Good Friday, Yearbook Deadlines & Ring Tones

At 5 p.m. on Good Friday, I rolled out of the school parking lot on my way to the UPS store to mail back some yearbook page proofs. I tried very, very, very hard not to curse my yearbook rep since one probably should not do that sort of thing on a Holy Day. 

My yearbook rep and I played phone tag for most of the day which was particularly unnerving since I discovered a disaster of some sort almost every 1.5 hours that required emergency speedy quick attention and about a kilo of emergency chocolate.

The phone would ring, I would answer, the signal would fade, and then I would yell into the deep dark abyss others refer to as “yearbook.” Repeat those steps a gajillion times and you pretty much have my not-so-Good Friday day.

After about the fifth time, I decided I really needed to set aside a special ring tone for all calls that were yearbook related. My current default ringer—Jumping Jack Flash—doesn’t cut it. In fact, I’ve started yelling back at Mick, “NO-O-O-O-O, MISTER JAGGER, IT’S NOT ALL RIGHT NOW” and “NO-O-O-O-O, IN FACT, IT’S NOT A GAS.”

No siree, Missy.

So, I have my top list of ring tones for All Things related to yearbook. A few are carry-overs from my semester exams ring tone list.

Richie’s Top 5 Yearbook Ring Tones

#5…AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”… I really don’t think that one needs an explanation.

#4… Marilyn Mason’s “The D Show”… It goes: “We’re all stars in the dope show…” Now, for this yearbook bit, we’re talking about dope as in stupid, not drugs. I’m fairly certain aliens are blowing stupid into the air vents of all yearbook rooms across the country. If you’ve ever, ever, ever been a yearbook adviser or a newspaper adviser, you know what I’m talkin’ about. Hails Bails, if you’ve ever, ever, ever sat through one teacher “professional” development session, you know what I’m talkin’ about.

#3… Modest Mouse’s “Dashboard” with the words, “It could have been, would have been worse than you would ever know…” (Trust me, I’ve got the “Things That Will Get You Fired Folder” with ample documentation for that one.)

#2… Muse’s “Time Is Running Out…” The name is all you need to know on that little ditty.

Now before, we get to the No. 1 Yearbook Ring Tone, I did a bit of surfing in order to find just the right hater song. A group called Field Mob kept popping up. This ring tone wins for its simplicity and anger. It’s simply entitled, “I Hate You” and the chorus repeats “I hate you so much right now…” over and over and over again.

For less than the cost of a latte, I can buy that hater song.

Sorry, Mr. Jagger,  “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” may be a gas on every other day of the year, but right now I can’t get no satisfaction until these yearbook deadline days are done.

Semester Exams, Snarkiness & Ring Tones

Try as I might I must confess that I am having some level of difficulty finding anything amusing/funny/witty about the end of the semester.

Yep, next week we have final exams, and come Monday, I need to tell all the DIs (Darling Inspirations) whether they are exempt from my final. I’ve discussed the whole procedure before. You might as well ask me to find the square root of a gazillion two, multiply by eight, recite the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, and then do the hokey pokey and turn myself around.

Although I’m fairly sure I’d come out OK on the hokey pokey part, the rest of it all is enough to make me a poster child for that $100-plus-a-pill migraine medicine. And, of course, don’t get me started about newspaper and yearbook deadlines.

All of it just makes me rather snarky (sort of like this snarky photo of Jack, my German Shepherd) which is why I am having difficulty finding anything amusing/funny/witty about the end of the semester.

And, of course, all of this is exacerbated (don’t you just love SAT words?) by the fact that I am 800 or so miles away from the epicenter of my stress. Yep, I left town Wednesday to take care of some family business and will return to ground zero (my school) on Monday.

It all rather makes me feel rather smallish like Dante standing at the gates of hell and reading the inscription…

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here

OK, OK, OK so I’m a tad bit more melodramatic and a smidgen more snarkier than I thought. And while I was pondering just exactly how unfunny things have gotten, I started to think about Dante standing there with his guide Virgil. And you know, it’s just never, ever, ever a good thing when a journalism adviser starts to ponder classic literature--particularly, you know, writings from back in the day.

I wondered if Dante had written the Inferno today whether Virgil would have had to tell Dante to turn his cell phone off or to “please put it on silent.” And, then of course, all of that got me to thinking about what ring tones Dante or Virgil might have had, you know, if they had that sort of thing. I was going to come up with “Richie’s Top Ring Tones for Dante’s Journey Through The Inferno,” but I ran into a few problems…

Problem Number 1--That’s an awfully long title for a list, don’t ya think?


Problem Number 2--Although my ring tone list had the obvious standbys (“Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones and “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC), much of the list became rather too eclectic and a bit eccentric (i.e. “Stealing” by Uriah Heep--does anyone even know who that is anymore?--or “Dope Show” by Marilyn Manson) that I feared no one would know what in the world I was talking about.

Problem Number 3--Of course, some of the selections just might be the type of songs that belong in the “things that will get you fired” folder. And if that were the case, why then, some of those songs might actually get me moved up speedy quick to the head of that going-to-hell-in-a-hand-basket line.

Oh wait, I think I’m there already. Guess I better change my ring tone to…