Thanks for the catch; I was pondering as to what the little rascal actually said, and neglected to verbify that sentence. He may have said “off” or “murderize” but if my sieve-like memory serves, it was indeed “frag”.
I’m curious about your moniker, (<3 Mel’s, too), but perhaps that will be best left for down times between doses of Ron’s world stories.
I am always in awe of people’s story-telling skills in print, and eagerly await each installment. I am also eternally grateful I don’t have a Ron at my work, or in my social life. The closest thing I have is a niece that’s a Ronette in the making. She barely made it through high school, more because of her social focus than lack of intelligence. She went two years at our community college, then when my daughter entered a college an hour away, Ronette decided she needed to go there too. My daughter, being the oldest child and OCD to boot, had every bit of information filed and had her room assignment by June. Ronette hadn’t yet gotten around to contacting housing by the first day of classes. She ended up in a ratty apartment with a slob of a roommate, but they suit each other. Ronette has about driven my daughter up a wall with every dumb situation imaginable, but the one that sticks in my mind is when her car started to overheat, and daughter tells her to turn the heater on high to draw off some of the heat. Ronette panicks and shrieks, “NO! I need to turn on the airconditioner to cool it down.” Ronette refuses to listen to advice, and the car dies. My daughter takes her shattered nerves back to her dorm and whimpers.
That tickles me; I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the kid in academy, either. We all called him squirrel (a little rodent with the bullshi*y TALE) except for the chief instructor. He called him “squeg” on our first day, which puzzled everyone for a while, until someone;) looked up the definition. Amusing and appropriate
Oh, I wish you had kept him on so that we could have more stories!
I worked with a guy a bit like this once. (This was also the job that introduced me to “I’m not an alcoholic, I just need my daily beer or I feel sick” girl and “I eat quite enough vitamin C, I just take a tablet whenever my teeth start feeling lose” girl. Strangely enough, it was one of the more desirable student jobs in the university library - a few steps above stacking the shelves. How they didn’t manage to find better people, I don’t know.)
The guy was basically incompetent - he couldn’t work the photocopier, he couldn’t really be counted on to take phone messages, he didn’t seem to ever do the little housekeeping tasks that we were responsible for getting done. If anyone asked him a question, he quite often froze until someone came and answered it for him. He caused a few big screw-ups, too. Since I’m hardly gifted at interpersonal communication and efficiency, it was a really nice change to be considered the person who kept the place running for once.
He was also just plain old weird. Wore the same too-short cords every day, and alternated between two t-shirts and two plaid shirts worn on top. His only interest was comic books, and the only discussion you could really have with him was listening to a monologue on comic books. I assume he had Asperger’s, and if he had just done his damn work we would have looked out for him and helped him out in social situations.
So, about two months before I left the job we started noticing that he had finally given up doing any work; he just sat at a desk scribbling on some paper. I finally got fed up, and went and checked what he was doing. It turned out that he had done about a half-page of his “normal” work, which he was going to “type up” later, and the rest was ideas for his grad school proposal.
Seriously, WTF?
He was planning to do an MA in humanities, or liberal arts, or something that would let him be creative and wouldn’t tie him to a discipline (and wouldn’t be MEAN to him, like the undergrad creative writing program that threw him out because the professors were intimidated by the brilliance of his graphic novels - another of his favourite topics of conversation). He planned to do a “meta thesis,” a thesis on graphic novels in the form of a graphic novel. One suggested topic? The epic story of how he returned to graphic novels.
I wonder quite often how he’s doing. Did he get into grad school? I did check it out, and it seems that at least he didn’t get a government grant, whatever else happened.
One of my Ron’s quirks is that he will never give you a phone number, and I mean never. Instead, you get a variation of “Call that mortgage broker and ask him for the number of his mother’s first mother-in-law, then call her and get the number to her nephew who use to be married to the guy’s niece before she became a lesbian, and he’ll give you the number of the guy’s veteranian’s ex-sister-in-law, who should have his number.”
Well, would YOU give a Ron your phone number?
I thought not.
KnitWit, in all the years I’ve heard those statements from Ron, I never once thought about it in those terms. Ignorance defeated, and Occam’s Razor applies again.
OMG, this thread can do anything!
Hi this is my first post too. I’ve been lurking for months, making sure to check in on this thread at least weekly, but I finally have something to say! (In addition to, “Mel, you rock, girl!”)
I was a temp for a few years - it paid the bills and allowed me to experience a variety of industries & working environments. You wouldn’t believe how many times I was offered a full-time job within the first few hours just because I 1) showed up on time and 2) was appropriately dressed. Once I demonstrated my skills with copiers & papercutters, woo-hoo, I was in! Apparently I must have always shown up immediately after they experienced a Wally!
WallyRon… WallyRon… WallyRon… Hey, it’s the sound of a pogo stick!
I’ve just remembered another Ron.
He offered to drive me from England to Holland for a chess tournament (not far, but it involved going through France and Belgium).
It was my first time with him driving, but he was an accountant who spoke highly of himself…
The various problems:
he didn’t get the car serviced before we set off, so it had mechanical problems 
he didn’t get foreign currency for France and Belgium, so when we broke down on a French motorway he couldn’t pay the breakdown service.
They offered him an expensive exchange rate - which he promptly refused!
(How was he going to get the car moving without them?! :rolleyes: )
we ran short of petrol on a Belgian motorway (we knew from signs when the next filling station was). So I suggested we travel at a steady 50 mph, since I’d read that gave the best fuel efficiency.
Instead he speeded up to an illegal 90mph, saying “This way we’ll get there quicker - before the petrol runs out!” :smack:
(We ran out of petrol and had to pay the breakdown service another exorbitant exchange rate to bring us some.)
Bump!
New week - we need MO-RON!
:: mansqueeeeeeee! :: I have a Ronette story! I just realized in a cooking thread!
WandaRon! She was a former roommate’s former roommate. She thought of herself as “one of the guys” because all her roommates were male, but she was more like someone’s 8-year-old brother trying to be a big kid (you know the kid who would follow you around when you’re a teenager, then puke because he tried to smoke one of your cigarettes, then tell his friends he was a pack-a-day smoker? She was like that.) So she’d watch sports and talk smack about the visiting team, tossing terms around like “off-side” and often using basketball terms during the hockey game etc.
But she was best known for her cooking. Regardless of the meal or the directions on the box, it went into the oven for 20 minutes at 300. She was famous for her “medium rare chicken”. The guys did try to teach her a little bit about food safety and how you should not eat “pink chicken” but she would have none of it. “This is how I’ve always made it. We just don’t have the same tastes. This is the way I like it, European style.”
As “one of the guys”, she also had the trash-talkin’ guy swagger. One day she told one of her roommates: “I could kick Darryl’s ass!” Now, Darryl, who a couple years later would become my roommate, was a regional karate champion. But she could kick his ass because she’d taken advanced self-defense for women where they teach you secret techniques that men don’t know.
One evening he was working out with rubberized practice nunchaku as he was watching a game and chatting with their other roommate . I guess he made it look really easy, because to prove that she could kick his ass and he “didn’t really know shit”, when he left the room she picked up the nunchaku to give it a go and promptly broke her own nose.
Not really a story but I thought it was apropos none the less…
Yesterday some of the Chicago morning radio jocks were doing their usual “let’s find the stupidest sexual theme we can to talk about” routine. They chose penile fracture and asked for volunteers to call in and share their stories. Who do you suppose called in just as I tuned in? You got it – Ron.
Warning, TMI:
Apparently Ron “likes it rough” and was “really givin’ it to her” when he vastly overestimated his maximum allowable stroke length and after becoming uncoupled on the up stroke was unable to stop the down stroke in time, subsequently missing the intended target with dire consequences.
Today’s Ronulian Contribution: Donna
During pre-wedding counseling, the officiating pastor made it clear to us that there was to be NO flash photography during the more sacred parts of the ceremony (prayers, readings, vows, etc.) He also informed us in no uncertain terms that he would not tolerate anything intrusive to the ceremony, and was not afraid to stop the ceremony until said distraction stopped.
My future (ex) husband and I looked at each other and said: “Donna.”
Donna was his older sister. She was a tiny woman who still believed that frosted blue eye shadow up to your eyebrows was in, and that polyester would never go out of style. She fussed a lot, and did not think rules applied to her. Plus, she was an amateur photographer and we knew she would think nothing of flashing through kingdom come.
So I devised a plan. I asked my sweet, quiet cousin Mark to take the photos, and asked Donna to work the video camera. This was the perfect solution: no one’s feelings would get hurt and the pastor would not reign down fire and brimstone.
On the day of the wedding, I had only one request: I didn’t want to know what time it was. If I needed to go somewhere or do something, my maid of honor just told me – never mentioning the time, and never letting me see a clock or a watch. “Let’s leave for the church now!” “Let’s go put your hair in rollers” “Let’s get our dresses on” It was wonderful – I didn’t get edgy or stressed. We got dressed in the nursery of the church, and my maid of honor was helping me do my hair and put on my makeup. This was the first time even a flitter of nervousness started to appear as the moment grew closer.
My (ex) husband’s mother and sisters and niece came over to where I was getting dressed to say hello, and I said hello back – even though I couldn’t see them because the MOH was putting on my eyeshadow. When I opened my eyes, there was Donna’s face – TWO INCHES FROM MINE.
“Hello,” she said.
I jumped back with a screech and closed my eyes again. “Sorry, I just need to get ready. Can you back up a little?”
Next thing I know, the entire nursery is empty except the maid of honor and me. Guess I scared them all away. Now I really was panicking. I just “yelled” at my future sister-in-law on my wedding day! Greeeeaaat.
But I took a deep breath and tried to return to the peaceful, ignorant bliss from before. My bridesmaids returned and we all headed upstairs to the sanctuary and one by one walked down the aisle. The ceremony started and everything looked beautiful.
Then I saw her.
Donna was not with the video camera. No, she had somehow delegated that duty to her brother, and was now walking around the church flashing pictures. I looked at my (ex)husband with wide eyes – but he had evidently done shots right before the wedding (gives new meaning to shot gun wedding) and was very . . .happy.
Donna kept inching her way up the aisle. Oh my god, she wouldn’t. But here she came. Closer and closer.
And then. . .she disappeared.
I was trying to pay attention to my wedding, but I could not fathom why she would leave the sanctuary.
Until I saw her.
Directly behind the pastor, she suddenly re-appeared. She had found her way to the choir loft behind and was now weaving through the choir pews, just 10 feet from the pastor, who was giving his sermonette.
Desperately, I tried to do a psychic mind meld with my eyes to beg her to stop and think. I mean, it was all over the programs – “No flash photography during the sacred portions of the service.” There was even a sign at the entrance to the sanctuary. I had mentioned it to her. It was all over. Oh my god, why?
She raised her camera. She focused in on us, and I tried to mouth to her “No!” without the pastor seeing. She . . .she . . .she. . .
Flashed.
The pastor stopped, mid-sentence. The church got dead quiet. No programs rustling, no children talking.
Like Linda Blair in the Poltergeist, the pastor’s head seemed to turn towards Donna, his body hardly moving. He stared at her for a long moment, and suddenly she felt the whole church’s gaze upon her.
She backed up in to the pew, almost falling over. She grasped the camera in front of her chest with both hands, as if for protection. And then as suddenly as she appeared, she was gone again.
The pastor calmly turned his head back towards us and picked back up right where he left off as if nothing had happened. People shifted and sighed and the normal white noises returned. The flowers in my bouquet stopped shaking.
And Donna didn’t use her flash for the rest of the ceremony.
Amen.
Bravo! Encore!
Praise Jebus!
you are, of course, going to hell. you know this.
I want to see the picture she took…your face must have been priceless.
Seconded. 