldn’t be working. Option #1 now open for possibility.

    2. These people are involved in a pyramid scheme and/or they sell knives door-to-door and make their own hours. Not doing that.

    3.These people are on unemployment and/or welfare, which they are spending at Nordstrom Rack. No matter the dire circumstances of your finances, you gotta have nice throw pillows and a discounted designer pump. I get it. But I don’t qualify for either.

    4.These people have answered those ‘work from home’ ads on the internet that claim ‘total financial independence from your living room.’ Those ads weren’t a scam? Fuck. I could have been stuffing envelopes for years at my own leisure. Will look into this.

    5.These people don’t have any student loans or bills because their parents have paid for everything for them. That’s not an accomplishment, assholes.

    6.These people are bartenders, actors, and models who work at night or don’t work at all and have only a couch from Goodwill and a bag of Cheetos in the apartment they share with 3 other people. Not into it. I need my couch from Macy’s.

    7.These people have very successful blogs which they write every morning really early. And they’re funny and they have tons and tons of visitors who send their link to their friends and get even more traffic. And they make great big salaries based on ad revenue and writing opportunities, and all they have to do is write an entry every single day that makes people peel over in laughter, as evidenced by this woman. Oh, I can’t even think about these people because my skin begins to boil from hot jealousy.

    One day I will figure it out. One day. For now, I will head back to the cafe. Maybe if I eavesdrop for long enough, someone from the secret society will accidentally spill the 10-dollar beans.

  • Los Angeles is totally talking about, like, stuff.


    The ear is a funny little organ. If all other senses disappeared, the ear could tell you if you’re underwater, if people are laughing at you, if you fell through a hole that led to China, or if you have a shell held up to it (unless it gets confused and thinks it’s at the beach). The ears are smart little organs. Or, in some cases, big ones.

    Now that I am back in an Enlglish-speaking country, my intelligent little orifices have been picking up the most interesting tidbits.

    See, for 9 months I have been training them to find English. In a Cambodian café, for example, my little ears scanned the place for those speaking my language, those with accents, those who might be on the same route as I, ready to slink into the next destination with me.

    Once my aural radar picked up a signal, I would make a new friend. Or ask for a direction. Or avoid a woman with a penchant for ‘like’. We would talk about our global experiences and how devastating Cambodia was or how many people live in Europe or what it all means in the end. My precious lobes are the reason I made so many friends abroad.

    But now, with my highly-trained drums lounging in LA, I can’t stop their ultra accent-tracking ability. They no longer discern Germans from Austrians; instead they’ve morphed into expert eavesdroppers. And as I pummel through Los Angeles cafes in search of internet access and cups of chai, I can’t help but listen in. And, sadly, these tidbits are just not as intellectually stimulating as those heard in other countries. The following are some of the “conversations” I have been so lucky to hear:

    (Two girls, both staring at their phones.)
    -I mean, nobody likes onions.
    – Yeah, I don’t think they should make them anymore.

    (Guy on phone, talking loudly in cafe)
    “Babe, I need to see your body really soon. I am making a new movie, and I can really imagine you in it, but I haven’t seen you in, what, a year? You’ve been going to the gym? Well, I hope you didn’t lose that butt. I love that butt. That butt’s gonna be the star of my film.”
    (Guy proceeded to fall asleep on a pile of cafe pillows for the rest of my café stay.)

    (Two girls with fake tans)
    -I do not like her. I mean, her face looks like a dog. A total dog. I’m serious. Like, she actually looks like a dog.
    -Yeah.

    (Two women with big sunglasses and boots)
    -I totally wanna like party tonight. Like really party. Like hardcore party.
    -Me too. Totally down.
    -Let’s call Light. He’ll totally be down.
    -Totally.

    (Waiter, pointing to empty plate) – Are you all done here?
    (Patron) – Yeah, we didn’t like it.
    Eruption of laughter.
    (When will we Americans tire of this unfunny joke?)

    (Two guys in Diesel jeans with iphones)
    -Man, Ian totally cock blocked last night.
    -Yeah, that guy’s a total douche bag.
    (When will we stop calling people by the horrible name of a feminine cleansing product? I mean, isn’t it a compliment? A douche bag is clean. It helps women. It comes in pretty pastel boxes [I assume.] Next time someone calls you a douche bag, say ‘Thank you. Yes, I AM a clean helper of women.’)

    To be fair, intelligent conversation lives well in LA. At this very moment, there must be Angelenos talking about Chinese politics, the situation in Darfur or health care reform. Those folks just, like, totally don’t happen to hang out with the unemployed at, like, 11am in Hollywood cafés. I mean, totally.