again: dolla dolla bill y’all

I get my grad school tuition for free through my work which is, no lie, extremely awesome. What bites is that I have to pay the taxes on my tuition and that is done by taking huge, scary chunks of money out of my paycheck for three months. And I don’t make very much money to begin with. So that might be partially to blame for the shopping malaise I mentioned earlier. Buying gifts kind of pales in comparison to, say, electricity and food.

Note to self: go secure a student loan or some shit tomorrow. Cripes.

Another money WTF goes to these slippers. They’re adorable and the baby would freak out to receive them but 45 DOLLARS?!?! For slippers??!?! If you wear them they get all sweaty and nasty. So are you just supposed to treat them as a collector’s item? And really if you start collecting slippers isn’t that…a bad sign?

So here’s a riddle for you: how many yinzers does it take to put up a Christmas tree? Cause in our house that blessed event went something like:

Husband brings in tree. Grunts. Plops tree in stand. Wife holds tree “straight.” Husband tightens screws, tells wife to let go. Wife lets go, tree leans in swiftly to give her a prickly kiss. Wife rejects tree’s advances. Husband whines, gets saw, saws branches off tree, plops tree back into stand. Wife holds tree “straight.” Husband tightens screws. Wife tells son to go to the doorway and look to see if the tree is straight. Son leaves the room entirely. No, this doorway.
What doorway?
THIS DOORWAY. That you just walked through!
Oh, okay.
Does the tree look straight?
What tree?
THE ONLY 6-FOOT TREE IN THE ROOM.
Yes.
Wife lets go. Tree stays upright. Wife looks at tree from left side, declares it straight. Wife starts to walk away and notices from the other angle that the tree is anything but straight. Husband starts to whimper, holds tree “straight.” Wife crouches down and starts going at the screws. Wife’s ample bottom overtakes her, causing wife to involuntarily sit in a pile of needles. Wife rises gingerly. Tree is now crooked in a whole new direction, but better than before. Husband challenges tree to a fight by shoving it and is shocked to see that it falls over when you do that. Wife crouches down again, fiddles with screws. Tree is now straight-ish.

3 Responses to “again: dolla dolla bill y’all”

  1. oldefezziwig Says:

    As long as you don’t feel the need to graft branches to the tree in the bare spots..
    http://burtsstache.blogspot.com/search/label/randomaccessbabble

  2. eems Says:

    Hey, you can write a really nice email to the HR tuition reimbursement lady (Chris P) and ask if she can spread the tax payments over 4 paychecks. It was a godsend when I was doing the MAPW.

  3. tina Says:

    they have this great new tree stand that “swivels straight” you put the tree in, hit a button and move the tree around till “straight”, let go of button and it snaps into place. MUCH easier than the god forsaken screw stands — trust me!

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