Look at this fucking guy doing yoga at the beach with his little pet bird in a cage. It’s bad enough that everyone has become so fucking co-dependent that they have to take their fucking dogs with them every fucking place they go, but now we’re taking caged animals out with us, too?

Occasionally, a woman will come by and act interested in him and his bird. Only women, no men, have approached him. It’s so cute you bring your bird to the beach, I imagine them saying. I have no idea what they’re actually saying, but all parties involved seem to be enjoying themselves, so she’s probably not asking if he belongs here. 

What’s wrong with taking your caged bird to the beach? 

What’s not wrong about it? It’s fucking perverse. But birds like fresh air, too. Yeah, of course, birds like fresh air, everyone likes fresh air, but nobody likes breathing fresh air in a fucking cage. If you’re gonna keep an animal in a cage, then the least you can do is not remind it that there’s this whole outside world of freedom that they’re not privileged to.

Treat them the way a fucking casino treats gamblers: don’t remind them that there’s an outside that they’re missing out on. It’s like that cuck porn where the woman puts the guy’s dick in a cage and makes him watch a real man satisfy her. It’s fucking twisted to have to sit there in its cage and watch all these seagulls and crows and pelicans and all these other wild birds flying around doing laps over it, and it just has to sit there like a little cuck; a little cuck and it’s cuck cage. 

The post A Little Cuck In It’s Little Cuck Cage appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

The Piglet

So, I went to work on the video, and a few hours later, I got my first text. They were “interested” in the bandsaw. It could tell immediately that it was a scammer because he was texting me from an email address, but I played along. Our exchange went as follows:

benjamin_j001@outlook.com:
16″ Lobo Bandsaw. $250
Still available

Me:
It’s available

benjamin_j001@outlook.com:
I believe it’s in a great condition?

Me:
It is

benjamin_j001@outlook.com:
I’m okay with the price, I’m under medication and I’m not allowed to move around, please let me know if you accept a check payment?
And we’ll wait till it clears the bank before the pick up will take place, please let me know if this works for you?

Me:
A check? Are you calling from 1985? When you get back to 2025 give me a call and we’ll talk. Maybe by then you’ll be off your meds, able to move around and in a condition to operate a bandsaw.

benjamin_j001@outlook.com:
Your a bastard

Me:
*you’re

benjamin_j001@outlook.com:
You stupid piglet
Bastard dummy

Bonnie thought “Bastard dummy” was really funny. The scammers usually pounce on new listings, so hopefully I’ve cleared them all out, now.

The Pig

This afternoon, Bonnie’s mom – who is, incidentally, the most disgusting person I know – poured olive oil into the tray beneath the water dispenser in the refrigerator. Don’t worry, there’s video so you can see exactly what I mean. She wasn’t even at the fridge, she was on the other side of the kitchen making a sandwich when she suddenly decided that she needed to oil the fridge. She has the piece of bread in her hand the whole time. I let most of the weird and disgusting shit she does fly because it’s not worth the fight and it won’t change anything. I couldn’t let this one slide, though, I had to know what she was up to. So, I went into the kitchen and asked her why she poured olive oil in the fridge.

She thought the olive oil was vinegar, and vinegar will break up the lime scale. She told me this as if I know nothing about cleaning chemistry. I walked over to the sink to wash my bowl, and she pulled the napkin that I had just thrown away, out of the trash and used it to sop up the oil she poured all over the fridge. This is the shit that nobody sees. This is the shit that nobody understands. It’s like having a 250-pound toddler that is totally incapable of learning anything.

People will say that I’m unreasonable because she’s old and her brain is rotting, but she’s always been like this. She used to use a broom to sweep the carpet instead of using the Kirby vacuum that she paid $1,200 for. One day, I walked past the living room and saw her sweeping the carpet – the same carpet that my kids play on – and I lost it. It wasn’t just that she was sweeping the carpet, but that she had gone out to the garage and got the broom that I had just used a few hours earlier to sweep up rat shit in the shed out back. This was twenty years ago. She’s always been like this.

The Prestige

After the whole olive oil incident, I thought it would be nice to get out of the house for a bit. It was a beautiful day if not a little chilly. As I was walking along the arroyo, I heard a scuffle in the water. Two birds were entangled in either love or war, I couldn’t tell which. I watched them until the fight came to an abrupt end, but I couldn’t believe what I had just seen. One of the birds disappeared. It just vanished. I have no idea where it went. I went back and watched and rewatched the video over and over again, and I can’t see where the bird went.

So, yeah, it was a weird fucking day. I suppose it makes up for yesterday’s lack of anything interesting.

The post Well That Was A Weird Day appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.

Be Late, Never Early

In a world with ever-decreasing quality in customer service, I really shouldn’t complain about a delivery driver jamming through his day. It wasn’t a problem, but I wonder what would have happened had I not been home or taking a shit or something.

It reminded me of the time I worked for a carpet cleaning company that scheduled me for an afternoon appointment in Pacific Palisades. Obviously, this was back when there were still houses there. Anyway, I had four hours to kill between my morning appointment and my afternoon appointment, so I kept hounding the office to get me into the job earlier. The customer, however, wouldn’t return any of our calls.

So, I showed up at the house fifteen minutes early, and I could hear someone inside playing a violin badly. I knocked on the door, but the woman continued torturing the poor cat, who died in vain to make her instrument. I knocked again, and the call to summon the desolate one came to an abrupt halt. A short, chunky woman in her 60s opened the door, and before I could say a word, she said, “Our appointment is in 15 minutes. I’ll be with you in 15 minutes,” and then she slammed the door in my face.

That was the harshest reaction I ever received for being early, but I found throughout my 16 years in the carpet cleaning business that people don’t like it when you’re early. I think because they’re expecting you to be late.

Back To My Delivery

He asked me where I wanted them and then got to work unloading four large bags filled with 900 pounds of sand and gravel each. The bags were large, but they were smaller than I had imagined they would be, which I was kind of happy about because they looked less daunting. As soon as he left, I built a ramp to negotiate the two steps up to the terraced portion of the yard where the fire pit is, and then, I got to work.

It took about two hours and fifteen minutes to move all of the gravel from my driveway to the backyard. I started to get concerned that I hadn’t ordered enough, but those worries were quickly assuaged when I started spreading it out.

After lunch, I started laying stones down. I had always intended to lay the stones on top of the blocks, so that’s how I prepped the gravel and started laying the stones, but I didn’t like it. I dug out some of the gravel and laid a piece of rock down so that it was flush with the top of the block, and I instantly knew that was the right decision. Any apprehension or indecision I felt about this project evaporated, and I started laying stones in earnest.

I worked until I ran out of daylight. I really didn’t want to stop, but I couldn’t see what I was doing, so I called it a day. Tomorrow will go quickly, I think.

In Other News…

This little guy took up residence in our patio cover. I don’t know if this is the same one that had two babies last year, or if this is one of the babies, or if she’s a whole different bird.

The post Here We Go! appeared first on Retro Active Lifestyle.