Ring A Ding Ding – SoCS

Today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday word is: Ring. As always, kudos to Linda Hill for the prompt. 

My first two thoughts on this were obvious ones – marriage and phone calls (in the future, will actual phone conversations between two people lead to marriage or will it all be texting, Facebook likes, and the occasional date?).

But ring is one of those words that you use more often than you think.

Of course, there’s the ring as symbol of love – the never-ending circle of bliss put upon your finger by one’s beloved. Coincidentally, one of the heaviest ounces or so of weight on the planet.

Give me a ring. I hate myself when I say this and mentally cringe when it blurts out. I much prefer give me a call. And, in the future, will kids born today know why the hell it’s “give me a ring.” With landline phones steadily being replaced by cell phones, the ring tone is hardly ever a ring. I literally have no idea what my current phone sound is, because I nearly always have it on silent. For a while my “ring tone” was a duck. George’s was “Forget You” (much prefer the oomph of the original, “Fuck You” in the song instead of the radio play version) for me for a while. Unless you’re being intentionally retro and olde skool, the ring tone isn’t one.

Pizza break. Digression: cold pizza for breakfast is one of the finest things in life (also, cold fried chicken for anytime as a snack). However, if one orders extra cheese on the pizza, it’s a bit too thick to really enjoy cold so it needs a little warming up to be really nice. Anyway.

The Ring. Which is some random horror movie that I’ll never watch. Hate horror movies, I have no need to intentionally scare myself. I watched a few too many as a kid – Halloween, Friday the 13^th, something called The Dark. From The Dark, I still have a vivid memory of the monster pushing a van aside in a parking garage to get to the woman cowering behind it. The first time I stayed late at AIIM for work (I used to fax – FAX – a newsletter) was a Friday sometime in 96 or something. When I got into the parking lot, that scene flashed into my head. I still get a little freaked out walking into a parking garage at night – my steps nearly always speed up just a bit.

I just don’t get horror movies. Why subject yourself to that?

Can’t remember the name of the movie, but there’s one about rats in New York going crazy and killing folks.  There’s a scene when a victim is fleeing in terror from a horde of rats. The problem? The rats are weiner dogs. Ever see a weiner dog run? They kinda have this sideways thing where their ass slides out and they bob up and down. It was decidedly not terrifying.

Ring-a-ding-ding. As an expression of approval or excitement. You hardly ever hear this one anymore. Always thought it sounded vaguely dirty.

Also, think about All of Me – a fantastic movie with Lilly Tomlin and Steve Martin. There’s a scene when the swami is flushing the toilet and the phone rings the first time. So he does it a few more times and phone rings each time. Gives me the giggles. “Put Edwina, back in bowl!” Seriously, if you haven’t seen this movie; watch it.

My pizza break and Serena winning Wimbledon distracted me a bit too much and now it’s time for a hike.
I need to do these more regularly again. No idea where the All of Me memory came from. The brain is a weird and wonderful thing.