Tuesday, January 5, 2016

When Things Break

Ring ring.

Bob & Cathie: Hello?

Eli: How do you guys always answer the phone at exactly the same time?

Cathie: Years of practice.

Eli: I need help. Desperately.

Cathie: We know.

Bob: Sorry? Who is this?

Eli: You both went different directions but your humor is, respectively, on point.

Cathie: We know.

Bob: Sorry? Who is this?

Eli: Ok, enough messing around. I'm living Noah's Ark right now. This is all very serious.

Bob: You have unwanted animals in your home?

Cathie: You're growing a beard?

Bob: Incest?

Eli: No! You guys! I'm flooding! My entire house is flooding!

Bob: YOUR WHOLE HOUSE FLOODED?!

Cathie: No, Bob. He means that there's a minor leak somewhere.

Eli: Right.

Bob: After all these years with you people I still don't understand or speak exaggeration.

Cathie: You can't learn it. It's just a part of who you are. Like the Force.

Eli: Ok, so anyway, I heard water running and I didn't know where it was coming from and I looked everywhere and discovered that it was coming out of a faucet at the back of the house. So I turned off the water to the whole house and now I don't have running water which means I'm CAMPING.

Bob & Cathie: WE'LL COME GET YOU RIGHT AWAY!

Eli: No. I'll be ok. You don't need to come and get me.

Bob: I did not claw my way to get into this country so my children would have to camp.

Cathie: No sir!

Eli: Ok, you guys are both like 22nd generation Americans so let's take it down a notch. But I agree that your children should never have to go camping, which is why I'm calling you so late at night because I don't know how to fix this.

Bob: Well it sounds like the faucet head is broken but you should probably look in the basement to make sure a pipe didn't break.

Eli: Well, the pipe runs through a crawl space under the back of the house, a crawl space I didn't even know about until right now.

Bob: Do you know how to access the crawl space?

Eli: I think so. I'm lying in it right now.

Cathie: DEAR ALL THAT IS HOLY GET OUT OF THERE BEFORE THE HOUSE FALLS ON YOU!

Eli: Cathie, it hasn't crumbled in the last hundred years. I don't think it will in the next five minutes.

Cathie: YOU HAVE TO DO WHAT I SAY BECAUSE OF MOTHER'S VETO POWER!

Eli: Damn. I hate when you pull that out.

Cathie: Ok, son. So you called your mommy and daddy because you need us to take care of you?

Eli: No.

Bob: So you need us to come and fix your problems in our retirement years because you, an able-bodied young man, refused to listen us when we tried to teach you life skills for three decades?

Eli: No! I don't need you. I just wanted moral support. I can fix this on my own. Without any help from anyone. Good day. I SAID GOOD DAY.

Ring ring.

Matt: What.

Eli: I need you to fix my whole house and not tell Bob and Cathie about it.

Matt: I can't deal with this right now. Ollie had a haircut disaster this afternoon and we are in mourning over here.

Eli: No. Please tell me this isn't true. Send me a picture.


Eli: I can't breathe.

Matt: Are you crying right now?

Eli: I don't think any news I've ever heard has ever hurt this much.

Matt: This is why I can't fix your house right now. How can anyone do anything at a time like this?

Eli: I'm so sorry to have bothered you.

Matt came 24 hours later and fixed my house. Special shout out to my amazing brother-in-law Jeff who was ready to drive across the valley to help me until Matt intervened.

Please keep Mr. Pants in your prayers right now.

~It Just Gets Stranger

85 comments:

  1. That is the WORST dog haircut in all history. I just shaved my head in solidarity with him.

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    1. This made me laugh out loud. He's so cute still but that is a bad haircut!

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  2. I always picture Bob as the dad from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (the dad is awesome, the movie not so much), but anyway I hope that's not too weird or inaccurate of me. Mr. Pants has now made me cry in the bad way for the very first time hashtag somebodyfixthis

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    1. Great now I'm hungry for meatballs and it's only 9:30 in the morning. Thanks a lot.

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  3. Mr Ollie Pants looks so mad and embarrassed at the same time and I don't blame him at all. I think his stylist should be flogged. Who shaves someone in the middle of winter? Really!

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    1. No kidding! The worst part about it is how cold it is right now!

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  4. And where were you, Eli Whittlebottom McCann, patron saint of at-risk dogs, when this hair cut atrocity was happening?

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  5. OMG, that was hysterical.
    Don't worry. Mr. Ollie Pants's's's's hair will grow back soon enough. Now is your chance to put him in cute sweaters!!

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  6. You know - for a man who says he doesn't understand or speak exaggeration he doesn't a pretty good job here:

    Bob & Cathie: WE'LL COME GET YOU RIGHT AWAY!

    Eli: No. I'll be ok. You don't need to come and get me.

    Bob: I did not claw my way to get into this country so my children would have to camp.

    Cathie: No sir!

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    1. Maybe Bob only speaks hyperbole and not exaggeration. Like how someone can speak Portuguese but not Spanish.

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    2. So he speaks a subset of exaggeration . . . .

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  7. And what is this "After approval" bit for comments posting? When did THIS start? Is this CENSORSHIP?????

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    1. WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

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    2. Are you testing the Atom Bomb too???????

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    3. He's the China of bloggers. Damn, now I want potstickers instead of meatballs.

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    4. I kind of like it. It's comforting to feel like some one is in charge around here.

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    5. I need to be able to post freely. I need to do things whenever I want, without approval...jump off the high dive, stare down the barrel of the gun, pee into the wind.

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    6. Twice up the barrel, once down the side Lee.

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    7. I'm not sure I can continue in this communist state . . . is this part of Matt's redesign? Is he trying to change EVERYTHING around here? Tell him to get his grubby hands off of the blog and pay more attention to important things like how much hair the groomer is taking off of poor Ollie Pants!

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    8. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

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  8. You and Matt should be on soap opera's because OMG DRAMA! :P

    Firstly, I think Ollie looks cute like that. I think you should have cut the hair on his ears though too. We do a cut like that to Trixie 2 or 3 times a year because she's a hair dog not a fur one and it ends up getting too long, although we normally do it at and around summer as she gets so hot. Right now she looks like a teddy bear though as we haven't had it cut since the summer time.

    Secondly...you put that Star Wars reference in there for me didn't you? If you're mom actually said "The Force" then she just became even more awesome.

    Thirdly, you stole my Good Day line, which I stole from That 70's Show. How DARE you!

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    1. Lee! Obviously I was trying to bate you every way possible to comment because we didn't hear from you yesterday and I have so many questions because I finally saw Star Wars! Let's start with this one because I was so confused the whole time: was that based on a true story?

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    2. Yes it was Eli - actually it's my life story - I'm in hiding here on earth while I train to be a Jedi.

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    3. Fur Dog vs. Hair Dog has changed my life forever! I will only refer to dogs in this manner from this day forward.

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    4. So, I hit publish on my last reply and I got a message in a yellow box that said "Your comment will be visible after approval"

      Are you censoring the comments now, Eli?!

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    5. Exactly, and I'm an ace pilot in the resistance and have a droid named BB-8.

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    6. Well I don't know about censoring. I've been having some spam issues so I'm experimenting with some "best practices" recommended to me by bloggers who know what they're doing more than I do. Jury's still out on it though.

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    7. You realize this will only instigate people like me and Lee to see how offensive we have to be to get you to censor us, right?

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    8. Angela...I would NEV...

      ...ok yeah I would.

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    9. So do you have to actually click approve to EVERY post that each person makes? Cause if so, I can post a LOT more.

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    10. I hope the answer to that is yes. We could get the censorship issue resolved quickly because we all know Eli won't want to continue to do that because WORK

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    11. Lee, you are wrong for thinking he looks cute like that.

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    12. I just saw the episode of Gilmore Girls where Paris decides to write about censorship in a small town because Taylor and Kirk (Kurt?) put all the videos with any kind of questionable content behind a curtain because Rory suggested they put ones with questionable covers up high where kids can't get them. Gilmore Girls is coming back - maybe Paris can write about blog comment censorship for us.


      I watch way too much TV

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    13. Great episode, Nicole K. I work at Warner Bros. as a tour guide, and I get WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY too excited about the GG return when I have even ONE guest on a tour who is even remotely a fan. I just wish they'd hurry up and start shooting already, and if Liza returns (Paris, to you), then maybe I'll get to stand in for her again. That would be awesomesauce (no, not awesomesauciness).

      Sorry, I got distracted. Ollie looks good, although for the wrong season, I must agree. And yeah, where can I get some meatball potstickers? Eli, you have GOT to go back to other ways of moderating! I, like the rest of your Stranger family, hate being censored! (she manages to bring it back around) :)

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    14. I think she'd have to leave HTGAWM in order to come back - alhtough maybe she can do cameos.

      On another note - it occurred to me today that if Eli has to approve all of our comments that means he is actually READING all of our comments - I just got goosebumps!

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    15. They're still in pre-production on GG, building sets and redressing Stars Hollow in Midwest Street on the Warner Bros. backlot, and when they're ready to start shooting, I'm predicting three months of work for all of the actors, and then they're done. HTGAWM should be pretty close to wrapping their shooting for this season, so I think the timing of it all would work pretty well. The only real reason to not include Paris is that she's NEVER BEEN a resident of Stars Hollow, so unless they've given her a good excuse to move there after college, we probably won't see her. ... But I'm still trying to get completely caught up - I'm in season 7, and this is my first viewing of all of these episodes. Are you just revisiting GG, Nicole, after having been a regular viewer when it originally aired, or are you binge-watching like I am?

      And yeah, Eli has to read every comment. When does he possibly have time to do all the everything else he does? Eli, has God given you 30-hour days? Will you lend me one or two of those, from time to time?

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    16. Wasn't the Stars Hollow area in Midwest street redressed for the series Hart of Dixie?

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  9. Ollie looks so sad and cold. I hope your next post features a photo shoot of Ollie modeling all of his new sweaters and hats.

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  10. Obviously Ollie Pants will always be the world's cutest dog but I hope for his sake he can grow that hair back fast because it is too cold and he looks so much more cuddly when it's long.

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  11. You seriously needed a trigger warning for that haircut, because between the ages of 10 and 13 my mother gave me the exact same haircut, plus a home perm. I'll be in therapy for the rest of the day if anybody needs me.

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  12. Am I the only one suspicious about the fact that Ollie's hair was ruined thus eliminating him as competition for best hair in every photo of Ollie and Eli? I mean, I watched Making A Murderer on Netflix and Eli is a lawyer...

    And on that topic, I desperately need you to weigh in on Making A Murderer, Eli!!!!

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    1. I haven't gotten to it yet but Bob and Cathie have threatened my life if I don't start it soon.

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    2. Oh good - I'm glad I'm not the only one!

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  13. Ollie's eyes say it all - "Really, people? This was the best you could do?? You have failed me."

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  14. At first when I saw that picture of Ollie, I thought "well, what does he normally look like?" So I went to your Instagram feed and actually had to click LOAD MORE to see a picture of him. I guess you're just not sharing enough pictures of him...which, come to think of it, is probably what provoked this rebellious bad haircut stunt.

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    1. Well obviously you need to go to HIS Instagram account! https://www.instagram.com/ollie_cavoodle/

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  15. I can't believe Bob uses the wrong "your" when he's talking.

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    1. Thanks. I have called Bob and instructed him on speaking correctly in the future.

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    2. LOL, love that comment Anon. I'm just glad I wasn't drinking any liquids because they would have come right out my nose.

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    3. Agreed - stellar comment Anon!

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  16. The FIRST picture of Ollie-Pants on his Instagram-thingy says it all.

    Those are murderous eyes. You and Matt had best not turn your back on him.

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  17. You brighten my day. You and your whole cast of crazy wonderful people.

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  18. I was having a totally crappy day . . . then I see this, it is helped me understand that bad haircuts, leaky houses, and no comments from Lee are much worse! But really - ya'll make my day!!!!!

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    1. It's Eli's censoring of our comments, you just have to refresh the screen like...A MILLION TIMES ELI!! I MUST NOT BE DENIED COMMENTING!!!

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    2. No Lee! She's talking about yesterday when you were nowhere to be found! There was a discussion on the Facebook page wherein someone (who shall remain nameless) suggested that maybe Canada forgot to pay its utility bills.

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    3. HA...yeah I talk a lot when I want to. I try not to reply on EVERY blog you post. Suzy and I take turns so I don't get burned out.

      It's nice to see someone is thinking about me...THANKS SANDY, TRACY AND SUZY!

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    4. I'm so relieved we didn't have to call the Mounties out to find you Lee.

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    5. Aww...I thought I'd get a reaction out of you from calling you Suzy. I feel ripped off.

      Guess I'll have to think up a new way to try and bug you.

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    6. Notice I said Mounties and not search & rescue. I put out a warrant for your arrest, just sayin'...

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    7. PS - Since we're frienemies I'd expect nothing less than you calling me Suzy, but when you add the Q the gloves come off and I go all Gordie Howe on you.

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    8. Excellent...from this day forth, you will henceforth be known to me as...SUZY!

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    9. Don't mind me, I'm just looking for countries that don't have extradition treaties with Cananda...

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    10. Evidently I need to comment more - and read the Facebook feed more . . .

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    11. I think there was a day when I was your Lee, or your The Suzzzzzzzzzzzzz, or even your awesomesauciness, Eli. But I just don't have time to live here on YOUR blog, when I have my own blog to write, and you're "experimenting" with moderating. You DO know that moderating a blog is the gateway drug to moderating presidential debates, right? If you start moderating presidential debates, Eli, I may have to actually tune in. But you'll have to stop moderating the blog while you're doing the other bit. WE, YOUR STRANGERS, MUST NOT BE CENSORED - especially during presidential debates, while we're live-tweeting and commenting here!

      Where was I going with this? I'm afraid my train has jumped track again.

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    12. awww, thanks, Eli. I'm here. I just don't get to comment as often because of your stupid spammers. If only spammers would just "lurk" or "stalk" you here like the rest of us do. ;)

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    13. Lee - I think emelle just called you a spammer

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    14. I MUST NOT BE DENIED SPAMMING!

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    15. NO I DID NOT!!! Eli, Nicole's sayin' I did somethin' and I DIDN'T and she's tryin' to get me in trouble with Lee and she's bein' a rat-fink-stinkyface and I'M TELLIN'!

      HA! When was the last time I was around small children? Who did I just "channel"? I think I need to get out more. Whew!

      So, no, Nicole, I was referring to the non-Strangers who are clearly posting gobbledygook comments here, not the Highly Intelligent Discourse we Strangers engage in. Ya know, Eli's reason for having to censor everybody - er, um - MODERATE his own blog. ;)

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    16. Spam spam spam bacon spam and spam.

      It's ok Emelle, I know Nicole is just a troublemaker. Always stirring the pot.

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  19. I just finished reading a book (it was PROBABLY fiction) about a couple that were crawling in an access wall to fix a plumbing problem and found a crawl space they didn't know about when they bought the house and inside was a dead body! That was all I could think about for the whole story. Well except for the brief thought of Lee when your mom mentioned the Force. (I mean seriously, that was SO obviously for Lee). Now I am in mourning for Ollie and his luxurious mane that is no more! This may take a while.

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  20. I think Matt should direct Ollie's hair stylist here so they can see how much upset they have caused the world. I also think that next time you have a house emergency, you should send out a 911 tweet to all your beloved strangers for help and see who is able to give you the most helpful advice first.. tweets from beloved strangers or being on the phone with Bob & Cathie.

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  21. I don't think that is Mr. Pants. I think he's been replaced with a not-even-very-convincing imposter.

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  22. Poor Ollie; he looks chagrined, and a bit like he's warning you to not even come near.

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  23. Ollie is warning you NOT to come closer.... Poor Mr. Pants!

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  24. I was definitely with Bob's thought process when you compared your house to Noah's ark. I fully expected a dramatic tale of how unwanted animals invaded and I couldn't wait to see how you managed to get into a mess like that, considering your animal hating history.

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  25. How is there war in our modern day and time when people have such random entertaining thoughts like this...keep up the strangness. Love the Snuggie episode and the suspenders are tight!

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