Apologies to Miley Cyrus.

Damn that new Miley Cyrus song that’s stuck in everyone’s head like the death-vice of a new catchy pop-music song.  However, I recently had a revelation about that song that I would like to share.  Tell me if I’m alone in misunderstanding the subtleties of the lyrics of Party in the USA.

Here is the chorus of the song:

So I put my hands up
They’re playing my song
And the butterflies fly away
Noddin’ my head like yeah
Moving my hips like yeah

Now, I first heard that as “They’re playing MY song” as in, “Me, Miley Cyrus, MY song, the-song-I-sing-that-gets-played-on-the-radio-because-I’m-famous.”

Instead, the lyric is “They’re playing my SONG” as in, “The song I like, the-song-that-gets-me-excited-and-to-which-I-can-relate.”

Since I first heard that song months ago, until now, I thought the lyrics were really self-centered.  As in: “Gee, Miley, not everyone has songs played on the radio like you do.  I can’t relate to your ego-maniac lyrics.  Like, I’m sad until my song comes on the radio.  What kind of pop-star bubble are you living in?  I mean, it’s nice to be famous but you should learn about the real world.  Not everyone is a famous pop-star at 14 years old. Jeez.”

But as of yesterday, I understand the lyrics as when I’m feeling down and nervous, hearing my favorite song on the radio helps me forget my worries as in:  “Miley’s just like me.  I get scared and nervous until I hear my favorite song on the radio.  Then I nod my head like yeah and shake my hips like yeah.  This song is totally relatable to my life and to the human condition writ large.”

The other part of the lyrics that I now understand in this new context are:

And a Jay-Z song was on
And a Jay-Z song was on
And a Jay-Z song was on**

And later:

And a Britney song was on
And a Britney song was on
And a Britney song was on

Until yesterday, I understood that to mean, “these are the other famous people who are played on the radio in addition to my famous pop tunes.”  Now I understand it as, “these are some examples of the songs that I enjoy that make me move my hips like yeah.”

Sheesh.  Duh on me.  Maybe I’m getting too old to understand these kids and their music.  My apologies to Miley for misunderstanding her awesome and totally relatable lyrics. I will now make an effort to  move my hips like yeah.

**(It did come out that Miley doesn’t even listen to Jay-Z but whatever — it’s not like she claimed to have written the song.  For the record, the song we love to hate was written by Lukasz Gottwald, Claude Kelly and Jessica Cornish.)

What a busy December I’m having.

So, here’s a tip: If you ever host a party and invite a lot of really awesome, funny and creative, yet lewd and perverted friends over and get them drunk, hide the dry erase marker from the calendar on your fridge.

See if you can guess the events that were there before the party and the events that mysteriously appeared on the calendar after the party:

12/1 – TV Day
12/4 – Carrie Hosts Gotham
12/5 – Housewarming
12/6 – Buy Tiff a gift day
12/8 – Put more sexy baby pictures on fridge
12/10 – Reduce anal leakage!
12/12 – Give Edith $1,000 day. 2pm
12/16 – Penile Enlargement
12/17 – High Colonic
12/18 – Low Colonic
12/19 – Laundry
12/23 – Penile Enlargement
12/24 – Snow is like coke!!
12/25 – JC’s B-day party BYOB
12/26 – ♥ Your Gaga
12/28 – Anus flush/Neti pot
12/29 – Vagina filthification day
12/30 – Vagina cleanse/Penile Enlargement
12/31 – Hyman reconstruction
1/1 – Beginning of your white history month

Any guesses?

How I broke Key Food.

Last Saturday, I went to a Key Food supermarket to pick up some foodstuffs. At the register, I had this conversation with the little card-swipey machine:

Machine: Your total is $6.54. How would you like to pay? Debit? Credit?
Me: Debit.
Machine: From which account would you like to withdraw money? Checking? Savings?
Me: Checking.
Machine: Would you like cash back? Yes? No?
Me: Yes.
Machine: How much would you like back?
Me: $60.
Machine: Your total will be $66.54. Yes? No?
Me: Yes.

So far, nothing weird has happened. I look expectantly at the cashier and wait for my $60. She looks at the readout on her machine which says, “Change: $60.00.” She looks at the drawer of money and then back up to the readout. Then back down. Then she says out loud, “Sixty?” and looks at me. I don’t know what to say so I give it a beat before I say, “Yes, sixty.” She looks confused. How can the change be $60 when the price of my items was only $6.54? “Maybe she’s retarded,” I think to myself, “Always be patient with retards. Don’t take it for granted that you’re not a retard.” Deep breath.

I attempt to explain: “I put in for $60 cash back with my debit card.” She looks me up and down and gets on the loud speaker: “Maria, please come to register 5.” The guy behind me on line rolls his eyes and finds another line. My body sags. I age. I am moments closer to my death and I have wasted these precious seconds explaining the concept of cash back to a cashier.

Maria finally comes. “Sixty? How is it sixty?” She looks me up and down and gives me some nasty stink-eye. “The maximum you can get in cash back is 25.”

I make sure I don’t look angry. Then I will waste my life in Key Food just being angry. I say brightly, “No one told me.” Which is true. There’s no sign. No hand-written, disgusting, poor grammar sign on a post-it note that says anything about any maximum. The machine even asked me open-endedly how much I wanted back. I made a conscious decision to choose a dollar amount in a multiple of $20 because I’m awesome like that.

Maria looks angry and panicked. “The machine, it’s not supposed to allow you to enter $60. We’re not allowed to give you $60.”

“Well, whatever, there’s a computer glitch. Can I just get my $60 and I’ll be on my way?” I say happily.

Maria and the cashier look like I’ve just asked permission to rip the legs off a live puppy, slowly over the course of a day, watching it whimper and cry as I lick my fingers of its blood and laugh laugh laugh. Maria reiterates for me because I am clearly a monster, “We aren’t allowed to give you $60. We can’t.”

There is a terrible stand-off.

$66.54 has been deducted from my bank account. I’m not leaving without $60 in my pocket. I wait.  Maria gets on the loud speaker, “Tina to register 5.” Tina’s the manager, they explain, as if I give a shit.

Moments tick by. Tina gets there. They explain to her, gesture at me, point at the register, at the machine that has ruined us all. Tina looks terrified. She says to me, I swear, “I’ll have to call corporate headquarters.”

Corporate headquarters needs to be made aware that some crazy idiot in Queens wants sixty dollars cash back. Chief Executive Dean Janeway himself needs interrupt his golf game to approve of this cash back transaction.

The cashier and Maria and I wait while Tina goes to “the booth” to call corporate headquarters. I age a little more. This is wasting my life. It’s taking too long. I have other things to do. Everyone is a retard.

Twenty minutes after the start of the drama, I finally get my damn money and exit the store, leaving horrified expressions on the faces of the employees left to contemplate where their lives went so very wrong. Key Food’s computers have crashed and I have ruined the entire company. My plan was so completely diabolical: Ask for a reasonable amount of cash back from a debit transaction and wait for the whole operation to crumble. Brilliant. I suggest we all try it.

(See how you’ve wasted your life reading these 750 words?  It kind of felt like that.)