So, according to Twitter, I've tweeted a lot less lately than I used to. Like, way less.
There are myriad reasons for this: I don't message anyone on ICQ or MSN anymore, either. I blog roughly as often as George R.R. Martin publishes a Song of Ice & Fire book. Hell, I once bragged to people in real life about posting a top comment on a top post on digg.
...I'm going to stop with the en gratis-ing before further embarrassing myself.
Hobbies change, habits change, and technology changes even faster. I spend my time digesting social media elsewhere. More importantly: I now have a job where I actually have shit to do for most of an 8-hour shift and there are real judgments &/or repercussions for playing with my phone all day.
But I didn't always have this job.
In the 6+ years I had my old job, for anyone seeing this who hasn't followed me on twitter for years, I heard more than a couple things that I thought hilarious enough (some intentionally, some not) that I chose to share with the digital world.
These are all things said to me by customers or coworkers while attempting to sell car parts.
Welcome to the full repository of things that I was likely to hear from #oldmenatwork.
A buddy of mine (shoutout to @boournes!) has kept the trend going, occasionally hashtagging some of his tweets of particularly crass things he hears his coworkers say. After reading a recent one, I got a little nostalgic. & god bless the ol' Tweetbox; she has a functionality to download an archive of all your account's tweets. Better yet: the archive is searchable by hashtag (or any keyword, really).
If my longwinded ramble hasn't foreshadowed the point of this blog post enough: for my own amusement, I searched and read through all those #oldmenatwork tweets. And, I mean, if I'm going to read them anyway...
This list is presented mostly unedited. I un-twitterized some, adding punctuation or compounding multitweets for clarity. Any comments of my own will be in italics, while the original tweet is in bold. I do want to note that none of these things were said by me, and further note that I generally in no way endorse or condone the things said: at best, these tweets are crude, lewd or rude; at worst, they're sexist, racist, contain rape jokes... you name it. Consider this a disclaimer.
There's a whole debate to be had about how disseminating these quotes in public is an implicit endorsement and is morally no better than whoever had the thought and said the thing, and that's fair enough.
Obviously, though, if I shared that opinion, I probably wouldn't be writing this.
So, without further ado...
1) "jesus! when we was young we used to have to go to town on a horse. it's not cold ya woman!"
Note: the "ya woman" was to me. I'm not sure if that makes it better, or worse.
2) "hey tony, couple summer girls outside for ya! ...some are 10, some are 12"
The assertion that I'm a pedophile isn't even the best insult in the first ten.
3) "buddy chev never changes... sure i puts car engines in dumptrucks drive 'em seven years!"
4) "buddy whattaya mean LIMITED lifetime warranty? if me horsey dies, she dies!"
5) "they say we spend 9 months coming out of it and the rest of our lives trying to get back in, eh b'y"
I love that one. Perfect combination of witty and lewd without actually being offensive.
6) "now b'ys, the question today is what are we gonna get that's cold & not good for us?"
"da woman's heart!"
That was supposed to be my flippant way of asking who wanted ice cream.
7) "26 dollars for an air filter?! ya fuckin' jew, you'll never see the face of christ!"
This tweet was #oldmenatwork's My Sharona IMO. You can stop reading now, they never get better than this. And, in case you were wondering: Yes, a man actually said that to me; yes, as far as I could tell, he was serious.
8) "we have thanksgiving because the indians gave the pilgrims turkey. if they gave them donkey, we'd all share a piece of ass for thanksgiving!"
9) "she got a set of dairys on her like you wouldn't believe!"
That's not a typo of "diaries". The A is supposed to be before the I.
...Maybe dairies though?
10) "YOU feel old tone? go on b'y, you're still on your first dick!"
True.
11) "now, some advice for if you start a whorehouse... too expensive to make it two stories... too much fuckin' overhead!"
12) "did you hear the one about the midget who walked between the lady's legs? he got a crack on the head!"
13) "sure, you'd broaden her shoulders if you went aboard of her!"
Oh, how I wish this was about a boat.
14) "if we can't overcome it, we might as well come over it"
15) "some set of legs she got on her... and the further up ya goes, the better they gets!"
16) "she had lovely blue eyes... one blew east, and one blew west"
17) "i'm sure if she ran hard enough she'd blacken her own eyes!"
18) "i got the misses slippers and a dildo for valentine's day... she don't like the slippers, she can go fuck herself!"
I promised I'd heard real people say all of these to me in a professional setting, I didn't say that they were original.
19) "if it flies, floats, or fucks, it's cheaper to rent it"
20) "had a girlfriend with a tattoo of a seashell on her leg... i put my ear there to listen to the ocean... i could even smell the salt water!"
21) "wonderful! sure, it's like the front of the stove... it's great!"
22) "i'm not prejudiced, i got a colored tv!"
"Colored" is [sic], if that's not obvious.
23) "price on that filter is 5 bucks, tax in"
"tacks?! b'y, i was just gonna screw it in there!"
24) "his last name's wall... ya ask me, it should be wallstein! he's so cheap, he squeaks!"
Didn't really get the second part then, don't really get the second part now.
25) "fine set of legs on that one, knows she couldn't walk across the barrens"
26) "they calls me the hammer... i won't strike bottom or nothing, but i'll beat the walls out of it!"
I noted on this one that the man was old enough to be my grandfather, if that helps your mental image.
27) "dunderdale? more like stunnederdale!"
Oh, burn.
28) "if it got tits or wheels, 'tis only trouble!"
29) "only thing, when you move in for the kill, be sure you do it on the side of the car, 'cause if you strikes that tailpipe, you'll know it!"
30) "i slept with a blind girl last night. told me i had the biggest dick she ever felt. i told her she was pulling my leg"
31) "when i was your age, i was like a truck... dodged the father, rammed the daughter"
I swear that this was before some of the classy folks in St. John's had this joke as a truck decal.
32) "that fuckin' truck driver couldn't drive sheep out of the garden!"
33) "tony b'y, you wouldn't be the coolest kid in school if you were the only one there!"
#MegaBurn #MagaBurn
...#I'mFromGrandFalls
34) "they got no computers in whorehouses, they gotta run 'em by hand"
35) "tony b'y, ever see the serial number on a condom?"
"...no?"
"s'pose that means there's not enough to ya to roll 'em back far enough!"
36) "did ya hear about the feller with three dicks? his pants fit him like a glove!"
37) "what's the definition of indecent? if it's in far enough, in hard enough & in quick enough, that makes it indecent"
38) "tiburon, fart can, tinted windows... i bet he gets all the chicks"
"yes b'y, i'd say he got the trunk full"
39) "how's business?"
"sure, business is like a whore's drawers; up and down all the time."
40) "busy? yes b'y, flat out like a pancake!"
41) "it's like the two bald fellers tryin' to think... they put their heads together, and made an ass of themselves!"
42) "see, the trick is to smoke a draw of weed before an interview. that way, they don't think you're high, they thinks you're like it anyway"
43) "she got more friends than kellogg's got cornflakes! if ya know what i mean!"
Fun game: add "if ya know what I mean" to any of these tweets.
It seldom changes anything.
44) "misses got more fingerprints on her arse than the fbi got on file!"
45) "...well, we know her youngsters won't starve"
46) "42 years wit 'er yesterday. and i tell ya what, if id've took the 12 out and shot 'er? i'd be out by now!"
47) "tone, you still single? i knows where there's a couple cute ones. you're just their type, too. down to the cnib!"
For the uninitiated
48) "tone, i needs to borrow something off ya. i'm like your shirttail, i'm on the bum!"
49) "he'd fuck a clothesline if there was panties hung on it!"
50) "of course the lifetime warranty's more expensive! only thing a 1 year warranty is more expensive on is a woman!"
51) "i think the b'ys got a few rooms upstairs not finished"
The new "few bricks short of a load".
52) "when the weather's hot & sticky, 'tis not the time for dunkin' dicky; when the frost is on the pumpkin, then's the time for dicky dunkin'"
I think this one came from Whitman's later years...
53) "how far did ya get last night b'y?"
"right from appetite to asshole!"
54) "that'll put hairs on your chest... and blow 'em off your arse!"
In response to my suggestion that we have hot peppers on a pizza.
55) "keep your car out of the ditches & your cock in your britches; and don't put your hose where you wouldn't put your nose"
This one is more Yeats than Whitman, n'est ce pas?
56) "misses coming in there now got her landing gear down and all!"
57) "shea heights: where they ties on the youngsters so they don't bite the dogs"
58) "you got no worries about me getting her pregnant, i'm afraid of heights!"
59) "i'd like to have a 22 year old blonde here now... i'd blow the carb right out of 'er!"
60) "had one this one time"
*awkward hand motion resembling ladyparts*
"never had nothing outta mother's cabbage patch like that!"
Wherein Tony uses the word "ladyparts" in a sentence and embarrasses himself more than whoever he was quoting
61) "...and tits on 'er like a volkswagen!"
Commentary still relevant: what does that even mean? That the engine's in the trunk?
62) "first it says do not remove card... now it says remove card... fuckin' woman's machine this is!"
Septuagenarian + debit machine = headache
See also: control, remote
63) "anyways tony, you gets a chance to go fuck yourself, take it!"
At least six of these quotes are from this guy who was definitely my favorite customer.
64) "problem with women my age is that they're all sealed up like the bell island mines!"
65) "know the difference between erotic & kinky? erotic is when ya tickle her arse with a feather, and kinky is the whole chicken!"
Mario Lemeiux) "can't go to costco on a saturday! baymen up there like caplin, and every fucking car back window with a box of tissues!"
67) "... and an arse on her six axehandles wide!"
Jaromir Jagr) "rather a 69er than deal with that feller... at least then ya see the cunt coming!"
69) "do you know if you works at wal-mart you can't talk about sex? ask someone if they got their skin, and they'll go tell the manager on ya, cause it's sexual harassment. thinks you're queer or something. they got it ruined!"
Sexual Harrassment (n): What a feller accuses you of if he thinks you're queer or something.
70) "you wanted to see the accident i seen last night. one eggroll crashed into another!"
71) "s'alright for you, you married mudder! i had to go and marry a stranger"
Another perennial favorite.
72) "set of nuts on him sure; he'd shampoo a buffalo"
73) people don't live as long today as they used to. reasons include lack of cod liver oil & living off the land.
No quotes because I paraphrased this one in the first place, but the idea was too good to leave out.
74) "what's that queen song? the one about the big ass women?"
75) "mondays is a miserable way to spend 1/7th of your life"
Also, I likes when the wife makes lasagna.
76) "fuck off tony, your mudder had all daughters"
77) "i shoulda picked up smoking instead of getting married. i'd be richer, i'd be happier, and i'd already be dead!"
78) "how do you sell this so cheap? i'm telling all my friends! and when i'm done talking to him, i'm going to mcdonald's!"
79) "tony, ya hear what happened to alvin? it's a mortal sin."
"no b'y i never, what happened?!"
"poor fucker was born!"
80) "wouldn't kick her outta bed for eatin' bickies would ya, tone?"
81) "i told the wife about it. and ya knows now, that went over like a fart in church"
I would be amazed if someone from Newfoundland reading this had never heard a father/uncle/etc say this one.
82) "tell you one i likes... misses be's down to david's teas... and she comes from somewhere where they actually walks on the tea!"
83) "tony b'y, be honest now. when was the last time you had your oil changed?"
See earlier "if you know what I mean" clause.
84) "if he didn't have money or play golf, he couldn't get laid in a chinese whorehouse with a bag of rice strapped to his back!"
85) "motorboat 'er? sure i'd hook her up to the outboard!"
86) "buddy, you got either racket in stock there? i'm lookin' for a racket"
87) "getting the misses a dildo and a box of chocolates for christmas... she don't like the chocolate, she can go fuck herself!"
While I rarely tweeted these twice, some slipped through the cracks, mostly because I heard them literally a hundred times.
88) "and the pants she had on! well! i'd say she jumped off the eave of the house to get into 'em!"
89) "buddy don't be talkin. i'll never drive another kia again. them koreans can't do nothing right. look at that gang nam style!"
This one is hard to convey in writing; if you could bold, underline and italicize the space between "gang" and "nam", you'd be off to a good start.
90) "i needs a driveshaft to fit a '67 vagina"
91) "misses should count herself lucky! better she got knocked down than knocked up!"
I'll take "Appropriate responses to hearing that a woman got hit by a car" for $100, Alex.
92) "he's the only feller i ever met who could have phone sex with himself."
?
93) "got me new cheques the other day. they're wicked! instead of bouncing, they floats!"
94) husband: "buddy, you got either elastic band there i can have?"
wife: "what for paddy? sure thas' not enough to hang yourself wit!"
#Oldwomenatwork?
95) "well b'ys, see ya later now; i'm off like a jewish foreskin!"
96) "frig pills and pumps; ya wants to make it bigger, let one of them cougars hook into ya. if it's 6 now, it'll be 8 time she's done with it!"
97) "hear about the newfie who tried to commit suicide? he jumped out his basement window!"
98) "did your mudder have any youngsters that lived?"
Deep.
99) "she must be a welder's daughter, she's got acetelyne tips on 'er."
100) "that's b as in bobby, and e as in h'edward"
101) "have her in a few years or a few beers, whatever comes first"
Well, at least he implicitly acknowledged that making a lewd comment about a 15 year old was wrong.
102) "man, i got some headache."
"me too. mine's 5 foot 3, what about yours?"
Since I had to think to remember what this meant, I'll go ahead and ruin the joke by explaining it: his wife was 5'3".
103) "i tell ya, i never went to me bed with a dog face woman... woke up with a few though!"
104) one of the #oldmenatwork i sell to frequently just referred to his in-laws as his outlaws multiple times. i'm amused.
Again, paraphrase, no quotes, etc. Worth it.
105) "the misses got superpowers b'y... she can hear a $5 fold into my wallet from three miles away"
I ain't sayin' she a golddigger...
106) "would ya rather mount pearl or kill bride?"
That's a two-stepper.
107) "b'ys from the hill stealin' tools?! sure, i wouldn't whip it out up there to take a leak for fear someone would steal it!"
FYI: The Hill = Shea Heights
108) "i tried dat viagra once. got it caught on me t'roat, ended up wit a stiff neck!"
109) "anyone who knew her years ago will tell ya; that's like throwin' a caplin out the bay of fundy"
'ot dog down an 'allway, h'eat your 'eart h'out.
110) "hear about buddy who tried to trade in his wife at hickman's? said he wanted a pickup; needed something with a smaller box!"
111) "steely dan! takes me back. b'ys used to say; no matter how maggoty a party was, ya turn on steely dan and everyone got cool"
Disclaimer: Above may only be funny if your name is Tony.
112) "took the misses fishin' the weekend. that's the only way i ever gets her to wet a line!"
113) "sure, they threw away the best part of him when they circumsized him!"
114) "i knew one misses so stunned she used to dip her arse in the well to take a drink!"
115) "now, when you gets to the hospital, you knows how to tell which one's the head nurse, right? the one with dirt on her knees!"
116) "i'm gonna phone yer misses & tell her that the reason she don't get it enough is cause you're too busy fucking me on prices!"
117) "i asked misses if she smoked after sex. she said she didn't know, she never looked!"
Unrelated: My frequent overuse of exclamation marks in these tweets makes me feel like I'm reading Archie comics gone terribly wrong.
118) "ya hear they got a viagra for women now? it's called niagara!"
119) "the misses tried that pulled chicken sandwich out mary brown's the other day"
"any good?"
"i'd say it was good for the rooster!"
120) "portugal cove got two exports: crab apples and crabs"
121) "now b'ys, remember: a porkchop dinner's better than fries & gravy but fries & gravy's not bad"
Re: An Island Girl in the Buy & Sell.
122) "want a bag for that stuff, walter?"
"no b'y, she's home"
123) "what do ya call a bear with no teeth? a gummy bear!"
124) "it smells like labrador in here"
I was mixing spray paint...
125) "things have gone backwards... the nose is running and the feet are smelling!"
From a guy with a head cold.
126) just served a guy who's afraid of the immigration of "jungle bunnies" to newfoundland. when asked why, he explained that he "couldn't imagine anything more scumbag than one of them crossbred with a feller from bell island"
Sometimes they weren't even funny, just dark/incredible.
127) "Sure he's been gone so long he's halfway back!"
About a dead man.
So much italic context; once I'd heard everything that fit in 140 characters once or ten times, the only thing novel was situational commentary.
128) "she haven't got a box, she got a crate!"
Exhibit A: As time went on, I'm honestly not sure if the b'ys got blunter or I got bolder with my willingness to repeat this ridiculousness.
129) "years ago you'd never dare tell anyone you had 'skimo blood... they all come out of the woodwork when there's money in it though!"
Exhibit B...
130) "you be careful out there today tony, you turns the wrong way you might lose your virginity!"
131) "jerome kennedy b'y; he got the rig goin' on supplyin' the hospitals. 'e's crosseyed but his brain's not!"
That might be libelous if I knew what it meant.
132) "tony b'y you must have a twin"
"why?"
"'cause you're too fucking stunned to be one person!"
133) "she might get 25-30cm, but it won't be snow!"
That's 10-12 inches for you curious imperial system fans.
134) "sure he's hard as nails! when he was born, he smacked his mother's arse!"
135) "tony b'y, why's all that screamin' comin' from yer phone? that jenna jameson misses win the curling game yer watchin'?"
During last year's Olympics.
136) "b'y, i'm tryin' to grow my own now. gonna call it brake fluid kush"
137) "buddy, i saw the perfect restaurant the other day. the sign said lobster tail and beer... me t'ree favorite things!"
138) "told the woman i had something in my pocket she could squeeze... she reached in and took my fuckin' wallet!"
139) "i don't drink no v8 juice, it's too fast for me... won't drink nothing more than a 6 cylinder!"
140) "nobody likes working on fucking volkswagens; they're hitler's curse on the world"
#GodwinsLawAtWork
141) "some doctor you'd be, you got no bedtime manner at all!"
142) "see what you wants is a rig like the highways gang... they gets off 4:30, and they're home by 3!"
Relevant Buddy Wasisname & The Other Fellers
143) "yeah?! well i'm gonna go slam my left fuckin' nut in the car door four times for charity. then you gotta do it!"
Re: ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
144) "jesus tone.. tits everywhere! if that's all they wore downtown when i was your age, i'd STILL be in jail!"
145) "i'm not prejudiced or anything, i just don't like gays"
146) "fuckin' face on 'em to stop an eight day week!"
I want to listen to old skippers make fun of each other for a while and release a book of these insults. So good!
147) "me buddy was trying to sell me a canadian tire welder; i told him he'd be lucky if it could spark a draw!"
148) "tone, you're like a cross between pippi longstocking & the cookie monster!"
Another probably-only-funny-if-you're-me.
149) "they're ALL sluts except for mom.. and ya can't trust her when she's drinkin'!"
150) "...them Ramadan noodles your generation's always eatin'..."
Only after dark.
151) "I'm blind in one eye and deaf in the other!"
152) "I'll be back in a jiffy"
"Call Bugden's b'y, they're quicker"
...And so ends an era.
Bonus) I couldn't find it in the archive, but somewhere amidst my near-decade on twitter, someone at work said something I wouldn't even repeat on twitter because it was so bad. A few people PMed me about it and I'd repeat it on an individual basis, but not on twitter where someone who'd never seen #oldmenatwork might see it and give me a (probably deserved) hard time for it.
But!
Given that, presumably, the only people to make it this far share my amusement in/incredulousness at some of the things I used to hear, I feel a little more comfortable in this venue repeating it. Repeat of above disclaimer about your mileage may vary + actual trigger warning + I know this is goddamn terrible but men actually say these things when there aren't women/children around to hear them;
"Lately I've been hearing so much about spousal abuse. All this about treating your woman right and not hurting her and it's battered women this, battered women that. And I thought to myself 'battered women... jesus, my whole life, I've been eating mine plain!'"
And boom goes the dynamite. I suppose it's not the worst thing I've ever heard, but "LOL spousal abuse sounds like deep fried food" is just so crass that I wouldn't want to subject someone to that 'joke' unless they've brought themselves this far.
Forgive me for being all serious at the end of something intended to be funny (what is this, a Judd Apatow movie?), but this is why I consider myself a feminist, if only a shitty armchair one. If asked why, I just point at the giant glowing neon experience that this job gave me. Some of the folks who I would definitely consider the salt of the earth (see also: "best kind"), some folks who treated me and others like family and invited us to their homes for holidays, some folks who host annual fundraisers for the Vera Perlin society raising thousands of dollars, some folks who spend two weekends a month volunteering with church groups and community groups, are the same folks who spewed the demeaning sexist, anti-semitic, racist and generally crude drivel repeated above when there were only white men aged 21-65 in earshot. I'm sure they mean no harm, even if they cause it.
I don't know why I felt the need to add the above. Just an attempt to convey eye-opening life experience into a paragraph that I'd have never believed if I didn't see it myself. Like an oft-quoted Louis C.K. bit, I don't know what to do with this information. Is someone who says such things necessarily bad? Can you teach an old dog new tricks? How do you treat an admirably good person who is misinformed but stubborn? It bends my brain.
Long story short: if anything, this is all another proof that we're not there yet.
In the meantime, forgive me if I have a few guilty laughs along the way.
I hope you enjoyed my walk down mammary lane.
