BRILLIANT!

The other night I was laying in bed with my container of ice cream watching the First 48 (Raspberry chocolate chunk goes best with homicides) and there was the most brilliant commercial in the world!  Usually I fast forward through commercials, but after catching this one, I may actually start watching live tv again, because I would have so totally missed this most brilliant and absolutely commercial for Tresemme Fresh Start!!!!!

Oh yeah, the dry shampoo for those times when you wake up really late and don't have time for a shower and need to get to work fast and not reek from dog ass (because I know I'm not the only one that has a Siberian Husky that insists on sleeping with his head on your nightstand with his butt rubbing in your hair all night... nope, I'm sure everyone has that issue)

I mean, this product is pure genius!  It claims not only to get rid of the funk smell of dirty hair, but also make it look JUST LIKE you got up, washed it and styled it!  Seriously, I may not ever bathe again!  Why should I?  Some baby wipes and this stuff, who needs to ever step in a shower again?

Er, then I looked at the price.  A bit steep for laziness sake.  Hmmm, it would be convenient if it did what it said.  I could save so much time and energy with this stuff.  Then I remembered seeing something like it at the pet store when Sam had his surgery.  We couldn't bathe him if he messed on himself, but they had this really cool waterless shampoo stuff like this:

Look, its even "Pet Head" so its made by the same people that do that "Bed Head" stuff for humans!  It even smells like (seriously) BLUEBERRY MUFFINS!!!  Well, that was the clincher for me.  Not only would I never have to bathe again, but my hair would be all stylish, clean, and smell like blueberry muffins.

Since I had to buy tooth cookies for the dogs, I cruised through the dog shampoo section and nabbed a bottle of it.  I have no idea why I was trying to be all sneaky about it.  Its not like I had a sign on my forehead that said "I'm actually going to use this on myself and not my dogs".  Its not like anyone would know.  I mean I was also buying dog cookies, but then I figured that if someone where to buy this for their own use, wouldn't they also buy dog cookies to further the lie?  Of course they would, so I also bought a 40 lb bag of dog food because nobody in their right mind would buy a 40lb bag of dog food just so they would look convincing about buying waterless shampoo stuff for their own hair.  Then again, someone with three dogs buying half the store just so she wouldn't look suspiciously like she was planning to use waterless dog shampoo probably isn't in their right mind either, but hey, I still can't get Xanax, therefore I'm totally normal... right?  Plus, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be the first one to try a dog product on themself... shut up!  Besides, I'm pretty sure the entire store staff would be on to me when I walked in next time reeking of blueberry muffin.

So, I'm here to say that the waterless dog shampoo is JUST as good as the human version, and a lot cheaper in the long run.  I do have to say that it totally brings out a new sheen to my hair as well.

Extreme Napping: The Handbook

It has come to my attention (and lack of google results) that there doesn't seem to be a handbook on Extreme Napping.

Quickly growing into one of the biggest sports out there, Extreme Nappers all over the U.S. are practicing and hope to travel to London to participate in the 2012 Olympics if their sport is considered for inclusion.  Lobbyists feel that the Extreme Napping event would best be a winter sport, and held in conjunction with Curling, as most viewers of a sport that includes a broom and big stone thing are familiar with napping.

Not for the amateur, Extreme Napping takes years of conditioning, preparation, and plenty of free time, something a lot of Americans have in this troubled economy, therefore coaches feel that the U.S. will most probably win all three medals, although Greece is said to have a very strong team as well.

Extreme Napping isn't just napping.  It takes practice, skill, and a lot of preparation in order to perform it well, and avoid injury. 

Stretching

Participants need to make sure that their limbs are limber to avoid injury and interruption of napping. By staying limber, you will be able to assume the sleep position for long periods of time, and keep your muscles from atrophy or cramping, which is a big issue with Extreme Napping.  One of the disqualifiers in competition is getting out of bed, so its vital to ensure that muscles are stretched when: shifting positions, turning over, and plumping the pillow.  Extra points are given during competition for fluid movements from one position to the next, so transitional stretching must be natural and lead to the next nap position.

Cramping

 As mentioned earlier, getting out of bed means points are taken off your score, and you may also be disqualified, especially if getting out of bed is for anything other than going to the bathroom.  Some hard core nappers even use depends to allow for more bed time and extra points.  If a cramp occurs, make sure you take care of it in the bed, and not by leaping out of bed and standing on the offending foot or massaging the calf.  Water intake needs to be carefully monitored, as it is essential for avoiding cramps, but too many bathroom runs will mean demerits on your point score.

Free Style

 Unlike Professional Cat Napping, another potential Olympic sport, Extreme Napping does include a Free Style sub-category, but instead of lolling off and getting a 15 minute nap, the Extreme Napper will spend hours in the contorted position.  Drool amounts are much more advanced, and there is no head bobbing while nodding off.  The Extreme Napper will assume their position and fall asleep without lolling, jerking, or bobbing, which is a common point earner for Cat Napping.  Cat Nappers are known to suffer from more injuries for their sport, to include; broken noses, imprints of keyboards on their foreheads, and broken arms from falling out of chairs.

Another difference between Cat Napping, and Extreme Napping is the amount of time: Cat Napping is considered a "sprint" while Extreme Napping is a "marathon"  Typical Cat Nappers are unable to go back to sleep after their session, whereas Extreme Nappers can drink a cup of coffee during one of their waking periods, and then go right back to sleep.  People who suffer from narcolepsy are typically disqualified in professional Cat Napping competitions because they have an unfair advantage.

Regardless of what sport you train for, remember: stretching, water intake, and cramp preparedness will help you train for that professional career in napping.

This Old Foreclosed House - Tree Edition

In this episode, we'll show you the wonderful front yard of this lovely little "fixer upper" next to us.  While the back yard now has a quaint little tarp covered dance floor over the partially mud filled mosquito lair, it also sports this lovely maple tree invading the back porch.  In the front yard, bordering our house, there's a MUCH larger maple tree that seemed pretty sturdy throughout its life, except for a time or two where it would deposit a big branch into the neighboring yard.  Our neighbors, being inventive people, would drag the huge branch into our yard... like we wouldn't notice, and expected us to take care of it.  Um, its your tree.  Initially I just dealt with it, but toward the end of our neighborly relationship, the branch would miraculously appear in their driveway when they came home from work (or wherever they went during the day).




So, it came as some surprise during a storm when I happened to hear a really loud noise coming from out front.  It wasn't THAT bad of a storm, but apparently there were some pretty strong wind gusts, and...  tree in their yard... and blocking the entire street.  GREAT!  Of course, in a normal situation the owners of said tree would do something about it, but as there are no owners of said tree, that left me to call the county street department and report it.  A few hours later, when there was no sign of the county street department, and I would have to lay in bed and listen to people run into the tree, my neighbors and I revved up the chainsaws and hacked off the parts sticking in the street and dragged the remains into the foreclosed home's yard.

Pretty, ain't it?  That's after a few days, of course, but still impressive.  The next day I called the bank and told them they had a lovely surprise on the front lawn of their house, and by the way, the tree took out some of my property too.  To their credit, they were out the next day... to take pictures of it, then they left.  Helpful.

It took a full month for someone to do something about it.  I expected a decent tree service would come out and get rid of the tree properly, fix the fence it uprooted and my property damage while they were at it.  You know, a bunch of workers that knew about trees and could get the root of the tree out without damaging the fiber optic cable that's buried RIGHT UNDER the tree.  So here is what they did initially:
Yep, they cleared a tiny little spot in the front yard to plop down a "for sale" sign.  WOW!  Its amazing just how well that sign hid all of the branches.  You can barely notice them, and what person in their right mind would pass up a house with a freakin dead tree in the front yard?

You'll note that I blocked out the phone numbers and name of the realtor because I know my audience... they'll be dialing the phone and listening to the handy recording, but one thing that I didn't realize when I was listening to how much they were trying to sell this craptastic house (thus making our house barely tread water) is that they KNOW what phone you called from, and like me, you will get a realtor calling you back almost the moment you hang up the phone, slathering about the fact that SOMEONE called and may be interested in the potential crack den from hell.

"Hi, did you just call the number for XXXX street name?  Are you interested in the property?"

Whoa there frantic realtor, I'm the neighbor, and although I'd love to buy the lot just to bulldoze the crappy house into the crappy pool and build a huge garage, I'm just curious to know how much damage you're causing my neighborhood by dumping this craphole for any amount you can get.

I'm pretty sure I heard the realtor's spirit break over the phone.  "Oh, well, if you know anyone..."

Holy crap dude, do you think I'd actually tell someone I knew to move into that mold-fest with built in West Nile virus incubator?  Tell ya what though, I'll keep bugging the bank about the dead tree, the damage to my property, and the health hazard that thing is, and I'll even try to refrain myself from screaming "FOR THE LOVE OF GAWD RUN, RUN AWAY FROM THAT MONEY PIT" whenever you bring someone to look at it.

The next day I got another call from the other realtor's associate asking if I was interested in the house (see above), and the next day called the bank again to complain about my damaged property.  Apparently the first person I spoke to neglected to tell me that I had to "file a claim" so I asked to "file a claim" and the woman told me that someone would promptly contact me... I'm still waiting.

A few days later, I came home to find some guy in a ratty pickup truck piling it full of branches.  By the time I came home from work, I found this:

I'm guessing that guy with pickup truck wasn't too sure how to handle the very expensive fiber optic cables entwined in the tree's roots and just below the surface (don't blame him), so here it sits while people come and look at the house... and there have been people coming to look at the house.

It takes every fiber of my being to not scream at them from our deck "HEY!  Take a look under that fancy tarp covered dance floor" or as they walk into the house "Where's your OSHA approved respirators for all of that black mold?"  If the bank doesn't fix my property, I'll be sure to add: "... and if you buy it, you have to fix my property too!"

Grocery Shopping with Lobsterman

As usual, after Lobsterman goes on his vroomy ride, we meet at Starbucks and chat with each other via Facebook.

I told him that he was all out of lemonade drink so we needed to go to the grocery store for more.  He HATES the grocery store, but since I claimed that I didn't know which exact special brand of lemonade drink he liked, he begrudgingly agreed to follow me to make sure I got the right stuff.  Its a hard name to remember:

I mean seriously, how can he expect me to remember THAT! 

We walk in, and he immediately realizes that it isn't the store across town where he knows EXACTLY where the stuff is, this store is different.  He's thrown off by the juice section that is "natural" juices, and claims that "Simply Lemonade" is simply lemonade, so it should be in the "natural" juice section because how much more natural can something called "simply lemonade" be? 

Apparently its not "natural" enough for the natural food section (although Starbucks mocha frappucino is there, and THAT'S hardly natural), so we begin to wander toward the back dairy section where the other unnatural juices are kept.

I spy the new apple/cinnamon Cheerios, which sounded uber tasty right then.  I wondered (aloud) whether they would have the same razor sharp knobs on them like Apple Jacks.  I LOVE Apple Jacks, but they somehow bind cinnamon-apple shards of glass on them that rip your mouth to shreds.  Very tasty until your mouth fills with blood and that's all you can taste.  Lobsterman ignores my Apple Jacks rant, as usual and we get to the juice section and find his tasty beverage.  I tell him to get two (because I'm NOT going back to the store for more this week), then announce that we must walk all the way back to the other side of the store because now I must have the apple/cinnamon Cheerios or else I shall die... but manage to grab a dozen eggs along the Bataan death march for Cheerios.

"OHMYGAWD, don't get eggs, they're dangerous!" Lobersterman tells me.  "They've killed people."

"You make it sound like people are asleep in their homes and eggs come out of the fridge and stab them." Since Lobsterman is going on a long vroomy ride during the week, I have major plans for a gigantic gooey egg salad sandwich for dinner, which will involve hosing myself off afterward.  As Lobsterman can't stand the smell of egg salad, its my only opportunity to indulge in some messy comfort food.  I'll wash it all down with some apple/cinnamon Cheerios for dessert.


"I can't believe you're getting killer eggs"

"These are pasturized!" I inform him

"Oh, even worse, they're free-range killer eggs, and you're buying cereal, which means they're free-range cereal killer eggs!"

"I seriously have no idea why I keep bringing you to the store" I grab the Cheerios and head for the check-out line to see if there's a new grotesque picture of the dying Mouseketeer Annette... I'm not disappointed.  I also know he says these things hoping that I will stop bringing him to the store... I'm not stupid.

This Old Foreclosed House - Home Improvement Addition

In our last installment of "This Old Foreclosed House", we saw just how much fun it is living right next door to the world's largest mosquito breeding ground (aka: partially filled in with crap in ground swimming pool).

After complaints to the Health Department (too numerous to count) about the swarms of (probably) disease carrying mosquitoes attacking us from the ghastly quicksand of muck and stagnant water next door, the bank sent someone over jiffy quick (if jiffy means months and months, and quick means a year) to take care of the problem... by covering it with a tarp.  Seriously.  Stop laughing.

See, I told you they covered it with a tarp.  You thought I was totally joking.  Can't you see just how much better that looks by having a tarp thrown over the gaping hole filled with muck and garbage!  I'm pretty sure my house price leaped up by several thousand dollars just by stretching the tarp over it!

Of course, what the tarp people didn't take into account was that when you stretch a tarp over a hole, and loosely secure it with various and sundry semi heavy piece of readily available debris... when you get a storm with any sort of breeze and rain, you get this:

Which made my house price plummet once again.  A few weeks later, some different work people showed up and at this point I thought they had learned their lesson and were going to fill it up or whatever you do with craptastic in ground swimming pools, but no... they would not let the tarp idea go, and instead of fixing the problem:

They built a new house over the pool.  Ok, they didn't, but I thought they were, what with the extensive platform they built, the three days they put into building the extensive platform, and then the heavy gauge wiring they nailed to the platform (seriously, for a while there I thought they had relocated the Ground Zero Mosque), but then... they dutifully stretched and secured the tarp.  So there we have it.  A back yard that any new homeowner would want:

Its almost good enough for a dance party! 

If you'd like to blow up the picture a bit bigger, you can see that on the pickup truck parked in the other neighbor's yard (the one that use to have the chickens, but now only has some man and woman who scream and curse at each other nightly, while slamming doors and threatening to kill each other) they've put a computer and monitor.  I guess they are really into mobile computing.

In our next episode of "This Old Foreclosed House" we'll show you the "for sale" sign up in the front yard... in the small path of fallen tree that someone cleared so they would have room to put up a "for sale" sign.

The Zombies Got Me

My employer has an emergency contact site. You log in and add your emergency contact information and if something drastic happens, they can contact you (I have no idea what they expect me to do, other than cower and hide until the emergency is over, cuz I'm so NOT going into work during an emergency... of any sort).

Once a quarter, they send out reminders for you to update your emergency contact information. Typically I don't change any of my numbers, so its been quite a while since I've had to log in, but I did get a google voice number and I figured I'd add that in there instead of the 40 other phone numbers. I'm being nice, saving them some time and money by just calling one number to ring the 40 phone numbers I could possibly be at. Besides, if there is an emergency like my work place getting shut down, I want to be notified of that as quickly as humanly possible so I can go back to bed.

So, following the quarterly reminder instructions, I tried to log into the site... except I had no idea what my username or password were. I took a few guesses, but didn't get in, so I opted to answer the "forgot your password question", except it wasn't an answer they wanted, they wanted me to type in the question for the answer I had provided. Holy crap, seriously? I had no clue. So I clicked the button for "need password reset" and it opened up my mail program, where I guessed I needed to ask someone to reset my password. So I did... like this:

Subject: No clue
Body: I have absolutely no idea what my username and password are, and no clue what question goes with my answer. I'm a bit disturbed that a site that is for the express purpose of contacting me in case of emergency and guiding me through emergency steps is so hard to access. The contact information on this site can easily be found doing a Google search on my name, and not only will it reveal every phone number I've ever had, every address I've ever lived, but will also allow you to zoom so close to an actual satellite photo of my home that you can see me walking out to my mailbox in sleepy pants and robe picking my nose.

I highly doubt that during an emergency I'll have the wherewithal or the time to send an e-mail to someone asking them to reset my password. During the time I wait for someone to get back from lunch or a long meeting to reset it, an alert could have been sent out telling me that brain eating zombies are roaming the streets near my building and I need to hide in a closet or at least lock my office door. I won't have received this notice, and therefore, be the first victim of their nefarious brain eating deeds.

Isn't there a better way, and oh yeah, please reset my password.

Regards,

Four hours later I (and about 14 other morons) received an e-mail stating our passwords were reset and we were free to access the site, after changing our passwords and security question.

I sent back the following response:

Subject: Out of Office Reply
Body: If you have received this message, then the brain eating zombies have broken through my office door and eaten my brain as I was unable to update my emergency contact information.

There was no response, which leads me to believe that I work for people with absolutely no sense of humor.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

SHUT UP!

Ok, so how many new lightbulbs do you put into a light before you decide that the switch is messed up and you'll need an electrician to fix it? (and before all of you "do it yourselfers" leap in and tell me how easy it is, you do realize that I managed to zap myself on the head with a bug zapper, right?  Also, I want someone I can sue if my house burns down, I don't want to end up in some stupid youtube video of idiots who burn their own houses down, thank you).

Ok, so about a year ago, I flipped the light switch to the back room where the washer and dryer was and the light blew out.  FINE, get a new bulb and replace it, switch.... nothing.  CRAP!  Get another bulb, screw it in, switch... NOTHING.  SONOFA... FINE!

I go tell Lobsterman, who immediately says "well, just put a new bulb in".  This started a 15 minute rant about just how stupid do you think I am of course I already put TWO bulbs in, so any moron can see that its the stupid light switch and now I'll have to call an electrician and blah, blah, seriously, really, I mean am I that stupid, good gawd!

Today the other back room light blew.  We didn't have bulbs, so I thought... well, there's a perfectly new stupid lightbulb in the socket where the switch is bad, I'll just use that.

I'll pause a minute while you realize that THE FREAKIN BULB DIDN'T WORK!!!

Yep, for a whole freakin year it was the lightbulbs.  Went out to buy new ones (note to self: never go to Target the day before school starts), walked into Target, then straight back out of Target because people were fighting over notepads.  Went to the grocery store (because I was out of ice cream anyway) and apparently Armageddon or a major snow storm was approaching, as there were no less than 500 people standing in line while my ice cream melted.

Got home, and sure enough... stupid light works back there.  I should be happy... but there's this distant nagging voice in the back of my head that a lightbulb made me look really stupid.

So, the lesson here is to try at least 400 lightbulbs before you call an electrician.  On the bright side, at least I didn't call an electrician who would have said "duh, all you have to do is put in a new lightbulb" at which point I'd be in jail for shoving the electrician's body in the sump pump hole.

You've Got To Be Kidding Me!

Warning: this post will probably contain TMI, will contain discussions of bodily functions, and will mock a product.

I want to thank my friend (as usual, I won’t mention her name, but will give her the usual alias) Leather for sending me this link. It was actually a topic that I had been meaning to blog about for some time, but the abject stupidity of this product caused me to immediately rush to my computer (by way of the coffee pot, then I grabbed some miniature chocolate bars out of the freezer, got distracted by the laundry that had been sitting in the dryer for at least a day, then remembered what I was so irate about) to blog about this very topic:

Pooping

We all do it. We all know that sometimes it involves a bit of noise and most likely a bit of stink (despite some people’s insistence that theirs don’t), but this is why toilets are in their own little rooms, with their own little stalls for privacy and anonymity, and why toilets aren’t right in your office or in an open hallway.

Bathrooms were invented to allow people the ability to go stink and make noise with minimum disruption to the general workplace. NOBODY should be embarrassed to do whatever it is they do in a bathroom even if their shoes are recognizable under the stall door. That’s what a bathroom is for! Frankly when I walk into a bathroom and hear all manner of commotion and stink, I’m thankful that the person doing it isn’t in my freakin office doing it!

But apparently bathrooms are now places of shame for doing what comes naturally, or so some company thinks or wants you to believe because they’ve come out with a product called “Eco-Otome Toilet Sound Blocker”. Go read the stupid write up.

Now, if you read that and thought “Holy Crap! (no pun intended) that’s a fantastic idea and I need about 4 of them”, then I want you to leave this blog, delete the link, stop following me, and don’t even think about leaving a comment telling me how wrong I am about this product before you leave.

Let’s break down this whole ad (as seen on CNN... why doesn’t THAT surprise me):

“You are sitting on the toilet and know that people right outside can hear your every noise”. DUH! Most bathrooms are made of tile and metal, which not only allows people right outside to hear your every noise, but also manages to create a gigantic amplifying affect. Its that way because its easier to spray off all sorts of nasty muck from tile and metal than sound proofing material. Would you rather have a crap covered sound-proof toilet or a clean one?

“Small and clipping easily to your mobile phone...” I will ignore the poor english and shoot straight to... you’re embarrassed to have someone hear you fart and drop some kids off at the pool, but you’ll bring your cell phone into the toilet with you and chat with your friends while you take a dump?

“... makes the noise of a toilet flushing to hide the other noises you might be making.” Oh, so you don’t want people to hear you fart and splash, but you’d rather have them think that you are crapping so much that you must constantly flush the toilet to keep up with the mass of spew? Frankly I’m a bit leery of people who flush while still sitting because seriously... what is so foul going on that you feel compelled to flush while you’re still doing your business? Its a toilet, not a bidet.

“... white has a green slogan - after all, this little device means you won’t have to flush for real and thus saves water.” OH NO YOU DON’T! Don’t you even think about using a public toilet and not flushing when you’re done for me to find when I have to go! I walk into that nasty stall and find that, I’m turning right around and beating you with the decorative soap dispenser or whatever happens to be handy (most likely fake, dust covered plastic flowers).

So, frankly, about the only use I can see for this is for when you’re in a boring meeting, or maybe walking into the office kitchen, hitting the button, then walking out buckling up your pants.

This Old Foreclosed House - The History

As I may have complained bitterly and sarcastically in earlier blogs, we live next door to a foreclosed house.

I'm not going to get into the whole socioeconomic reasoning behind why someone would foreclose, or whose fault it was, or all of that stuff (if you'd like to take the easy way out: blame Bush), but in the case of our neighbors... I have no idea.  We're the "quiet people who keep to themselves" type who have yet to appear in a major news flash broadcast about some unspeakable horror (as all "quiet people who keep to themselves" are portrayed by the media), so I don't know what kind of woe or misfortune they had that caused them to foreclose... I just know that there were signs it was coming.

Now, before I get into the signs, you are probably thinking "gee, why didn't you reach out to help them if you saw signs, why didn't you offer your support and help to them?"  Well, my, aren't we judgmental and all pompous, like you would do that, and you know you wouldn't, but to be fair, when they initially moved in, we did the neighborly thing and was all nice and offered to loan them lawn care tools and all that... and they were buttheads.  So, screw em.

Now, on to the signs.  They had a great pool.  The old lady that lived there took such good care of that pool that it was beautiful, always clean.  The lawn was well taken care of, and because of that, we overlooked the fact that her fat poodle would waddle into our front yard and take a crap.  Plus she grew tomatoes and always gave us some, so it was a give and take neighbor-relationship. 

When the new people moved in, they initially took ok care of the house, but you could tell the pool wasn't a major deal to them and slowly but surely, it went to hell after a few years.  At one point they brought in dump trucks full of cheap fill dirt and seemed to try to fill it in... until the fill dirt company realized why they needed the fill dirt, and that just filling in an in ground swimming pool was illegal in the county and refused to bring more fill dirt.  With a crappy in ground swimming pool now only 1/3 filled, they covered it with a tarp to hide the dirt... then proceeded to throw stuff they didn't want into the pool. 

Then they stopped mowing and cutting back trees and bushes, which encroached into our yard.  It was at that point that I told Lobsterman that they were foreclosing.  He didn't think so, I did. 

Then the POD appeared in the driveway and I told Lobersterman that they were foreclosing.  He thought that maybe they were doing some major renovations that required them to remove bits and pieces of their belonging a little at a time on the weekends.  The POD stayed for a year and then they stopped coming by every weekend to get stuff, only showing up randomly.  Lobsterman said that they weren't foreclosing because they left all of the windows up in the house... I laughed, especially when I saw them dragging out parts of the house that should be considered permanent... like copper plumbing.

Through blizzards, torrential downpours, heat, cold, and in between, the windows stayed up, finally the electricity got cut (because their motion sensor light wouldn't come on as the feral cats hunted in their back yard), and finally after two years, a sign appeared on the door and padlocks were put on all the doors... foreclosed.

In the next installment of "This Old Foreclosed House", we'll explain the joys of living next to a potential crack den.

Bats in your hair

So, I'm sitting outside enjoying the ear piercing shrieks of cicadas when I see our 2 usual bats doing their supersonic moves through the air in our yard, hopefully sucking up all of the mosquitos from Malaria Pool next door... and it totally weirds me out.

In my head, I hear my grandmother warning me: "watch out for the bats because they'll swoop down and get tangled in your hair". Yes, this from the woman that thinks pregnancy comes from toilet seats, but still... why risk it?

I KNOW after a gazillion years of watching Discovery Channel, and National Geographic channel and every channel but lamestream media, that bats don't swoop down and get tangled in hair. I think that even lamestream media would have a story about that, along with a video where the news puppet would laugh at the poor person with a bat stuck in their hair... but no, nothing.

Even though I KNOW for a fact that a bat won't swoop down and intentionally tangle itself in my hair... I'm still weirded out by them. They're fast. They zoom around all erratic. What if they made a silly mistake and jinked instead of twisted and BAM... bat in the hair? Then where would I be? I'd be apologizing to my long dead grandmother and also explaining to all of my former facebook friends who would post that video of me getting a bat cut out of my hair by EMTs that all I was doing was sitting on my deck listening to annoying cicadas and they all should DIE!

So, if you are a parent... tell your kids that a bat will swoop down and get caught in their hair, and they'll get pregnant if they sit on a public toilet seat, and make them pull your finger, and that chewing gum will stay in your stomach until you die, and you'll get worms if you eat cookie dough raw... because I shouldn't be the only one with mental problems in this world.

... and I still can't get any Xanax.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Pants Rant

I strongly believe that captured terrorists should be forced to wear Vera Wang pants.

So, there I am at work, working... no really, I was working... seriously, stop laughing. I'm wearing my comfy pair of black Vera Wang pants that collect ridiculous amounts of dog hair, but as usual, I don't care, they're comfy and stylish.

I'm pretty sure that Vera (since I wear her pants I feel that I can be on a first name basis with her) designs her pants for people who have no hip bones, such as herself. While most pants have a fly and button, Vera goes for a very secure closure that includes a zipper, two gigantic hook things, a flap and a button, all craftily hid inside the waist band and nearly impossible to manipulate. I'm pretty sure that when I purchased the pants, they weren't in the modern chastity belt section, just the average women who have hip bones but want to look as though they've had their hip bones removed so they can be just like Vera section. The only thing missing is a combination lock.

Having successfully navigated the bathroom on several occasions throughout the day with minimal difficulty, I thought nothing of taking an afternoon bathroom break stroll after 3 cups of coffee and a venti iced latte, 4 packets of sugar. Stroll probably isn't a good word, more like hurried walk. As usual, once one enters the bathroom, their bladder has a certain expectation that shortly upon entering the stall, blessed relief will begin. This is where the trouble started.

For some odd reason, the secure gigantic hook things had somehow become welded together. This seemed problematic, especially because my bladder was tapping impatiently waiting for the "go" signal. I pulled and manipulated some more... to no avail. I then began frantically pulling, twisting, and tearing at the hook things.

This was getting serious! Its not like I could just give up and go back to my desk, my bladder clearly knew where we were, I had to go, but I couldn't get my pants off. I dimly recall seeing the shoes of a co-worker/friend in another stall when I came in. As I respect the privacy of those I blog, we'll call her Sylvania. For a fleeting moment I thought of yelling out to Sylvania for help, but then I thought... well, what the heck would she do? Do I leave the stall while trying to tear open my pants and perhaps have Sylvania take a go at them, and what happens when another co-worker comes into the bathroom and sees two women trying to rip one's pants off? I mean I doubt we'd even get the pants open before security came, tasered us, and dragged us (me with peed pants) to jail or signed us up for a Cinemax at night gig.

There wasn't any guarantee that Sylvania would take one look at me, call security and have my pee stained self dragged from the building, and what would happen if those WEREN'T Sylvania's shoes in that stall, what would that person think of me screaming for them to rip my pants off. Just thinking about that made me laugh, which made things even worse because now I was thinking about the other people in the bathroom who could probably see my feet pivoting around as I tried to rip my pants off and now I was laughing, so it was only a matter of time before the security tasers came to get me... but then I got the hooks undone and I could pee, so life was good again.

And captured terrorists should wear Vera Wang pants.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Tuna Rant

All right everyone, pull up your pants and get ready for a "when I was a kid" rant about tuna.

When I was a kid, canned tuna was chock full of big meaty tuna pieces with a little bit of water (or oil, if you were one of those that preferred the oil).  You would plop out a huge glop of tuna meat, add half a container of mayo (Helmans... none of that Miracle Whip crap), and make the entire family a freakin tuna sandwich.  Half the time there was enough left to feed some homeless feral cats and most of a high school football team.

Hard to believe that such a tiny little can of tuna could provide that much tuna, but it did, and the tuna was delicious, and it was chunky, and it was plentiful.  I'm pretty sure you could feed a whole impoverished country with one can of tuna back then, it was just that good.

Now look at it!  You open up a can of tuna and its nothing but a bunch of glop in water (or oil if they even make it in oil, since oil is probably the major cause of obesity or death or something), its the consistency of the hair that gets stuck in your bathtub drain and sits there for about 6 months because you are either too lazy or didn't even realize you had 6 pounds of congealed hair in your drain until the water wouldn't drain and then you are left with a handful of slimey nasty crap that you could just as well slop onto a slice of bread and have a much better sandwich than the gooey crap in that tuna can... it doesn't even smell fishy anymore (the tuna, not the hair). 

Its so gooey and nasty and chunkless that adding ANY mayo into the goop makes it even goopier and nastier, and then try spreading that crap on bread, it just sucks the goo right up!  You can barely even make one sandwich out of that mess, and even then its like eating two slices of bread that have been soaked in a neglected aquarium.

What the hell happened to canned tuna?  I vaguely remember some sort of hoopla over the whole catching dolphins in the nets by mistake and since dolphins are cute and apparently as smart as humans (but apparently not so smart that they can't swim around a fricken tuna net, or have the wherewithal to carry a pocket knife to free themselves if they found themselves in a stupid net and before you point out that dolphins don't have pockets, I'll trump that with "oh yeah, what about that stupid blow hole thing?") and shortly after that, tuna started to suck, which leads me to this horrific thought:

What if all of this time we weren't eating tuna, we were actually eating FLIPPER!!!!

Um, frankly, I say we need to start Flipper farming because this real tuna stuff totally sucks.

Fond Childhood Memory

One winter, when I was in Elementary school, I wanted to wear shorts to school.  My mother, of course, thought this was incredibly silly.

Mom: You can't wear shorts to school, its winter!
Me: why not?
Mom: Because its winter, you don't wear shorts in winter, your legs will freeze.
Me: but its ok to wear skirts and dresses to school and freeze your legs?
Mom: Well... but you wear tights or pantyhose and those keeps your legs warm.
Me: Pffft, are you kidding me?
Mom: Don't mouth off, you just can't wear shorts to school in winter.
Dad: oh let her wear shorts to school in winter if she wants

Gosh I loved my dad!  So, off I went to Chandler Elementary School in shorts.  As the normal routine, all of the kids played in the school yard until the bell rang and then we'd line up and walk into the school and into our classrooms.  None of the other kids seemed to have noticed that I was wearing shorts in winter, but as soon as the bell rang and we lined up, one of the teachers pulled me out of the line.

Teacher: What are you wearing?
Me: shorts
Teacher: Does your mother know you're wearing shorts to school in winter?
Me: yes
Teacher: (speechless for a few seconds) You're Jon's daughter, aren't you?
Me: yes
Teacher: get inside

One winter I asked for iced tea instead of milk.  Everyone thought I was insane.  You simply don't drink ice tea in winter, it was against the law.. or something.  My argument was that people drank sodas in the winter, and they drank other juices in the winter, what's the difference between that and drinking ice tea.  Its as if it was physically impossible to make ice tea during the winter or something, it was a "seasonal" drink.  I would like to think that I had something to do with the fact that you can get iced tea any time of the year now. 

The beauty of living in a small town is that most of my teachers also taught my father, so they pretty much knew what they were getting into.



Like the time I got a little magnet in a book, and for show and tell I talked about how magnets worked.  My teacher asked me to demonstrate, and since she was wearing a metal watch on a necklace, I plopped that sucker right on the watch... I didn't realize that putting magnets on watches was a bad thing.  Apparently it was an heirloom passed down from a few zillion generations.  She just looked at me and said "Yep, you're Jon's daughter".

I loved that.