Can anyone spare $24.83 and provide a receipt?

So the husband and I sat down at another restaurant for dinner. I work full time now, I avoid cooking. This was the topic of our dinner conversation, the not cooking thing. Then the conversation took on a life of its own and we started discussing my receptionist career. "You know what I'm doing now?" I asked him. "They dumped the petty cash box in my lap."
The husband looked amused.
"It hasn't been reconciled since September."
His face lit up like a Christmas tree.
"It kind of got lost in the shuffle during the layoffs at the beginning of the year."
Then there was an honest to God, genuine look of interest in his demeanor.
And then we laughed a good 45 to 56 seconds. There would have been more laughing but our waiter came by to tell us the evenings specials. The baked ziti sounded good so I ordered it. When our waiter left the husband asked me, "What kind of bull crap have you been slinging around that office? I can straighten them out right now by showing them about six or seven old checkbooks you've screwed up over the years."
"I never put proficient in Math on my resume, I avoid all Math conversations around the water cooler. I even mentioned once that I hated Math and I know people heard me, I'm kind of loud."
"Really, I never noticed."

Now that the laughing stage is over and done with, I'm fast approaching the hair pulling stage, next will be the crying. I can't seem to find $24.83.
And I'm totally clueless on where to look for it.

I'm not one of those bloggers that just posts a video so they can say they posted, really

But I was on YouTube, because my Christmas shopping is going to get its self done, and I watched my one and only video I posted there again. I decided to share it in case anyone missed it. The two in the video say they are my kids, but I don't know who they are.

Fourth of July Picnic at Tattoo Tim's House 2009:

I think she's trying to communicate with me.

Never being an overly ambitious person throughout my 40 something years, I decided long ago that one language was enough for me. It's a decision I still stand by, it's a decision that has plagued me at the Scary Asian Dry Cleaners.
I learned last year that The Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dudes co-worker, family member, whoever she is, that takes my seven ah twenty every week likes to be paid in singles, she loves them. She made it perfectly clear to me when I gave her a twenty and she saw the singles in my wallet, "You pay with dollah, you pay with dollah."
"But...........I...."
Smelling the fear she continued, "You pay with dollah."
"I need this for my son's lunch money." Everyone knows you can't give a kid a twenty and expect change back. I held my ground and she backed off.
My weekly language barrier continued Friday. Armed with singles, like I always have and forever will be, after the dollah incident, I dropped off my four shirt and picked up my four shirt. The only thing next was for her to tell me "Have nice day." We have a routine, little or no talking and we stick to the basics. But she started to talk to me. "Huh?" I had no idea what she was saying but she was pointing to my money and the cash register. "What?" If she's raising their prices she needs to learn a new sentence. "I don't understand." We both became frustrated, she ended the "conversation" by waving me off. I was dismissed.
As I walked to my car, with my head hung low (she didn't tell me to "Have nice day.") I tried to piece together the what had just happened. I'm still at a loss, well not a total loss. I'm pretty sure I might have stiffed her a buck.
Read my last post and tell me there ain't some weird karma going on.

From the Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dude Files part 27

Ahh crap. I stopped at the Dry Cleaners during lunch yesterday and the Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dude tried to stiff me out of a buck. With the economy in the tank and Christmas fast approaching like a run away semi-truck on an icy road, I had to point out the error. I helped him count back from $16.50 and the light came on in his eyes. Whether it was the light that meant,
"Oh I see now where I was wrong, thank you for being so understanding."
Or,
"I'm going to beat you over the head with my numb-chucks when you least suspect it, and it will be soon."
I'm not sure.
Someone remind me to send one of the children for the dry cleaning next week.
Aren't the Asian people a people of superior math skills anyway?
I left the dry cleaners with mixed emotions. Obviously I have untapped mad Math skills, but would I live long enough to put them to good use?

"The hell? Snow?" This is mildly annoying.

Thanksgiving Day the husband and I ran around from destination to destination in sweatshirts and this morning snow, ground covering snow. Damn. Why didn't I have a winter jacket on when we set out on our Thankgsiving Day? And when I say destination to destination, I don't mean schlepping from house to house with three kids in tow, eating dinner after dinner, we've been there, done that. I mean:
Handing the crock pot full of mashed potato's to the husband, I announce, "We have to stop at the store on the way to your sisters for maxi-pads."
He made a sound that I am unable to spell and said, "Can't you just....."
"I can't just do anything. We have to stop on this day of Thanksgiving, the day we say thanks for all of life's many blessing and stop for maxi-pads."
We have a short stare-down, "I guess we could pick up some pop, I guess."
"Yes, that's a good idea."
He's come such a long way over the years, maxi-pad talk use to scare him, now he's just mildly annoyed.

We live in Northeast Ohio, so at anytime of the year snow doesn't surprise me, it's just usually cold when the snow falls. Maybe I'm having hot flashes.

Wash your hands moron

If the world is being dumbed down to mass retardation, seriously, do I have to participate? Do I have to be on the list of people that need to be called on a "sleep in" Saturday morning to be reminded I need a prescription filled? I can tell the bottle is almost empty, any moron can tell when a bottle is almost empty. Gah! Do I really need to be reminded I need to make an eye appointment? I know when I can't see.

And don't get me started on the "swine flu" procedures. It's been drilled into my head since birth to wash my hands. But for some reason the world is compelled to remind me with every turn I make to wash my hands. Signs, signs everywhere signs.

Society, we weren't born yesterday, most of us, can we be treated like we have functioning brain cells? Like adults, perhaps?

Okay, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Now I have to go find my car keys.

Turkeys in the parking lot

Being so close to Thanksgiving you'd think turkeys would keep a low profile, you know, hide in the woods, cowering in fear. So you can imagine my surprise to see five of them boldly, taking a stroll across the parking lot at work yesterday morning. At first I thought it was a bunch of geese, we have geese and goose poop everywhere by the office, they are a common occurrence. But I did a double take, "Huh? Turkeys in the parking lot? What kind of crazy messed up day is this going to be?"
I had to share the freakiness with my co-workers. If my day was going to start off with turkeys walking through the parking lot, so was theirs. We watched through the office windows as the turkeys made their way around the building, moving from office to office picking up a new member of the turkey watching procession as we went along. The turkeys picked the newest car in the parking lot to jump on. Seriously, one jumped up on the hood and another the roof, the car still had temporary tags on it. It was clear by then we were under attack. Something had to be done.
"Keep an eye on them, I'm getting my camera."
"We can't stop them you know, they're pissed about something, you better hurry."
"Make sure you get one of the vans in the picture with our logo, we can get this in the company newsletter."
"I'm slightly worried about my car."
"I'm sure it's fine."
The turkeys made their way towards the woods and we haven't seen them since, perhaps they were making some kind of Thanksgiving statement, we'll never be sure though. You never know what turkeys are thinking.

My fragile mental state of mind

Leaving the safety of my home, I ventured out into the swine flu riddled world we now live in, only leaving for food, gas and a mocha. Already at risk and in a weakened condition, because I'm pretty sure I have a sinus infection, I did this for my family to survive the weekend. I stocked up on Sponge Bob macaroni and cheese and Pepsi, oh and another bottle of my beloved Nyquil. Not that I've gone through a whole bottle myself, yet, the rest of the family likes to knock themselves out with that stuff when they're sick too.
We're sick but not swine flu sick. I'm sure I have a sinus infection but refuse to go to the doctors and sit in the germ infested waiting room for antibiotics. I suppose I'll have to go to the "black market" for those. Where is the "black market" any way? I need a few things.
Whether I ever leave my house again will be up to how much I let the media scare me and in my fragile mental state, because of the FaceBook addiction and my brain swimming in snot, it may be never.

FaceBook is reading my thoughts

Ever since I've fallen into the FaceBook black hole, my blog has suffered. But FaceBook told me the blog will be fine and I have no choice but to agree with it, it rules me now.
On my Farmville Farm I planted my entire field with corn with plans of creating a crop circle, thought it would be cool. I messed it up and started over, corn takes three days to be ready to harvest. In that three days Farmville added new items, crop circles. Doh!
You know what this means don't you? I have to start wearing a tin foil hat while on the computer.

My eyes, my eyes, dear God my eyes!

Sitting at work, receptionisting the hell out of the day, I was treated to a view that is now burned into my retinas, for how long, I'm not sure. I'd like to think the image will fade in time, one can only hope I suppose.
I'm at such an angle at my desk that I can see the reception area, the parking lot and our parts counter. Which is good for me, I'm generally a nosy person, I don't know how people can sit in a cubical with no windows all day without snapping at some point, going postal or just start banging their head against the walls. Maybe a have a light case of claustrophobia.
Back to the wide open space that is mine. I saw, coming from the parking lot a very large man with long black hair, in the back of his head, short in the front. Yes, a large man with a mullet and that's not even the worse part. On the inside, I'm saying, "Look at this effin guy." On the outside, "Good morning." Because remember, I was receptionisting the hell out of the day.
He sat down at the part counter. The phone rang, my attention was pulled towards the phone which is on the side of the parts counter where the large man with a mullet was now sitting. I had taken a glance and then another, "Is that? .....oh man, that's butt crack."
Look away, look away. Damn he's still there. Look away.
I knew it was there, I knew it was an awful sight, yet I kept looking that way. Like a car wreck, you know you shouldn't gawk, but you do it anyway. So I thought, well maybe if I put my hand up to the side of my face I could block the view of the large man with a mullet and now butt crack.
"Whoa." This is from one of the salesmen. "That's some view you have there."
"Make it stop."
"Sorry, I'm on my way out." He said with a grin.
On his "way out" he went out of his way to bang on the window on the side of the large man with a mullet and now butt crack, to wave goodbye to me, insuring yet another look.

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Another reason I'm not posting much, is that I'm working full time now. This is something I haven't done since I first got married, almost 25 years ago. I now have a deeper appreciation for Fridays. TGIF!

I promise to post more as soon as I get the FaceBook monkey off my back.

Isn't it funny how an innocent little "invite" on FaceBook can lead to a total, life consuming obsession? What the hell do I need a virtual farm for? But as I type I have another window open on my computer so I can keep an eye on my crops. FaceBook will be the death of me.

The husband and I actually saw farm stuff up close a couple weeks ago, we went to a county fair. It was a work related thing for him and he dragged his city girl wife along. At this fair, while walking amongst the farm people, it's where we decided our children are way too spoiled. Farm kids lead a entirely different life than spoiled city kids. We weren't sure exactly what these farm kids were doing but their days are spent a lot different than ours. We wandered into a barn and sat on some bleachers, because the guy on the speaker said they were starting in 5 minutes.
"Starting what?"

"I don't know."
"Well, we better sit down."
There were several different farm animals at different stations with a person in charge of an animal and these kids kept going to each station with a score card they gave to the person. The husband and I sat perplexed, noticeably perplexed.
"Alright, I'll take a picture."

After about three, 5 minute sessions, because that's all the time they were allotted for whatever they were doing, I leaned over to the husband and said, "This is boring the living snot out of me."
He was up off the bleachers before I finished the sentence. This is when we stumbled into a field of tractors. Which was even more boring because they didn't even move. But the husband reminisced about the summers he spent on his aunt and uncles farm and showed me the kind of tractor he use to drive.
"You drove a tractor just like that?"
"Yep."
"Before you had your drivers license?"

Hello, my name is Sue and I watched America's Got Talent

Just about from beginning to end, I watched it, not counting the commercials and when David Hasselhoff spoke. You see I had to record the episodes because the husband white hot hhhhhates it. Nothing entertains him on TV except World War II documentaries and Sports Center. It's a right brain versus left brain kind of thing we have going. He has absolutely no imagination what-so-ever and I watch Kookamonga television shows.

The advantages of recording America's Got Talent are as follows:
1. I can't say enough about the Fast Forward function, let's break this down.
a. I can't get past this David Hasselhoff picture and video. When he speaks, "Hoffatizes" everything and criticizes an act, I just want to say, "Shut up, you ate a cheeseburger "hoff" the floor." It's much easier to fast forward through his self indulged babbling. I think he even sang on the show, maybe even danced too, but I fast forwarded so quick it was just a blur and I covered my eyes partly too.
b. Commercials, except for the e-trade babies, who wants to voluntarily watch a commercial?
c. The sob stories, if you make it to the big show, semi-finals, finals, whatever, there's a certain amount of crying involved. Too much crying you blow your chances, not enough and you're done. So fast forwarding through that crap saves brain cells. None of them have ever made me cry and none of them have ever made me vote. But for some reason America's Got Talent entertains me and drives the husband crazy, it's a win/win.
2. That pause button, it gives me the ability to yell at a teenager at will and never miss a thing. Barking orders from my recliner with my fingers on the pause and fast forward buttons while the husband contemplates sticking a fork in his eye, now that's one hell of an evening.

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How off do you have to be with your spellin' when the spell-check says "no suggestions"?

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My mother-in-law is recuperating in a nursing home now and doing much better! Thanks everyone for your kind comments and wishing her well!

Apparently I have mad ironing skills

"You look nice in that white shirt."
"Thank you."
"Did you press it yourself?"
"Uh yeeees."
"It looks good."
"Thank...... you?"

So along with my charming personality, friendly disposition and my ability to get along well with others, I can wield a mean-ass iron. This conversation was with a Marine, they know about pressing. My resume is complete.
I'm guessing they call ironing, pressing in the Marines, right?

So I asked the husband.
"Did he mention your gib line?"
"Huh? Give line? The hell are you talking about?"
"Gib line, the line of buttons from your neck to your crotch."
"He never mentioned my crotch."

So I searched google for gib line, nothing.
"You don't know what you're talking about, gib line, there's no such thing on google or wikipedia."
"Are sure he wasn't hitting on you?"
"I.... no.... I just have mad ironing skills."

Isn't it about time we had our flying cars already?

"They have the road to the hospital down to 2 lanes because of their endless construction this summer." The husband says to me. "But I know an alternate route that will take us around it." And he says this with an all knowing, I'm all over this traffic thing look on his face. The kind of look that made me think he spent most of his day contemplating our route and probably was on the Internet and everything.
We were breezing along the alternate route, windows open, radio humming and discussing the boys and where we went wrong with them, when we turned the bend in the road and saw a gozillion red brake lights at a stand still ahead of us.
"Huh. Looks like people are on to your alternate route."
And since I try to maintain a PG rated blog I won't mention what he said next.

So we sat for awhile lost in our own thoughts. That's when I wondered what the hold up was on the flying cars.

If we learned anything during our childhood while watching The Jetsons, it was that in the future we'd all be driving flying cars. I took a sideways glance at the husband and knew that it wasn't the time to bring that subject up. I knew I had to mull in over on my own.

You can't just give a flying car to anybody, I thought. Flying cars needed to be doled out carefully. Someone with an excellent driving record. Which then had me switching gears to my loaner car mishap, how was I going to make that go away? If that gets in the way of me getting a flying car I'll be pissed. I had an excellent driving record before that incident.
You can't just give a flying car to a dumb person either, there's going to have to be an IQ test for flying car ownership. Which I would pass with flying colors, I'm sure of it.
Probably in the beginning stages of flying cars we would have to wear helmets, something I would have to someway get around. I spend too much time on my hair in the morning to have helmet head all day.

Yes, I had that much time to ponder flying cars in the traffic jam.

"Hey we're moving." We made it to the hospital in time to see mom, who looked so much better than she has in days. The hospital staff was making an exception and letting her great-grand children visit, she was beaming.

It's what I get for wearing white after Labor Day

Gulping down my beloved mocha yesterday in between phone calls at work, I got a little careless and spilled. This sent me into a frenzy. My favorite white, long shorts, with the embroidery and beads at the bottom of the legs had mocha spots on them. Damn. Damn it.
Risking unemployment, I left the phone unattended and ran to the ladies room. Constructing a story as I went. The office is primarily men so any mention of tampons shuts them up quick. That was going to be my story if needed. I don't like to use the tampon card unless absolutely necessary, one doesn't want to reduce it's effectiveness, you know?
Vigorously I pumped pink soap out of the dispenser in the ladies room onto 1-ply C-fold paper towels and scrubbed my mocha spots until my entire left leg was soaked. Away from the phone as long as I dared, I soaked more 1-ply C-fold paper towels and brought them back to my desk. This will have to do until I can get to the Shout and scrub brush, I thought.
I spent the rest of the day obsessing over my mocha spots and smelling like pink ladies room soap. This event re-enforced the law of never wearing white after Labor Day for me, never again will I throw caution to the wind and break fashion rules. My tampon card remains intake for now.

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My mother-in-law is doing a little bit better. Thank you everyone for wishing her well!

Nut-tastic

Boy #3 did his grocery shopping yesterday. Living with a diabetic has taught us all to hide sugar. That's why he does a little light shopping on his own. If I locked him in his room, I'm guessing he could survive about a week in there. I asked him to buy dog bones, we were dangerously low on them and I don't want to have Nooter report me to doggie social services. He came home with Nut-tastic dog treats.

Nut-tastic. That name is so fan-effing-tastic.

The husband came home and saw the jar, picked it up and said, "Nut-tastic!"
Boy #2's girlfriend blurts out, "They're for the dog."
The husbands eyebrow went up and he looked at me, "Huh." I said, "She's known you less than a year and she's figured out you're a moron."
"I see the dog on the jar, I know they're dog treats."
"Oh, then maybe she overheard some diabolical plan to put them in a candy dish and watch you eat a few before anything was said, maybe."

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My mother-in-law's initial diagnosis, Stevens Johnsons Syndrome has been changed to Bullous Pemphigoid, equally as awful and has begun to progress aggressively. We call the husband a moron in fun, we know he's hurting, he's worried about his mom.
Thank you all for your well wishes.

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Oh and there's less than an 80% chance that I'd ever lock Boy #3 in his room.

Bras freak him out

The problem with having a loved one in the hospital for a long period of time is that the world doesn't stop for you. You still have to go to work, eat and do laundry. Sunday I was getting dressed and realized I didn't have a clean "good" bra, damn it, I put an old one on and threw a load in. The reason we call them "good" bras is that we take extra special care of them, they never see the inside of a dryer, they go over the shower curtain rod to dry.

"I want to get to the hospital in time to help mom with her dinner."
"So we should leave in a half hour then?"
"Yeah, get those kids ready, I have to make a couple calls."
"Boy #3 get in the shower." This is the third time I barked out that order. The boy is incredibly difficult to get out of the house.

"I would, if you'd move your bras."
"Bras freak him out, we don't have to worry about this one for a while." I explained to the husband.
"No. He's freaked out by his mother's bras." The husband explained to me.

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The progression of my mother-in-laws Stevens Johnsons Syndrome has stopped for the last three days. This is very rare, but very good for her. If this damn syndrome has stopped then she should recover from it. We are all praying and crossing our fingers and toes.

Long Story Short

My mother-in-law developed an allergic reaction to a medication and is in a burn unit of a hospital. This allergic reaction has it's own name, Stevens Johnsons Syndrome. I'm not providing a link because I won't go back to those sites, ever.
This is why I haven't posted in a week. Our family has been schlepping back and forth to the hospital like a bunch of nomads, meeting in the family waiting room, all dressed in yellow hospital gowns tied in the back. And everyone with blank looks on our face, emotionally numb, wondering why the hell is this happening to this 83 year old woman.

I'll try to update this post when I can and I will be reading you guys when I need to smile, because you guys always make me smile.

I am Anti Meme

meme - n. A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

While a lot of bloggers participate in the crazy world of meme's I chose not to, simply because I consider it too much work. I was tagged last week by Collette at My Babcia's Babushka and I must politely decline to list 7 of my personality traits and tag 7 more saps to do the same. No offense Collette, I decline everyone that tags me. The only meme I half heartily participated in was Diesel's Retarded Meme and that's only because it has purpose and meaning. His goal is to be the #1 retarded site on the Internet and when that happens I like to know I played a small part in that achievement.

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The boy fixed my computer, I knew there was a reason we had him. So I can get back to my commenting and answering comments and posting and FaceBooking. The hell with the housework I was forced to do while the computer was down.

The Blood Sugar Level is Right

Boy #2's girlfriend is in nursing school and she has joined forces with me in lording over the damn diabetics sugar intake. So much so that the husband fondly refers to her as the sugar nazi.

"Did you pick up milk?"
"Got it."
"Your arms look pretty full for just milk. What's in that bag?"
"Hide this from her."
"This" was a bakery box with 4 cinnamon rolls gobbed with icing.
"Didn't you hear Obama warn us of greedy surgeons lopping off diabetics feet left and right for monetary gain? And still you're going to look that danger in the face, laugh it off and eat ooey gooey cinnamon rolls?"
"Just one, the rest are for you guys."

Later that evening:
Pointing my finger at the husband, "He ate a cinnamon roll, see them out there in the kitchen?"
The girlfriend, "Did you take your blood sugar level? I'll bet it's high. I'm guessing two fifty at least."
Me, "I think it's one seventy...... no, one eighty-nine."
We turned our attention to Boy #2.
"I'm gonna say one dollar Bob."

"We don't have power, the cars in the garage and it's electric, so we can't get out."

Occasionally a sentence you hear from a breaking news interview on the radio sticks with you and you have to share it, make fun of it and then blog about it. After a storm blew through Northeast Ohio Monday, several communities found themselves without power, ours just went out for a minute then everything came back on except my computer, I'm using the husband laptop until Boy #3 fixes mine, cross your fingers with me.

Tuesday morning I'm listening to the radio and hear something stupid, "We don't have power, the cars in the garage and it's electric, so we can't get out."

Seriously read it again, "We don't have power, the cars in the garage and it's electric, so we can't get out."

Doh!

Even I know how to get out of the garage when the powers out. Apparently this guys meandered along in life without knowing the rope that hangs from your garage door opener can disengage the electricity and render it a manual garage door like in the olden days. I hope he doesn't try to use that on his boss.

Besides a computer with a blue screen we have a tree down in the yard. The husbands stoked about it though, he gets to use the trailer he bought for his John Deere. Now on Saturday he will drag the boys out to the yard and chain saw stuff, load his trailer and haul stuff. He's also been waiting for a good strong wind to knock down some dead tree limbs that he can't reach. Not wanting to pay someone to remove them and unable to reach them at the top of his ladder while swinging a shovel at them he's been waiting for Mother Nature to take care of them. They survived the storm and the perfectly good tree cracked off about half way up. Mother Nature is an indiscriminate bitch.

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My time will be limited on the computer until I can drag this kid away from his friends long enough to help his poor mother.

Weekend Weirdos

I like to spend most of my weekends in search of the weird people, it makes blogging fun and there's so many of them out there. I've run into a bit of a blogging dry spell so this weekend is crucial. Since I wasted my Friday already because of my sunshine and lollipops mood, today I need to be particularly alert for morons. It won't be easy I have to spend part of my evening at the nursing home my mother-in-law now resides in for the next 6 - 8 weeks because of her latest fall Monday. The time I spend there will be wasted when it comes to post ideas, because the people there are sitting ducks. It would be way to easy and I have bad karma issues. I will be on my best behavior unless I can't help myself, unless ........

I selfishly push my kids into a hopeless situation. Hey there's an idea. Use the children to feed your blog. But wait, they are the ones that will be picking out my nursing home. This is a dilemma.

My Perfect Egg McMuffin Day

When the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets and I will buy an Egg McMuffin. It takes that kind of luck to get me out of the house early enough to stop at McDonalds before work. And it happened this morning. My Egg McMuffin and I checked my emails this morning. My day was filled with harmony and understanding. It was a sunshine and lollipops day, the birds were singing, the traffic was non-confrontational and everyone at WalMart seemed smarter. They all used the exit as the an exit and the entrance as the point of entry, it was amazing. Although my hands stuck to the shopping cart handle it didn't ruin my perfect Egg McMuffin day.
And since Relax Max has been perusing my blog lately I thought I'd share my wonderful day by mentioning WalMart because I know how much he enjoys a good WalMart story.

Is that the one when she stabs him in the neck with a pen?

I got myself "into" a movie tonight. The husband was in the backyard burning stuff so I found myself in charge of the remote. The movie Red Eye caught my attention, but since I'm legally obligated to not leave any of my children standing in a dark parking lot waiting for a ride home from work, I had to hit the record button so I could see the end. This woman was in quite a pickle up there on the airplane.
On our way home I asked Boy #3 if he'd ever seen Red Eye.
"What's it about?"
"Well they're up there in a plane, a terrorist and a woman, he has a fellow terrorist watching her fathers house, if she doesn't switch some government officials hotel room to an easier to kill him room, terrorist A will have terrorist B kill her father. But I had to stop watching and record it because I had to pick up you. How was work?"
"It was busy but not crazy busy. Is that the one when she stabs him in the neck with a pen?"


"Like I said, I haven't seen the whole movie yet. But thanks for the heads up on the pen, honey."
I should have left him in the dark parking lot.

You know he loves you when .........

1. You wreck a loaner car and he now lovingly refers to you as "Crash." Yeah we can laugh about it now.

2. You come home from your hair appointment and he says, "I like your hair" before he even sees it!

3. He gets home from work, takes one look in your eyes, realizes "you've had a day" asked what's for dinner, you say tuna fish sandwiches and he says, "Great, can I have three with chips?"

4. He notices three small red marks on his leg, all the same size, evenly spaced, he concludes that the aliens took tissue samples last night and suggests you to check your legs for the same marks.

5. He sends you one dozen red roses to work because he knows you won't tell anyone there that it's your birthday and he wants everyone to know you're another year older.

No, it isn't my birthday, that was in May, but the other 4 things all happened yesterday and I wanted to round off my list at five.

Seymour had his babies!

"Seymour had his babies! Seymour had his babies!" Unfortunately that's me running out of the ladies room at work making the Monday morning announcement. For weeks we ladies at work, The New Girl, Woman of Action, Lady in the Corner, The Animal Lover and me, have been keeping our eyes on the spider in the ladies room. Not just any spider, a freakin Daddy Long Legs. I've been very leery of Daddy Long Legs ever since one attacked me in the shower.
Last week Woman of Action asked us if we thought the spider was getting bigger?
"Yes!" We said in unison.
"It never moves from that corner across from the toilet, it's like he's watching us."
Hence the name Seymour.
"I'm alright with him staying there as long he doesn't make a move towards me, one almost got me in the shower you know."

I started to wonder to myself, huh.... if he's not moving is he still alive? So the next time I was in the ladies room I inched over to the corner for a closer look. No movement. I ever so lightly blew on the web. Seymour's legs moved, he's not dead.
When sharing my day with the husband, I updated him on the spiders progress and the fact that he is alive because I blew on his web and his legs moved. The husband says to me, "Let me get this straight. You women at work let a spider watch you in the bathroom and today you gave him a ........"
"No, no, no, no, you can't talk like that on my blog."

So Monday morning, when I went in the ladies room I immediately checked on Seymour's location, there he was in his web, considerably thinner and a bunch of little spots around him. Holy Crap.
"Seymour had his babies! Seymour had his babies!" Like a freakin lunatic I run out of the room.
"What?" says Woman of Action.
"Seymour had his babies! Come and see." I'm followed by her, The New Girl and the Service Manager. The following conversation is swear to God true:

Woman of Action: We can't have all those spiders in here. We need to think extermination.
Service Manager: Anyone have a lighter?
ME and I still can't believe I said this: Wait a minute, we can't kill them after all this time.
Woman of Action: What do we do with them?
Service Manager: Anyone have a lighter?
The New Girl: Remember in the movie Shrek, when he took a stick and swirled the spider web around it like cotton candy? He ate it, but you get the idea.
Me: I have to get the phones, I'll be back, we'll think of something, don't anyone give him a lighter.

A plan was formed while I was gone. After answering a few phone calls, I walked back down the hall and around the corner to see Lady in the Corner holding open the ladies room door and The New Girl holding open the outside door. Woman of Action comes out holding a stick and bolts for the outside door. Seymour and his babies now reside in a bush next to the parking lot.

Animal Lover was at our corporate office Monday and missed out on what just might be one of the most exciting days at work this past year. This I regret because she's always freeing spiders, flies and mice, she would have loved the opportunity to save Seymour and his babies.
My other regret is that I thought to take pictures, I meant to take pictures, but I didn't. It just all happened so fast.

The son of a bitch is running his chain saw now

Under misguided assumption, the husband and I continue to try to sleep in on Sunday mornings, because someone, somewhere once told us, "Sunday is a day of rest." I think it was God.
Our neighbor with the nice yard, but bags under his eyes, wakes us up every weekend. This morning, to the lovely sound of a chain saw. You have to wonder with the list of things he probably had written down on his "Yard work I want to get done today" list, why is chain sawing on the top of it?
"It's 10 o'clock in the morning, shouldn't he be at church or something?"
You could tell the dog was pissed too, she finally found a comfortable spot after looking for it all night. It was a particularly restless night for all three of us. And we were content to sleep away the bright sunny day. The husbands restless leg syndrome was in full swing last night, the kids were out late and I drank too much ice tea earlier in the evening. Some kind of critter was roaming around the backyard, being the dog of the house, Buckeye has to check out every sound and bark at it, this includes children coming home later than they should. They were totally busted.
The day didn't turn out to be a total loss, the neighbor with the nice yard and bags under his eyes finished his "Yard work I want to get done today" list, is sitting right now in said yard to enjoy it and a thunderstorm is rolling in.
I think it's God's way of saying, "Dude, let thy neighbors rest."

I became a Turd Grabber

I felt sorry for the dog. After a couple rainy days she looked bored. So I assembled the necessary items for a walk, cell phone, keys (because everyone has abandoned me tonight) and a plastic bag in case of the dreaded poop. The plastic bag unfortunately proved to be useful because the boys, who are no longer in my will and legally I only have to feed one of them until April, forgot to mention they never let her out today.
I became a turd grabber this evening. Our normal walking route are the roads less traveled by cars, so we can walk down the middle of the road and Buckeye doesn't stop every two feet to smell other dogs pee. But this road, by the pool was over populated as the swim meet dispersed. I swore like a drunken sailor under my breath. The dog was so excited to see the swimmers, she pooped. Being as excited as she was, she pooped while walking. I've had to maybe grab turds 3 times since we've had her. So with a hyperactive dog attached to my left hand and a plastic bag on my right, I attempted the impossible, in front of a stream of families walking and driving home from the swim meet. Probably, I'll never eat again.

And that's what we call dancin'

One brief moment of my weekend, five minutes tops, just innocently walking through the house with the TV on, because it always is, gave me irreversible brain damage.
And that's what we call dancin'.
Dear God it's stuck in there good.
Cocoon came on the television, you know that movie that lulled us into the warm, fuzzy, sunshine and lollypops feeling that aliens are nice? But we now know after watching Independence Day that they are going to blow us up eventually, unless a meteor destroys us first, 2012 I believe. Wait a minute.
Cocoon.
And that's what we call dancin'.
Gah!
The movie was in the beginning scenes, in the nursing home/retirement village. The diabetic, Quaker Oats man and Mortimer Duke were walking through the nursing home lobby, their was an old lady exercise class going on. And that's all it took to render me an idiot. That one line is deeply embedded into my brain, bouncing off brain cells and killing them. The usually stuff isn't working to remove the catchy tune. I'm slowly losing all logic and reason. Just this afternoon I said to myself, "Self? That song isn't in your head right now. Huh. What was it again?"
And that's what we call dancin'.

From the Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dude Files

I've been quietly observing my scary Asian dry cleaning dude for some time now. In the past here and here and somewhere else I can't seem to find, I've posted about how this little guy looks like he belongs in a Chuck Norris movie staring as a evil prison camp guard. But my during weekly stops to the dry cleaners, I've noticed the woman seems to be taking charge of the place. She has inadvertently fallen into some American customs. Always on the phone when I stop for the husbands shirts and doesn't bother to hang up, she just chatters away in her native tongue and tells me to "have nice day" when I leave.
She has advanced herself to a phone stuck in her ear and now she can continue to work at her sewing machine while chattering, instead of waiting on me she yells something to the scary dude and he hops to attention, bringing the scariness down a few notches. Hmmmmm. The charm and ambiance of the stereo-typical Asian Dry Cleaners has been removed from my weekly routine. They've Americanized, a simulated into our rude culture. What a drag, they were a good source of blogging material.

Buckeye's First Kill

We're pretty sure. In the two and a half years we've had Buckeye she's killed 4 comforters, 7 shoes, 38 moths and chased countless flies and bees. But the dead mouse in her backyard "space" has been identified as her first kill, by the boys.

"MOM! Buckeye killed a mouse! Hey, Boy #2! Buckeye killed a mouse!"
"Awesome. Where is it?"
"I'll show you, it's got teeth marks in it."
"Awesome."
"Wait a minute." I interrupt their delirium. "How do you know she killed it? You didn't see her do it. Check and see if she has mouse breath."
"Mom, she's got the taste for blood now, she'll be going after squirrels next. Won't ya Buckeye? Good dog."
Buckeye had no idea what all this new found attention was about but she was loving it. My baby is the sweetest dog ever, there's no way she's a mouse killer, no way.

What is she trying to tell us?

Learning from experience over the years, I know now that I'm not capable of remembering stuff. Like the great ideas I get for a post, the ones that take over most of my brain cells and render me useless until I write it down. Sometimes I have a list, but most of the time I write things down on post-it notes at work and stick them in my pocket. These little pieces of paper are what got me thinking, that and too much TV.
What would happen if I was murdered on my way home from work and the crime scene investigators found these little post-it notes tucked away in my back pocket? Would they think they were clues? Would they ask themselves, "What is she trying to tell us?" Would my mindless drivel, written down on little folded post-it notes throw the CSI guys off the murder trail? It took my 2 days just to decipher one of my own notes, Lady Zipper, last year. How can my murder be solved if I inadvertently direct the investigation in the wrong direction? How do you, my fellow bloggers, remember your ideas?
Thank you in advance for your advice and thank you for reading. I must go now and figure out what to worry about next.

Do your boobs hang low? Do they wobble to and fro?

I'm not going to lie to you, going to the pool this summer and last summer has become more like nap time than exercise time. If I'm going to see anything interesting, it's got to be when I first get there. Because when I lay down on that lounge chair (and there are new, more comfortable ones this year) I'll nod off. So it's a good thing I spotted the woman with the buoyant boobies right away. I had all my stuff put in it's proper place, sunglasses on and watched this woman bounce around in the pool as she prattled on with her friend. And when I say bounce, I mean she was actually bouncing up and down like maybe she was exercising, maybe. The boobs had a mind of their own, bouncing to and fro going every which way they could. It wasn't their fault really, the bathing suit offered no support whatsoever. I decided to hold off on my nap, I wasn't going to miss her smacking herself in the face with those things. I started to worry about the children, would they get taken out with the big boobs or see more than the should?

Sadly, she got out of the pool before her boobies could do any damage and I drifted off.

My feet have to be comfortable.

"I need new shoes."
"Again?"
"These are 2 years old and have holes in them."
"I know I just bought you shoes."
"Those were for work, I need Converse All-Stars for Warp Tour. My feet have to be comfortable, there's a lot of walking."
"But I've been put on a spending freeze."
"I can pay for half."

The very last thing I want to do in the whole wide world is take this kid shopping. The word stubborn just doesn't come close to describing him. I remember wrestling him to the ground when he was 4 years old just to try a winter jacket on him. My mom stood as look out to make sure social services wasn't called. "It fits, it fits, let him up."

"Get in the car. We're going to Kohl's."
"I hate that store."
"We......are......going......to......Kohl's. Get in the car honey."

We found his precious Converse All-Stars, "$40! They'll cost less at Famous Foot Wear."
"They cost the same there."
"Then let's buy them there, it's four stores down."

Four doors down at Famous Foot Wear the Converse All-Stars cost $44.99.
"Listen to me, we're going back to Kohl's, you're going to keep your mouth shut, try on a pair of shoes, wiggle your toes, walk around and then we will make our purchase. Or my darling precious baby boy #3, you will wear two year old shoes with holes in them."
"Do you need a hug mom?"

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Erv and I sat at our cousins Big Fourth of July Pig Roast Blow Out eating chocolate cake that we are pretty sure came straight from heaven. The kind of cake you look at and your teeth hurt, it was that good. Nothing was going to make us sit that plate down until it was empty. I wish someone would have thought to bring me a cup of coffee though. As we shoveled in tiny bits of every candy bar imaginable our dear mother emerged from the house clutching a plastic, 5 foot, punching bag wrestler. She proceeded to mingle with the crowd and show everyone where the wrestlers belly button was.
"Are you writing this down?" Erv asked me in between glorious cake from heaven bites.
Am I writing this down? The imaged is burned into my retinas. Mother continued to mingle and we continued to eat our cake. Our cousins laughed at us as we discussed who's house the nursing home should be closest to.
I'm not sure if this is where the Big Fourth of July Pig Roast Blow Out began to spiral out of control but it might be. Grandma's boys (I'm not claiming them as Boy #1 and Boy #2 in this story) decided to give Karaoke'ing a try. That Karaoke equipment looked expensive, I'm glad they are both over 18 and legally liable for damages. Amazingly enough nothing got broken. Here is the video of my offspring trying to be the life of the party, you know to out do grandma. They are singing Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Give it to about 45 seconds in to stop jiggling, Precious Baby Boy#3, the good one, was having a hard time holding his phone still.

I'm so very proud of Boy #3 and his knowledge of getting this video onto my computer from his phone. Didn't he do a good job?

Hey Uncle Silly Willy and Aunt Fluffy, I don't have the pictures yet!

The Traumatic Spider Incident

Being in a house full of testosterone I usually don't have problem finding someone to kill stuff for me. But while in the shower, innocently shaving my legs, I'm pretty much on my own. I could have yelled for the husband to come kill the Daddy Long Legs that shimmied down it's web strand at an alarming speed, but he was in bed and I would have never, ever heard the end of it or I would have given him a heart attack. Both options were ones I didn't want to live with. Plus it all happened so fast, the traumatic spider incident, that's what I'm calling it now.
I've always let Daddy Long Legs spiders live ever since I saw one star in Honey We Shrunk Ourselves. It saved the retarded parents that shrunk themselves, accidentally of course, by giving them a ride to safety. But when I have a razor in my hand, gently pressed upon my leg and out of the corner of my eye I see the star of Honey We Shrunk Ourselves shimmy down from the ceiling, obviously in attack mode, my first and only reaction is to KILL. It's a wonder I didn't have a heart attack myself. I didn't actually touch it, because it managed to reach the tub without landing on me. I would probably be in a padded cell right now if it had. I swished water on it and it circled the drain while I shaved my legs.
The husband shuffled into the bathroom and I told him of my horrific experience and the fact that I saved his life. "You know, it probably had about a million baby spiders and they're all gonna come after you tonight, take you to Spiderville and lay eggs in your brain."
So now I have that to worry about.

Spending the day with my horny teenager

"Your blood pressure is 132 over 82."
"Is that good?"
"It's a little high."
This is when my brain started knocking on the inside of my skull, snapping my head to attention and getting my nose out of an outdated magazine. I started to listen to the conversation Boy #3 was having with the cute, little medical assistant.
When the doctor came in I asked him about the blood pressure, he took it again and it was 118 over 70, huh.

"So, " I asked Boy #3 in the parking lot, "when the cute medical assistant...."
"She was hot."
"Yeah, when the hot medical assistant takes your blood pressure it's high and when the guy doctor takes it, it's normal?"
"Yeah."
"Then what are we thinking here, the blood pressure cuff is some kind of Gaydar?"
"She was hot."

And this concludes the two posts I received while spending the day with my horny teenager.

How come all the hot girls are stupid?

Now I know people aren't this stupid and I know people say things and regret it, konk themselves on the head later and say, "Did I really say that?" So you have to give some people some slack. But if you say something that makes a blogger blow a blood vessel in her brain while trying to suppress uncontrollable laughter until she gets to the parking lot, it's gonna be blogged about. It pretty much has to be. Because if I sit on this conversation I had with a gas station cashier, let it just bounce around my head with no where to go, it might cause irreversible brain damage.
Conversation (Boy #3 is with me the whole time):

Cashier: Can I help you?
Me: Just these.
Cashier: That's $3.79.

Digging through my wallet, I find my money and a fist full of coffee cards.

Me: I think one of these cards is yours, is it this one?
Cashier: No.
Me: Huh, I thought this was the card for here.
Cashier, seriously, this is what she said: I can stamp it for you, I thought you were asking if it was mine personally.

At that time it was really a bad idea to make eye contact with Boy #3, but I did it anyway. And we really should have left the store immediately but I had to get my coffee card stamped. Sometimes if you raise your eyebrow really high and open your eyes really wide you can keep from laughing. And that's what I did.
Once in the parking lot though....... "Oh yeah this is your card, I've had it for a couple months now and thought you'd like it back."
"Why would she think you had her card? She doesn't even know you? How stupid was that?"
"Way stupid, Oh My God."
"How come all the hot girls are stupid?"
"Yeah, I saw you checking her out, don't bring stupid girls home to meet me okay? I'll come up with some kind of stupid girl test for you okay?"

My Michael Jackson Post. Damn it Unfinished Rambler

I was perfectly happy to be the only blogger on the blogosphere to not post about Michael Jackson, really comfortable with that plan. Until I was innocently drinking my mocha, reading blogs, not even planning on posting today because I have baked beans to make and stopped by Unfinished Ramblers post about the King of Pop. I watched the video he posted and then another, and then another. I became hypnotized by the dancing. You can't watch that guys earlier years and not realize what a great entertainer he was. Yes, a lot of your attention goes to his nose and it's transformation over the years and yes, he grabs his pee pee more that an entire baseball team at the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, tie game, but he entertained the hell out of the world. It is too bad he's was a kookamonga.

Unfinished Rambler, I'm afraid you are the one that has to explain to my mom why the baked beans are not done for the cookout today, sorry. But it is kinda your fault.

What the nuns couldn't teach me.........

I learned from School House Rock. When the nuns screaming, rulers and praying couldn't penetrate my thick skull, catchy tunes on Saturday mornings did. Thank God three is the magic number, it saved me a few times from being called a boob by Sister Helen.
My favorite catchy School House Rock tune is The Preamble. This is the song I use to get other songs out of my head. I gave this advice to poor Leigh over at Inside My Head (that might be the problem right there) when she posted the lyrics of a song she had stuck up there.

This didn't seem to work for her. I don't think she gave it enough time. A good two to three hours of School House Rock videos will knock anything out of your head and send you to sleep thinking of Learnin about the USA, hooking up words and phrases and clauses, Bills sitting on Capitol Hill going off to the White House and Mrs. Jones the lady on Hudson Street that sent her dog to bark at my brother and me. Give it more time Leigh! The reason I didn't post yesterday is because I got all caught up in adverbs, it's a word that modifies a verb you know. Take that Sister Helen.

This way I don't have to listen to you

A lot of bloggers write open letters as a post, I've never done one but today I feel compelled to do so, my life a leisure hangs in the balance.
I must address all the mom's of small children at community pools. My homeowners association forbids me to put a pool in my yard, so you, your children and I have to mingle all summer. I've come up with a few guidelines for you to follow.

1.) Sun screen, believe it or not, this can be applied to the child at home. That way when you get to the pool they can jump right in and I won't have to listen to you telling little Johnny to stand still when you slather him up and I won't have to listen to him whine about how you got it in his eyes.

2.) Cell phones, there's over a 50% chance that your child will drip on it, because you're at a pool, that big cement pond filled with water. There's over a 50% chance your hair will get wet too, actually everything you bring to the pool can and will get wet eventually, so put them in a plastic bag or don't bring them, this way I don't have to listen to you yell at your children for something that is your fault.

3.) Water-wings are stupid. If people trust you enough to carry your child around on land with out a parachute then you should be trusted to hold them in a pool without dropping them. If they are older put them in a pool that they can touch the bottom and teach them to swim, water-wings give a kid a false sense of security, teach them to rely on themselves, this way I don't have to listen to you and your child whine about putting them on.

4.) The Ice Cream Truck. When it parks itself in the swimming pool parking lot, commit to either always buying an over priced popcycle or never buying an over priced popcycle. There is no middle ground when it comes to the ice cream truck, this way I don't have to listen to your child badger you for $3.00 continuously.

5.) Marco Polo, take your children home if they play this stupid, God-forsaken game.....please.

I, in turn, will try to be quiet while I read my book.

The Huge Favor

"Honey, where are you right now?"
"I'm at WalMart." And a woman and her kids walked out the entrance when I got here so the record of the whole entrance/exit door confusion isn't broken yet. Every time I'm there they use the wrong doors, they can't read.
I was calling mom to see what my dad wanted for Father's Day. She knows what he wants, he doesn't.
"I was wondering if you would do me a huge favor." A huge favor to my mom is like picking up some dinner rolls because she forgot them.
"Sure, what do you need?" Already starting towards the bakery.
"Would you go to the Home and Garden Center and ask someone there if they have Gazing Ball Stands...............please?"

"Why the hell did I call you?"
"I have the Gazing Ball but I need the Gazing Ball Stand."
"You want me to go and ask a WalMart employee if they have a Gazing Ball Stand? Seriously, what is a Gazing Ball Stand?"
"They'll know what it is."
"Nooooo. They won't. I'll call you back."

WalMart Employee #1 was clueless and thought I was asking for Gazing Ball Sand. "Ball sand?"
"No."
"Hey, Nora do we have ball sand?"
"No, no. Gazing Ball Stand. Stand not sand."
"What's a Ball Stand?"

I called my mom back. "I just would like to thank you for sending me over there for a Ball Stand. I can never go back to that Garden Center, they probably have me under surveillance now. Are you laughing at me?"
All I heard was a snort.

The Amish in their Natural Habitat

When we got sucked into the world of travel baseball we traveled. We traveled an hour and a half to play a seven inning game and then turned around and traveled an hour and a half back home - good times. The family knows I'm directionally challenged and they were afraid for me. The coaches soon found out the extent of my directional illness and exploited it. "I'm following you coach, don't loose me."
"Okay! Try to keep up."
I adapted and put as many of the ball players in my car as I could fit, that way if they lost me they wouldn't have enough players for the game. I specifically sought out the starting pitcher for that days game. And threw him in my car. I may not know which way to turn at the end of my driveway but I'm not retarded. Diesel, this is like number 4 or 5, is it working?
On our way home from one game out in farm country it was just me and the baseball player, Boy #2. "You didn't notice this on the way out here because you were too busy changing my radio station and burping with your buddies, but we're driving through Amish country."
"The real Amish? Those are their houses? Are they having a barn raising? Is that a horse pulling a buggy? It is! It's on the road with the cars! Look there's some Amish people in their yard."
He bounced around the car, smooshing his nose to the windows, taking it all in.
"You know you've seen Amish people before, they did our roof, remember?"
"Yeah, but I've never seen them in their natural habitat."

When Grandpa Forgot His Teeth

When my boys were small my father-in-law use to take his teeth out to get them to giggle. I have more than a few pictures of him with a big toothless grin and a laughing grandson on his lap. The guy was as comfortable with his teeth out as he was with them in.
We were reminiscing through some old pictures one day and came across some of my sister-in-law's wedding photo's that I took. I remember the hustle and bustle that morning in the living room of my in-laws house, my sister-in-law fussing over her dress with my mother-in-law, pictures being snapped, the men folk outside smoking and discussing the car order to the church, my father-in-law walking down the hall without his teeth.
Yep, I was trying to keep Boy #1, the only one I had at the time, out of the way when I saw Dad walking down the hall adjusting his suit, he looked up at me and smiled, I smiled back and took his picture, then saved him. "Hey you look great, now go put your teeth in for the pictures."
"Oh! I forgot them." He was genuinely surprised.
We haven't seen that toothless grin in person since 1997, but when my boys found the picture they held it up and just inquired, "Mom?"
"That's the day Grandpa forgot his teeth."
Then they giggled.

I Think I'll Smoosh These Two Ideas Together

I have two ideas for a post running through my head, actually one good one and one YouTube video that I just didn't want to stick on my blog and call it a post. So here's what I came up with.
Last week I was linked in a post by The Dyer Boys, they listed 7 bloggers they enjoy reading, one of them is me! Thank you guys.
Being a middle aged mother of three I enter Doug and Phil's blog with some trepidation. Which brings me to the video I wanted to have on my blog. This is kind of how I feel when I visit The Dyer Boys. And I mean this in the nicest possible way.

The Dyer Boys post outrageously funny Top 5 Lists and posts like this one, I Swear, People. I read them, laugh, look around to see if anyone's looking and ask myself, "Should I think that's funny? They typed the word penis in their post, wait a minute, I did that once too. These guys are alright."
So I will continue to read The Dyer Boys and I suggest you stopped by for some laughs too. Just ease out of their blog slowly and you'll be alright.

The Fine Line Between Road Construction and Mass Hysteria

Close one more road and I'm popping this SUV into 4-wheel drive and driving on them anyway. Hell, I'll start driving through my neighbors back yards. Getting from point A to point B is becoming increasingly difficult in my neighborhood. I deal with this detour everyday and will do so for the rest of the summer, because some "Powers That Be" decided we need a circle intersection instead of your basic plus sign kind. 50 feet away from that sign is more construction but they just work on it intermittently, when they feel like it, whenever they feel like stopping traffic altogether, whenever they think, "Hey, today would be a great day for a cluster f$&@." (erv, I'm not sending this post to mom and dad's email machine.)
Here's a thought - finish one road before you start another one. And how about calling before you dig, you know before you hit that gas line. I could see my house, but had to double back through the detour, through 3 different cities and around the back way into my development because some retard hit the gas line. I turned around and muttered to myself for about 2 miles before I realized I had a child (the good one) and a dog in that house that I could see from the hit gas line incident. I should have probably asked the nice officer that sent me packing if they were in any danger. Nah, I just call him and alarm him with useless information.
"Hello?"
"Are you still sleeping? It's 2:00 pm are you just getting up?"
"I was playing video games all night."
"Oh, no way. That's not how this summer is going to go."
"Mom......"
"I'm going to start leaving you a list of chores."
"Chores? What, are we living on a farm?"
"You are not going to sleep and play video games all summer."
Silence
"Did you fall back to sleep or has the house blown up?"
"Huh?"
"There's a gas leak up at the corner, make sure my dog doesn't blow up."
"I love you too mom."

Apparently I'm anal about my perennials

The Project Manager aka the husband has taken on the responsibility of organizing a work force to clean up the yard. I am in charge of the flower beds that go around the house because apparently I'm anal about my perennials. That is only because there is not enough Weed Be Gone on the planet where the husband is concerned, he's spraying it everywhere. If it isn't grass he's killing it. I'm afraid to let the dog out.
When the husband takes on a project the boys scurry around like frightened mice, trying to find an exit plan. I've blogged about this before - here. So far they've been unsuccessful. They have the glamorous job of preparing the other flower beds for mulch.
"There's poison ivy in there you know."
"That's not poison ivy."
"Then rub it on your arm."
"It's not poison ivy." And he walked away.
Showing up the Project Manager is frowned upon and I'm hoping later in the board room I get fired.

I'm Lazy and I'm Outraged

The grocery store wants me to scan my own food, weigh my own produce and put it all in a bag myself? And the Italian Bread at the bakery is a dollar more than it was the last time I bought there? Hold on just one minute. It's an act of lunacy.
There were grocery store employees floating around helping us morons communicate with the machines they have been replaced with, but you know that won't last. They'll expect us to catch on to this modern age of grocery shopping. Haphazardly scanning our own Rice-a-Roni, with no-one there to listen when we say, "Did you scan that twice? I think you scanned that twice."
I saw a little old man wandering back and forth looking for a cashier, hopelessly lost, wondering how he was going to get his food home. And just as my heart strings were about to be stretched enough to take action (perhaps by standing on the grocery conveyor belt and screaming, "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore, waving my fist too) a grocery store employee/formerly cashier guided the man by his arm to a cash register and proceeded to scan everything for him, his store card, credit card, Ben-Gay and weighed his prunes. I, on the other hand, struggled with the technology on my own, pushed the wrong button and had to listen to the pleasant computer voice say, "Please wait for assistance, please wait for assistance, please wait for assistance."

Can I have another car, I wrecked this one?

"Let me get this straight," says the husband. "You haven't been involved in a car accident in 18 years, and I love you for that, but today you decide to get in one when you're not even driving your own car?"
"Well, to be fair, one never really decides to get in an accident, sometimes your foot just misses the brake pedal. And I love you too."
"I can't get away from work, you're going to have to take that car to the dealership and tell them what happened, the truck isn't ready yet you know."
"I'll get another car, don't you think?"
"You might want to call someone to pick you up. And let me know how much this is going to cost us."

The good news is he still loves me after I wrecked a loaner car.
The bad news is the repairs are well over our deductible.

We wouldn't have had a loaner car if the repairs on our truck didn't take four working days and a weekend to get fixed. But the dealership is now government owned so what did we expect really. They gave me another car.

God bless the woman I rear-ended, nothing was wrong with her car and she didn't even want my name, number, insurance information and firstborn. Then again, maybe she felt guilty for talking on her cell phone and slamming on her brakes because she missed her turn.

The Leather Ladies

"Mom?"
"Don't stare, play on the swings."

16 years ago we moved into a lake community. Our various amenities included two beaches, two pools, boating docks, a couple playground. The main beach had a pool next to it and one of the playgrounds, a favorite hangout for moms with young children. You could spend the day there and then the kids would fall asleep as soon as their precious little heads hit the pillow. We spent a lot of time there. So did three old ladies. They would sit in their beach chairs at the waters edge for hours. Spreading tanning oil on their wrinkled skin. In their flowered, skirted bathing suits, with bright pink lipstick smeared on their faces. These three had fried themselves to the point beyond return, their skin resembled leather.
I haven't seen The Leather Ladies in years, one would have to assume they succumbed to skin cancer or spontaneous combustion. Raising my boys during those summer months became just a little bit easier because the The Leather Ladies.

"Mooommmm!"
"Stand still so I can put this sun screen on you. You don't want to look like The Leather Ladies do you?"

A Concentrated Cluster of Zits

That's kinda, sorta what the dermatologist was saying to Boy #3, but dermatologists refrain from saying zit. Boy #3 sat and listened intently as this guy began to explain the treatment for his concentrated cluster of, okay acne, on the back of his neck.

"Here's what I want you to do, I'm going to prescribe two acne washes, you'll switch off everyday, use this one first and be careful is has peroxide in it, it might bleach your hair, then use this one the next day, so you're switching back and forth with these, one day this one, one day the other one. Take these anti-inflammatories twice a day, but with food, they might make you nauseous. Then this topical cream, put it on after your shower, every day after you dry off. I'm going on vacation for two weeks so if you have any questions be sure to call me by the end of the week."

All this time he's directing most of the conversation to the teenage boy. And I have to say the teenage boy put on a good show. I know he stopped listening after he heard, "Here's what I want you to do." But I raised my boys to be polite and he maintained eye contact through the whole instruction speech. He even nodded his head a few times as if to convey a sense of understanding.
When the doctor left the exam room to get the nurse to bring in our fist full of prescriptions, Boy #3's facial expression changed, "I'm not doing all that."
"All what?"
"That."
"The $60.00 "specialist doctor" co-pay says you are. You know when you were four years old and had pink eye, I could have let you go blind in that eye, but no, I sat on you twice a day, had your brothers hold your arms and squeezed those drops in your eye. Don't make me call in the troops on this."

Remember the time we got locked in the nursing home and you freaked out?

It was a few years ago but damn it was funny. Mother-in-law had hip replacement surgery and had to convalesce in a nursing home for 3 weeks. Boy #2 and I went to visit her the day she was put in. It was later in the evening because we had to go to a school thing first.
The two of us walked in, the door shut behind us and then we saw the sign informing us of the visiting hours.
"Huh, we're late. Maybe they'll let us in since it's her first day."
In the lobby we were alone in dim lighting, office doors closed, no receptionist and a hustle and bustle going on beyond the swinging hospital doors which were locked.
"Huh, there are nurses there but they don't see us, I guess we'll have to come back tomorrow."
Boy #2 went to the front door that wouldn't open. "It's locked? Mom, it's locked."
I had to try it too, yep locked. At that time the ominous hospital door handle started to jiggle, we slowly turned around like they do in a horror movie. The jiggling grew stronger and a feeble, boney hand slowly rose up to the window, it's fingers tapped, tapped, tapped. Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle, tap, tap, tap. Boy #2 tried the door again with a renewed sense of urgency.
"One of us has to go to that door and get a nurses attention. And I'm pretty sure it has to me since you watch way too much TV and you've written us off already."
He sat on the couch and put his head in his hands.
"Look, there's a video camera monitoring us, wave your hands in front of it and get someones attention, I'll deal with death on the other side of this door."
He did as he was told, jumping up and down waving at the camera, mouthing the word HELP!
I went to the hospital door and slowly peered down through the window to find a little old lady in a wheel chair mouthing the word HELP. I asked her to get a nurse but she had a different agenda - escape.
Finally a nurse spotted me, she looked annoyed. "Visiting hours are over."
"We'll leave happily if you would just open the front door, it's locked, we're locked in."
She rattled off a security code and left. Oh there's a security key pad. Boy #2 and I stood in front of it, "What was that number again?" Fear had taken a strong hold on Boy #2 and he recited the number without hesitation.
"You can remember an eight digit number but can't remember to put you socks in the hamper?"

Damn That Rock in my Purse

Apparently the junk in my purse is worth a Citronella Reed Diffuser Kit. I'll never take those silly assed games at Bridal Showers lightly again. I tied for third place in the Bridal Shower Purse Game or more commonly known as Crap You Carry Needlessly Around 24/7 in Your Purse Game. Hand Sanitizer and Band Aids are worth 7 points each. I got 10 points for a Q-tip and 12 points for my library card. Huh. Those little sewing kits that no one ever uses but can never, ever be disgarded - 15 points. I think what put me in my tie for third was the rock, it was worth 20 points. Yes, I have a rock in my purse, I need that extra weight to make me miserable or it's a good luck rock, can't remember.
Now I have a Citronella Reed Diffuser Kit to ward off mosquito's. Which is awesome except for the fact that I have no patio furniture to go with it. You know what this means don't you? We're going to have to turn into one of those families that spends time together outside instead of in front of the TV. I'll probably have to start drinking wine and entertaining the neighbors instead of drinking vodka and orange juice in front of the computer. If we're going to spend more time outside there will be more yard work, I might even have to start a garden. Damn that rock in my purse. If only I would have chosen the gift wrapped door prize that was square instead of rectangle. I'd have a beautiful Lady Bug Planter right now with no social implications.

The Conversation with my Bladder, my Brain and my Stomach

My Brain: This is the second detour we've encountered on our way home, do you really think we have time to stop at Subway? Boy #3 has to be at work in an hour.

My Stomach: All you've dropped down here today was a Big Texas Cinnamon Roll and yogurt. Stop at Subway.

My Bladder: Don't forget the 24 oz. Mocha, the bottle of water and the Pepsi. I don't know how much more I can hold, clearly I'm your biggest problem right now.

My Brain: It's a no brainer, pardon the pun, we must go straight home and directly to the bathroom. You can make a sandwich just as well, if not better, than a Subway employee.

My Stomach: I don't believe what I'm hearing, I'm so hungry I could eat the ass of a skunk. Cross your legs and feed me.

My Bladder: Wal-Mart has a Subway inside and a bathroom, THIS is a no brainer, duh.

My Brain: The boy! The boy!

Me: SHUT UP! SHUT UP! Let me think.

My Brain: Let me do that for you, you might hurt yourself. It is what I'm here for you know.

Doh! Erv is my brother!

Since the beginning of the year, when I told my brother, "I'm so blogging about this." He has been faithfully reading my blog and commenting anonymously. Here are few of his comments:

From - The Unmistakable, Over-Powering Smell of Bleach
Great Story!!!
I thought the brother was awesome!

And - It's Time To Tell The Fish Story
This sounds way to familiar, The exact same thing happened to me as a kid. Has your brother recovered yet?

When he realized his sister was slightly retarded he changed his username to erv. erv? No where close to his real name but everyone at work calls him that, he became more obvious and he left these comments:

hey sue,
Thanks for sharing my allergy story. I like to think that I looked more like Rocky when he said "cut me Mick."

I'll give a hint. You,re coming to my house on Sunday for my son,s birthday and cook out.

Ohhh! erv is my brother! The sad part of this story is that he bet his wife I wouldn't catch on, she thought I would and said she would run around the house in the snow while wearing her bathing suit and make a snow angel in the back yard if I didn't. The poor woman has to do just that next winter, it took me so long to get a clue the bet couldn't continue and is being carried over until a climate change. I feel bad she got caught up in a little sibling rivalry but honestly if I didn't go over and take pictures when she follows through on the bet what kind of blogger would I be?