Friday, March 30, 2007

Things I hate and love and love to hate

Hate:

1. People who stand around the condiment counter at Starbucks chatting with a friend (incidentally, also clogging the area yet with no coffee purchase whatsoever and therefore NO NEED FOR CONDIMENTS) as they slowly remove the covers from their coffee cups and vacantly look around for Sugar? Cocoa powder? Oh, wait, maybe powdered sugar. Hmm. Nutmeg? Oh, silly me! I got whipped cream on my latte so I really don't need anything! Maybe a straw, though. Oh, wait. It's a hot beverage, so maybe a straw isn't necessary. Instead I'll just pull out one napkin from the dispenser at a time until I have, oh, about a week's supply and then sloooooowly put the cover back on my coffee cup and continue my conversation with my coffee-less friend (with the hyena laugh) while ignoring the seething little sweaty woman behind me.

2. People who see you backing out of a parking spot and still insist on walking behind your car as if they have a death wish, and when you don't see them and have to jam on your brakes they yell and shake their fists in fury. Oh, sorry about that. Next time I'll be sure to stop backing out when I see you coming 50 yards away. HEAVEN FORBID YOU SHOULD STOP WALKING FOR FIVE SECONDS.

3. The new self-checkout lanes at the grocery store, which could be a lot of fun if they would stop stopping every three items to tell me to wait for a cashier. Isn't this defeating the whole purpose of SELF-CHECKOUT? After the fourth time it stalled on me today, I expected to see smoke coming out of the top of the computer and to hear the automated voice saying Warning! Warning! Danger, Will Robinson! Why can't they make computers that work? All I wanted was some green grapes and a box of Lactaid IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

4. The way the sun beating through my car windows makes me nauseatingly hot, yet when I step outside the frigid wind is enough to make me scream. MAKE UP YOUR MIND, WEATHER.

5. The fact that the little boy who came to my house today for a playdate felt the need to announce he's allergic to dust. YOU'RE SHIT OUTTA LUCK IN THIS HOUSE, MISTER.


Love:

1. The little one-year-old boy toddling by my car holding his mom's hand and giving me the biggest toothless grin. He must've known I needed it. Also, he had a little fisherman's cap on. Ouch, my ovaries.


Love to hate:

1. Izzie and George slept together. I mean, huh? And a little bit of ew. Mixed with just a dash of hmm.

2. Sanjaya Malakar. As much as I want to strangle this creepy little girlish boy, I am seriously considering trying out that ponyhawk. I mean, how could you possibly stay in a rotten mood and keep a straight face when you keep catching glimpses of yourself with that 'do in the various mirrors of your house?

Monday, March 19, 2007

Wow. Just...wow.

Anyone hear about this?

How in hell did the flight attendant "crew" come to the conclusion that this was the best "option"? To strap a corpse into a seat next to a VERY MUCH ALIVE MAN who was, incidentally, SLEEPING and therefore UNAWARE of the VERY MUCH DECEASED WOMAN dangling from the seatbelt next to him and propped up with pillows? And to think that this was what they considered to be the option that would "cause the least disruption"? To whom? The people in coach who no longer had to be subjected to sitting in the company of a corpse for NINE HOURS? I suppose they felt it was a better choice to place the mental trauma on one passenger instead of a whole bunch of passengers. (They're good at math, you see.) Besides, I'm sure they took into consideration the fact that if the passenger bought a first class ticket, hey, he can afford counseling more than the chumps in coach.

At least they had the respect and decency to bump the dead woman to first class (probably because they knew she wouldn't be ordering the lobster), but...seriously? This poor man had to sit next to a dead woman for NINE HOURS? While her daughter was "grieving beside her"? Can you take a moment to imagine the whole scenario of the stated slippage of the corpse periodically, and of the whole readjusting of the corpse, the tightening of the seatbelt, and the "propping with pillows" by the ultra-intelligent and innovative flight attendants?

Also, have I mentioned NINE HOURS?

Who do you think the Alive Man talked to after giving his statement to the press? I'll give you a hint: "Atty. Phil Indablanc."

And these are the same flight attendants who are now supposedly highly trained in what to do in the event of another hijacking by terrorists. I don't know about you, but between this and the inconsistent and irrational security system at airports, my fear of flying just went right back up to Code Red.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Curses

I have this thing. It's sort of a superstitious-type of thing, where I feel that if I talk about something (out loud, where people can hear me), sort of like, "it's a good thing THAT'S not happening!", I'm therefore "cursing" myself and my good luck will automatically change. Because it does. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I know, I know. You're thinking, "Well, you're supposed to follow up these statements of good fortune with 'Knock on wood!'" But yeah, that part of the superstitious thing doesn't work for me. There's no warding off the evil after the words have been uttered from my mouth. Apparently my words have Super Powers.

So. Because of this problem I seem to have with the inability to tell people about my good luck, I give you this story. About my neighbor. Actually, my neighbor's cousin's nephew. Okay, it's really about that nephew's wife. Or was it his sister-in-law.

Anyway.

So, this person has a couple of kids (I think), and I've heard that he (or she) has had a completely illness-free household for, oh, something like seven months or so. And even before those seven months, there was only the occasional illness blip of the "is-it-a-cold-or-is-it-just-allergies?" variety.

After hearing this (about the neighbor's cousin's nephew's wife) (or his sister-in-law), I can't help but lie awake at night and think, "When will the bomb drop? When will this poor man/woman be hit with the runny noses, coughs, and the (HELP ME JEEBUS) horrific and grotesque Stomach Bug? How is he/she escaping the dreaded (and often simultaneous!) vomit and diarrhea?" I mean, really, how could these people leave their houses daily (and I think I've heard their kids attend the same Germs R. Plentiful Elementary School that my own children attend) and not catch...something? That has to be some sort of miracle, don't you think?

Several times over the past seven or so months, I've heard that this man (or woman) has been warned by the children's teachers that "something is going around" in the classroom, and yet, still, nothing. These children seem to have superhuman germ-defending powers. Maybe they take these vitamins, like my own kids (not to say that my kids ALSO have superhuman germ-defending powers, because, HA - I wish!).

In any case, I'm a bit envious that this man (or woman) is able to discuss their family's luck with avoiding illness out loud - to other people, even! (As opposed to talking to themselves about it in the bathroom with the door locked and the water running SO THE EVIL GERM GODS DON'T HEAR.) Because if I were them, I'd surely have a sore throat, a whining husband with an itty-bitty cold (I feel soooo siiiiiiiick...I must lie on the couch watching NESN allll daaaaay so I can go to wooooooorrrrk tomorrowwwww...*insert forced cough and wet, slurpy sniff*), and my living room would be covered in vomit by the next day.

Thank goodness I know enough to keep such good fortune quiet.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

*insert static sound*

We will return to our regularly scheduled programming immediately after the Three Weeks That Are Making Me Realize That Giving Birth Wasn't That Bad After All are over and I can once again speak to my family without crying and shaking my fist while screaming, "WHEN am I EVER going to have TWO MINUTES to MYSELF?!?!"

Lots of blogging going on in my head, though. It's really too bad my computer isn't telepathic. Oh, the stories I could tell!