Do My Eyes and Ears Deceive Me?!

Ok...I had two separate experiences this past week that will probably affect me the rest of my life. The first one involves something I saw. A group of friends and I went to O'Charley's last Sunday night after Small Group to enjoy a little food and fellowship. The customer service we received there was horrible, but that's another story in itself. As we were waiting to be seated (much too long, I might add), I saw what looked like a nice family of three walking toward us as they were exiting the restaurant. The young child was walking ahead of the parents and the mother was directly behind her. As I looked at the third individual, it seemed he/she looked more like a female than the father. As I quickly began analyzing the situation, I was thinking this could be a family friend or a "significant other". However, as they got closer to us I realized that this truly was the father but there was something different about his appearance. If you are a Seinfeld fan, you may recall Episode 18 of Season 6 ("The Doorman") when Kramer and Frank Costanza design a male bra that would solve the jiggle problem experienced by some males. They argue over whether to name it the Bro or the Manzier. Well, I saw this man wearing a bro/manzier. You may not believe me and I considered the fact that my eyes were deceiving me. However, as he passed, I definitely saw the outlines of a bro/manzier. This was verification that Seinfeld is definitely true to life.

My second experience involved a CD player that was giving me trouble. I took it back to Circuit City and paid them $39 to send it to Atlanta and get an estimate of the cost to repair it. If I accepted the estimate, the $39 would be applied toward that amount. If I declined the estimate, I was basically out $39. I received a call from Circuit City several days later with the estimated cost of repair. Get ready. Have you braced yourself? The amount was $240!! Were my ears deceiving me? I paid Circuit City $39 to tell me that the repair would cost more than 3 times the original purchase price? Then the lady had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to accept the estimated cost and have them repair it. Considering the fact that I could go buy three new CD players and go out to eat on the change I would receive, I graciously told her that she was out of her mind.

Life never ceases to surprise me. Within a couple of days, I saw a man wearing a bro (or manzier) and had someone actually think I would pay $240 to fix a $73 CD player. Now, if a man wearing a manzier (or bro) would have told me that I needed to pay 3 times the orginal purchase price for a repair, that would have been a classic. And I might have even agreed to the repair price because who can turn down a man wearing a bra, uh, I mean bro, um...manzier. You know what I'm talking about.