This page ©1999 Chip Brown.

Wanna Buy a Watch?

I have always had a nack for convincing people of idiotic things. No matter who the person is, or what their station is in life I can convince them of anything. I am more patient with this hobby than any other I have. I will plant a thought in someon'e head and wait months for them to voice this thought in public.

For example, when Fried Green Tomatoes came out on videotape I told my wife I wanted to see it. She asked me what it was about and I told her it was a horror movie. At first she didn't believe me. Fannie Flagg didn't write any horror book, she said. But I made up a whole plot. I told her these three women as girls were mistreated in this town. Years later they move back to the town and open a restaurant. The people there don't remember them and the three of them plot their revenge.

To get even, they kill the evil townspeople one by one. They grind them up and put them in the chili. Then the rest of the town eats their chili and thus they get even with the town.

So the other day, I get a call from my wife who is very irrate with me. Seems she and some other people she works with were talking about horror movies. My wife then announces that there is a horror movie she would like to see...Fried Green Tomatoes!

Well, she slipped from the room of laughing co-workers and called me. Oh, I got it good for this one. Finally, I promised not to do this to her anymore. Problem is, I forget all the other thoughts I planted in her head. Oh well.

So why do I do these things? Why do I write these idiotic stories? Stress! I am eat up with stress. I worry about everything. And if I have nothing to worry about I worry that I must have forgotten some impending doom, that I should be worried about. So I invent interesting ways to deal with stress.

I used to sit in my office with a pot on my head, wearing a life jacket and holding a can of Spam. Everyone who came by my door I threatened to inflict damage to them with my Spam. Usually people just left me alone and about three in the afternoon, I'd eat my Spam and go home. There's not much demand for such behavior these days in the workplace, so now I work for myself.

In my efforts to reintegrate myself back into mainstream America I have had to look for better, more creative stress relievers. Unlike the one I described above, here are some of my ideas that just didn't pan out.

I tried popping popcorn on the stove. I hate that prebagged microwave stuff. Problem is, by the time I get each kernal popped the ones that popped first would have burnt in the pot. Well, reasoning that this was because of how long this popped kernal was left on the heat, waiting on the others to pop, I devised a plan. I would pop the popcorn wihout a lid.

Well, it didn't exactly work, but I discovered that popping corn this way was a great stress reliever. Or at least it was until my wife saw the mess I had caused. Luckily she didn't see the fire!

Then I took up the hobby of shocking people with odd idiotic remarks. Now this won't work with people that know you, it has to be someone you probably won't see again. Say something that will be so off the wall they can't believe it. The look on their face will cheer you up all day. Can't think of anything? The next time some drivethrough window operator tells you to have a nice day, respond with "Oh no, I have other plans."

But sometimes these things just don't work. Sometimes, I stress over life's little difficulties. It does no good to talk to someone about our problems. No doubt if I start to babble about what's bugging me today, someone will tell me about ole Bob and how much worse he has it than me.

I am sorry ole Bob is having a hard time, but honestly, is telling me about his misfortune supposed to cheer me up? It's responses like this that makes me realize most of the people I talk to, are nuttier than me.

Now here is the end of this article. I title the articles before I ever start writing them. Then when I am nearly completed I let my wife read them. This eliminates the chance that I will cause an angry horde of Union Countians from stringing me up for soething I wrote. However, my wife didn't think this article was all that funny. Instead she reads the whle thing and asks "Why did you title it Wanna Buy a Watch?"

Well, I must admit that I have no idea. So, now I can stress over the title of this article, I am sure I had an idea when I titled it that. I bet it was going to be really funny too! Rats!

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