So you know how you’re goin’ along eating your favorite potato chips, Lay’s Salt & Vinegar, and you’re making good time, but you probably ate so fast that you jammed a chip up into your gum line and say “Ouch, dammit” but then you just keep eating anyway?

And because now you probably poked a hole in your gums, the salt and vinegar is like throwing gasoline on a fire and your mouth really hurts and you’re like “I should probably stop eating these” but you can’t because Salt & Vinegar chips are your most favoritest kind of chip and before you know it, the bag is empty?

And then the next day your gum still hurts, on fire actually, and it’s painful to eat anything else and you’re like “OMG, what a dumbass. Should have stopped eating those chips.”

And then like a week or two goes by and this bastard still hurts and now you’re starting to worry that there’s part of a chip stuck under your gum, getting all infected and now the infection is going to travel through your bloodstream and kill you just about the time you land in Paris for the first leg of your long-awaited vacation and you wonder “How do you say “I think I’m dying” in French?”

So then you call the dentist and ask for an emergency visit to see if there is a chip stuck up under there and the receptionist writes “Check patient for potato chip” in the log book and the dentist and his hygienist greet you laughing when you show up to have it looked at?

And then the dentist takes a look and says “Wow, you really messed that up in there. From a potato chip? Remarkable.”

And you’re like “Well, I really like those chips.” And he’s all “You really injured your palate, but it’s healing OK” and says to the hygienist “Here, take a picture” and tells me “We take pictures of everything now” and then “Do you wanna see it? and I’m like “Um. No. I know what I did, thank you.”

Yeah, that happened.

As many of you know, I’m traveling to Europe soon. The last leg of the trip will be spent visiting my friends and yours, Babs and Mo, who live in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.

One thing I like to do when visiting blogger friends is to bring a gift with me that’s distinct to my town. Since I’m traveling out of the country this time, I want to bring something uniquely American.

Hmmm, what to pack? I want it to be a food item that can survive the trip, but that limits me to something processed, like cookies or hard snacks.

I also want it to scream Americana, so I thought of the classic Oreo cookie.

Yes! Oreos it is!

So I researched whether they’re available in the UK. It’d be stupid to bring something Babs and Mo can get at their local grocery.

I’m excited to find that the company only just started producing them there, so maybe they’ve never seen them before. This is good.

Except.

Except that the factory where the company decided to produce them is located in……

Sheffield.

Of course they are.

Babs and Mo, maybe you should just tell me what you’d like me to bring, huh?

Really? There’s not one other place my cat can sit?

Not on a couch.

Not on a chair.

Not on a bed.

Not over there.

Not in a window.

Not on the floor.

Not on the pillow.

Not by the door.

So many choices.

What in the hell.

Of all the places.

He picks my Dell.

So you know how you’re all fresh and newly married and you care how you look?

You dress like a human for your spouse because they deserve to look at someone even remotely presentable.

You dress like you could even leave the house in the clothes you’re wearing to, oh, maybe check the mailbox.

And then.

And then 20 years of marriage later you just really don’t care any more and you’re even afraid to check the mailbox because a neighbor might see you in your tattered clothes and they’ll start a crowd funding campaign so you can get a new wardrobe that you can wear in public.

Yeah.

I’ve had these shorts for like 10 years. They’re my favorite pair. Yes, that’s a series of giant holes in the butt region. Didn’t care. That’s also a hole in the crotch. Also didn’t care.

And that’s the elastic waistband showing through from a thousand washings. Didn’t care.

Today I finally cared. I bought a brand new pair of shorts at Wal-mart for $7. Seven measly dollars that I apparently couldn’t find in the budget for the last 10 years.

So let’s hear it, folks. What exactly are you getting away with wearing that is years beyond its useful life?

I know there’s something.

In an unreliable and totally made up survey, when a group of 100 women were asked to name the most uncomfortable piece of clothing or accessory that society expects them to wear, 79% of them said high-heeled shoes.

Most of my imaginary study group were wearing said heels and half of them slipped them off during questioning because their feet were blown up the size of bread loaves and the group got really unruly when danish they were promised for their time never showed up.

Anyway, I’ve been thinkin’ about what men would say is the one thing society expects them to wear that they wish didn’t have to.

That thing has got to be the necktie.

As for me, I hate, hate, hate anything around my neck. I will allow a winter scarf when it’s cold, but none of my shirts or blouses have necks on them. I need to breathe, people.

A turtleneck? Kill me, why don’t you.

So men. Here’s where you get to bitch and moan. Exactly how much do you hate wearing neckties?

It’s gotta be some kind of hell, always worrying it’ll fall in your food or get caught in something, not to mention choking you all day long.

Do you pick out your own ties? Do you give any kind of crap about what tie goes well with what suit?

Is the first thing you do when you leave the office undo that bastard?

I don’t feel sorry for men very much, but ties? You win.

However, I will say that women have you beat on the hosiery front. We will always have you beat on constricting sausage-making legwear. That and the aforementioned spikey, toe malformation-making footwear.

I want my old feet back. Just sayin’.

No doubt some of you know what the acronym TL;DR stands for. If you don’t, it’s “too long; didn’t read.”

TL;DR is often used in response to a very long post somewhere on the Internet that people feel was too long to read and just skipped it.

Sometimes a writer will add TL;DR to the end of their post and give a short summary for their long-windedness for the benefit of lazy people.

I’m one of those lazy people. And my acronym lately is TL;DG (too lazy; didn’t Google), for today I posted a comment on a friend’s Facebook status that I was surprised I hadn’t heard about a streaming webcam fixed on the pipe from where smoke will bellow after a pope is either decided or not.

I ask, exactly how lazy do you have to be to not Google something? I mean, in the time it took for me to tell my friend that I didn’t think there was a pope smoke cam, I could have actually Googled whether or not there was one.

Think back to pre-Internet days. To learn anything at all about the pope election process, I’d have had to walk to a library. We were encyclopedia-free in my house, so finding facts meant actually putting a coat on and walking two blocks to Mary Meuser Memorial Library, where I did all my school work that involved research.

Now we have Google at our fingertips and somehow I think it’s still too much work to move my cursor all the way up to the search box, type “pope streaming cam,” tap Enter and get an answer instantly.

I mean, really. Lazy is as lazy whines about doing.

Now if you’ll excuse me, typing this post nearly killed me. I have to go lie down.

Oh, and if you’re curious, yes, there is a streaming pope pipe cam here. Get it while it’s hot!

It is possible to make a quick stop at the grocery store on a full bladder, for just a few things, but pick up more things than you planned and all heavier than you should carry on one arm, stacked precariously, and then run into a woman you used to work with thirteen years ago, and you really did want to see her, and then stand in the middle of an aisle wearing a winter coat and gloves, and catch up on those last thirteen years for half an hour, on a full bladder (in case you forgot), and the items you’ve been holding on your arm like a Jenga game now feel like they weigh 58 pounds and you’re trying to think of how not to pass out because oh my God you’re wearing a parka, not pee in your pants because full bladder, politely end the conversation, say your goodbyes, give a hug, and not drop the Jenga tower all over the floor.

Yeah. It can be done. But I don’t recommend it.

The other day I was working on a PC problem in a client’s office. The client allowed me access while he wasn’t there, and also offered me any amount of Hershey Kisses he leaves in a giant cookie jar on his desk.

While working on the problem, I called a colleague to toss around some ideas about how to fix it. I told her about the client offering me chocolate from the cookie jar.

The jar is enormous. Really, like, I don’t know where you’d even buy one that big.

To give her an idea of how big it was, I tried to think of a way to estimate its size.

I did not say it was about a foot and a half tall and a foot wide.

I did not say that it was about three times the size of an average cookie jar.

I did not say that it probably weighed 20 pounds, even without any chocolate in it.

What I did say was that you could fit a severed head in it perfectly and put the lid back on securely.

I watch a lot of true crime TV shows.

So there you go. A severed head-sized amount of chocolate, all for the taking. I took about an ear’s worth.

Yesterday I visited my Mom at her nursing home. When I left, I took her laundry so I could wash it at my house and take it back this morning.

Laundry is a no-brainer. Yesterday I did it with truly no brain at all and we’ll see why.

When I sensed Mom’s wash was done, I opened the lid and moved everything to the dryer. But it felt funny, a little slippery. A little off.

All sorts of warning sirens went off in my head, but I ignored every last one of them and put the load in the dryer anyway. Then I immediately put my own laundry in the washer, poured in some liquid detergent, closed the lid, pressed the start button and nothing happened.

Why? Because evidently Mom’s cycle hadn’t finished yet. The knob was still on “Rinse.” Dumbass.

This is an issue now, of course, because I realize my mother’s laundry never got rinsed or spun, and now it’s in the dryer, tumbling in its own soapy residue. Aaaaand, now my own laundry is sitting in the washer soaked with detergent. 

Here’s where you would think I’d just wash my own load since it’s already in there. But no. I inexplicably chose to remove it – dripping with detergent – and dump it in an oozy pile on the floor and put Mom’s back in for a second cycle.

A second cycle because my washing machine is harder to understand than the Higgs boson particle. I cannot get it restarted where it left off. I can only start it all over again.

Whatever. Second cycle. Mom’s clothes are gonna be super clean now.

Another half an hour later, hers is done. My drippy load goes in. Yea! We’re making progress.

Except.

When Mom’s clothes are finished in the dryer and I start unloading, that’s when I hear it.

Clink.

Nothing fills me with dread more than having to sew and now I have to because a button has fallen off one of my Mom’s blouses.

Yes, I know it’s just a button, but sewing for me might as well be open heart surgery. I’ll strain my back and neck from hunching over so long and there will likely be blood.

Swear to God, my first thought was to somehow staple the button back on. Shouldn’t there be a device for that? If there is, I don’t have one, and so begins the blind-as-a-bat, gorilla fingers part of the show.

I assemble my little sewing kit, the pathetic kind you get at a dollar store, on the kitchen counter.

My cat Lucky catches wind of this, sees all the thread and he’s like “Awesome! I’m getting string? Are we having a string party?”

No, we are not having a string party, now GET DOWN! He does not get down; instead, he starts purring because he’s thinking the circus came to town and this is going to be fun.

It is not fun. There’s no way in hell I’m threading this needle without the help of that wiry diamond-shaped thingamabob you put through the eye of the needle, and then put the thread through that.

This goes fairly well, except now Lucky’s in bat-the-string mode and so I have to move the operation to the dimly-lit laundry room, which is so helpful for open heart, you know.

There, I begin a process whereby I totally miss threading around the bracket thingy on the back of the button and instead do nothing but make holes in the blouse as the button eludes me and falls off to the side. Bloop.

Sew, sew, sew. Bloop.

I stab myself several times. I curse a little.

This process goes on with enough successes that I finally have the button attached, but with a giant blob of unnecessary thread on the other side of the button.

But you know what? It’s lined up perfectly and fits through the button hole!

I’m ecstatic that I’ve finally completed this weekend laundry project, hang the blouse on a hanger, button the top button and marvel at my achievement.

Ahhh, so pretty! So functional! A masterpiece, really.

And then.

Clink.

A second button falls off and I consider my choices:

1. Kill myself. 2. Realize that it’s the bottommost button on the blouse, and does my mother really need that one?  3. Throw the blouse away and buy a new one.

Reluctantly, I get crackin’ on the second button, going through all the same traumas as the first. Swearing, stabbing and sulking until we achieve sewn-on, locked-down buttony goodness.

I hope my sisters are reading this. Flip a coin, ladies. One of you is getting Mom’s laundry next week.

I wouldn’t say I’m textbook OCD, just some little quirks here and there. For instance, I have never pressed the trip counter button in my car since I bought it 13 years ago.

I just can’t reset the mileage. You would think someone with OCD tendencies would do something like reset it to a row of pretty little zeroes each time she gets out of the car. But you’d be wrong.

Knowing I’ve never pressed it in all this time means I can never press it ever, ever, ever. You know?

And then there’s this.

I’ve been refilling the same soap dispenser for over 10 years. I can’t replace it. Why?

Not because I’m an earth-loving environmentalist (although consider how much plastic I’ve saved by not buying new bottles. Go me!).

It’s because I’ve had it for over 10 years. That’s all. It’s like a contest with myself to see how long I can keep it going. And now I can never part with it.

And my husband better not toss it just to get a rise out of me because, if he does, he’s going to be left with the kind of wife who whines and cries every time she washes her hands with an imposter soap dispenser.

Besides, two could play that game. Seems my husband has a little OCD himself.

See how perfectly he stacks forks in the  silverware tray?

I oblige his OCD by stacking them neatly when I put dishes away, even though I don’t care if they’re all askew.

But get rid of my soap dispenser and just see how organized I keep them. Just see. [insert maniacal laughter here].

So I mentioned to my husband Dave that I entered a sweepstakes drawing for a $500 gift certificate for Cabela’s.

I was all excited because wouldn’t it be nice to have a huge gift card for delicious dinners at an Italian restaurant? Yeah, it would.

Except.

Dave: Where did you say you entered?

Me: Cabela’s.

Dave: That’s not a restaurant.

Me: Yes it is. It’s Italian.

Dave: No it’s not. You buy guns and ammo there. It’s for sportsmen. You know, tackle boxes and camping equipment.

Me: Oh. I guess I thought it was Carrabba’s.

Dave: Ya think?

So, if I win this thing, anyone need a kayak? Cuz apparently I’m not getting any food there.

God bless the 80-year-old cashier workin’ the front line at the McDonald’s I frequent.

I’ve seen her before, always during the morning shift, when McD’s turns into a pickup joint for the over 75 set. It’s full of joking, laughing, and blissfully curmudgeony people.

The cashier is a social butterfly, knows all the regulars’ names, asks about their grandkids and probably loves what she does.

Except what she does is this sort of thing:

Me: Two medium coffees with 10 creamers on the side.
 
Her: (cutting me off): One medium coffee?

She puts the coffee in the carrier and asks "Cream and sugar?"

I mentally drill laser beams through her sweet little head, then say a prayer for her and all the people behind me, because you just know nobody’s gettin’ what they want today.

And then I smile because I firmly believe that the management keeps her on because she loves to see people and people love to see her.

Sometimes familiar faces in friendly places are enough.

That, and checking your order before you leave.

I’m on a roll. Apparently this is the week where I throw food and drink at people.

So today I went to visit my Mom at her nursing home. When I go, I always bring coffee for both of us.

When I parked and got out of my car, I saw a shiny new penny lying on the ground and grabbed it.

You know the saying?

See a penny, pick it up. And then all day you’ll have good luck!

No, not you, Kathy. Just put it back where you found it. Good luck pennies are only for other people.

Because when I prepared my mom’s coffee with creamer and put the lid back on, I bumped the table the coffee was sitting on into her bed and the cup went flying, end over end, and coffee spurted out the drink hole like Old Faithful.

Coffee.

All.

Over.

My.

Mother’s.

Bed.

With her still in it.

I didn’t stop apologizing for an hour, even though my mother said “That’s OK. It’s my fault. If I’d gotten out of bed earlier, this never would have happened.”

Oh, Mom. Stop making excuses for your numbskull klutz of a daughter.

Of course, you could make an argument that the penny did actually bring me good luck.

The lid stayed on securely and ohmyGod, thank you McDonalds for making tight-fitting lids because a half-soaked mom is better than a full-soaked one, if you’re keeping score.

I fear Christmas dinner tomorrow. There will be a whole table full of things I can dump in people’s laps, catapult into their faces and all manner of silverware that I can accidentally stab them with.

If all anyone at dinner wants for Christmas is their two front teeth, I’m not sure they’ll be leaving with them.

So I get an email from a friend today. She’s asking me when and where I’ll be available tomorrow for her to drop something off for me.

Because it’s probably a Christmas gift and I want to return the favor, I decide to head to the store to buy some Toll House Cookie Dough and make her a cookie gift bag.

I grab a two-dozen package and head to the checkout. Pay for the dough and then because I’m wearing soft gloves, when I quickly pick up the slippery plastic package, it goes flying right out of my hand and into a lady bagging her groceries in the next aisle.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I don’t normally throw food at people!”

I continue, “You know why I’m buying these? Because I just know someone’s going to gift me tomorrow and I didn’t have anything for her and you know how awkward it is when someone gives you something and you don’t have anything to give in return? This is why Christmas stresses me out! Really, I’m sooooo sorry!!!!”

She stood there, smiling pitifully at me, as I scoop up my cookie dough from the floor at her ankles.

All she could muster at the sight of my mortified self was “I hope you have a Merry Christmas anyway.”

God bless you, stranger lady who I threw food at. I’m so happy you had pity on me and weren’t some Scrooge person who would sue me for cookie dough assault and battery.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas, too.

Tonight I found myself comfortably welded to the couch, surrounded by all my creature comforts: remote controls, laptop, blankies and two cats, when an overwhelming desire for donuts washed over me.

I had a gift card for Dunkin’ Donuts and they have a drive-thru. I haven’t showered in two days, I wouldn’t have to be seen by humans for very long and all I had to do was put on pants.

But I still asked myself whether I had the energy to go. Was it worth detaching myself from the couch, putting on pants, and going out in the cold?

Whenever I have a pressing question, I go to Facebook and ask all my friends what I should do.

The consensus was that, yes, I should go upstairs and put on pants and drive a short distance to Dunkin’ Donuts and partake in a donut feast.

One friend said the closest one to her was two hours away; in fact, Cuba was closer, and I should go on behalf of all the people in the world who don’t have a Dunkin’ Donuts within a 10 minute drive.

And so I went. For humanity.

Now, I had some fears about ordering donuts at the drive-thru. Normally, when you order a dozen donuts, one requests a mixture of flavors and one is typically standing inside at the counter, pointing at them so the cashier knows what you want.

In my case, because I’m not actually near the donuts, and also because I didn’t want to get into a screaming match over the intercom selecting some crazy mixture of donuts, I decided I would keep it simple and order this:

Half dozen Boston Cream.

Half dozen Glazed.

Simple.

But no.

Immediately I’m told that they only have three glazed. OK, no problem. I order the three glazed, plus three powdered, plus the six Boston Cream.

I pull around to the pick-up window, where I am told they were wrong about the powdered. They have none of those.

Sigh.

I am speechless because I don’t know how to describe any of the other pretty little donuts they have inside that I can’t see.

I put my palm to forehead and think, think, think.

The cashier says “Ma’am, are you OK?”

I can’t look this guy in the eyes because I’m so embarrassed that he thinks I think this is the worst thing that could ever happen to a person, but that’s not what I’m thinking.

I’m thinking that I’m sitting at a donut place, a place that makes almost nothing but donuts, and they have hardly any donuts in a donut place that sells donuts.

Wait a minute – maybe this is the worst thing that could happen to a person.

“I don’t know what to order now,” I sigh.

“Well, what else do you like?” he asks.

I tell him “How about those glazed ones with the chocolate icing on them?”

He reports that they have some and I hear him shout to the back “Three iced chocolate glazed!”

I wait an eternity for my donuts to be handed to me.

When they are, the cashier says “Ma’am, I hope you like your donuts.”

Again, I can’t look this guy in the face because I’m kind of mortified that he is sure I’m going to pull away with my not-what-I-really-came-for donuts and cry my eyes out.

I fled.

I got home.

And I ate three of these immediately.

And I wondered where the iced chocolate glazed ones were. Didn’t I specify iced chocolate glazed?

Oh, hell. Does it really matter?

No, it does not.

I am full of donuts and life is good. All for the price of putting pants on.

For the win!