Trying to squeak in a quick post so that I don’t go a whole month without one…which you know means you’re in for a literary masterpiece. AND, I have to get it done during the short window I have while the baby is sleeping – I’m pretty sure that’s how all the great novels are written.
The other day I was making (by “making” I mean opening the box and dumping it into water) pasta and because I’m a dork with no memory, I always check the directions, but I never noticed this until now:
I realize “to taste” means more “to your liking” or “however much you want,” but I just don’t think “to taste” is the wisest direction to use in conjunction with boiling water.
And at the grocery store, because these are the kinds of things that are important to me, I checked some other brands and they said the same thing.
In a world where IKEA specifies that you NOT put babies inside storage bins, you’d think that the wording about tasty salty boiling water would be different. Maybe:
“Add between one grain and a coffee mug of salt,” or, “salt it like you mean it but don’t get too crazy.” I’m just throwing those out there, I’m not a pasta box directions writer. But, if you’re in charge of hiring for that position and have discovered me, I’m open to it.
At the drug store the other day, this caught my eye:
“I HAVE seen that on TV,” I thought to myself – that box was totally right! Looking at the list of wonderful things about the My Pillow:
Anti-microbial
Dust mite resistant
Built-in cooling effects (whatever the hell that means)
The list was long and impressive. But, I can’t purchase this pillow, and here’s why:
I just think a grown man with a mustache shouldn’t be lovingly cuddling a pillow on the box. This seems very obvious to me, like marketing 101: “no one with a mustache should be affectionate with the product on the packaging.” I’ve never taken a marketing class, but isn’t that the first or AT MOST the third thing they tell you?
And then I couldn’t stop thinking about how much this man loved this pillow, and then I started to worry about what would happen if they had a baby together, and now this haunts my nightmares:
And now I’m not sure I can even have any pillows anymore.
P.S. I’ve had to send my stupid brand new laptop off to be fixed so there won’t be a Super Friends this week for those of you who read them.
2. I’m currently on hold to switch the water bill/account back to us for a whole flippin’ month. The estimated wait time on the phone is 18 minutes. The water resources wait music follows the same proud tradition of the Georgia DMV – one minute clip of muzak repeated over and over and over. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do – drive me to go online. I WOULD LOVE TO DO THAT WITH ALL OF MY HEART AND SOUL. It’s what I was born to do – run errands without having to leave my house or speak to anyone. Unfortunately, your user experience is seriously lacking and I don’t want to have to start a whole new account if I don’t have to. SO HA HA HA, jokes on you, I’m going to sit here and suffer. Oh, wait.
3. In related news, we got an offer on our house! Hooray! This is why I have to activate the water, gas, and electricity for exactly one month – the time between renters and new owners. If everything keeps moving forward smoothly (like the smooth jazz I’m currently listening to), we’ll close on December 31st.
4. My call is very important to them.
5. I’m sincerely starting to worry that I will have forgotten what I called about, panic, tell them to have a nice day, hang up, and have to start again.
6. Tom is currently making lunch while I’m here on hold. I’d like some lunch. Or maybe I’ve never had lunch before. My sense of self is slowly being replaced by this one minute of smooth jazz.
7. “We hear you want some water, some water, waaatteeer, want some water” is the lyrics to the song I’m listening to. I wrote these lyrics, they are copyrighted so don’t even think about it, Gwinnett County Water Resources.
8. I’ve had the thought – “maybe we don’t really NEED to have the water on for the next month.” But then I thought – “what if someone breaks in, notices there’s no water, so they take a shit on the carpet instead of in the toilet.” My second thought was about how the water needs to be on so that the plumber can properly fix a couple of leaky faucets.
9. I’m on the phone with the lady and she’s typing away so I’m going to type too. Typing twins!
10. Now I have to call the gas company. Their hold muzak is more generic Eric Clapton than smooth jazzy jazz.
11. Do not giggle and report a gas leak that you noticed shortly after eating a burrito. Do not giggle and report a gas leak that you noticed shortly after eating a burrito. Do not….
I’ve added a picture of gum.
12. This lady is chewing gum. I hope it brings her a little pleasure during her day of having to talk to idiots like me.
13. Now I have to listen to a robot explain the terms and conditions. Let me get my pen and paper! I’m just kidding robot, I’m not listening.
14. “To end this call, please hang up.” I actually sat through the message long enough to be told that.
15. I thank you for reaching the end of this post, you as a reader are important to me. Be-ba-di-do-wop-a-diddly-doo.
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This post was inspired by: Studio30Plus‘ writing prompt, me needing something to do while on hold, and seriously extensive writer’s block.
I hate shopping for clothes. Even more specifically, I hate trying on clothes. I hate every moment of the experience.
First of all, I’ve seen too many “very special episodes” of TV shows about shoplifting to not know that there’s some person sitting at some control booth watching me change. We all know you’re out there, you mouth breathers with your bar-b-cue potato chip fingers, just waiting to catch me shoving tank tops and bras into my purse. When I arrive at the changing room and I do a weird dance in front of the mirror with both my middle fingers in the air – that is directed at you, sir or madam.
I also hate the number cards they pass out when you go and try clothes on. Never are my insecurities over my ability to count so tested as when I have to come up with the correct number of garments I want to wriggle in and out of as quickly as I can in that florescent nightmare of a room. What if I give the wrong number? Will I waste away in prison, cursing myself for my inability to correctly tally up pants? Will those miscounted pants – the two I never had in the first place, become an enduring mystery, like D.B. Cooper’s money? “Nobody knows where C.E. Williford may have hidden those two pairs of khakis. We may never know,” Dateline will tell it’s viewers. “But I didn’t! I didn’t hide two pairs of khakis, I just count worse than a toddler,” I will yell, but it will fall on deaf ears.
I like to have pictures with my blog posts. This is a drawing of a pair of pants, just in case you’re not sure what I’m talking about.
Last week I had to face the harsh reality that I have grown too fat for all but two pairs of pants – one pair of capris, and one pair of black jeans. I live in the South, which means in the summer it feels like a sadistic grandma is smothering you with a soaking wet hot quilt. If my black jeans had them, they would have rolled their eyes hearing me explain that although it’s 102 degrees outside, I’m sure if I stay in the shade it’ll be fine. But, even I am not that delusional. I only had one pair of useable pants. This was a sad realization, and doubly so because it meant having to buy new pants.
I made my way to the local Super Target, grabbed 3 different pairs of pants of varying sizes (I did count correctly – things were looking up), and headed to the dressing room. Even if there’s a lock on the door, I have a constant fear of being walked-in on, like someone will pick the lock because they’re certain nobody’s in there. This has never actually happened to me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t worry about it; it’s is a free country.
I quickly tried on all three pairs of pants. I bet I looked like a contestant on Double Dare trying to get through the obstacle course in time. One after the other – none of them fit. They were too small. After removing and individually cursing each pair, I gathered my things and left the dressing room. As instructed by the attendant (is that the right word for that job?), I left the unwanted and now cursed pants on a giant pile for someone else to put back (that always bothers me, I feel like I’m shirking my responsibility to put things back where they belong).
This is when a rational person would then get some larger sizes to go back and try on. No. I don’t go back in to dressing rooms after I’ve gone once. I take the information I gathered from the first trip – “those pants were too small for me” – and jump to conclusions – “the next size up is obviously the correct choice.” I went to the pants what were the least tightest and bought the next size up, being so thankful that I’m smart enough to outwit a second trip to try pants on.
The next morning I woke up and grabbed my new pair of pants and I swear I heard my formerly sole pair of pants, a crumpled, broken heap in the corner of the room, crying tears of joy.
The new pants are too big. Did I return them and resign myself to another voyage to the fitting room? I think we all know the answer to that. No, they’re not so big that I can’t wear them. I just need a belt. If the belt were a tied rope, yes, I would look like a hobo. But, I would rather look like an overweight hobo who still somehow manages to have pants that are too big than take my clothes off at a place other than my own home for the second time in a week.
Life is about growing, learning lessons that help you improve yourself. With age comes wisdom and all that jazz. What lesson did I learn from The Ballad of Buying a Second Pair of Pants? Fuck lessons.
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This post was in response to Studio30 Plus‘ writing prompts this week.
Over this past weekend, I was visiting my mom and sister in North Carolina. It was a relatively quick trip, just Friday-Sunday. I had already completely fucked up the extremely basic math of packing:
Friday + Saturday + Sunday + Monday = 2 whole days there = 2 changes of clothes.
That is incorrect. The correct answer is 3 changes of clothes. I am really, really bad at math.
I usually always leave something there when I return home. Mostly it’s clothing. Sometimes it’s a phone charger, or my keys, or the camera. One time, it was a pair of sandals that smell like sweaty ass-foot, so it was really more an act of cruelty to my mom than an inconvenience to me.
This time, I really didn’t bring that much, and as I loaded my car, I took mental inventory:
“Ok, I have my phone, it’s charger, my e-reader, the camera, my laptop, my keys, toiletries, clothes…well, if I do leave anything, it won’t be too important, because I have all the essentials. If I leave anything, it won’t matter, I’ll get it next time I’m up.”
I left my laptop’s power cord. And, just to be sure I really screwed myself over, I ran the battery down to nothing the night before. I failed to heed the words of Journey, “be good to yourself, when nobody else will.”
My mom said she’d try to send me my cord today. Until then, I’m stuck** with Tom’s MacBook, old-lady-complaining about how I don’t know how anything works and my bunions are killing me, even though I don’t even have any bunions.
So, I’m going to take a break, soak this MacBook on warm salt water, and hopefully that will make everything better again.
