Obscure Reference Gag I'll Never Meaningfully Get Out There

 "It's a luggage store called 'Suitcase Pimp' on the corner of Yontz and Traynor."

I got your oak wisdom right here, buddy.

My brother Shell called me for my birthday.

During the call, I threw out a new Dad-riff idea:  "Dad as a Druid."

He ran with it immediately.

"Oh, sure, the holly berry is sacred - because it's growing on my trees, you damn moochers."

"Goddamn squirrel chewing the thatch of my hut. I cast spells, it does nothing.  Damn squirrel won't listen."

"I shoulda listened to my father and joined the warrior class."

I contributed:

"The goddamn sacred pool is full of goddamn flies, because the goddamn birds aren't doing their job."

Later in the day, when my brother Stringer called, and I updated him on these gags, he responded, "Well, now I have my next character for D&D."

Bears and popes and such

Two different conversations within the last year.

---

(Sitting at home, while my wife, Frage, points out I may have gone too far with my humor.)
Frage: “But you just had to poke the bear with a short stick.”
Frage: (UIM voice) “Well, why did you bring a bear here to begin with?”
Frage: (different voice) “Well, there’s no sign saying bears aren’t allowed.”
(UIM cackles.)
UIM: “See?  Isn’t fun to do both sides of the argument?”
Frage: “When I do it, yes.  Not so much when you do it.”

---

(Riding in the car on the way up to the suburbs.)
Frage: “You’re wrong.”
UIM: “Wait? Am I in a forest?”
Frage: “I don’t know.  Do you see a pope sh*tting?”
UIM: “I see a bear in a pope hat.”



Note: The "If a man speaks in the forest" joke is one of the first jokes my wife told me after we started dating.  Hence, it's more "couple shorthand" and less "UIM really believes that crap."

This happens two or three times a day at work...

... as I make mistakes.

Me: "What are you doing, UIM?"
Me: "F**king up."
Me: "Okay, as long as you know what you're doing."

(Yes, it's kind of a Heathers reference.)

Workplace environmental variables

For whatever reason, during a discussion with the team's project manager:

Project Manager: "Just don't do the Time Warp dance."
UIM: "But, {name}, it's just a jump to the left."

Within a minute, he IMs me the lyrics.

Prompting my response via IM:
"Yeah, I know the lyrics.  Strangely enough, I was not going to utter the phrase 'pelvic thrust' at work until I was forced to do so by circumstances outside my control."

People Should Not Ask UIM for Explanations.

(After UIM makes a passing mention in a work e-mail.)
Colleague: "Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead?"
UIM: "Once while bored on Chicago mass transit,I tried to imagine a cheesy horror movie set in the area where I grew up.  Riverhead is the county seat.  It was easy for me to imagine mutant lobsters (caused by the Navy testing something odd out at Calverton) rampaging up the Peconic River and leveling Riverhead, before swerving south to crush the Hamptons in their buttery oversized claws."

Let's face it, folks, she's tired.

(UIM and Frage driving around, doing errands.)
(Frage is audibly irritated by a couple different pedestrians stepping thoughtlessly into the road in front of her.)
UIM : “You have to remember: These are simple people.”
(Frage chuckles.)
UIM: “The common clay of the new West.”
Frage: “What?”
UIM: “You know: morons.”
(Silence.)
UIM: “Look, I either answer that, or, ‘Mongo only pawn in game of life.’  Quotes from Blazing Saddles are all I’ve got right now.”
Frage: “Thank you so much.”
UIM: “I certainly don’t think I can respond with ‘I think he said the sheriff’s near’ relevantly.”

Bumper Sticker on a Chariot in Spain.

“If it wasn’t for us Romans, you’d all be speaking P-Celtic.”

I've been waiting years to work this one into a conversation.

"Awww, maaan.  Just because a guy wears dark clothes... and cackles evil-ly... and daydreams about his enemies' heads on pikes surrounding his castle in the Carpathians.... doesn't mean he's a bad person."

#FictionalConversations

A: "Seriously - E. B. White would blast you with a shotgun."
B: "Just don't let James Thurber aim a bow-and-arrow at me."

from the back files: -tbstone head and a graveyard mind‏

From: UIM
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 6:39 AM
Subject: RE: excel spreadsheet - seemingly wrong symbols

When I got in this morning, the bogus symbols again had ISIN values.  I have blanked those ISIN values out again.
=================================================

From: {Cow-orker}
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 7:33 AM
Subject: RE: excel spreadsheet - seemingly wrong symbols

When _I_ woke up this morning, I had myself a beer.
=================================================

From: UIM
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 7:34 AM
Subject: RE: excel spreadsheet - seemingly wrong symbols

Well, the future roots are uncertain, and the end is always near.
=================================================

From: UIM
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:19 AM
Subject: derail -tbstone head and a graveyard mind

{Cow-orker} does make the excellent subtle point that most of my work-related e-mails take the general attitude of blues song, like:

“Boom Boom Boom Boom, gonna shoot book quotes right down.”

“Vendor files don’t do me no good.  Drop their bogus symbols, I wish they would.”

“Last night in the Ops Room, sitting round with my mates, I fixed daily futures charts, because settles came in late.  Now, weren’t that a man?”

“I write forty-seven miles of e-mails, wear a CAT-5 cable for a necktie.  Got a brand new house on the roadside made of discarded monitor boxes.”

-UIM

As Jedi RobMo said once, “Scuse me, while I kill this guy.”
=================================================

From: Frage
Sent:     Friday, November 05, 2010
Subject:               from the back files: -tbstone head and a graveyard mind
You rock.
=================================================

From:    UIM
Sent:     Friday, November 05, 2010 3:34 PM
To:          Frage
Subject:               from the back files: -tbstone head and a graveyard mind
Well, as Muddy Waters once sang, “I want you to rock me, baby, like my SQL database got no primary key.”
-UIM
Blues scholars were puzzled for years about the meaning of this.