Spring 2006

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

What car dealers say:

"Sure! We can get you financed for that monthly payment! Come on down and I'll get ya taken care of!"

What they really mean:

"I'm gonna get you down here whether your credit is acceptable or not! That car you wanted? It's sold! I sold it this morning, but I'm not going to tell you that! Oh, and additionally, we sold that car for $2,000 more than what it was advertised for, because, let's face it, there's a sucker born every minute! When you get here, I'm going to talk really fast and very forcefully! I'm going to use financing terms you won't understand to confuse you, laugh at the piece of shit you rolled up in and have whispered conversations close enough so that you can see I'm talking about you, but not so close that you can hear me! I'm going to force stale coffee down your throat! You'll need it, because you'll be here for a little over six hours! Then, when I realize that you were telling the truth and your credit truly IS shit, this dookie-eating grin is going to fall right off my face, my tie is coming off and I'm going to treat you like you just raped my mom! I'm going to circle numbers, spout useless features like a sun-roof and bully you until you agree to a $872 per month car payment! Afterwards, when you have questions about your loan, you'll never be able to reach me and I won't be returning your calls because I already got paid, bitch! So, how about we do this now and why don't you just run along and get that pretty little girl of yours out of the car because you'll be signing her and your next 112 paychecks over to us, mkay?"

My response after car shopping for eleventy months and hearing this spiel over and over again:

"Ok."


 




Monday, February 27, 2006

We now officially have seven weekends until my wedding. I am walking on concrete in three separate rooms of the house, there is beautiful porcelain tile sitting on the coffee table and being used as a cup holder and Dusty can't decide where to pee next.

I've finally figured out that this is what Chris hears when I stress out:

"Babe, I know you have a tummy ache but we have seven weekends until nag nag nag blah blah blah yada yada yada I don't care whether you live or die just finish the floors for the love of God and Jesus Christ, amen."

For weeks now, I have been flitting around him and begging him to guide me, direct me, LET ME GLUE SOMETHING, FOR SHIT'S SAKE. I just want to help because, as everyone knows, if you have two people working it goes twice as fast. In Chris' mind, however, if one of those women is female, and the work involves power tools, she will inevitably fuck everything all to hell and we won't be done until right before our divorce, sometime in the summer of 2007.

See, Chris can't finish one project without getting bored and wanting to move on to a new one. We have eighty-seven half finished projects in our house.

Last night, we came home with new bathroom hardware. We walked in the door and I put the bag down. I saw him coming out of the corner of my eye and I had to throw my body on top of the Bed, Bath & Beyond bag to keep him away.

Later, when I was in the bathroom, we actually stood and had an argument over who was going to remove the old hardware.

"Chris, we're painting this bathroom. I can get the hardware down and not worry about the walls. It's not like I can screw this up."

He poked out his bottom lip, frowned and, God as my witness, said, "But I wanna do it."

We compromised and I allowed him to remove part of the towel rack before I kicked him out and told him to go lay some tile.

A short while later, I was marking the spots on the wall to place the brackets. I turned around to get the pencil and saw half a head and two very large, "Oh, shit, I got caught" eyes watching me from the doorway.

"Chris. GO AWAY. I'm not functionally retarded. I can do this all by myself and I promise to come get you if I have any problems or need a penis for any reason."

He wiggled his eyebrows at me.

"For any reason that involves the remodeling of this bathroom. Now, go. Shoo."

He couldn't restrain himself and started trying to give me step-by-step instructions when I brought out the wall anchors.

He whimpered and stood wringing his hands when I used his cordless drill.

He started sweating when I turned on the laser level.

I finally threw my hands up in defeat and went to bed.

We will not have this house ready until two days before the wedding and I will be forced to hire an officiant the day before from a place called, "Ministers In A Minute".

I wish I were kidding.


 




Friday, February 24, 2006

...Otherwise known as 'More Random Crap Because I Can't String A Coherent Thought Together, Lately'...

  • Upon reinspection of the story, "The Quarry", I noticed that the main character informs her boss that she has sent his wife a letter by registered mail. Super. I guess she wanted to make sure she could track it FROM THE FUCKING GRAVE. It was supposed to say "certified mail". That's the one that requires a signature, folks. Arthur Conan would be so proud.
  • Our UPS, DHL, FedEx and mail person all come at roughly the same time every day. They all know each other by first name. When I jokingly asked, "Wow, do you guys hang out or something?", they all looked at me very sheepishly while the FedEx guy said, "Yeah, we have a....club...of sorts." Fuck the Al Qaeda. Someone needs to be looking into that shit.
  • It is simply amazing and kind of funny how many women emailed me and berated me for not having any earrings. I lost my pseudo-membership to the Ovarian Network.
  • Speaking of the Ovarian Network, no one and nothing, with the possible exception of email, works harder to get your information spread to as many people as quickly as possible.
  • The combination of two Echinacea caplets, two St. John's Wort caplets (the poor man's Prozac!), and one vitamin B-12 will cause a furor in your intestines like you haven't experienced since that time you ate the beef jerky in the fridge and then found out that it had at one point in it's life span been bologna.
  • I appreciate the effort to go all military on me when reading me a VIN for a vehicle, but when you say, "x as in.....uhh....extension", you aren't helping anybody because, although I won't interrupt your stuttering and stammering in your attempt to master the English language, I am developing a migraine just hearing you breathe.
  • The minute I fill up my gas tank with $2.89 a gallon, leprechauns swoop down upon the sign and change the price to $1.99 per gallon. I've never seen them, but I know they're there. Additionally, when my gas tank is nearing empty and I get excited about filling up at that price, they will come out again and change it to $3.11 per gallon. Goddammit.
  • The difference between the price of a hybrid and a regular car is so exorbitant that what you have saved in gas is basically negated. I'd still buy one just to piss off the leprechauns.
  • After carefully monitoring the bathroom habits, toilet paper use and air freshener levels of everyone in my office, I have come to one conclusion: I am the only one who poops at work.


 




Thursday, February 23, 2006

No, I didn't drive my car into a quarry.

I was horrifically depressed yesterday, and I'm not one to blame my period for anything, but, holy shit. The last four have been awful, dark, moody spells that incite fear and trepidation around my house. I'm sick to death of it.

To answer your questions about yesterday's post:

1. Bits and pieces were based on fact. But! My boss is one of the coolest, kindest, most superbly awesome people I have ever had the fortune to know (and, no, he doesn't read this so that's not me just saving my ass) and I very much admire him. He's been with the same woman since he was 14 years old and is extremely ethical. The man is sending me to Aruba for my honeymoon, for God's sake. Oh, and he doesn't wear a hairpiece. If he did, I would rip it off his head, though.

2. Chris does snore and keep me awake and I do get frustrated, but he has sleep apnea and can't help it. He's been sleeping on the lumpy, uncomfortable sofa bed for a couple of weeks now so he doesn't disturb me. How sweet is this man?

3. There are abandoned Pop Tarts in my car on my console. Three, at last count.

4. My dog is not a good dog. HE IS A VERY BAD DOGGY WHO PEES ON OUR NEW WOOD FLOORS.

So, anyway, I finally broke down and cried my eyes out twelve or eighty times and I feel like a new person today. As a testament to how fucked up my hormones were, here are the things I cried about yesterday:

1. Ethiopia
2. Afghanistan
3. Detroit
4. The fact that my trash can was full
5. That I have no earrings. None.
6. That I found half a french fry in my cleavage.
7. That stupid girl won't just give Clay Aiken a chance and how sweet is it that he wants to be invisible just to be near you, you nasty, heartbreaking whore?!
8. Trying to make a decision between Pump It Up & Chuck E. Cheese for Virginia's 6th birthday. The thought of going to Chuck E. Cheese got me bawling again.
9. That Dusty has no nuts and it's all my fault.
10. I have no wedding dress.
11. I ate the french fry.
12. No, I didn't. Scratch that.
13. That John Gammill never asked me out in high school.

You get the idea.

So, I made a decision last night. I'm not taking birth control ever again. It's majorly screwing me up, I've gained weight and, besides, I would hate for that $12 razor to go to waste (the one I bought to shave muh' chin hair) because hormones are keeping me from properly turning into a goat.


 




Wednesday, February 22, 2006

It started with something simple. It always does.

She walked into the kitchen that morning and saw a soup lid on the counter. It had been left sitting with the inside of the lid down, so that the soup created a sort of vacuum. She had to get a butter knife to use as leverage to pry the lid up. She rinsed the lid, threw it in the garbage and then grabbed the dish cloth and the brillo pad to get the residue off of the normally spotless counter tops.

She watched her hands, her knuckles cracked and sore from always being in some sort of cleaning solution, blur before her as she scrubbed. A single tear fell onto her wrist and she stopped moving. She left the cloth where it was and walked back to her bedroom.

Her husband was still in bed, snoring.

She couldn't remember the last time she had slept through the night. It seemed she woke at least a dozen times a night to poke him in the side and prompt him to roll over. Sometimes, when her eyes felt like they had been rubbed with sandpaper and the hopelessness of knowing the alarm was going to go off in less than two hours was pressing down on her, she would just lie and stare at his back, furious with him. The anger would turn to sadness, the sadness back to fury when she sat up and stepped into her slippers. She was tired, so goddamned tired, why could no one understand that?

She watched him for a moment more. He rolled over and farted. Her expression remained the same.

She went to the bathroom to put in her contacts. She stopped for a moment and looked in the mirror. She rarely looked at herself any more. She looked so...well, blank. She averted her eyes.

After she dressed and picked up her purse, she walked into the hallway. She popped her head into her daughter's room. She was quite certain that there used to be carpet in here, but whether it was still there was a mystery. All she could see was clothes, toys, and in one corner, it looked like she had had a picnic with her dolls. There were slices of cheese on a plate. They were turning green. She glanced at the bed. The lump under the blanket was motionless.

Moving down the hallway, she passed the thermostat. It was set to 68 degrees. It was unbearably hot in the bedroom at night, but everyone else complained of it being cold, so she got used to waking every morning with a sore throat and a damp pillow.

Opening the door to her son's room, she braced herself for the smell. It seemed to be a combination of dog, dust, old socks and teenage hormones. His room was slightly better than her daughter's, if only for the fact that she could actually see the floor. There was a collection of soda cans on top of his entertainment center. She quietly shut the door and left.

She sat for a moment in her car, looking at the debris in the floorboard. There were three Pop Tarts, each in their own individual ziploc bag, on her console. Her daughter would bring two in the car, eat one and leave the other in the seat. She refused to eat left-overs, so Karen always had abandoned Pop-Tarts in the car. She picked one up, smashed it into bits inside it's plastic shroud, and stepped out of the car. She walked to the apartment in the back of the house. Her husband's sister, Kelly, had been living in the apartment for a few months. Kelly was a jobless, shiftless creature who kept odd hours and left bits and pieces of her personal belongings every where she went in the house. Karen would pick up stray shoes and hats and then deposit them through the doggy door on the front of the apartment.

She paused for a moment by the door and then walked out into the yard. Her dog greeted her. He was tethered by a long, nylon cord. It was a necessity after Kelly moved in and very quickly made it clear that she loathed dogs. Karen had asked Kelly several times to board up the doggy door so that Rufus couldn't get in and he wouldn't have to be restrained, but it fell on deaf ears. Karen was sure that Kelly secretly enjoyed seeing the dog unable to do doggy things.

Rufus was a good dog. She knelt for a moment and looked into his eyes. He stared back at her and then extended his tongue and licked her nose. Karen released him and opened the gate. He cantered away down the street, tail wagging. She turned back around and grabbed the pooper scooper by the gate. She found Rufus's latest deposit and put it into the bag with the breakfast pastry. She carefully sealed the bag, rolled it between her palms and then broke the seal. She shoved it through the doggy door of Kelly's apartment and went back to her car.

She didn't remember the drive to work. She became aware of her surroundings only when the flickering of the flourescent light in her office drew her attention. There was a short in the switch and she had to turn it on and off several times to get it to work properly. It was supposed to have been fixed almost a year ago. She retrieved her time cards and went back to her desk. She began slowly shredding each card and eating the pieces. She did this quietly and methodically. When she had finished the last bite, Karen walked to the small frigidaire in the kitchen and unplugged it. Back in her office, she curled up under the desk and waited. She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 2:32 a.m.

___________________

At precisely 7 a.m., she sat in her chair. She gathered all the paper work on her desk and put them in the trash. She took a cigarette lighter out of her drawer (she had quit smoking over a year ago, but still found lighters stashed in every imagineable place) and set the contents on fire. She picked the can up and moved it outside, behind the building.

Returning to her desk, she assessed the remaining items. There was a calculator from Rick, the guy that rented the empty office a few months ago. He had presented it to her, his eyes never leaving her tits, with a great, big shit-eating grin on his face. Karen thought at the time that his head must split open when he gave real gifts. It was sleek and the buttons were tiny. Karen hated it. She picked up the marble frog her mother had given her for Christmas and savagely smashed the calculator until pieces of it were no bigger than the buttons. She then did the same with her business card holder, her desk clock, her various stamps and that stupid fucking candy bowl some vendor had given her for her birthday.

By the time she had finished, her desk was covered in debris and there was a piece off something hanging from her hair. She checked the time and then swept the pieces of glass and rubber and plastic into a plastic bag. She was just putting the bag under her desk when Daphne walked into the office.

"Hey, Karen! How's it going?" she chirped. Daphne did not speak. She chirped.

"Fine."

Daphne's expression changed to one of forced concern. Karen often wondered if she went home at night and boiled kittens. No one could be that cheerful.

"That's not very convincing, now is it?"

Karen sighed.

"Eat me, you stupid cunt. Is that convincing enough?"

Daphne stood for a moment, mouth opening and closing and then slowly backed out of her office.

"I'm gonna...you...I'll just..." Her mouth kept opening and closing, opening and closing. Karen was reminded of a guppy.

"Get the fuck out of my office, Daphne, or I'll strangle the chirp right out of you."

Open, close. "Ok. I'm going to my office, now." She had the expression of one who has seen something that defies explanation. "My office, yeah," she finished lamely. She turned and tripped over a chair. "Whoopsie! Didn't see that! Office..." She then ran.

Karen sat perfectly still for the next twelve minutes. She could vaguely hear Daphne whispering to someone on the phone. Karen wondered if the person on the other end of the phone knew that Daphne's bonus had been twice the amount of Karen's. She wondered if they felt there was injustice in that, since Daphne had been with the company for only two months. Karen had been here for twelve years. She wondered if they knew that Daphne had been fucking the boss since her first week at work. She wondered if Daphne chirped when she had an orgasm.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door opening. A customer walked in. Karen opened her drawer and pulled out a paper clip.

"I'd like to make a payment," the customer said.

"The lady who takes payments doesn't get here until eight," Karen replied.

"Can't you take it?" he persisted.

"Sure, but I'll just eat it." She picked up a rubber band and slid it over the end of the paper clip.

"You'll what? Ha ha, very funny, lady. Will you take my payment or not?"

She pulled back on the rubber band and carefully aimed. Her tongue was poked out in concentration.

"What the hell are you doing?" the customer asked. He was frowning.

"Aiming for your eyes," Karen replied.

She let fly and the rubber band hit the man directly on the nose. He clamped his hand over his nose and howled.

"Close enough," Karen muttered.

"You're crazy, lady!" He ran out the front door.

Daphne poked her head around the corner. Karen took aim. Daphne squeaked and disappeared again.

At 8:01, Sarah walked in.

"Morning, Karen. Did you have a good weekend?"

"I think I'm going crazy."

"Man, aren't we all? God, I tell ya, my husband, what a dork. He was in the garage this weekend and...."

Karen tuned Sarah out. She sat and stared at the wall and thought back to a movie she and her husband had watched a few nights ago. She had thought afterwards that one of the reasons everything is so fucked up is because everyone is medicated. Everyone has an illness that fits into a neat little box. Everyone can be fixed by a piece of paper with some indecipherable gibberish on it.

Sarah broke into her thoughts.

"Hey, Karen. There's some guy on line one that wants-"

"Tell him I'm not here."

"But-"

"Tell him I'm not fucking here! Are you deaf?"

Sarah sat silent for a moment and then picked up the phone. "Sir, she's indisposed at the mom-"

"No, you ignorant slut!" Karen shrieked. "NOT FUCKING HERE! NOT HERE! I'm not indisposed! I am NOT HERE!"

"Uhh, she's ... on vacation. No, you must have been hearing the radio. Yeah, Howard Stern, they never watch their language on that show."

Karen tried to breathe, to calm herself, but her breath kept catching in her throat. She felt like she was dying.

Ten more minutes passed. Sarah was telling every single person that called about her dog keeping her up at night.

"Yeah, she sleeps with us and she can't get comfortable. She keeps turning and tossing and then she gets hot, then she gets cold..."

Karen gritted her teeth and hummed. Where the hell was her boss?

A few minutes later, he finally arrived.

"Gooooooooood morning, Vietnam!" he bellowed. He did this every single morning and, for some inexplicable reason, thought it uproariously funny. Sarah and Daphne collapsed into giggles. Karen retched.

"Hey, Karen, I need you to pick up some slack for me. I have a two o'clock tee time and I can't seem to get caught up on this stuff. Think you can take care of it for me?" He leered at her from the doorway.

"No. I can, however, shove those golf clubs up your fat, lazy ass, one by one. How would that be?" Karen smiled sweetly at him.

"What? I think I need to speak to you privately, in my office, now." He had turned an uncomfortable shade of red.

"No, I don't think that will be necessary, Walter." Karen picked up her purse and rounded the desk. "Furthermore, I know that the only reason you doubled Daphne's bonus is because she's sleeping with you. I sent a registered letter to your wife yesterday. You have horrible breath, you talk too closely, no one thinks you're competent, you don't pick your nose discreetly and last year at the Christmas party, I spit in your martini. Everyone saw me do it and no one bothered to tell you because you're a useless piece of shit. And that hairpiece is a joke." She snatched it off the top of his head and walked out the door.

The next moment of awareness was near the quarry. She glanced in the passenger seat at what she initally thought was a dead animal of some kind. Then she remembered it was the hairpiece. She picked it up and put it in her lap, absentmindedly stroking it. It occurred to her that not one person had noticed her empty desk before she left.

She put her head back and closed her eyes. She could feel her heart beating. She opened them long enough to assure herself that the quarry was still there, open, inviting. She then closed her eyes again and began to pray.


 




Monday, February 20, 2006

This weekend was just weird.

Friday, I kept pep-talking myself to clean the 7 inches of sawdust that has accumulated on everything since we began remodeling the house. Then Chris would fire up the skill-saw in the middle of the dining room and add another layer, because, and I quote, "You can't cut this wood outside when it's cold or wet. It says so right on the directions." I knew this was a great, big, fat lie because he said he'd read the directions. Liar.

Cleaning is something I do and when I can't clean, I panic. Chris calls me obsessive, I call myself tidy. After haranguing him for a couple of hours, he did the usual: he walked to my purse, took out my birth control pills, assured himself that I'm at the mercy of impending hormones by ticking off the days until my head explodes (2, to be exact. Fuckers) and then avoiding me for the rest of the weekend by hiding in various places. More often than not, I find him in the attic. We have no stairs and I don't trust his rickety, old ladder, so this works out well for him. I stand and holler up at the hole in the ceiling and he turns on whatever tool he has up there so he can't hear me and then goes back to reading his Playboy.

He has employed my kids as his bitch detectors and will only reappear when they have reported something that means I'm back to normal. For instance, I can do a load of laundry without threatening to kill every living creature in the house (Dusty included) if the socks are inside out one more mothereffing time.

When he emerged from the attic yesterday, I sweetly asked him if he could please finish the floors so that we can all stop walking on cold concrete. He eyed me warily and then went to find his pants that show his ass crack. Because, as you should all know, men can't do anything that involves power tools without donning their power tool outfit. For Chris, it's baggy jeans that are trying desperately to crawl off of him and go somewhere to die in peace and a shirt that says, "I have a BS Degree."

While he was looking to move the skill saw to a place in the house that was not covered in brown dust and thereby test the limits of my tentative grip on psyche, I braved the ice and went to the grocery store to find something dead to cook. I came back with a dent-a-bone for Dusty instead of an automatic weapon and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief. I gave the bone to Dusty, flat side down, and spent the next half an hour having hysterics watching him push it to a wall and then paw at it to try to turn it to the rounded side so that he could grip it in his teeth. He finally gave up and sat licking it and occasionally shooting me a nasty glance. Apparently, it contains some sort of dog crack, because two hours later he was still licking it and growling at anyone who would try to touch it and turn it over for him. While walking to the back of the house to find Chris and his butt crack, I heard the strangest noise in the living room and turned around to investigate. Dusty was nowhere to be found. Much like my daughter, Dusty is not to be trusted alone. I went room to room, searching, and began to panic when I heard the noise from the living room, again. I went in and stood in the middle of the room, turning in a circle, carefully surveying the whole area until it dawned on me that the log in the fireplace had big, floppy ears. Dusty was inside the fireplace and had frozen, still hoping that I hadn't noticed him. I turned on my mommy voice and he came slinking out where Devon grabbed him and stuck him in the bathtub because he was now covered in soot. I was marveling at his complete lunacy when I noticed that what was left of the dent-a-bone had been in the fireplace with him. In his paranoia, I guess he thought the best place to smoke his crack in peace was a place we couldn't fit into.

Virginia has been horribly sick, but she was fever-free on Friday so she went to spend the weekend with her Grandma and her Dad. Weekends like this, where the kids are out of school on Monday but I still have to work, totally throw me off. I would wander around the house last night in a daze and then occasionally cock my head to listen. Hearing no shrieks or breaking glass or thumps or wails would totally freak me out and I would run around, looking in closets and under the beds until Chris would saunter by and idly say, "She's not here, babe. Remember?"

"Oh. Yeah. Now, I do."

"You okay? You look...tired."

Silly man.

"Oh, I look tired, do I? Well, you're showing an indecent amount of buttcrack. I'm going to bed. Assclown."

He was up this morning, surveying the hole in the ceiling that leads to our attic. I know he's trying to figure out how to get a bed and a big screen tv up there.


 




Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Proof:

10. He snores in bed and that can't be helped. I rock myself to sleep, thereby causing great distress in the mornings when I wake up looking like Rosanna Rosannadanna and scare the shit out of my kids. And that can be helped.

09. He at least has the courtesy to warn me when he farts. I slowly sidle out of the room and hide somewhere nearby, giggling madly when the shrieks of outrage begin.

08. He has worked himself to death remodeling our house. I have followed him around, drink in hand, asking about asbestos poisoning and how much dust can one remodeling job kick up, for God's sake?

07. I stole his rolling seat and went whizzing down the hallway, cackling like a lunatic. Meanwhile, he sighed and sat down on the hard concrete floor to finish measuring the tile he was trying to lay.

06. He listens patiently to my gripes about work and life in general. When he tries to be serious and lean on me, I get nervous and start trying to cheer him up by zerbiting his tummy or offering to hop around the living room singing, "Funkytown", with a broomstick up my ass.

05. We have washable crayolas in the bathtub for leaving each other notes and little drawings. My rendition of an alligator looks like a retarded bullfrog who's expression implies that he's surprised by the fact that he's retarded. Chris' alligator looks so much like an alligator that Virginia knew immediately what it was. She then pointed at mine and said, "I draw better than that and I'm only five." Shit head.

04. I fussed at him when I moved in because he has two entire drawers full of nothing but socks. After raising such hell about it, I now have to steal out of his stash because, well, I don't have any.

03. He always does what he says he will do. I vowed to clean my car out and reacquaint myself with my floor mats. That was in the summer of 98'.

02. He never raises his voice. The neighbors think I have Tourettes.

01. And the number one reason I suck and he doesn't:

What he bought me for Valentines Day: A brand new dishwasher and dinner at Sekisui Japanese restaurant.

What I bought him: A card and a jumbo can of Slim Jims.

I'm so ashamed.


 




Tuesday, February 14, 2006

My kids have been sick and eagerly transferred that illness to me.

I'm home today. By myself.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?

I came awake, slowly, the sound of the birds outside to greet me - instead of trying to figure out what that smell was and then waking to find my daughter perched precariously over me so she could fart on my head.

I ate breakfast without having to pass it over after my son coughed on it.

Dusty and I lounged on the couch (well, he sat on the floor and made sad eyes at me. He's not allowed on the couch. He didn't get on the couch, Chris. Honestly) and I read eight! whole chapters of a book without having to help wipe anyone's butt or devise a strategy to kill the latest boss in a video game or unstick someone's head from some new and fascinating place.

I watched Oprah. My God, I watched Oprah and I cried like an idiot when Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood sang some mushy love song to each other. Garth cried, too. That man is always crying.

But, I'm bored and ready to get back to work. I miss my kids for some inexplicable reason, I'm fed up with trying to cure Dusty's addiction to used toilet paper and, besides, he's already beaten me in 3 games of Sorry!

So, I'll be back in the saddle tomorrow.

That's leftovers from watching too much Garth.


 




Thursday, February 09, 2006

I'm pretty pissy today. So, I figured I'd finish off the week with a random rant.


  • If I direct a question at someone, I expect that person to answer. Not the fucking glorified monkeys that scamper around here throwing their own shit at each other. You're a tumor and there is nothing that you are more enlightened about, with the possible exception of the side effects of a frontal lobotomy and the latest shoe trends. I cannot stand a know-it-all that doesn't actually know anything.
  • If someone is involved in an accident and you casually know that person, you are a dick bag if you automatically become their best friend and try to garner attention from other casual acquaintances by acting as though you're bereaved, as well. People who do this should be set on fire and forced to listen to Lindsay Lohan as they burn.
  • FOR THE LAST TIME, INSURANCE POLICIES DO NOT COLLAPSE. STOP THE INSANITY, YOU DOUCHE NOZZLE.
  • Just because you can finish the Times crossword, you are not an intellectual. There are savants who can finish the crossword in under 2 minutes, but they still eat their own boogers. Asshole.
  • If I tell you very nicely the first time that I do not need your services, that is not an invitation to harass me in broken English by asking things like, "Well, maybe you are knowing someone who is in need of our services? Everyone needs the more money and you are making so big mistake." No means no and it's the same principle, you mental rapist. One-hundred and twenty-two billion jobs in the land of opportunity and you pick telemarketer? You should be forced to go back to your native country. While listening to Lindsay Lohan.
  • Please put the foot-long hot dog down before you make a phone call. There is nothing quite as disgusting as listening to some jackass snuffle like a rooting pig while trying to ask you questions in Moronese.
  • No one really gives a shit that your ex-husband was the CEO of Pompous Bullshit, Inc. All that made you was a high-priced piece of ass who couldn't keep him interested. I'm not impressed, nor do I have a memory problem. I heard you the last 178 times you told this story to anyone who would stand still long enough to listen.
  • Pretty much anybody with common sense will tell you that something is only really funny the first couple of times you say it. Three times, max. You can stop saying, "Asta Le Taco!", now, because it was tired six months ago.
  • I just dropped a Hershey's kiss on the floor under my desk. The floor that hasn't been vacuumed since we moved into the building two years ago. And, sadly, I crawled underneath the desk to retrieve it and pop it in my mouth.
  • The upside is that it kept me from talking to this customer that spits on me. She couldnt' see me because...well, I was under my desk picking hair off of my Hershey's kiss.

Hope you all have a simply stellar weekend. Asta Le Taco.


 




Wednesday, February 08, 2006

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to de-lurk as well as those who regularly comment. It's an awesome feeling to know that you can affect someone, in some way. I'll stop pouting, now.

Thank you all. Seriously.

Oh, and Dusty won. He took one look at that sweater and ran. The only problem is that we now have wood flooring in half of the room and when he hit it, he did a Scooby Doo. He couldn't get any traction and he eventually ended up falling over on his butt and looking at me like, "Well, shit. I can't maintain an ounce of dignity in this house, so you might as well throw the damned pink sweater on me and take me to get my nails painted."

I decided to save the sweater for Daisy, my wedding present to Chris.

_________________________

I love Valentine's Day for one reason: It gives me that much more opportunity to shred my son's sanity.

Last night, as we're watching more people lend credibility to the whole birth control argument (read: "American Idol" auditions), a Victoria's Secret commercial came on. I turned to Chris.

"Babe. Do you think I would look good in that strappy pink thing?"

Just watching Devon turn green and fall over on the floor is entertainment enough for the whole evening.

__________________________

Our wedding is quickly approaching and the only thing that's solidly nailed down is the alcohol. Somehow, methinks my priorities are amiss.

__________________________

For every co-worker's birthday, I beg to be allowed to take the collection money and buy the person a vibrator I saw a couple of years ago called "The Earthquake". I always get vetoed.

I don't know if living in the bible belt is such a wise choice for me.

__________________________

Eddie Murphy, the little boy who has tormented my daughter since day one of school, finally fucking moved to wherever little asshole kids go to grow up. France? Who knows. Anyway, praise Jesus, Hallelujah and thanks be to God because I no longer have to listen to a rant all the way home about how he doesn't believe in the Easter Bunny.

__________________________

Speaking of Valentine's Day, my daughter doesn't understand why Devon isn't giving out cards. Frankly, neither do I. Or I pretend not to because it's more fun that way.

"So, are you sure you don't want me to pick some cards up for you?"

"No, Mom."

"But, why, honey? They have Shrek, Monsters, Inc., Power Rangers - Ooh!- they have Spongebob!"

"Mom, I'm thirteen."

"Ok. Well, what's appropriate for thirteen? He-Man?"

"Mom, no one even knows what He-Man is."

"Well, help me here. What about that guy you think is so funny with all the bad teeth? Tiny Jon?"

"Lil' Jon, Mom. Please stop."

"Fine. But don't come crying to me when you get cards and candy hearts and have nothing to give in return."

He thinks I'm the biggest. dork. ever.


 




Monday, February 06, 2006

Chris & I spent the weekend getting rid of carpet that had been abused by eighteen cats. No, I'm not exaggerating for effect. The woman he bought the house from had eighteen, that's a one and an eight, (18) cats. We have all been traveling with an extra seven pounds of snot in our sinuses for the last three months and enough was enough.

We played a fun game called, "Guess What The Mystery Substance Is That's Splattered Across The Concrete," as we would tear up great big chunks of powder blue carpet. He's betting "feline diarrhea" while I stuck with "Evil. Now in liquid form!"

Since the house was such a mess, Hannah (Chris' sister) cut Devon's hair in the dining room. He was starting to resemble an extra from, "Eight Is Enough", and it was long overdue.

"How much do you want taken off?" Hannah asked.

"Just a trim," Devon replied.

"He needs more than a trim!" I hollered from the living room.

Devon tried to turn around and argue with me, which was a mistake since Hannah is an honorary member of the First Order of Nazi Hairdressers.

"Do you want good hair or jacked up hair? THEN ZIP IT AND SIT STILL." She brandished her shears, Devon got abnormally quiet and the cutting began.

A short while later, Dusty came bounding into the living room and barked at me to get my attention.

"Chris. Why is our dog impersonating Hitler?"

"What?"

"Look at him."

Dusty sat down and grinned at us, very pleased with himself, while a swatch of hair hung from his snout. I walked into the dining room to see how much of the hair he had ingested and found Devon wandering in circles, muttering and occasionally bumping into walls like a wind-up toy.

"What's wrong with you?"

He stopped long enough to give me a look of complete despair. "I look like a Backstreet Boy. I can't go to school ever again."

"You do not look like....okay, maybe you do. What happened?"

I was genuinely surprised because Hannah is a fantastic hair stylist. She's cut everyone's hair numerous times and we've never been anything but thrilled.

"I don't know. God hates me." He began his wandering and muttering again and I went to retrieve Hannah and see if she couldn't fix it before he started dropping hints about home-schooling.

When I came back in, I was greeted by Virginia's shrieks of distress.

Jesus give me strength. It's my new mantra.

"Chris, please tell me that you pulled up the carpet tacks in her room? Especially her room."

The look on his face was all the answer I needed.

I brought Virginia to the kitchen to doctor her foot. There were a few drops of blood, so that gave her license to scream bloody murder through the whole thing, even though it was only a scratch. Chris hovered around me and felt bad. I wasn't the least bit mad at him. He hasn't lived with Virginia long enough to realize that you can leave her in an empty, padded room and she will find a way to maim herself.

Hannah fixed Devon's hair and saved the day. I think she cut it this way on purpose because he was being such a picky little shit while she was trying to please him. (Oh, and tell me that picture doesn't scream, "Pork me up the pooper and call me a bad boy." I'm just sayin') Afterwards, he retired to his room to rest because, let's face it, who wouldn't need to lie down after almost being forced to go to school looking like that?

We made eighty-seven trips to Home Depot and - ok. That's a lie I won't live with any longer. Steve, I'm sorry, but LOWE'S IS CHEAPER AND THEY HAVE A BETTER SELECTION. I love you and I know you'll probably disown me as a sister from this point forward, but it had to be said - and spent far more than any person should have to spend on shit that you have to mix to a "peanut-butter-like consistency".

By the way, I've been saying that every hour, all weekend and Chris is ready to murdelize me.

Last night, exhausted and covered in grout and self-leveling concrete (I have been orgasmic over learning about all the neat things you can buy and mix and spread and get all over you. No wonder men love those stores and have been keeping it hidden from us. We are now wandering the aisles of home improvement stores, big shit-eating grins on our faces, stealing all their thunder and don't we know that these stores are for men only?? Is nothing sacred???), Chris fell onto the sofa to watch the horror that was the Rolling Stones. I went to check on Devon and make sure he wasn't sitting in a dark closet and talking to his pillow.

"Babe. You okay? Your hair looks really nice, now."

"Yeah. I'm okay. Who won the Superbowl?"

I blinked at him.

"Who gives a shit? Have you seen my kitchen floor? It has peanut-butter-like consistency. Not even Mick Jagger in spandex, gyrating on a giant pair of lips while his old-man arm waddle flaps in the breeze can distract me from that."

"What?"

"Nevermind. Go to bed. Your hair needs some sleep."

Chris says I can't drink while we inhale paint chips and glue dust, anymore. Party pooper.


 




Wednesday, February 01, 2006

We're driving Chris' truck the other day in the pouring rain and he's desperately peering through the windshield because the arm of the windshield wiper fell off a couple of months ago. I'm in the passenger seat bopping my head and loudly humming the theme to "Sanford & Son" when Chris throws his hands up in exasperation, reaches into the middle of the seat, grabs the windshield wiper arm and rolls the window down.

"Oh, hell no, babe. No you aren't."

"Don't you say a word, Crystal."

He leans out and begins manually wiping the windows WHILE WE'RE DRIVING.

After I regained control and he started to see the humor in the situation, he said,

"I wonder what would happen if I went to get my inspection sticker and I did that when he told me to turn on my windshield wipers."

"I would pay to see that. Make it so."

When the inspector asks to hear the horn, I'm gonna stick my head out the window and scream, "Ahhhh-ooooooooh-guhhhh!!! Ahhhh-oooooooooh-guhhhhh!!"


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