Morning Bartenderism

A 7:00 am telephone conversation I had with my favorite pint puller yesterday:

Bartender: "So I was out the other night with this friend of mine who's in from out of town, and she has this other friend that went out with us who has a tattoo on her pussy. Not right above it, but actually on it. She pulled her skirt up right in the bar and showed it to me."

Me: "Really? Ouch! What was it a tattoo of?"

Bartender: "How the fuck should I know? I was just looking at her pussy."

Hide Your Vegetables. Thugglife's In Town.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm out at the Douche Dorm this weekend, and I have the plague. It reached it's worst point yesterday evening while Fish, Thugglife and I were watching American History X. So when it was decided that the group would go out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, I declined to attend. I wasn't terribly hungry, what with the plague and all, and I didn't want to face the prospect of having to sit up in a chair for an extended period of time. Instead it was decided that I would take a nap on the couch while JoE, Fish, Chester and Thugglife went to dinner, and that they would bring me back an order of celery and ranch.

So I napped fitfully for a while and awaited their return. In the course of this I suddenly discovered I was ravenously hungry. It came out of nowhere - I wasn't hungry at all, and then in the next moment I could have devoured an entire horse. So I was happy when Klug came home and told me the boys were on their way back, which meant that so was my celery. Or so I thought.

The guys trooped into the house. The moods of these gentlemen were a bizarre mix: Fish had a look of barely restrained fury, Thugglife was moping along sheepishly, Chester seemed nervous, and JoE was on the verge of cracking up laughing. I knew immediately that something was up. Fish sat down beside me on the couch. "Where's my celery?" I asked.

"Ask Chris," says Fish, at the same time as Chester says "There isn't any." Chris looked at his feet and JoE snickered.

I tried again. "Where's my celery? I'm starving," I addressed to Fish a second time.

"I told you to ask Chris," he spat. Chris had retired to the porch for a cigarette by now but JoE and Chester were in the kitchen attempting to restrain laughter. "Yeah, it's real funny for you guys, but I'm going to be the one getting guilt-tripped all night because there isn't any celery."

"You guys forgot my celery?"

"No. Almost. We remembered at the last minute and JoE went to get it. But it's gone now."

"What happened to it?"

"Ask Chris."

I am now pissed off for a number of reasons. First of all I am starving, and the meager dinner I was expecting was clearly not going to materialize. Secondly, there is obviously something going on that I don't know about and they're doing a shitty job of hiding it. And third, I'm angry at Fish for apparently thinking that I am going to start a jihad over a couple pieces of celery. Does he really think I am that much of a shrew? I decided on the silent treatment method of punishment for them all, closed my eyes and pretended I was trying to go back to sleep.

When Thugglife came back inside he sat down in the Lovesac and said quietly, "I'm sorry, ish*."

"Chris, where's my celery?"

Crickets.

Fish says, "Do you want me to make you something?"

I am exasperated. "NO. What I want is for people to answer questions when I ask them something. Where's my celery?"

"I already told you. The person you can thank for your celery not being here is Chris. So ask him. I'm going outside."

I exploded. "JESUS CHRIST! Is it that hard for you people to answer a simple fucking QUESTION? It's JUST LETTUCE!" Fish said nothing and shut the door behind him. JoE sat down on the couch next to me and I looked at Thugglife.

"I'm sorry, ish," he said in a tiny voice.

"Chris," I said calmly, "I'm not going to freak out over a couple pieces of celery. The only way I would freak out about it is if you guys just said, 'Fuck her' and didn't bother to get me any. Obviously at some point there was celery, and now there's not. What happened to it?"

"I ran it over with the car."

"You WHAT?" I shouted, and then burst into hysterical laughter.

"I ran it over with the car," he said again.

I was laughing so hard that I had tears running down my face. "Chris," I choked out. "How the hell do you run over celery with the car?"

"It was in the street."

"The street? How did it get in the street?"

"Ask JoE."

By now I'm laughing so hard my head hurts and I turned to JoE, who was also doubled over. "What did you DO?"

"O.K.," he says, "Here's how it went. We went out and then realized we forgot to get your celery. So I ran back in to get it. When I was coming out, it just leapt out of my hands and into the street right behind the wheel. And Chris ran it over. And then I just jumped in the car and we took off."

I didn't think I could laugh any harder than I was already laughing, but somehow I did. My head is pounding and I still can't stop. "That's just....(laughing)...That's...(laughing)....you ran it over with the car? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!" Over and over, until finally I had the entire house cracking up with me.

I dined on pretzels and orange juice that night. It was the best I'd felt all weekend.

*They nicknamed me ish, because while I am not Fish's girlfriend, I am girlfriend-ish.

I Think I'll Go For A Walk

Hey there kids. Just wanted to say that I have the plague. I'm in the care of Dr. Fish and his crack(head) team of nurses out in Lisle. Dr. Fish has me on a strict regimen of DayQuil, Kool-aid and episodes of Deadwood. I hope to have my condition improve soon, as I don't want to go on the cart.

Crazy Girls

Some years ago when 1153 and I were in Vegas we went and saw a show called Crazy Girls. It was alright I guess. I was somewhat underwhelmed. I mean, I was entertained by it, but it seemed kind of pointless to me to be sitting 14 rows back from the stage watching topless girls dance around when, for about the same price as the ticket, I could be watching completely naked girls dance around up close and in my lap at a strip club. When in Rome I guess.

That little story is pretty much not related at all to the point I'm trying to make here, and that point is this: Girls Are Crazy. They're all of 'em crazy, and they will drive you crazy, and they will drive themselves crazy. If you are a girl and you are reading this thinking, "but I'm not crazy!" well, that just proves that you are not only crazy but also delusional. Let me explain by way of example:

Driving Themselves Crazy

What is it with girls that are in bad relationships with bad people who make them entirely miserable and cry constantly that they will do absolutely anything to stay in their terrible relationship? Huh? (By the way, I am one of these.) Their ability to rationalize and explain away disrespectful and even downright abusive behavior on behalf of their partners is far more acute than almost anyone of the male half of the species.

I have this awesome friend who I love. She is pretty and funny and fun to be around, has a great heart, a great sense of humor, great taste in music and a job she's good at. Her boyfriend is a lazy, verbally abusive, persistently drunk, almost certainly cheating, very certainly lying, freeloading bottom dweller with no job. No paying job anyway. He lives in her house with her, uses her computer to chat online with countless other girls (who are told by him that he has no girlfriend) and justifies that behavior by saying he can't respect her because he doesn't like this guy who she knew, like, 5 years ago (4 1/2 years before she met her boyfriend), despite the fact that she hasn't talked to him since before she met her boyfriend.

We talked about it this weekend and I sat and listened while she relayed the following things:

• She feels she has to have him living with her because she doesn't trust him not to cheat if she's not right there watching him.
• She came across an e-mail from a mutual friend of theirs that alludes to him having already cheated on her.
• She is afraid to hang around with another friend of ours because she thinks he'll tell her bad things about her boyfriend that she doesn't want to hear (even though they're true).
• He continuously makes statements like "If we can't go three days without fighting it's over" and then conveniently "forgets" when they fight after a day and a half. (Keep in mind he has no where else to live.)

This girl is not stupid. She knows he is untrustworthy and she knows she should leave him. But she won't. Why? Because maybe this time he'll keep his promise. Because that 5 minutes a day when they're not fighting are really great. Because anecdotal evidence of cheating is not the same as actually catching him. In short, because she is a girl. In the end this relationship will not be over until he leaves her for another girl. Which she knows, but disregards. This is how we drive ourselves crazy.
Driving You Crazy
On the flip side of that coin, you sometimes find girls in perfectly good relationships with very nice people. And when a girl finds herself in such a situation she will do everything in her power to sabotage it. It's not on purpose. It's just because we can't help ourselves.
A guy friend of mine was recently dating a crazy girl. Incidentally, when it was pointed out to her that all girls are crazy she was horrifically offended, because she is not crazy, she is perfectly sane. She chased after my friend pretty hard-core early on. It started off rocky, but she was quite persistent. My friend is very sweet and nice and funny and adorable and a pretty good boyfriend as far as they go. Because of this, the crazy girl had to destroy it. So she cheats on him. Which is shitty, but that's not the crazy part.
When she tells him that she cheated he doesn't take it particularly well. In fact, he breaks up with her. Her response to this is quite frigging insane. She really, really, really wants him to reconsider and for them to stay together. And, you know, it's not an unreasonable request because the cheating was not her fault. Oh no! In fact, it is my friend's fault for pushing her into a relationship before she was ready! Obviously he should have known that this would lead to cheating. The holes in this logic could sink an aircraft carrier:

• If she wasn't ready for a relationship, why did she chase him so hard?
• The cheating was not an accidental, in the heat of the moment thing. She invited the guy over her house. To sleep over. She deliberately hid this date from my friend.
• If she's not ready for a relationship, why is it so friggin important to get this relationship she's not ready for back on track?

I think we all know the answer: girls are mother fucking crazy.
If it seems to you that my knowing that all girls are crazy should exempt me from the craziness, let me assure you that it isn't true. In high school I dated a 25 year old alcoholic who routinely had me drive him home long before I had an actual license because he was way too drunk to even handle opening the door. He took all my money from my restaurant job and spent it on booze and weed. He had no job of his own. I stayed with him for over a year. I loved him! Because I am a girl and girls are crazy.
Listen my friends: if you are out there trying to find yourself a girl who is not crazy, you are going about things the wrong way and you will be alone for a really long time. What you need to be looking for is a girl whose type and level of crazy is something you can learn to tolerate. Because we are all of us crazy.

You Know You're Old When...

You know you're old when you are reading the paper in the morning and there's a story about this year's crop of college freshmen which points out that they weren't even alive yet when the Challenger exploded.

Chicago Tip #117

The Paulina Brown Line station is apparently infested with ginormous, hideous, evil, gray spiders. I wouldn't have found that out if I was smart enough to remember to get off at my brother's stop when I've left my car at his house.

Does This Actually Work on People?

Here's a message I just got on MySpace from some person claiming to be named CrAS (oh how I love the trendy new randomized capitalization!) whom I have never met, spoken to or corresponded with in my entire life:


Aug 19, 2005 10:26 AM
Subject:
No Subject
Body:
Yo whattup shortie....not bad. aiight here's the deal, i'm here from california on business and i'm lookin' for a hot date. got tix to the yankees game tonight so holla at ya boy. Also open to going to the 97th floor of the john hancock. CrAS

Be still, my heart! Thanks, CrAS(s), but I already have plans, aiight?

*delete*

Not Feeling It Today

Today marks 13 years since I lost my mom to cancer. I wrote a whole thing about it over on MySpace, but I'm not really in the mood to talk about it anymore. I will say here what I said there:

Do me a huge favor and go hug your mom or call her and tell her that you love her. Because you can. You never know how much of a luxury that is until you lose it.

Sorry I'm not a barrel of monkeys today. I'll return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense tomorrow.
(P.S. Spell check wants to replace "MySpace" with "mishaps" which I think is a great idea.)

Stealth

Well, they did it. They made me watch Stealth. It was even worse than I expected. Off the charts unreal. Really.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for suspension of disbelief - it's pretty much how I get through the days. But in this one, they just asked too much of me, to wit:

• The U.S. Navy has no qualms about sending new planes that are still in the testing phase into combat situations if they feel like it.
• Insubordination and failure to obey direct orders in the U.S. Navy is not that big a deal, and in fact, your commanding officer will even tell you that you did a good job on the thing you were expressly ordered not to do.
• An airplane developed by the U.S. Navy to be capable of thinking for itself, flying for itself, and continuously evolving will have an expensive state of the art cockpit built into it, just for fun.
• The U.S. Navy is so inept at advanced technology that they need ubergeeks with scruffy hair and no social skills to take care of their expensive new airplane. Also, they will allow these geeks to hang out on their aircraft carriers.
• Robots have DNA.
• Let me repeat that one. Robots have DNA.
• Technology geniuses who develop planes for the U.S. Navy are all really cool and suave, have giant, ultra modern houses and superhot women in tiny dresses hanging all over them.
• Not only can you eject from your plane at 30,000 feet and still be conscious, but you will also be able to keep a running monologue about how fast you are falling so your friends on the aircraft carrier will know you're ok.
• You can fall from 30,000 feet, have your parachute catch fire, live to tell about it AND have the wherewithal to hang on to your gun.
• Sometimes your commanding officer will try to have you killed by outside assassins if you know too much.
• Not a single person in the North Korean Army save for one guy can aim to save their lives. Our people never ever ever miss.
• The border between North Korea and South Korea is separated by a chain link fence.

If I can save one person from going to see this completely worthless drivel then I can die knowing I made a difference. Please, I beseech you, spare yourself from the agony which I could not escape.

Bobcat Bacchanalia

Old friends are the best kind sometimes (as in you've known them a long time, not as in they're decrepit and smell like mothballs).

My friend Ashley is in town for a few days for all the goings on surrounding the Improv Olympics. Ashley and I went to college together at OU for two quarters until she transferred to another school. She was roommates with Heather and we all lived here. We had really good times in college, such as wearing Ashley's bra as a hat, screaming obscenities at hockey games and "decorating" the boys' floor with tampons colored in red marker.

I haven't seen Ashley in something like 8 years, so when I found out she was coming to town I was ecstatic and promised to pick her up at the airport. As a side note, let me just tell you how cool and native I felt going to pick up my friend at O'Hare all by myself without any help. It was so Chicago of me. I was almost as excited about picking someone up from the airport as I was about seeing my friend after nearly a decade.

Our plan was to check her in at her hotel, her shower and get dressed because she didn't want to be airplane fabulous all night, grab some dinner somewhere, and then meet up with a bunch of her friends for an improv show. This would have been all well and good if it hadn't taken us over an hour to find her hotel in Evanston. This is not my fault: when the directions say to travel 5 miles, I don't regularly assume that by "five" they mean twelve. We traversed the street twice before finally calling the hotel and demanding a list of landmarks to guide us to our destination (which Ashley dutifully checked off as we passed them and cheered loudly). So by the time Ashley was ready to go in her way awesome strapless dress and cutest shoes ever (I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that reads "I taught your boyfriend that thing you like." which Ashley thought was awesome and tried to take a picture of, but it looks like she was just trying to take a picture of my boobs), we had to skip dinner because we were going to be late for the show. This was maybe not the best idea.

When we get to Wrigleyville and friggin' PARK, Ashley calls her friends from her improv troupe so we can met them for the show, and is told that we won't be attending the show after all since all the tickets are sold out. As an alternative plan, they've decided we should just drink tons of beer all night long (except for Ashley, who rocked it hard core with double shots of Malibu and coke), which was great for the two of us since we'd eaten nothing at all the entire day. Consequently I was drunk in 11 seconds.

Ashley's friends are awesome and funny and quick, and Dave pointed out to me that I should probably have expected that since they all do improv comedy, which was a very good point I thought. In short order we started telling some "this one time at college" stories, which in turn caused me to say "Hey, we should call Heather!"

"OH MY GOD WE SHOULD TOTALLY CALL HEATHER!!!!" I love Ashley because she says this like she thought it up and I didn't just say the exact same thing one second ago. And also because where Heather lives it's 1:30 in the morning on a Wednesday night. It took us a couple of tries to get it right however. The first call we completely screwed up so we had to try again. What follows is an e-mail I got from Heather this morning, which will describe this event much better than I could (because she was not drunk):

-A detailed account of Heather Moyer's activities between 1:20am and 1:50am on August 11-


Heather is sleeping. She hears the phone ring, but she never answers the phone while she's half-asleep because if it's really important, the person will call back right away.In the background, Heather hears an oddly distorted message, but can't make it out as the machine is too far away from the bedroom.


Suddenly, Heather's cell phone rings. Her stomach drops because that now means someone is dead or something is on fire. Amy grumbles about who the hell is calling us right now.


Heather gets up, staggers into the living room, steps on the cat, steps on the cat's sharp toy, and then turns the light on. The cell phone has stopped ringing, so Heather listens to the message on the machine.


The following is a transcript of that message on the home phone number's answering machine:
----------
(loud noise and garbled words), HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, CRAP, SHIT, WHAT? HAHAHAHAHAH
aslgijwogijwerovijnoivjhioerjhvboijhweroibhoi!!!!!
*beep*
------------
Now Heather listens to the message on her cell phone's voicemail. The following is a transcript of that message:
------------
(very loud background noise)
Okay Heather. this is Ashley and Amber, for real. We're leaving you a message, we would like to apologize for whatever message is on your phone. HAHAHA!!!!!!!!!
And now we are clearly drunk, ahhahahahahahhahahahaha!!!!!!!
laishfolahifsadghiwiouvbhuiweb!!!!!!!!!!
Mindy is someone I know who Amber only met tonight and Mindy is using Amber's vibrator in her nether regions!!!!!
hahahhaahfgoaihgwoirhgouwerhgvaosifhoaihvoahvoh!!!!!!!!!
*beep*
------------
Heather's lovely wife rolls over to ask what's going on after hearing Heather say, "Those fuckers" while laughing.


For the next 20 minutes as Heather tries to go back to sleep, she will just start to doze off and then start giggling uncontrollably at what the hell just happened. The words "nether regions" keep making her crack up and Amy is
getting irritated that Heather keeps shaking the bed with her laughter.
FIN

I really only remember the rest of the night in snips, such as Ashley's dress falling down and Dave saying something about it being a Jesus dress because it rose again, and Sam managing to sing all of "Piece of Shit car" at kareoke without swearing, and drunk dialing the bartender because someone said the word "manhole" which is a now defunct bar he used to manage (bartender: What are you doing up? me: Dude, someone just said manhole so I called you! bartender: It's not there anymore. It's closed. me: I know! And Mindy just kissed Ashley's teeth! bartender: *click*), and trying to get my keys back from Mindy, who did indeed have my keychain vibrator in her nether regions.

It was a completely awesome night and I'm so glad I got to see her, and so sorry we made her walk about 5 miles up and down Clark Street in her fabulous but totally impractical shoes. And so disappointed that we waited 8 freaking years to do that.

I Think They Like Me

If you haven't noticed, I spend a fair amount of time with my awesome friend Fish. Yeah. His friends have noticed as well, as evidenced by this IM conversation between Fish and Thugglife Chris, which will also serve to illustrate how much we both are loved:

Thugglife: You guys are a couple
Fish: I know
Thugglife: of dorks. I wasn't finished.

Happy Birthday Thugglife Chris

Today is Thugglife Chris' birthday. This is important because for his birthday we are going out to BD's Mongolian BBQ, which is better than sex*. Unfortunately I also promised him I would watch some movie about a repentant, formerly evil airplane that wants to stick its fuselage inside Jessica Biel. I tried to get out of it by claiming I was drunk when I said it, but I was at work at the time, and for some reason I wasn't believed. That's alright. For my birthday we'll be having lobster and watching Ishtar. Two can play at this game.

*depending on who I'm having sex with and how hungry I am at the time.

Oxygen Starved

I have a tendency to write stuff down a lot, because funny things happen around me all the time and I think to myself "I should blog that". But then I sit down to write and I go "Wait, what was that again?" So I started writing things down so I would remember to blog them.

The problem is I'm sometimes in such a hurry to write something down that I provide myself with no notes as far as context or even who may have said the thing I thought was funny.

This is my guess at what must have happened last Thursday, when I came across a snip of paper in my purse this morning which read as follows:

"Last week I almost took a breath. But then I thought about it."

Don't You Know My Time is at a Premium???

You know what sucks mad dick? When you are one or two pages from completing a report for a client that took the entire day yesterday and most of the morning today, and then your boss comes over and says, "Oh, I forgot to tell you, on that Client X report, we need to change, um, everything."

So much for having an actual life this weekend.

And Speaking of Jennie Smash...

As soon as I posted that last thing, I ventured over to her blog to see if there was anything new, only to find that she too wrote about peeing, bugs and trains. I'll let you know if the crazy has any comments on this coincidence(?).

Ghost in the Machine (and other tales about my crazy)

As my heroine Jennie Smash might say*, I have a touch of the crazy. As such, my brain occasionally** derails over ordinary, mundane things.

Today I had to go to the bathroom at work. I try not to go in there much, because there might be other people in there and I don't want people knowing that I sometimes pee. But extra coffee this morning (because I was tired, because I slept on the couch, because there was a spider in my room) necessitated that I go in there, so I did. I was relieved to find that I was in there all alone. I choose a stall and sit down, and the next thing you know I hear the toilet in the stall next to me flushing. My immediate thought was that there was someone crouched on the toilet seat so that I couldn't see their feet trying to catch me in the act of peeing. I am not making this up. But then the toilet flushes again. And again. And I realize that this particular toilet must be the ghost toilet, and not only that but there must be one heck of a line.

So now that I know it's just ghosts and not a pee spy, I feel much better and go to wash my hands. Did I tell you about the automatic soap dispensers? You stick your hand under there and it drops the perfect amount of soap into your palm. I am still completely mesmerized by this. But today there is a problem. The dispenser on the right, which is my preferred sink, has a flashing red light. And again, the crazy tells me that a flashing red light in the soap dispenser means someone has planted a bomb in it. If I use that particular soap dispenser the bomb will go off and blow me to smithereens. As much as my logical, rational side (and I do have one) keeps trying to tell me how ridiculous that is, I end up washing my hands in the left hand sink. Just to be on the safe side.

Speaking of bombs, yesterday I'm sitting on the eL at noon, playing collapse on my phone. Across from me is an enormous (in the solid sense, not in the fat sense) black man with work boots on. Which really wouldn't be anything to write about in and of itself, except that when he got off the train, I saw some kind of round metal thing that had been left in the seat next to him, and I presumed by him. And I start to freak out because they've been bombing trains and buses in London lately, and while Chicago is neither London nor New York, it still is a pretty big city, so someone leaving a bomb on the eL is not entirely out of the question. But seconds later I relax as this thought jumps unbidden into my brain: Don't be silly, black construction workers do not leave bombs on trains. Which is true as far as I can tell, but don't ask me where my brain came up with a blanket statement like that. I have no idea. It is futile to ask questions of the crazy.

So did I slip it by you? The part where I was on the eL at noon? Right. That was because I was headed home on my lunch break due to the crazy insisting to me that my lovely cat had jumped out a second story window and was lying in a crumpled heap in my backyard. See, I had left a window open without a screen in my kitchen because for some reason there's a bunch of flies in my apartment and rather than kill them like a normal person, I decided to leave a window open all day long while I was at work in the hope that they would taste freedom and just fly out. But an hour after getting to work, I realize that I opened it pretty wide...wide enough for Kristen to fit through should she so choose. Now mind you, my cat doesn't really show signs of wanting to escape, let alone by way of a two story drop onto a slab of concrete. Additionally, she seems to lack any kind of initiative for anything other than trying to steal chicken from me. Nevertheless, the crazy had a hold of me by then and there was no way I was going to be able to concentrate until I was sure she was safe inside the house. Which she was; I found her sleeping on the couch right where I left her when I went to work in the morning. Explaining to my boss when I got back about what my "emergency" was at home was...interesting. But may I say thank heaven that guy thinks his dogs are his kids the way I think Kristen is mine.

So what have we learned today kids? Nothing really, except that Amber's thought patterns may or may not be based in reality depending on the day, and possibly the size of the room. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to concentrate on chewing the exact same number of M&Ms on each side of my mouth to prevent my face from becoming visibly lopsided.

*Must give credit where credit is due. There's been a rash of e-plagiarism lately, especially on MySpace. Also, she might argue that she is crazier than me.
**frequently

Betrayal

I have loved IKEA since the first time TupperDoug dragged me to the one in Pittsburgh. "It's a furniture store," he told me.

"Whoopity-doo," I said.

"No, you don't understand. It's Swedish."

Having set my expectations firmly at underwhelming, I was entirely unprepared for the awesomeness that awaited me on the inside of the gaudy blue and yellow building. Everything is set up like rooms that look exactly like the rooms on the Real World (which I was still into at the time)(The reason for this is that MTV decorates the Real World houses with stuff from IKEA). It's so modern and trendy looking, and affordable! and best of all, you can take your furniture home with you the same day. Oh the hours I spent at Pittsburgh IKEA, wandering around with Doug and not with Doug, since my addiction became so great that I started sneaking into town behind his back to quench my IKEA need. I soon had a couch, several chairs, a dining room set, a coffee table and assorted rugs, curtains and picture frames. My house could have been an IKEA catalog page and I was so, so happy about it.

Flash forward a number of years to 2005 when I moved to Chicago. My friend Fish just bought a new house, where he has moved with 3 and a half other fine gentlemen (the half gentleman being Phil, who doesn't officially live there, but also never seems to leave). Move in was two weekends ago and I went out to the new abode for the duration to help out. One of our first orders of business? A group outing to Schaumburg IKEA. Imagine my joy at spending the better part of four hours in the store of my dreams! JoE, Fish and I giggled as we stood in line with an overflowing shopping cart and two flatbed carts full of at home assembly joy.

It was all downhill from there.

The first problem encountered was Fish's new four drawer dresser. It wasn't that it was difficult to build, it's just that it is difficult to build a four drawer chest when you've only been provided with two drawer bottoms. I mean, you can do it, but there wouldn't be much point now would there? The bottom is kind of an important part of the drawer. In the meantime the MASSIVE wardrobe JoE had purchased ( I am not kidding you, you could comfortably fit five people in there) was the wrong color and had to be exchanged. Also the mirrors that are meant to be hung inside the doors were missing the adhesive backing that we were assured would be in the package.

And then there was Fish's bed. It seemed simple enough at the start. If you've never built IKEA furniture before, let me explain that there are no words telling you what to do anywhere in the instruction book. The entire tale is told through drawings. On the first page is a drawing of the tools you will need, which in this case included both a phillips head and a flat head screwdriver. Step one was a drawing of this: screw hex nut onto double threaded screw. Use included flimsy wrench to drive screw into the footboard. Further use included flimsy wrench to remove hex nut from double threaded screw and save it for later. This went ok until I tried actually getting the hex nut off. For every time I tried to turn it, it would start unscrewing the screw from the footboard. Eventually we solved the problem with a pair of pliers holding the screw in place, however I was mildly annoyed at that fact that pliers were not pictured at the beginning of my instruction manual. Next there was the problem of the metal supports spanning the space between the midbeam and the sideboards. The screws required here were miniscule, and had to be screwed in upside down, into pieces that kept slipping out of where they were supposed to be even when someone else was holding them there for you. Fish and I struggled with this for an hour. Just as we thought we were nearing the end we discovered we were missing one screw. FUCKERS!!!! There was no way I was giving up. Fish was sleeping in his bed that night come hell or high water. We managed to scare up a screw in the house that was the same size but a different thread, which I managed to force in through sheer will.

After all that, my blind devotion to the IKEA gods is waning. All those years, IKEA, all those years of loyal purchasing, only to be betrayed during my most comprehensive visit yet? Why? Why have you forsaken me IKEA? I have done everything that you asked: I have pulled my own boxes out of the warehouse, loaded my own car, assembled my own pieces. I don't understand why you would abandon me like this. IKEA you have broken my heart.

Atkins, Shmatkins

I discovered at Bed, Bath and Beyond this weekend that I've lost about 5 pounds on the Only Eat Dinner (if that) and Walk to the Bar Diet. I bet I could lose even more if I start drinking some straight up Jack Daniels instead of the fattening beer. It would be gross, but in order to look your best you have to make sacrifices.

The Height of Laziness

I have a few pieces for you all, but no time to write them today. It is busy season after all, as Mary, Timmy and Bia can attest. But in the interest of giving you at least SOMETHING to read, here is a post I wrote for my MySpace blog on Friday when I was in an exceptionally bad mood. As bonus material I will include the comment from it left by my new friend Kat, who is extremely funny and should have her own blog. I know moving material around from one place to another doesn't technically qualify as a "new" post, but try and work with me on this one, alright?

Friday, July 29, 2005

Shit that pisses me off
Current mood: aggravated

- People who say "nine-one-one" instead of "nine-eleven". 9-1-1 is a telephone number you call when your grandma mistakes your heroin for her insulin. 9/11 is the date of a horrible tragedy with massive civilian casualties. Get it straight. My boss just did this in a meeting - twice. If we were setting a meeting for that day, would he say "Are you available on September one one"? NO OF COURSE NOT. Because it makes no sense. STOP DOING THIS.

- My cat getting bizarre knots in her fur. WTF??? This just starts all of a sudden? How the hell is she doing this? And Fish even bought me a special shedder brush which I brush her with EVERY SINGLE DAY and yet somehow when I'm brushing her yesterday I still find a knot! Kristen Ann, this has to stop. Seriously. Are you doing this on purpose? Do you grab my brush when I leave for work and tease your fur like it's 1986? I can't figure out how you are managing this feat. But cut it out.

- The bartender's roommate has a swollen lymph node that they are removing on Tuesday and doing a biopsy to see if it's cancer. I assure you, it is. This will be the THIRD FUCKING TIME. Testicular cancer, followed by two brain tumors, radiation and chemo both times...and more fucking cancer. The kid is like 24 years old for fuck's sake. CAN WE CUT THIS POOR GUY A BREAK PLEASE? There is no one I can punch in the face to make me feel better about this. And I'm not even the one with the cancer.

-Ann Arbor, Michigan and all things contained therein. This should be pretty self-explanatory. Maize and blue are shitty colors and they can suck the shit out of my ass. Lloyd Carr is an asshat. Go Bucks. Scarlet and gray baby! Let's start the football already, I'm tired of waiting.

- Not having a garbage disposal. This is the single most important appliance in the house people. Scraping plates into the garbage a) sucks and b) means your garbage is going to stink when the food rots which means you have to take it out more often, which is another thing I hate doing. And also, when you have to clean the little trap out in the sink? Fucking grossenating. Who wants to stick their hands in that shit? It should be a law: all kitchens must be equipped with a garbage disposal. If landlords fail to provide said appliance, they shall be made to lick the trap in the sink every day until one is provided. Seriously, this is not the 50's. Not having a garbage disposal is like not having a flush toilet and having to use an outhouse. I can't live like this anymore.

Kat's comment:
haha, i like your cynicism. this is going to be a BEAUTIFUL friendship.
i just thought i'd add a couple things that i, myself, hate:

i hate that Mariah Carey still has a career, i hate when people call scissors "skizzors", i hate PEOPLE WHO TYPE EMAILS IN CAPS LIKE THEY DONT REALIZE THAT ITS REALLY INTERNET CODE FOR OBNOXIOUS, i hate dying (but not quite dead) bugs that walk away when you're trying to kill them, i hate when you walk into wal-mart to buy, like, toothpaste and walked out with $361.00 worth of stuff thinking "thank god i didn't buy the fishtank.", i hate pretentious middle initials, i hate MLA format, and i hate how i have to suddenly buy ALL my movies on vhs ALL OVER AGAIN because vhs is the new beta.

but thats just me, i hate everything.