I realized almost immediately that standing on my bed, knife in hand, was bound to get me nowhere good so I sat down on the edge with my feet dangling over the side and then I had a very surreal flashback to 1989 and watching Pet Cemetery at my friend Bridget’s birthday party. I’d managed to skip most of the really terrifying parts by cowering in the vacant kitchen and pretending to get a snack which probably fooled, um, let’s count: NO ONE as I distinctly remember mounds upon mounds of hot dogs and this kid right here doesn’t eat hot dogs, no ma’am, have you ever seen the Discovery Channel special on meat processing? No? Well you should stop watching porn and watch something educational now and again.
Now I realize that Gage and his desire to play with YOU, if You is really me, doesn’t so much relate to a Rodent of Unusual Size careening around the corner into the kitchen but cut me some slack, I’d just yanked a knife from between my mattress and stood screaming on my bed for 4.5 seconds and there was probably some residual traumatization which hastened along some really unsettling flashbacks to that Gage kid hiding under Grampa’s bed with that handy dandy scalpel and look at the delicate achilles heel! Fresh for the cutting!
So just to ascertain that there was no Gage hiding under my bed or maybe even some leftover Rat Friends who were too drunk to leave the party, I laid on my belly and scooted my torso over the edge where I made some loud noise and waived my knife around in the black depths because I figure Under The Bed Things are afraid of loud noises and knife waiving. I then attempted to peek my little eyeballs under there but the thing about my bed is that it’s wicked far off the ground so I ended up very ungracefully planting both my hands on the wooden floor which gave me a very clear view of the Under The Bed Area but if I’d needed to, say, react quickly like bunny, things could have ended very badly.
Once I’d righted myself, feet planted on the floor this time, I walked silently out of the bedroom and into the archway of the darkened kitchen. Both of The Demonspawn were eerily still on opposite sides of the refrigerator for what I can only assume was a strategically coordinated double-team move designed to give them more face time with their new live toy. Not even the sudden glare of the overhead light was enough to startle them though it definitely took away the creepy green-gold glowing eye thing they’d had going on.
As I was tip toeing into the kitchen, Llama made a quick paw swiping move under the fridge and I showed how much I supported him by jumping on top of the nearest kitchen chair. I didn’t want him to think that my trust for him had waned, I wanted it clear that I was giving him full reign to find that rat and tear his insides apart with his saber kitty teeth and tiger claws. But his paw came back empty and I suppressed my vocal disappointment by scooting the chair across the rug to the cabinet under the sink, a cabinet far, far away from that refrigerator where I keep my tile cleaner with bleach and my sink cleaner with bleach and my whole gallon jug of bleach because one can never have too much bleach, do not judge me.
But there, in the back of the cabinet, was the industrial size bottle of pet-friendly bug killer and I rationalized that rats were like bugs, only bigger and more mammalian-like and without those crunchy exoskeletons and maybe if someone just did the math in her head and said the bug is THIS big so I use THIS much pesticide so if the rodent is THAT big then I use THAT much pesticide and voila! No more rodent!
I really should stop listening to myself when I rationalize these things because just two weeks ago I rationalized that since my weekend had given me a bit too much sun and hence a wee bit of the peeling action, perhaps I would just speed up the peeling process by pumicing my forehead. Note to self: do not use pumice on delicate forehead skin as will only leave area with an unattractive mottled look that will force others to ask if you’d been recently mauled and burned with a strangely shaped curling iron.
But rationalize I did, which explains how at 1am I found myself crouching on top of a chair and pointing the spray nozzle of the Pet Friendly! pesticide directly under the fridge, turning my head and pressing the nozzle which was simultaneously met with a really high pitched rat scream and a lot of bumping noises but no actual rat appearance. I figure if someone sprayed roach killer in my face I’d scream too but don’t you go thinking I was starting to feel sympathetic to it’s plight, I was only hoping it would gimp home and tell all his friends about the crazy lady in 4D with the spray fire that burns out your eye-holes.
Five minutes later with no sign of Mr. Bojangles and I was so over the whole rodent killing thing because I went to school for communications, not The Proper Methods of Rodent Extermination and HELLO, don’t people get paid to get rid of these things? Isn’t that someone’s job? Wait, I know who’s job it is! It’s my landlords job!
So I hopped off my chair and kind of skittered back to my bedroom because it was late and I was tired and what if that had been my one night to sleep and it had been ruined by the sudden squealing appearance of an overgrown (and vicious) hamster?
Don’t think I didn’t call my landlord and leave him a really special message about that.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Monday, July 17, 2006
Elves And Fairies and VICIOUS ATTACK RODENTS, pt 1
We were still living in Texas when I was eight years old, in a small town in a small subdivision in a relatively small house. Truth be told I always liked that house the best and not because my mother had stenciled small blue birds and red hearts and green vines around my window but because it was the last house at the bottom of the subdivision, a real live subdivision, one full of families who all managed to get knocked up within the same year, spewing forth cute little girls ripe for afternoons of Girl Scouting, bike riding and sandbox digging. Sometimes I even acquiesced to Barbie-doll playing but only after much coercion and after formal agreements were signed indicating I could chop off their hair, rip off their heads and stuff bits of trash and leftover firecrackers in their hollow bodies. Now, of course, I’d sooner put a cheese grater to my face than live in a subdivision but as an eight-year-old, Quail Lane was the height of Cool.
For my eighth birthday party I invited the entire Girl Scout Troop for a sleepover, the kind where your mother prepares for weeks in advance; cleaning house, hanging streamers, baking cakes and cookies and buying hot dogs from the crazy bulk aisle at Sam’s because nineteen little girls can eat hella amounts of food. This is the same kind of party where your dad hides out in the shed in the back, venturing forth only if someone screams bloody murder for at least twenty seconds because a 10 second scream is really only like a warning beacon but twenty seconds indicates severe bodily injury. It’s not like I judge the shed-hiding though because, hello, that many pre-pubescent little girls are bound to make anyone nervous.
That night we threw our sleeping bags haphazardly across the living room floor, giggling amongst ourselves the way all little Southern girls do. I mean, little Northern girls may giggle as well but I always kind of associated ‘north’ with ‘cold barren wasteland’ and I figured it was probably quite hard just to stay warm much less do something as useless as giggle or braid hair.
Much later that night, when the room was completely silent save for steady breathing and the occasional snore, I was awakened by the strangest of sensations. A weight upon my forehead, one both warm and kind of prickly. Not trickly, prickly. As I was coming out of my peaceful slumber I was slowly taking inventory of the kinds of things that my friends could have placed on my forehead. It wasn’t toothpaste or salt or a frozen panty wad because all those things, I imagined, would have very distinct feelings associated with them and as I couldn’t detect any toothpaste running or salt spilling or frozen panty melting, I could effectively eliminate those objects from the list of possible things adorning my forehead.
It was about that time that I started to become fully awake, no longer half-heartedly wondering about that prickly and unstable weight but truly and quite concernedly wondering what the Hello Kitty was going on up there and as I crinkled my brow in confusion I felt a squirming furry body launch itself from my crown and into the quiet black air around me, realizing instantly that the prickly sensation was attributed to wee small claws and HOLY SPACEBALLS THERE WAS SOMETHING WITH CLAWS AND FUR ON MY FOREHEAD, NOW IS THE TIME TO AWAKEN EVERYONE WITH MY SCREAMING.
Naturally as soon as one eight-year-old starts screaming then any eight-year-old within a forty mile radius will join in as well because we are nothing if not supportive of each other’s vocal ability. I mean, it’s not like you have many skills at eight. Sometimes you can make some bead jewelry or beat your younger siblings without mom catching on but as far as True Skills go, screaming’s all you got. So as I was struggling out of my sleeping bag the other eighteen girls were struggling out of theirs as well, vocal chords a-trembling in unified terror. And as soon as the others became aware of the scampering furry wee-clawed rodent running around, that terror got ramped up to DEFCON 500, which is wicked more important than DEFCON 5 because, LIKE DUH, there is a rodent on the lam.
Someone flicked on the lights and out of the corner of my eye I caught some quick and covert movement along the baseboard against the far wall and I opened my mouth to express my ongoing and now amplified fear when it dawned on me, just as the scream was beginning to break free, that this was no ordinary furry rodent, this one was kind of pretty. Kind of like the color of caramel or creamy coffee or… wait for it…
BUTTERSCOTCH.
Amidst the screaming and couch jumping and confused panic I made my way to the baseboard in the far corner of the room where the wee little rodent was cowering in abject fear. I gently reached down and grabbed him ‘round his soft belly, pulling him up against my neck for a nice warm cuddle, his wee scratchy claws grabbing onto any available flesh.
As soon as I showed the other girls the pretty little furball in my hands, a cute little hamster by the name of Butterscotch, they calmed down considerably. He’d apparently escaped by launching himself from the top of his spinning wheel and squeezing between the crevice at the top, jumping from the elevated terrarium located in my bedroom in a bid for freedom only to find mounds of warm sleeping bodies in what probably looked like an endless string of Body Jungle. I imagine he stopped atop my forehead for a bit of a rest and regroup, rethinking his escape route and now total lack of cedar shavings and green hamster nuggets not to mention his long-time companion, Valentine. Though now that I think of it, Valentine may have been a deciding factor in his escape attempt as we later had to separate the two after Valentine clawed out both of Butterscotch’s eyes.
No, I’m not kidding.
And yes I believed my father when he told me he would send Butterscotch off to a research facility that would do their best to figure out why my hamster had dried up eye sockets.
And while I’d like to tell you that the scream from the mouth of this 26-year-old last night was all in vain, all due to the long lost cousin of dear Butterscotch, I Cannot Tell A Lie. At least about rodents, other subjects are fair game. So it began that at 12:45am I was lounging sleepless in my bed complete with earplugs and sleep mask, attempting to ignore the continued antics of the strangely active Demonspawn and the fact that I was just at the cusp of breaking a sweat in an apartment supposedly outfitted with a brand new compressor less than a month ago. I finally lost patience with the Cat Circus and Sweltering Heat and whipped out the ear plugs, intent on telling anything within earshot about my all-consuming desire to shove my broomstick into any available ass when I heard the unmistakable sounds of a squealing rodent, one who was running helter skelter down my hallway floor, chased by the undeniably gleeful felines.
I caught the glint of it’s beady black eye as it hightailed it around the corner into the kitchen and before I knew it, I’d whipped out the knife from under my bed and jumped to my feet on top of the mattress, full scream ahead.
For my eighth birthday party I invited the entire Girl Scout Troop for a sleepover, the kind where your mother prepares for weeks in advance; cleaning house, hanging streamers, baking cakes and cookies and buying hot dogs from the crazy bulk aisle at Sam’s because nineteen little girls can eat hella amounts of food. This is the same kind of party where your dad hides out in the shed in the back, venturing forth only if someone screams bloody murder for at least twenty seconds because a 10 second scream is really only like a warning beacon but twenty seconds indicates severe bodily injury. It’s not like I judge the shed-hiding though because, hello, that many pre-pubescent little girls are bound to make anyone nervous.
That night we threw our sleeping bags haphazardly across the living room floor, giggling amongst ourselves the way all little Southern girls do. I mean, little Northern girls may giggle as well but I always kind of associated ‘north’ with ‘cold barren wasteland’ and I figured it was probably quite hard just to stay warm much less do something as useless as giggle or braid hair.
Much later that night, when the room was completely silent save for steady breathing and the occasional snore, I was awakened by the strangest of sensations. A weight upon my forehead, one both warm and kind of prickly. Not trickly, prickly. As I was coming out of my peaceful slumber I was slowly taking inventory of the kinds of things that my friends could have placed on my forehead. It wasn’t toothpaste or salt or a frozen panty wad because all those things, I imagined, would have very distinct feelings associated with them and as I couldn’t detect any toothpaste running or salt spilling or frozen panty melting, I could effectively eliminate those objects from the list of possible things adorning my forehead.
It was about that time that I started to become fully awake, no longer half-heartedly wondering about that prickly and unstable weight but truly and quite concernedly wondering what the Hello Kitty was going on up there and as I crinkled my brow in confusion I felt a squirming furry body launch itself from my crown and into the quiet black air around me, realizing instantly that the prickly sensation was attributed to wee small claws and HOLY SPACEBALLS THERE WAS SOMETHING WITH CLAWS AND FUR ON MY FOREHEAD, NOW IS THE TIME TO AWAKEN EVERYONE WITH MY SCREAMING.
Naturally as soon as one eight-year-old starts screaming then any eight-year-old within a forty mile radius will join in as well because we are nothing if not supportive of each other’s vocal ability. I mean, it’s not like you have many skills at eight. Sometimes you can make some bead jewelry or beat your younger siblings without mom catching on but as far as True Skills go, screaming’s all you got. So as I was struggling out of my sleeping bag the other eighteen girls were struggling out of theirs as well, vocal chords a-trembling in unified terror. And as soon as the others became aware of the scampering furry wee-clawed rodent running around, that terror got ramped up to DEFCON 500, which is wicked more important than DEFCON 5 because, LIKE DUH, there is a rodent on the lam.
Someone flicked on the lights and out of the corner of my eye I caught some quick and covert movement along the baseboard against the far wall and I opened my mouth to express my ongoing and now amplified fear when it dawned on me, just as the scream was beginning to break free, that this was no ordinary furry rodent, this one was kind of pretty. Kind of like the color of caramel or creamy coffee or… wait for it…
BUTTERSCOTCH.
Amidst the screaming and couch jumping and confused panic I made my way to the baseboard in the far corner of the room where the wee little rodent was cowering in abject fear. I gently reached down and grabbed him ‘round his soft belly, pulling him up against my neck for a nice warm cuddle, his wee scratchy claws grabbing onto any available flesh.
As soon as I showed the other girls the pretty little furball in my hands, a cute little hamster by the name of Butterscotch, they calmed down considerably. He’d apparently escaped by launching himself from the top of his spinning wheel and squeezing between the crevice at the top, jumping from the elevated terrarium located in my bedroom in a bid for freedom only to find mounds of warm sleeping bodies in what probably looked like an endless string of Body Jungle. I imagine he stopped atop my forehead for a bit of a rest and regroup, rethinking his escape route and now total lack of cedar shavings and green hamster nuggets not to mention his long-time companion, Valentine. Though now that I think of it, Valentine may have been a deciding factor in his escape attempt as we later had to separate the two after Valentine clawed out both of Butterscotch’s eyes.
No, I’m not kidding.
And yes I believed my father when he told me he would send Butterscotch off to a research facility that would do their best to figure out why my hamster had dried up eye sockets.
And while I’d like to tell you that the scream from the mouth of this 26-year-old last night was all in vain, all due to the long lost cousin of dear Butterscotch, I Cannot Tell A Lie. At least about rodents, other subjects are fair game. So it began that at 12:45am I was lounging sleepless in my bed complete with earplugs and sleep mask, attempting to ignore the continued antics of the strangely active Demonspawn and the fact that I was just at the cusp of breaking a sweat in an apartment supposedly outfitted with a brand new compressor less than a month ago. I finally lost patience with the Cat Circus and Sweltering Heat and whipped out the ear plugs, intent on telling anything within earshot about my all-consuming desire to shove my broomstick into any available ass when I heard the unmistakable sounds of a squealing rodent, one who was running helter skelter down my hallway floor, chased by the undeniably gleeful felines.
I caught the glint of it’s beady black eye as it hightailed it around the corner into the kitchen and before I knew it, I’d whipped out the knife from under my bed and jumped to my feet on top of the mattress, full scream ahead.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Breadpudding
I’m sitting in the doctor’s office yesterday, perched uncomfortably on the edge of one of those vinyl covered raised beds with the thin and crispy white paper crunching under my ass as I fidget with my toes and hands and yank on the poor mistreated strand of hair that’s been abused since the early nineties. The nurse with the half grown-out perm and purple scrubs keeps asking me questions and I can tell from the tone of her voice that she thinks I’m crazy or that I’m just taking up space in her room, hoping to score some Xanax. I want to tell her I have no interest in Xanax or in being crazy and that I can feel her Judging Vibes emanating from her person like stank on a skunk and yes, I may have judged her for her lackluster perm but she makes up for it with some of the prettiest brown hair I’ve ever seen, all shiny and smooth, at least on the part that’s grown free of the perm’s wrath. But the room is so chilly and quiet and deep down I know that offering up more than the date of my last menstrual cycle or my list of drug allergies is going to be met with an even deader dead stare so my mouth, it stays shut and I just stifle back the jaw-cracking yawn waiting to make it’s grand debut.
I don’t tell the nurse much more than the normal “I’m not sleeping well” speech, the one that involves just the barest of details, like how I once put a pencil and paper beside my pillow and each time I woke up I just made a nice little tick-mark and when I got up the next morning, guess how many swipes I’d made at that little paper? Seventeen. Now ask me again why I’m always tired. Ask me.
So the doctor comes in and while he acts concerned, he’s skeptical that someone would be able to function if they slept as little as I say I do and then I tell him about the time that I hallucinated bloody beating hearts on my pretty oak floor and his first thought is probably which anti-psychotic to put me on but I try and make it perfectly clear that I’m not crazy, I’m just crazy tired and for the love of everything holy, just give me something to make me sleep. I tell him I’d give up The Crush, The Demonspawn AND pepperjack cheese for one good solid night of blissful slumber and it’s then, naturally, that I tear up because this doctor is ignoring almost everything I’m saying and is handing me a questionnaire that I’m supposed to fill out, one which will magically indicate if I’m at risk for becoming a serial killer due to my depressive nature.
When I’m finished I hand the paper back and he scans my responses and finally admits that I’m probably not depressed and I reign in my urge to scream in frustration because This Is What I’ve Been Telling Him, over and over and over. Look, I’m on Brooke Shields side here. If a little bit of Zoloft or Lithium or Welbutrin gets you out of bed in the morning then by all means, take it. I support you. And I realize this man only sees me when I’m sneezing out infected green globules and maybe I just don’t do a good job of making myself clear but please understand, Mr. Doctor-Man, that I’m not one to circumvent something and should I feel like question ten, the one where I had to rate my desire to keep living, is bordering on something below a 9.8, don’t worry, I’ll tell you.
So he leaves the room and comes back with a trial pack of something-or-other and tells me that we’re going to try this version first and to come back in a month to reevaluate this whole not sleeping thing and I literally skip out to my car, if skipping is really just a slightly faster than normal walk, because I realize I’ve only got four short hours before I can pop open this package and cuddle up in my bed for some Blissful Slumber. I make it through the last hour at work and then the two hours at the animal shelter (for my speeding sins) and then I’m walking in the front door with that packet in hand, already ripping off the back cover and popping a small white pill into my hand.
And all I got to say is that Children’s Tylenol has more game than this shit and if you think I’m waiting until August to reevaluate ‘this whole not sleeping thing’ then THINK AGAIN, Mr. Doctor-Man.
I don’t tell the nurse much more than the normal “I’m not sleeping well” speech, the one that involves just the barest of details, like how I once put a pencil and paper beside my pillow and each time I woke up I just made a nice little tick-mark and when I got up the next morning, guess how many swipes I’d made at that little paper? Seventeen. Now ask me again why I’m always tired. Ask me.
So the doctor comes in and while he acts concerned, he’s skeptical that someone would be able to function if they slept as little as I say I do and then I tell him about the time that I hallucinated bloody beating hearts on my pretty oak floor and his first thought is probably which anti-psychotic to put me on but I try and make it perfectly clear that I’m not crazy, I’m just crazy tired and for the love of everything holy, just give me something to make me sleep. I tell him I’d give up The Crush, The Demonspawn AND pepperjack cheese for one good solid night of blissful slumber and it’s then, naturally, that I tear up because this doctor is ignoring almost everything I’m saying and is handing me a questionnaire that I’m supposed to fill out, one which will magically indicate if I’m at risk for becoming a serial killer due to my depressive nature.
When I’m finished I hand the paper back and he scans my responses and finally admits that I’m probably not depressed and I reign in my urge to scream in frustration because This Is What I’ve Been Telling Him, over and over and over. Look, I’m on Brooke Shields side here. If a little bit of Zoloft or Lithium or Welbutrin gets you out of bed in the morning then by all means, take it. I support you. And I realize this man only sees me when I’m sneezing out infected green globules and maybe I just don’t do a good job of making myself clear but please understand, Mr. Doctor-Man, that I’m not one to circumvent something and should I feel like question ten, the one where I had to rate my desire to keep living, is bordering on something below a 9.8, don’t worry, I’ll tell you.
So he leaves the room and comes back with a trial pack of something-or-other and tells me that we’re going to try this version first and to come back in a month to reevaluate this whole not sleeping thing and I literally skip out to my car, if skipping is really just a slightly faster than normal walk, because I realize I’ve only got four short hours before I can pop open this package and cuddle up in my bed for some Blissful Slumber. I make it through the last hour at work and then the two hours at the animal shelter (for my speeding sins) and then I’m walking in the front door with that packet in hand, already ripping off the back cover and popping a small white pill into my hand.
And all I got to say is that Children’s Tylenol has more game than this shit and if you think I’m waiting until August to reevaluate ‘this whole not sleeping thing’ then THINK AGAIN, Mr. Doctor-Man.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Hemingway Was Just A Mean Drunk
A couple of weeks ago my boss hosted a class, the kind of class where you get a test at the end and I got so excited I clapped my hands for joy. And if you think I'm kidding then you haven't been paying attention 'tall, now have you?
So at the end of the class we all filed diligently out of the conference room, none so focused upon finishing that test in a precise and timely manner than yours truly. Blame it on The Sickness, the one that involves methodically eating wee boxes of tic tacs and hitting all the radio preset buttons in a row, even if I've found a song in which I'd like my ears to partake. This sickness extends to test taking as well and it's really just best if you not come between me, my pen and my paper because I'll be slapped upside the head and called Billy Bob before I let someone beat me.
It's not necessarily that I don't want people to beat me it's just that I don't want to be last, or second to last or within spitting distance of last. If everyone gets the answers right then kudos to us all but should it appear that everyone gets it but ME, well then, we've got a verified flashback to 7th grade Algebra and the many, many hours I spent threatening to disembowel my father because his explanations were coming from the mind of a 45-year-old engineer who happens to think numbers are the coolest while I just wanted him to tell me the answer already so I could go finish The Old Man and the Freaking Sea.
So when I watched everyone turning in their tests that morning I could feel my neck start to get itchy and my blood pressure start to rise because these people were not only turning in their tests before I'd made it to question two, they weren't even stressed about it and then here's me, dropping f-bombs like rabbit pellets because I'm convinced I've got every question wrong and my boss just cannot know that I'm a total reject.
And that's basically what it boils down to: Not being the throwback DKNY sweater that gets sent to TJ Maxx to languish in the half-off bin.
All of this drivel has been the world's longest lead-in to my continued inability to go to sleep. I mean, I know how sleep works. I know all about the different stages and the REM and the right amount of hours and the good bedtime habits. I know I shouldn't eat right before bed or watch lots of television or drink too much or set the neighborhood cats on fire because that's totally bad karma. So if I understand all about the process and I see everyone around me being able to do it normally, at least a majority of the time, you can bet your collection of Ninja Turtles that it's going to piss me off. Someone's doing something way better than me and this isn't like someone is a wicked good soccer player and I'm just regular old me because I have no desire to be a wicked good soccer player so being regular old me isn't an issue. But hearing someone talking about sleeping a whole night through is like telling the girl who placed 19th out of 20 in the Miss Arkansas pageant that what really counts is her good personality when we all know damn good and well that the swimsuit competition is way more important.
You're probably not following my reasoning on that one and to be honest, I'm probably not either but the cool thing about not sleeping is that you get to blame nonsensical analogies on The Insomnia.
And just because I cannot have anyone thinking I got the questions on that test wrong, I totally won the candy bar my boss dangled in front of us as a reward for being the first to finish with all the correct answers.
So at the end of the class we all filed diligently out of the conference room, none so focused upon finishing that test in a precise and timely manner than yours truly. Blame it on The Sickness, the one that involves methodically eating wee boxes of tic tacs and hitting all the radio preset buttons in a row, even if I've found a song in which I'd like my ears to partake. This sickness extends to test taking as well and it's really just best if you not come between me, my pen and my paper because I'll be slapped upside the head and called Billy Bob before I let someone beat me.
It's not necessarily that I don't want people to beat me it's just that I don't want to be last, or second to last or within spitting distance of last. If everyone gets the answers right then kudos to us all but should it appear that everyone gets it but ME, well then, we've got a verified flashback to 7th grade Algebra and the many, many hours I spent threatening to disembowel my father because his explanations were coming from the mind of a 45-year-old engineer who happens to think numbers are the coolest while I just wanted him to tell me the answer already so I could go finish The Old Man and the Freaking Sea.
So when I watched everyone turning in their tests that morning I could feel my neck start to get itchy and my blood pressure start to rise because these people were not only turning in their tests before I'd made it to question two, they weren't even stressed about it and then here's me, dropping f-bombs like rabbit pellets because I'm convinced I've got every question wrong and my boss just cannot know that I'm a total reject.
And that's basically what it boils down to: Not being the throwback DKNY sweater that gets sent to TJ Maxx to languish in the half-off bin.
All of this drivel has been the world's longest lead-in to my continued inability to go to sleep. I mean, I know how sleep works. I know all about the different stages and the REM and the right amount of hours and the good bedtime habits. I know I shouldn't eat right before bed or watch lots of television or drink too much or set the neighborhood cats on fire because that's totally bad karma. So if I understand all about the process and I see everyone around me being able to do it normally, at least a majority of the time, you can bet your collection of Ninja Turtles that it's going to piss me off. Someone's doing something way better than me and this isn't like someone is a wicked good soccer player and I'm just regular old me because I have no desire to be a wicked good soccer player so being regular old me isn't an issue. But hearing someone talking about sleeping a whole night through is like telling the girl who placed 19th out of 20 in the Miss Arkansas pageant that what really counts is her good personality when we all know damn good and well that the swimsuit competition is way more important.
You're probably not following my reasoning on that one and to be honest, I'm probably not either but the cool thing about not sleeping is that you get to blame nonsensical analogies on The Insomnia.
And just because I cannot have anyone thinking I got the questions on that test wrong, I totally won the candy bar my boss dangled in front of us as a reward for being the first to finish with all the correct answers.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Atlas shrugged and said "Bite Me"
If you look to the right you'll see, right under the spot where I gave up my anonymity, that I live in an apartment with creaky wooden floors and the occasional leak. And here's the thing: I don't mind that the floors creak in the winter and the summer and all the indistinguishable seasons in between. I don't mind that my air conditioning has picked the two hottest weeks known to man, two consecutive years in a row, to pack up and leave for greener pastures. I don't even mind that I had to move the bag of cat food out of the wee midget closet under the kitchen window to a more secure area because some toothy woodland-turned-urban creature ate an actual hole in the floorboard and started stealing the tuna-flavored nuggets from the extra large bag I buy for The Demonspawn. And just let it be known that while my cats may be lazy-ass indoor felines, they don't play with folk who steal their tuna nuggets which should sort of explain the dry hardened rodent foot I found under the kitchen rug a few weeks ago but I really just don't like to think too hard about that. Because it's not really the severed foot that bothers me it's the fact that I sure as hell haven't found the owner of that severed foot so on one hand I've got a pissed off footless rodent gimping around and on the other I've got a dead rodent decomposing in some unknown apartment locale and I'm not entirely sure which is worse.
What this all comes down to is earlier this evening as I was standing in my bathroom, patiently drying my hair. This isn't a normal occurrence because it takes a damn long time to get all of it dry which should hopefully explain to my fellow coworkers why I roll into work with wet hair every day. It's not that I don't like drying my hair it's that I like sleeping way more and when it's down to having pretty hair and sleeping I'm probably going to pick sleeping. So as I'm drying my hair I feel a big fat drop of water go plop! right there on my arm. No big deal, right? I mean, I just got out of the shower so there's bound to be stray droplets of moisture, like, accumulating on, like, shower curtains, right?
I continue with the hair drying because there's nothing worse than half dried hair. It's like eating a half cooked biscuit, all yummy and crunchy on the outside but disturbingly gummy and doughy in the center. No good. But then I feel another cold plop! and I start to get a little concerned. Because it's a way bigger droplet than anything my hair could have produced and the shower curtain doesn't seem to be producing attacking water molecules so I raise my gaze heavenwards, towards the bathroom ceiling, the ceiling which is now sporting a decidedly unflattering crack right down the middle. And it's then that the vague thoughts I'd had about the bath mat being wet first thing in the morning, you know, before I'd even had a shower, start to congeal into one big coherent thought and I realize I'm staring at the multitude of little bitty water droplets that kind of roll together into the big mama drop and look, there it goes, PLOP, right on my pink bath mat.
And for whatever reason this annoys me more than the rodent friend, the fickle a/c and the creaky floors. It even annoys me more than the two gunshots I heard last week because I'm prepared for those. I mean, hello, I live downtown. Plus it's summertime and folk get all crazy-like when it's hot outside. Someone goes and pisses you off, what are you going to do? Let them get away with it? HELL NO! Shoot his ass! This is a viable solution!
But back to the leaky ceiling: Yeah, I'm pretty damn annoyed about that.
What this all comes down to is earlier this evening as I was standing in my bathroom, patiently drying my hair. This isn't a normal occurrence because it takes a damn long time to get all of it dry which should hopefully explain to my fellow coworkers why I roll into work with wet hair every day. It's not that I don't like drying my hair it's that I like sleeping way more and when it's down to having pretty hair and sleeping I'm probably going to pick sleeping. So as I'm drying my hair I feel a big fat drop of water go plop! right there on my arm. No big deal, right? I mean, I just got out of the shower so there's bound to be stray droplets of moisture, like, accumulating on, like, shower curtains, right?
I continue with the hair drying because there's nothing worse than half dried hair. It's like eating a half cooked biscuit, all yummy and crunchy on the outside but disturbingly gummy and doughy in the center. No good. But then I feel another cold plop! and I start to get a little concerned. Because it's a way bigger droplet than anything my hair could have produced and the shower curtain doesn't seem to be producing attacking water molecules so I raise my gaze heavenwards, towards the bathroom ceiling, the ceiling which is now sporting a decidedly unflattering crack right down the middle. And it's then that the vague thoughts I'd had about the bath mat being wet first thing in the morning, you know, before I'd even had a shower, start to congeal into one big coherent thought and I realize I'm staring at the multitude of little bitty water droplets that kind of roll together into the big mama drop and look, there it goes, PLOP, right on my pink bath mat.
And for whatever reason this annoys me more than the rodent friend, the fickle a/c and the creaky floors. It even annoys me more than the two gunshots I heard last week because I'm prepared for those. I mean, hello, I live downtown. Plus it's summertime and folk get all crazy-like when it's hot outside. Someone goes and pisses you off, what are you going to do? Let them get away with it? HELL NO! Shoot his ass! This is a viable solution!
But back to the leaky ceiling: Yeah, I'm pretty damn annoyed about that.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Hypercolor Kittens Would Be Neat
Every now and then a person who so obviously doesn’t know me will ask what I do in my spare time.
“What do you do with yourself?” they ask, as if the prospect of being someone besides themselves is just completely unfathomable. And while I’d like to say that I just drive home in a daze, function switch set to ‘off’ because the only time I feel worthy of living is when I’m in Your Presence, my honesty bone compels me to be, well, honest and I have to tell them the truth:
I lure in stray puppies and sometimes a cute bunny so that I may skewer them for grilling and while I’m at it, I save their wee furry heads so I can crunch happily upon them as an after-dinner snack. And their bony little tails make excellent wind chimes.
FIND THE TRANSITION
This morning I woke up in the foulest of moods, the kind where you dare your fellow rush hour drivers to cut you off or that one person to call who would make just one snide remark, just one, effectively rendering you a veritable missile of hatred-spewing word vomit and maybe a sharp object if they’re unlucky enough to be in the same room. This may or may not be in direct correlation to how much I slept last night and for that, I’d like to thank the really annoying lop-eyed kid from the nursery last night. I know I should like him because he’s a kid and sometimes he gets these moments where you can see how desperately he wants to be loved upon but I got news for ya kid: When you throw tantrums like YOU throw tantrums, don’t nobody want to be all up in your snot-smeared face. He’s got a cry that ceased being a cry about 45 decibels ago and turned into an ear-splitting wail. In fact, he sounds exactly like the tornado sirens that go off every Wednesday at noon and I don’t mean the buffered noise I hear inside an insulated building I mean the sound I hear when I’m standing ten feet away from the damn thing and it takes every ounce of sanity to remember that clawing out your eardrums with your finger is never a good option. Shoving a thin cylindrical object such as a pen or an icepack directly into your ear canal is much more efficient.
It wasn’t even that fact that the kid got on my nerves, though he did, or the fact that he wailed, which he definitely did. It was that during the fourteen times I woke up last night I heard that rising, falling, rising, falling wail inside my head. Which is pretty craptacular if you think about it because I SLEEP WITH EARPLUGS.
This isn’t really a good transition but I never claimed to be good at those so instead I’ll just tell you about the random dream I had last night, which isn’t really random because if all of your dreams are random them they actually turn into Normal but when you tell other people you have to revert back to the Random designation. For instance I once dreamed I walked into my high school gym for an evening of festivities known as “mixers” which I personally think is like a slap in the face because they can’t call it a cocktail party, seeing as how we’re underage, so they call it a mixer because they know that’s all we can buy. And don’t lie, I know you stole your dad’s margarita mix and put it in a glass in an attempt to be cool. Kind of like those bubblegum cigarettes they used to sell – you can’t have the real thing yet but damn if they don’t tease you about it.
Back to the walking in the gym part: When I arrived I pushed open the double doors to see a gym decorated right out of Sixteen Candles. Bleachers still out, disco balls twirling, maintenance men cringing at the hard soled shoes scuffing the gym floor. The only odd thing being that everyone was a vegetable. As in carrots and broccoli and cauliflower. Like they had put on a vegetable mascot suit and yet not because, well, I don’t know. All I can tell you is that they weren’t wearing suits, they were vegetables and I could see their faces and arms and legs sprouting from their vegetable torsos. And, oh yeah, no one would dance with me because I wasn’t a vegetable. Don’t cry for me, Argentina.
As for the dream last night, the only thing that makes it Random was the fact that nothing happened. I was sitting on a plane, ipod in hand. Only, I don’t actually own an ipod because ipods cost dollars and I’m running short on those. But that was the dream. Sitting on a plane with blue seats and the occasional window view. And every time I woke up I remembered having more of that dream, uneventful as it was.
I know, you totally wish you were me right now.
“What do you do with yourself?” they ask, as if the prospect of being someone besides themselves is just completely unfathomable. And while I’d like to say that I just drive home in a daze, function switch set to ‘off’ because the only time I feel worthy of living is when I’m in Your Presence, my honesty bone compels me to be, well, honest and I have to tell them the truth:
I lure in stray puppies and sometimes a cute bunny so that I may skewer them for grilling and while I’m at it, I save their wee furry heads so I can crunch happily upon them as an after-dinner snack. And their bony little tails make excellent wind chimes.
FIND THE TRANSITION
This morning I woke up in the foulest of moods, the kind where you dare your fellow rush hour drivers to cut you off or that one person to call who would make just one snide remark, just one, effectively rendering you a veritable missile of hatred-spewing word vomit and maybe a sharp object if they’re unlucky enough to be in the same room. This may or may not be in direct correlation to how much I slept last night and for that, I’d like to thank the really annoying lop-eyed kid from the nursery last night. I know I should like him because he’s a kid and sometimes he gets these moments where you can see how desperately he wants to be loved upon but I got news for ya kid: When you throw tantrums like YOU throw tantrums, don’t nobody want to be all up in your snot-smeared face. He’s got a cry that ceased being a cry about 45 decibels ago and turned into an ear-splitting wail. In fact, he sounds exactly like the tornado sirens that go off every Wednesday at noon and I don’t mean the buffered noise I hear inside an insulated building I mean the sound I hear when I’m standing ten feet away from the damn thing and it takes every ounce of sanity to remember that clawing out your eardrums with your finger is never a good option. Shoving a thin cylindrical object such as a pen or an icepack directly into your ear canal is much more efficient.
It wasn’t even that fact that the kid got on my nerves, though he did, or the fact that he wailed, which he definitely did. It was that during the fourteen times I woke up last night I heard that rising, falling, rising, falling wail inside my head. Which is pretty craptacular if you think about it because I SLEEP WITH EARPLUGS.
This isn’t really a good transition but I never claimed to be good at those so instead I’ll just tell you about the random dream I had last night, which isn’t really random because if all of your dreams are random them they actually turn into Normal but when you tell other people you have to revert back to the Random designation. For instance I once dreamed I walked into my high school gym for an evening of festivities known as “mixers” which I personally think is like a slap in the face because they can’t call it a cocktail party, seeing as how we’re underage, so they call it a mixer because they know that’s all we can buy. And don’t lie, I know you stole your dad’s margarita mix and put it in a glass in an attempt to be cool. Kind of like those bubblegum cigarettes they used to sell – you can’t have the real thing yet but damn if they don’t tease you about it.
Back to the walking in the gym part: When I arrived I pushed open the double doors to see a gym decorated right out of Sixteen Candles. Bleachers still out, disco balls twirling, maintenance men cringing at the hard soled shoes scuffing the gym floor. The only odd thing being that everyone was a vegetable. As in carrots and broccoli and cauliflower. Like they had put on a vegetable mascot suit and yet not because, well, I don’t know. All I can tell you is that they weren’t wearing suits, they were vegetables and I could see their faces and arms and legs sprouting from their vegetable torsos. And, oh yeah, no one would dance with me because I wasn’t a vegetable. Don’t cry for me, Argentina.
As for the dream last night, the only thing that makes it Random was the fact that nothing happened. I was sitting on a plane, ipod in hand. Only, I don’t actually own an ipod because ipods cost dollars and I’m running short on those. But that was the dream. Sitting on a plane with blue seats and the occasional window view. And every time I woke up I remembered having more of that dream, uneventful as it was.
I know, you totally wish you were me right now.
Monday, June 26, 2006
I Say Float, You Say Where (the end already)
When I crossed the threshold into the log cabin I was met with an unexpected rush of cold air and truly, I cannot express to you how much I wanted to hug that icy cold blast. Air conditioning in general is like being in one half of a stereotypical relationship. When they’re there all the time you kind of grow to under appreciate them. You forgot the little things they do for you, like keeping the stray floating cat fur from attacking your sweaty body in the middle of the night or the anticipation it provides in allowing you to jump in a hot shower in the middle of a summer heat wave because that air conditioner loves you and wants to make sure you get all goose-pimply when you open the shower curtain. These things are easily overlooked until the one day when you realize that the air conditioning has packed up his compressors and stores of Freon and moved elsewhere and dear Your Favorite Deity Name Goes Here in Heaven, it dawns on you that living without his frigid touch is just not a life worth living. You must win him back no matter the cost, even if that cost involves just a smidge of a fabrication. A gentle stretching of the truth, if you will.
There were three women and one man working the counter inside and while normally I would have approached the man first I decided to scrap that plan immediately. I wasn’t near cute enough in my sweaty pony tail, dirty face and mud-encrusted legs to win over anyone’s attention and though some will find my fumbling neuroticness kind of amusing and cute at first, there is no way that the aforementioned fumbliness was going to work in conjunction with my present state of dress, not to mention the really nice river-smell I was undoubtedly leaving in my wake. So I walked to the side and patiently waited in line to speak with the woman with the super sporty pink scrunchy adorning her permed poof and hella-big bangs greeting the world with enough hairspray to kill a maggot.
When I first opened my mouth to speak, to tell this woman about my desire to forgo the ‘floating’ trip, a spiel that would include witty remarks about how ‘floating’ was actually ‘canoeing’ and while I may have grown up in the Delta I’d never been clued in on the difference and HA HA HA isn’t that funny Miss Convenience Store Worker? And then I got on the bus that said he was going over to the campground ‘round yonder and I somehow ended up here and HA HA HA look how that’s funny again Miss Convenience Store Worker! Look at us faux-bonding! And then I ended up here and it’s now 2pm and I’ve been sweating nonstop since 1pm yesterday and could anyone be so kind as to take me to the next campsite over? Yes, well, instead of all that I got about two words out before big fat tears just rolled down my grimy face and I started to hiccup, loudly, chest heaving out of sync with the deep shaky breaths I was trying to choke down. It was like scraping your knee as a kid and being perfectly fine with it until you got home and mom looked at your knee with such worry and kindness that you realized Hot Damn that DOES hurt and the big fat tears, you could hear them coming a mile away.
In my defense, I hadn’t had anything to eat since 6am not to mention a total lack of caffeinated beverages. This was back before I really started paying attention to the ulcers or the pain of the soon-to-be-diagnosed hiatal hernia so I downed cups of coffee like I should have been downing water but there’s nothing like going through so many packs of Extra Strength Tums that the Walgreens worker eventually makes a recommendation that you try the new vanilla flavored Rolaid chew because her 89-year-old grandma has ulcers too and she just LOVES them. My point being that you could have stabbed me in the arm and it would have been only relatively annoying in comparison to the no-food-and-caffeine-withdrawal headache I was sporting at that very moment.
What’s really unfortunate about all of this is that even though I’d opened up the floodgates in front of the permed worker, she wasn’t displaying a whole lot of sympathy, merely nodding her head and saying I was welcome to wait outside until I could get a hold of a member of my party, you know, with my non existent cell phone, my non existent fundage and my entire freaking party floating on a river in the middle of absolutely nowhere but with a whole lot of beer so YEAH I see one of them having a cell phone on them RIGHT ABOUT NOW.
Well, she wasn’t displaying a whole lot of sympathy until I dropped the Big Fat Lie on her. I may have been in the midst of a 24-hour panic-slash-hissy-slash-menstrual-cycle-approaching-abort!-abort!-fit but I could recognize an unsympathetic ear when I saw one. So just as she was angling her eyes to the customer behind me, my not-so-subtle signal to step to the side already, I dropped the clincher on her:
“It’s just that I’m diabetic and I left my insulin shots in the cooler and it just kind of freaks me out that they’d be so far away if I needed them and I haven’t eaten anything since 6am and I don’t need to go that long without eating and I’m so sorry to cry all over your counter but I didn’t realize it was going to be an all day trip and then I got on the wrong bus, like I told you a second ago, and I ended up here which is totally not my campsite but I’m feeling kind of woozy so I think I should just sit down here for a moment.”
And that, my friends, started a flurry of activity like I have never seen. Granted, I’m not diabetic but I sure do get cranky without a bit –o- food in the tummy. And I’ve never taken an insulin shot but I sure do support research that will get people off needles and bottles. Plus I give to the Humane Society every month and I figure that’s like a Karma Bank, right? So my one Big Lie is just debited against my good Karma credits and I’m fairly positive that saving cute puppies and kittens is way more important than stretching the truth a little so someone will drive me back to camp already.
Within fifteen minutes I’d been handed two chocolate bars, a delicious fizzy Dr. Pepper and been loaded into the passenger seat of the camp owners shiny new Trailblazer. For whatever reason she drove super slow so as not to dislodge my pancreas because obviously being diabetic means you have to drive very carefully so I’d like to stick up for the diabetics of the world and say WE ARE NOT INVALIDS. I mean, I was only diabetic for like 20.4 minutes but I FEEL YOUR PAIN, MY SISTERS.
Back at camp the nice lady dropped me off less than 10 feet from my tent with a sweet good-bye and a pat on the arm, indicating she hoped I got better real soon. Hate to burst your bubble there sugar but I hear that diabetes just isn’t something you get rid of but then, who am I to judge? The woman just drove me in Air Conditioned Splendor all the way to my tent after my word diarrhea combined with my self preservation skills completely took over the functioning parts of my brain. Plus she dropped me off less than ten feet from my tent, which was a mere 50 feet away from my vehicle and though my black Honda was dusty and dirty and the tires were sporting urine-tastic remnants courtesy of at least three females (including myself) who refused to either venture into the wooded area or walk half a mile to the concrete holes masquerading as civilized toilets, I could have given two dead rats and a goat about that. I drove myself to the camp showers three miles up the road and stood under streaming water that alternated between wicked scalding and wicked cold but my industrial strength hand soap came in wicked handy as I scrubbed my body free of the past 27 hours.
With fresh clothes and soppy wet hair I drove into town where I met my new BFF, Janelle, at the local Sonic. After I sucked down my first Route 44 Strawberry Limeade she was kind enough to bring me another, even after I just shook the styrofoam cup in her direction, making a gesture more commonly used in establishments that serve actual alcohol, a gesture indicative of ‘Gonna need another one of these, yeah, thanks.’ I then happily drove back to camp where I decided I needed another shower, so I stopped on my way in and scrubbed the scrubbable bits again and emerged feeling, if not pretty, at least free of residual debris. I then drove back to camp where I alternated sitting in a lounge chair in the direct path of a giant boxfan (amazing how well those things work when you don’t have to share them with ten other people) and sitting in my drivers seat in the direct path of my air conditioning.
The evening when everyone returned was fairly uneventful, unless you count driving to some random guys house, watching Gumby’s doppelganger pass out head first into an ant bed, cramming said Gumby into the backseat of my vehicle and finally passing out (from tiredness, not beer) in a tent around 3am uneventful.
Once the weekend was officially over and I was officially ensconced in the blessed coolness of my apartment, I gave my a/c a big hug and a tickle, just so it knew how much I appreciated it. I also figured out that there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING wrong in being the girl that insists upon staying in a hotel, ordering room service and watching reruns of Sex and the City on TBS. There’s nothing wrong with insisting the air conditioner remain below 75 degrees during the months of April through October. There’s nothing wrong with insisting that your head will viciously and mortally attack some rocks should you stay in that canoe. But I have to give Lilleee some mad props or whatever the hell the younguns say today because without her *sniff* I would never have known just HOW MUCH of That Girl that I most certainly am.
Though in my defense I do kill bugs on my own and fix stopped up bath tubs and stand supportively by when friends have kitchen sinks that spew forth foulness. And I only take like thirty minutes to get ready and that includes shower and putzing time.
There were three women and one man working the counter inside and while normally I would have approached the man first I decided to scrap that plan immediately. I wasn’t near cute enough in my sweaty pony tail, dirty face and mud-encrusted legs to win over anyone’s attention and though some will find my fumbling neuroticness kind of amusing and cute at first, there is no way that the aforementioned fumbliness was going to work in conjunction with my present state of dress, not to mention the really nice river-smell I was undoubtedly leaving in my wake. So I walked to the side and patiently waited in line to speak with the woman with the super sporty pink scrunchy adorning her permed poof and hella-big bangs greeting the world with enough hairspray to kill a maggot.
When I first opened my mouth to speak, to tell this woman about my desire to forgo the ‘floating’ trip, a spiel that would include witty remarks about how ‘floating’ was actually ‘canoeing’ and while I may have grown up in the Delta I’d never been clued in on the difference and HA HA HA isn’t that funny Miss Convenience Store Worker? And then I got on the bus that said he was going over to the campground ‘round yonder and I somehow ended up here and HA HA HA look how that’s funny again Miss Convenience Store Worker! Look at us faux-bonding! And then I ended up here and it’s now 2pm and I’ve been sweating nonstop since 1pm yesterday and could anyone be so kind as to take me to the next campsite over? Yes, well, instead of all that I got about two words out before big fat tears just rolled down my grimy face and I started to hiccup, loudly, chest heaving out of sync with the deep shaky breaths I was trying to choke down. It was like scraping your knee as a kid and being perfectly fine with it until you got home and mom looked at your knee with such worry and kindness that you realized Hot Damn that DOES hurt and the big fat tears, you could hear them coming a mile away.
In my defense, I hadn’t had anything to eat since 6am not to mention a total lack of caffeinated beverages. This was back before I really started paying attention to the ulcers or the pain of the soon-to-be-diagnosed hiatal hernia so I downed cups of coffee like I should have been downing water but there’s nothing like going through so many packs of Extra Strength Tums that the Walgreens worker eventually makes a recommendation that you try the new vanilla flavored Rolaid chew because her 89-year-old grandma has ulcers too and she just LOVES them. My point being that you could have stabbed me in the arm and it would have been only relatively annoying in comparison to the no-food-and-caffeine-withdrawal headache I was sporting at that very moment.
What’s really unfortunate about all of this is that even though I’d opened up the floodgates in front of the permed worker, she wasn’t displaying a whole lot of sympathy, merely nodding her head and saying I was welcome to wait outside until I could get a hold of a member of my party, you know, with my non existent cell phone, my non existent fundage and my entire freaking party floating on a river in the middle of absolutely nowhere but with a whole lot of beer so YEAH I see one of them having a cell phone on them RIGHT ABOUT NOW.
Well, she wasn’t displaying a whole lot of sympathy until I dropped the Big Fat Lie on her. I may have been in the midst of a 24-hour panic-slash-hissy-slash-menstrual-cycle-approaching-abort!-abort!-fit but I could recognize an unsympathetic ear when I saw one. So just as she was angling her eyes to the customer behind me, my not-so-subtle signal to step to the side already, I dropped the clincher on her:
“It’s just that I’m diabetic and I left my insulin shots in the cooler and it just kind of freaks me out that they’d be so far away if I needed them and I haven’t eaten anything since 6am and I don’t need to go that long without eating and I’m so sorry to cry all over your counter but I didn’t realize it was going to be an all day trip and then I got on the wrong bus, like I told you a second ago, and I ended up here which is totally not my campsite but I’m feeling kind of woozy so I think I should just sit down here for a moment.”
And that, my friends, started a flurry of activity like I have never seen. Granted, I’m not diabetic but I sure do get cranky without a bit –o- food in the tummy. And I’ve never taken an insulin shot but I sure do support research that will get people off needles and bottles. Plus I give to the Humane Society every month and I figure that’s like a Karma Bank, right? So my one Big Lie is just debited against my good Karma credits and I’m fairly positive that saving cute puppies and kittens is way more important than stretching the truth a little so someone will drive me back to camp already.
Within fifteen minutes I’d been handed two chocolate bars, a delicious fizzy Dr. Pepper and been loaded into the passenger seat of the camp owners shiny new Trailblazer. For whatever reason she drove super slow so as not to dislodge my pancreas because obviously being diabetic means you have to drive very carefully so I’d like to stick up for the diabetics of the world and say WE ARE NOT INVALIDS. I mean, I was only diabetic for like 20.4 minutes but I FEEL YOUR PAIN, MY SISTERS.
Back at camp the nice lady dropped me off less than 10 feet from my tent with a sweet good-bye and a pat on the arm, indicating she hoped I got better real soon. Hate to burst your bubble there sugar but I hear that diabetes just isn’t something you get rid of but then, who am I to judge? The woman just drove me in Air Conditioned Splendor all the way to my tent after my word diarrhea combined with my self preservation skills completely took over the functioning parts of my brain. Plus she dropped me off less than ten feet from my tent, which was a mere 50 feet away from my vehicle and though my black Honda was dusty and dirty and the tires were sporting urine-tastic remnants courtesy of at least three females (including myself) who refused to either venture into the wooded area or walk half a mile to the concrete holes masquerading as civilized toilets, I could have given two dead rats and a goat about that. I drove myself to the camp showers three miles up the road and stood under streaming water that alternated between wicked scalding and wicked cold but my industrial strength hand soap came in wicked handy as I scrubbed my body free of the past 27 hours.
With fresh clothes and soppy wet hair I drove into town where I met my new BFF, Janelle, at the local Sonic. After I sucked down my first Route 44 Strawberry Limeade she was kind enough to bring me another, even after I just shook the styrofoam cup in her direction, making a gesture more commonly used in establishments that serve actual alcohol, a gesture indicative of ‘Gonna need another one of these, yeah, thanks.’ I then happily drove back to camp where I decided I needed another shower, so I stopped on my way in and scrubbed the scrubbable bits again and emerged feeling, if not pretty, at least free of residual debris. I then drove back to camp where I alternated sitting in a lounge chair in the direct path of a giant boxfan (amazing how well those things work when you don’t have to share them with ten other people) and sitting in my drivers seat in the direct path of my air conditioning.
The evening when everyone returned was fairly uneventful, unless you count driving to some random guys house, watching Gumby’s doppelganger pass out head first into an ant bed, cramming said Gumby into the backseat of my vehicle and finally passing out (from tiredness, not beer) in a tent around 3am uneventful.
Once the weekend was officially over and I was officially ensconced in the blessed coolness of my apartment, I gave my a/c a big hug and a tickle, just so it knew how much I appreciated it. I also figured out that there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING wrong in being the girl that insists upon staying in a hotel, ordering room service and watching reruns of Sex and the City on TBS. There’s nothing wrong with insisting the air conditioner remain below 75 degrees during the months of April through October. There’s nothing wrong with insisting that your head will viciously and mortally attack some rocks should you stay in that canoe. But I have to give Lilleee some mad props or whatever the hell the younguns say today because without her *sniff* I would never have known just HOW MUCH of That Girl that I most certainly am.
Though in my defense I do kill bugs on my own and fix stopped up bath tubs and stand supportively by when friends have kitchen sinks that spew forth foulness. And I only take like thirty minutes to get ready and that includes shower and putzing time.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
I Say Float, You Say Where (pt 3)
I didn’t waste any time with long goodbyes, eager as I was to make my way out of the swirling water and onto the riverbank.
Once there I pulled myself up the incline by grasping various branches and trees above me, pushing my feet between the rocky bits and the moderately sturdy clumps of mud. Don’t let this image fool you, however; I am by no means an athletic individual. The image you should have is of a sweaty, red-faced white girl scrambling up an embankment by any means necessary and if those ‘any means’ happened to involve flashing the entire cast of “Dazed and Confused- Gone Campin’!” then so be it. Getting the hell out of that river was incentive enough.
At the top of the embankment was an overgrown rail-road track, the kind where a few years of small weeds turned into saplings turned into giant attack trees insisted on impeding my every step. Back at the drop-off point I again had to demonstrate my mad climbing skills, this time butt-first and with a little less climbing and a little more ungraceful sliding. Also known as tumbling but really, who’s judging me at this point.
The gentlemen at the base of the hill, not so cleverly concealing their amusement at seeing me again, pointed me in the direction of the White Oak bus. Or rather, from what direction the White Oak bus would be coming, you know, in the next hour or so. Rather than let the bandana-ed hippies see my tears of frustration and residual gut-clenching panic, I walked calmly over to the base of a nearby tree and gingerly sat down upon a scratchy root, wishing for a nice cold martini in a nice frosty glass in a nice clean bar, preferably with hot bartenders and padded seats.
Thirty minutes later and I decide it’s time for action. I’ve seen two Shady Pines buses roll by and nary a sign of the one I actually need, so I walked up the gravel road, purposeful-like, to see what I could see. Mainly because staring at the algae floating in the river was about as amusing as watching NASCAR though not nearly as disturbing as watching The Ultimate Fighting Champion, so I guess I had something to be thankful for. That and the somewhat amusing display of watching a man with a 48-inch waist in 32-inch denim shorts cram himself inside a plastic kayak. Fat Man in a Little Coat has nothing on Fat Man in a Little Kayak.
At the end of the gravel road was some pavement masquerading as a highway. Being in the middle of nowhere as we were, the only passerby I laid my eyes upon were a bunch of ants and one lone rusty truck, complete with toothless hillbilly and the soundtrack to Deliverance playing in stereo inside my head. Thankfully I didn’t have much longer to wait as I saw an unmarked bus ambling down the highway, blinker flashing. I flagged down the driver who brought the monstrosity to a screeching halt at the entrance to the gravel road.
“What campground are you headed to?” I ask.
“The one named after them there trees.” he says, pointing to a clump of trees that stopped being a clump about 200 years ago and turned into a forest, complete with underbrush and toothy woodland creatures.
“The oak trees?” I say, attempting to conceal my annoyance and not getting a straight answer.
“Yep, I reckon.”
So I jump inside after I get the go-ahead nod from Mr. Busdriver and take a seat on the empty bus about four slots down from the driver seat. Because while I appreciate the ride I don’t appreciate the ride enough to sit close enough to make conversation.
We waited about fifteen minutes for any individuals disembarking from their canoe trip but it was early yet and someone would have had to start paddling at dawn to have made it back by 11:30am. So after a brief conversation between the river guides and Mr. Busdriver, we were pulling out onto the highway and roaring back towards camp. Top speed: 45mph. At that point I couldn’t have cared less; I was fifteen minutes away from my vehicle and the Air Conditioned Splendor it was going to provide me, not to mention the Sonic run I was already anticipating. So I rested my head against the window pane, feigning an exhausted sleep to keep from having to answer the random questions concerning my marital status and the color of my bathing suit.
Sleeping in a pool of sweat the night before must have actually exhausted me because I kind of dozed off at some point, awakening to the crunch and bump of rough gravel beneath the bus wheels. I could see a collection of brightly colored tents in the distance and I was inordinately excited about some melted Little Debbie snacks and hot Gatorade because the runny eggs from that morning were definitely not holding up their end of the bargain, though I was certainly grateful for their continued occupation of my stomach and not the sudden occupation of a grassy knoll.
As the bus rounded the corner I saw the roof of a brightly painted log cabin and had a moment of utter confusion. My campsite didn’t have a log cabin. My campsite had a silver metal building and cinderblock restrooms. My campsite didn’t have brightly colored flags hanging about the parking lot or handily placed Coke machines.
Then it dawned on me: This was not my campsite and I was eight miles away from my tent in 110 degree heat with no money and a bus driver who only shook his head and said “Oh, thought you meant this one” when I pointed out that this campsite, the one he drove me to, was not named after oak trees it was NAMED AFTER PINE TREES and then told me I had to leave the bus because he was going on lunch.
For the second time in two days I had a mental image of someone coming across my dried-up lifeless body, this time after I attempted to hike eight miles on a dusty gravel road and fell victim to vicious toothy woodland creatures or maybe just a total lack of water. So I turned around and marched my still sweaty body towards the log cabin, hoping to utilize whatever feminine wiles I had left after sleeping in sweat, ingesting runny eggs, having a panic attack in a flimsy metal canoe, scrambling up an embankment, tumbling down an embankment and now being dropped off in the hot dusty parking lot of a campsite that was most definitely not my own.
Once there I pulled myself up the incline by grasping various branches and trees above me, pushing my feet between the rocky bits and the moderately sturdy clumps of mud. Don’t let this image fool you, however; I am by no means an athletic individual. The image you should have is of a sweaty, red-faced white girl scrambling up an embankment by any means necessary and if those ‘any means’ happened to involve flashing the entire cast of “Dazed and Confused- Gone Campin’!” then so be it. Getting the hell out of that river was incentive enough.
At the top of the embankment was an overgrown rail-road track, the kind where a few years of small weeds turned into saplings turned into giant attack trees insisted on impeding my every step. Back at the drop-off point I again had to demonstrate my mad climbing skills, this time butt-first and with a little less climbing and a little more ungraceful sliding. Also known as tumbling but really, who’s judging me at this point.
The gentlemen at the base of the hill, not so cleverly concealing their amusement at seeing me again, pointed me in the direction of the White Oak bus. Or rather, from what direction the White Oak bus would be coming, you know, in the next hour or so. Rather than let the bandana-ed hippies see my tears of frustration and residual gut-clenching panic, I walked calmly over to the base of a nearby tree and gingerly sat down upon a scratchy root, wishing for a nice cold martini in a nice frosty glass in a nice clean bar, preferably with hot bartenders and padded seats.
Thirty minutes later and I decide it’s time for action. I’ve seen two Shady Pines buses roll by and nary a sign of the one I actually need, so I walked up the gravel road, purposeful-like, to see what I could see. Mainly because staring at the algae floating in the river was about as amusing as watching NASCAR though not nearly as disturbing as watching The Ultimate Fighting Champion, so I guess I had something to be thankful for. That and the somewhat amusing display of watching a man with a 48-inch waist in 32-inch denim shorts cram himself inside a plastic kayak. Fat Man in a Little Coat has nothing on Fat Man in a Little Kayak.
At the end of the gravel road was some pavement masquerading as a highway. Being in the middle of nowhere as we were, the only passerby I laid my eyes upon were a bunch of ants and one lone rusty truck, complete with toothless hillbilly and the soundtrack to Deliverance playing in stereo inside my head. Thankfully I didn’t have much longer to wait as I saw an unmarked bus ambling down the highway, blinker flashing. I flagged down the driver who brought the monstrosity to a screeching halt at the entrance to the gravel road.
“What campground are you headed to?” I ask.
“The one named after them there trees.” he says, pointing to a clump of trees that stopped being a clump about 200 years ago and turned into a forest, complete with underbrush and toothy woodland creatures.
“The oak trees?” I say, attempting to conceal my annoyance and not getting a straight answer.
“Yep, I reckon.”
So I jump inside after I get the go-ahead nod from Mr. Busdriver and take a seat on the empty bus about four slots down from the driver seat. Because while I appreciate the ride I don’t appreciate the ride enough to sit close enough to make conversation.
We waited about fifteen minutes for any individuals disembarking from their canoe trip but it was early yet and someone would have had to start paddling at dawn to have made it back by 11:30am. So after a brief conversation between the river guides and Mr. Busdriver, we were pulling out onto the highway and roaring back towards camp. Top speed: 45mph. At that point I couldn’t have cared less; I was fifteen minutes away from my vehicle and the Air Conditioned Splendor it was going to provide me, not to mention the Sonic run I was already anticipating. So I rested my head against the window pane, feigning an exhausted sleep to keep from having to answer the random questions concerning my marital status and the color of my bathing suit.
Sleeping in a pool of sweat the night before must have actually exhausted me because I kind of dozed off at some point, awakening to the crunch and bump of rough gravel beneath the bus wheels. I could see a collection of brightly colored tents in the distance and I was inordinately excited about some melted Little Debbie snacks and hot Gatorade because the runny eggs from that morning were definitely not holding up their end of the bargain, though I was certainly grateful for their continued occupation of my stomach and not the sudden occupation of a grassy knoll.
As the bus rounded the corner I saw the roof of a brightly painted log cabin and had a moment of utter confusion. My campsite didn’t have a log cabin. My campsite had a silver metal building and cinderblock restrooms. My campsite didn’t have brightly colored flags hanging about the parking lot or handily placed Coke machines.
Then it dawned on me: This was not my campsite and I was eight miles away from my tent in 110 degree heat with no money and a bus driver who only shook his head and said “Oh, thought you meant this one” when I pointed out that this campsite, the one he drove me to, was not named after oak trees it was NAMED AFTER PINE TREES and then told me I had to leave the bus because he was going on lunch.
For the second time in two days I had a mental image of someone coming across my dried-up lifeless body, this time after I attempted to hike eight miles on a dusty gravel road and fell victim to vicious toothy woodland creatures or maybe just a total lack of water. So I turned around and marched my still sweaty body towards the log cabin, hoping to utilize whatever feminine wiles I had left after sleeping in sweat, ingesting runny eggs, having a panic attack in a flimsy metal canoe, scrambling up an embankment, tumbling down an embankment and now being dropped off in the hot dusty parking lot of a campsite that was most definitely not my own.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
I Say Float, You Say Where (pt 2)
Ten minutes later and the dusty yellow school bus is rolling over the grassy lot, idling loudly and with mildly disturbing puffs of black smoke from the tailpipe. The ten of us, along with a various assortment of true redneck individuals who proceeded to incessantly imitate that gold-toothed, floppy haired individual known only as “Lil John,” boarded the bus and took seats on green pleather cracked and split from years of band trips and morning pick-ups, not to mention the added bonus of overweight hillbillies and their soaking wet jean shorts masquerading as swimming trunks.
On the twenty minute ride in Unairconditioned Splendor, Lilleee did her very best to allay my fears. I, of course, was still struggling with the realization that when Arkansans say “float” they do not, in fact, mean “float.” They mean canoe. With paddles. Over rapids. FOR FUN.
I’ll stop the story here and explain that while a canoe doesn’t scare me, paddling it down a river full of rocks and rapids and currents and creepy river creatures not only scares me, it kind of makes me want to curl into a wee little ball and sing nursery rhymes. Whenever those commercials come on that show people flying down a river in a yellow floating raft, their paddles flailing about, completely ineffectual against the RAGING CURRENT AND ALL, I close my eyes for fear that one day one of those commercial makers won’t pay enough attention and they’ll include footage of someone’s happy smiling face contorting into bowel-loosening fear as they are bumped from their river ride, head first onto an awaiting jagged, protruding rock.
Because when it’s Head vs. Rock, Rock always wins.
At the drop-off site everyone de-boarded the bus with their Coleman ice chests filled with delicious and nutritious snacks of sliced apples and crackers, if sliced apples and crackers are really cases of Natty Light and processed meats shaped in phallic formations. So Lilleee and I proceeded to pick out our canoe and paddles, all while I attempted to hold back the chewy bacon and over-easy eggs from that morning’s Camp Regulated breakfast. We gingerly stepped into our chosen Canoe-o-Death, me in front, Lilleee in back. Theoretically, as Lilleee is much shorter and lighter than myself, those roles should have been reversed. But I think my clenched jaw and white face convinced her that an even distribution of weight meant nothing if we didn’t have someone in back who was capable of using the paddle for more than an attack weapon against the curving, hanging vines and gnarly tree trunks.
As a group we pushed off together thanks to the not-so gentle hands of the river guides, all of whom were highly amused at my state of frozen distress. We got all of two football fields down the river when I saw the first batch of rapids looming in the distance and without thinking I began to paddle backwards, attempting to somehow reverse the canoe towards shore. Then I swiveled around to Lilleee and said:
“Fezik, are there rocks ahead? If there are, we all be dead!”
I think I kind of frightened her a bit because she started talking to me in that voice people use when they’re trying not to distract a rabid dog or an inmate that’s spent a lot of time in solitary. But no matter how many times she told me that everything was fine, no one was going to die, the rocks were tiny and insignificant and that she would bodily throw herself in harms way should my head show any signs of attacking a rock, I just couldn’t fathom spending ten more hours in that flimsy metal canoe. Especially without a helmet and a prescription for Valium.
So I pulled my paddle out of the water, the one that had been attempting to defeat not only Lilleee’s normal forward-moving paddling but the river current as well and placed it on my lap, my head resting on my knees. I took two deep breaths, told myself to stop quoting The Princess Bride and get out of the canoe already because say what you will, I accept the fact that I’m a giant weenie and you know what? This giant weenie still has a head with a firmly attached cranium, not to mention a total lack of bloody gushing gaping holes in said cranium.
Once out of the canoe I realized the quandary in which I had most securely placed myself. The current was too strong and the river too deep for me to walk/swim back to the drop off point. The remaining campers, the majority of whom I’d never met in my life, continued to stare in abject horror at the girl Lilleee had brought as a camping buddy, one who was exhibiting qualities displayed by ‘those’ girls, the ones who squeal at bugs or put makeup on before an all-day river trip. I hadn’t put any makeup on and I wasn’t audibly squealing at bugs but I was most definitely having a hissy fit to end all hissy fits and hardcore campers just do not have hissy fits. Plus, they tend to look down on those individuals, specifically me, who make it quite clear that come hell or high water, they are NOT getting back in that canoe.
After a brief discussion that involved one camper moving into the forward seat I’d previously vacated and one poor (and already vastly intoxicated) kid becoming the lone captain of his canoe, Lilleee tells me to remember to get on the bus to White Oak Campground, not the one to Shady Pines.
“Don’t forget,” she says again. “The bus to White Oak, not Shady Pines”
On the twenty minute ride in Unairconditioned Splendor, Lilleee did her very best to allay my fears. I, of course, was still struggling with the realization that when Arkansans say “float” they do not, in fact, mean “float.” They mean canoe. With paddles. Over rapids. FOR FUN.
I’ll stop the story here and explain that while a canoe doesn’t scare me, paddling it down a river full of rocks and rapids and currents and creepy river creatures not only scares me, it kind of makes me want to curl into a wee little ball and sing nursery rhymes. Whenever those commercials come on that show people flying down a river in a yellow floating raft, their paddles flailing about, completely ineffectual against the RAGING CURRENT AND ALL, I close my eyes for fear that one day one of those commercial makers won’t pay enough attention and they’ll include footage of someone’s happy smiling face contorting into bowel-loosening fear as they are bumped from their river ride, head first onto an awaiting jagged, protruding rock.
Because when it’s Head vs. Rock, Rock always wins.
At the drop-off site everyone de-boarded the bus with their Coleman ice chests filled with delicious and nutritious snacks of sliced apples and crackers, if sliced apples and crackers are really cases of Natty Light and processed meats shaped in phallic formations. So Lilleee and I proceeded to pick out our canoe and paddles, all while I attempted to hold back the chewy bacon and over-easy eggs from that morning’s Camp Regulated breakfast. We gingerly stepped into our chosen Canoe-o-Death, me in front, Lilleee in back. Theoretically, as Lilleee is much shorter and lighter than myself, those roles should have been reversed. But I think my clenched jaw and white face convinced her that an even distribution of weight meant nothing if we didn’t have someone in back who was capable of using the paddle for more than an attack weapon against the curving, hanging vines and gnarly tree trunks.
As a group we pushed off together thanks to the not-so gentle hands of the river guides, all of whom were highly amused at my state of frozen distress. We got all of two football fields down the river when I saw the first batch of rapids looming in the distance and without thinking I began to paddle backwards, attempting to somehow reverse the canoe towards shore. Then I swiveled around to Lilleee and said:
“Fezik, are there rocks ahead? If there are, we all be dead!”
I think I kind of frightened her a bit because she started talking to me in that voice people use when they’re trying not to distract a rabid dog or an inmate that’s spent a lot of time in solitary. But no matter how many times she told me that everything was fine, no one was going to die, the rocks were tiny and insignificant and that she would bodily throw herself in harms way should my head show any signs of attacking a rock, I just couldn’t fathom spending ten more hours in that flimsy metal canoe. Especially without a helmet and a prescription for Valium.
So I pulled my paddle out of the water, the one that had been attempting to defeat not only Lilleee’s normal forward-moving paddling but the river current as well and placed it on my lap, my head resting on my knees. I took two deep breaths, told myself to stop quoting The Princess Bride and get out of the canoe already because say what you will, I accept the fact that I’m a giant weenie and you know what? This giant weenie still has a head with a firmly attached cranium, not to mention a total lack of bloody gushing gaping holes in said cranium.
Once out of the canoe I realized the quandary in which I had most securely placed myself. The current was too strong and the river too deep for me to walk/swim back to the drop off point. The remaining campers, the majority of whom I’d never met in my life, continued to stare in abject horror at the girl Lilleee had brought as a camping buddy, one who was exhibiting qualities displayed by ‘those’ girls, the ones who squeal at bugs or put makeup on before an all-day river trip. I hadn’t put any makeup on and I wasn’t audibly squealing at bugs but I was most definitely having a hissy fit to end all hissy fits and hardcore campers just do not have hissy fits. Plus, they tend to look down on those individuals, specifically me, who make it quite clear that come hell or high water, they are NOT getting back in that canoe.
After a brief discussion that involved one camper moving into the forward seat I’d previously vacated and one poor (and already vastly intoxicated) kid becoming the lone captain of his canoe, Lilleee tells me to remember to get on the bus to White Oak Campground, not the one to Shady Pines.
“Don’t forget,” she says again. “The bus to White Oak, not Shady Pines”
Monday, June 19, 2006
I Say Float, You Say Where
This coming weekend my friend Lilleee is going on a float trip, the same float trip with the same people from last year, minus one. That one would be me.
See, last year Lilleee asked me to accompany her on this yearly trip and I agreed because what sounds better than ‘float’ and ‘trip’ in the same sentence? I conjured up all kinds of images of myself lying languorously upon a black innertube, floating lethargically down a glistening river, making occasional forays into the attached ice chest for a cold beer and maybe even a sandwich.
That Saturday morning Lilleee and I left Little Rock in our cute little tank tops and pony tails, sunglasses perched perkily atop our heads. Our two person tent was shoved into the back of my trunk, along with enough foodstuffs to feed a small Romanian army. Neither of us had sleeping bags but being in the midst of a three-month long heat wave, we were none too concerned with that situation. I’d stripped the foam mattress from my bed the night before and slipped two light coverlets into my travel bag, content that those items would more than serve their purpose of protecting us from flying tent critters and bumpy ground. Well, that and some heavy duty bug spray.
We arrived in the heat of early afternoon, the sun swirling so close to the baked earth I had Indiana Jones-esque images of someone stumbling upon my dried and mummified corpse in fifty years, the pink polish on my toes still faintly visible, my hair dry and lifeless, grayed from the accumulation of dusty sand.
Within two hours we’d folded our sweaty bodies back inside my Honda, giving thanks to the Blessed Air Conditioning Gods and the local Sonic for supplying us with gallon sized cups of cherry limeades. We then perused the local Wal-Mart for travel-sized folding chairs and a pair of shorts that I could deem Of Acceptable Length. I hadn’t purchased a pair of shorts since 1999 and even those were for a summer spent as a counselor at an over priveledged white kid camp and all I got out of that situation was a raging case of mono and a really unfortunate tan line. But after only an hour spent in heat equal to the fourth level of Dante’s Inferno, I was more than willing to toss my pride and don shorts that not only showcased my frightening paleness but the jiggly bits as well.
On the way back to camp we stopped in a moderately deserted strip mall parking lot so I could stand between the front and rear passenger doors while stripping off my soaked-with-sweat cotton pants. I was beyond caring who or what saw my naked ass and all I can say is whatever residual embarrassment there was regarding stripping down in front of a busy highway was completely negated by the instant relief I felt in pulling on vented nylon shorts.
Back at camp we plopped our newly purchased lawn chairs around the nonexistent campfire while swigging bottle after bottle of gatorade and water. Never in my life has Gatorade tasted so good. By six pm I would have traded my car for a case of the stuff, if only for the fact that it meant I could remain seated in relative discomfort while having someone hand me a bottle rather than exert any kind of physical effort which would easily have pushed me into the zone of utter and extreme discomfort.
I think we ate hamburgers that night but I really couldn’t tell you.
The next morning the whole camp was up at dawn, eager for the traditional camp breakfast of bacon and eggs and an early start on the float trip. But the thing about cooking bacon on a small portable stove is that it takes longer than just driving into town and getting a bacon biscuit already. All of this, combined with the the amount of money our fellow campers had spent on air mattresses and battery-less air pumps and vented tents and plastic tarps and special cooking stoves and cooking utensils and travel ice chests made me wish I’d just put my foot down about making a McDonalds run and pinky-swearing that I’d never tell anyone about our little cave-in to capitalist conformism. I’d have maintained our staunch devoutness to Camping Regulations until the day I died or until someone bribed me with some Hawaiian coconut syrup and crunchy waffles, whichever came first.
By ten am we’d driven in our respective vehicles to the drop-off point, the point where everyone else who’d purchased five-hundred dollars worth of camping equipment to pitch tent on flat, tree-less ground was waiting to catch the hourly bus to whatever part of the river someone had deemed acceptable to begin floating upon. About that time I started to pick up on conversation that involved placing ice chests inside... something that definitely wasn’t an innertube. Because innertubes have holes for you to sidle your ample backside into while your arms and legs drop lazily over the sides. They do not, however, have places in which you may place an ice chest.
Then I heard talk of paddles and I started to have that itchy, sinking feeling in my stomach. One doesn’t need a paddle on an innertube. One only needs the gentle river current to push one along.
And then someone had to go and loudly proclaim their excitement over the low-water level and how much fun it was going to be going over the rapids this year.
Er, rapids?
See, last year Lilleee asked me to accompany her on this yearly trip and I agreed because what sounds better than ‘float’ and ‘trip’ in the same sentence? I conjured up all kinds of images of myself lying languorously upon a black innertube, floating lethargically down a glistening river, making occasional forays into the attached ice chest for a cold beer and maybe even a sandwich.
That Saturday morning Lilleee and I left Little Rock in our cute little tank tops and pony tails, sunglasses perched perkily atop our heads. Our two person tent was shoved into the back of my trunk, along with enough foodstuffs to feed a small Romanian army. Neither of us had sleeping bags but being in the midst of a three-month long heat wave, we were none too concerned with that situation. I’d stripped the foam mattress from my bed the night before and slipped two light coverlets into my travel bag, content that those items would more than serve their purpose of protecting us from flying tent critters and bumpy ground. Well, that and some heavy duty bug spray.
We arrived in the heat of early afternoon, the sun swirling so close to the baked earth I had Indiana Jones-esque images of someone stumbling upon my dried and mummified corpse in fifty years, the pink polish on my toes still faintly visible, my hair dry and lifeless, grayed from the accumulation of dusty sand.
Within two hours we’d folded our sweaty bodies back inside my Honda, giving thanks to the Blessed Air Conditioning Gods and the local Sonic for supplying us with gallon sized cups of cherry limeades. We then perused the local Wal-Mart for travel-sized folding chairs and a pair of shorts that I could deem Of Acceptable Length. I hadn’t purchased a pair of shorts since 1999 and even those were for a summer spent as a counselor at an over priveledged white kid camp and all I got out of that situation was a raging case of mono and a really unfortunate tan line. But after only an hour spent in heat equal to the fourth level of Dante’s Inferno, I was more than willing to toss my pride and don shorts that not only showcased my frightening paleness but the jiggly bits as well.
On the way back to camp we stopped in a moderately deserted strip mall parking lot so I could stand between the front and rear passenger doors while stripping off my soaked-with-sweat cotton pants. I was beyond caring who or what saw my naked ass and all I can say is whatever residual embarrassment there was regarding stripping down in front of a busy highway was completely negated by the instant relief I felt in pulling on vented nylon shorts.
Back at camp we plopped our newly purchased lawn chairs around the nonexistent campfire while swigging bottle after bottle of gatorade and water. Never in my life has Gatorade tasted so good. By six pm I would have traded my car for a case of the stuff, if only for the fact that it meant I could remain seated in relative discomfort while having someone hand me a bottle rather than exert any kind of physical effort which would easily have pushed me into the zone of utter and extreme discomfort.
I think we ate hamburgers that night but I really couldn’t tell you.
The next morning the whole camp was up at dawn, eager for the traditional camp breakfast of bacon and eggs and an early start on the float trip. But the thing about cooking bacon on a small portable stove is that it takes longer than just driving into town and getting a bacon biscuit already. All of this, combined with the the amount of money our fellow campers had spent on air mattresses and battery-less air pumps and vented tents and plastic tarps and special cooking stoves and cooking utensils and travel ice chests made me wish I’d just put my foot down about making a McDonalds run and pinky-swearing that I’d never tell anyone about our little cave-in to capitalist conformism. I’d have maintained our staunch devoutness to Camping Regulations until the day I died or until someone bribed me with some Hawaiian coconut syrup and crunchy waffles, whichever came first.
By ten am we’d driven in our respective vehicles to the drop-off point, the point where everyone else who’d purchased five-hundred dollars worth of camping equipment to pitch tent on flat, tree-less ground was waiting to catch the hourly bus to whatever part of the river someone had deemed acceptable to begin floating upon. About that time I started to pick up on conversation that involved placing ice chests inside... something that definitely wasn’t an innertube. Because innertubes have holes for you to sidle your ample backside into while your arms and legs drop lazily over the sides. They do not, however, have places in which you may place an ice chest.
Then I heard talk of paddles and I started to have that itchy, sinking feeling in my stomach. One doesn’t need a paddle on an innertube. One only needs the gentle river current to push one along.
And then someone had to go and loudly proclaim their excitement over the low-water level and how much fun it was going to be going over the rapids this year.
Er, rapids?
Friday, June 16, 2006
You Took My Stapler, Didn't You?
The older I get the more I realize that my social skills, they are lacking. And I don’t mean that in a way that would indicate that I burp loudly and without shame after a heavy meal or that I dig for gold in the upper recesses of my sinus cavity while waiting in line for The Fast and Furious 3: Tokyo Drift. It’s just that somewhere along the way I never got the memo that internal monologue was supposed to stay, you know, internal. It never occurred to me that perhaps people would not be amused by my willingness to unload the f-word, especially when it was in the same breath as a word that may or may not be in reference to your favorite deity, a word that sounds a lot like the structure that holds back a great body of water and the son of a female dog.
When you combine my inability to hold back the babbling brook of nonsense with the lack of skills in the Game category, you get one very spaztastic individual. I will attempt to flirt, then backpeddle on the flirting, then apologize for the flirting and then attempt to flirt again. It’s a vicious, vicious cycle and one that gets me nowhere, unless nowhere is now a bright red face and twitchy hands.
So last night, after my ridiculous attempts at behaving like a Girl With Game, I ended up talking with my friend Brittany about the Nature Of Crushes and what I’ve concluded is that the entire human race is in dire need of some Lithium. Why do we do this to ourselves? It’s like repeatedly putting your hand on a hot iron even though you’re quite aware that a) the iron is hot b) exceptionally hot objects leave burns c) burns are vastly uncomfortable and often leave nasty oozing bubbly sores and d) nasty oozing sores get infected, which leads to fever and chills and then DEATH. But then we resurrect ourselves from The Death and walk right back up to the iron and, displaying not one ounce of reservation, reach out, palm up, directly towards that scalding heat. And then we act all surprised when that pesky ol’ iron burns us. For like the seventeenth time.
I’m not going the usual female route with this and saying that everyone gets burned and why should we continue when we’ve got a whole plethora of sperm banks out there and why don’t we just form a giant female army and fly flags with giant furry vaginas on them. The analogy I was attempting to make stems more from the uncomfortableness one gets from having A Crush, how the pit of your stomach gets all roily and toily and the food sticks in the back of your throat when you see The Crush’s number on your caller id. Why isn’t it socially acceptable for me to say, albeit reluctantly and with much fumbling, that I’m totally into recycling and if you were an empty Coke can I’d crush you in a heartbeat? And then The Crush can just respond with a yes, no, maybe. Yes, I’m into recycling as well! No, I’m not that into recycling. Or, Maybe I’m into recycling, maybe I’m not; I’d have to learn more about the recycling to give you a true affirmative or negative.
And then, AND THEN, you know what? The Crush-y feeling could be over! Problem solved! No more wasted half-eaten sandwiches!
But the more I try to behave appropriately, the bigger an Ass I make of myself. I assume that things always have a black and white answer and if two people agree on the same answer then they should just skip all the randomness and stomach churning part and get to the finale already. But then people have to go and point out that the time spent in the stomach churning zone allows details to be hammered out but thing is, I’m so not a detail person. I keep organized piles of crap in my hopes of one day becoming a detail person and then my friend Lillleeeee will get in my car and say “Baby, you know your water bill is down here on the floor board.” and I respond with “Holy catpoop, really?” and then she pulls it out and stuffs it in my purse with a “I know how you are about these things so I put it right next to your debit card.” and I nod my head in agreement and then still manage to overlook it for another five days. My whole point being that I’m fine with getting the water bill and I’m fine with paying the water bill but the part in the middle where I write out the check and put the stamp on the envelope is an awful lot of effort for me and, as mentioned above, I just want to skip to the finale where the water bill is paid already because I happen to quite like taking showers and having sparkling clean dishes. *sigh
I’m also hoping that craptacularly embarrassing myself on this most public of forums will force The Crush to realize I’m not to be encouraged because THIS is what you have to put up with and it’s best to just, you know, um, not encourage. I said that already but whatever. Bite me.
When you combine my inability to hold back the babbling brook of nonsense with the lack of skills in the Game category, you get one very spaztastic individual. I will attempt to flirt, then backpeddle on the flirting, then apologize for the flirting and then attempt to flirt again. It’s a vicious, vicious cycle and one that gets me nowhere, unless nowhere is now a bright red face and twitchy hands.
So last night, after my ridiculous attempts at behaving like a Girl With Game, I ended up talking with my friend Brittany about the Nature Of Crushes and what I’ve concluded is that the entire human race is in dire need of some Lithium. Why do we do this to ourselves? It’s like repeatedly putting your hand on a hot iron even though you’re quite aware that a) the iron is hot b) exceptionally hot objects leave burns c) burns are vastly uncomfortable and often leave nasty oozing bubbly sores and d) nasty oozing sores get infected, which leads to fever and chills and then DEATH. But then we resurrect ourselves from The Death and walk right back up to the iron and, displaying not one ounce of reservation, reach out, palm up, directly towards that scalding heat. And then we act all surprised when that pesky ol’ iron burns us. For like the seventeenth time.
I’m not going the usual female route with this and saying that everyone gets burned and why should we continue when we’ve got a whole plethora of sperm banks out there and why don’t we just form a giant female army and fly flags with giant furry vaginas on them. The analogy I was attempting to make stems more from the uncomfortableness one gets from having A Crush, how the pit of your stomach gets all roily and toily and the food sticks in the back of your throat when you see The Crush’s number on your caller id. Why isn’t it socially acceptable for me to say, albeit reluctantly and with much fumbling, that I’m totally into recycling and if you were an empty Coke can I’d crush you in a heartbeat? And then The Crush can just respond with a yes, no, maybe. Yes, I’m into recycling as well! No, I’m not that into recycling. Or, Maybe I’m into recycling, maybe I’m not; I’d have to learn more about the recycling to give you a true affirmative or negative.
And then, AND THEN, you know what? The Crush-y feeling could be over! Problem solved! No more wasted half-eaten sandwiches!
But the more I try to behave appropriately, the bigger an Ass I make of myself. I assume that things always have a black and white answer and if two people agree on the same answer then they should just skip all the randomness and stomach churning part and get to the finale already. But then people have to go and point out that the time spent in the stomach churning zone allows details to be hammered out but thing is, I’m so not a detail person. I keep organized piles of crap in my hopes of one day becoming a detail person and then my friend Lillleeeee will get in my car and say “Baby, you know your water bill is down here on the floor board.” and I respond with “Holy catpoop, really?” and then she pulls it out and stuffs it in my purse with a “I know how you are about these things so I put it right next to your debit card.” and I nod my head in agreement and then still manage to overlook it for another five days. My whole point being that I’m fine with getting the water bill and I’m fine with paying the water bill but the part in the middle where I write out the check and put the stamp on the envelope is an awful lot of effort for me and, as mentioned above, I just want to skip to the finale where the water bill is paid already because I happen to quite like taking showers and having sparkling clean dishes. *sigh
I’m also hoping that craptacularly embarrassing myself on this most public of forums will force The Crush to realize I’m not to be encouraged because THIS is what you have to put up with and it’s best to just, you know, um, not encourage. I said that already but whatever. Bite me.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
There’s a scene in Empire Records where the Slightly Off-Balance female character walks into the restroom, stands in front of the mirror and proceeds to calmly hold up a giant chunk of hair and SNIP! it falls to the floor in one feathery chunk. A few more snips combined with the utilization of an electric razor and we’ve got one seriously serious girl, parading about a record store with a bitchin buzz cut, daring everyone with her seriously serious eyes to make one scathing, one questioning, one antagonistic remark because this one, she will cut you. She is making a statement re: her Mental Anguish by stylizing her hair in a fashion guaranteed to make the general public stare and gaze in awe, in appreciation and possibly, gasp! fear for the safety of their younguns because the chick with the buzztastic cranium is definitely going to open her mouth around the delicate head of your baby and crunch happily upon his fuzzy, crunchable skull.
There is no point to the above observation except that it was a nice lead-in to the statement I am making today with my own hair, unbrushed, and my shoes, bright as yellow (and if you ever owned the soundtrack to the above movie then I heart you for getting that reference- if not- I don’t judge too harshly because I never get movie references and mostly get slightly annoyed that someone knows something I don’t, being as how I’m the World’s Most Mature Individual and all). But there’s no Mental Anguish vibe on my end today, only the Woke Up Late With No Time To Shower vibe. I also have no plans to buzz cut myself because it took long enough to grow out my old lady-slash-lesbian ‘do and what if it turns out that I have an oddly shaped head? It serves to reason that Natalie Portman could shave her head and still look like a sprightly elf. I, however, would shave my head and look like a chubby, if slightly stubbly, bowling ball. A bowling ball with maybe a strange bump on the lower left side or an emerging and previously unknown tentacle on the upper right. So obviously this is just a chance I cannot take. With the head shaving and all. Other chances, like the chance to not wait in line at the Walgreens drive-thru for my entire lunch hour or the chance to not have my shoes rub uncomfortably on my left heel or even the chance to avoid committing a serious overshare offense via email, well, those chances, I AM ALL OVER THEM.
There is no point to the above observation except that it was a nice lead-in to the statement I am making today with my own hair, unbrushed, and my shoes, bright as yellow (and if you ever owned the soundtrack to the above movie then I heart you for getting that reference- if not- I don’t judge too harshly because I never get movie references and mostly get slightly annoyed that someone knows something I don’t, being as how I’m the World’s Most Mature Individual and all). But there’s no Mental Anguish vibe on my end today, only the Woke Up Late With No Time To Shower vibe. I also have no plans to buzz cut myself because it took long enough to grow out my old lady-slash-lesbian ‘do and what if it turns out that I have an oddly shaped head? It serves to reason that Natalie Portman could shave her head and still look like a sprightly elf. I, however, would shave my head and look like a chubby, if slightly stubbly, bowling ball. A bowling ball with maybe a strange bump on the lower left side or an emerging and previously unknown tentacle on the upper right. So obviously this is just a chance I cannot take. With the head shaving and all. Other chances, like the chance to not wait in line at the Walgreens drive-thru for my entire lunch hour or the chance to not have my shoes rub uncomfortably on my left heel or even the chance to avoid committing a serious overshare offense via email, well, those chances, I AM ALL OVER THEM.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Didn't Frank Write a Song About This?
When I was seven years old my mother called me a smart-ass and my world, it crumbled. I’m lying, of course. My world didn’t crumble, my chin didn’t get quivery and my eyes didn’t fill with tears. I just got pissed and walked across the street to my neighbor’s backyard where I organized a neighborhood run-away program among my two girlfriends, Casey and Stacy. The three of us sat in Stacy’s backyard until dusk where we solemnly agreed to meet at the top of Quail Lane come midnight, armed with sleeping bags and fruit roll-ups.
That evening as I trudged home I saw my parents waiting for me at the base of our driveway, both of them sitting on the tailgate of my dad’s truck, legs calmly swinging back and forth. Wanting to convey the true depth of my hatred I kept my mouth firmly shut until I was on eye-level with their swinging knees.
“You’re not thinking of running away, are you? Because we haven’t got any bug spray to give you and you know the chiggers are out full-force this year.”
To this day I have no idea how they both knew about our plan but I blame Stacy’s mom for foiling our adventure. She was always stingy with her fruit roll-ups. And if I’m really honest, my chin might have been a touch quivery. Seven-year-olds are never half as sneaky as they think they are. Especially quivery-chinned ones.
So my first attempt at running away was scrapped in lieu of eating some watermelon while sitting on my mother’s knee. I never asked but I’m assuming the phone lines ran hot between houses that evening, warning of an impending strike on the seven-year-old front. I can’t say as we were ever a big threat, though. I never could keep my eyes open past ten o’clock and Casey never once managed to make it through a sleepover without having to be walked home in the middle of the night. That left Stacy, and lord knows she’d never have walked up a dark street by herself. She demanded four night-lights, a closet light and a bathroom light be left on well into her early tweens.
Theoretically I should have learned from that episode that packing up isn’t always the best option. But many years later and my first instinct is still to pull out a suitcase and run for the car. Bored? Run away. Angry? Run away. Frustrated? Run away. Preferably to a sunny locale with palm trees.
So I sit here today, knowing I’ve got the vacation hours and a hella huge credit limit, not to mention the residual shakes from a barely-survived Spring Fever combined with the full-on itch of Summer Wanderlust. All of that along with the mental screaming I just had to do, locked tightly inside my office’s hunter green bathroom stalls, has led me to the following conclusion:
I need to get out.
I’d say ‘run away’ but running away now implies a permanence I can’t quite fathom, one involving a bank account with no bi-weekly direct deposits, much less a shortage of bug spray. Also, my cats can barely make it through one morning without fresh food in their bowl so imagine the inevitable throw-down when they realize that Mommy’s last ten dollars isn’t going towards some tasty niblets but some Diet Dr. Pepper and a giant Star Crunch. They may look sweet and cuddly but don’t think they won’t claw my face off if I come between them and some tuna-flavored Cat Chow.
Besides the fact that if I did, just once, succumb to this Run Away Now feeling I get, what good what it do me? I lived in an indisputably fabulous city and was miserable 95% of the time, with the last 5% spent in the Museum of Natural History, a place that at least took the edge off my selfish moroseness. It was quiet and cool and I never once felt the prickle of fluorescent lights on my skin. I learned the hard way that my locale means nothing if I’m not near people I love and who obviously love me just as much in return. It doesn’t matter if it’s one or twenty; the love, it needs to be in the air tonight. Because the thing is, there isn’t a single person in the entire world that I can look at and say “Remember that time in the park when those clowns were playing the bongos?” Because the clowns, THEY WERE PLAYING THE BONGOS. No one can contribute in a discussion involving the lobster bisque from SoHoMade Soups on Houston St. and the bisque made by that crazy guy from Seinfeld, the Soup Nazi. No one can agree with me that SoHoMade is way better, not to mention cheaper, and their sandwiches are pretty fab, too. Maybe it’s a romanticized viewpoint but I truly just like the idea of shared memories, of being able to say, when asked where I want to eat lunch, “That place we had those crab cakes two weeks ago.” My point being that I’m a giant puss-n-boots and I’m too scared to pack up and move somewhere, to a place where nobody knows your name and certainly isn’t glad you came.
So if running away isn’t an option, then a vacation has to be. And maybe that’s really the source of this run-away feeling. I need a vacation that doesn’t involve taking off work to sit in my apartment and lint-roll the curtains. I need a vacation that doesn’t involve me driving four hours away, holing up in a hotel and turning off my phone. I want to go frolic among some palm trees or skyscrapers or vineyards and be able, months later, to look at someone and say “Remember when?”
That evening as I trudged home I saw my parents waiting for me at the base of our driveway, both of them sitting on the tailgate of my dad’s truck, legs calmly swinging back and forth. Wanting to convey the true depth of my hatred I kept my mouth firmly shut until I was on eye-level with their swinging knees.
“You’re not thinking of running away, are you? Because we haven’t got any bug spray to give you and you know the chiggers are out full-force this year.”
To this day I have no idea how they both knew about our plan but I blame Stacy’s mom for foiling our adventure. She was always stingy with her fruit roll-ups. And if I’m really honest, my chin might have been a touch quivery. Seven-year-olds are never half as sneaky as they think they are. Especially quivery-chinned ones.
So my first attempt at running away was scrapped in lieu of eating some watermelon while sitting on my mother’s knee. I never asked but I’m assuming the phone lines ran hot between houses that evening, warning of an impending strike on the seven-year-old front. I can’t say as we were ever a big threat, though. I never could keep my eyes open past ten o’clock and Casey never once managed to make it through a sleepover without having to be walked home in the middle of the night. That left Stacy, and lord knows she’d never have walked up a dark street by herself. She demanded four night-lights, a closet light and a bathroom light be left on well into her early tweens.
Theoretically I should have learned from that episode that packing up isn’t always the best option. But many years later and my first instinct is still to pull out a suitcase and run for the car. Bored? Run away. Angry? Run away. Frustrated? Run away. Preferably to a sunny locale with palm trees.
So I sit here today, knowing I’ve got the vacation hours and a hella huge credit limit, not to mention the residual shakes from a barely-survived Spring Fever combined with the full-on itch of Summer Wanderlust. All of that along with the mental screaming I just had to do, locked tightly inside my office’s hunter green bathroom stalls, has led me to the following conclusion:
I need to get out.
I’d say ‘run away’ but running away now implies a permanence I can’t quite fathom, one involving a bank account with no bi-weekly direct deposits, much less a shortage of bug spray. Also, my cats can barely make it through one morning without fresh food in their bowl so imagine the inevitable throw-down when they realize that Mommy’s last ten dollars isn’t going towards some tasty niblets but some Diet Dr. Pepper and a giant Star Crunch. They may look sweet and cuddly but don’t think they won’t claw my face off if I come between them and some tuna-flavored Cat Chow.
Besides the fact that if I did, just once, succumb to this Run Away Now feeling I get, what good what it do me? I lived in an indisputably fabulous city and was miserable 95% of the time, with the last 5% spent in the Museum of Natural History, a place that at least took the edge off my selfish moroseness. It was quiet and cool and I never once felt the prickle of fluorescent lights on my skin. I learned the hard way that my locale means nothing if I’m not near people I love and who obviously love me just as much in return. It doesn’t matter if it’s one or twenty; the love, it needs to be in the air tonight. Because the thing is, there isn’t a single person in the entire world that I can look at and say “Remember that time in the park when those clowns were playing the bongos?” Because the clowns, THEY WERE PLAYING THE BONGOS. No one can contribute in a discussion involving the lobster bisque from SoHoMade Soups on Houston St. and the bisque made by that crazy guy from Seinfeld, the Soup Nazi. No one can agree with me that SoHoMade is way better, not to mention cheaper, and their sandwiches are pretty fab, too. Maybe it’s a romanticized viewpoint but I truly just like the idea of shared memories, of being able to say, when asked where I want to eat lunch, “That place we had those crab cakes two weeks ago.” My point being that I’m a giant puss-n-boots and I’m too scared to pack up and move somewhere, to a place where nobody knows your name and certainly isn’t glad you came.
So if running away isn’t an option, then a vacation has to be. And maybe that’s really the source of this run-away feeling. I need a vacation that doesn’t involve taking off work to sit in my apartment and lint-roll the curtains. I need a vacation that doesn’t involve me driving four hours away, holing up in a hotel and turning off my phone. I want to go frolic among some palm trees or skyscrapers or vineyards and be able, months later, to look at someone and say “Remember when?”
Friday, June 09, 2006
Vocational School Is Totally Worth It
Dear Mr. Air Conditioner Fixer Man:
Last Friday I noticed that for the previous several days I’d been repeatedly lowering the little lever on the air conditioner box in the hallway, the one that controls my selection of heat or cool, fan or auto. By the time I’d pushed it down to 62 degrees it dawned on me that perhaps the air conditioner was not doing its job of, you know, conditioning because I consider a setting of 62 a rather frigid temperature and the only thing frigid in that apartment were my eyeballs as I stared down the temperature gauge as it calmly displayed 84. In case you are wondering, I categorize 84 degrees as sweltering and there is nothing about breaking a sweat in your own apartment that makes you a pleasant person. Nothing.
I suffered through the weekend with the help of my one meager fan, purchased not for it’s cooling qualities but because it was a brushed nickel throw-back to days of yore. Translation: I bought it because it was cute and because I had intentions of always living in an air-conditioned environment, hence negating the actual usage of the fan for anything other than possible smoke dissipation after I’d set something else in the kitchen on fire.
On Monday I made an in-person visit to the office of my landlord where I firmly stated my position concerning the air conditioner: Fix It Now Or I Will Cut You. After last summer’s cooling debacle involving two weeks of laying on my bed in my underwear with the windows open, sweat dripping from my forehead and pooling beneath my back, promising any listening deity my eternal soul if they’d just send me a breeze, any breeze, I was so not about to play the nice card or even the polite card. I wanted it made clear that while I may be a Southern Lady, don’t think I won’t find somebody named Guido who’s willing to break your knees.
So when I came home that evening and saw the foyer light on I was giddy with excitement that someone had already been inside, fixing whatever it was that made my air conditioner unhappy. I unlocked the door and heard the sound of rushing air and I had a whole five seconds of happiness before I realized that the blowing air, it was hot. I walked into the hallway and looked at the wee little box and noticed it had a) been turned back on and b) been set to 55 degrees. I’m not sure what statement you were trying to make by leaving the apartment like that but let me assure you that I knew the air conditioner was off and that one must turn it to ‘on’ before expecting air to come out of those festively placed vents. Also, you left the toilet seat up and the bathroom light on. Not cool.
Tuesday rolled around and I placed a call to my landlord who indicated that the problem had been fixed. It was unfortunate for his sake that I had to correct him that it was, in fact, not fixed and that leaving the a/c on 55 does not guarantee a working system. He promised to send someone out that day but lo, I came home to a very dark and very hot house.
Then Wednesday, another phone call to the landlord and another evening of coming home to a very dark and very hot house.
Finally, yesterday, yet another phone call to the landlord with not-so vague references to property damage and his possible conversion to eunuch status. Apparently this is what got the ball(s) rolling because when I came home the air conditioner, it was working. Working so beautifully that the cats had curled themselves into a onsie in the corner of the couch, noses buried in each others necks rather than lying on their backs, bellies exposed, hoping the wood floor would provide some measure of coolness.
And even though you managed to blow the grid for an entire six-block radius while replacing my compressor, I don’t judge. You have provided me with Air Conditioned Splendor and for that, you are my new BFF. My only request is that you remember to put the seat down when you visit because otherwise, I will have to remove your pinkie toe with pruning shears. Rusty ones.
Group hug with respect knuckles at the end,
Robin
Last Friday I noticed that for the previous several days I’d been repeatedly lowering the little lever on the air conditioner box in the hallway, the one that controls my selection of heat or cool, fan or auto. By the time I’d pushed it down to 62 degrees it dawned on me that perhaps the air conditioner was not doing its job of, you know, conditioning because I consider a setting of 62 a rather frigid temperature and the only thing frigid in that apartment were my eyeballs as I stared down the temperature gauge as it calmly displayed 84. In case you are wondering, I categorize 84 degrees as sweltering and there is nothing about breaking a sweat in your own apartment that makes you a pleasant person. Nothing.
I suffered through the weekend with the help of my one meager fan, purchased not for it’s cooling qualities but because it was a brushed nickel throw-back to days of yore. Translation: I bought it because it was cute and because I had intentions of always living in an air-conditioned environment, hence negating the actual usage of the fan for anything other than possible smoke dissipation after I’d set something else in the kitchen on fire.
On Monday I made an in-person visit to the office of my landlord where I firmly stated my position concerning the air conditioner: Fix It Now Or I Will Cut You. After last summer’s cooling debacle involving two weeks of laying on my bed in my underwear with the windows open, sweat dripping from my forehead and pooling beneath my back, promising any listening deity my eternal soul if they’d just send me a breeze, any breeze, I was so not about to play the nice card or even the polite card. I wanted it made clear that while I may be a Southern Lady, don’t think I won’t find somebody named Guido who’s willing to break your knees.
So when I came home that evening and saw the foyer light on I was giddy with excitement that someone had already been inside, fixing whatever it was that made my air conditioner unhappy. I unlocked the door and heard the sound of rushing air and I had a whole five seconds of happiness before I realized that the blowing air, it was hot. I walked into the hallway and looked at the wee little box and noticed it had a) been turned back on and b) been set to 55 degrees. I’m not sure what statement you were trying to make by leaving the apartment like that but let me assure you that I knew the air conditioner was off and that one must turn it to ‘on’ before expecting air to come out of those festively placed vents. Also, you left the toilet seat up and the bathroom light on. Not cool.
Tuesday rolled around and I placed a call to my landlord who indicated that the problem had been fixed. It was unfortunate for his sake that I had to correct him that it was, in fact, not fixed and that leaving the a/c on 55 does not guarantee a working system. He promised to send someone out that day but lo, I came home to a very dark and very hot house.
Then Wednesday, another phone call to the landlord and another evening of coming home to a very dark and very hot house.
Finally, yesterday, yet another phone call to the landlord with not-so vague references to property damage and his possible conversion to eunuch status. Apparently this is what got the ball(s) rolling because when I came home the air conditioner, it was working. Working so beautifully that the cats had curled themselves into a onsie in the corner of the couch, noses buried in each others necks rather than lying on their backs, bellies exposed, hoping the wood floor would provide some measure of coolness.
And even though you managed to blow the grid for an entire six-block radius while replacing my compressor, I don’t judge. You have provided me with Air Conditioned Splendor and for that, you are my new BFF. My only request is that you remember to put the seat down when you visit because otherwise, I will have to remove your pinkie toe with pruning shears. Rusty ones.
Group hug with respect knuckles at the end,
Robin
Thursday, June 08, 2006
I Feel Like I Should Send Elton John A Condolence Card Because I'm Definitely Not Feeling The Love Tonight
Yesterday evening as I was walking into the nursery, mentally preparing myself for an evening of guaranteed insanity with a whole herd of children under the age of six, I felt my phone vibrate in my purse. By the time I finally succeeded in locating the damn thing from those murky depths I had managed to miss the call, which totally just succeeded in pissing me off as I’m attempting to train myself to always pick up the phone and not choose to just let it ring because what if it’s that British guy from the Transporter calling to tell me he’s desperately in love with me and will I run away to Fiji with him? Seriously, I would stab MYSELF in the eye if I missed that call.
When I looked at the missed call list I noticed that it was an international number. There is only one person in the whole entire world who’s ever called my cell phone, my only phone, from an international number and after doing a mental calculation I figured out it would be roughly 3am his time, not a time usually associated with phone chats. But the displayed number looked roughly the same, meaning that it was an unintelligible string of numbers with a bunch of dashes thrown in just for shits and giggles, so I shrugged my shoulders and sent him an email expressing my deepest deepest sorrow at missing his call. Because if someone makes the effort to call me from another country I might as well be nice enough to pick up the phone, no?
About that time I got a beep on the cell indicating a voicemail had been left. Much like the on-going training of Teaching Robin To Pick Up The Phone, I’ve been undergoing therapy for Letting Voicemails Pile Up Until The Phone Explodes Disease. Part of my rehabilitation program is to immediately check my voicemail no matter how much I’d rather bypass the annoying little reminders and beeps and vibrations.
The voicemail connects and I’m listening to the message, fully expecting to hear one very distinct voice on the other line and then totally confused when that voice isn’t there and I’m listening to a random conglomeration of vaguely Arabic-sounding individuals, all speaking at once and making not one lick of sense. Because we were lucky to get a French teacher in
At this point I’m starting to doubt my original suspected caller identity and I’m getting kind of freaked out. Because who really wants random international calls coming to their phone? Exactly.
Thirty minutes go by and I’m still obsessing over this call. I need a hobby, I know. But about this time the phone vibrates again and it’s the same number, the random international one, so I answer it, still half-way listening for the Expected Voice, the one that speaks Yankee with a Twist-o-Cali. But instead I get this:
Mufasninliueoashgiuwer?
Er, no. This is Robin.
Thees ees Mufasninliueoashgiuwer?
Er, no. Still Robin.
I speeeak weeth Mufasninliueoashgiuwer?
Er, no. You speak with Robin.
Yeeww speeeak weeth Mufasninliueoashgiuwer?
Not lately.
Yeeww not Mufasninliueoashgiuwer?
Um, who is this?
She ees meye Umehrican guhlfreend.
Definitely not me, but you have a good night.
Not guhlfreend?
Dude, seriously. I’m not your American girlfriend. And neither is Mufasninliueoashgiuwer if she gave you this number.
I speeeak weeth Mufasninliueoashgiuwer?
*click
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Kiss Kiss, Hug Hug
Last night I took my friend Amanda to the emergency room because Sam the Cyst had become a very unpleasant house guest. This is the same Amanda who was walking beside me when my foot attacked the pavement last week and who would have caught me on the way down if she hadn’t thought I was having a graceful and balletic spaz attack. So I figure I owe her one. Plus she totally reassured me that no one saw, even though it was obvious that everyone in a forty mile radius witnessed me make out with some concrete.
Sam the Cyst isn’t really a cyst though, he’s a staph infection. A really really nasty dirty staph infection caused by rubbing human waste over open sores which should just serve as a reminder to the rest of you out there that rubbing poo on yourself is never cool. Never. (Disclaimer: I am, of course, kidding. About the poo part, not the staph part)
By nine o’clock last night Amanda was whimpering on the other end of the phone and making not-so vague references to cutting the whole swollen (and growing) mass out with a dirty fork. I don’t condone using dirty forks for anything other than stabbing really annoying people in the eye so I told her I’d be there in fifteen and to have pants on when I got there.
Thirty minutes later and we’re sitting in the emergency room surrounded by people with pink bathrobes, bloody noses, mullets and one very large KFC bucket. I am assuming the KFC bucket was for the occasional vomiter but I could be wrong. Maybe someone just got fucking hungry. I don’t judge.
Before I go any further I have to tell you that I’ve never had a pleasant ER experience. Last year I took my brother to the emergency room three nights in a row because he was just dying from a vicious undiagnosed case of mono. In one night alone we spent six hours staring at hospital walls and smelling really super hospital smells. Four of those were spent in the waiting room. My own personal experience involved being shoved into the back seat of my vehicle after four days of continuous vomiting. I don't remember much about the drive but I do remember passing out in the waiting room after hitting hour number two with a waiting room chock full of three other people. Obviously I'd caught the staff of Conway Regional on their dinner break.
So it wasn't with much hope that I walked into the hospital last night, though I did walk in with four books because I'll be damned if I have to read one more issue of 'Parenting.' Amanda signed in and we took seats far away from the other freaks which gave us a good four inches of breathing room. I'm a little scared to google this but I think that's farther than even the track-n-field lice can jump so here's hoping we both left the hospital lice-free
Not ten minutes later we were called to the front to fill out some paperwork and already I was kind of annoyed because I'd just gotten comfortable and getting up meant that it was entirely possible we'd lose our prime seat real estate. We sat down while the very pale man who actually kind of glowed under the fluorescent lights took Amanda's blood pressure, pulse and temperature. She gave a brief explanation of her symptoms and I was quite proud of her for being so coherent while wanting to stab herself with a dirty fork. The pale one listened intently until Amanda was finished and then without a single exchange of dialogue, picked up the phone to his right and spoke in quiet, clipped sentences.
"I have a 28-year-old female. Two degree fever. Surface abdominal infection. Patient says has grown substantially since afternoon. Changing colors."
He hangs up the phone, grabs a bright green laminated sheet from behind him and slides it across the desk.
"Go give your insurance information to Myrna over there. We're going to go ahead and get you on in."
Amanda and I exchange brief looks, terrified of fucking with our good luck. It was then that we looked at the green sheet that was apparently our ticket behind the waiting room door. In bright pink letters:
FAST TRACK
We give the insurance card to Myrna and get quickly ushered through the door. We're led past the curtained-off rooms, past the security guard, past the nurses station and finally into a large corner room with an actual door, a big heavy door with a small window with wired, unbreakable glass. Less than thirty seconds later two nurses walk in and lift Amanda's shirt for a quick inspection. I won't give you a description of what Sam the Cyst looks like, I'll just tell you that both nurses did simultaneous OOOOOHHH-hisssss noises and reached for the latex gloves. A bit of poking and they were out the door looking for the doctor.
Three minutes later the doctor walks in and goes immediately for the gloves. She does more poking and prodding at Amanda's stomach and gives us the following stunning news:
"Yep. That's infected."
I can't tell you how much it took for me to shut my lips to the fifty or so responses I had for that phrase but I think I was just too damn grateful that my total estimated emergency room visit was just pushing thirty minutes and we were already conversing with an actual medical school graduate.
Five minutes later and Amanda has her clothes back on and we're pulling out of the parking lot with two prescriptions and a printout on staphalamacaphaussamdma-something-or-other. By the time we pull into Walgreens I've calculated that only forty minutes of my life were spent in that ER and I kind of want to send them some flowers, maybe even a thank-you note. Hell, I'd make out with all of them just to show my utter gratitude and appreciation. Because I've never even heard of best-case scenarios where people get out of the emergency room that quick. People get all impressed and shit if they get out of the waiting room before an hour passes, much less getting a bed, a doctor AND a prescription in that time frame.
So I've decided that I'm taking Amanda with me on all hospital visits because while we always get shitty service at restaurants and end up coming back from lunch 20 minutes late because the waiter at Jasmines forgot to bring me half of my lunch and then acts all surprised and shit when I ask him for the sixth time to put my spicy tuna roll in a box, like to-go, like now- rest assured that should I trip over my cats and need some sort of medical attention I AM TAKING HER WITH ME.
Her luck only runs with hospitals though because we spent two hours in Walgreens waiting on prescriptions. To recap: Take Amanda on hospital trips, not to restaurants or drug stores.
Sam the Cyst isn’t really a cyst though, he’s a staph infection. A really really nasty dirty staph infection caused by rubbing human waste over open sores which should just serve as a reminder to the rest of you out there that rubbing poo on yourself is never cool. Never. (Disclaimer: I am, of course, kidding. About the poo part, not the staph part)
By nine o’clock last night Amanda was whimpering on the other end of the phone and making not-so vague references to cutting the whole swollen (and growing) mass out with a dirty fork. I don’t condone using dirty forks for anything other than stabbing really annoying people in the eye so I told her I’d be there in fifteen and to have pants on when I got there.
Thirty minutes later and we’re sitting in the emergency room surrounded by people with pink bathrobes, bloody noses, mullets and one very large KFC bucket. I am assuming the KFC bucket was for the occasional vomiter but I could be wrong. Maybe someone just got fucking hungry. I don’t judge.
Before I go any further I have to tell you that I’ve never had a pleasant ER experience. Last year I took my brother to the emergency room three nights in a row because he was just dying from a vicious undiagnosed case of mono. In one night alone we spent six hours staring at hospital walls and smelling really super hospital smells. Four of those were spent in the waiting room. My own personal experience involved being shoved into the back seat of my vehicle after four days of continuous vomiting. I don't remember much about the drive but I do remember passing out in the waiting room after hitting hour number two with a waiting room chock full of three other people. Obviously I'd caught the staff of Conway Regional on their dinner break.
So it wasn't with much hope that I walked into the hospital last night, though I did walk in with four books because I'll be damned if I have to read one more issue of 'Parenting.' Amanda signed in and we took seats far away from the other freaks which gave us a good four inches of breathing room. I'm a little scared to google this but I think that's farther than even the track-n-field lice can jump so here's hoping we both left the hospital lice-free
Not ten minutes later we were called to the front to fill out some paperwork and already I was kind of annoyed because I'd just gotten comfortable and getting up meant that it was entirely possible we'd lose our prime seat real estate. We sat down while the very pale man who actually kind of glowed under the fluorescent lights took Amanda's blood pressure, pulse and temperature. She gave a brief explanation of her symptoms and I was quite proud of her for being so coherent while wanting to stab herself with a dirty fork. The pale one listened intently until Amanda was finished and then without a single exchange of dialogue, picked up the phone to his right and spoke in quiet, clipped sentences.
"I have a 28-year-old female. Two degree fever. Surface abdominal infection. Patient says has grown substantially since afternoon. Changing colors."
He hangs up the phone, grabs a bright green laminated sheet from behind him and slides it across the desk.
"Go give your insurance information to Myrna over there. We're going to go ahead and get you on in."
Amanda and I exchange brief looks, terrified of fucking with our good luck. It was then that we looked at the green sheet that was apparently our ticket behind the waiting room door. In bright pink letters:
FAST TRACK
We give the insurance card to Myrna and get quickly ushered through the door. We're led past the curtained-off rooms, past the security guard, past the nurses station and finally into a large corner room with an actual door, a big heavy door with a small window with wired, unbreakable glass. Less than thirty seconds later two nurses walk in and lift Amanda's shirt for a quick inspection. I won't give you a description of what Sam the Cyst looks like, I'll just tell you that both nurses did simultaneous OOOOOHHH-hisssss noises and reached for the latex gloves. A bit of poking and they were out the door looking for the doctor.
Three minutes later the doctor walks in and goes immediately for the gloves. She does more poking and prodding at Amanda's stomach and gives us the following stunning news:
"Yep. That's infected."
I can't tell you how much it took for me to shut my lips to the fifty or so responses I had for that phrase but I think I was just too damn grateful that my total estimated emergency room visit was just pushing thirty minutes and we were already conversing with an actual medical school graduate.
Five minutes later and Amanda has her clothes back on and we're pulling out of the parking lot with two prescriptions and a printout on staphalamacaphaussamdma-something-or-other. By the time we pull into Walgreens I've calculated that only forty minutes of my life were spent in that ER and I kind of want to send them some flowers, maybe even a thank-you note. Hell, I'd make out with all of them just to show my utter gratitude and appreciation. Because I've never even heard of best-case scenarios where people get out of the emergency room that quick. People get all impressed and shit if they get out of the waiting room before an hour passes, much less getting a bed, a doctor AND a prescription in that time frame.
So I've decided that I'm taking Amanda with me on all hospital visits because while we always get shitty service at restaurants and end up coming back from lunch 20 minutes late because the waiter at Jasmines forgot to bring me half of my lunch and then acts all surprised and shit when I ask him for the sixth time to put my spicy tuna roll in a box, like to-go, like now- rest assured that should I trip over my cats and need some sort of medical attention I AM TAKING HER WITH ME.
Her luck only runs with hospitals though because we spent two hours in Walgreens waiting on prescriptions. To recap: Take Amanda on hospital trips, not to restaurants or drug stores.
Monday, June 05, 2006
My Gift Horse, It Didn't Bite
After I woke up from my nap Saturday afternoon I decided to hit the grocery but not before feeling just a smidge guilty that I had, you know, just woken up from a nap. On a Saturday afternoon. When I was theoretically supposed to be washing dishes and scooping cat poop at the animal shelter for my speeding sins. But when the alarm went off at seven that morning my natural inclination to procrastinate took over before I could even cough up the last bit of infected green goo from my sinuses. And if you’ve ever tried to argue with yourself before 10am or more specifically, me, before 10am then you know it’s a losing battle. So instead of finding an appropriate Community Service outfit that portrayed my willingness to work while still showcasing my innate Better Than You status (You being the other community service workers) I putzed about the house, went to the bakery for an avocado egg sandwich with extra sprouts and then felt the inexorable pull of my fresh clean sheets around 2pm. And though I had weird dreams about skinny African children, old professors and even a sentient orange I fully support myself and my lascivious nap-taking.
Once I’d cleared my mouth of the nap-fungus I slipped my feet into my ratty black flip flops and grabbed the car keys because nothing was more important than buying some Diet Dr. Pepper. And maybe a sammich. Not even my pure unadulterated hatred for Wal-Mart could keep me away from my goal of a roast beef sandwich and caffeine.
As I was drove into the parking lot, however, I was reminded of why even the sight of that blue and white sign makes my insides clench in panic. I have this irrational fear of being arrested in Wal-Mart. Not for stealing anything because stealing has never really been anything that interested me but for throwing super-size cans of corn at people’s heads when they insist on walking three abreast down the cereal aisle or when the can’t keep their snot-nosed heathens in a single file line.
So I’m driving down one of the parking aisles when two young gentlemen feel the need to walk straight in front of my car. I patiently wait from them to move to one side or the other but instead, INSTEAD, they just continue ambling down the middle of the lot like they’ve got every business holding up me and the four cars idling behind me. So I creep forward, making sure they hear the sound of an approaching engine in hopes it will get them to move their ridiculously obese asses over. And when I say obese I mean that when the fat rolls on the back of your head roll up and over the back of your visor it may be time to put down the bacon sandwich and pick up a celery stick. Like now. And hopefully on the far side of the parking lot so I can fucking pass you.
Eventually I was able to park but not before shooting eye-obscenities in their general direction. On my way inside I picked up a buggy and began my usual marathon shopping trip. I do not compare deals or hem and fucking haw over which brand of bread to buy. I need wheat bread, there’s a stack of wheat bread, in the buggy you go! I need pepper jack cheese, there’s some pepper jack cheese, in the buggy you go! Very easy.
Once all my grocery items had been obtained I rolled up to the self-checkout lane. Now, I recognize that this lane actually takes just a wee bit longer than the regular lane because I don’t have years of experience quickly scanning yogurts and cat food and loaves of bread. But the few extra seconds it takes is well worth it in my book because it means less overall human contact and a much lower chance of me having to waste time wondering if someone actually named their child ‘Bubba Boo’ or if this is just a prime example of what a dank gene pool has done to the human race.
But Saturday my attempts at a quick exit were totally foiled by the broke-ass flat screen thing that insists on beeping and talking to you at the strangest of moments. By the time I had swiped my debit card the screen had turned into a veritable Picasso of flat-screened-ness, leaving the slow-as-Christmas cashier lady at a total loss. She just kept pushing at the random spots on the screen, thinking that was somehow her wicked long fingernails and their tap-tap-tapping on the screen were going to cow the thing into submission.
Right before she walked off to seek further help, the machine randomly spit out a receipt. I was a little confused because I thought the Crazy Cashier Lady with the Wicked Long Nails had canceled my debit card transaction due to its five minute status in a flashing beeping holding pattern. But the lady said I was done so I shoved the receipt in one of the bags and carried the groceries out to the car, driving home in air conditioned splendor, marveling at a song on the radio comparing what I can only assume is female genitalia to peanut butter and jelly. Something along the lines of ‘inside peanut buttah, outside jelly…seben days of da week, something something chevy.’ I’m not really sure how this song got on the radio but someone should tell this gentlemen that if his woman has a yoo-hoo with the consistency of crunchy peanut butter, he might want to get himself checked for The Herp. Just saying.
Back at the house I unloaded the groceries and immediately made myself a roast beef sandwich with pepper jack cheese which was utterly and yummily delicious, everything I’d hoped it could be. But while I was eating I noticed the receipt I’d left on the kitchen table. It only had a total of seven items for a grand total of fifteen dollars. I had at least 30 items, what with my week’s supply of yogurt, and a total of sixty dollars.
And then I got to work today and checked my bank statement. And you know what?
I TOTALLY GOT SIXTY DOLLARS WORTH OF GROCERIES FOR FREE.
Thank you Crazy Cashier Lady with the Wicked Long Nails for canceling my transaction!
I can now eat sushi three extra times this week!
Bless you!
Once I’d cleared my mouth of the nap-fungus I slipped my feet into my ratty black flip flops and grabbed the car keys because nothing was more important than buying some Diet Dr. Pepper. And maybe a sammich. Not even my pure unadulterated hatred for Wal-Mart could keep me away from my goal of a roast beef sandwich and caffeine.
As I was drove into the parking lot, however, I was reminded of why even the sight of that blue and white sign makes my insides clench in panic. I have this irrational fear of being arrested in Wal-Mart. Not for stealing anything because stealing has never really been anything that interested me but for throwing super-size cans of corn at people’s heads when they insist on walking three abreast down the cereal aisle or when the can’t keep their snot-nosed heathens in a single file line.
So I’m driving down one of the parking aisles when two young gentlemen feel the need to walk straight in front of my car. I patiently wait from them to move to one side or the other but instead, INSTEAD, they just continue ambling down the middle of the lot like they’ve got every business holding up me and the four cars idling behind me. So I creep forward, making sure they hear the sound of an approaching engine in hopes it will get them to move their ridiculously obese asses over. And when I say obese I mean that when the fat rolls on the back of your head roll up and over the back of your visor it may be time to put down the bacon sandwich and pick up a celery stick. Like now. And hopefully on the far side of the parking lot so I can fucking pass you.
Eventually I was able to park but not before shooting eye-obscenities in their general direction. On my way inside I picked up a buggy and began my usual marathon shopping trip. I do not compare deals or hem and fucking haw over which brand of bread to buy. I need wheat bread, there’s a stack of wheat bread, in the buggy you go! I need pepper jack cheese, there’s some pepper jack cheese, in the buggy you go! Very easy.
Once all my grocery items had been obtained I rolled up to the self-checkout lane. Now, I recognize that this lane actually takes just a wee bit longer than the regular lane because I don’t have years of experience quickly scanning yogurts and cat food and loaves of bread. But the few extra seconds it takes is well worth it in my book because it means less overall human contact and a much lower chance of me having to waste time wondering if someone actually named their child ‘Bubba Boo’ or if this is just a prime example of what a dank gene pool has done to the human race.
But Saturday my attempts at a quick exit were totally foiled by the broke-ass flat screen thing that insists on beeping and talking to you at the strangest of moments. By the time I had swiped my debit card the screen had turned into a veritable Picasso of flat-screened-ness, leaving the slow-as-Christmas cashier lady at a total loss. She just kept pushing at the random spots on the screen, thinking that was somehow her wicked long fingernails and their tap-tap-tapping on the screen were going to cow the thing into submission.
Right before she walked off to seek further help, the machine randomly spit out a receipt. I was a little confused because I thought the Crazy Cashier Lady with the Wicked Long Nails had canceled my debit card transaction due to its five minute status in a flashing beeping holding pattern. But the lady said I was done so I shoved the receipt in one of the bags and carried the groceries out to the car, driving home in air conditioned splendor, marveling at a song on the radio comparing what I can only assume is female genitalia to peanut butter and jelly. Something along the lines of ‘inside peanut buttah, outside jelly…seben days of da week, something something chevy.’ I’m not really sure how this song got on the radio but someone should tell this gentlemen that if his woman has a yoo-hoo with the consistency of crunchy peanut butter, he might want to get himself checked for The Herp. Just saying.
Back at the house I unloaded the groceries and immediately made myself a roast beef sandwich with pepper jack cheese which was utterly and yummily delicious, everything I’d hoped it could be. But while I was eating I noticed the receipt I’d left on the kitchen table. It only had a total of seven items for a grand total of fifteen dollars. I had at least 30 items, what with my week’s supply of yogurt, and a total of sixty dollars.
And then I got to work today and checked my bank statement. And you know what?
I TOTALLY GOT SIXTY DOLLARS WORTH OF GROCERIES FOR FREE.
Thank you Crazy Cashier Lady with the Wicked Long Nails for canceling my transaction!
I can now eat sushi three extra times this week!
Bless you!
Friday, June 02, 2006
The Dingo Stole My Baby
This past week I’ve been fighting off my 17th sinus infection since the Sick Season started way back in October. But what I’ve decided is that people who make the calendar adjustments for Sick Season are full of shit because I realized yesterday, after emptying the architectural masterpiece that was my trashcan-o-snotrags, that They never actually tell you when Sick Season is over. I mean, they run corny news stories about taking vitamins and drinking water and washing your hands to prevent the Sickness but there’s never any mention of an estimated departure date for the Season.
So upon review I’ve decided that the Sick Season is much like Valentines Day. We all know that Hallmark created Valentines Day to sell more cheesy cards and artery clogging chocolate even though we are theoretically supposed to celebrate our significant others and loved ones throughout the entire year. But they’ve got us suckered into buying all of this aforementioned crap because they have really good marketing strategists and hello, someone is going to buy me some chocolate. And maybe even a cookie. You cannot go wrong with this scenario. The Sick Season, however, has no cookies or chocolates or even flowers that die within the week. What they have are twelve dollar boxes of Sudafed and long lines at the pharmacy where you have to prove that you’re not going home to cook meth by showing the window worker your full set of non-meth-damaged teeth and signing a technologically advanced slip of paper. All of this leads me to my final conclusion that the Sick Season was created by a bunch of sadistic pharmaceutical reps who needed to bump their monthly numbers and started spreading these nasty lies about a ‘Season’ and ‘being prepared’ when really we should just be prepared for angry germies to attack our sinus cavities at any given moment. I’m really not so sure now how this relates to Valentines Day but I’m just going to blame my incoherency on the prescription-strength pills that came in a really pretty orange container. Pretty because it had the words ‘codeine’ and ‘Robin’ within bare centimeters of each other.
Speaking of blaming things on drugs, I’m going to go ahead and incite that clause for this morning’s Bust Ass in the parking lot. I’m told it was a very graceful Bust Ass, one where I gently swept my arms above my head in slow motion as my foot attacked the perfectly flat asphalt, turning at an impossible angle before I landed on my hands, one knee, an ankle and a hip. I’m going to let you picture how all those body parts ended up touching the ground at the same time and then I’m going to tell you how I’ve never lost a Twister game yet. Unfortunately this was not a Twister game or even a test of my wicked bendy skills. It was a rough parking lot with a whole crew of landscapers staring at my strangely contorted ass and my friend Amanda beside me, attempting not to laugh and asking in an increasingly horrified voice if I was okay.
So upon review I’ve decided that the Sick Season is much like Valentines Day. We all know that Hallmark created Valentines Day to sell more cheesy cards and artery clogging chocolate even though we are theoretically supposed to celebrate our significant others and loved ones throughout the entire year. But they’ve got us suckered into buying all of this aforementioned crap because they have really good marketing strategists and hello, someone is going to buy me some chocolate. And maybe even a cookie. You cannot go wrong with this scenario. The Sick Season, however, has no cookies or chocolates or even flowers that die within the week. What they have are twelve dollar boxes of Sudafed and long lines at the pharmacy where you have to prove that you’re not going home to cook meth by showing the window worker your full set of non-meth-damaged teeth and signing a technologically advanced slip of paper. All of this leads me to my final conclusion that the Sick Season was created by a bunch of sadistic pharmaceutical reps who needed to bump their monthly numbers and started spreading these nasty lies about a ‘Season’ and ‘being prepared’ when really we should just be prepared for angry germies to attack our sinus cavities at any given moment. I’m really not so sure now how this relates to Valentines Day but I’m just going to blame my incoherency on the prescription-strength pills that came in a really pretty orange container. Pretty because it had the words ‘codeine’ and ‘Robin’ within bare centimeters of each other.
Speaking of blaming things on drugs, I’m going to go ahead and incite that clause for this morning’s Bust Ass in the parking lot. I’m told it was a very graceful Bust Ass, one where I gently swept my arms above my head in slow motion as my foot attacked the perfectly flat asphalt, turning at an impossible angle before I landed on my hands, one knee, an ankle and a hip. I’m going to let you picture how all those body parts ended up touching the ground at the same time and then I’m going to tell you how I’ve never lost a Twister game yet. Unfortunately this was not a Twister game or even a test of my wicked bendy skills. It was a rough parking lot with a whole crew of landscapers staring at my strangely contorted ass and my friend Amanda beside me, attempting not to laugh and asking in an increasingly horrified voice if I was okay.
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