Friday, December 30, 2011

Bride Crossing Part 2

After a few weeks, I was able to pick up my wedding dress from Chinese Lady. The work was completed beautifully: Chinese Lady agreed that deciding to shorten the gross floor-length to a flattering knee-length was perfect for the look I was going for. Well, no shit Chinese Lady, I always know what's best - ask anyone.

The next step was to drop the ivory gown at the dry cleaners - I drove to another nearby location suggested by Chinese Lady. I walked into the facility, layed the plastic-covered dress down on the counter and said hi. There was no hi, no alternative greeting, no smile, no questions as to what I needed coming from the lady behind the counter. And she looked as though she had not showered in 17 days or visited her stylist for a root touch-up since 1992. If I couldn't trust her to take a shower before work, how could I trust her with my wedding dress? This was the exact moment I realized I didn't like the lady working the counter and our relationship was most likely not going to improve: we're going to call her "Roots" from here on out.

I told Roots that I was was dropping off my dress to be cleaned and pointed out a few marks around the bust area. We went over pricing, what kind of chemicals are used, whether or not the marks would come out, and the date of pickup. I was pretty much running the conversation since all Roots had to say was the ever-helpful, "Uh huh". It was beyond difficult to concentrate and not look at Roots' roots during that interaction. Anytime I meet someone I don't like, the same thing physical reaction occurs: my eyes narrow, my palms become cold and sweaty simultaneously, my heart thumps quickly in my chest, and my brain freezes up. Over the years, I've learned to control these symptoms, but yet they remain. (More about why I hate everyone later.)

Two days later, I strolled in to see Roots with the looming feeling that something big, something small, or just something has happened to my dress. There is reasoning behind my craziness and here it is: Roots brought the lovely ivory cocktail-length beaded bust dress out from the back and hung it on the rack for me to view. My eyes honed in on the bust immediately and saw that the formerly beige beads on the bust area were now virgin-FUCKING-white. My eyes narrowed, my palms sweated, my heart thumped, and I could barely think: Roots and her shitty root job fucked up my wedding dress.

To be continued...

  

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Crapslist Part 1

Seriously, have you read some of the shit that people post in the "free" section of Craigslist? Go there right now - it's under "for sale". You'll thank me later for the laugh.

Let's review some of the treasures I've been browsing -
Chicken Beverage Coasters: There are so many ways to read this one. Is it a coaster that holds chicken-flavored beverages? Or maybe it is a coaster shaped like a chicken? Or is it a coaster hand-whittled out of slices of chicken? Luckily, there is a shitty photo and it appears to be a set of four crappy circular coasters accompanied by a very large, awkward chicken-shaped coaster holder. The poor papa chicken doesn't even have feet. The insanity! Wait, it gets better. I can only assume this is a passive-aggressive cat lady trying to make a few bucks so she can buy more cats, thus the threatening ALL CAPS lock on certain phrases: "YOU MUST PICK UP" and "TOO MANY NO SHOWS". Idiot.

Dog Bones: This sounds fairly normal, right? Maybe their dog passed and they want the bones to go to a nice home. Apparently these items for sale are not the traditional dog bones I'm thinking of. No no no, these are described as "previously chewed beef femur bones". What the fuck? I'm officially creeped the fuck out. This dude also has an issue with sentence construction and grammar - "If your interested, please tell me how many your interested in if pieces and a phone number". I would rather swallow phosphoric acid then give this creeper my digits.

100 Gallons of Vegetable Oil: OMFG this can't be real. This posting says that this poor schmuck purchased the seemingly empty tank at an auction for "a project" and when he got home it was filled with vegetable oil. How pissed would you be if you were trying to design a spacecraft and when you bought a tank, it turned out to be filled with cooking oil? PISSED! I should give this dude a call, he left his digits for me:  "330- 988 - zero five two eight" Thank you Jesus - he typed out the last four numbers - I was growing tired of reading actual numbers anyway.

Stay tuned for Crapslist Part 2.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Why The Gas Company Sucks

About a year ago, I got myself into a bit of a predicament involving numbers and money and my general inability to accurately compute "head math". To make a short story long, the issue first began when I submitted the wrong amount of money toward a gas company bill. I was in a hurry for no reason - probably because I was trying to quicken my shit up so I could continue obsessing about the work shoes Rigatoni left by the front door instead of placing them in their designated area - and mistyped on the final page where the payment is submitted online. Immediately after realizing my mistake, I was on the phone with the dreaded customer service department of said gas company. Dun Dun Dunnnnnnn.

Really, there is nothing worse than calling customer service. I mean, nothing.

"Angela" from the gas company and I had a thorough conversation about the situation and I (non-condescendingly) asked for the online payment to be cancelled so I could resubmit the correct amount in a new transaction. There is where the situation went down hill. "Angela" gave me two options: I could either cancel the payment before it hits the account (which will result in a $30 charge) or I could let the payment go through, cancel it, and resubmit it (which will also result in a $30 charge). Huh? At this point, I was just trying to understand my options, which sounded as though they were exactly alike but with different descriptive words being used to identify one from the other. For a minute it sounded like she was speaking Aramaic - which is a dead language that was practiced by Jesus and his minions. I repeated the options back to "Angela" and this is approximately where she tried to out-snark me.

After I decided that I would utilize option B and cancel my payment, "Angela" then told me that I will be "disciplined" if the amount I originally submitted cannot be taken out of my bank account. What is going on here? Hey "Angela", this is why I'm calling you in the first place: the amount I submitted online is about MUCHO dollars too much and that kind of cash isn't in my bank account this week. Listen up, you condescending bitch, do you or do you NOT work in customer service?

I had about enough of "Angela" so I started speaking in monologue form about how I have been with this shitty gas company for five years, all the while never having missed one fucking payment. Then I threw in the bit about how I was less than appreciative that I was being threatened with "discipline" when I was taking the right course of action by calling to sort out the issue in the first place. The motherless bag of shit they call "Angela" told me that beginning next month, I would have to send in a check via snail mail to pay my bill - I would no longer have the priveledge of conveniently paying my bill online. This was my "discipline".

OH NO! THE BIG BAD GAS COMPANY HAS ME LOCKED DOWN WITH DISCIPLINARY ACTION INVOLVING ENVELOPES AND STAMPS! MOMMY!

Seriously, I hope someone shits on her doorstep. What a bitch.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Your Kid Is An Asshole

I'm one of those 30-year-olds that doesn't have children. That's right: another human being has not exited my body through my vagina. I am as selfish as they come and reproducing would completely shatter my amazing life where I mostly worry about going to work, making social plans on weekends, and whipping up Paleo/Primal recipes (more about that later). Sometimes I make time to obsess about why Rigatoni's dipping sauce bowl is still on the counter, slowing drying and crusting up, after 72 hours.

Facebook provides me with lots of opportunities to see what it is like to have children, but without having to deal with them directly. Honestly, I think I have learned more from Facebook about raising children than any book, pediatrician, or wrinkly grandma could ever provide. I have learned if you want to be a superstar parent you should: own a camera whose battery never dies, post insanely positive Facebook messages even when you are covered in poop, exhausted, and want to kill everyone, and stage your child in funny adult situations so you and everyone else can be conviced you have not lost your sense of humor. Timmy put down that beer (hee hee)! You have to do these things otherwise everyone will think you are a bad parent. Especially me.

There are massive amounts of photos, parent-groups, quotes, and "funny" child moments that I get to live through practically first-hand. Little Nikki smeared poo all over the bathroom walls and her face was precious (Awww.) Baby Stephen was using a pair of scissors as a lollipop while playing "drums" with the pots and pans (LOL-Giggles). Toddler Timmy put the family dog's tail in the blender while humming "It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas" (HOW Cuuuuuuuute).

Wouldn't it be hilarious if I typed exactly what I was thinking under each and every one of these toddler "milestones"? Guess what parents? That's about to happen right fucking now. Nikki will proably end up as a sociopath making weekly trips to the therapist, Stephen will more likely than not be in seventh grade for two years, if not three, and Timmy will without a doubt blow something up, someday. Trust me, this is for your own good that you now are aware of this.

 Let's say, for example, you have reproduced. I already know you hate me: it's okay, I'm not upset. You hate me because I "don't understand" and somewhere between breastfeeding and diaper changes, your perspective has gone missing. You most likely, at some point, had an excellent perspective about other peoples' children, but then: you reproduced. Now, what I say is offensive because "all children are miracles". Maybe you'll find that perspective. Maybe you won't. Either way, you can now thank me for telling you, based on your crazy Facebook photos/updates/comments, how your children will really turn out. And also, your kid is an asshole.

You're welcome.

 

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Vodka, Sweat, and Tears

A few years ago, I implemmented a pre-cohabitation training program known as Operation Rigatoni. This training program consisted of various household routines such as paying bills in a timely manner, washing dishes after they are used, taking the trash out every weekend, closing cabinet doors that had been opened, placing dirty laundry in a laundry basket, grocery-ing on a weekly basis, and wiping up liquid that had been spilled the same day as said spill. If you ever met the Rigatoni, you would immediately realize that training the Rigatoni to do anything would take massive amounts of vodka, sweat, and tears.

Operation Rigatoni started off pretty successfully with him being eager to help out and make our lives more organized in general. The "honeymoon" portion of our pre-cohabitation days quickly transformed into a downward freefall and I have been battling with the Rigatoni through these cycles of ups and downs ever since. Woah woah woah, you might say: Why are you being such a rageaholic bitch about meaningless household tasks? Why don't you worry about solving world hunger or volunteering at a homeless shelter? Because, goddamnit, that shit isn't nearly as important as the stuff I'm talking about here. I need dirty dishes to be in the dishwasher. I need clean clothes to be hung in the closet. I need mail to stay on the glass table by the front door in the area I have specified it to stay. I need both of the television remotes to remain on the coffee table. I need the second bedroom to not look like the fucking laundry basket barfed Banana Republic button downs and Penn State sweatshirts on every flat surface. I need the trash to be taken out every single weekend whether the bag is full or not. And for god's sake, I need the new toilet paper roll to be placed ON THE TOILET PAPER ROLL HOLDER.

Let's go over some of the excuses Rigatoni has thrown my way over the years: I was tired. I forgot. I didn't know how you wanted me to do it. I wasn't sure if that needed to be done this week. I fell asleep. I didn't have time. I got a call from my mom. I saw that it was late and didn't want to wake you up. It was raining. It was cold. I needed work clothes and only had time to do laundry. I thought I did everything. My stomach was bothering me. I had to pay some bills online. Time out. Let me understand this: You had to "pay some bills online" so you thought you would save a bunch of time by putting mail in the bedroom, on the coffee table, in the kitchen, in the second bedroom, and on the couch? Um, what?? Thank baby Jesus he isn't an attorney, because his defense is typically weak like a vodka sprite from a campus bar.

This morning I'm ready to walk out the door when I see something truly appalling: the couch is being used as a coat rack. I can feel the rage building. My plams start to get tingly and my heart starts to race. OMFG, not this again. My brain screams, Son of a bitch! Goddamnit! What the fuck! Rigatoni sucks! I paced toward the bedroom, flipped on the hallway light, and threatened Rigatoni with bodily harm if this abomination continued. It must have been too much for him to place his coats in the closet that is 4 feet from the couch.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Bride Crossing Part 1

Knowing myself as well as I do, it was best that the amount of time between our "engagement" to the day we said "sure, why not" was exactly three months. There was just enough time for me to plan the essentials, but not enough time to freak the fuck out over ridiculous details that I would only end up kicking myself later for ever caring about. If any more time were given, I surely would have ended up sucker-punching puppies.

A couple days after Rigatoni and I finally set a date, I decided that finding the dress would really make the rest of the planning more organized. It must have been some sort of wedding-planning miracle, because the first dress I tried on fit perfectly and didn't cost one-million dollars. There weren't any idiots with me ooooo-ing and ahhhh-ing at the dress or anyone getting all emotional about an ivory sheet of material - I hate that shit. Being the modern people we are, I put the dress on hold so Rigatoni could come back with me a few hours later to see it before I made the purchase. Dress: check.

The following day, I drove the dress to another location to be altered. When I say "altered", I mean shortened to cocktail length: I wouldn't be caught dead in a ridiculous floor-length gown. Oh god, I just barfed a little bit thinking about that. Here is how the alteration session went:

Chinese Lady: Oh hai, are you JD?
JD: Yes, I called. I have my wedding dress and I need to have it shortened.
Chinese Lady: Okay, you go try on and come out and I shorten for you.
JD: Perfect. *tries on dress*
Chinese Lady: Okay, we make long dress this short. *motioning with pins in mouth*
JD: No no no. Here give me the dress. THIS short. *hikes dress to knee-length*
Chinese Lady: You make long dress short??
JD: Yes! The LONG DRESS needs to be SHORT.
Chinese Lady: You make long dress short.
JD: Yes yes. This LONG DRESS needs to be THIS SHORT. *more motioning to knee-length*
Chinese Lady: Hmm, okay. Long dress be made SHORT.
JD: How long have I been here? It's like hours have passed. I'm starting to sweat. And I'm hungry.
Chinese Lady: What?
JD: Nevermind.

It took all of me not to walk into speeding traffic.

To be continued...

I'm Going To Turn Your Airbag Off

Yeah, I'm at that point. I have a feeling that Christmas does this to me every year, but I find other events to blame it on. Maybe it's the three-story sock pile in the second bedroom. Or the crusty pizza stone on the counter. Or maybe it's the seventeen bags of recycling lounging in the kitchen waiting for one of us to finally drive it three blocks to the recycling station. (More about my OCD later.) You're not going to pull the wool over my eyes this year, Christmas. YOU are to blame.

My husband's name is Rigatoni, by the way. I mean, not really, but on this blog it is. Whatever works, right? Last night I contemplated setting Rigatoni's ugly blue chair on fire after an argument about Christmas presents. Actually, multiple remarks and snarks got the ball rolling, per say, on the argument. The day before, I may have mentioned to him while we were driving that I was going to turn his airbag off. Perhaps that's where it really started...

Either way, the fact is that I vowed one year ago this Christmas that I would stop spending in December like it was going out of style. I would stop using that visa so much that the black strip on the back felt warm at the end of a shopping day. I would stop wrapping eighty presents all marked "To: Rigatoni". I would stop going into holiday debt. The irony behind all of this is that I'm more than aware of the meaning of Christmas.

In the end, Christmas isn't really to blame, but it's hilarious to attribute overreactions/crying/temper tantrums on said holiday because no normal 30-year-old has temper tantrums, right? I'm partially to blame for making it all about the presents year after year and then stopping short last year without a thorough explanation. He is partially to blame for buying me such good shit the last 10 years. Rigatoni and I should talk about this (again) tonight; then I can finish wrapping his six presents. Baby steps.