Rotten Stories

One of earliest blog posts I ever wrote was a little item entitled “Violent Swiss Almond.”

At the time, I had noticed this habit I have where I would read a word or phrase, and my mind would take the first few letters and rush to a bizarre and completely incorrect solution.

The title refers to my misreading of an ice cream flavor called Vanilla Swiss Almond.

There have been countless other such screwups over the years.

Once, while walking through my local supermarket, I noticed a food spread in the refrigerated section called “Don’t Eat.”

Don’t Eat? What a strange name for a product, I thought. Why would I buy something with a name like that?

But I looked again and saw that it was actually called Down East, which seem a little more sensible. (I later joked that they were going to call the stuff Tastes Like Shit, but it didn’t test well. Rimshot!)

It has finally dawned on me that nearly of my misreads are negative. I don’t think I ever came up with an encouraging screw-up. All my word games have been losers.

I noticed this last week while riding the express bus home from Manhattan. We were going down Fifth Avenue and caught sight of a store that I thought was named “Rotten Stories.”

Rotten stories? What are they selling? And why would I want to shop there?

Well, this place is really called & Other Stories, a fashion and beauty brand owned by the H&M Group.

And then I was walking down 69th Street the other morning when I passed a van from a company called No Hope Auto Repair.

No hope? I’ve driven some hopeless autos in my time, but I wouldn’t go around bragging about it. However, one squint later and I saw the real name of the place was New Hope Auto Repair.

I won’t go into the Melanoma vanity license plate debacle but suffice it to say that was no one is driving around in a car advertising skin cancer.

This is both fascinating and disturbing. I’m amazed at just how determined my subconscious mind is to accentuate the negative and eliminate the positive.

A Stich in Time

I consider this yet another form of self-sabotage, or self-abuse, where I constantly bombard myself with toxic messages.

I’m coming off a rather crappy week where so many things went wrong for me. It seems to have started when I wrenched my back on Monday. After that, I couldn’t find anything: my wallet, my OMNY card for the bus—-it was nuts.

I’d get all twisted, freak out, and then I find whatever the hell I was looking for staring me in the face.

On Saturday, I had a meeting with someone where I completely misjudged the time. I was sitting in my living room thinking I still had 30 minutes before I had to leave my house.

And then I realized that I was 30 minutes late and I had to go flying out the door like a lunatic. Naturally, the subways were fouled up beyond recognition, and the MTA employee I approached at the Pacific Street station knew less about the trains than I did.

It was like they took a tourist from Oklahoma and gave him a vest. The guy seriously suggested taking the Long Island Railroad to a location in Brooklyn.

And then I managed to get on the wrong train because I was relying on hope rather than knowledge—a losing strategy if ever there was one.

I wound up charging out the subway station at DeKalb Avenue and calling car service.

Now, looking back, I realize that I didn’t want to go to this meeting in the first place, so I subconsciously did everything I could to make sure it didn’t happen.

I consider this a giant step backwards in my personal development and it’s very disappointing.

Okay, we’re starting a new week, a time for new hope, so let’s see if we can turn this around. My back is feeling a little better and I’m praying things will continue to improve.

I keep my wallet in a designated place along with my house keys now, and I’m going to stop saying yes when I really mean no.

I don’t want any more rotten stories.