Story of the Month: Holiday Fun

On December 11, 2012December 11, 2012 By R. PettyIn Story of the MonthLeave a comment

I hate shopping. I am not the girl who finds boutiques, tries on clothes, and I order everything I can online. However, I love buying for people I care about, but the traffic, crowds, and general population are enough to keep me at home.

A few years ago, I had to go Christmas shopping, so my amazing friend and RevPub partner offered to keep me company. And so our shopping day tradition began.

We don’t shop on a weekend because that’s even more insane, so every year in December we take a Friday off and finish our Christmas shopping. We visit open-air malls and McKay’s, and keep the same schedule as if we were at work with a lunch break around noon. On these days, we have a great time and laugh until our sides hurt. So, for story of the month I bring you two little shorts from our shopping experiences.

Look at Me…

After several hours shopping, James and I were in the car on our way to another store. I had his phone and was playing with his camera. I wanted to take his picture, but of course, he would not smile on command. In a moment of silliness I said, “Looook at meeeee…” and he erupted into laughter. Some of my favorite pics are ones with someone laughing, and this one is definitely a peach:

Bullet Proof

A few years ago we were leaving a store, and James saw one of these:

A man with a baby in a baby carrier — Photo from: barnesandnoble.com

He turned and asked me if it was a bullet-proof vest. I replied that is was something people use to carry their babies. James, being his lovable self, said, “I got news for her. That baby’s not going to stop any bullets.”

We both almost went into the floor from laughing, and what made this moment even better was the new mother overheard him. She turned and gave him a dirty look, but only I saw her and I laughed even more. We continued our day and caused a little trouble, which made it even better.

These stories remind me to have fun. No matter how much you hate something, you can make the best of it and build lifelong memories. I will always remember the laughs, the stories, and the weird looks we get from people when we are just being ourselves. Sometimes being weird is necessary.

Happy Holidays and share your fun shopping stories below!

Story of the Month: A Surprise Dinner Guest

On November 13, 2012November 13, 2012 By R. PettyIn Story of the Month2 Comments

Well, the holiday season is upon us. I can’t believe Thanksgiving is next week, and I’ve already started shopping. Time flies when you’re having fun!

This month I want to share a story about a very special guest we had a few years ago. He was the highlight of our holiday and caused a lot of chaos and fun.

A Surprise Dinner Guest

It was Christmas Eve, and we had lots of family coming to the house for food and festivities. Our guests were about to arrive, so we opened the door only to find a large multicolored duck on our front porch.

We live in a highly residential neighborhood between several main roads. Our houses are about 15 feet apart, and there are rows and rows of houses in the neighborhood. Needless to say, ducks are not a common site, and the only wildlife you see around my house are domestic pets or squirrels. I could not believe a duck would choose to chill at our house of all the ones in the neighborhood.

At first I worried that he was sick or had a broken wing. We fed him, and he was a little nervous, but he never ran. He was still on our porch when the guests arrived; and then we had a problem. We had several kids who wanted to play with him, and one wanted to chase the duck around the yard. I yelled some sense into him, and everyone left the duck in peace.

The duck fluffed up next to the house and slept. Hours later he was still there, sleeping the night away. Late that night, I fed him once more and checked on him. He was still asleep in his warm spot, and I fell asleep wondering how we would take care of a duck. We had a dog and a small bird, and I did not have the heart to call animal control.

Christmas morning arrived, and our feathery friend was gone. I like to think he continued his journey at dawn, moving onto another house or he found his new home.

So, in the spirit of the Thanksgiving season, I am thankful for pets – past, present, and future. No matter the size or how long we have them, their unconditional love makes the darkest days seem a little brighter.

Feel free to share your weird and/or special pet stories below in the comments section!

Story of the Month: The Ghost in the Machine

On October 18, 2012October 18, 2012 By James CastroIn Short Stories, Story of the Month4 Comments

The Ghost in the Machine

Over the past decade movies about haunted technology have become popular. From radios to TVs and from cameras to cell phones, it seems everything can be haunted and wreak havoc on the lives of the living. This has always been one of my least favorite genres of horror movie for some reason, partially because it shows our over-attachment to our data devices, but I suppose in actuality there’s no principle difference between a haunted house and a haunted Handycam.

I never gave much thought to these kinds of “haunting” until…

Back around 2005 or so the fairer half of RevPub had a computer problem. She had an aging computer and the modem suddenly stopped working. This was back in the days when PCs were still white boxes and modems contained numbers like “28.8” and “56k.” Having recently replaced the modem in my own PC (which bucked the trend and was GRAY) I felt confident I could replace the modem in hers as well. I took the PC to my house, bought a cheap replacement modem, and installed it. Turning the computer on, I immediately got a hardware error. After going through all the options my limited computer hardware ability could handle, I called my friend Mike (an actual expert) to help.

He brought one of his computer shells to see if it was the modem, the slot, or the whole PC that was the problem. He also brought other spare parts and far more experience fixing PCs with white text on a black screen. We went through several attempts, and various options, all while watching Mythbusters on DVD. We only had one keyboard, so he plugged it into his computer, checked settings, and plugged it into the broken one to try to get the settings to work on that one. We did this several times and hit dead end, after dead end. It made me feel better that I had failed, since he was having bad luck with it too. He suddenly had a flash of inspiration, sat up, picked the keyboard up, and began typing commands. Immediately his commands began to appear on the screen of the stricken computer. As white text filled the black screen as the system began to respond. We plugged in the modem and, SURPRISE, it worked perfectly.

Mike began to disconnect the keyboard to plug into the other PC to begin to shut it down. I saw him reach to unplug it. Sit down. Stand up and look at it, then sit down again.

Perplexed and a bit freaked out. He turned to me and said, “I don’t know why that worked…” Quizzically I asked, “Why?” happy to see the work was finally done.

He still seemed pretty shaken when he responded, “The keyboard was plugged into the other PC the whole time…”

Now my logical side kicked in. Maybe he was playing a joke? No the keyboard was definitely plugged into the other PC and I hadn’t left the room. Maybe the afflicted PC had reset itself? No his DOS commands were appearing on screen.

We exchanged a “What the…” look. And the only thing that broke our silence was my announcement, “I want that thing out of my house right now.” He agreed, we packed up, I moved the possessed computer to the trunk of my car and informed the lovelier half of this company that her PC was repaired, ready to return, and was likely and object of pure evil. She took it back and used it for years…without incident.

To this day it’s one of the strangest events I’ve ever witnessed. Two relatively fearless individuals were completely creeped out by a PC that seemed to either be possessed by the machine spirit (emperor protect) or self-aware enough to fix itself. Either way I was glad to have it out of my house!

When I told Mike I would be using this story on this blog he responded in typical Mike fashion by saying:

“That sh*t freaks me out.”

For one time I will shed my stoicism and concede…yeah that sh*t freaks me out too…

Story of the Month Debut: Wrong Number

On September 11, 2012 By R. PettyIn Story of the MonthLeave a comment

Everyone has a great story – some have dozens, some have hundreds. This month we would like to debut our Story of the Month to highlight those stories that we will always remember. We hope you enjoy our quirky, weird, and often funny true stories.

Wrong Number

A few weeks ago, I pulled into the driveway and checked my phone for texts. I had one (big surprise), but this was from a number I didn’t recognize. It read:

Hey Steve this is Sarah. Rob gave me your number. There is nothing left for my dad he’s gone. I can’t take this.

Gasp! This poor girl just lost her dad and texted the wrong person. Really?

The dilemma kicked in because I didn’t know what to do. Am I really going to text this person with, “Wrong number” or do I ignore it? She already seemed a little unstable, understandably, so if I ignored it, she may think the intended recipient doesn’t care. Who knows what will happen after that…

After a few minutes of sitting there with an over-active imagination, I responded. I replied the only way I could:

I am so sorry for your loss, but you have the wrong number. I hope you’re ok…

I knew at that moment, that story was a keeper. I felt kind of awful about the wrong number part but felt it was necessary. The girl never responded, but I’d like to think she checked her number, found the right person, and got the shoulder she needed.

So there’s my craziest text to date. Do you have a crazy wrong number story? Feel free to share below!

Revenant Publications

Category: Story of the Month