diary of a failed anorexic

ThrowbackTexas Thursday? Throwback Pirate Thursday? I don't even know anymore.

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 20:07:00 +0000

"For reals. Say one more thing to me."

Remember way back in 1817 when Spain was like “oh hey, Jean Lafitte, remember how you pinkie promised that you would help us out if we looked the other way during all your pirate hijinks?” and Jean Lafitte was like “French people don’t pinkie promise.” And Spain was like “Yeah whatever. Anyway we need you to sail to Galveston and spy on the Mexicans.” And Lafitte was like “can I still be a pirate?” and Spain was like “yeah whatever. Just spy on those Mexicans.”

And Jean Lafitte sailed into Galveston and he was like “DADDY’S HOME BITCHES! All of you other leaders, GET! SHOO!” And then he developed an entire colony and a smuggling base and he basically just stopped spying on Mexicans to pirate it up full time? And anytime someone new moved in he was like “do you PINKIE PROMISE to be loyal to me?!” and they were like “I thought French people didn’t pinky promise.”

And he was like “SAY THE THING! THE THING WHERE YOU’RE LOYAL TO ME!” and then then in 1821 the government was like “Hey. Can you get out of America? Like…all the way out. People are starting to notice that you’re still a pirate.” And then Jean Lafitte was like “I’m outie 3000 bitches” and he burned his settlement to the ground and left on his pirate ship with all his gold? And also he was the coolest thing that ever happened to Galveston?

Throwback Thursday: Let those bitches eat cake

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 16:59:00 +0000

Remember back in 1782, when The French were all like “We are French! Let’s fight a lot” but it came out all “Nous sommes Français! Luttons beaucoup!”?

And Rousseau was like "Oh my gosh, guys. Let me tell you what this B said. We were like 'The peasants don't have any bread, Marie!' and she was like 'Well let those whiney bitches eat cake then! Being rich rules!'"? Except he lied about that part and she probably didn’t say that at all?

And everyone was like "Meh. We’re in the middle of a revolution anyway. Let’s eventually try her for treason and then we should totally cut this lady's head off."

And then they totally cut her head off?

What? You guys don't have cake? I didn't even say that!

And 300 years later we were STILL so mad at Marie Antoinette that we were like "the only suitable punishment for her is to have Kirsten Dunst play her in a wildly inaccurate movie." ?

Sophia Coppola: Fuck you, history.

Here’s the thing. I’m not really ever sure I’m doing Throwback Thursday right. Is this right? I’m just going to keep doing it this way.

#throwbackthursday?

Things we should learn from the Salem Witch Trials

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 18:23:00 +0000

Man. Remember in 1693 when all those ladies were acting suspiciously so we just said, "Hey. They're probably all witches. Why else would they want to wear shorts? We should probably just hang them." And then we hanged them? That was really the best way to tackle that suspicious lady problem. Is this the right way to do Throwback Thursday? Maybe it’s not. Regardless, here are some of the things we should have taken away from the Salem Witch Trials.

1) If a lady tells you to do something, especially if that lady is wearing a bonnet, you’d better fucking do it because she’s probably a witch.

“All I said was to put the MOTHERFUCKING SEAT DOWN when he finished so I don’t fall in during the middle of the night. And somehow I’M the witch?"

2) If you are a lady and you want to boss people around, do not wear a bonnet because you will be mistaken for a witch and will, with almost 100 percent certainty, be hanged, set on fire or pressed to death by gigantic rocks. And here’s the thing. Bonnets are a terrible fashion misstep, but they shouldn’t be punishable by death. Sandal boots are a different story.

Witch

Docent or witch? I have no idea so we’ll have to set you on fire. Witch.

3) Most suspicious ladies are probably witches. Which explains my former landlord who had like seventeen parakeets (because seriously. Parakeets are worse than watching every episode of Charles in Charge in one sitting), my former co-worker who would read her bible at lunch and then spend the rest of the day criticizing my nail polish, and Charlize Theron.

NOBODY is that beautiful and nice and funny and smart. Expect a visit from Magistrate Hathorne, Theron. You’d better get that absolutely adorable accent going.

4) Do not act suspiciously in front of a man with a wig.

“Oh, hey, Emily Proctor. No, I won’t crush you under giant rocks. Wait.”

“You’d better work, bitch. Wait.”

“What’s that? No. My name is Donatien François. Well yeah some people call me that, but… Hm? Yeah I guess you can call me Marquis… What’s that? de Sade? Yeah that’s me. Wait…”

Men in wigs do not take suspicious-acting ladies lightly. Because men in wigs will either set you on fire, make you work on the runway and make love to a camera, or will force you into their sex dungeon, which is probably not as cool as 50 Shades of Grey makes it sound. Also, shame on you for reading 50 Shades of Grey. You’re probably a witch. Also, shame on me for reading 50 Shades of Grey. I’m definitely a witch.

As evidenced by my tell-tale Squeaky-Witch-Bra test

5) If you are a lady, and you do not like another lady, just tell everyone that she’s a witch. I know that people sort of already do that, but the consequences now are like “yeah. She totally IS a witch.” And before they were like “Really? Maybe we should just set her on fire?” That kind of reaction could really come in handy. Here are some practical uses for starting your own witch trial:

When a checker at the grocery store tells you they can take you in their aisle, but a suspicious lady cuts in front of you
When you’re at Barnes and Nobles and you’re looking at the last Huey Lewis and the News CD but a suspicious lady takes it before you get it
When you fall down in the middle of a tennis court because you tried to jump over the net but you missed and everyone is laughing and you see that one of the people laughing is a suspicious lady
When you’re standing at your favorite bar trying to get a drink but the bartender is sort of ignoring you because he’s talking to Charlize Theron instead and you realize that Charlize Theron seems like a suspicious lady

Now you're on MY turf, Theron! Get your beautiful face out of here! Also, I may have a girl crush on Charlize Theron.

When you decide that enough is enough and Nickelback should finally be stopped and you put cobras in all of their sock drawers and they die and you get arrested but you notice that one of the people outside the jail is a suspicious lady

See? Witch trials can’t backfire at all! You’re welcome. We should probably all go out and hug some suspicious ladies today. And make sure you tell them that if this was 1693, they would have been hanged for witchcraft. Don't worry. They'll probably take it as a compliment.

Reasons I should probably never be allowed to have children

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 01:53:00 +0000

You know how as soon as you’re married and turn 28, people start saying things like “why do you have all of these bobble heads in the living room” and “how many times have you set the kitchen on fire” and “is that a pink Magic 8-ball Jesus?” and “you’re married! why don’t you have kids!?”

“Outlook not good, Jennie. Also, my dad said you need to get it together.”

Then you turn 30 and people start saying things like “did I see you car dancing to Paula Abdul earlier?” and “where did you even find legwarmers after 1985?” and “that homeless guy is trying to holler at you” and “oh, you’re getting a divorce? Well at least y’all didn't have any kids! There’s still time!”

Let me know if you want me to show you how to fashion.

Then you turn 32 and people are like “womp womp. Have fun with that Uruk-Hai sword you bought. Looks like you’re never having kids.”

Well first of all, I WILL have fun with that Uruk-Hai sword I bought and don’t say that so condescendingly, unless you've played with an Uruk-Hai sword and thought “this is lame” which would have NEVER happened because playing with an Uruk-Hai sword is NEVER lame you fucking liar.

Exhibit A: Uruk-Hais know how to party.

Second, a psychic/potentially magical/slightly aggressive Buddhist monk told me I WOULD have kids and that they would be twins so 1) watch out for that train wreck and 2) shut your mouth. Third, maybe it’s better for my imaginary children named Blaze and Moxie that I haven’t had them yet because so far, I’m not shaping up to be great parent material. Also, I’ve already had three sets of baby names blatantly stolen from me because a) I share awesome ideas with people for FREE all of the time b) I don’t have kids yet and c) my friends are reckless, heartless, thieving a-holes. You know who you are. So if anyone else that knows me has babies and names them Blaze or Moxie, I am actually going to stab you. Here are some of the reasons it’s ok that I don’t have children yet.

1) I am super awkward around children.

When you meet a kid for the first time what do you do? I’m seriously asking a question. Because when I meet a baby for the first time, I’m like “Hello. I am Jennie. Here is my business card should you need anything from me in the future. Later on if you would like some assistance with your college essays, I’ll give you some notes. Alright. Nice meeting you.” And then I take a drink of tequila from my Big Gulp and walk away. Babies are often not a fan of this straightforward direct approach. I think they would prefer that I talk to them like idiots, but I have too much respect for you, babies. I suggest you set your standards a little higher. Contrarily, I have friends who are introduced to babies and are then immediately adopted as surrogate mothers. My sister, who once abandoned my brother and I to die during a potential home invasion/attack-monster situation and should therefore be a marginal kid-person at best, is incredible with kids. They just wander up to her in the street like she’s some sort of pied-piper who attracts tiny humans that can’t properly feed themselves yet. Sort of like really drunk dwarves, but much less funny and astronomically more codependent.

This looks exactly like the majority of children attracted to my sister and the majority of men attracted to me.

On the other hand, on more than one occasion, babies have given me a look that silently says oh Christ here we go again and then they immediately try to log roll away, because babies are so stupid they can’t even walk. And I’m like shut up, baby! Who are you to judge me?! At least I can drive a car and count, you idiot! The only exceptions to this are my niece and nephew. Because once, I watched my nephew eat an entire piece of pizza before he had any teeth, and I was like “that is a kid who gets it,” and when my niece was three weeks old, she wrapped her tiny precious hands into my sister’s hair, pulled my sister’s face down to her sweet little baby face and sneezed into my sister’s mouth three times. And I was like “I couldn’t love her any more if she were my own.”

2) I often forget that threatening adults is acceptable, but threatening children is not as acceptable.

Like the time I told this bitchy little kid that she needed to stop beating the shit out of her classmates or someone would drop a house on her. Because if you’re going to insult a child, it’s best to threaten bodily injury in the context of The Wizard of Oz, therefore ruining both their faith in adults AND an awesome childhood movie. Or the time a kid I was watching kept playing with the knobs on the oven like a little asshole and I said, knock it off or I will straight stick you in that oven. Or the time I led an elementary school field trip when I was in high school and a kid kept sticking his fingers in the chinchilla cages and, even though I had asked him nicely several times to please don’t do that, seriously, he did it one time too many and I told him without a trace of hilarity that I swear to God if you do that one more time I am going to throw you in with that eight foot python. In my defense, all of these kids were real jerks. Oh. I’m terrible? And I shouldn’t threaten to throw a small child into a snake cage and watch him be strangled and swallowed whole and then digested half alive? Well first of all, calm down. The snake had already eaten. And second of all, you’re a liar if you’re telling me you’ve never met ONE kid you wouldn’t throw to a ravenous snake.

Game. Set. Match, bitches.

3) Sometimes, I think kids are assholes and there’s probably something fundamentally wrong with that.

In my defense, sometimes kids are assholes. I'm sorry?You don’t think so?

One time, my friend’s child approached her on the couch, snuggled up in her lap, threw a fucking rock in her drink, laughed and ran away. If an adult did that, you’d be like, “don’t worry about that Janice because that guy’s an asshole.”
I once watched a child ask for juice, and then after she got said juice, she unscrewed the top of her sippy cup and poured the fucking juice out all over the floor while staring at her mother in the eyes the whole time. First, fuck you, that’s creepy. And second, if I visited you, asked you for apple juice and then after you gave it to me, purposefully poured it all over the floor while staring at you, you would be like “Jennie. You are a drunk asshole. Go home.”
Another one of my friend’s children wanted to sleep in their dog’s kennel, and when his mother told him no, because his mother does not want to go to jail, the child went over and tried to beat the shit out of their dog. Like a motherfucking serial murderer. Because that child was also an asshole.

OK. Forget this one. I was right and it’s perfectly ok to sometimes think that kids are assholes. Damien was a kid. Those freaky ass twins from The Shining were kids. Linda Blair was a kid in The Exorcist. And Macaulay Caulkin was a kid in The Good Son. And it’s pretty safe to say that all of these things are scientific evidence that kids can be real assholes.

4) I was confident that purchasing an Uruk-Hai sword would be a good investment.

Formula costs money. So do diapers, cribs, baby clothes, bottles and eventually college. Well I’ve got news for you, kiddo. My Uruk-Hai sword costs money too. And I haven’t even paid off my OWN college loans, you selfish a-hole. Also, I can’t use a child to chop a water jug or pineapple in half.

See?

In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the gist of what Toni Morrison was trying to say with Beloved. (Toni Morrison, if you’re reading this, I’m so, so sorry for that.) All I’m saying is that if something goes wrong, I can sharpen or throw away my Uruk-Hai sword, but I cannot sharpen or throw away a baby.

5) I’m probably not a wonderful influence.

Have you ever been simultaneously babysitting and watching a realistically gory episode of Criminal Minds and thought “maybe I should put something else on”? Oh you have? Because I haven’t. Ditto for Paranormal Witness, Law and Order SVU and Freddy Vs. Jason. Ever been watching a two-year-old and they want half of your Starbucks Caramel Frappuccino and instead of saying “no, pumpkin, here’s your juice,” you say “don’t tell your mom” and hand it over? No? Here’s a list of other reasons I’m probably not a proper full-time influence for children broken down by category:

Health

One time, I ate whipped cream for dinner
Sometimes, I lie about how many times I’ve eaten whipped cream for dinner
For like a month, I was dizzy, had headaches, and also had seventeen other signs of high blood pressure and I was like I’m going to ignore this away until a doctor was like I cannot give you any kind of diet pills with your blood pressure this high, Jesus Christ go to the hospital you're about to die
I did not know until my late 20s that gyms were open before 10 am

Finances

On more than one occasion, I have looked at my bank account, known that I had $500 and spent $300 on makeup
I considered $68 for an Uruk-Hai sword a good investment
Several times, I have had to choose between dinner for the rest of the week and manicures, and I choose manicures 100 percent of the time
One time, someone stole my purse and then sort of gave it back because he felt sorry for me

Relationships

I have dated a man who moved to another state without telling me mid-relationship
I have dated a man for a year and a half who broke up with me via text
I have dated a man whose idea of romance was asking me to go to a hotel on our first date
I have dated a man whose idea of proper wedding attire was Jordans and blue jeans, and this man was not LL Cool J

Common Sense

I have a Master’s degree in literature
Once, while holding a glass of tea in my hand, I turned my wrist to check the time, and spilled the tea all over me, the floor and the dog; it took me a minute to realize what happened
I one time swallowed the tine of a plastic fork at dinner and didn’t realize it until the meal was over
I broke an “unbreakable” pyrex dish to prove a point

So look. I’m not saying that I don’t want Blaze or Moxie. I’m just saying that it’s ok that I haven’t had them yet, because maybe the authorities would have to get involved once I started threatening to put them in the oven or letting them have Starbucks while watching Paranormal Witness. Either that, or they would turn out just like me, and while I think that’s pretty badass, the rest of my family and friends would be like “we’re moving to Canada because fuck it, enough is enough.”

And that hurts, guys.

(A couple of you guys asked, so here's the blog's Facebook link, if you're into that sort of thing: https://www.facebook.com/DiaryOfAFailedAnorexic)

The day a total stranger threw a bat at my face

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 03:24:00 +0000

Remember how, a couple of years ago it froze in Houston and we all lost our minds because driving on ice is only something you can do if you’re an Eskimo (who, I’m sorry, I’m not completely sure actually exist) or a magician and we were all like “I’m not going to work. I can only drive in the middle of hurricanes and flash floods. ”?

That day, which I thought was going to be totally awesome because 1) no one was going to work and 2) my friends Kellie and Sam and I were going to Hobby Lobby to get stuff to make t-shirts that had pictures of possums on them, ended with a stranger throwing a bat at my face. I know what you’re thinking. “Tell me more about these possum shirts.”

They were going to have possums on them. Who were wearing sunglasses (in my mind. I hadn’t discussed this with Kellie. I’m sure she would have been on board.) And these possums would be giving a thumbs up. And underneath that, it was going to say “Awesome Possum”. And also, Sam was not interested in a t-shirt, I believe (but I think deep down he wanted one. I mean, who wouldn’t want that, right?). And we risked our lives on roads that could have at some point in time been icy in order to make these shirts. The end.

Just kidding. That would have been the worst blog ever.

So Kellie and I went to Hobby Lobby in the middle of the Great Ice Attack of 2011, where:

Sam dressed up like a spaceman.

and

I found a teacup for Queen Latifah. Or I am actually just a short round pixie. You decide.

While we were out, my mom called in a tiny panic. You know my mom. But just for some background:

She can’t be trusted at the movies.
She once sprayed my finches with Lysol because she thought they were dirty.
She once febreezed my dog and when I caught her red handed she denied it.
She made my brother and sister and I leave a turtle to fend for itself in the wild after we “rescued” it from a ditch and relegated it to our backyard (where it could eat all the flies it wanted! as it turns out, I didn’t really understand how turtle diets worked). She found it swimming around in our pool, insisted that it was “just swimming around peeing all over the place in there” (which was dramatic), and she made us take it back to the ditch we had “rescued” it from, even though we had already named him Denver and he was obviously going to be found by Karankawa Indians and eaten (as it turns out, I also did not understand how genocide worked).

What I’m trying to get across to you is that, while my mom is an outstanding mother and the best and most important influence in my life when we’re not at the movies together, she’s not great with animals. Which would be ok, but she called me while I was at Hobby Lobby in a panic because there was a bat under my dad’s truck. And I was like 89 percent sure that if I didn’t get home quickly, I would find her outside spraying it with Lysol while wearing a catcher’s mask and holding a lacrosse catchy basket. I know what you’re thinking. That sounds like the Great Outdoors with John Candy. And also possibly that there is no such thing as a “lacrosse catchy basket”. Well who died and left you in charge of naming athletic equipment?

"Ok. I'll get the lacrosse catchy basket. You get the tennis bouncy paddle."

So when I got home my mom was just sort of refusing to go outside. In case the bat had magical powers AND rabies. It was daylight, so he was obviously about to burn up in flames and smoke at any second, because bats are sort of like Freemasons. To be fair, I still may not have a handle on that. So I put him in a shoe box because it was very cold (I mean, not stay-home-from-work cold, but too-cold-for-a-bat-to-be-hanging-out-under-my-dad’s-truck cold) and brought the box inside, and my mother immediately screamed and told me to put him back outside, where I told her he would instantly freeze to death. While she is not great with animals, she is also not a serial murderer, so she made me duct tape the lid shut and I had to stick the box in an empty room in the corner of the house under stuff so that if the bat suddenly woke up with telepathic powers, it would have a couple different shields of defense to go through before it Jedi-mind-tricked us into letting it fly out all willy nilly through the house, just hanging around and turning us into Freemasons.

Am I doing this right?

Then I called a wildlife refuge nearby. Then they didn’t pick up (because, come ON. It was cold). Then I left a message and went to lunch with Kellie and Sam. Then I realized that I had left the bat at home with my mom and I started to get nervous. Then I rushed home.

When I came back, I had this conversation with my mom:

Mom: I think it’s dead. We can just throw the box away.

Me: Why do you think it’s dead.

Mom: I poked the box. I didn’t hear it moving.

Me: They’re nocturnal. He’s asleep.

Mom: I shook it around a lot. I mean a lot. And he just sort of rattled around in there.

Me: …I have to get that bat to a wildlife refuge before you kill it…

Mom: Jennifer, just throw it away.

Me: It’s not a Milli Vanilli tape, Mom!

Mom: Jennifer! It’s dead!

I suspected she had attempted to spray Lysol through some of the breathing holes I had poked into the top. (breathing holes + one stick + three leaves = completely livable terrarium for any animal).

So I called the wildlife refuge again, and as I was leaving a message that said “my mom is trying to throw this bat away,” a lady picked up and frantically gave me her address, because you cannot just throw away a tiny living animal because you feel like it may try to eat your soul in the night.

So my brother Jarrett and I took the box and got into my car, where we both commented on how the bat was awfully quiet and wondered if it was dead from some sort of terrible shaking episode at the hands of a mom who will remain nameless, Barbara White.

Until the sun went down.

Motherfucking milliseconds after the sun dipped over the horizon, that bat was like Yawn. Stretch. Feed on the blood of the innocent. Imagine sitting in a dark room and hearing a faint scratching on your door. And imagine that after two seconds of faint scratching, it was obvious that the Swamp Witch Goblin from Legend was on the other side and was like: “Oh hey, assholes! Guess who’s awake?! This motherfucker right here; and I KNOW you were shaking the box!”

…I will literally suck your eyeballs out of your face…

So Jarrett is holding this box in his lap and his face is saying “Nope. We should have thrown this bastard away,” and I’m thinking “Thank God Jarrett is holding the box because that bat is going to motherfucking claw right through it in a second and eat my brother alive. Maybe we should have thrown that bastard away.” Because every single vanishing ray of light transformed this tiny furry monster into a more and more intense ball of murder and rage. By the time we got to the refuge, he was attempting to burst out of the box lid like one of Alien's babies out of the chest of some vaguely Asian man.

You may think that's mirth on our faces. But it's not. It's unmitigated fear.

Luckily, the bat refuge was only ten minutes away. I’m sorry. Did I say “bat refuge”? I meant “some lady’s house.” I will preface everything I am about to say with this: this woman and her husband were absolutely motherfucking awesome. There is no one else on the planet who loves bats more than her. Even Batman. There is no one on the planet who knows as much about bats as her. Even Batman. If there were any form of bat-related emergency, there is no one else on the planet I would call. With maybe the exception of Batman, if the bat-related emergency was that my mom shook all of their shoe boxes and they were looking for vengeance. She loves bats so much, she was wearing socks with bats on them. And a shirt with bats on it. And she had a room specifically for bats. And I will remind you that this was a day work was cancelled, so it wasn’t like this was a uniform.

When I knocked on the door, her husband, who was this amazing, laid-back, long haired, older guy, said “Whelp. I’ll go cut up some fruit.” and promptly left. Are you serious?! No one has ever cut up fruit based upon my arrival before!

Jarrett and I climbed some very tiny stairs that were installed to lead the way up to a Batroom. I mean. I wasn’t expressly told that’s what it was called, but come on. That’s what it was called.

And I turned to go, but she shut the door. And put on gloves. And opened. The fucking. Box. Which is really the same thing as throwing a possibly rabid bat at my face.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I have my rabies shot.”

But we motherfucking didn’t. And the bat tore out of that box like it had been held prisoner by someone who was relentlessly shaking it with a focused intent to kill it all god damn day. And it flew right at my head. Then it flew right at my brother’s head. Then it screeched across the room right for my jugular. Then I ducked and screamed. Then it screeched across the room for his eyeballs. And he sidestepped and ducked. Then it went whirring and chirping and screeching across the room like a tiny harbinger-tornado of death hell bent on killing all of us. And when I looked at my brother, his eyes said “we’re going to die right now.” And my eyes said back, "Fuck yes we are." Then the bat lady said something I will never forget.

“Aw! He’s in good shape! Don’t worry!”

As if the reason for our concern was the bat’s safety, and not that it was trying to claw off our faces with its tiny rage talons.

The bat lady then brought out a giant red blanket, and like a motherfucking matador, in three seconds, whirred the cloth around, wrapped the bat up like a lovable fucking bat-in-a-blanket, gingerly removed him and placed him in his own extremely large cage that had actual plants and fruit and other things that were very terrarium like. Which was definitely better for him, considering that several hours before, I had sort of awkwardly forced him into a Charlotte Russe shoe box by picking him up with a box lid, duct taped it shut and stuck it under a bra and some books in an unreasonably cold room.

“Ya got palm trees?”

“Yes,” I said.

“He prolly just fell outta his tarpor when it was windy. They like those palm trees.”

Except because this all happened two years ago, I forgot what it was called when a bat curled up. So I wanted to look it up. So I Googled “what is it called …” and Google finished that for me, but not by completing it to say “when a bat curls up.” Google decided to complete that for me by adding “when you eat yourself.” What the fuck, Google. Also, you get me, Google.

This seems fine.

Anyway.

So the lady asks me where I live, specifically. And I specifically tell her. And she tells me, “I’ll let him go close to your house, and he’ll find his way and fly right back to your palm trees.”

And what I meant to say was “No! My mom hates bats! She’s afraid of them!” But what I accidentally said was “ok.”

So after we met all the bats in the Batroom and the Batlady told us she was going to return this creature of death to our home, Jarrett and I left. And when we went home, I told my mom that the Batlady said she could let him go close to us so he could find his house in our palm trees. And my mom said “OHMYGOD YOU TOLD HER NO, RIGHT?!”

And I said “Of course.”

Because that’s what you get when you act up at the movies.

And Kellie and I didn’t even make our possum shirts. The end.

(You can follow my blog's facebook page here if you like that sort of thing.)

(And I figured out how to put the Pin it and Reddit thingies at the bottom of the post, if you're into THAT sort of thing. Either way, I would like a drink. Wait.)

How I almost bought two live cobras yesterday

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:54:00 +0000

Did you know that it is alarmingly easy to do ten minutes of research online and be able to very effortlessly convince someone that you have a reasonable amount of knowledge on just about any subject? Like when you tell a client that you’re “an expert on skincare for this product line”, or when you tell the IRS that “tequila is a legitimate deduction for a writer”. Or when you convinced a snake seller that you’re a snake expert and almost bought two Egyptian banded cobras yesterday. What?

Let me back up.

You’ll need this for reference later.

A couple days ago I started a Facebook page for this blog. Many people, most notably my mother who “doesn’t read [my] blogs” and “can’t ever remember the name of [my] blogs” and who says “anorexia isn’t funny, Jen”, had trouble finding the articles through my personal Facebook links, which is what’s going to happen when you post unnecessary, ludicrously stupid things about seagulls and baby straitjackets and margaritas every day. There’s just too much complete nonsense to sift through. So a friend-who-is-more-like-a-sister to me in that she used to emotionally abuse me by making me play Ursula and King Triton and sometimes Flotsam and Jetsam when her and my sister were playing Little Mermaid in our pool suggested that I start a separate Facebook page for my blog.

I didn’t even get to play one of Ariel’s insignificant sisters. Just the gigantic, rage-filled octopus monster and a handful of men.

So I started the page. You can find it here.

And if you don’t like it, I will know about it. You mark my words.

Which brings me to my next point. Do you see how quickly that turned ugly and threatening? So when I posted the link to the new Facebook page, I sort of threatened to put live cobras in the beds of people who didn’t like it. And by “sort of”, I mean that I “definitely did.”

And by the way. Some of you are in trouble.

And that started a thought-chain-reaction, which are never good, because I assume that the movie Soul Plane started with a thought-chain-reaction.

Snoop. Planes. Rap? GO!

I wondered if one could even purchase live cobras. Because obviously that would be incredibly dangerous and irresponsible and you should need a permit or something to own a venomous animal. I mean seriously. I lose my car keys when they’re in my purse. They’re completely immobile. One time, I lost my house key for fifteen minutes in my bra. It’s not exactly like it could go anywhere. My cousins had a ball python that escaped one time while it was at my house and it didn’t even have motherfucking hands.

Clearly any venomous animal in my care would immediately escape and there would be a rash of cobra-related deaths in the Houston area. Thank God you can’t just email a person and agree to pick up a live, venomous, extremely deadly animal on a whim. Except you can. And after ten minutes of shoddy Wikipedia research and a Google search to find out what the word “gravid” meant (spoiler alert: it means “horrifyingly pregnant and about to deliver the spawn of Satan” when you’re talking about snakes. If you’re talking about anything else, it just means pregnant), I was confident that I knew enough about snakes to ask a dude to purchase two of his. That’s what she said?

I feel like you won’t really understand the gravity of this situation unless you know some cobra facts, which I am now qualified to give you because not only did I find them on Wikipedia, but I also convinced a snake seller that I was a snake expert.

Here are some of the more important ones:

If you look at a map of their distribution, they are found all the fuck over northern Africa
They enter people’s homes like they were fucking invited when they were obviously not
They eat small mammals (like midgets and babies, I’m assuming)
They can be nine fucking feet long
Here’s a direct quote from Wikipedia: “The venom affects the nervous system, stopping the nerve signals from being transmitted to the muscles and at later stages stopping those transmitted to the heart and lungs as well, causing death due to complete respiratory failure in just 10 minutes.” I’m sorry? What the fuck?
In March of 2011, one escaped from the Bronx Zoo.

Let me repeat that for you. A team of professional people, whose entire job consists of keeping dangerous fucking animals inside of their cages, was apparently ill equipped to keep contained a giant, deadly, mammal hungry, angry, neurotoxin-venom-filled animal with no fucking legs. They have no fucking legs.

Keep those facts in mind when you read the following, which is an email exchange between me and a person who was willing to sell two live, exorbitantly venomous snakes to a person who once fell down two flights of stairs for no reason in particular.

From me:

Hello,

I saw your listing for two live Egyptian banded cobras and I’m interested in purchasing them. I see that you have one male and one female. Is the female gravid? Not sure if I’m ready for 20 little snake mouths to feed…

Thanks,

Jennie

From Frank the Snake Seller (whose name has been changed because I’m sure he would be inundated with thousands of emails from the ten people who read my blog and also want two large, aggressive, fangy death machines in their house to call their own.):

The female is gravid. Have you had banded cobras? Beautiful animals.

Frank

Me:

They most certainly are. When should the clutch be ready? I wouldn’t want to handle her too much. And I would also have to start thinking about knitting onesies for all of the babies. Just kidding. Snake babies don’t really have a way to keep onesies on. What is your asking price? I could possibly come get them this afternoon.

Jennie

Frank:

I’m asking $700 OBO, I have a couple offers in (obviously he does NOT have a couple offers in). I live at (I’m taking his address out so that PETA doesn’t somehow get involved. They always seem to get involved. Nothing personal, PETA. You seem really nice when you’re not throwing fake blood on people.) Do you need an incubator? I have one for sale. When were you interested in coming by?

Frank

And here is where I realized that Frank was completely fine with selling me what essentially amounted to biological weapons that had no off button (and no motherfucking legs). And I wanted to make sure that Frank was more thorough with his snake vesting process in the future. And as proof of that, here is a screen shot of a text I sent Josh. Who I trust to give me good advice (which is my own fault) and is, generally speaking, extremely supportive, especially of bad decisions.

I might have been offended if it wasn’t true.

Me:

I don’t need an incubator. I have two wicker laundry baskets with lids. Are you also selling the charmer? Does he sort of find his own house and just come over when the snakes need charming, or do I have to have a tent set up of some sort? And will he provide his own flute?

Jennie

And then nothing.

Me:

I was kidding, Frank.

Frank:

Ok. When can you come by?

So Frank still hasn’t learned his lesson.

Me:

How about 4:30? I have to pick up the magic rug from the cleaners. I know the charmer won’t need a tent. But seriously. Will the laundry baskets work?

And that was the last time I heard from Frank.

If you take anything away from this post, I would like for it to be these three things:

You can purchase live cobras online
I am able to convince someone that I have enough reasonable knowledge about deadly snakes that they feel confident in selling me two of them
I will know if you have not liked my blog’s Facebook page.

Sleep sweet, guys!

Because I know where you live!

The day I went to the movies with my parents by myself

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:20:00 +0000

You know how sometimes you decide to do something and then halfway through you’re like “I’ve made a huge mistake”? Like when you stood in line for the Mayan Mindbender at Astroworld, maybe? Or the time you were like “I think I’ll buy a Limp Bizkit album that isn’t Three Dollar Bill Y’all”? Or when you decided to watch Old Yeller all the way through?

“There’s probably no way he’s going to shoot Old Yeller. Oh wait. He IS going to shoot Old Yeller? Fuck you, Walt Disney. And while I’m at it, fuck you for Lion King, too. And also Marley and Me and Bambi.”

So that exact same thing happened to me when I was in my early 20s and told my mom and dad I would go to the movies with them by myself. Now. I love my parents very much. And I’m like 99.9 percent sure they love me. But fifteen minutes into the actual movie theater experience, I was sort of praying for a tornado or a velociraptor attack or something as equally devastating that would somehow force us to leave, or at least divert attention away from the unmitigated disaster that was unfolding. Ok. Maybe “unmitigated disaster” is a little dramatic. Oh wait. No it isn’t.

“So… this is awkward…”

So we’ve paid for our tickets. We’re walking towards our theater. We walk past the concession stand and I want a drink because I’m not a communist and this is a movie theater and you’re supposed to buy a six-gallon bucket of Diet Coke at the movie theater unless you have posters of Joseph Stalin in your bedroom and listen to Mikhail Gorbachev speeches to put you to sleep at night. Or if you listen to Nirvana. (I know. I’m going to hear about that one. Let’s get this out of the way, guys: Nirvana was extremely overrated. Yes I am in love with Dave Grohl and I think he’s very talented and he won’t return my calls. Nirvana was still extremely overrated. Move on.) Anyway. So we’re walking past the concession stand and I ask my mom and dad if they want anything.

And here is where I will interrupt my own story to give you some advice. If someone asks you if you want something from the concession stand, and the person offering is round in shape, and that round person is also extremely shy, either do NOT order more than a drink, or make SURE that if you order something that isn’t a drink, you also order a drink. Because no fat person in the history of fat people wants to be standing at a concession stand ordering one trough of popcorn, two packages of junior mints, a hotdog, an order of nachos and one motherfucking drink. Drinks, my skinny friends, indicate the number of people in your party. And if I order all of that and only one motherfucking drink, one would assume that, yes, in fact, not only is all of that for me, but all of that is for me and I am by myself. Immediately, everyone in a twenty-foot radius will picture me sitting in the uppermost corner of the top row of the theater alone, watching Runaway Bride and crying into my popcorn trough while I try to figure out how to put Junior Mints into an IV and snort my diet coke. (Yes. Runaway Bride is more than a decade old. No. I could not think of a movie more pathetic than Runaway Bride.) So, to avoid this entire situation, the round person ordering $140 worth of food and one drink will feel obligated to indicate that there are other people involved in the order when they are talking to the cashier. Here are some of the things one might say to let the concession stand worker know that no, all of this is not in fact for you (I am doing this for the benefit of men and thin women, who, I am 500 percent sure, are two demographics who have never in the history of movie theaters done this):

“I can’t remember if she wants butter.”
“He wants easy ice with that drink.”
“Did my sister want Junior Mints or Sour Patch Kids…”
“This isn’t all for me.”

“Sure it isn’t all for you. Get out of here before Sir Mixalot sees you and we have to escort him out again.”

Saying any of these things is totally unnecessary. And I guarantee that precisely zero percent of thin people do this. And here’s why. Because if you, my thin little angels, carry a giant tray of concession stand material to a theater with one drink, people think “I wonder why her friends didn’t help her carry all of that.” If I carry it, people immediately think “Oh Jesus Christ, get it together.”

Anyway. Keep that in mind when your fat friend asks you if you would like anything from the concession stand, you inconsiderate jerks.

Back to the story. So my parents, who have been made aware of the rules of concession stand ordering through a round person, asked me to get some popcorn and drinks for everyone while they went and found us seats.

Here’s another secret. Even if I’m ordering three drinks for three people, I do not want to stand in front of a stranger and order three wheel barrows of popcorn and three buckets of soda. I just don’t. Chances are, no one even notices. If they notice, they probably don’t care. But in my head, they’re looking at me and thinking “Holy Christ are there THREE of them?! How are they going to fit in the seats?! She’d better get extra butter so she can squeeze in between the arm rests!” And while I can sit at a computer and say things like “Oh, yeah? Well go fuck yourself, Holly High Horse,” in-person Jennie is significantly more reserved. (Unless I’m drunk. But we’ll save that for another entry.)

What I really want to drive home, in case you haven’t noticed, is that while I am normally a confident, secure, elated-to-be-alive person, sometimes I suffer from bouts of crippling weight-related insanity. Remember that. It’s going to be important later.

So I’m standing in line under lights that are approximately 5,800 degrees Kelvin (oh, hi, Science nerds. Yes that IS the temperature of the surface of the sun), and I’m trying to work myself up to order twenty pounds of popcorn and six gallons of soda. And at this point I’m hot and nervous. And the 10-year-old behind the counter asks what I want. And I tell him. And he can’t hear me. So he screams “WHAT?!” And I tell him again. And he screams “WHAT?!” again. And now other people are looking. So I tell him again, very slowly and he MOTHERFUCKING REPEATS THE ORDER BACK TO ME. Why am I so upset that he did this? Because he did not do it at a normal level. He repeated it back to me at the exact same decibel level as a tornado siren. Aaaaand great. Now everyone knows I’m fat. And they probably think I ordered two extra drinks to trick people into believing I wasn’t by myself. When I get nervous I get hot and my face gets red. Then my face gets sweaty. This is important later.

So now I’m trying to balance this tray of impossible material as discreetly as I can and carry it back to the theater. Except instead of carrying it discreetly, I’m carrying it a lot like a motherfucking circus bear on a ball, but with less training and grace and more popcorn and diet soda.

It was almost exactly like this.

Once I finally make it back to the almost-full, nearly dark theater, I have to find my parents. Which, as it turns out, isn’t very difficult. The movie hasn’t started, but it’s still pretty dark. Not that it matters. My mom sees me. And she is whisper-screaming “JEN! JEN! OVER HERE.” My father, whose arms are approximately seven feet long each, has stood up and is waving them around like weeping willow branches. They are almost dead-center in an almost-full row. Did I mention that another thing round people hate is having to squeeze by people in rows? Mostly because I don’t want them to see me coming and think “Oh jeez. Here we go.”

I start walking up the stairs. My mom whisper screams at me again, but now it is a little more loud and panicky.

“NO! DON’T YOU SEE ALL THESE PEOPLE?! YOU’LL NEVER MAKE IT!” As though I were trying to cross the Atlantic ocean in a kayak. I ignore her, which is my fault. I know how this is going to turn out. “JEN! GO THE OTHER WAY! YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO MAKE IT PAST ALL THESE PEOPLE! BABY! GO THE OTHER WAY! THERE’S ALL THESE PEOPLE! YOU’LL NEVER MAKE IT!”

I know my mom. And what she meant by that is, “you could trip and fall because you are a little clumsy and I don’t want you to get hurt.” The theater, however, heard “JESUS CHRIST IT IS GOING TO BE LIKE THAT BOULDER CAREENING TOWARDS INDIANA JONES IF YOU GO THIS WAY.”

I know that there is no way the whisper screaming is going to stop if I continue to walk the way I’m going, even though I’m now halfway up the stairs carrying all of the popcorn in the theater, and even if I go the other way, they’re still in the middle of a nearly-full row. So I walk down the stairs with my wheelbarrows of popcorn and soda. Remember how I said that my face gets hot and then red and then sweaty when I’m nervous?

Well now my face is even more red. And I’m even more nervous. So my face is even more hot. And my forehead is now sweaty. “THAT’S BETTER BABY,” my mom whisper screams at me. Mostly because she’s trying to get me back for telling her that I wanted to be Jenna of the Jungle when I was little.

So I make it up the stairs. And I apologize to the nine million people whose feet I am now stepping on as I’m trying to make my way to my parents. And as I get there my dad takes his hands that are bigger than ping pong paddles and is trying to relieve me of my tray of gluttony. But I have everything just so, and I am fully aware that if anything moves, everybody in the row in front of us is going to be angry and covered in popcorn.

“Here let me help you.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Just let me help you.”

“Don’t move anything I’ve got it.”

“Just let me take it so you can sit down”

“Dad. I’ve got it.”

“Honey just let me…”

“I’VE GOT IT.”

So now the entire theater knows that not only am I far too round to ever think about crossing a row of people (I mean, my own mother thinks I’ll never make it), now they think that I am also a giant a-hole for not accepting my father’s help.

I sink into my seat. I hand over the popcorn and drinks. I am flustered and nervous and my forehead is sweaty and I just want the lights to go off.

And then my mother sees my face and immediately goes into mother-bear-protective mode.

“WHAT’S WRONG.”

I am not exactly sure at this point why she is whisper screaming. I am now considerably closer. She can talk at a normal whisper. Maybe she is still whisper screaming because now she is so incensed that something could be wrong with me and she feels that someone else is responsible. I’m not sure. I am sure, however, that she is not carrying out this conversation at a normal whisper level.

“Nothing is wrong.”

“JEN, WHAT’S WRONG?! WHAT HAPPENED?”

“Nothing, Mom.”

“OH MY GOD DID SOMEONE SAY SOMETHING TO YOU? WHO SAID SOMETHING TO YOU? I’LL GO TALK TO THEM.”

“Oh Jesus Christ no one said anything to me. I’m 24. I’m fine.”

“YOU TELL ME WHAT THEY SAID.”

I briefly considered telling her that they said I would “never make it” across a row of people. But it would have done no good.

“Mom. No one said anything. I am fine.”

And then, all of a sudden, my mom is not even whisper screaming anymore. She is just flat out screaming-screaming.

“JEN! OH MY GOD. WHAT IS WRONG?”

And then silence from me.

And then:

“WHY ARE YOU ALL SWEATY?”

And several people laughed uncontrollably.

And that is the last time I went to the movies with both of my parents by myself.

Four things I'm really terrible at

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:53:00 +0000

Quick. Think of a list of your top five strengths. Congratulations! There are probably some really good, legitimate strengths on that list! Strengths that make you an adult! Like “math” or “filing your taxes on time” or “not eating fried oreos” or “making the bed every morning because I’m a fucking crazy person”. Because seriously. Why do you make the bed every morning, you fucking crazy person? YOU’RE JUST GOING TO SLEEP IN IT AGAIN. Who are you?! Marc Summers?!

I double dare you to not have OCD.

Ok. Admittedly, that turned ugly pretty fast. I’m sorry Marc Summers. I really loved Double Dare. And you.

Anyway. Here is the list of my top five strengths:

1. Super Mario 3 besides the ocean level. Because fuck that giant red fish and all of her stupid babies.

2. Knowing all the lyrics to the Humpty Dance

3. Accidentally setting the stove on fire while not putting anyone in direct danger.

4. Identifying celebrity voices in cartoons

5. Making lists

I think we can all look at that list and realize two things pretty quickly. First, all of those things are bad ass. Because when I say Super Mario 3 besides the ocean level, I mean ALL of the rest of the levels. Even the ice level, WITHOUT the Tanooki suit. And that shit is impossible without the Tanookie suit. Second, precisely zero of them help me in any way in a real life situation. I cannot think of one plausible situation where any of those things could save my life or win me five million dollars.

Aaaaand dammit.

Now think of your weaknesses. Are they pretty normal, like “I leave wet towels on the bed sometimes” or “I don’t multitask well”? Or are they all mentally and physically crippling examples of why you’ll never be a real grown up?

Not you, Adam Sandler. I’ll keep watching whatever movie you put out because I love you. Just please keep talking in that weird voice.

Long story short, here’s the list of things that I am terrible at, which inadvertently reveals how terrible I am at life. The fact that I’m still alive and functioning at any level is actually pretty impressive. Where’s my trophy, motherfuckers?

1. Making grilled cheese.

Seems pretty easy right. Butter the bread. Put cheese on it. Stick it in a pan. Flip it once. Don’t burn it. Make sure it’s done. Lenny from Mice and Men could do this. And Lenny is a giant idiot manchild. Like Glenn Beck (If you're reading this, Steve Poore, I'm totally sorry about that. Sort of.). And I bet even Glenn Beck could do this. Which makes me more sad than the time I bought a Ninja Turtle ice cream from the ice cream man and, not only did I get Donatello, who was my LEAST favorite turtle, but Donatello was also missing one of his bubblegum eyeballs. Because here’s what this means: I may be worse than Glenn Beck. What’s that you say? You’re being too hard on yourself, Jen? No one, not even people who use the word “preventative” (which is NOT A GOD DAMN WORD), are worse than Glenn Beck?

Because here’s what always happens when I try to make a grilled cheese sandwich:

Exhibit A: underdone, pale, soggy and disappointing. That’s what she said.

Exhibit B: found in the uncovered remains of Pompeii following the Mount Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD.

Those are two sides of the same sandwich. Scientific proof that I am worse at life than Glenn Beck. Or at least as equally disappointing as a Cyclops Donatello Ninja Turtle ice cream.

2. Communicating

You know how adults have these things called “conversations” where they “talk” about their “feelings” and “things that are important to them” with other adults? Me neither. I actually just assumed it was a myth like Eskimos or genies or people who say they “love Alabama”.

Roll. Fucking. Tide.

When someone close to me tries to talk to me about something serious, I immediately feel hot and nauseous and start counting the total number of sides on all of the squares in the room. Seriously. Try to have a conversation with me about something important in a room where there are ceiling tiles.

If I have to talk to someone I love about something serious, I write them a letter, leave it in a notebook, put that notebook under a stack of books, put that stack of books in a box, duct tape that box shut, stick that shit in a closet and hope that they find it someday. I’m not really exaggerating. I once found a letter I wrote to an ex boyfriend about how I thought we should break up five years after we broke up. My thought process? “See? That one sort of worked itself out.”

Remember, this is how I treat people I love. So please imagine trying to have a serious conversation with me if I didn’t love you. It is exactly as bad as you think. I can’t be serious, so as a defense mechanism, I either turn the entire thing into a joke, or I’m the bitchiest bitch that ever bitched, totally out of the fear that comes from talking, which, by the way, is something I do every fucking day anyway. That I have any friends or a job at all is amazing. For example. A couple years ago, I had an employee that was plagiarizing some of the work they turned in. Did I say some of it? I mean all of it. Which is sort of a big fucking deal because I was a newspaper editor. It was caught by a really amazing news editor before the stories ran, but obviously, I had to fire him. First, I sent him an email asking him to meet with me the following day. This is the actual conversation I had with that employee, who I will call Gabe for what I assume could be serious legal repercussions:

**Gabe enters the room and sits down**

**I hand him his assignments, and the original stories he plagiarized from a competing newspaper**

Me: Dude.

Gabe: What?

Me: You’re totally fired.

Gabe: Why?!

Me: Because you’re an idiot. And unless you’re an idiot who also possesses the magical powers of a warlock who can erase my memory, you can’t work here anymore. No idiots at a newspaper.

At which point the sales manager proceeded to have kittens and sort of took over as I walked out of the room, knowing that there were exactly 192 sides to the tiles on the ceiling.

Bonus! Imagine being in a relationship with someone who communicates juuuust about as well as I do… I’m sure it’s fine...

3. Riding a bike

So here’s the thing. I didn’t learn how to ride a bike until I was like 15. Just kidding. I was eight. See how that doesn’t seem so bad when you originally thought I didn’t learn until I was 15? No?

If you’ve never met my brother or sister, you may not realize that they can handle simple tasks like walking, or jogging, or riding a bike, or standing completely still without falling down. I, on the other hand, cannot. Here’s a few examples of how unathletic I am: I fell down standing perfectly still at the San Jacinto Monument, I have sprained my heel, I have fallen down the stairs, I have fallen up the stairs, I cut myself with foil, one time I was running to third base and tripped and just sort of bounced there because I can’t slide, I gave myself a concussion when I tried to flip my hair out of my face and hit my head on the roof of my car, I tried to look cool in front of a dude I had a crush on by not breaking eye contact while I was drinking a drink and I accidentally stuck the straw up my nose, I was on crutches for like a week when I tried to jump over a tennis net that was TWO INCHES off the ground and I tripped over it and fell. There are lots more. I just don’t think I can bring myself to list anything else.

I asked my sister for a list of all the times I hurt myself because she’s a jerkasaurus. This is what she sent back. Mostly because she’s terrible.

Long story short, for me “learning how to ride a bike” was much more similar to “my dad throwing me pretty relentlessly into a pitching backstop”. I’m pretty sure I learned how to ride a bike out of fear that I was just going to die of massive head trauma if I didn’t.

And you know how people say that you never forget how to ride a bike? A couple years ago, I was riding a bike and my pants got caught in the chain and my sister had to rescue me before I fell into a ravine and died. The end.

4. Writing blogs

So here’s the thing. Writing terrifies me. Unfortunately, it’s sort of the only thing I can do that also carries with it a legally employable element. Prostitution is out. I’m not great at chemistry so making meth isn’t going to work. Math isn’t my favorite, and I hate negotiating, so drug dealing is out. The thought of sitting at a desk all day makes me throw up in my mouth a little. But again, writing terrifies me. Especially trying to write anything funny. Because here’s a secret: I’m not fucking funny. I’m just really weird and awkward, which may translate ok in print, but in person, you’d probably be like “why is she drinking tequila out of a big gulp? Why isn’t she sitting in our wicker furniture? How come the only time she talks, she says ‘that’s what she said’? Did she just call me a jerkasaurus?”

There it is. I’m so shy in person, that I overcompensate by pretending not to be shy. So when I tell people “I’m shy around people I don’t know” they immediately think “wow, this bitch is a total bananasandwich liar.” A lot of times, you’ll hear dumb writers who have ten bajillion dollars say things like “you should write for yourself! That way you’ll be happy!” Well, shut your bajillionaire mouth. I like to write for other people. It’s sort of the only contribution I can make to society, that doesn’t involve me singing each of you to sleep at night with beautiful Paula Abdul songs, which is a little impractical. But writing is pretty scary. I’m basically saying “Here. Here’s this stuff I wrote. Now go to the comments section with your second-grade writing abilities and tell me that you bet I’m probably ugly and that I have a tiny brain.”

I have started writing three books. One of them is half finished. Two of them are just plot summaries. Here’s what happens in my head when I read over them:

Ok. That’s sort of funny. Wait. No it’s not. Is “gigantic” or “giant” a funnier word? This is terrible. Maybe it’s ok. Nope; it’s not. Is “fuck-ton” a word? Lewis Carroll invented words. You are not Lewis Carroll. Wait—maybe this is ok. Ok; nope, not at all. Everyone is going to hate you.

I spent, like ten hours, trying to decide in one post whether I should say that roaches were my “arch nemesis” or “most formidable rival”. Ten hours. On that. Because there is something wrong with my brain. Writing is scary. And it’s the only thing I can do. And if it’s the only thing I can do and you hate it, what the hell good am I? That’s right. I’m as useless and terrible as Lindsay Lohan. And I did not have to debate whether or not to use Lindsay Lohan’s name. Because seriously. She’s useless and terrible.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my very long excuse for why I haven’t written a blog since December.

***If you would like to get emails when I post to this blog that I neglect, you can subscribe towards the top right hand side of the page. It's usually below the ads trying to sell people help for eating disorders. Because Google Ads gets me.***

Five reasons I will not survive the zombie apocalypse

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 23:46:00 +0000

So when I started writing this blog, I was initially trying to list the pros and cons of a zombie apocalypse. As it turns out, the only thing I could come up with as a pro was that the economy would crumble and the entire world would fall into a catastrophic collapse, so the fact that I’m pretty much broke all the time wouldn't matter anymore. I mean, I would still be broke, but everyone else would be too, so it wouldn't be as noticeable.

That sounds way more selfish than I anticipated.

The only other pro is that someone would obviously take advantage of the opportunity to murder every single member of Nickelback. (And maybe Scott Stapp from Creed, but that may just be me being greedy.)

Watch it, Stapp. I've got my eye on you.

Also, after going over the pros and cons of a zombie apocalypse, I realized that I would possibly be more fucked than anyone else in the entire history of people being fucked. Besides Stephen Hawking. If someone left him outside and his chair died. In that case he’d definitely be much worse off than me. Actually, that’s not a terrible escape plan.

So here are five reasons I would not survive in a zombie apocalypse.

1) I run slower than things that are dead.

According to the new version of Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, a handful of spry zombies from The Walking Dead, Resident Evil, Shaun of the Dead, I Am Legend, Zombie Strippers, The Evil Dead and several other movies that I’m pretty sure are based on fact, zombies can run, despite what should be extremely limited motor function, faster than Carl Lewis if you set him on fire. (First, I do not want to set Carl Lewis on fire. Second, I’m not a runner. Carl Lewis is the only runner I know besides that runner Brad Pitt played in that stupid movie about running. And Forrest Gump. So Carl Lewis, That Guy Brad Pitt Played in That Stupid Movie About Running, and Forrest Gump. I am aware the reference is out of date, but I’m working with limited material.) What I’m saying here is that I fall a lot. I've actually fallen while standing perfectly still.

My sister drew this picture of me. Mostly because she
is a heartless B with terrible drawing abilities, but also because
one time we were at the San Jacinto Monument and I was
standing still and fell down. She draws my arms like
that because she has never seen a T-Rex and thinks
that because my arms are perfectly normal, they are
dinosaur like. I told you she was a heartless B.

And sometimes the thought of even putting running shoes on makes me involuntarily take a nap. As it turns out, based on what I've seen in movies, I have a more limited capacity for physical adeptness than a human who has been bitten by a zombie, infected with a horrible disease, died and then reanimated with several non-functioning lobes of their brain. Which made this a sad day for me. Reason number 1 that I will not survive the zombie apocalypse: I have two speeds: falling down and asleep. Neither of them is adequate for escaping from ravenous zombies.

2) There will undoubtedly be a limited pie supply in the zombie apocalypse.

In case you don’t remember, or haven’t read my blog before, first, shame on you, and second, I love pie. I imagine making pie would be considered among a list of “shenanigans” that have low priority when you’re running from hordes of the damned. Also, pie-making supplies would probably be low after a while, and you would have to start using pie shortcuts. And you can’t really shortcut pie. If you shortcut pie, alive-or-zombie-Paula Deen (whichever the case is at that point in the zombie apocalypse) will find out, track you down, kidnap you and take you back to her planet where she is an alien overlord that tortures people with desserts, which is only ok if she somehow tortures you with pie, but she’s an evil alien overlord so I doubt it.

I mean, it's pretty obvious that this woman is an
alien overlord. Who will torture you. But not with pie.

And while I’m not saying that I would die without pie…wait. Yes. I’m saying I would die without pie. Reason number 2 that I will not make it in the zombie apocalypse: the only things I’m terrified of more than giant Michael Phelps monsters are Paula Deen and life without pie.

3) I already have zombie apocalypse hair.

Let me begin by saying that I love the Walking Dead more than 20 tyrannosauruses on 20 mountaintops. If Daryl Dixon showed up at the door right now with a dead possum and a crossbow and said “if you go outside and catch and then skin a squirrel with your bare teeth I will marry you this instant,” I would be in the backyard climbing the fence with acorns in my mouth and stop to question his judgment only after I removed the squirrel blood and took off my wedding tiara. But let me tell you what pisses me off more than any one single thing I can think of besides the existence of Oklahoma. Andrea, Maggie, Blond Girl Whose Name I Do Not Know and Lori before she was eaten by a zombie. Spoiler alert. Lori gets eaten by a zombie. Know what pisses me off about them? Their Paul-Mitchell-Biolage-Tony-is-my-stylist-shiny fucking hair. On any given day when I walk outside, it is entirely possible that I will end up with leaves and twigs and small animals in my hair. After being outside for more than five minutes, my hair looks like a George Washington wig if you drug it through mud and then a tornado and then a bat landed in it to have babies and then those babies grew up in it and made it their home for several generations of bats. What I’m saying is that I have zombie apocalypse hair and I’m not even in a fucking zombie apocalypse. There is no possible way my hair would survive a zombie apocalypse. It would become sentient and attempt to kill me in my sleep.

It's too late for Russell Brand.

The third reason I would not survive the zombie apocalypse is because my hair is already angry that it is terrible and will try to strangle me when I’m not paying attention if it is forced to endure a zombie apocalypse.

4) I have no discernable talents.

When you’re running around the streets alone during a zombie apocalypse (without pie and with terrible hair), you’re either going to get eaten by zombies, killed by Tom Petty posing as a fake mayor, or a group of strangers will take you in. If you have some sort of discernable talent that will help the group. Let me give you a rundown of my talents: I can sort of draw stick figures. I know the lyrics to every Paula Abdul song ever written. I know that Tom Petty played a mean mayor in a post-apocalyptic movie called The Postman. I know Ninja Turtles trivia. I’m pretty good at Pictionary. I know grammar rules, sort of. I can do a passing impression of Danzig, and a less good impression of Bobby Hill. That’s it. I’m pretty much unemployable in the real, non-zombie apocalypse world. Once motherfuckers start rising from the dead and chasing me, I will be completely and utterly useless. My friends Kellie and Sam, who inexplicably love me, are aware that I have no talents, and Kellie has agreed to let me run the bordello on their very heavily guarded and well-stocked complex. And I will rule all of the hookers across all of the lands, and I will brand them so they will not escape, (but I have already chosen a head-brander, so please do not send resumes, unless you would like to be a hooker. And in that case, please do not send video resumes). Here’s my fear though: Kellie and Sam have agreed to let me run the bordello under duress, in optimum conditions. We are not currently, I hope, in a zombie apocalypse. And they agreed because we were trying to think of ways I could help and this is all we could come up with. It’s like when I try to help someone working on my car and they let me hold a flashlight so that I don’t accidentally explode anything. I’m pretty sure once the zombie apocalypse starts, Kellie and Sam will have their guards shoot me on site as soon as I run up awkwardly to their complex without pie and with my zombie apocalypse hair. The fourth reason I will not survive the zombie apocalypse is because the only talent I have that we could come up with is running hoes.

"Come on, girls. This corner isn't going to work itself."

5) I make terrible decisions.

This one is pretty self explanatory. Here’s a fairly comprehensive list of some of the terrible decisions I've made: I had a perm. I bought a PT Cruiser. I own a bump-it. I once tried to break up with someone and when they said “no”, I just went with it. I own every Paula Abdul TAPE ever made. I bought a yoga booty workout DVD. I went out on a date with a lying, jobless, judgmental, samurai-sword-collecting blind guy. I got not one, but two useless degrees in literature. Sometimes when I’m in awkward social situations, I wear my Shrek ears. I did my hair like this for a long time:

I brought sexy back. And then it ran away screaming about its eyes.

Once, when I was eight and already really, really nerdy and unpopular, I made an entire group of my peers watch me do a cheerleading dance at somebody else’s birthday party. At some point during a meal six years ago, I accidentally swallowed one of the tines on my plastic fork and did not notice until I had finished eating. In high school, a guy I had a crush on asked me to deliver a message to his girlfriend on my softball team: He said “tell her I love her and to have a good day,” but I got so flustered staring at his face I said “I will, I love you, too.” I have lost staring contests to three separate squirrels on five different occasions. I once told Farva from Super Troopers during an interview I would not marry him because I had already seen his junk and the magic was gone. I have read 50 Shades of Grey. Last year, when a guy walked me to the door and told me he loved me, I got scared, made him high-five me said "sweet, man" and ran inside. I spent an entire afternoon when I was 12 learning every lyric to every song on Vanilla Ice’s To The Extreme. I drink boxed wine. I watch Lion King knowing full well that it is going to make me cry every single time. I left a job as editor at a daily newspaper to ultimately work at Ulta. I purchased a Snuggie. I once went out on a date with a guy who told me his favorite sport of all time was “mountain biking” and that his favorite AMERICAN novel was ULYSSES by HEMINGWAY and my head exploded because of all of the things that were wrong. On several occasions, I have purchased parakeets only to remember that I fucking hate parakeets. When my parents took us to Disneyland when I was six, I was walking through the park behind my mom and dad with my eyes closed, ran into a lady wearing a sweater, assumed it was my mom and assaulted her with hugging: it was not my mother, but she was not a kidnapper, so win-win. I am aware that riding a bike is likely to cause me catastrophic injury, but I ignored this knowledge and my sister had to rescue me when all of my pants got caught in a bike chain and I almost fell into a ditch.

The fifth reason I would not survive a zombie apocalypse is that people are born with an innate ability to make good decisions, and that part of my brain was apparently lobotomized when I was an infant.

So there you have it. If any of you have any room for a no-talent, pieless, slow, zombie-apocalypse hair train wreck on your zombie apocalypse team, let me know. I can provide approximately three hours of Vanilla Ice and Paula Abdul entertainment.

How my family terrified a teenage cake shop worker

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 02:27:00 +0000

I'm about to throw you some percentages that I've possibly made up but I do not feel you have the resources to check.

Over 99 percent of brides feel like they would rather spend the day with their leg in a bear trap than plan their wedding. People ask you questions like "when do you want to do the bouquet toss" and "what if we invited this person no one's seen in 20 years and may likely be dead" and "don't you want your wedding to be pretty?" and "can I bring John Stamos as my plus one".

Fig. 1
"First, don’t you ‘Hey, Girl’ me, John Stamos. Second, no. Please leave your John Stamos at the door, Billy. You didn't get a plus one because we all thought you were dead."

Here's the other thing. Of the assumed 99 percent of those imaginary brides I did not interview in this fake study:

Two percent of them had their dresses break in a semi-threatening-Janet-Jackson-wardrobe malfunction way.
Three percent of them had to figure out whether or not to have the wedding because the groom's mother was in the hospital.
Zero percent of them paid for a wedding cake that didn't show up.

Fig. 2
I’m going to be honest. I was looking for a Janet-Jackson-wardrobe-malfunction photo. But this is what I found. And this is better.

For the record, all of these things happened at my wedding. So when the marriage ended a couple years later, I really shouldn't have been surprised. And while I may write a separate blog about all of those things, this blog is about the time my family verbally assaulted and then subsequently terrified a cake shop worker because he would not let us talk to his boss, who was hiding in the back because I am so terrifying. And by "terrifying" I mean "not at all terrifying and sort of awkward.”

Fig. 3
Exhibit A. I am meet-my-favorite-author-and-be-too-terrified-to-stand-next-to-him-so-I-just-close-my-eyes-and-stick-my-boobs-in-his-face awkward.

So the day before my wedding, I stopped by the bakery to bring them our cake topper, a photo for the groom's cake and ribbons that were going to be wrapped around the petit fours I ordered. Petit fours, in case you didn't know, are fancy cupcakes and fancy cupcakes are awesome, so by the law of transitive property, petit fours are fancy-awesome. They're like sugary unicorn hearts. And I was very much looking forward to eating sugary unicorn hearts. The next day went something like this:

I show up at the hotel to get ready. And the cake isn't there.
I get dressed and get my makeup on. And the cake isn't there.
My photographer starts taking our pictures. And the cake isn't there.
The catering manager calls about the cake. Which the bakery says is on its way. So the cake isn't there.
Guests start putting gifts on the cake table, because they think it's a gift table, because the cake isn't there.
I walk down the aisle. And the cake isn't there.
We say our vows. And the cake isn't there.
The reception starts. And the cake isn't there.
My mom has gotten involved in calling the bakery, who is now hanging up on us whenever we call. So is the wedding coordinator, the catering manager, the kitchen manager, a few relatives, the concierge and some homeless guy named Jimmy we found on the Seawall.

To make a long story short, the wedding ended at 11. The bakery tried to bring the cake at 10:30. Our extremely subtle and eloquent catering manager told them to "get that the hell out of here. We already went out and got them another cake". Which they did. The amazing staff ran out to Kroger, bought a plain white cake, brought it back and dressed it up so that we had something to serve. Because the bakery I went through, that I had just visited the day before, thought I was kidding about the whole needing-a-wedding-cake-for-tomorrow-yes-I've-paid-for-it-already thing.

Let me explain a little about my personality that I may not have touched on before. I'm the person that tough talks someone after they have left the room, shut the door, gotten in their car, have driven away, gotten to their own home and are then safely inside. I’m the person who was basically assaulted by a blind guy on a date. I'm the person who invents fake coworkers when visiting a Taco Bell drive through so I don't have to tell the drive through guy that I don't want to give him my number. I'm relatively non-confrontational, is what I'm trying to say.

So when I had to go and talk to the bakery the following Monday, an army of very confrontational, very loving family and friends eventually joined me. Initially, my brother Jarrett and my friend Kellie went with me. Let me set the scene for you. We drive up to the bakery in Kellie’s SUV. It was Christmas time, and Kellie’s SUV had reindeer antlers and a reindeer nose on it. But in a threatening way. Because Kellie means business. Whether the business is Christmas, or trying to terrify a bakery worker. So in the parking lot is Kellie's reindeer car, an 80s model BMW, and a new Yukon. The 16-year-old kid I dropped my stuff off with the day before the wedding was cleaning the counter. When we walked in, he froze like he thought we were all dinosaurs whose vision was based on movement.

Fig. 4

No matter what you've heard, I’m not a T-Rex.

Because we were not dinosaurs whose vision was based on movement and I could see him, I said, “Hello. Remember me? I came in the day before my wedding with ribbon and money. And then no one brought my cake. Is your manager here?”

He said no. I asked if she had a cell number we could call. He said no. My brother said, “So. Say a meteor falls out of the sky. And that meteor hits your bakery, and then burns your bakery down. And people are running around screaming on fire. And there’s a meteor in the middle of the kitchen. You can’t call her?”

He confirmed that yes, in the case of meteor fire, he would have somehow been able to reach his manager.

Fig. 5
It's cool. Morgan Freeman narrated it.

I asked him what he drove. He told me that he drove an 80s model BMW. I asked him what his manager drove. He confirmed that she drove a Yukon. Because I am only passive aggressive and not aggressive-aggressive, I told him that we needed to call the police, because her car was in the parking lot. Which meant she was either dead in the back or kidnapped, barring any kind of hitchhiking situation.

I’m going to skip through the part where I told him that I knew she was in the back cowering behind some cookie tins. And about how I called my co-workers at the local newspaper in front of him and told them that we needed to write a story about a local bakery that steals money from clients. And how Kellie called a local judge she knew about how to pursue legal action while the cake shop worker kid nervously wiped the same spot on the counter over and over again. And how I called the police department to see if I could report the bakery for a crime. I’m going to skip those things and skip right to the best part. Which is the part when my mother and sister walked into the bakery.

First, remember how I said that, unless there is a very scary monster or murderer loose, my sister is fiercely loyal? And how she would rip out somebody’s eyeballs if they hurt my feelings? She got that from my mom. If you hurt my feelings, you'd better pray I don't tell my mom. Because she will rip off your junk. My mom used to tell us in elementary school that if someone cut in front of us in line, she wanted us to trip them. One time, when an elementary school counselor told my sister, who had never before taken tennis lessons or played a single game of tennis (she did own a racket though), that she was probably not going to be a professional tennis player when she grew up, it took every single ounce of restraint in my mother to not go up to the school and murder that B Scarface style. (But without all the cocaine and Cubans. She’s totally against that. Cocaine. Not Cubans. I’m not actually sure how she feels about Cubans.) She is only this way when it deals with someone hurting our feelings. Or telling us we can’t be professional tennis players. That’s apparently my mom’s bugaboo. What I’m getting at is my mom is 99.9 percent hilarious and 0.1 percent terrifying velociraptor with machine guns for arms and machetes for claws riding a great white shark with laser beams for eyes and chainsaws attached to his pectoral fins.

Fig. 6
Rough Estimation. Also, this is clearly my best work yet as an artist.

They came into the bakery with murder eyes and the counter kid froze again. Like that thing you hear about when someone walks over your grave. Or when a shark-riding velociraptor walks into your bakery.

“Hi,” my mom said sweetly. “What’s your name?”

Then he did a really stupid thing. He said that he wasn't allowed to tell her.

“I’m sorry. What.”

“I can’t tell you my name.”

“Sweetie. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. What is your name.” (I know that, grammatically, there should be a question mark there. But she wasn't really asking him to give her his name.)

“I can’t tell you that.”

At this point, my mother started losing her patience.

“We know your manager is back there. And you know what? What she’s doing isn't fair. You’re just a kid. You’re not capable of handling this. You’re not old enough and you don’t know how to deal with us, sweetie.”

And then he made his fatal mistake.

“I DEAL WITH THIS ALL THE TIME!” he passionately proclaimed.

“What?” my sister asked.

“Wait.” I said.

“All the time?” Kellie asked.

"Dude!" my brother said.

What my mom said, was “I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me your name.” But what it sounded like was, “If you do not give me your name, I am going to give you one million paper cuts, followed by one million Indian burns. And then I am going to rip off your junk.”

What the kid said was, “I can’t give you my name.” But what it sounded like was, “Oh sweet little baby Jesus, please let this end. Please don’t let that lady rip off my junk.”

And she sensed this weakness. She sensed it like a terrifying velociraptor with machine guns for arms and machetes for claws riding a great white shark with laser beams for eyes and chainsaws attached to his pectoral fins.

“Alright!” my mom said. “Someone take his picture!”

And precisely one millisecond later, my sister reached across the counter and put a camera in his confused, frightened face.

So there was this ‘click’ followed by the camera flash followed by total silence.

Except for the kid behind the counter. Who was very busy being frightened and peeing on himself. He screamed: “MYNAMEISTHOMAS!”. It was a lot like Fight Club. Except his name was not Robert Paulson.

Fig. 7
His name was Thomas the Counter Worker...

And that was the day my family and friends verbally assaulted a cake shop worker, acted like the paparazzi, and helped me get my $400 back for a cake that never showed up.

Real and fabled animals you probably don't want to get raped by

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:04:00 +0000

Here is a list of several, SEVERAL disclaimers you may want to look through before you read this post:

This post is a conversation between me and my friend Bridget Jones that deals with the rape of humans by both real and fabled animals.
Bridget Jones is not THAT Bridget Jones. My friend Bridget Jones is way more funny and way less whiney. In fact, when you hear my friend Bridget Jones speak, you don’t want to punch her at all. Unlike the other Bridget Jones. Also, I call my friend Bridget Jones BJ. Because ten people read my blog, and all of you went to high school with me and BJ, you already know her.
BJ is one of the most hilarious people I know, and even though we explicitly say that rape is funny in this conversation, neither one of us thinks that actual rape is funny. Just rape by animals. Or mythical creatures.
This conversation started around midnight and officially ended around 2 a.m. Which means that we discussed rape by mythical creatures for more than two hours. Again: human rape is not funny. But mythical creature rape is hilarious. Think about it.
I will neither confirm nor deny whether either of us was drunk.
If the thought of a real or fabled animal raping you is upsetting, you should probably not read this. You can always read this or this. They’re both relatively rape free.

You’ve been warned.
***********************************************

BJ: Do alligators rape?
((There is no preface to this question.))

Me: God I hope not. I mean, they probably rape other alligators, and maybe the occasional turtle, but hopefully they don't rape people.

Fig. 1
Artist’s rendering

BJ: I think your next blog post should be the top five animals most likely to rape you.

Me: I completely agree with this idea.

BJ: Dolphin, dog, pig, monkey, alligator?

Me: All of those seem plausible and equally terrifying.
((And now that I’ve had time to think about it, rhinoceroses.))

BJ: Unicorns are like the date rape drug. It happens, but people don't think it exists.

Me: And it would maybe be kind of cool because they would probably sort of calm you down. Maybe the top five mythical creatures that really suck to get raped by? Because centaurs are way, way up there. Also griffins. Because of the talons.

BJ: I agree. And the chupacabra.

Me: All those teeth! Bigfoot. If he's a proportionate simian.

BJ: Or that dog from the Neverending Story.

Fig. 2
Falkor! Noooo!!! He just lost his horse!!!

Me: Yes, but maybe he'd let you fly on his back later. Not that that would make up for the raping. You'd have to do a lot of flying to make up for Falkor rape.

BJ: Chewbacca.

Me: He's tall. And his voice would be really irritating. Satyrs, because of the hooves.

BJ: Abominable snowman. One cold dick.

Me: And he'd probably just roll over and steal the covers from you.

BJ: Dragon rape is pretty terrifying.

Me: Dragon rape just shot to number one on my list. That Devil Thong from Legend.

Me: *Devil thing. Devil thongs would be too much for my fragile mind to bear.

Fig. 3
Devil thong?

BJ: I was once raped by a devil thong.

Me: Was it sparkly? I imagine a devil thong would have some pizzazz.

BJ: I don't want to talk about it.

Me: Sorry. I understand.

BJ: Some people don't think rape is funny. I'm not one of them though.
((She is only referring to mythical creature rape. She does not think actual rape is funny.))

Me: I don't really understand why not. I think tape is hilarious.

Me: Also rape.

Me: Mostly tape.
((I am only referring to mythical creature rape. I do not think actual rape is funny. Or tape.))

BJ: I agree! They're both sticky.

Me: And they can both leave you pregnant. Wait.

BJ: I think you misread the tape instructions.

Me: I like to just open a box and do what comes naturally. Not be tied up in a whole bunch of rules.

BJ: That makes sense.

Me: Know what I've always liked about you, BJ? You don't judge. No matter how many minotaurs I've raped.

Fig. 4
How YOU doin’?

BJ: You gotta do what you gotta do!

Me: Thank you! Now please explain this to PETA! How are minotaurs even on their list of concern?! I'm going to be in court for months!

BJ: Minotaurs love being raped!

Me: They're practically begging for it wearing those short skirts!

BJ: That's why they do it!

Me: Exactly. But you rape 12 minotaurs in short skirts and all of a sudden the authorities have to be involved.
((I have not raped 12 minotaurs in short skirts. Three of them were in bath towels.And two of them were consensual.))

BJ: Speaking of predators, how scary would it be to be raped by the predator?!
((It took me several hours and I reread this four times before I realized that she was calling me a predator.))

Fig. 5
Holy. Christ. THINK ABOUT IT.

Me: Oh my god. First there would be that creepy light on you. Then the clicking nose. And god knows what their junk would look like. Just thrashing dreadlocks and furious clicking.

Me: And when Alien rapes you, she lays babies in your lungs. So that's pretty bad. Or she lays baby Sigourney Weavers in your lungs. I'm not sure which is worse.

Fig. 6
“Oh. Hi, Lieutenant Ripley. This is…awkward…”

BJ: Yeah, that's a nightmare waiting to happen. You just have to wait for death at that point.

BJ: Or the fly!

Me: Like the fly mid-Jeff-Goldblum transformation?

BJ: Exactly.

Me: Jeff Goldblum already sort of looks like a spider. So double scary.

Fig. 6
“Hi. Uh. I, uh, I’ve…I’ve probably never…never-ruh, raped anyone.”
((^It’s pretty hard to do a Jeff Goldblum impression through type alone. Stop judging me.))

BJ: Know what's NOT funny? Child dolphin rape.

Me: Like dolphins raping children, or children raping dolphins? Because one of those is very funny.

BJ: Adult humans raping dolphin children.

Me: You're right. That's pretty serious. But if human children were raping adult dolphins, somehow, that's much funnier. Actually, human children raping any of these things seems eerily funny.

BJ: Yeah. Especially if they are British.

Me: Because their accents are so proper and it would remind me of Mary Poppins.

BJ: Exactly!
((Please reflect on how disturbing it is that British children raping adult dolphins simultaneously reminded two people of Mary Poppins. I blame Dick VanDyke.))

Me: Maybe that's why dolphins aren't common near England? Too much raping of dolphins by British children?
((One hour goes by without a response))

BJ: My phone died :(.

Me: I was confused why British children raping dolphins was the "too far" mark in this conversation...

::The next day::

Me: So. Dragon rape may be possible.

Fig. 7
“Right now, I just burn down elf homes, but I’m working my way up to raping humans.”

BJ: That is terrifying!

Me: Yeah. We spoke too soon.

…And THIS is why I cherish the friends I have. Because no one else would talk to me.

Six bugs on my arch nemesis list

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:01:00 +0000

***WARNING: This post contains pictures of very scary bugs and one of Michael Phelps with lobster pincers.***

I think that I'm a pretty friendly person, but, like every other bat-shit crazy person I know, I have a few arch nemeses lists floating around. Unfortunately, I can't publish the list of people who are my arch nemeses because it would probably look suspicious when live scorpions turned up in all of their sock drawers (are you listening, Nickelback?). Because I can't list the people who I've declared as my arch nemeses, I'm giving y'all a list of bugs that are my arch nemeses. To be honest, there isn't much difference between the two lists (are you listening, Nickelback?).

1) Roaches
Ok. Roaches in Texas are like a genetic experiment gone horribly awry. They are roughly the size of a Volvo. They have terrible legs, they have creepy antennae that can feel their way into your soul where they will definitely lay babies, and they bite. (What's that? They don't bite? Well then, Bill Nye, explain to me how the fuck they eat.)

FIG. 1
Pictured: A fucking roach. That is fucking biting.

Also, roaches are aggressive. Don't look at me like that. A couple months ago, I woke up and walked out into the kitchen for a drink. There was a roach on the ceiling and he was approximately three feet long and he had a switchblade knife pointed at me and was wearing a bandana and a Guns N Roses shirt.

FIG. 2
Rough Approximation

He twitched his wings at me in Morse code, saying "if you take one step closer to me, I will fly into your hair and bite you" and then he charged at me to send me a message. To which I responded "Oh! Sorry!" and turned off the light and ran out of the kitchen as fast as I could (which, truthfully, isn't very fast). You read that correctly. He charged at me. Which is aggressive.

While roaches have always thrown me into mild states of cardiac arrest, I put them on my arch nemeses list after I woke up one morning with a roach on my arm. I screamed, simultaneously faceplanting out of bed while attempting to claw my own shirt off. I stood up with my ankles twisted around each other, the roach on my face and my shirt somehow stuck around my head. I tripped, screaming, and fell onto the bed which I bounced off of, screaming, and fell onto the dog's kennel, which I bounced off of, screaming, and fell into the wall, which I bounced off of, screaming, and faceplanted on the floor again, half naked with my shirt still somehow tied around my face. And the roach was still on me. Basically, I added roaches to my list the day a roach turned me into a half naked human pinball and won a battle of wills.

2) Water bugs
According to scientific research that I have just made up, water bugs are a combination of very scary pinchers, roaches and Michael Phelps, which are three of the things I'm most terrified of in this world.

FIG. 3
This seems legit. And you brought this on yourself, Michael Phelps.

Because my parents wanted to increase the possibility of death for all of us growing up, we had a pool. Inside this pool on occasion, were extremely terrifying water bugs. From now on, we'll refer to them as Michael Phelps monsters. First, let's take a look at these things:

Fig. 4
"What's that, sir? You also come in Terrible Monstrosity size?"

That's a Giant Michael Phelps Monster. I used a giant Michael Phelps monster for a few reasons. First, it's easier to see all of their terrible nightmarish qualities when they're blown up to gargantuan proportions. Like their terrible eyeballs that can see all of your fears, or their terrible backs that are meant to trick you into thinking that they're a leaf you can pick up in your pool until it squirms out of your hands with it's terrible slippery body and lunges for your face. Second, I used a picture of a giant Michael Phelps monster to show you that they come in gargantuan proportions, which is probably God's way of saying that he wants me to die of a heart attack in the middle of a swimming pool.

Have you ever been peacefully floating on your back in your favorite Hello Kitty swimsuit in your parent's pool (this was a while ago, like at least two years) when suddenly it felt as though an Orc or a grizzly bear was clawing at your ass cheek? And then you remember that Orcs aren't real? And that there are no salmon in your pool so it's probably not a grizzly bear? And that's when you start to panic because you realize that there is a Michael Phelps monster loose in your swimsuit? I put Michael Phelps monsters on my arch nemeses list when I ended up almost drowning in a swimming pool because I freaked out and couldn't find the Michael Phelps monster that was loose in my swimsuit.

3) Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes made it onto my list last week. I know that's weird because they're kind of the worst creation in the history of things that have ever been created, but none of them have ever given me West Nile or Malaria, so honestly, I thought we were cool. I mean, yes, they're like terrible tiny vampires. But according to teenagers and 40-year-old moms who are pedophiles, vampires are sort of in right now.

Last week, I was driving home. My car is a convertible (an AWESOME convertible. As awesome as six Aston Martins except it's a PT Cruiser) and a mosquito flew directly into my eyeball. I'm not good at physics, but the velocity my car was travelling plus the velocity at which the mosquito was flying equaled approximately one million miles an hour, which equaled about seven millions pounds of force against my eyeball.

FIG. 5
These calculations seem correct.

This caused me to almost kill myself and several other people on the road. And the policeman that pulled me over because he thought, I am assuming, that I was drunk, did not quite understand what I meant when I said that a tiny vampire was trying to eat my eyeballs. So I put mosquitoes on my arch nemeses list last week when one caused me to almost kill several people, attracting the attention of the Friendswood Police, who then gave me a ticket for my expired registration.

4) Brown Recluse spiders

FIG. 6
Because holy Christ, that's why.

I have lots and lots of irrational fears, like that I'm somehow going to get eaten alive by an escalator or that any time I sit in a recliner, I am definitely going to fall over backwards. One of my more rational fears is that I am going to get viciously attacked by an entire colony of brown recluse spiders and doctors will have to remove all of my limbs and most of my boobs. Oh. That's not logical? Go Google "brown recluse spider bite" for me. It's ok. I'll wait.

FIG. 7
The bite is literally too terrible for me to post. So here's a picture of Richard Simmons.

Did you do it? Was it the most terrible thing you've ever seen besides anything starring Jennifer Lopez? If you didn't search for it and see the horror movie that results from one of these bites, first, that was probably smart, and second, all you have to do is picture the most terrible, disgusting wound in the whole world and then multiply that by exactly one fuck-ton. I put brown recluse spiders on my arch nemeses list as soon as I discovered that they lived in Texas, most likely in my attic, and then concluded that they had become self-aware and were planning an uprising.

5) Silverfish
First, look at them:

FIG. 8
"What? Oh I'm just hanging out. Trying to lay eggs in your brain."

Second, silverfish are like that really terrible socially awkward guy no one invited to the party and he refuses to leave.

FIG. 9
"But I brought French onion dip."

I'm just going to throw a few things out there:

They eat books
They live anywhere I am currently trying to take a shower
They eat books
They feed primarily on carbohydrates without getting fat, which means they are officially better at life than me
They eat books
They apparently live in piles of expensive bras
They eat books
Some species of silverfish HAVE NO FUCKING EYES, which somehow makes it even more frustrating that they always know where my arms are when I'm trying to simultaneously carry something and not touch a silverfish

FIG. 10
"Enemy arm at 6:00! Let's go, Comrades!"
(Also, silverfish sound Russian in my head. I blame the Cold War.)

I put silverfish on my arch nemeses list when I was four days old and someone tried to bathe me and I'm 100 percent certain there was a silverfish on the wall trying to crawl onto my arm.

6) June bugs
These are the things I know about June bugs.

FIG. 11
...besides, "I hate them."

They have creepy legs
They are like stupid kamikaze pilots that aim specifically for faces
They do not know what the word "June" means
They are like the very dumb and irritating cousins of Egyptian Scarab beetles
They are apparently delicious, based on the number of June bugs my dog brings into the house and tries to eat, only to let them go so they kamikaze right into my face
If you are a lifeguard and have to keep the pool clean, approximately seven trillion will accumulate in the skimmer baskets. When you try to get them out and have nowhere to put them, another lifeguard whom you incorrectly assume is a friend will suggest that you set them on fire. Several of them will, as it turns out, not be as dead as you originally thought and will begin to fly at you out of anger and retribution.

FIG. 12
It was pretty hard to find a picture of this.

I put June bugs on my arch nemeses list when I was 20 and a lifeguard named Chase suggested I set a pile of presumed-dead June bugs on fire and three flaming undead June bugs attempted to kamikaze my face.

So that's it then. I'm pretty selective about what goes on this list, but I'm sure I'll be able to update it with equally terrifying arch nemeses bugs eventually. (Are you listening, Nickelback?)

***Also--I've added a subscribe-by-email thingie to the right hand side of the page if that would make life easier for anybody. Like my mother. Who had this conversation with me the other day:

Mom: I've never read your blog.

Me: Mom, are you serious?

Mom: It's not my fault! I don't know how to get there!

Me: Type in my blog name in Google!

Mom: What's your blog name?

Me: Seriously?! Diary of a failed anorexic!

Mom: Jennifer! No one wants to read about anorexia. That's not funny.

Me: Diary of a FAILED anorexic.

Mom: Oh, I get it. That's kind of funny, I guess.

She keeps me humble.***

Four Things That Really Suck About Being Fat

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 18:51:00 +0000

I know what you're saying. This should be the shortest blog post ever.

I'll take things that suck about being fat for $1,000. What is "everything", Alek.
I didn't even ask the question yet. But that is correct, yes.

There is literally nothing that doesn't suck about being fat. With the possible exception of surviving an ice age or an accidental fall into the Bering Sea a little better than the average person. Or maybe being able to wrestle a Snicker's bar from a hungry bear if necessary. Those things notwithstanding, the number of things that suck about being fat equals precisely everything minus three.
What's that you said? Quit eating? Then go exercise? Problem solved?

Oh yeah? I hadn't thought of that. Eff you. Also, pie is delicious. Also, pie wanted me to tell you "eff you" as well.

Fig. 1

Anthropomorphic Pie: "Go eff yourself".

But listing "everything" instead of writing an actual post is the most terrible thing anyone could ever do, ever. Besides watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Watching Brad Pitt as a creepy old baby is probably the most terrible thing anyone could ever do, ever. Anyway, to avoid being responsible for the second most terrible thing anyone could ever do, ever, here are the four worst things about being fat.

1. Skinny Jeans

I'm not talking about skinny jeans that come in a size 0. I'm not even talking about skinny jeans that come in a size 8. I'm talking about the jeans that come in a size 24 and are on a table surrounded by other clothes that could double as either sails or tents. Are you being condescending, clothes manufacturers? Are you trying to be ironic? Are there air quotes around the word "skinny" in your skinny jeans and you're laughing hysterically behind the earring turney thing at me as I pick them up and stare at them angrily and skeptically? I'm not an idiot! I'm not going to walk into Abercrombie Kids or wherever the hell it is skinny people shop and march into the dressing room with an armful of skinny jeans because Apple Bottom clearly doesn't understand what words mean! Also I have never walked into an Abercrombie because I do not want to be asked politely to leave. I am very well aware that when I put on these "skinny" jeans, I will look like a snake that is trying to digest a beach ball.

Fig. 2

"What's that, Torrid? I wear a size four in these? I'll take six pairs, please."

So eff you, "skinny" jeans. Go back to WetSeal where you belong. (side note: WetSeal is still open? Really, 1997?)

2. Wicker

First off, if you own wicker furniture, you're basically saying, "eff you, fat friends. Your kind isn't welcome here. You will either sit on my elf furniture or you will sit on the ground. Because we both know you're not going to stand."

Look. Wicker furniture will likely disintegrate as soon as we sit in it. Who is this for? Mice? Kate Moss? An Olson twin? Why do you even have this?!

Let's face it. I'm not going to try to wedge myself into a tiny wicker chair. For more than one reason. The first reason is that it will likely still be stuck to my ass when I attempt to stand up. If I were to hypothetically sit in wicker furniture, I would have to test the chair-welded-to-ass situation by sort of gradually standing up, but wicker furniture is always like three effing millimeters off the ground; there's no such thing as a gradual attempt to stand up because, in the interest of full disclosure, fat people don't use their hamstrings. So, because you're not able to gradually stand, you've got to try to leverage your weight and spring up in a reverse gravity situation.

And now a chair is stuck to your ass.

So you either A) fall down immediately, or B) stand up and try to subtly remove the chair from your ass. (Spoiler alert: there is no subtle way to remove a chair from your ass) And it's really hard to look cool with a tiny wicker chair attached to your Weeble ass.

Fig. 3

Exhibit A.

Another reason fat people hate wicker is because, if for some reason we do sit on it, when we get up (and have removed the chair from our asses) the backs of our legs look like honey baked hams.

Fig. 4

Mmm. Delicious.

3. Spanx

Spanx, if you're not familiar, are like a gigantic Ace bandage that is supposed to constrict blood flow to all of your extremities so that you can't breathe or move while simultaneously making you look about 1/8 of an inch thinner. There are different styles, but they are generally worn from your neck to your ankles. I bought my first pair of Spanx when I passed by a mirror at Macy's and thought someone was behind me but it turned out to be my own ass. Also, Spanx are terrible. Have you ever tried to pry on a pair of Spanx? I'm assuming that the large majority of male readers have not. Here's what it's like. Go find jeans for a toddler. Now get them wet. Now run around and get sweaty. Now try to pull them over your calves. Did you get that far without falling down and hitting your head on a nearby dresser? Congratulations. You beat me.

Fig. 5

Somebody call an ambulance. And my lawyer.

Look, Spanx. You're supposed to make my life easier by giving everyone a false impression of exactly how big I am. But when I come out from changing winded, exhausted and sweaty, IT'S REALLY OBVIOUS HOW BIG I AM, SPANX. Also, I don't want to have to take a nap when I'm finished getting ready because I'm injured and exhausted. Also, fun fact, Spanx make you feel like a human sausage.

4. Crossfit

Let me open this by saying that I know several very wonderful, funny, bright people whom I love deeply that do Crossfit, and despite my deep love and devotion to you, fuck off.

Quit jumping off of boxes! What does the phrase "snatch grab" mean?! "Crossfitting" and "Crossfitters" are NOT REAL WORDS, CROSSFIT!!!

Also, there is no possible way a fat person can do any of this. How many pull ups do you want me to do? If the answer isn't zero, we're both out of luck. I'm not supposed to eat anything dairy? Then what am I supposed to order when I eat Mexican food? If you say a salad, I'll kill you where you stand. Also, and I am aware that this is about to make me sound jealous, especially considering that I'm starting to get concerned that if I gain any more weight I'll collapse in on myself like a neutron star, but some of you are making yourselves too skinny and it's making me look larger by comparison.

Anyway. If you do Crossfit, fuck off. Unless I love you. In that case,fuck off please. And when you come back, bring me a pie.

Fig. 6

I've been waiting for you!

The day my friends tried to kill everyone with bacon (and jorts)

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:25:00 +0000

You know those days when you sleep in until noon, hung over from four days of drinking that started with seeing a midget strip show, and a person you deeply respect, but makes terrible decisions calls you and says, "Come over to Selena's. They're making everything with bacon. Chris will be wearing jorts."?

No? What are you doing with your life? Let me back up.

Last week, I went to see a midget strip show with the Person I Deeply Respect but Makes Terrible Decisions. (aside: watching a midget strip show is not something I would consider a terrible decision.) The night quickly turned into a swirling vortex of tequila, $8 domestic beer, tiny boobs, vienna sausage fingers and many different forms of sexual harassment. Coincidentally, this night was also possibly the first and likely the last time I would ever be motorboated by a sort-of-famous porn star midget. After that, we went to a club where men were line dancing and it was a very real possibility that we were going to be kicked out of a Whataburger drive through.

The point I'm trying to make here is that this night very quickly devolved into something that was far beyond the realm of our control, which lead to the rest of the week and then the weekend careening out of control as well, kind of like what must have happened with Gallagher's standup routine. Yes. A Gallagher reference. Because Gallagher is fucking timely.

Fig. 1.1
"I had a lot of funny material. But I'd rather not use it."

So Midget Strip Show Wednesday melted into Sleep Through Biology Class Thursday which melted into Happy Hour Thursday Night which melted into Bad Karaoke Friday which melted into Sonic The Hedgehog on Xbox Friday Night which eventually melted into Baconpocalypse Saturday.

I woke up Saturday, still hung over from Bad Karaoke Friday, and my phone rang. The Person I Deeply Respect but Makes Terrible Decisions (from here on out, we'll just call him Josh. To protect his identity. If I didn't want to protect his identity, I'd tell you that his name was Josh Morgan.) was calling to let me know of several other terrible decisions that were scheduled to take place that evening.

"Come over to Selena's. They're making everything with bacon. Chris will be wearing jorts. We're pregaming now."

Because obviously, the plans for the evening were so tame, pregaming was a necessity to assure that bad decisions would eventually emerge from their bacon-wrapped coccoons to evolve into beautiful, atrocious decisions. Like a butterfly whose defense mechanism is that it looks like vomit.

If you're not lucky enough to know my friend Selena (theoretically, because this is the internet, the vast majority of people reading do not. Objectively, because only six people read my blog and all of you went to school with me, you do) and her husband Chris, then you are not aware of how amazing they are. The only way to accurately describe Selena is this: Picture a unicorn. And on top of that unicorn is a puppy. And on that puppy is a tiny saddle. And in that tiny saddle is a prairie dog who is holding a popsicle for you. And that popsicle is a banana fudge bomb.

Yep. She's that amazing.

Fig. 1.2
It was strangely difficult to find a picture of this.

And there's no other way to accurately describe Chris than this:

Fig. 1.3
Back off, ladies. This man and these jorts are spoken for.

The most important thing I want you to know about that photo, is that it was not taken on the day of Baconpocalypse, but on a completely separate day entirely. Which means he wears the jorts with a fair amount of regularity.

This was not the day to start realizing that Josh makes terrible/awesome decisions.

When I got there, there were already pieces of chicken wrapped in bacon on a grill. There were cheese sticks covered in crushed jalapeño chips ready to deep fry. There was bacon covered in brown sugar and drizzled with Jack Daniels in the oven. Josh was in the process of wrapping corn in bacon. There was cheese wrapped in venison, wrapped in bacon and dipped in beer batter frying. Someone made meat balls out of venison, I'm pretty sure with the express purpose of allowing a really drunk group of people with rapidly climbing cholesterol to say repeatedly "try these balls" and "she bit my balls". Because we're adults. That's why.

Also, there seemed to be a lot of Jack Daniels involved. And what happens when there seems to be a lot of Jack Daniels involved? That's right. Mel Gibson's career.

Fig. 1.4
"I AM THE MOST NORMAL MAN ALIVE! NOW NO ONE HAS LAKER'S TICKETS!"

The Jack Daniels seemed to be a key ingredient in a lot of the dishes for Baconpocalypse. And, while it was not used in the recipe Chris invented for bacon shot glasses ("bacon, muffin tin, oven, GENIUS!" I believe were his exact words) Jack Daniels was definitely a catalyst.

Take the liquor, the bacon, and the several sweet deer with soulful eyes (I'm assuming) that gave their lives so we could eat them in terrible ways, and it wasn't long until people started exhibiting signs of bacon madness. (That is the scientific term, in case you were wondering. No, you do not have to look it up.)

Here's a short rundown:

Selena walks outside. Chris is playing air guitar. His buttondown shirt is not serving its purpose. "I see we're already down to two buttons," she says. "I have to let the hamburger meat breathe!" he says, rubbing his chest with pain in his eyes.
"Where are the jorts?" I ask. Chris immediately leaves and comes back out in jorts, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat. He is now down to one shirt button.
Several people are upset that there are no more dead animals around which to wrap bacon, while others glance nervously at their dogs in the back yard.
Lyndsey, another amazing person, who was also an instigator of hilarious ideas, keeps saying "this bacon has no idea what I'm going to do to it."
CCR is being played. Followed by Tenacious D. Followed by Social Distortion. Followed by a rap song by Chris and his friends that sounds professionally recorded.
We run out of tequila, lime and triple sec, so I start making Chris's margaritas with Jack and margarita mix. He does not notice. In fact, he says, "this is straight tequila."
Selena throws a bacon-wrapped chicken leg at Chris. The reason was at first undetermined. Later, someone will ask why there is a chicken on the floor. No one will know the answer.
People find out the hard way that, while the bacon shot glasses are "genius", they are not water tight. They eat the shot glasses in protest.
People begin playing the blues on various guitars in the house. The songs are about bacon.
Chris and Josh take shots of Jack mixed with bacon grease in legitimate shot glasses. They do not regret this decision enough.
Lyndsey convinces Chris, in his jorts and cowboy boots, to stalk a pedestrian who is jogging in front of the house. Chris runs after him. The man is not interested in training Chris. Chris is upset because he "could have been the next Rocky."

The night ended with some of us passing out on the couch (me, because I'm a terrible guest) and others of us helping to clean up, (like Selena and the most adorable girl you've ever met, named Sierra, who is saved in my phone as Sierra Who Is Awesome, which was a drunk statement and not a drunk question), so it seemed as though everyone got out ok, even though it's realistic to believe that it would have been entirely possible for everyone to die of a heart attack.

You know that scene in Apocalypse Now when whichever crazy ass Sheen that was turns into a roiling ball of insanity? And he starts breaking things and screaming and cutting his face and flying and getting into a fight with Faruiza Balk? (Also, I think maybe I'm combining Apocalypse Now and the fight scene in The Craft). That’s more like how it felt the next morning, when there were several Facebook statuses decrying bacon.

Fig. 1.5
"AFTER ALL WE’VE BEEN THROUGH!?!?!”

But we all got to see Chris chase down a pedestrian in jorts, and you know what? If that’s not the American dream, I don’t want any god damn part of it.

How I banned myself from Taco Bell and invented an imaginary co-worker

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 08:31:00 +0000

Recently, there are four very specific types of men who are interested in me. And because of that, I had to banish myself from Taco Bell and invent a fake person to carry out conveniently-timed conversations with in case I'm not strong enough to follow through with the terms of my own banishment. (Spoiler alert-I'm not.)

How many links exist in this terrible, terrible chain that led to my inescapable self-banishment from a less-than-mediocre restaurant that may or may not be serving gerbils disguised as taco meat? Four. Four gigantic links. And here they are.

Link 1-These are the four types of men who are currently interested in me:

1) Homeless and sassy
Fig. 1.1
"Marry me! We'll take my spaceship to the reception!"

2) Creepy and married
Fig. 1.2
"See this hair gel? All of it is for you."

3) Truck drivers who have a significantly reduced number of teeth
Fig. 1.3
It was surprisingly difficult to find a real picture for this. So I drew you a diagram. Also, this diagram features a great white shark.

4) Men who work at drive-throughs (that's right. "Through". Because "thru" isn't a real effing word.)
Fig. 1.4
I'm just assuming he works at a drive through. And also, he wants your wallet.

Link 2-These are the four ways I avoid conflict
1) Pretend like there's not a conflict at all-because what are you even talking about because this is totally not happening.
2) Pretend like there's something very interesting going on behind the person I'm talking to-because really? Are they moving office furniture outside? That is so interesting!
3) Pretend like I have to leave to get gas in my car-because I've just remembered that all of the gas stations close in 15 minutes and I'll run out of gas on the way home. Yes, they close at 6:15 on Thursdays. All of them.
4) Pretend like I have a phone call-I'm sorry, I have to answer this because it's my friend who needs a thing.

Link 3-These are the four ways I say "no" to people
1) Maybe
2) We'll see
3) Hahahahaha. I don't know.
4) Next time!

Link 4-The Situation
So here's The Situation. There's this Taco Bell by where I live. Because I come home very late (and because I have a blatant disregard for my health) sometimes I stop there on my way home. Until a few months ago when the sassy drive through man started asking for my number every time I went through.
Let me pause here and tell you that this isn't one of those fake complaints designed to make me look awesome. I'm 99 percent sure he asks for everyone's number. Because I'm pretty sure that's standard operating procedure for someone that has no concept of his lazy eye, no self-awareness that making kissy faces at customers is disgusting, and an over-inflated ego from being Head Sassy Drive Through Man at Taco Bell.
Take the fact that he asked me four times and divide that by the four ways I say no to people and you can see, if you're as good at math as I am, how this quickly went awry. Here are how those conversations went:

Conversation 1
Sassy Drive Through Man: Hey Beautiful. Why don't you give me your number?
Me: Maybe!
Sassy Drive Through Man: ...
Me: ...
Sassy Drive Through Man: So is that a yes?
Me: Bye!

Conversation 2
Sassy Drive Through Man: Hey girl. You giving me that number now?
Me: We'll see!
Sassy Drive Through Man: We'll see?
Me: Mild sauce, please.

Conversation 3
Sassy Drive Through Man: What's up. You have beautiful eyes. Did you forgot to give me your number last time?
Me: Hahahahaha. I don't know! Can I get a raspberry tea?! Ok!

Conversation 4
Sassy Drive Through Man: Hey, sexy. You're back. It's been awhile (I was clearly trying to avoid this situation.) Are you going to give me that number yet?
Me: Next time!
Sassy Drive Through Man: Next time? Why not now!
Me: Because I'm classy! (he bought this. which is another reason we could never work as a couple.)
Sassy Drive Through Man: Well, good. Then I'm looking forward to next time.

That's when panic set in. I hadn't come up with a Plan E. What would happen next time? I'll tell you what would happen next time. I'd be forced to give him my number. Then we would talk and then we would go out and then he would take me to play bingo and drink warm beer or watch a dog fight. Then we would get married. Then we would have babies. Then I would be stuck at home watching Roseanne reruns while he worked the Taco Bell drive through and cheated on me. That's not an educated guess. That's what would happen.

Does he pressure everyone like this? I'm assuming so. Would it break his heart if I told him no? There's no plausible way. The statistical probability of him caring about actually having my number is about the same as the likelihood that he's not a serial murderer. So tell me why, after banishing myself from this particular Taco Bell and then immediately realizing that I must not actually know what the word "banish" means, did I decide to implement one of my conflict avoidance techniques, making sure that I'm talking to my "co-worker", named "Veronica" about the "reports that are due" every time I go through the drive through to avoid giving him my number? The same reason that, after I have my order, have successfully avoided the conflict and am already past the drive through window, I always tell "Veronica" goodbye and that I'll see her tomorrow.

Because I'm fucking considerate, that's why.

How I am More Irresponsible Than a Petty Thief

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 03:18:00 +0000

When I asked everyone about a month ago which of three stories you wanted me to write about, your response was overwhelmingly in favor of “The Three People in the Universe that Hate Me and Why”. (By the way, guys, rude.) And I am going to write that one. I promise. But first, I have to tell you about a situation that happened last month in which I proved to be more irresponsible and aggravating than a petty thief.

First, let me preface this by saying that I am responsibly irresponsible. I went to school. I got good grades. I have a career (in a dying industry, but quit focusing on that! Stop being so negative!). I am a relatively morally and ethically sound person that makes generally good decisions.

Fig. 1.1
Yes. I think listening to MC Hammer is a good decision. This is why I said generally good decisions.

But ultimately, I am not an overly responsible person.

Here are some examples:

• I don’t check my mailbox. Ever. On the rare occasions that I do check my mail box, there is usually an angrily scrawled note from a postal worker about how they had to take my mail back to the post office because the box was so full. They give me some terrible deadline to pick it up (only 11 days! Who has the time?!) and then threaten to send it all back. There are usually three or four of these in my mailbox at a time. Whose mailbox is that full? So full that the postal worker has to take out all of the mail they presumably put into the box? But here’s my argument. It’s really far away from my apartment. And no, I’m not going to go pick up my mail. I have no desire to go to the post office where a picture of my overflowing mailbox is probably posted on the wall with bullet holes and blood and knife-stab wounds in it. In this vision, my name is under the mailbox and there are people snarling at it like the moment they figured out who the villain was in The Happening.

Fig. 1.2
So…plants?

No thank you. You can keep my mail. In that same vein:

• I do not know where the post office is. I do not want to talk about it.
• For roughly three months, my refrigerator has contained two bottles of margarita mix, one half-consumed 24 pack of Lone Star (that I didn’t even purchase), one bag of flour that got wet and can’t be used, two bottles of Blue Moon, a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20, some Yellow Tail wine that most people would cook with but I fully intend to drink, a container that I think had potato soup in it at one time, and, for some inexplicable reason, a bottle of bleu cheese dressing that expired in 2009, which insinuates that not only have I had the expired dressing for two years, but I moved the expired dressing from one apartment to the other.
• I’m supporting Britney Spears’ comeback.

Fig. 1.3
Supporting Britney Spears: Wildly irresponsible

You get the idea. Now that you know the truth, I’m going to tell you about how a thief broke into my car and how it caused them more aggravation than me.

Near my apartment, there is a bridge that an awesome bat colony lives under. Did I say “bridge that an awesome bat colony lives under”? I’m sorry. I mean “bridge that a totally awesome bat colony lives under”. They fly out about dusk every night to eat mosquitoes and scare crybabies and turn into Freemasons or whatever.

Fig. 1.4
Remember-Freemasons are not vampires. And they probably aren’t bats either.

Because my brother hadn’t seen this mass exodus before, we went down to the bridge to look. I parked my car across the street, in a lot that has signs that say something to the effect of “I hate you, you’re stupid, don’t park here or I will literally skin you alive and sell all of your organs on the black market. And then we’ll tow your car”. So I took my chances. Of course, I was nervous, so I kept glancing back over to see if there were pygmies with knives driving tow trucks ready to skin me alive and tow my car away. There weren’t. After about fifteen minutes, there was, however, an enormous diesel truck parked next to mine. My internal dialog went something like this:

Oh! Another truck! They’re probably watching the bats too. It’s so weird they parked right next to me! There are so many other parking spaces…I guess they think NEITHER of us will get towed that way. They’re probably really sweet. I wonder who it is! Maybe they’re standing right next to me! (Then I smiled at the person standing right next to me.)

The theme of incurable optimism keeps reoccurring throughout this blog. You can find it here and here. This situation is no different. As it turns out, the person who owned the enormous diesel truck was not standing next to me.

After the bats were finished being awesome, my brother and I walked back to the car. On the way there, I looked up and saw the enormous diesel truck. I then looked down for precisely half of one second to make sure I didn’t trip over the curb, fall into the street and get brutally crushed to death by oncoming traffic. When I looked back up, the enormous diesel truck was gone.

Man! They left fast!

Where have we seen this kind of naïveté before?
Fig. 1.5
Here.

Fig. 1.6
Here

Fig. 1.7
And here.

That’s right. In Buddy the Elf, who loves Christmas and whose father is a Christmas elf, Navin Johnson, who was raised a poor, black child, and George Bush, who I am convinced thought he was playing the part of a lovable rascal for nearly a decade. We see this kind of sweet, child-like naïveté when the world is about to be a douchebag and rob people blind of their innocent nature. Which is exactly what was about to happen to me.

My brother walked to the driver’s side door and looked at me with an expression that, I think, is similar to one Al Gore would make if you told him that you didn’t know what “the internets” were.

Fig. 1.8
“Bitch! I INVENTED the internets!”

(On a slightly more hilarious side note, if you Google image “confused mad Al Gore” you not only get a confused, angry Al Gore, but Al Gore’s head photoshopped onto a showering woman’s body, a monkey with his tail tied in a knot, a zombie, and the Three Stooges. Just throwing this out there.)

The entire driver’s side window was shattered. There was glass everywhere. And my purse, which was under the passenger side seat, was gone. An extra slap in the face, my iPod, which is FULL of excellent artists like Huey Lewis and Paula Abdul, was sitting on the center console where I left it.

I immediately changed my mind about the person who owned the enormous diesel truck.

How COULD he?!

You know that feeling you get when you can’t find your keys? And you know you had them, and you know they were in your hand, but you put them down somewhere to play one very fast level of Super Mario 3 and now they’re probably in the refrigerator or the dog’s kennel? And if you don’t find them fast, you’ll NEVER get to the Super Troopers quote-along in time, and you’ll miss out on the syrup chug and maybe they’ll also be out of fake mustaches? That’s exactly how I felt as I tried to run through what was in my purse and what I lost. And this is what I came up with:

• One packet of instant Quaker Oatmeal-Peach
• One expired driver’s license that also had the incorrect address on it (yes. this is the license I was using.)
• One very tiny screwdriver, possibly either to use on glasses or for a mouse to use for making sardine cans into very tiny beds
• One Power Ranger action figure-Rocky
• One small bag of ear plugs
• One melted MAC lipstick
• One menthol Chapstick, capless and full of dirt and, for some reason, a sticker burr
• One spark plug gapper
• Three pens, two broken and one out of ink
• Business cards for my makeup artist work, most of them crinkled, others with gum in them
• One empty roll of Bubble Tape
• One gas station receipt, which revealed that I once (more than once, but this only documented one time) put an entire $4.34 in my tank before I got bored and decided that was enough to get me to work
• One pencil, unsharpened
• One camera, filled with pictures I took of myself, and pictures of my foot. I don’t have time to explain.
• One debit card, half eaten by my dog, connected to an account with precisely $17.12 in it
• My purse, which is an ADORABLE corduroy leopard print purse that came from Old Navy and cost $3.50.

But here’s the thing. Who sees a PT Cruiser convertible and thinks to themselves, “jackpot”?

So I called the police and then called my bank and told them to cancel the card. And that’s when the lady that answered laid this on me. They had already tried to use the card, for $170 at a Chevron, and it was declined. Do you know what that means? They tried to make ME pay for $170 in gas for their enormous diesel truck and they had to pay for it themselves because I am so irresponsible. And the best thing they got out of my purse was a packet of instant oatmeal. (And my purse, which I was most upset about, because it was leopard print AND corduroy, clearly making it a fashion one-two punch).

I got the window fixed, which was an irritating $110, (which, if you’re a scientist, you’ve figured out is still less than the $170 they had to pay in gas) and just lamented the loss of my very cute purse that even a homeless person could afford to purchase.

And here is where things get amazing. About a week later, I got a phone call from a number I didn’t know.

It was a woman. Who found my purse. On the street.

And here is where things get really amazing.

The only thing missing was my camera.

So here’s what I imagined the thieves’ day went like after they stole my purse (I don’t know why I envision that there are two, working in tandem to steal my purse from my very unsecured car, but it is what it is):

Scene 1: Driving away
Horrible person 1*, on the way to the gas station: This purse has oatmeal in it. And a power ranger.
Horrible person 2**: I have a shard of glass in my hand.

*From here on out, Horrible Person 1 will be called Marcel, and **Horrible Person 2 will be called Jeff. Because in my head, that's what their names are. Mostly because I don't trust people named Marcel or Jeff.

Scene 2: At the gas station
Gas station attendant: That’s $170, please.
Marcel: Here’s my girlfriend’s card. She’s in the car. Her name is…Jennifer?
Gas station attendant: This card has been declined.
Marcel, who has just given gas station attendant his card: God damnit.
Gas station attendant: I’ve lost my pen, do you have one to sign the receipt?
Marcel, who tries to use any writing utensil in my purse: God. Damnit.

Scene 3: Leaving the gas station
Marcel: This woman needs to get her life together! I need some gum!
Jeff: There was some Bubble Tape in her purse.
::Marcel opens the empty Bubble Tape::
Marcel: GOD DAMN IT!!!!!

::Marcel grabs my camera out of my purse, throws the purse out of the window in a fit of rage. A nice lady picks it up, finds business cards that don’t have gum in them, and calls me.

Fig. 1.9
Not a Dramatization.

Scene 4: Later that night, in the thieves lair, which I imagine is very lair-like where there are drug dealers and marauders wearing eye patches and lots of other stolen items like bicycles, the original Mona Lisa, the CD’s that were stolen out of my car when I was 18 and King Tut’s treasure.
Marcel, crying hysterically, talking to his girlfriend: …And then, all she had in her purse was some disgusting lipstick, some oatmeal, an action figure, business cards with already chewed gum in them, an expired license with a bad address —and we know it’s a bad address because we went to the apartment on her license to beat the shit out of her, but the only person home was an old man who didn’t know her—a credit card with nothing on it, an empty roll of Bubble Tape and a camera. And all that’s on this camera is some chubby chick and pictures of her foot. (sobbing—like that kind of sobbing where he’s just sucking in air and making weird honking sounds)…Her iPod was seven years old and all she had on it was some John Stamos song and New Kids on the Block and Huey Lewis (one final choking sob)...And Jeff cut his hand, and I’m pretty sure it’s infected… (aaaaand scene. fade to black with Marcel, who is inconsolable, with his head in his girlfriend's lap.)

And that is how irresponsible I am. More irresponsible than a petty thief.

And I got my purse back. I think we all know what the lesson here is.

Fig. 1.10
Fashion 1-2 punch. With a pen for size reference.

Why you can't count on my sister if a murderer is in your house

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:14:00 +0000

Do you have a sibling that is ferociously loyal? I mean, so loyal that if someone hurts your feelings, that sibling will literally rip out their eyeballs and feed those eyeballs to them?

Fig. 1.1

Eyeballs: They’re what’s for dinner. If you hurt my feelings. And my sister hears you.

Because that’s my sister. She has avenged me when ex-boyfriends have misbehaved. She has stayed up all night after a car accident that caused her SO much pain to make a photo album for me for my birthday. She has left a friend’s house in Pearland and made it to my apartment near downtown Houston in about fifteen minutes when I called her crying about the end of a relationship. When I got some bad news last Wednesday, she drove out to my apartment, six months pregnant and probably tired after working all day, in rush hour traffic to make sure that I would be ok. That’s my little sister.

But if there’s a possibility that there is a murderer in your house and you look to my sister for help, your ass is on your own. This is the harsh lesson I learned when I was about ten.

First, you need some background on how my brother, sister and I were when we were younger to appreciate the story I’m about to tell you.

I’m the oldest child. When you’re the oldest child, the responsibility often falls on you to watch younger brothers and sisters because your parents assume that, as the oldest and most responsible, you’re not doing things that might scar your younger siblings for life. Some of the things parents do not think an older sibling is doing while they are at work include:

-Making them play Mama Cat Baby Cat, wherein the mama cat, while lounging on top of the bed and pretending to purr, tells the baby cat where to put toys back that were previously strewn about the room. The baby cat then picks said toys up in her mouth, meows, occasionally chases invisible string and puts the toys back where they belong. Is it my fault that baby cats like to clean shared bedrooms? Is it my fault baby cat thought this was a fun game?

Fig. 1.2

My sister enjoyed Mama Cat, Baby Cat most of the way through high school. We didn’t even share a room anymore.

-Telling your younger brother you possess the magical power to turn anybody invisible, and you are choosing him to showcase that power. So with one wave of a sparkly baton and reciting some kind of poem you heard on Pee Wee’s Play House, the kid’s invisible. Then, the “only way you can see him sneaking around the house is by the footprints he’s leaving in the carpet”. And then you tell him that you don’t know how to make him visible again. And then he cries. A lot. And then your mom comes home. And then he tearfully asks your mom if she can see him. And then there’s a lot of judging going on even though it was JARRETT who loved the game so much.

Fig. 1.3

Couches: They make lousy hiding places. Also, my brother had a sweet bowl cut.

-Singing very loudly and obnoxiously at the top of your lungs any time your younger sister tries to talk, causing the sound of your singing (beautiful and songbird-like as it may be) to turn her stomach nearly 16 years later (she needs to let this one go.)

Fig. 1.4

Paula Abdul was incredible. But not as incredible as my voice.

These are just a handful of the things my parents probably did not think I was doing after school and over long summer hours when they were very hard at work trying to pay for things like mortgages and cars and cheerleading and soccer and baseball and piano lessons and karate (which promptly ended when I accidentally poked my instructor in the eye while trying to balance on one foot)and other things, like purchasing replacement fuses when my brother blew out all of the electricity in the house (I’m not actually sure they had to buy replacement fuses, but he did throw all of the breakers when a screw “accidentally” fell into an open light socket).

Don’t be fooled though. Younger siblings dish it out in less manipulative but possibly more damaging ways. Like the time my sister thought she saw a tiger awake under my bed, and instead of warning me, she ran to my parent’s room and never said anything to anybody. I’ll repeat that last part. SHE THOUGHT SHE SAW A LIVE, MAN-EATING TIGER UNDER MY BED WHILE I WAS ASLEEP AND DIDN’T TELL ANYBODY. Was it a real tiger? Is that really the point?! She THOUGHT it was a real tiger!

Fig. 1.5

If you’re worried about being “the girl who cried tiger” and it’s my life that’s at stake, risk it.

Now that you have the background, you’ll fully understand why I was always left in charge and why, if you think murderers are breaking into your home, you probably don’t want my sister there as your only backup.

Let me preface this story by explaining that children do not believe in abstract things like fate or Eskimos or physics. They believe in very scary monsters, Santa Claus and murderers, in that order.

Fig. 1.6

If you pick the wrong mall Santa, sometimes very scary monsters, Santa Claus and murderers are all the same thing. Also, this was the beginning stages of my brother's sweet bowl cut.

That being said, we were home alone one day over the summer. My brother, sister and I were all in my parent’s bedroom watching Hey Dude (that’s right, Hey Dude. What’s up, 1991?), with the doors and windows in the house open. Then the bedroom door slammed shut. It didn’t just slam shut. It slammed shut with precisely the amount of force it would take for someone who was not the little cartoon version of Arthur in Sword and the Stone to try and pull the sword out of the anvil.

Fig. 1.7

This guy: Not King Arthur. Also, your hat is stupid.

Remember way back, when I said that kids don’t believe in abstract things like fate, Eskimos or physics?

We assumed that the reason the door slammed was NOT that with all of the doors and windows in the house open, a vacuum effect was created when the wind blew, thus shutting the bedroom door. I mean, my science fair project up to this point was making toothpaste out of baking soda, for which I substituted powdered sugar because it tasted better.

We were absolutely 100 percent positive the door slammed shut because there was obviously a murderer on the other side, and that he shut the door to corral us in and would bake us in the oven and eat us after he was finished going through all our stuff. And all I could think about was how this murderer would definitely steal my Jem doll. And probably Teddy Ruxpin, even though I had accidentally poked one of his eyes out, thus rendering him a terrible, blinking cyclopean monster. And that he would leave the Fob, because fobs were only minor characters in the world of Teddy Ruxpin, and no one wants a backup dancer unless you’re Britney Spears.

All of this took place in about half a second. We sat there staring at the door, hoping that one of our parents would come through it and say something like “just joking! no murderers here!”, but they didn’t. I scrambled off the bed and my sister was already gone. I looked up just in time to see her LOCKING HERSELF IN THE BATHROOM WITH MY BROTHER AND I ON THE OTHER SIDE SEPARATED FROM THE MURDERER BY ONLY A THIN BEDROOM DOOR. I tried reasoning with her.

Me: Meg, let us in.

Megan: NO.

Me: Please?

Megan: NO.

Me: How about Jarrett?

Megan: I SAID NO!

Me: Why not?

Megan: There’s not enough room.

In her defense, it was a small bathroom, but when there’s a murderer afoot, you’re supposed to come together as a family and squeeze into the bathroom.

The situation was immediately compounded by the fact that my brother was five, and was going through a phase. At different points in my little brother’s young life, he went through phases that made him aspire to do out-of-the-ordinary things. For example, for a while after Happy Gilmore came out, he wanted to be a golfer. He went through a MacGuyver phase that resulted in all kinds of electronics being shorted out. After Ace Ventura came out, he walked around like Jim Carrey for a while. At one point, he wanted to be a clown.

On this particular day, in this particular setting, my little brother wanted to be a ninja. This was coupled with a toy he had gotten from Little Caesar’s. When he was about five, if my parents went to Little Caesar’s, my brother would lose his mind to go inside and say “please, please”. If you said “please please” to a worker at Little Caesar’s, they gave you a plastic toy that some six-month-old child in China made for exactly half of one cent.

Fig. 1.8

I mean, the toy thing is at the very end, and it’s really not important, but do you REMEMBER this commercial?!

The toy he had in his possession the day the murderers tried to kill us was a plastic pan flute that made no type of discernable music whatsoever.

So I had just finished trying to negotiate with my sister, who had locked herself in the bathroom, to open the door and at least let my brother in, and she was clearly not going to give in. I turned around to find my brother, because I was going to stick him the closet or under the bed or something, and I didn’t see him.

I didn’t see him, because he was crouched down in a very threatening position near the bedroom door peering under the crack.

Me: What are you doing.

Jarrett (who is whispering conspiratorially): I’m setting a booby trap.

Me: What kind of booby trap. That’s a bad idea.

Jarrett (still whispering): I put my toy I got from saying pleaseplease under the door. When the killer tries to steal it, I’ll open the door, and karate chop him in the face.

Me: That’s a dumb idea. No one wants that stupid toy. (because their arms would be full of Jem and Teddy Ruxpin, and if they had enough room left, ALL of my Sweet Valley High books. Also, that’s not a booby trap, it’s just misdirection, but I let it slide because he was five.)

Jarrett (who, all of a sudden, is absolutely not concerned with whispering anymore): IT IS NOT A DUMB IDEA. THEY WILL WANT MY TOY.

Me: Shut UP! They will KILL us! And Megan is NOT letting us in the bathroom!

So now, not only is the murderer sure that we’re in the room, he’s mad that Jarrett’s trying to bribe him with a stupid toy that the murderer could get for free just by saying “please, please”. It was about then that I decided it would be a good idea to call my mother at work. I had learned from Miss Richardson, a terrifying counselor in elementary school, that if you called 9-1-1 and didn’t need it, your parents would be arrested, you would be shipped off to an orphanage, you would never see anyone you loved ever again and eventually you would end up working sound for Milli Vanilli or something horrible like that. So calling the police was out.

Fig. 1.9

Girl you know it, girl you know it, girl you know it was NOT going to end like this for me.

I called my mom. She explained how doors can shut by themselves to me, but all I heard was “there is a murderer or a monster in the house. Get into the bathroom or you and your brother will die”. I also remember telling her that Megan wouldn’t let us in the bathroom. Looking back, my mom didn’t sound surprised. I guess some parts of our personality are ingrained in us from birth, and my mom was aware that my sister would leave us and never look back if a murderer were in the house.

So while my mom called our neighbor to come over and check on us, I tried to reason with my sister, the original cut-and-run-er.

Me: Megan, please let us in.

Megan: No.

Me: Meg. You have to let us in.

Megan: GO AWAY!

Jarrett (who is still ready to strike): Jennie! HE WILL TRY TO GET MY TOY!

Eventually my neighbor came over, called out to us, tried to explain that there weren’t any murderers in the house and that everything was ok.

We were able to (finally) coax Megan out of the bathroom, but obviously, if there had been a murderer (or a monster) in the house, it was definitely going to kill Jarrett and I.

And Megan was very clearly ok with that.

How I Almost Died Several Times Last Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 08:11:00 +0000

Have you ever passed someone that was broken down in the middle of a busy freeway and thought “woah. I bet that sucks”?

It does.

And have you ever said something to someone and afterwards thought, “that may come back to bite me in the ass later”?

It will. I imagine this is what ran through the Native American’s minds after they said “hey, why don’t you guys join us for dinner”.

Fig. 1.1

Why women want you to ask before you invite people to dinner.

Thursday night, I was driving home from work. It was about 6 p.m., so traffic on the major freeway I use to get home was pretty bad. Did I say pretty bad? I mean “the only way it could have been worse was if people had gotten out of their cars, set themselves on fire, and run around in circles blocking all six lanes of traffic”. Those of you from Houston understand how 290 works. For those of you who don’t know what 290 looks like during rush hour, below you’ll find a rough estimation.

Fig. 1.2

US 290: Where people in Smart Cars go to die.

So I’m driving along, cheerfully listening to the Huey Lewis and the News playlist on my iPod and I see a car in one of the center lanes broken down. The driver’s eyes have completely glossed over and he looks like Rain Man.

Fig. 1.3

"I get to drive slow on the drive way"

I assume this is because 90 million people want to kill him and his car is stuck in one of the center lanes. Did I mention that his car is stuck in one of the center lanes? And also, 90 million people want to kill him? I know I said that already, but I mean, come on. That’s got to be a really horrible feeling. I hope Kanye West feels like this all the time, but I doubt it.

And I think to myself, “Woah. I bet that sucks”.

So I continue driving for about one more mile in one of the center lanes, when the following happens: my car is fine. my car is fine. my car is fine. my car is fine. MY CAR IS NOT FINE.

Fig. 1.4

Don't even pretend that you don't like Huey Lewis.

Everything died. My lights. My flashers. Huey Lewis. Everything. I couldn’t put the car in gear. I couldn’t coast to another lane. I couldn’t will it back to life with The Force. So I did what any normal person would do. I stared listlessly out the window like Rain Man and then freaked out.

Cars, already pissed off beyond all possible belief that they had to be stuck behind one stalled car a mile back, were driving past me at approximately 87 million miles an hour. It very quickly occurred to me that if I didn’t get out of the car, at 18-wheeler would careen into the back of my little PT Cruiser convertible and smash me into a very tiny, but very adorable, Jennie sandwich.

Now I have to figure out how to 1) open the door and get out 2) move to the front of my car and then 3) cross two lanes of traffic 4) without dying.

Did I mention that I was wearing a dress? Did I mention that I was in six-inch stiletto heels?

So now, I’m teetering in front of my car in six inch stilettos with a needle-thin heel. About to cross one of the busiest freeways in Houston. At rush hour.

Fig. 1.5

Stilettos: Not cross trainers.

Have you ever run in stilettos across a busy freeway? Let me put it into perspective for you. Put yourself on some stilts. Now get on a unicycle. Now juggle three grizzly bears. That should do it. Congratulations. You’ve just accomplished the equivalent of running in stilettos across 290.

This next part has a lot to do with the goodness of people and why I’m so thankful that I live in Houston because Texans are so friendly, so it’s basically boring and I’ll run through it pretty fast.

-Random lady offers me a cell phone, asks if I want her to stay with me. I do not want to be responsible for her death

-Very, very nice man who doesn’t speak any English pulls his car in front of mine, hooks up a tow chain, pulls my car off the road, pops the hood, points at a battery connector that is clearly not supposed to be covered in corrosion, fixed it, makes a very wide steering wheel motion that looks like a person playing the Daytona USA arcade game at Sports Page Skating Rink (if you don’t know about that, trust me, it’s cool), indicating that I can drive it

-I tell very, very nice man who doesn’t speak any English “Te Amo” and throw my arms around him

-Very, very nice man I’ve just pledged my love to drives away

-Car dies again

-Metropolitan Transit Authority guy knocks on my window

And I’ll pick up here.

MTA guy: What’s the problem?

Me: This is what I do on Thursday’s. I sit in my car on the shoulder of 290. You’re bothering me.

MTA guy (whose sense of humor is clearly not like mine): …

Me: I’m kidding.

MTA guy: Pop the hood.

He looks at the battery, tells me it’s a bad connector, then tells me that IT COULD CATCH ON FIRE and then calls a tow truck for me. He stays behind me until the tow truck driver gets there.

I’ll pause here to let you know that he stayed with me for a couple of reasons, the first of those being that it’s probably his job, the last of those being that the area that my car stopped in isn’t exactly the best area of 290. It’s not horrible. But it’s not great. I mean, chances are you could get raped there, but probably not murdered. This plays a part in the conversation I’ll have with the tow truck driver in a little bit. Another quick bit of information, Houston has the Safe and Clear program. If you break down on a freeway, a tow truck will come and take you to a safe place for free. Tow truck drivers apparently hate this.

And back to the story.

So the tow truck driver gets there, and he is very clearly not happy.

Tow Truck Guy: What’s wrong? It don’t work no more?

Me: It works fine. I just wanted to see you.

Tow Truck Guy (whose sense of humor, like the MTA guy, is not like mine): …

Me: I’m kidding.

He tells me to get in the cab of the truck, hooks my car up, gets back in and asks where I want him to take me.

Me: I don’t know. Some place less rapey.

Tow Truck Guy (and I’m serious about this response): … that may be hard around here.

Me: …

Tow Truck Guy: …

Me: How much to take me to my apartment (which isn’t very far, by the way)

Tow Truck Guy: $100 cash. $145 if It’s a check.

Me: Apparently, you planned on raping me anyway.

And I immediately thought "that's probably going to bite me in the ass later." This is where I learned an important lesson: you never pop off to a tow truck guy responsible for taking you somewhere safe. Because apparently, “safe” is a relative word.

In the five minutes it took for him to get me to the gas station in the middle of murder town, I found out three things:

1)Tow Truck Guy hates doing Safe and Clear tows.

Tow Truck Guy: I hate doing these safe and clear’s. We don’t make any money on them.

Me: Yeah. Sorry that my car died in the middle of one of the busiest freeways in Houston. And that I had to run across that freeway. And that I could have died. This must really be ruining your night.

2)Tow Truck Guy was fighting with his girlfriend.

Cell Phone: ::RING RING RING RING::

Tow Truck Guy: Hello!

Cell Phone: ::Shrill screaming that can only be described as a noise that sounded like Rosie Perez had sex with Fran Drescher and they made a mutant baby that screamed all the time::

Tow Truck Guy: You know what?! Ima call you BACK. (and then he hangs up)

3) Tow Truck Guy stares at boobs. A lot.

I can’t really do any dialog for this. But here’s what it looked like.

Fig. 1.6

When in doubt, stare openly at a strange woman's boobs.

Then Tow Truck Guy dropped me off at TC Jester and 610 (not from Houston? TC Jester and 610 is less rapey than where I was. But more murdery. In his defense, he did exactly what I asked.)

My family came shortly after that and my father fixed my car.

Did you think this story was over? No. Almost. But not yet.

After my dad fixed the car, my family wanted to follow me home because they inexplicably love me. I wanted to go all the way down TC Jester, because it connects with a cross street near my apartment, and that way, if it died, I wouldn’t be on a freeway.

Here’s a very important fact: I am horrible with directions. I get lost all the time. I have left work, driven two blocks and accidentally gotten on a freeway that took me 20 miles away. I’ve been to my best friend’s house roughly eleventy-billion times. And 90 percent of the time I turn down the wrong street and it takes me fifteen minutes to figure it out. This kind of thing happens all the time. The really bad thing about this, is that I don’t usually think I’m wrong. So while I can admit that I’m bad with directions, (very, very bad. Like Moses leading folks through the desert for 40 years bad), I usually think I’m going the right way. That being said, I was very, very confident that I was supposed to turn left on TC Jester. So I did.

In my defense, my family knows better than to let me lead. Seriously. One of you guys needs to get me a GPS. Why hasn’t this happened yet?

We get about 20 minutes down the road (by the way, it should have taken about ten minutes, but I’m still 100 percent confident that I’ve made the right decision) and my brother says “where are we? I’m pretty sure those 15 year olds are doing a drug deal right there.”

Long story short, I took my family to Acres Home. Not from here? I Googled “Acres Home” to show you what comes up.

Fig. 1.7

Murdertown and Rapeville: 1, Jennie: 0

That’s right. I took my family to the most rapey and murdery part of Houston. With a car that had been randomly breaking down. Because let’s face it. If you want to test someone’s workmanship on a touch-and-go battery connecter, don’t you want to do that in one of the most dangerous parts of the city? At 9 at night? When there’s something at stake?

I know I do.

The Worst date of All Time, Part 3: the Final Chapter

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 02:13:00 +0000

Part 3: Excuse me ma’am, but you have a marine creature on your face.

If you’ve missed the first or second part of the worst date of all time, you can read the first part here and the second part here.

If you want the short, short version, I was out on the worst date of all time with a man named Bodie (do not let his awesome name fool you into thinking he is actually awesome. that’s where I went horribly, horribly wrong) who lied about being blind, hated Digital Underground, didn’t know what the word ‘collection’ meant, forced me to see Harry Potter, texted his mother for four hours during our date, thinks Freemasons are a race of people, and still had time to judge me because I’m Catholic. Did I mention that he talked about samurai swords for an hour? Or that his favorite books were "elven novels"? Or that I was pretty sure that his mother was dead in his basement and he just talked to her anyway? By this point in the date, I was looking for a serial murderer who only serial murdered 34-year-old guys that lied about legally blind and collected samurai swords.

Fig. 1.1
"...and also, my mom's dead in the basement!"

That actually catches you up pretty accurately.

After Bodie told me that we would probably not be able to date very long because I was Catholic and “he was Freemason” (which is not a race) and Catholics hated Freemasons (they don’t), he asked me if I could drive him to Freebirds for dinner because he didn’t want to have to ask his mother when he got home. Which, I’m sure, is very thoughtful of him if you were his mother. But I wasn’t. And I was trying to make his head explode with mind waves like those things from the movie Scanners.

Mind explosions: Not as easy as they look

So I tell him that I’m not hungry, but I’ll drive him to get a burrito (which, by the way, is where he wanted to go even if I was hungry. If you are a dude and you are reading this right now, please listen to me when I say, unless under mutual consent, DO NOT TAKE YOUR FIRST DATE TO A BURRITO PLACE. UNLESS THAT BURRITO PLACE IS CONSIDERABLY MORE AWESOME THAN FREEBIRDS).

So we’re in the car, driving to Freebirds; I clearly have nothing else to say to him because he functions on a totally separate plane of existence than me. Like the plane of existence that George Clooney was operating on when he read the Batman and Robin script and said “it’s PERFECT!”

Fig. 1.2
"No really. It's PERFECT."

What I DO know, however, is that he is attempting to use the armrest in my car as a leveraging point to assault my hand.

So I’m driving with my left arm and my right arm crossed over my chest like I’m hand-delivering a leprosy patient to a leper colony when he thinks that now is as good a time as any to ask why I’m thwarting his romantic advances. (I assume that taking me to see a movie I didn’t want to see, talking about things I didn’t want to talk about, explaining that I hate a made up race of people because I’m Catholic and attempting to force me against my will on numerous occasions to hold his hand was Bodie’s attempt at a romantic advance.)

Bodie: Man, I’ve never had this much trouble getting someone to hold my hand.
Me: …
Bodie: ...
Radio: (faintly) …Alright stop what you’re doin’ ‘cause I’m about to ruin the image and the style that you’re used to…
Bodie: …
Me: …
Bodie: I mean you haven’t held my hand all night!
Me: Heh. Heh heh. Heh heh heh heh. Yeah.

Yes. I sounded like a sickly lawnmower turning over. That’s what I sound like when I get nervous. Sue me. At least I don’t talk about fairies and elves and swords. And also, the best thing I could come up with was “yeah”. And regarding his claim that would lead a rational person to believe that he has been rewarded with much hand-holding on previous dates, my belief is that he either he tricked me on the serial murderer test and just cut hands off to hold them after he serial murdered short blond girls, or dated people that must have looked and acted something a little like Margaret McPoyle from It’s Always Sunny.

Fig. 1.3
People Bodie must normally date if he is not, in fact, a serial murderer.

Thankfully, we got to Freebirds in time for me to avoid another horrible question.

Bodie: Hey, mind if we eat here? I know you said you weren’t hungry, but maybe you can get a soda or something.
Me: Sounds awesome. (Note-this did not sound awesome. And my voice conveyed this sentiment)

So we’re standing in line. I decided to go ahead and get something while we were out, and that I would just pay for my own (because the very, very last thing I want is for him to have any false pretenses of possible future dates). He’s in front of me (of course he is. Because he’s a gentleman). He orders his food while I’m trying to decide what I want. When I get to the cashier to pay for mine, the sum seems too much. Like double.

I’ll break here to explain that I’m not a chemist or geophysicist or mathematician. When someone starts talking in numbers, I either just agree or fall into a narcoleptic coma because of the stress it requires to add and subtract. My math is actually pretty shaky, but one burrito bowl and one water does not equal almost $19.

Are you guessing what happened here? Have you been following the chain of events on his horrible, horrible date that, without fail, would have, of course, inevitably led me to pay for not only my meal, but the meal of my legally blind, unemployed, 34-year-old date who likes samurai swords, elven novels and Harry Potter and hates Digital Underground and Catholics?

When I realized what had just happened, I felt like someone had set me on imaginary fire. I wanted to run around violently, just punching and kicking and screaming and rolling.

Yes. Just like this.

I’m going to skip over the disgusting way he ate (it was like he just opened his mouth, threw burrito in that general direction and hoped he landed a good shot). I’m going to skip over the part where he begged me to meet his mother (and I had to say “I don’t meet moms on the first date, Bodie, sorry”). I’m going to skip the part where he was blatantly racist (and here I thought I was a bad person for being a Catholic that didn’t hate anyone at all). I’m just going to skip straight to the part where he assaulted my face with his face.

Somehow, after a very awkward 15 minute car ride (awkward on my part, not his. He was apparently completely comfortable), we made it to his mother’s. My purse was in the trunk of my car and, because I get pulled over with a fair amount of regularity, I like to have everything handy. So I got out of the car to retrieve said purse.

Bodie: Can I get a kiss?
Me: Nope.
Bodie: Really?
Me: Yep.
Bodie: Well can I at least have a hug?
Me: …If I give you a hug will you stop asking for physical contact?
Bodie: Promise.

Ok. Remember how in Part 2, I said that Bodie taught me two things, and that the first was to never worry about hurting the feelings of someone who lied to you about being legally blind?

The second thing I learned was never to trust that the person you’ve avoided contact with all night understands that you do not want their mouth anywhere near your face.

Bodie is tall, maybe 6’2” or so, and I’m about a foot shorter than that, so I was going in for a face-down-my-arms-under-his-quick-and-painless hug. I was even going to throw in a vigorous pat on the back like you do with people you don’t actually want to hug. This, to me, seemed to be an incognito way of throwing in some disguised violence.

Wrong.

I’m not a mean person. I don’t try to hurt people’s feelings. Actually, I tend to put myself out and have even been known to put myself in very uncomfortable situations (for me) to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. I once thought about marrying someone because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings with a break up. See? That level of crazy. So when I tell you this next part, I want you to keep all of that in mind.

I go in for the quick I-never-want-to-see-you-again hug, and that’s when my life flashed before my eyes and everything began to happen in slow motion.

His face was coming toward me. I was trying to duck out of the way. He has very long arms and I was definitely stuck in a weird wrestling (maybe samurai?) paralysis move that did not allow me to escape. In a brief flash, every atrocious moment of the previous four hours played in a terrible sepia-toned, horror movie strobe light in front of my eyes. Also in this movie, the walls are covered with blood and tears and spiders and clown faces.

We’ve all kissed someone that wasn’t necessarily a good kisser. This was beyond that. This was like someone threw a hot, wet octopus at my face. And then that octopus got stuck with all his little octopus suckers and refused to let go.

Fig. 1.4
Nightmarish creature of epic proportions attached to my face.

I summoned all of my strength (I had been working out. No big deal.) and pried his face off of my face, pushed him away and threatened to pepper spray him if he came within five feet of me ever again.

The next day I got a text that said “Hey hun. Sry about lst nite—ur just 2 cute! Maybe we can try agn sat?”

I did not try again Saturday.

The Great Cell Phone Disaster of 2011

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 23:26:00 +0000

Before I even start on this story about the most horrible, epic fail of all time, I have to explain a handful of things.

First, I am the tiniest bit crazy. Not cut-you-up-and-make-you-into-a-lamp-shade crazy. Not refuse-to-trust-you-when-you-go-out-without-me crazy. Not even check-your-phone-or-email crazy. I’m crazy in a way that is probably endearing when we first meet and then is not so endearing later. Like I fall down a lot. I’m afraid to sit in recliners because I’m 99 percent positive they’re going to fall backwards. I count the wheels on 18-wheelers (to myself. I don’t force other people to participate in this particular slice of crazy). I have a sense of direction that’s so horrible, I was once an hour late coming back from lunch because I got lost getting back from the restaurant that was two blocks down the street. (I ended up on a scary freeway near downtown. I worked off Monroe. How does this happen?) I line up my French fries in size order and then eat them large to small. Are any of these things certifiable? No! So stop judging me. I’m not Gary-Busy crazy!

Fig. 1.1
Gary Busey: Bat-shit crazy.

Second, I live alone and I have two dogs, so I talk to my dogs like they’re people. Stop it right there. I don’t dress them up. I don’t carry them around in ridiculous dog-holders. I do not treat them like accessories. I don’t discuss important topics with them, like Darfur or the recession or Tyra. But when I speak to them, it’s in complete sentences. Also, because I am the slightest bit narcissistic, I believe that when they misbehave, it is with the express purpose of ruining my life and has little to do with the fact that they’re just dogs. I believe that this is a side effect of watching the film Homeward Bound when I was little. Those dogs had purpose. I guess the cat did, too. But he was a cat so I don’t care.

Fig. 1.2
Reasons I hate cats almost as much as dolphins

Third, I would hate for someone I thought was attractive, funny and interesting to know these things about me all at once. I feel like it’s best to dole out the crazy a little bit at a time so that by the time it’s all out there, the escalating dose of crazy has been so gradual that the attractive, funny and interesting person doesn’t really notice that I’m a full-fledged maniac.

That being said, last Friday, the Guy I Think is Attractive, Funny and Interesting got a 100 percent concentrated dose of full-fledged crazy. And it was because my cell phone betrayed me.

Like so many people who are totally normal, I have made regrettable mistakes involving my cell phone in the past. I’ve dropped it in a glass of Malibu because it was dirty (I was also very drunk on Malibu). I’ve texted one particular friend every time I drunkenly hear the song Cupid Shuffle. I use it to update my Facebook status to “Drizzunk at Tizzaco Bell” when I’m drunk at Taco Bell. I’ve even used it to attempt to drunkenly extort Emeril Lagasse for $5 million.

Fig. 1.3
We still have business, you and I, Emeril

And here’s my next point: If you do something stupid with your cell phone because you are drunk, the person on the other end of that call writes it off as a drunk dial. (Let’s hope that Mr. Lagasse realizes that, “Dear Emrl, U still owe me $5 million for stealing ‘BAM’ from me or ELS!” was a drunk email. I also sent it to emrl@emeril.com, so it’s possible that he never received it). If you’re not drunk and your ass dials someone because it’s in your pocket, whatever you say has to be taken at face value. So I decided a long time ago to not keep my cell phone near any part of my body that can dial people at random. Because I sit on my ass and I do not sit anywhere near my exquisite, near-perfect breasts (didn’t I tell you I was a crazy narcissist? Get off my case already!) I keep my phone in my bra, because I am also very, very classy. I will also tell you that the only time my boobs accidentally called one of my friends, I was about to make a poor dating decision. My friend called me back and the poor dating decision was averted. That’s right. My boobs recognized the situation, problem solved and then phoned for help.

I told you all of that so that I could get to the actual story.

Friday morning, I was getting ready for work. Did I say morning? It was 10 a.m., which, in all fairness, is morning to me. The night before my basset hound was crying for roughly 100 hours straight because she wanted to sleep on my bed. When she sleeps on my bed, she sleeps on top of me. Literally on top of me. I wake up and she’s curled up in a heavy, spiteful ball on my back. This is not a good night’s sleep. So despite her cries, I leave her in her kennel so I can sleep. This obviously doesn’t work, because when she cries, it sounds like a cross between a bird that got hit with a car, a woman falling off of a cliff and a werewolf.

This is pretty much what it sounds and looks like:

Needless to say, we were not on speaking terms when I woke up. I let her out of her kennel, groggy and irritated, and let her run around the apartment like a dog who has never before tasted the sweet flavor of freedom. She’s extremely dramatic. At this point I was half dressed. Skirt on, bra on, phone in its correct position, when the basset sneaks into my closet and runs out with my one of my favorite shoes. Have you ever had a pair of shoes that were not only the cutest shoes in the whole wide world, but also actually fit? That was this pair of shoes. So I screamed. She dropped the shoe and jumped on my bed. She jumped up, put her paws on my chest and pushed off of me like a gymnast trying to use a pommel horse. About that time, my neighbor came over to ask me a question. I threw a shirt on, went to the door, answered her question, and came back just in time to see the Dog Sent From Hell to Ruin My Life devouring my shoe.

Me: LOVIE! (her name is Lovie)
Lovie: chompchompchompchomp

I got closer to her and she did that thing dogs do where she stuck her ass in the air and started to wiggle like this was a hilarious game. (note: this was not a hilarious game). I screamed at her like some sort of banshee that was just run through the heart with a joust. She ran, chewing and slobbering as she went.

Remember how I said I talk to my dogs like they’re people? This was no exception. The only difference was that this time, I was screaming like a maniac.

Me: YOU ARE RUINING MY LIFE! YOU ARE THE WORST DOG IN AMERICA! I AM LITERALLY GOING TO KILL YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS! WHEN I CATCH YOU I WILL RIP OUT ALL OF YOUR TEETH AND MAKE THEM INTO A NECKLACE AND YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO DESTROY ANYTHING AGAIN! I’M GOING TO FEED YOU TO GIL! I WILL NEVER LET YOU OUT OF YOUR KENNEL FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! IF YOU WERE IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY YOU’D BE A COAT BY NOW! YOU'RE CRAZY! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!
Lovie: chompchompchompchomp

She clearly didn’t understand any of this because in response, she just ran around the apartment with my shoe in her mouth.

Fig. 1.4
What my dog looks like when she thinks she's playing a hilarious game.

In my hurry to remove the shoe, my phone fell out of my bra. Classy. The screen looked weird, so I picked it up to investigate. I had apparently been leaving a very long message for The Guy I Think is Attractive, Funny and Interesting.

Has a realization so awful hit you that you lose time and then find yourself alone, rocking in a corner under your desk crying, eating yogurt with the wrong end of a spoon and listening to More Than Words by Extreme? Because I was half a panic attack away from that. I scrambled to remember what I had said, what I had done, what had happened (because so, so many times I’m alone in my apartment singing Kanye West or Paula Abdul. Badly.) and realized that I had threatened the life of a 30-pound basset hound while screaming maniacally. I had also accused her of being the worst dog in America, and suggested that she was purposefully trying to ruin my life. I assume the visual of what I looked like was a little like this:

Fig. 1.5
I did NOT look like this, if you're reading, Guy Who I Think is Attractive and Interesting

I sent a quick text, attempting to not sound crazy, apologizing for the call and telling him that he could just disregard the message.

Then I panicked again. He lives in California. It’s 10 here, but it’s 8 there. And he’s probably sleeping. So not only did I call and leave a four hour message of myself screaming, I machine gun texted directly after that. Nope. I’m not crazy.

When I heard from him later that night (after hours of thinking “I am the biggest idiot alive and he will never want to talk to me again because I am full-on-Gary-Busey crazy and why do I even OWN a cell phone) he laughed and promised it was ok (whenever The Guy I Think is Attractive, Funny and Interesting tells me something is ok, I just assume that it’s not).

I’m pretty sure he’ll never talk to me again.

The Worst Date of All Time: Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 04:15:00 +0000

Part 2: So I have this samurai sword.

First off, in case you haven’t seen the first part, you can catch it here.

So when we left off, Bodie, my 34-year-old, unemployed, legally blind, Harry-Potter-fan date that lived with his parents, was very excited that his mother wanted to meet me after having spent three hours trying to very obviously hold my hand, my hand that I very obviously had in my pocket. Was I mad because he was blind? No. I was mad because first, he took me to see Harry Potter and I didn’t want to see that, and second, because I believe he was lying to me about being legally blind. The fact that he texted his mother for three hours and then beamed when she wanted to meet me (after our first date) left me to believe that only three possibilities existed:

He was just a very sweet guy that loved his mother (not that I want to date this guy, but still)
He has secret resentment built up for his mother who probably still dressed him and he would later take it out on whomever he married (not it. I called not it.)
She was dead in the basement and he just talked to her anyway.

Fig. 1.1

Bodie's Mom: Dead in a basement

I’ve got to tell you. I was leaning towards the Norman Bates scenario. So the movie was over. I only read two of the books and apparently this movie dealt with material I was in no way familiar with. There was a lot of flying around on brooms and air soccer or something.

Fig. 1.2

Harry Potter and the Movie I Wasn't Interested in Seeing

So the movie ended. He thoroughly enjoyed it, my guess is that the fact that he could SEE IT had a lot to do with that, which is well outside the arena of what I thought a blind person could do, but I’m not a scientist. We walked out to my car and he asked if I wanted to go to Barnes and Nobles. I did not, however, he was nice enough and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Which was stupid. So, so stupid. Bodie taught me two things. The first is to never try to avoid hurting someone’s feelings when they’ve lied to you about being blind. As it turns out, this type of person has no feelings. The second lesson comes up later, so we’ll just address that little gem in part three.

So I’m driving my legally blind date to Barnes and Nobles (Where he will find a book. That is not in Braille or audio format. That he will be able to read. Because he is not blind.) when he hears my iPod playing in the background.

Bodie: Oh. Rap music. I guess that’s fine.

Me: I guess because I’m driving it has to be. (Translation: I am two seconds away from throwing you out of a moving vehicle, which would be a much greater threat if you WERE ACTUALLY BLIND!)

Also, it was Digital Underground. I’m sorry. But first, Digital Underground is more alternative rap than rap. Second, how is anyone opposed to Digital Underground. Shock G?! Tupac?! Get the eff out of my car.

Fig. 1.3

That's right. Sex Packets.

So to avoid vehicular manslaughter, (is it still vehicular manslaughter if you forcefully throw the person from the vehicle?) I changed the subject.

Me: So what are you looking for at the book store? I need one more Christopher Moore book to round out my collection.

Bodie: I don’t really collect books. I collect samurai swords.

Me: …

Bodie: …

Me: Like, a collection of samurai swords?

Bodie: I have two, and they’re incredible.

First, stop it. That is the most irritating collection I’ve ever heard of. Second, two isn’t a collection. It’s two. Get a hold of yourself, Kill Bill. Let’s review the list of what I knew about Bodie before the date:

He was a history teacher
He lived in a house in Cypress
He made good grades in school
He loved to read
He was 34
His name was Bodie and I thought that was awesome

Let’s review what I know at this point in the date:

He has no job
He lives with his mother
He tells people he’s legally blind
He’s probably a habitual liar
He forced me to see Harry Potter
He texts his mother for hours at a time
He hates rap music, even Digital Underground
He “collects” samurai swords
He doesn’t know what the word “collection” means

Please remember that at this point, we’ve only been together a little over three hours and Harry Potter (Remember? That movie I didn’t want to see?) is about three hours long. I think, at this point, the samurai sword conversation is dead, because I do not respond to the “they’re incredible” comment. Mostly because I have a hard time believing that they are, indeed, incredible. But also because I do not want to perpetuate the horrible line this conversation has taken.

Bodie: Have you ever seen a samurai sword?
Me: That’s what she said?
Bodie: What?

10) He does not watch The Office. And probably has no sense of humor.

You can imagine what happened after that. From the time we were in the car, to the time I was walking through the aisles at Barnes and Nobles, to the time he decided to change the subject and talk about my religion (more about that in a second), he discussed this samurai sword. I know the origins of the samurai sword. I know how they’re cut. I know about their luster. I know what’s special about their handles. I know what Hattori Hanzo made for breakfast the day he died.

I am not interested in samurai swords. I have never been interested in samurai swords. Listening to anyone talk for an hour about something I didn’t care about to begin with did not build affinity for samurai swords. All I can tell you is that by the time we were finished with that conversation, I felt a little like beheading him with a samurai sword.

How to dispose of a head with a samurai sword:

I’m going to skip the part where he tells me that his favorite books are “elven novels” (yes. that means novels about elves) and suggested I purchase a book about fairies and just jump straight to the part where he suggested that as a couple, we might not work out because I’m Catholic.

Bodie: By the way, what religion are you? (translation: I’m probably about to judge you)

Me: I’m Catholic. (translation: you are definitely about to judge me)

Bodie: …

Me: …

Bodie: Oh, your people hate my people. We may not be able to date.

Me: Wow. Really? No one told me we had gone back to hating people again. Maybe it’s the new pope. Also, you look German. (Also, I'd rather chew my own arm out of a bear trap then go on a second date with you.)

Bodie: No. I’m a Mason.

Me: Like a Freemason?

Bodie: Yeah. It’s pretty important to me.

Me: Aside from the fact that I don’t hate anyone, you know that the Freemasons aren’t a race of people, right? Like, Chinese, Ukrainian, Canadian, American, Freemason?

Bodie: It’s just that Catholics hate us so much.

I just stared at him in amazement. First, I think that he actually believes the Freemasons are a race. He was supposed to be a history teacher (which is probably why he was jobless, now that I think of it). Second, there are several Freemasons in my church. Guess what. No one hates them. They don’t catch on fire when they walk through the door. When the priest touches them with holy water, there is no smoke. Old Catholic ladies with babushkas and cataracts don’t shake and cry when they are in the vicinity of a Freemason. Also, I think I may be confusing Freemasons with vampires.

Fig. 1.4

Vampires: Not Freemasons

Bodie: Did I upset you?
Me: No. You should be upset for you. That was pretty stupid. You ready to go yet?
Bodie: You want to go get dinner?
Me: No, thanks. I’m not really that hungry.
Bodie: Would you mind driving me to Free Birds? I hate to ask my mom when I get home.
Me: Oh yeah. Because you’re blind. Funny how I forgot. Sure.

You know how you leave your apartment and it’s raining and you get all the way out to your car, unlock it, put your seatbelt on, fix your iPod, turn the engine on and then wonder if you turned off some horrible electrical appliance, like a flat iron or a coffee maker? And you’re pretty sure that you did because you’re a creature of habit and you don’t want to walk all the way back in the rain, so you drive away? But you get about two miles down the road and now you really can’t remember turning off said electrical appliance whose only job is to create massive amounts of heat? And now you’re worrying because there’s no way, if a fire were to break out, your two dogs would escape alive and also your favorite pink heels that the dog hasn’t eaten are still in there and you’ll NEVER be able to find them again? But by the time all of this has transpired you’re even further away so you don’t go back and now all day you have to worry about the fate of your dogs, apartment and heels? Imagine that nagging feeling, multiply it by three thousand, and that's how I felt after I said I would take him to grab something to eat.

This except from Sponge Bob is very similar to, one, how I felt listening to Bodie’s stories and, two, what I expected to happen at any second.

When bad things happen to good people:

Choosing to take Bodie to Free Birds felt very, very similar to this. Except worse. Because it felt like that explosion could easily be Bodie and me in my car.

I heard that sometimes Freemasons spontaneously combust.

Why a police officer thought someone was beating me senseless today

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 03:01:00 +0000

Have you ever been part of a seemingly banal chain of events, and at the end of that chain, is the link where a police officer thinks someone’s beating you up and holding you at knifepoint? Because I hadn’t until today.

There are a number of things wrong in my apartment, and one of those things is the heater. It went out. Because of this, my two dogs and I spent all of last night snuggled in two blankets on my bed watching horrible reruns of Ghost Adventures and drinking wine. Did I say horrible? I meant amazing. And did I say wine? I meant wine. So this morning, I made a list of all the stuff I needed to do today. My plan was to call maintenance, put on my makeup in time for maintenance to come over and fix the heater, and then go to the grocery store.

I called the office to report the heater, a number of other things, and bring me an air filter because one of my dogs has the exact same amount of fur as a full grown wooly mammoth and I need to change the air filter every two weeks or my apartment looks like a shack in the middle of the dust bowl.

My apartment complex has three million units. Well maybe not, but I’m pretty sure that’s what the staff thinks. That’s how they make it sound when you need something done. So my apartment has a number of units that is somewhere between 100 and three million. Generally when I call for something, it takes them a while to show up. So after I called and put in my work order, I put my dogs up and started putting my make up on, assuming that I would have plenty of time before the maintenance guy got there to prevent him from thinking that he was servicing the apartment of some homeless bag lady that murdered one of their tenants and was sleeping in the apartment.

Why did I put the dogs up? Because the fluffy one turns into a blood thirsty vampire dog that hungers only for the flesh of strangers when someone knocks on my door. The basset hound is living here illegally, like some migrant worker that just pees on the floor and eats all of my pillows. I keep hiding her from the apartment management because they think I only have one dog, and I’d hate to see her deported. You try hiding a basset hound. It’s harder than you’d think. Anyway. The point is, it’s very frustrating to have both of them barking and howling at the door every time someone knocks.

So because it was me, and because I assumed I had enough time to put my makeup on, I was wrong. The guy came when I had just enough stuff on to look like a ghost with no eyes. So he comes in, totally avoids eye contact, fixes the heat and leaves. He forgot to bring the air filter, and promised he’d bring it by later on.

I let the dogs out of my room and into the apartment while I tried to finish my makeup. About two minutes later, both dogs start barking. Like angry barking. Like folks-were-getting-murdered-and-they-wanted-to-help-the-murderer barking. So I walked to the door to check on what it was when I hear why they’re barking.

There are two people screaming at each other outside. This was not a lover’s quarrel. This was a lover’s UFC match. And the chick was winning. Also, I think she was drunk.

Drunk Girl: “GET THE EFF OFF OF ME I HATE YOU AND I WANT YOU GONE AND LEAVE OR I’M GOING TO KICK YOUR ASS AND JUST SHUT THE EFF UP YOU EFFING EFF.” (That was the girl)

(Probably) Sober Guy: “YOU’RE DRUNK WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT?” ” (This is why I thought she might have been drunk. Screaming guys are usually very reliable)

Then she laughed maniacally. So instead of going outside, I locked the door and tried to spy on them through the peephole. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see anything. There was a lot more screaming, most of it was unintelligible, like a tea kettle or Bobcat Goldthwait from Hot to Trot.

Fig. 1.1
That's right. I couldn't find the head in a box from Seven, but I could find the marketing poster from Hot to Trot.

There was also a lot of slamming.
I thought, ‘Jeez. Somebody should call the police. I’m not doing it’.

So because I procrastinate and get bored easily (my therapist says it’s because I have a high IQ. So you stop judging me right now), I almost never get a list of things accomplished. But I was determined to get makeup on and go to the grocery store.

Let me interrupt with a fact that will be very important later. The eye makeup I was trying to put on was very, very black. Like, junior hooker black. Why was I putting on junior hooker makeup to go to Kroger’s? Mind your own business and quit acting like you know my life! Here’s a picture of what it was supposed to look like:

Fig. 1.2
This is a rough estimation.

So I finished one eye and was about to start on the other one when I accidentally STABBED MY OWN EYE WITH A MAKEUP BRUSH. Maybe some of you haven’t done this before, but this is what it feels like. Imagine someone tapes your eyelid open and pours sand in it. Then they take a loofah and scrub it around. Then they laugh at you for stabbing your own eye with a makeup brush.

This is where things start to careen out of control for me.

So my eye starts watering profusely. All of the black on my eye is running down my cheeks and I look like that girl at parties that gets wasted and then tries to dance on a table and then breaks everything and gets a concussion and throws up in a plant. Because one eye starts watering, the other eye starts watering. Because my eyes are watering, my makeup gets in them, because my makeup gets in them, they’re red and stinging. Because it’s cold, I’m wearing a hoodie on top of a short sleeved shirt. Because my eyes are stinging, I’m going to rinse them, so I rip my hoodie off so my sleeves don't get wet, without regards to how it’s tangled my hair up like a crazy person's.

Then someone knocks at the door.

Pandemonium breaks loose. The dogs start barking. The fluffy one is snarling like Zool from Ghostbusters.

Fig. 1.3
I looked it up. They spell it "Zool".

The basset hound is howling like an effing basset hound. I’m running around trying to see what’s going on but I’m blind. I look out the peephole and think it’s the maintenance guy with my air filter, so I decide to ignore it. The dogs are still growling and snarling and barking and howling. Then the guy knocks again. Then the dogs go even more crazy. My eyes are still stinging and watering, and now both of my cheeks are black. I’m terrified that if I open the door, the fluffy dog is going to kill the maintenance guy, but not before he sees the basset. His last words will be, “she has an illegal immigrant dog in her apartment”. So I pick the basset up, stepping on the fluffy one’s tail. He yowels. I trip. I yelp out of fear. I take the basset to the bedroom and try to hide her through teary eyes and panic. I throw a collar on the fluffy one and drag him to the porch. I can’t see. I’m out of breath. My hair is crazy. My cheeks are black. My eyes are red. I’ve been crying so they’re swollen. I’m panicked and flustered and frustrated. I open the door a crack and peer out like, I assume, a frightened spider monkey.

It’s a police officer.

He freezes. His face falls. He puts his hand on his night stick and asks me if I’m ok.

Me: “I’m fine.”
Skeptical police officer: “Ma’am are you sure?”

Then I realize someone must have called him about the fight.

Me: “Oh! You’re here about the fight!” (Not a good thing to say to a police officer, by the way)
Skeptical police officer: “Ma’am, really, are you ok?”

He’s not taking his eyes off my face. That’s when I realize what I look like.

Me: “Oh! I wasn’t in the fight!”
Skeptical police officer: “There’s no one in here with you?”
Me: “No? I live alone.”

And that’s when everything hits me. It took a very long time to answer the door. He heard the dog yelp. He heard me yelp. I look like someone’s just hit me in the face. My hair is crazy. I’m acting frantic. I’m not opening the door.

This man thinks someone is behind me with a knife threatening to beat the shit out of me if I rat them out.

I opened the door and invited him in so he could see. He looks at me skeptically, says thank you and walks away.

And that is how a police officer thought I was the victim of a domestic violence attack today.

I never even got my air filter.

The Worst Date of All Time: Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 05:34:00 +0000

(Note-This Worst Date of All Time was such an epic Worst Date of All Time, I’m dividing it up into three entries)

Part 1: So I forgot to tell you. I’m blind.

I was talking to a friend the other day about how I'd rather lick a homeless guy's shoe that date strangers and I think it’s time for me to tell you about the Worst Date of All Time. Do you think your worst date is worse than mine? You’re incorrect. Unless you were murdered. If you were murdered on your Worst Date of All Time, speak now. Unless you're Candace Cameron. Date rape-murder movies don't count.

So last summer I started dating. It was really weird because I had been with the same person for eight years and being around people that weren’t The Person You Have Been With For Eight Years was a lot like putting yourself in a box, shipping that box to northern Azerbaijan in the winter, jumping out of that box, and then being forced to kill a polar bear for food using a spoon while riding a unicorn. It wasn’t easy and it made no sense.

Fig. 1.1
Me, after being shipped to Azerbaijan, fighting a polar bear with a spoon on a unicorn.

I went on a couple of ok dates and a couple of bad dates and then I met this guy named Bodie. I didn’t know a whole lot about him. Which is good. Because I didn’t know him. If I had known a lot about him, it would have meant I was stalking him like some Creepy McCreeperson. I imagine Crispin Glover is a Creepy McCreeperson. ( I do not know Crispin Glover. I have never spoken to Crispin Glover. I do not know anyone who knows Crispin Glover, but he looks pretty sketchy to me.)

Fig. 1.2
Crispin Glover: Creepy McCreeperson. He's probably under your bed right now.

Let me preface this by saying that My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night set him up with me. So no one knew him that well. Still, I hope that person has to live in agony with this horrible mistake for the rest of their lives. Like Brad Pitt has to live with finding Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a box in Seven.

Fig. 1.3
I couldn't find a picture from Seven. Just pretend like He-Man is Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt is really upset off camera somewhere.

Anyway, his name was Bodie and I thought his name was amazing and that we would obviously get married because he had an awesome name. I later found out that, contrary to my original belief, you should not marry someone just because they are named Bodie.

Bodie and I talked for a while on the phone and he passed the serial murderer test, so I agreed to go out with him. The following are things he told me before we went out:

1) He was a history teacher
2) He lived in a house in Cypress
3) He made good grades in school
4) He loved to read
5) He was 34
6) His name was Bodie and I thought that was awesome

The following are things he neglected to mention before we went out:
1) He was legally blind.

I found other things out, but this was the first, and most shocking, in a series of shocking revelations throughout the evening. Here’s how I found out:
Me: So what time are you picking me up tonight?
Bodie: Oh, you’ll have to drive.
Me: Um. Ok. Is your car in the shop?
Bodie: Oh, no. I don’t drive
Me: …
Bodie: …
Me: Any particular reason? (At this point, I believed that he must have drank six bottles of Everclear and run down a bus full of Catholic school children on their way to a field trip to the zoo where they were caring for abandoned baby seals.)
Bodie: I’m legally blind.
Me: Oh. (translation: this should have come up before. not that it matters, but this should have come up before.)

So I got directions and left my office to pick him up at his house, which is where I found out another shocking revelation: He lives with his parents. At 34. On a teacher’s salary. I know you’re mad at me because he’s blind. As it turned out, though, he wasn’t that blind. trust me.

So I went to pick up my date at his parent’s house. Which is where I found this out: he hadn’t “worked in a while” because “he wasn’t sure if he liked kids”. I guess he thought, “ok. I’ll be a teacher, or I’ll throw in the towel and never work again.” Convictions.

Back to the “he’s blind” thing. I expected a full-on Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman.

Fig. 1.4
I did not expect Chris O'Donnell to be there. It would have been a bonus.

He had glasses. That was it. He didn’t touch my face. He wasn’t counting steps. He didn't have a cane. He didn't have a dog with a vest that tells me not to pet it. He said, “you look great! I love your zebra-print shirt! How do you walk in those heels?” (translation: I can see you! Look at me and my working eyes go!)

So I thought, “ok. Maybe his problem is in depth perception, so he can’t drive and it would make sense that I just picked up an unemployed 34-year-old man from his mom’s house to go out on a date”. Remember that blog I wrote where I said I suffered from either incurable optimism or you-are-the-biggest-idiot-alive disease?

I am the biggest idiot alive. Bigger than Glenn Beck.

Fig. 1.5
Look at this idiot. Get a hold of yourself, idiot.

Then came the time for us to solidify what we were doing.

Me: What do you want to do? (translation: where do blind dudes go to have fun? I can’t read Braille and I only saw Ray twice.)
Bodie: Let’s go to the movies. Then we can go to Barnes and Nobles, if you want.
Me: Ok. (translation: there’s no effing way you’re blind.)

So I started driving us to the movies, convincing myself that he has no depth perception, until he says, “you’re going to turn left in about 20 feet”. Which means that not only does he have depth perception, he doubles as an irritating GPS. I ignored it, because, like Julia Roberts, if you don’t believe in something, it just goes away. Until Robin Williams claps you back to life.

Fig. 1.6
"I played a fairy to clean up my act after playing a hooker!"

So we went to the movies. And like a good date, he asked me what I wanted to see. Then, like someone you’ve been dating for a while, he completely ignored my suggestion and took me to see Harry Potter and The Movie I Wasn’t Interested In Seeing, or something like that, where he proceeded to receive texts all night and kept trying to nonchalantly (translation: extremely obviously) hold my hand like I was in the seventh grade. ("What? Oh no. I sit with my hand upturned on the arm rest all the time. It's comfortable.)

You may have noticed that I said he was receiving texts all through the movie. I didn’t ask him about the texts for two reasons. One, I didn’t care. Two, I’m not crazy. Your texts are none of my business, no matter how rude you're being. As it turns out, I didn’t have to ask. He told me. It would have been better if he didn’t.

The texts (that he could READ oh his PHONE) he was receiving for a solid three hours, were from his mother.

He beamed. “She wants to meet you!”

Have you ever felt your entire body go cold and start shaking, then you feel your stomach twist, then your mouth tastes like pennies and you feel light headed and all you want to do is get blackout drunk and listen to House of Pain? Like probably the way Michael Caine felt when he saw, and then realized he was in, Jaws 4? That moment felt a lot like that.

Fig. 1.7
"Holy Christ. I was in that movie?"

How do I fight fire? That’s right, folks. With fire.

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:10:00 +0000

A couple months ago, I almost set my entire apartment complex on fire.

For months, my family has gathered at my parent’s house on Sundays to enjoy the pool, grill some form of delicious deceased animal and relax. I thought it would be nice to return the favor and have them out to my apartment near downtown

There were five immediate problems with this that should have alerted me that there was a 70/30 chance that this might end in disaster. Let’s review them.
1) I don’t have a barbecue grill.
2) Most of them weren’t going to be able to make it.
3) I live furthest away, and because they inexplicably love me, my mom, sister and brother had to drive out to me.
4) Horrible storms called by the wrathful hands of Zeus himself were predicted for that day. (So not only did they have to drive out to me, they had to drive out to me in torrential rain.)
5) I know how to cook. Not. (Did I just revive ‘Not’? You bet your sweet ass I did.)

Did any of those warning signs stop me? Did I see any of them as a roadblock that couldn’t be crossed? Was there, at any time, even a second when I thought ‘Gee, Jen. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea’? No, no! A thousand times no! I suffer from something that’s clinically referred to as either ‘incurable optimism’ or ‘you are the biggest idiot alive’ disease, depending on which doctor you’re visiting. It really all depends on your insurance.

So the day before everyone came out, I made a trip to the grocery store. Remember how I said that I know how to cook-not? That means that a trip to the grocery store for more than a frozen pizza or some other type of food I can put into the microwave is a lot like showing up at a port, getting on a random boat, sailing to a different country, getting to that country and realizing that not only does no one speak English, but each person has made up their own language, they are all talking at the same time, and half of them are screaming at you. (Seriously Whole Foods. You’re not as cool as you think you are. Please stop trying to force me to buy chickpeas in bulk and get your bearded employees away from me. Your aisles are very scary and I can’t find anything.)

I managed to navigate my way through the store without a yak and a Sherpa (don’t act like you don’t have them, Whole Foods) and came home with enough ingredients to make hamburgers and potato salad for, rough estimation, fourteen John Goodman’s. (I panicked. I have absolutely no idea how to make a normal quantity of food. I’m either confused as to why two hotdogs didn’t feed sixteen people or irritated that eleven pounds of mashed potatoes is far too much for a dinner for two. I’m not a mathematician. Or a chef. Sue me.)

The next day, everything seemed to be going smoothly. My mom was over, my sister had just gotten there and my brother was on his way. I put the hamburgers in the oven (which is also a broiler, because, remember, I have no grill and it was raining. Also because I live in a ritzy apartment where they combine the oven and broiler. Classy.). The first set was perfect and I beamed over my culinary prowess. Had anyone ever made hamburgers as exceptional as these? Nope. (Probably.) This is when things started to go awry.

I got so caught up in beaming, I didn’t think about changing out the greasy foil for new foil, considering I was about to put greasy foil directly under an open flame. Whatever. People make mistakes all the time. Google it.

A side note and something that’s going to be very important in a second: I have no sense of smell. I don’t want to talk about it, just trust me. It’s because I have no sense of smell that I have left gas burners on and hung out in a room with a chlorine leak. It’s also because I have no sense of smell that I have candles burning all the time when I have people over. How do I know if my apartment smells like tuna steaks that were left in the back of the drawer in the fridge for three months because I forgot they were there and my brother had to tell me that he thought something died in my kitchen? (This is hypothetical) So on this day, a candle was burning on the stove.

About five minutes after I put the second set of burgers in the oven, I noticed that the room was hazy. My mom said, ‘it smells like something’s burning’ and I looked over at the stove.

From each of the burners billowed a gray-black pillar of smoke, like a horrible pantheon in Hell where they made burgers all day.

I opened the oven and my sister said, very calmly (much more calmly than my shark situation) “There’s a fire”.

I’ll interrupt here to tell you that my sister is very, very experienced with setting things on fire. Ask her how long it takes to burn hard boiled eggs. My point is, when she says something’s on fire, it’s probably on fire.

No sooner had she alerted me, when fire ERUPTED OUT OF THE OVEN LIKE MOUNT VESUVIUS OVER POMPEII. If I stood there a second longer, you’d be visiting me 100 years from now in a travelling museum exhibit forever frozen in whatever horrific pose I struck seconds before I was petrified in burger grease and flames. I turned around to grab my fire extinguisher and left the oven door open. Why? Because I DON’T REGULARLY SET THINGS ON FIRE AND I PANICKED. DON’T JUDGE ME.

Amidst the fiery hell flames licking at my face as I fumbled for the fire extinguisher pin, my mom said, very calmly, “Jen, shut the door”. Apparently she’s had experience with setting houses on fire.

Here’s the thing. When you’re about to be set on fire, you don’t do anything calmly. You just make moves. Sometimes those moves are far too spirited. “Shutting the door” quickly and easily transitioned into “slamming the oven door shut with the exact same amount of force it took Dolph Lundgren to break Skeletor’s staff and send him into the pit of pink lava at the end of the He-Man movie”.

This started a chain reaction. The slamming oven door rocked the oven, which knocked over my bamboo salt and pepper shakers, which knocked over my frog-head pot holders (jealous?), which bumped into the candle burning on the oven, which sent the candle toppling over, on FIRE, onto the stove, which was already on fire. Wax (which I assume was grapefruit scented) went spilling all over the stove. I tried to beat the shit out of the burning candle with a towel in one hand and a fire extinguisher in the other. Guess what doesn’t put out fires. Hopping up and down and waving a towel and fire extinguisher at a fire.

My sister somehow got the stove fire out ( I must have lost time because I have no idea how she did it) while my mother, with presence of mind, instructed me to turn off the broiler. In the end, the burgers weren’t even burned.

Moral of this story? I will do absolutely anything someone tells me to do if my apartment is on fire. But I will do it with the exact same amount of strength as He-Man.

Why I Hate Clowns, and You Should, Too

noreply@blogger.com (JennieB) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:33:00 +0000

There has been much talk (literally zero talk) among important circles (nope) about my hatred of clowns. Is hating clowns cliché? Of course it is. Am I claiming coulrophobia for attention? Shut up. That’s ridiculous. I wear shirts two sizes too small for attention. I call people ‘Chuckles’ for attention. I say things like ‘the book was so much better’ for attention (Hey! I can read! Are you jealous?! What? You’re not because you can read, too?). There is no reason for me to claim to be afraid of clowns for attention. I’m aware that most people don’t actually understand why a horrible, terrifying creature of death like a clown would scare me, so I’m giving you a list, not unlike my list of reasons that I hate those douchebaggy dolphins.

1) They’re murderers. All of them. Remember John Wayne Gacey? Maybe not all murderers are clowns, but all clowns are definitely murderers (this has not been substantiated in any way). For visual learners, here’s a diagram and a photo. The diagram shows you that 100 percent of all clowns are murderers (rough estimate) and the photo shows you what it looks like right before a clown murders you.

Fig. 1.1
Percentage of clowns that are murderers
vs. percentage of murderers that are clowns

Fig. 1.2
Clown that will be waiting on your sofa eating
your popcorn ready to murder you when you
get home from work tomorrow

2) They’re show offs. Oh really. So you can make a balloon animal? How amazing. I can sing that part in “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone” that goes andiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknowiknow in one breath. Do you see me wearing a ridiculous costume and forcing my beautiful songbird voice on anybody that’s just trying to enjoy their lunch at Gringo’s in peace? Do you see me walking around in a grocery store with a megaphone singing Bill Withers to people trying to shop for gluten-free bread and handing out stickers that say ‘I met a girl who can sing like Bill Withers today’ to everyone in the dairy aisle? No! You know why? Because it’s obnoxious! Knock it off with the stupid flower hats! No one wants to wear them! I don’t think you’re incredible because you can take an already-pliable material and shape it into something I can’t actually pet or wear. If you really want to impress me, try showing me that you’re not a murderer by taking off that horrible face paint and getting a real job. Here’s a picture of a clown being an asshole.

Fig. 2.1
Get a hold of yourself, asshole.

3) They live in caves. Trust me. Here’s a picture of what to look for and then a picture of the murderous clown that lives in this particular cave.

Fig. 3.1
Clown habitat with evidence of recent clown activity

Fig. 3.2
Murderous clown that lives (or doesn't) in this cave

4) They serve too many functions. Seriously, clown. Am I supposed to be sad for you because you’re a gloomy hobo clown warming your creepy clown hands over a fire in a barrel with a bandana on a stick over your shoulder? Am I supposed to be laughing at you because seventy six of you just got out of a Smart car and you’re all wearing comically large shoes and carrying some sort of fruit pie? Am I supposed to be relieved you’re there because you’re distracting a bull from a grown man that made the dumb decision to get on an animal that is the equivalent of an angry, fast triceratops minus one horn? Am I supposed to be impressed by you because you can put on a weird spandex costume, speak in French and walk four hundred feet in the air on a tight rope? (Cirque du Soliel: stop it) The clown world doesn’t need utility players, clown. Pick a function and stick with it so I know what to avoid in the future.

Fig. 4.1
Boo hoo hoo. Get a job.

Fig. 4.2
Your shoes sicken me, clown. Quit stuffing
115 of your friends in one car. I hate you.

Fig. 4.3
"Bull riders make bad decisions, but I make
worse decisions."

Fig. 4.4
What in Jeezy Creezy's name is this
horrible monstrosity about?

And there it is. It’s not because of haunted houses. It’s not because a clown murdered a friend of mine (yet. I’m sure this will happen). And it’s certainly not because of the movie It. The book was so much better anyway, Chuckles.

Here’s a picture of me in a shirt two sizes too small.

Fig. 5.1
Yay! Attention!