I am Dead Serious. Kroger is Awesome on Valentine's Day

Image courtesy of 7deadlysinners.typepad.com.

Valentine's Day seems to be a require blog topic, so I'll tell you about mine.

Basically, my husband and I shared the most ridiculous, pun filled cards we could find (because that's the best part!) then we split a carton of chocolate covered fortune cookies while rolling our eyes at the fortunes (Never frown because you don't know who might be falling in love with your smile! Someone will love you for your constant support!)Because he's a man and I have the soul of a 13 year old boy.

(Seriously: someone will love you for your constant support. I'm immediately put in mind of serial killers and the women who love them. Also, jock straps, support hose, and really good bras. He's thinking of deadbeat dads with 13 kids by 18 women.)

Then we made VD jokes, and then I went to the grocery store. Where two cashiers almost threw down in front of the 5 customers in the store. I have no idea why. All I know is, one of them must have been pretty condescending to the other. Because she kept screaming, "Do not talk to me like I'm a child! I am NOT a child!"

No, ma'am, you most certainly are not.

I am totally calling this day a success.

I have had way too much time on my hands.

I've been snowed in and haven't been inspired to write anything here. But I just really need to say something, and this seems like the best forum.

Playtex Sport Tampons suck.

1. Does not do what it says on the tin. I ran, I biked, I did yoga. These were not any better than my preferred brand. In fact, these were worse. Do not be sucked in by the hype.

2. They are trying to boss me around. There are weird "inspirational" messages written on the wrappers. Things like "Walk like you mean it". I do not know what that even means. How do you walk like you don't mean it?

3. I am perplexed by how many ways there seem to be to engineer a piece of cotton to make it pretty much exactly the same. Advances HAVE been made in applicator technology, but the newest trend seems to be aimed at improving the tampon itself. Aside from obvious changes like making it smaller or bigger or thinner or fatter I haven't noticed any real success. Also what are these laboratories like?

I have spent 3 days contemplating this.

Please send help.

Mysteries

I'm in the mood to make lists, which reminds me I'm working on a post about OCD because it has occurred to me that sometimes it makes me a slightly shitty person, but until that post takes better shape I'm giving you another list (someone needs to get their perscription refilled). Some of the great* mysteries in my life:

*For certain values of great.

1. Why is Anthropology (anthropologie?) e-mailing me? I've never shopped at Anthropologie in my life. I have perused one of their e-mails enough to know that they charge a lot of money for their clothes. I don't have a lot of money. But how did they find me? Are they watching me right now?

2. What is with people honking at broken down cars? Is there some magical repair that is effected by the horn honking that will make the car go again? Because I'm under the impression that doesn't actually help.

3. My vacuum cleaner will pick up a bowling ball but will not pick up the dog hair or little pieces of dead leaves in my house. Please explain this to me.

Okay I've never actually picked up a bowling ball with the vacuum cleaner. I don't own a bowling ball and I'm perfectly willing to accept whatever the television tells me as the truth (but not the internet; I don't accept everything the internet tells me as the truth. Mostly because for everything it tells me there are 18 contradictory things it tells me at the same time. Plus, that one time it told me I have prostate cancer. Which would be really mysterious indeed considering I don't HAVE a prostate. As far as I know). But, even if the tv lied to me and the vacuum won't actually pick up a bowling ball, I still don't understand why it won't pick up the other things.

I'm beginning to believe the dog's hair is made of a magic indestructable substance and maybe we should consider insulating the house with it. Should only take about 2 days to get enough hair for the whole project. This is how much she sheds.

4. The truffle part in cheap chocolate truffles fascinates me. I'm under no delusion that this is actually TRUFFLES like that pigs root out of the ground and cost something in the vicinity of your first born child and your soul. But what is it and how can they call it truffle if it's not truffle? Like you can't call Cheez Whiz cheese its a cheese product? Does that not apply to other things?

5. Why do some animals hate water so much? I have seen one of my dogs literally walk on water to avoid getting wet, but I don't really understand what the big deal is? Like, other dogs love it. Most people don't really mind it for the most part (unless they're all dressed up to go somewhere or something, and frankly, my dog never has anything that important to do). Also she's not rabid. I assume. We pay a lot of money for those shots.

I Submit that Pima Cotton is Actually MUCH Softer than Cashmere.

I hate many, many things that other women feel certain I should enjoy. Here is a list of those things:

1. 100% Cashmere. Y'all, it is itchy. I have been assured that finding cashmere itchy is basically a fate worse than death. In fact, judging by the reaction I got from one of my husband's female co-workers, this may be a tragedy on par with Darfur.

2. Pedicures. I do not like people to even think about touching my feet. I have been this way since I was a baby. You know how at horse shows and rodeos (I assume everyone has attended one of these; I may be mistaken) where they grease up a piglet and people chase it around and try to catch it? My mom says that trying to do anything to my feet (including putting shoes and socks on them) was like that game except after you catch the pig you have to put socks on it. I also vaguely recall being completely traumatized by an episode of Magnum P.I. (...) where someone shoved bamboo under Higgins' nails. This still makes me shudder, but at the time I was practically hysterical at the thought. It made my next nail trimming session EVEN MORE SUPER PLUS FUN than normal. My mother was thrilled, to say the least. Well, first she was really fucking confused and then she was thrilled. And then I was allowed to trim my own toenails. Yes, I have had pedicures. I would rather be waterboarded. I am not exaggerating. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. Still. Pedicures = torture.

3. Weddings. I am sorry, but I don't really find weddings that romantic. Or weep inducing. Under this heading, I'm going to go ahead and lump anything that can be termed "a shower". No, not the bath. The wedding/baby/dress up and bring me a gift while only surrounded by women and wearing a toilet paper dress over the pretty dress I asked you to wear kind of shower. At 28 I don't think it is really unreasonable that I don't want to participate in pointless games that were boring even when I was 5. Also? I just don't have that much squeal in my heart, previous comparisons to piglets aside.

4. Jeans. Okay, hate might be a little strong, but I'm not in love with them the way other people seem to be. I'm not even a little in lust with them. They have a function, they make my ass look good on occassion, but they are not comfortable. They aren't even all that warm. I stay just as warm in a skirt and a couple pairs of tights. Which are also more comfortable.

5. What Not to Wear. I don't always HATE it, per se, but I generally dislike it a lot. I mean, there are some episodes I've seen where someone lost a trillion pounds or was a poor working mother and I thought, "That's a really nice thing they did for that person." But a lot of the episodes seem to be taking these really original people with their own sense of style and then dressing them like everybody else. Not to mention, I watched an episode not to long ago where they trash talked someone's sweater, talking about it being old lady wear. But when the woman later voiced an opinion that a sweater they wanted her to wear looked like something an old lady would wear, they said No! You're young, so it won't make you look old! Maybe I'm just missing the nuances here. I think the one that clinched it was the one with the witch? In Salem? And they want to change her style because a "friend" didn't invite her to her baby shower because of her clothing? And MY response would be, "Fuck that shallow bitch. One less gift for her, and it would have been an AWESOME gift." Their response? Change yourself to be more palatable to your friends! Maybe that's my real issue with the show. Because I did this in high school and I was miserable. Hmm. That's a bit more psychology than I was expecting from this little exercise.

6.Ice cream. Yeah, I said it.

7.Musicals. ALL musicals (except the Gene Wilder version of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory...that's not really a musical though, in my opinion; it's more of an acid trip with belching), but especially the Sound of Music. If you were to call me up, all excited, and say, "Yay! The Sound of Music is on!" I would wonder why the television network hated me. It has been proposed that this indicates I am a soulless bitch even less pleasant than a combination of Cruella DeVille and the Wicked Witch of the West (yes, I even hate the Wizard of Oz).

That last one will probably cause me to lose most of my followers. You aren't allowed to hate the Wizard of Oz, after all. I mean, I'm sure there's someone else out there who finds the chirpy chipperness of Julie Andrews to be scalp-crawlingly annoying, but the Wizard of Oz is apparently holy and above reproach. Screw it, I'm feeling reckless anyway.

What do you dislike that everyone else seems to love?

I don't like change. And then they went and changed my sign.

So...did all the zodiac signs change or did they not change? Sometimes the internet says they changed. But then some people say no, the zodiac we use isn't based on the constellations, it's based on the position of the sun on the equinoxes(or something, I don't know).

This is bothering me rather a lot. I mean, yesterday I would have told you I don't even BELIEVE in astrology. I don't check my horoscope ever. But I have been a Taurus for 28 years now, and all of a sudden some people are trying to call me an Aries, and I DON'T KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE.

P.S. You guys who recommended Persuasion so strongly? Y'all were SO RIGHT.

I Either AM a Secretary, Or I Ain't. If I AM, You Assholes Better Not Make Me Stay Behind for the Admin Assistants Day Lunch This Year.

I am very, very grouchy this week (no, it's not hormones. yes, I'm sure, and thanks for asking because that always helps so much!). People outside of my house have discovered my special ability to find things and I am now the fucking Nancy Drew of the file room.

Here is an example of an almost verbatim request for me to find something:

"So, like 10 or 15 years ago I think we did some kind of job somewhere for somebody that I don't remember." Please note the use of the word VERBATIM above. I'm not kidding, this is all the information I get.

There are several problems with this.

1. You cannot search the database with any of those clues.
2. Even if you could search the database with those clues, it is probably not IN the database because my company did not believe in computers until sometime after the year 2003. And even then they were a little...hit or miss...in what was documented on the computer system.
3. I'm not a fucking secretary. Or at least, that's what they keep telling me right before asking me to locate files, re-file files, copy things, scan things, print things, and schedule things.
4. If it's not in the database, then it's in the warehouse. Otherwise known as The Place Where All Your Joy Dies (Now With Rabid Spiders!) Actually, the spiders are not nearly as bad as the fact that the boxes out there weight 8 tons a piece, are stacked at least 3 deep (often on shelves over my head) and are in absolutely no discernible order. Also there's no heat or air in the warehouse. One day I am going to hang a sign over the door that reads, "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here" or maybe just "That Way Be Monsters".
5. These requests are never made by people to whom it would be appropriate to respond, "HA!Hahaahahahaahahaahaahaaa! Good luck and godspeed on your quest, there, Sparky!"

And yet, I manage to find whatever obscure document from the past every single time, which only makes it worse, because they think I'm made of magic now and they'll never stop asking. I generally try to be positive about this (Job security! At least you're employed! A lot of people would very much like to be employed doing anthing right now!). Sometimes I really do pretend I'm in a lost Nancy Drew story (Nancy Drew and the Case of the Missing Site Access Agreement!) and if I have to go out to the warehouse I pretend I'm an archeologist on an important dig (I have just uncovered evidence of primitive life! Carbon paper! Pages of paper typed on a typewriter! Dot Matrix paper!).

But today I'm grouchy and unhappy about it. I have a lot of respect for secretaries, but I didn't spend 3 years in grad school so I could be a secretary. Not to mention that more than 75% of my pissed offedness about this is directly related to answering the motherfucking phones on admin assistants day while every secretary in the office gets taken somewhere nice for a free lunch. And then being asked to file and copy things when they all get back.

Whine. Whine whine whine. Whine whine whinewhinewhinewhinewhine.

In conclusion: whine!

ETA: I just noticed in my stats that someone found my site by googling "I'm wearing boxer shorts and I know how to use them" which is awesome on so many levels I will be entertained by it FOR DAYS. Bad mood gone! Thank you, person who wanted to brag about your ability to utilize boxer shorts. I sort of love you a little bit.

2011 Starts with Me Realizing I'm Not 13 Anymore, But I am Still a Complete Nerd.

I just finished reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time. Y'all, what was wrong with me for so long? How had I heard about this book my whole life and written it off as uninteresting?

Actually, it's because when I was 13 and going through one of my first (but not last, or even most obnoxious) "intellectual" periods I bought a copy of Northanger Abby. And read about 20 pages before nearly perishing of boredom. Then rented and tried to watch that Alicia Silverstone version of Emma or whatever it was that was out about the same time. I was bored to tears and decided Jane Austen was boring.

But Austen books are free on the Kindle, and people I respect have always said how much they love her, so I gave it another shot. Y'all she's FUNNY. Like genuinely funny.

Sadly, I'm still not into the early "feminist" literature I am so supposed to love. You know the type I mean. Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" and the suchlike. Still don't find that interesting.

What can I say? I like funny. I like Wodehouse and Gaiman (and Austen, apparently. Seriously, who knew this? Who?). Sometimes I like a little mystery (totally addicted to Sherlock Holmes stories and Allan Carr and I'm dying to read "An Instance of the Fingerpost"). Uh, generally historical mysteries because there's so much more thought involved in figuring out whodunwhat. But occassionally the modern mystery will slip in there too. I don't particularly care for a lot of melodrama. I do admit to a fondness for John Irving (although 1. what is up with the bears, John? and 2. Why did Hotel New Hampshire need to exist? V.C. Andrews pretty much exhausted the incestuous sibling love mine, I thought) and Wally Lamb. I also adore Flannery O'Connor, so apparently I also like the grotesque. I definitely like gothic. I like Wilkie Collins and Jane Eyre and Turn of the Screw and wailing ghosts and dark stormy castles and crazies hidden in the attic. Sometimes I like non-fiction. I liked "In Defense of Food" and "Fast Food Nation". I'm curious about Karen Abbot's "Sin in the Second City". (Aside to my husband: No, I still do not want to read Money Ball. But thank you for asking. Again).

But I never can seem to like things that are about anything or anyone "coming of age" or whatever. I'm halfway through Portrait of a Lady and not likely to get any further. I'm not terribly interested in biographies.

I do have some Charles Dickens to give a second shot (although, as I recall, Dickens was paid by the word and it shows, so that might take awhile or be saved for situations where there is absolutely nowhere else to go). I'm going to try Edith Wharton again. And I definitely have two more of Austen's novels to get to.
But right now I'm going in for some H.P. Lovecraft. I already know I like that.

Thank you for reading this totally pointless post about What I Like to Read. Oooh! Maybe my next post can be about "What I Did For the Summer" or "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up"!

Also, y'all feel free to get your recommendation on in the comments. I always like that. Open my mind people!