Where's Charlton Heston when you need him?

Chinese has managed to poison some more of their people with tainted food once again. I'm beginning to think that a conspiracy is going on. Poison in the baby formula, toxic paint on the toys, food with pesticide type chemicals.......China is filled with many intelligent people so to be this stupid and careless can't be an accident. I'm beginning to think this is a form of population control. First they started with the one child per family rule, now they are weeding out the population via other methods. Think about it. Those most susceptible to food poisoning are the elderly, those immunocompromised, and children. They are getting the elderly pushed into the ground that much sooner via tainted food, same with those that are sick, and those pesky little girl infants they don't like are exterminated as well via formula (or toys just in case mom is breastfeeding). This is perhaps China's stimulus recovery idea. Of course, there is another idea for population control all together. Remember Solyent Green? Wait a minute, they may have already thought of this..........

The definition of Insanity:

Harpies

I hate it when people openly judge others and ridicule them to make them feel uncomfortable. I was in the store the other day waiting to check out. A man was at the counter checking out with his stuff, followed by two little old ladies, and then me. The two little old ladies were talking amongst themselves but talking just loud enough that other people could hear. The way people talk when they want to act like they are trying to hide what they are saying but really want you to hear it. They were commenting on how trashy tattoos were, what a disgrace it was to have to look at them, people with them shouldn’t be allowed to show them in public, etc. I could tell this was making the cashier uncomfortable. I noticed that she did have a small tattoo on her wrist that was visible which must have been what started the discussion amongst the elderly bats. I don’t have any tattoos. I’ve thought about getting one but I haven’t simply out of fear of the pain of receiving one but I don’t look down on people that do. If anything I look at them with admiration for having a high pain tolerance. I think they are sexy on a man. Irregardless of that fact even if I didn't like them I wouldn't criticize those that did. The old ladies tirade was obviously embarrassing the cashier which seemed to be their malicious intention. The ladies looked over their shoulder and noticed me. I was dressed in a solid black pantsuit, jewelry, and my hair was fixed all proper looking. To them I probably looked like a judgmental Republican type conservative. I guess that made them feel as if they should invite me into their conversation, assuming I would agree with them. The first lady turned to me, reiterating her point that tattoos are disgraceful, and then asking if I agreed with them. I responded loud enough for everyone to hear that if you had a tattoo it should at least serve a purpose, kind of like an advertisement. They looked at me confused. I then said “like the one I have below my belly button. It says ‘pay before you pump’. Don’t you agree?” They then looked even more confused and then one of them seemed to finally “get” it, whispered in her friend’s ear and they both made a shocked little huff and promptly turned back around. The cashier was smiling and the man in the front gave me a thumbs up as he finished paying for his stuff. The old ladies spoke no more; they paid for their stuff and got out of there as quickly as possible. The cashier thanked me when I reached the counter and we had a lovely little chat about assholes like the judgmental harpies we had just encountered.

Ignorance is Abundant

Yesterday it was brought to my attention the level of ignorance some people possess that I seem to be completely oblivious to at other times. It absolutely amazes me the amount of seemingly intelligent people who were depressed yesterday due to the fact that Barack Obama was being inaugurated. It wasn’t the issue of him being a Democrat that was being complained about. They were upset that the Muslim Antichrist had arrived, upset that the economy didn’t magically change over night, making racist observations about a race takeover because they’d finally managed to get “one of theirs” into the Whitehouse. What the fuck? Even though segregation ended long ago it is more than apparent that the mental segregation that many people have never ended and never will. It really bothers me. Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. I don’t have to agree with the opinion of someone else, I even welcome opposing viewpoints as it makes for interesting conversation, but when their views are just blatant attacks of inaccurate verbal vomit it pisses me off and scares me at the same time, because it may be an ignorant idiot just like this that tries something stupid to get Obama out of office. Not to sound clichéd, but can’t we all just get along?

The benefits of cyber socializing

The thing that I like most about social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace is the fact that you can socialize without actually socializing. People who you don’t really want to talk to that often but feel obligated to can easily be communicated with at just the click of a mouse. You can update your status so people know what’s going on and how you feel, and then if they run into you in a store or something they aren’t surprised when you are pissy because your status has already indicated your mood. I do try to change my status often so as to not seem to monotonous. It’s always either agitated, pensive, melancholy, or my personal favorite, cantankerous. Manic isn’t an option in the list of choices or I’m sure I would have picked it at least once already. You can gloat about your accomplishments and evaluate your self worth by counting the number of comments you receive. You have a multitude of insults at your disposal that you can send to friends in seconds. I’ve read some reports talking about the downfalls of social networking because it prompts you to take the easy way out instead of actually calling or visiting someone. I say that’s a crock of shit. It’s absolutely perfect for the antisocial environmentalist. It is a very green option. You are saving gas by not actually visiting your friends, saving postage and money by not getting them actual greeting cards, and saving a little bit of energy at the same time because you don’t have to recharge the battery on your cell phone as often because you make fewer calls.

A princess should not be driving.

It took me three attempts to get my driver’s license. And I think on that third attempt the officer just gave me a sympathy pass because he felt sorry for the pathetic navigationally challenged twit sitting in the driver’s seat. Since I started driving at 16 I’ve had on average two wrecks per year, in which either the car was completely totaled or dented just enough to be tacky. I can get lost in a parking lot even with my trusty Garmin (although in my defense she is dyslexic). In my career of fender benders I’ve had one major dent caused by trying to squeeze my van between what appeared to be enough clearance at the time between a concrete embankment and a delivery truck, had a car rear ended by a tractor (yes, a small farm tractor which actually totaled my car), drove a delivery truck for a florist I worked for as a teen across a very rocky ledge getting the van stuck on a big heap of rocks in the middle with both the front and rear tires suspended in air. I gave myself a pat on the back when I realized it had been at least one entire year since I personally inflicted damage (a Bellsouth truck backed into me two weeks ago in a parking lot) onto any vehicle I own but I did this too soon, for this morning I backed my beloved Jeep into my van on the way out of my driveway. I scraped and dented the van but I broke the cover over my rear lights on the Jeep which really pissed me off. I like my mom mobile van okay but I save it mainly for driving on trips where we have a lot of stuff or anticipate acquiring a lot of stuff. I absolutely LOVE my Jeep. It didn’t actually damage the light just the plastic over it. Which now I have two options, either get it fixed or whip out the duct tape Redneck style and patch it. My immense lack of driving skills is making me even more convinced of my deep suspicions that I was never meant to drive, that I should have always been chauffeured around in a limo for the duration of my life since I am the long lost illegitimate daughter of Princess Diana and my mother was a disgruntled nurse in Great Britain at the time that kidnapped me to raise as her own and Princess Diana didn’t report it because I was illegitimate so that’s why no one knows. I pointed this out to my mother again this morning when I dropped off my kids and she told me she would try to track down the Queen for me if I wanted to make a formal case along with pointing out how anybody can miss their own van parked in their own driveway to which I responded “Don’t you think I feel bad enough? Just flick some salt in that wound mother, just flick away. It’s what you are good at it.” to which she responded that “at least one thing I ought to be good at now was patching up cars since I’ve had so much practice at it.” I should have married an auto body repairman or that guy on TV who sells the dent poppers.

Things I learned this Christmas Eve

1. Pizza Hut is open. How do I know this? Because my grandmother decided to just order several pizzas instead of actually cooking a meal.
2. Several lessons were learned from my decision to cook. In an attempt to compensate for my lack of a home cooked holiday meal I decided to cook the turkey given to me by my work. This in itself was an experience, me being the novice chef that I am. Lessons learned: Apparently a thawed turkey is very slick and slimy, it has a slimy nasty plastic bag of I have no clue what and a long muscular thing stuffed into its body cavity. Pouring slimy marinade all over it before you put it into the Reynolds Turkey bag is not wise because then it becomes even harder to get the slick massive slap of wet poultry into the bag. The smell of turkey juice apparently sparks some primal urge in an otherwise perfect cat, which then goes on the hunt meowing hysterically and trying to trip you in the hopes you might drop the bird to the floor. The metal thing bounding the feet isn’t meant to be pulled out before cooking. It’s wise to arrange cooking bag so you can actually see the little red thingy pop out when it is done. There is a difference between a thermometer for food and a thermometer for a human. Next year I will be in line at work early to get a Tofurkey instead, I somehow doubt they will shove plastic bags of mystery gunk and muscular appendages into tofu.
3. Massive amounts of cleavage aren’t appreciated at holiday dinners. I’m sorry; I didn’t know it was a formal dinner, the ordering of the pizza made me think we were just hanging out.
4. Doubling your Zoloft dose on the day of family festivities is a wise decision.
5. Sending text messages during the gathering is frowned upon. Sending text messages to relative across the room and making them laugh hysterically is especially frowned upon.
6. When leaving gifts out from Santa make sure there is not a receipt stuck to one of the packages.

Fine culinary skills aren't a part of my genetics.

When I was growing up my mother never cooked. She simply opened a can of Ravioli for me, dumped it into a bowl and popped it into the microwave. So I have never really been exposed to true cooking, like with seasonings and ingredients and all of that. I thought Hamburger Helper counted as cooking until my ex husband so cruelly popped that bubble so many years ago. Today I stayed home from work because my son is ill and I’ve also caught some remnants of his illness. It ended up being the perfect day for me to call out because we had freezing rain last night and the roads were covered with black ice. So since the roads were slick school was cancelled so my daughter was at home as well. For breakfast they wanted waffles. This isn’t exactly the breakfast of champions but it falls under the category of cooking for me because I have to extend effort to put it into the toaster and push the little lever down. After preparing the waffles I then realized I was out of syrup and neither child would eat them without it so they ended up with an even more nutritionally devoid meal of a toaster scrambler filled with bacon, eggs, and cheese. For lunch I decided during a moment of Zoloft induced euphoria that I was going to make an extravagant, big, healthy lunch for my children. I had some frozen spinach in the freezer that I had bought on a whim when it was on sale because my daughter likes it. The package said to dump it into a pot of boiling water, cover, and boil for eight minutes. Apparently you are supposed to also season spinach to make it appealing and edible. I cooked a canned ham, or what I referred to as a canned ham which I found at the grocery in the aisle with the tuna. It was ham and it was in a can. Apparently this is not the kind of massive canned ham that is served at Christmas. No this was some variation of high quality potted meat product, although since it said to bake it at 300 degrees I thought it was an actual ham. I poured a can of peas into a bowl and zapped them in the microwave for my son since he loves them. Apparently when a child has a cold they hate them. I made macaroni and cheese, from a box with all of the stuff included, since I have to actually measure out milk in a measuring cup this is truly cooking for me. It turned out the be a mac and cheese blob because I cooked the shells for too long. I then stumbled across a pack of blueberry muffins in the cabinet and decided they would be perfect for dessert. I do not own a muffin pan but figured it would just be like a blueberry cake if I made it in a casserole dish. The whole time I was standing at the stove stirring I was imagining the excitement my children would have when they came in and saw the food I had prepared. We’d all sit around the table, enjoying our meal, just like a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting. Then I called the kids to come to the table to eat and my dream bubble was promptly burst. Our dialogue went as follows:
Elizabeth: I thought we were having Tuna Helper.
Me: I thought I would surprise you all with a big meal.
Elizabeth: Did you just watch Rachel Ray or something?
Me: No dear. Sit down and eat.
Elizabeth: This is ham?
Me: Yes I baked it and everything.
Elizabeth: It tastes like Spam.

Elizabeth: Okay so I guess it is supposed to be fancy upper crust society Spam.
Me: The upper crust society doesn’t even eat Spam. They don’t make fancy Spam or any other variation of Spam. That is ham!
Elizabeth: Did you buy it near the Spam?
Me: It might have been near it. I don’t think that’s a relevant question.
Elizabeth: You just answered it. This is mac and cheese?
Me: You like macaroni.
Elizabeth: I thought I did. Then I tasted this.
Damien: What’s wrong with this macaroni?
Me: You have a cold; nothing is going to taste right to you.
Elizabeth: It’s not your cold Damien.
Me: Well I’m sorry my good intentions turned out to be such a bad meal. Hey at least I cooked spinach for you. You like spinach. Try it.
My daughter takes a big bite of the spinach I so lavishly boiled in a pot staring thoughtfully across the room.
Elizabeth: How did you cook this?
Me: I followed the instructions on the box.
Elizabeth: My granny puts salt and vinegar in hers.
Me: Vinegar? Who would cook with vinegar, it stinks?
My daughter then stares at me somberly.
Elizabeth: You might want to go get some lessons from Granny on how to cook. I like her food.
Damien: Yeah mommy!
Me: You have a cold so your taste bud’s opinion doesn’t count. Granny doesn’t cook, getting food at a deli and slapping it into a serving bowl so you appear to be super cooking Paula Dean type Granny isn’t cooking.
Elizabeth: At least she’s not in denial about the fact that she can’t cook.
Me: Well at least you will like dessert.
I then pulled the dish out of the oven to find a big puffy blueberry center surrounded by charred sides.
Elizabeth: I thought you made blueberry muffins?
Me: Well it’s kinda going to be a blueberry cake. It will taste just the same. The sides burned a little but let me just scoop some out of the center.
I then cut into my blueberry blob with a fork to hear a very inappropriate crunching sound that shouldn’t be present.
Elizabeth: Do you need a hammer to cut it or the phone book to order a pizza and feed us?
Me: (Admitting defeat) The phone book.
Tomorrow I’m going to work even if there is a big tundra of snow present and I have developed Pneumonia. Then the kids can have a lovely home cooked balanced meal from school.

A new pet grave just in time for Christmas.

Mother announced that she will be having my arch enemy, the living dead Chihuahua put to sleep. After years of having to carry him under her arms everywhere I was surprised she made this decision. It’s kind of like why bother now? He’s been deaf and blind for years now. I told her we should just send him to be freeze dried and she wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Basically the only thing that makes him appear to be living now is his raspy asthmatic breathing. We could get one of those little sound chips that they have at Build A Bear to stuff in the teddy bears to make them sound like they are breathing for him and have them install it during the freeze dry preservation process. After berating me for how awful I was for suggesting these things she said that she wasn’t sure what she would do. I suggested letting the vet dispose of him after putting him to sleep. She said that she could do that, she never had before and wondered what they do with the animals, if they buried them or just threw them away. At this point I should have kept my mouth shut, however being the know it all that I am I told her that vets sell the dead carcasses to pet food companies for rendering into pet food. She argued that I was joking, I countered with documentation to prove my point. So since she can’t stand the thought of freeze drying him or having him become a meal he must be buried on her farm. Ultimately I screwed myself by opening my big mouth since she will be so upset about his death that the actual burial process will fall on me. Basically I’ll be trying to dig a grave into frozen, hard as a rock soil, in the middle of the freaking winter for the little fucker. And this will put me on schedule to be sick at Christmas and having another bad holiday. He probably planned it this way.

Holiday Memories from the ER

I must be cursed on holidays in addition to my birthday (or maybe it’s just because my birthday is on a holiday that it sucks). Instead of looking forward to togetherness and family gatherings on the holidays I always look forward to the marathons that will be on A&E and sitting around in pajamas all day. Perhaps since I have this attitude the cosmos align on the holidays to punish me for being antisocial. I think it is genetic. If my family wanted to be social with each other then perhaps they would actually have a family gathering on the holidays. We always send each other a generic Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, or Happy Birthday text message on the day it is scheduled for in our planners so it isn’t completely unacknowledged. Nothing makes you feel more warm and fuzzy inside than a holiday text message! People always give me a sympathy invite to their holiday family gatherings but it is just too weird when it isn’t your family and you know that the only reason you got an invitation is out of pity, not because of your award winning personality. I gave up on sympathy turkey years ago. So this Thanksgiving I planned to embark on my reliable holiday tradition, sitting back in the recliner and watching whatever marathon was on. I especially needed to stay in since I had been fighting off a cold and something was wrong with my ear. It had been hurting for about two weeks; however since I would rather chew broken glass than go to the hospital I stupidly tried to treat my symptoms myself. A midwife I work with had looked in it and told me she thought it was a piece of wax that was down in my canal irritating it. Of course being that the ear is not the particular hole of the body that a midwife is an expert on this was not the best person to ask. Since I didn’t have a fever I assumed that she was right and I treated my ear as if it was the wax causing the discomfort. This consisted of home remedies of irrigation solutions of peroxide, warm water, heating pads, and just general stupidity on my part. I even bought an ear wax removal kit at the pharmacy, which I didn’t even know that they had before this. Yesterday my ear seemed to be hurting worse and in a vain and stupid attempt at fixing it on my own once again I ended up putting myself in agonizing pain and realizing that it was time to go to the ER , fearing that I had damaged my ear drum. Thanksgiving at the ER….. not the best place to be on a holiday and hopefully it won’t become a tradition. After going through the entire list of what I had put in my ear to the triage nurse she looked at me and asked why I hadn’t went to a doctor sooner and said that I should have known better. I told her I saw the error in my reluctance to seek treatment but thanks for pointing out what a twit I was anyway. I into the waiting room after being triaged to wait my turn. Just my luck the only seat available was between two men, one who I will refer to as the Witless Wonder and the other as the Geriatric Messiah. The Geriatric Messiah looked to be at least ninety, reeked of scotch, and was very loudly making proclamations on anything from gas prices to the end of the world. He kept tapping me on the shoulder to turn and listen to his pointless proclamations. The Witless Wonder was about forty, had a mullet, and a thick country accent complete with overalls and a John Deer cap. He wouldn’t stop talking to me even though I was obviously in a great deal of pain and he paid no attention to the fact that the ear he was talking to was covered by my hand and the fact that I wasn’t even looking at him.
Witless Wonder: You sick?
Me: No I come to the ER on the holidays to have some company and maybe get some free samples.
Witless Wonder: Really?
Me: No.
Witless Wonder: I got a splinter here in my thumb that I got from chopping wood. I tried to get it out but it’s a big one. You want to see?
Me: No.
Then the Witless Wonder, who is completely oblivious to my extreme lack of interest, held his thumb in front of my face to show me the splinter.
Witless Wonder: It hurts like a son of a bitch.
Me: I’m sure it does. (Then a tap on my left shoulder)
Geriatric Messiah: Lady, people can’t even afford food. We are at war. We are all going to die!
Me: Well isn’t that a lovely thought.
Witless Wonder: Don’t I know you from somewhere?
Me: No you don’t.
Witless Wonder: You really look familiar to me. Maybe I know your husband.
Realizing that this might be Witless Wonder’s attempt at finding out if I was available for him to seduce me I rolled my eyes and just glared at him.
Me: You might know him; he’s out there in a big truck with a big Remington on a gun rack. Why don’t you go out there and see?
At that moment I got up and started pacing at the opposite end of the waiting room. After what seemed like an eternity I was finally called back by the nurse who berated me once again about the fact that I should have known not to treat my ear at home. The exam rooms were full so she put me in this little corner and the only privacy I had was a curtain around the gurney I was sitting on which allowed me to hear everything that was going on at the nurse’s station. The doctor came out of an exam room to ask the nurse where he needed to go next.
Nurse: Over there behind the curtain is the girl with the ear. The pain has been going on for awhile but she decided to treat it herself instead of going to see someone.
Dr: The one that may have ruptured her ear drum?
Nurse: That’s the one.
Dr: Why did she do that to her ear?
I then started laughing loudly, thinking about the irony me being at the ER on a holiday with a self inflicted injury, looking like an idiot. They both got very quiet, probably thinking that I was completely crazy.
After a quick record breaking forty five second exam he determined that I had in fact hurt my ear (as if there was any doubt) and that I had swelling behind my tympanic membrane, a result of a massive ear infection, not wax, which was further aggravated by all of my home remedies. I’ll get a five hundred dollar bill for a forty five second exam. I even had to get more than the usual medicine prescribed for an ear infection since my ear in such bad shape. Then I had to go to the pharmacy to stand in a line. Why is there a line in the pharmacy on Thanksgiving? Aren’t most normal people with their families? Thankfully I didn’t get an ignorant pharmacy clerk this time. Then I got to spend the rest of the evening in a drug induced coma. Wonder what fiasco I will find myself in on Christmas.

The Turkey Jerky Casanova

My mother called me last night on my way home from work and asked me to stop by Sam’s Club on my way home and pick up a mega pack of jerky treats for her dogs. Mom has two poodles and a Chihuahua that is so close to death flies are already buzzing around him. I don’t particularly care for the poodles because all they do is give a high pitched bark at every sound they hear, even if it is just the wind blowing. The Chihuahua I absolutely loathe. Someone dropped off this little dog at my mother’s house because they must have heard that she is like Mother Teresa with stray animals. She takes them in and nurses them back to health no matter how old or sick they are. I am a big animal lover and I am just about as bad as she is about taking care of a stray animal, but this particular one I could have said no to. He wheezes every time he takes a breath, his penis no longer retracts and hangs out all of the time, one of his ears has a chunk missing, and his eyes are so fogged up by cataracts he can only see out of a tiny area in the corner of one eye. He is constantly running into the wall or your leg because he can’t see and his hearing is not good either. He is also very ill tempered (which if I had all of his afflictions I would probably be just as mad at the world) and any time he runs into your leg he bites it. My mom took him to the vet when he first came to the house and they couldn’t determine his age for sure. They told her from the looks of him that he was probably very old and only had a few more months to live. That was five years ago. For five years I have endured small bites on my leg every time I go to my mom’s house. Needless to say I loathe the dog. So I was already ticked about having to get out in the thirty degree weather with high winds and snow to get jerky for two dogs that annoy me and one that is my arch enemy. After finally finding my way to pet products in the massive mega warehouse that is Sam’s Club I was ready to just grab the bag and go. I had just grabbed the bag and was starting to leave when a very skinny man approached me. He had long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, a mustache, wearing old jeans and a flannel shirt. He said that if I really wanted my dogs to be happy I should give them all natural turkey jerky. I told him that they were not my dogs and what I had was fine. He then offered me a piece to try, saying that it was all natural and humans could eat it too. I began to think maybe he was one of the sample people that they always have in there trying to offer you a piece of food assuming you’ll try it, like it, and then buy it. I told him I didn’t need to try a sample and thanked him anyway. He then said that he wasn’t offering samples, he was just going to give me a taste cause I was so cute and then thrust his chest out and licked his lips. It was then painfully obvious he was coming on to me. Is this what I’ve been reduced to? Attempted seductions by hippies offering petrified meat as an aphrodisiac at a wholesale warehouse? I just rolled my eyes and walked past him. He then said “Hey Red, where you running off to?” To this I replied “fuck off”. The first time anyone has brazenly hit on me in months and it has to be Cheech and Chong’s distant cousin offering me turkey jerky. In the past I’ve been offered by men to have drinks bought for me, or dinner, but never turkey jerky. Exactly what kind of pheromones am I giving off to attract this type of man? Forget tall, dark and handsome, it’s now scrawny, gray and annoying. I checked out with my lone bag of dog treats and walked back out into the artic tundra to deliver the freeze dried petrified meat to mom’s freeze dried petrified Chihuahua and his annoying friends. This is my life.

A Republican Amongst Us

My son is five, extremely intelligent and more political than I ever thought about being at his age. He is just like me, capable of having deep philosophical conversations along with having a ditzy blonde moment at least twice a day. (He is a brunette, so I guess in this case I will just call it Sarah Palin syndrome) My son had an election at school a week prior to the recent election. He was so proud of himself that he had voted. I told him I was proud of him for voting. Last night he brought up the election he had at school. He asked me if I wanted to know who he voted for. I said sure if he wanted to tell me. The conversation went as follows:
Damien: I voted for John McCain.
Me: Wow son. So you’re a Republican?
Damien: How did you know? (Sarah Palin syndrome kicking in)
Me: Magical guess. So what made you vote for John McCain?
Damien: He just seems like a very sweet old man and he has that pretty woman with him all of the time. Obama doesn’t have a pretty girl with him.
Me: Which pretty girl? His wife or Sarah Palin?
Damien: The one with brown hair. Not his daughter. She’s pretty too though.
Me: Which daughter?
Damien: The one that is with him all the time. She has yellow hair.
Me: That’s his wife, not his daughter.
Damien: No she’s not. She’s too young to be his wife.
Me: That’s called a trophy wife son. You’ll probably have one some day too, especially since you are a Republican.
Damien: Who are you voting for?
Me: I have an Obama sticker on both of our vehicles. Who do you think?
Damien: You are a Democrat?
Me: Yes.
Damien: You are voting for Obama?
Me: Yes.
Damien: That just won’t work. He doesn’t have a pretty girl with him.
Me: You have a right to your choice; I have a right to mine. We don’t have to both vote for the same candidate.
Damien: Yes we do. Now you have to pick John McCain mom. You have to go with my choice. (My son is getting very agitated at this point)
Me: Wow Damien, you are really opinionated, argumentative, and think that you are always right and everyone should go with your opinions. You make a very good Republican.
Damien: Well, I can’t believe you’re a Democrat. (Arms crossed across chest at this
point, pouty defeated look across his face.)
Me: Sweetie, you do realize that the election is over, right? We don’t get to vote again. They don’t take turns. Obama won. He is the president now.
Damien: Oh. I’m gonna miss John McCain. Can we go visit him?
Me: Let’s change the subject. What did you learn today?
Damien: I learned about Hanukah. Happy Hanukah mom.
Me: Thank you dear. Happy Hanukah to you.
Damien: We should celebrate Hanukah.
Me: We aren’t Jewish.
Damien: What?!?
Me: We aren’t Jewish honey.
Damien: We should be. I want to have Hanukah. Why aren’t we Jewish?
Me: I don’t know, I guess the egg I came from was implanted in the wrong uterus.
Damien: I think we will have Hanukah.
Me: Okay son, you be a Jewish Republican, I’ll be an agnostic Democrat with Catholic tendencies.
Damien: Fine you can be a Democrat mom, just as long as you vote for John McCain.

At this point I feel like beating my head against the wall, wishing I didn’t live in a dry county.

Hooked on Phonics doesn't work for everyone.

When I leave work I am usually exhausted. Yesterday was no exception. I had to stop by Walgreens to pick up a prescription that I had dropped off three days earlier, so I knew that by now it would be ready. When I got there two very long lines of people were at the pharmacy counter. After about fifteen minutes it was my turn at the counter. The woman that had been in front of me was now standing to my side waiting because the clerk told her that her prescription was not ready and when she insisted it must be ready since it too had been called in several days prior the clerk told her to simply stand by and she would talk to the pharmacist about it when he got a spare minute. I told the clerk that I was there to pick up my prescription and gave her my name. The first two initials of my last name are Li. The plastic bins that they keep the prescriptions in at Walgreens are labeled with the first two letters of the last name. She looked in the first bin that was marked LA-LH. She did not look in the second bin which was marked LI-LZ. She then told me my prescription was not ready either. I told her that it must be because it had been called in three days ago. She then said she would see if it was in pending. While she was doing that I started staring at the bins. Sure enough I could see my name clearly marked on one of the prescriptions in the LI-LZ bin. When she got back and told me that it wasn’t pending I said that I knew it was ready because I could see it and I pointed to it. She then got an attitude and said that I was wrong. By this time my patience was wearing thin. The conversation went as follows:
Me: My prescription is right there in that bin, the one marked LI-LZ.
Clerk: No it’s not. That bin starts with LL.
Me: No it doesn’t. That is an L and an I.
Clerk: No it isn’t. It doesn’t have a dot. It has two L’s.
Me: That is a CAPITAL I! That is why there is no dot. It is a capital I.
Clerk: Lady, I know it doesn’t have a dot. It’s an L, as I told you.
At this point I said nothing and just stared at her. I was about to blow a head gasket. Realizing at this point that explaining the alphabet to her was going to be like explaining physics to Forrest Gump I decided to stop trying. I then said in a very firm voice that I could see my prescription and if she couldn’t manage to find it with me pointing to it then I would gladly go behind the counter and get it for her. She then rolled her eyes and looked, of course found it and then began slamming the keys on the cash register because she was obviously agitated. The woman beside me had witnessed the whole encounter and realized that her missing prescription probably couldn’t be found because of the clerk’s lack of skill. She asked if the clerk would mind checking again on hers as well. Magically she managed to find it in the same bin.

French Tips, Drainage Bags and Testicles

I’ve never had a good experience when getting my nails done. The first time I got my nails done I was a complete novice to the process and just my luck I ended up with the Nail Nazi taking care of me. He berated me for chewing my own natural nails down to nubs because he had hardly anything to work with and he also got frustrated with me when he was telling me something and I replied with “what?” or didn’t do what he commanded immediately. How was I supposed to know “You go wah han na” meant “You go wash hands now”? On top of the fact that he was speaking so fast and obviously mad at me it was a very frustrating experience. I then trained myself to listen very carefully and after learning the general process I could usually decipher what they were saying during future appointments. I had not had my nails done in several years when I passed by a nail salon on Saturday that was offering a full set of acrylics for $15. I’m a sucker for a bargain and decided I should devote a little time to myself and at that price I deserved to. I walked in to what I expected to be a full salon and found much to my surprise no one was there. This should have been my first clue. A short guy comes out of the back, introduces himself as Ping, and motions to a seat. After we get through the basic chat detailing what I want he gets to work. He starts talking to me through the mask that they wear. I think this muffling makes an already hard to understand dialect even harder to understand. I really just wanted to relax and not talk. Americans can pick up on the subtle cues that I don’t want to talk to them which I try to project 24/7. The Vietnamese apparently do not. He goes through asking me a million questions I can barely understand in between talking to his brother who is sitting next to him in his native tongue about me and giggling. Ping is done with my first hand and is getting starting on the second when another customer comes in. She is apparently well known to the establishment since they call her by name. Linda (at least I think that was her name, the pronunciation I heard was Lina or Wina, I couldn’t be sure) sat down beside me and Ping’s brother promptly started working on her. I noticed a smell coming from this woman but being she was extremely overweight I assumed it was weird body odor. I then began to drift off in my mind and try to tune everything out (Ping was now carrying on a conversation with his brother and Linda) when I was promptly pulled out of my attempt at a day dream by the brother. He was asking Linda what the tubing was hanging from her shirt. I had not noticed this when she walked in. She then lifted her shirt and showed him that she had a drain coming out of her stomach from a surgery that she recently had where the incision got a massive infection and she now had to have this drain for a few days to get the pus out. I kid you not, a drain bag complete with a bit of orange tinged liquid at the bottom. At least the origin of the weird smell was no longer a mystery. After she explained all of this Ping asked her why she wasn’t home in bed since she had the drain and she responded that she needed to get her nails done for her date. Now exactly what kind of date do you have that is so important you have to show up with a drainage bag connected to your stomach? The act of getting perfect French tips for the date in the first place seems kind of trivial when you have A FREAKING DRAIN ATTACHED TO YOUR BELLY! Although acrylic nails can be quite beautiful I don’t think their beauty is quite enough to make someone not notice a drainage bag hanging from you. Imagine that conversation. “Why what interesting perfume you have on Linda. What is it called?” “Oh honey that’s not my perfume that’s the puss from my drainage bag. Are you ready to order our food yet?” Apparently Ping and his brother did not seem to notice the socially unacceptable practice of showing up for a date with a drainage bag attached. They kept talking and laughing. I must have tuned out while pondering Linda’s date rationale because I was pulled back into the conversation by Ping snapping his fingers at me. He wanted to know if I knew the English word for that thing that hangs down between a man’s legs. I stared at him for a few seconds and then said “testicles”. Then he was all excited that I had given him the right word. He then said “testicles, that what I meant, dog testicles” to Linda and his brother. In Ping’s home county they castrate their dogs by placing a rubber band around their testicles and waiting for them to fall off. How they got on this particular subject I do not know. I began to think that perhaps I was in a really bad dream or I’d been killed in a car accident earlier in the day and I was on the first level of Dante’s Inferno. Ping finally finished with me, I paid and wished Linda good luck on her date, got in my Jeep and left skid marks in the parking lot. As I was peeling out of there I noticed letters on the roof that said Bargain Nail. Not plural, just one nail. Maybe they had an “S” before but a rival nail salon placed a rubber band around it.

Dyeing for Change

Yesterday was a cold dreary day in Nashville. It was raining all morning and it was the first really cold day in October. It was undeniable that winter weather was just around the corner. I don’t know if it was the realization that the fall had truly set in, winter was on its way, and everything was changing or what, but at about nine in the morning I decided I needed a change, which for me is changing my hair color. Hair dye is the only thing that I’ve ever really been addicted to. I started dabbling in coloring my hair when I was sixteen with temporary dye and then by the time I was in my early twenties I had moved on to the hardcore permanent dyes. I was always warned that once I switched over to the hardcore I could never go back; my hair would never be the same unless I cut it all off and started over. Apparently since I always pick a variation of a red shade I don’t have this to worry about, since red dyes, even permanent versions, always fade. This is the only thing that always frustrates me about coloring my hair is how quickly it fades. I naturally have strawberry blonde, which my mother says she has absolutely no understanding of why anyone with my natural hair color would change it. I guess we always have that one thing we wish was different and for me it is to have fiery red hair with no blonde in it. I’ve really tried to become greener this year and let my inner child natural tree hugger come out, and with this change I felt I should appreciate my natural attributes and quit trying to change them. Well, that phase of my life is over; or at least the no coloring part of it. I had held off dyeing my hair for at least a year until the urge to color was so strong yesterday I could deny myself no longer. I like dark auburn hair and I want dark auburn hair. When I went to buy my favorite head turning shade the salesclerk said that I was about the twentieth woman to purchase hair dye that morning and she wondered why everyone had decided to change their hair color that day. I then began to suspect maybe I had been a victim of a subliminal marketing campaign by L’Oreal. I’ve seen exposes on how companies can quickly flash an image of their product into whatever show you are watching and it will stay stuck in your subconscious. Whatever made me decide I had to have a change right then I agreed it was what I needed, and after a year of depriving myself of my long term addiction I finally gave in. Nothing quite matches the smell of those noxious, odorous hair dye chemicals taking over my bathroom, watching the dye turn to a dark purple foam on my head, and anxiously waiting to see the result even though I pick the same shade every time. No waiting for the mandatory skin allergy test listed in the instructions for me, true addicts don’t bother with them anyway. The rush of endorphins that hit me when it is all rinsed out and I see my new shade is like Prozac in a box. I can't believe I held out for as long as I did without coloring. I tried but I can't give it up. Now I have my lustrous fall auburn shade back, complete with chemically burned eyebrows that will take about a week to fade. I gave up cigarettes after twelve years, it’s been over a year since I’ve smoked now, but I can’t give up my 7R Red Penny. At least I'll be a pro at it by the time my grays start creeping in.