The Awards Fairy Gets Even

I just got home from a long day sitting in a court room. Judges are as bad as doctors. They give you a time to be there and then make you sit for hours before they call your name. Plus, I couldn't get anyone to tell me why I was there.

A few weeks ago, I received a subpoena to testify in court against Cecil Dungliteur. Since I have no idea who this or any other Cecil is, I called the circuit clerk's office to find out what this was all about. They looked up the file and assured me that I was the correct person. I explained to them that I had never heard of Cecil Dungliteur, but they only responded by explaining to me the penalty for not showing up when issued a subpoena.

Despite a scheduled 10:00 court appointment, I never heard the name Cecil until about 2:45. Upon hearing that name, I looked up from my Angry Birds and realized I did know this guy. I had just never learned his name. I had only known him as the Awards Fairy. We have met several times and despite the blogging awards he always brings me, it has never been a pleasant experience.

Past Awards Fairy Experiences:
The Awards Fairy Came By
Return of the Awards Fairy
Awards Fairy Detox
The Awards Fairy Strikes Again
The Awards Fairy Is Still At It
The Awards Fairy is Foiled

I was glad to get to finally see him in court to get some justice, but was still a bit perturbed that I hadn't been forewarned that this was why I was here. I wasn't prepared.

As they started reading the charges against him (all of which had been prompted by my repeated call to the police), he and his lawyer began to smile as they shook their heads. When finished, the State's Attorney asked if he had anything he wanted to say. The fairy Mr. Dungliteur responded that he was only doing his job. He stated that the first time he met the plaintiff (me), I had invited him into my house.

That was true, but I didn't know that he wouldn't leave.

He also stated that I had bought him a pizza, let him crash on my couch a few times, and use my phone while he was there.

All those things had happened, but I didn't let him. He just did them and I couldn't get him to leave.

I interjected, "What about the time the police showed up as you were trying to break into my house?"

His lawyer piped up, "My client claims he was just dropping some awards off to you through an already open window."

I yelled, "That's not true!"

Cecil spoke up for the first time, "Did you find anything missing?"

"Well, no, but that is only because they caught you before you did anything."

Then the judge threatened me with contempt if I interrupted the proceedings again, so I sat there silently as the lawyer explained away every contact I had ever had with the the Awards Fairy. He claimed I had invited him to stay. He said that the items he had stolen from me had either given to him or lied about ever having them to begin with.

When they did finally put me on the stand, I was asked if I enjoyed receiving the awards and did I always accept them when offered by the Fairy. I answered that I did. The lawyer then shook his finger in my face and accused me of not always following the rules of the awards given to me.

The judge said, "I find it quite arrogant, Mr. Minor, that you want to hold Mr. Dungliteur accountable when you don't even follow the rules yourself. We have found on three different occasions when awards were given to you and you did not pass them on to as many other bloggers as required. For one of those awards, you didn't pass it on at all."

I tried to reason with them, "Are you serious? A person can only read so many blogs. Some of those awards require you to pass them on to as many as eleven other bloggers. ELEVEN!!! How am I supposed to pass on that many awards when I may have just passed awards to as many as twenty people just a few weeks before that. I can't just keep giving them to the same people over and over."

The lawyer bellowed, "So, you just thought you would keep them all for yourself!"

I pleaded, "No. Some of those awards are popping up all over the place. The Liebster, for instance, I have won a half dozen times, as have several other people. That one pops up everywhere. I thought I would thin it out a little bit."

The judge wagged his finger at me and said, "We don't just get to decide to do things however we want. Rules are in place to keep society from erupting into chaos and it is people like you that keep trying to pull us back into the Stone Age when men bashed women over the head and drug them back to their caves. Is that what you want, Mr. Minor, to be able to hit women with clubs?"

I blurted out, "WHAT?!? No, I just..."

The judge pounded his gavel and said, "Based on the testimony brought to light here, I find the defendant, Cecil Dungliteur, not guilty. As for Mr. Minor, I am placing you on 24 months probation. If you break even one blogging rule in the next two years you will immediately be found guilty on all counts."

"On all counts of what? I haven't been charged with anything."

(gavel pounds again) "Court adjourned."

As the judge walked to his chambers, I sat there trying to decipher what had just happened. The lawyer walked up to me with a smirk and tossed two envelopes in my lap. He said, "Try not to mess this up or we'll be seeing you again."

I opened the first envelope and found an invoice from Vinny C of As Vinny C's It. Vinny had awarded me the Tanned Hide Award.

Since I was now being threatened with jail time, I figured I had better familiarize myself with the rules for accepting this award. According to Vinny, I have to say who I think deserves to be put over a knee to be punished. He also said that this is not a kinky thing, but is meant to be a well-deserved punishment. I also have to pass the award on to up to three bloggers that I deem worthy of this award. Please note that it did not say three. It said up to three. That means I could give it to one or two and still be compliant with the judge's orders.

The person I believe needs their hide tanned - Years ago, I worked as a salesmen at a cellular company. I was good at my job and had even gotten Salesman of the Quarter once. That award was for top sales in the entire company. However, I worked in the office with the woman who normally got that award. She got the award in a more devious way than I did. She had a way of stealing sales. She was adept at finding ways to make one of us busy so she could grab the customer and since her sales were so high corporate really didn't like to get on to her. Even when one of us would complain, nothing would be done because she made them too much money.

Her and I did not get along even before I was in sales and she found ways to make me miserable. The final straw before I quit was when she suddenly decided to bring scented candles into the office. I am allergic to artificial scents and when I brought this to her attention, she just smiled. The next day she brought in more. I went to our supervisor to explain the problem with the candles and she said that nice smells are part of a pleasant sales environment that I should get used to.

I didn't want to be the guy that threatened legal action, especially since I was on my way out in a few weeks anyway, but was appalled that they were willing to put the health of one of their employees at risk just to keep another employee happy. It has been almost 10 years and I still get angry when I run into either one of those two women. I would love for both of them to get the tanned hide.


Passing this onto these bloggers

Outlaw Mama - She actually has a law degree, so hopefully won't question the accuracy of my courtroom story.

Lily at Incoherent Ramblings of a Moose - I have been reading Lily for a long time and can't wait to hear who she would want to spank.

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That takes care of that award. I followed the rules and can't get into trouble for it. I opened up the second envelope and found a familiar award. It was the same one I mentioned to the judge as having been everywhere and here it was again. The Liebster award had been sent to me by The Real Yetisaurus.

Here are the rules:

1. Each blogger should post 11 random facts about themselves.
2. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you, and then create 11 new questions for the bloggers you pass the award to.
3. Choose 11 new bloggers (with less than 200 followers) to pass the award to and link them in your post.
4. Go back to their page and tell them about the award.
5. No tag backs.

Ugh! This one has so many. First, the 11 random facts.

1. My daughter likes to tell people that I beat her.
2. I was once part of a huge Halloween maze/scavenger hunt. When the kids got to the end, they found me dressed up as Waldo from Where's Waldo?
3. I don't care for the Godfather movies.
4. My Kindle is my new favorite toy.
5. Just yesterday, I drug my daughter into the ARMY recruiter and asked if I could sign her up even if she didn't want to go. They said no. This actually happened.
6. One weekend while living in San Juan, I decided we would take a road trip to the highest point on the island. We found it and it had several radio towers that gave off enough electromagnetic energy that our vehicle would not start again.
7. I believe most band-aids are only used to cover up a kid's melodramatic BS.
8. Tyra Banks scares me.
9. I was once standing outside during a tornado to get the best view of the storm and witnessed a grain silo roll by. I decided it was time to go inside.
10. I was disappointed in this year's Super Bowl commercials.
11. I almost drowned in a wave pool once and due to excitement around me no one knew it was happening. I won't get in them now.

Here are the questions I have to answer:

1.  Have you ever shot milk out of your nose?  
In the part of the country that I was raised in, shooting fluids from your face is considered to be rude. So, yeah.

2.  If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?  
Easy. Anything I wanted.
 
3.  What's the most embarrassing wardrobe malfunction you've ever had, and where did it happen to you?  
Just a few weeks ago, I reached in my closet to get a shirt and the closet shelf collapsed dumping my entire wardrobe onto the closet floor.

4.  Tyrannosaurus Rex or Velociraptor?   
Velociraptor is ok, but it's a bit stringier than I like. Tyrannosarus is better, but has a strong iron taste. If I could have my pick, I would choose Pterodactyl wings over either of them.
 
5. What's the most important thing you've ever learned that someone else taught you?  
When someone shouts, "DUCK!" don't look around to find out why. Just do it.

6.  What's the most important thing you've ever learned that you discovered yourself?  
It happened in San Juan. I learned that CUIDADO CALIENTE is Spanish for CAUTION: HOT.

7.  How long can you hold your breath?
I am not sure, so I'll time it.........OK, I just woke up on the floor and my watch says that I started 36 minutes ago. So, it's sometime less than 36 minutes.

8.  What are you most afraid of?
I've covered this one. Growing old. However, I have since bought a gun, so it should be alright.

9.  Have you ever accidentally glued something to something else?  
I once filled the inner rim if a hat with super glue before handing it to someone, but that wasn't much of an accident. I have glued my fingers together more times than I can count.

10.  Have you ever punched someone in the face?  
My brother once bet me that he could beat me at arm wrestling. When he started to win, I punched him in the face with my other hand. He still beat me.

11.  If you had to live 200 years in the past or 200 years in the future, which would you pick?
I love technology and can't imagine having to go back to before computers, televisions, and telephone, so I would go to the future. However, not knowing how the new stuff works, I would probably then be miserable and feel stupid, so I would have to choose 200 years in the past. However, since I don't know how to hunt, start a fire, or saddle a horse, I would probably feel stupid. Can I just go back a few weeks to make some better decisions?


Here are the bloggers I am passing this on to: 

1. jamierhawkins
2. Wino on a Ramble
3. Kianwi at Simply She Goes
4. Kate at Can I Get Another Bottle of Whine with My Morning Quiet Time?
5. Joe at Living in Kellie's World
6. Linda Roy at Mod Mom Beyond Indiedom
7. Lori Hokie at The Next Step
8. Leanne Moffat at One Odd Duck
9. Rachael's Insane Rants and Bizarre Musings
10. Gossip Grl at ~*~Whatever~*~...
11. Michael DAgostino at The World as I See It

Here are the questions for you to answer:

1. What the "World's Biggest" thing (ball of yarn, wind chime, etc) you would love to see?
2. If you could have any animal hybrid (fox-eagle, elephant-turkey, etc) as a pet, what would you choose?
3. What children's educational programming show gets on your nerves the most?
4. What is your most embarrassing misunderstood song lyric story?
5. What corporation would would love to be the CEO of and why?
6. If you killed a clown, where would you hide the body?
7. What superhero sidekick do you most identify with?
8. What button on your TV remote control gets the most use?
9. What is your social security number?
10. How would you define the word kleftenarian?
11. What song title best describes your relationship with your neighbors?

As far as I can tell I have met the requirements of the court order. Congratulations to all of you who received the award. Please participate and if ever asked, testify on my behalf.