My friend, (not her real name) Tori and I have a lot in common. We’re both married to software engineer musicians. We are both childless by choice. We both have hair that frizzes at the slightest sign of moisture. We both love to wander Target to calm our brains because everything is in its bright and shiny place. And we both have the most bizarre embarrassing things happen to us. Awkward, excruciating things that would cause other people to never leave the house, we find hysterical and share with everyone we know.
The other night, Tori sent me a text, ‘OMG! I have such an embarrassing story for you.’ And Tori wasn't kidding. In fact, I think this is one my favorite stories EVER! I give you, for your pleasure and mine, Tori Goes To Target: After a particularly stressful day at work Tori took herself off to the Target to wander the aisles in the quiet, looking at pretty things and pretending people didn’t die that day. She drifted into the hair product aisle, looking, as we frizzy-haired folk do, for that one product that will calm the frizz but not leave it smelling like a rancid immovable helmet. Tori’s been using Miss Jessie products and has been very happy with the results so when she saw they had a new product out, she pulled it off the shelf to check it out. Now, it is stupid to buy a body product without smelling it, especially one that’s going to be slathered on your hair so Tori opened the bottle to have a sniff. Pleased with the aroma, she put the cap back on and twisted it shut. But another thing Tori and I have in common is that we are absolute klutz’s. As she twisted the top back on, the bottle slid out of her hands and, despite her fumbling, landed on the floor and busted open. Hair cream splattered everywhere, on the shelves, on the floor just as a helpful Target employee came around the corner. Horrified, Tori looked down at the mess and then up at the employee. “I’m so sorry.” She said, looking at the mess. “I’ll pay for it!” But the employee just shooed her away, told her she’d call for a clean up and everything would be fine. And so Tori walked away, face flaming red, smearing the bit of cream that had landed on her hands into her hair. As she wandered the store, her skin returning to its pre-embarrassed color, she noticed people looking at her and smiling. She smiled back. Then she noticed people looking at her, eyes wide in shock and giggling. She checked to make sure she didn’t have hair lotion on her clothing. Her black pencil skirt was clean. Her blouse was clean. She couldn’t see anything that was an issue and yet people kept looking at her and snickering. Bemused, Tori dismissed them and turned into the coffee aisle, smiling at the family of four gathered at the other end. The children looked at her, pointed and blatantly laughed out loud. Tori looked down at her outfit again but still didn’t see anything worth laughing about. She looked up. The children were definitely laughing at her. Tori looked at them, confused smile on her face. "What's so funny?" she asked. Then the mother walked over to her, pulled a tissue out of her purse, handed it to Tori and said, “I don’t know what you’ve got going on there, but you should clean it up.” And she pointed at Tori’s leg. Tori looked down. Past her pristine pencil skirt to the leg the mother was gesturing to. Her leg, which currently had a large glob of white hair cream on it. A glob that had landed UP her skirt when the hair lotion bottle had exploded. A glob of white hair cream that, as she’d walked around the store, had then become a thick stream of cream, slowly making it’s goopy way down her leg and into her shoe. A glob of hair cream that resembled - in every-single way but smell - sperm that appeared to be leaking down her leg as she wandered the Target store dressed like a soccer mom!!! Horrified Tori explained the story of the exploding hair lotion bottle to the family while ineffectively wiping at the cream with the quickly disintegrating napkin. The cream smeared and looked even worse, now with bits of rolled up napkin adding to the horror. With an self-conscious smile to the mother, Tori hurried herself to the back corner of the store where she knew the employee bathroom was, hoping she might find someone to take pity on her and let her clean herself up. She didn’t find a single employee in that corner. She found twenty! Twenty Target employees having training in the back corner of the store near the bathroom all turned and looked as Tori comes round end of the shelf unit looking like she had what looked like the remnants of a quickie sliding down her leg. But Tori being Tori, when faced with a twenty of horrified faces, stopped, put her hand on one popped hip, squishy napkin in the other gesturing at her cream smeared leg and very clearly said, “What? So I obviously had a quickie in the parking lot. So what?” Because, while she may not be good at holding bottles of lotion, Tori is fantastic at breaking the tension in a room and brilliant at making light of the obviously and great at turning a ‘Something About Mary’ moment into a comedy sketch. This is why Tori and I are friends. Like minds and like experiences make for lifetime snorts and giggles. And, apparently now, lifetime references to quickies in the Target parking lot. Good times!
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One of the things that totally irritates me is when someone talks down to me and treats me like I’m stupid. My mother and I call it the ‘Little Lady’ syndrome. It’s usually a man doing the, “Don’t worry your pretty little head, Little Lady.” and it makes me see red. It happened to me last time I went into the Apple Store, the dude assumed I knew jack about what I was talking about and just shot me a look that said, “I’m smarter than you, Little Lady.” He might have been right but that type of thing never happened in the Apple Store in California because everyone worked for Apple so they just assumed everyone was on the same level or could crush you with their career/money/power. But here… I’m digressing. My ongoing saga with computers and my website and my love/hate/fear of them/it has apparently been resolved. And according to the help desk Website Dude who totally pulled a “You’re stupid, Little Lady”, I’ve been posting things to the site wrong. See, I write everything in Word because I’m Dyslexic and Word helps me out with what I think I’m trying to say and then corrects my spelling on everything I did say. I write, fiddle then cut and paste to the website, fiddle some more, and then publish. But, according to Website Dude, I need to cut/paste into a text edit thing THEN cut/paste to the site. “But WHY,” I asked, “When for the last two years, I’ve been cut/pasting from word with no issues? Why now?” And he freakin’ Little Lady’d me and didn’t answer my question, just patted me on the head and told me not to worry about it and to do what he said and everything would be okay. ASSHAT!!! Now I’m grumpy and want to punch his stupid face and take my business elsewhere but I know I’m not going to because I’ve paid up and because I’m lazy and yada yada yada… grumble/bitch/moan. Anyway, my ability to cut and paste has returned so here’s Monday’s post. Totally not worth the wait but, whatever. Blame Website Dude and my inability to know I should be pasting to text edit first even though it was never an issue before... grumble. ... Mr. Spider came back Friday night. I thankfully spotted him just as I opened the storm door and it skimmed over his hairy back. After the obligatory squeal, I let the dog out for her pee and got my camera to take a picture of him. Because nothing is true unless it’s on Facebook and there’s commentary. A few hours later, after a Facebook comment asking for a size reference – massive apparently not being accurate enough – Husband and I went looking for Mr. Spider armed with a camera and measuring tape. By this point Mr. Spider was no longer on the ground at ankle biting level but in the corner of our front door porch area, at hair jumping and consequent nest laying level. More squealing was had, mostly from me, while Husband and I took pictures with the measuring tape as proof of Mr. Spider’s massiveness. Yes, Australian readers, I know this is nothing compared to the moose you guys call spiders but here, this dude is big. Anyway, proof posted to Facebook, I noticed I’d gotten a message from my new friend, Bob. You remember Bob from last week? The one who ditched his promising date when she spotted a spider and asked him to do something about it. Well, Bob sent me this message, which made me happy to know him even more. Because Bob is not kidding. And I love that honesty in a place where everyone is blowing golden smoke up everyone else’s "You're so talented" ass. Be more like Bob, people.
P.S. - The Pest Guy came, Bob. You can come over and hang out now, Bob. This whole website editing issue thing is getting old. Or I'm too old to deal with it. I almost miss the days when my reports had to be turned in without errors and the dumb ballpoint pen eraser thing didn't work.
I have a work request out to the people who know better than I what to do to make this not annoying. Who knows when they will respond. It has become like fights with Husband: I'm pissed. I'm having the arguments for why he screwed up in my head and he has no clue that there's anything wrong because he hasn't read the passive-totally-agressive note I left him on his pillow. UGH! On a happy joy note: the Pest Guy came yesterday and sprayed the heck out of every nook and cranny in the house. We appear to be critter free - for now. It's the little things... Weebly and I are fighting. It doesn't help that I have a migraine and it's stupid. I'll post later when it stops deleting my shit.
MONDAY!!! I should probably still be in timeout. Still having mean people thoughts but trying not to let them consume me. This latest spiral started Monday with an afterschool theatre class that was, and I’m not mincing words here, horrific. There were parts during the day when I worried for the safety of children – and not because of me. There were parts after class when I worried for the safety of teachers – and not because of me. (I never knew a rat-tail comb could be used as a weapon.) It was a very long few hours with a few moments of utter horror and shock and very little joy. I left the school worried for these children, worried for the world and feeling totally helpless. Then Tuesday I spent the day at a UPS delivery headquarters with a pair of twins learning about the process, exploring the trucks and honking the horn. I got to have one on one playtime with a three-year-old “I’m a PS driver” in his cardboard truck with my hastily drawn on lights and logos and steering wheels. I could see the hope in the darkness. But when I tried to write about it, all I came up with was sad darkness and mean kicking people thoughts. Hence timeout. And then Wednesday night, I opened the door to let Tigger the Dog out for her evening pee and this guy was on the wall right near the doorbell. Now I love all spiders can do for us; the bugs they eat, charlottes web etc. but, this sucker? Not a fan. And having him that close to the space under our front door that’s perfect for brick sized spiders to crawl into, not a fan of that either. And what's even more terrifying than seeing him at night next to the front door while I’m barefoot? Opening the door the next morning and not seeing him there at all! Where did he go? Is he inside, hiding in a plant or couch cushion waiting for the perfect opportunity to crawl into my hair? Or did he decide that the screaming ladies house was not a place he wanted to visit and exit stage left?
These are the questions that cause weird jump-squealing at dog hairballs and strange shadows followed by Tigger the Dog Chewbacca whines and my laughing myself silly over my scared self. It doesn’t help that we’re currently under a stinkbug infestation. The suckers are flying all over the house. We're catching and taking out two, three at a time. Yesterday, Husband pulled the vent fan off from over the stove and there were about fifty hanging out in there. Some dead ones because he had to demonstrate that there was something in there first by putting on the fan so I could hear the flap thud squish first but most of them still crawling. They’re called stinkbugs for a reason. I guess we can quit blaming the dog now. Anyway, my timeout and mean people mood makes me want to tell stories that make me laugh so here’s one about a friend I just met. I’ll call him Bob. Once upon a time, Bob went on a blind date with a girl. Things were going well. They found each other amusing and attractive and the date progressed from dinner to kissing outside her front door. And then evolved from kissing outside her front door to kissing inside her front hallway. It was going very well. He was pleased. She was pleased. He was in the mood. She was in the mood. It was looking very promising for them both. She pulled away to look into his eyes, her hand stroking his face lightly… and spotted the spider crawling up the wall behind him. “EEEEEEEK! SPIDER!" She shrieked, pointing and shaking her finger at the wall. "DO SOMETHING!!!" So my friend, Bob, did something. He took one look at that spider and he left. Quickly. Just turned around, without a word to the woman he’d just been kissing, the woman he really liked, and walked out that front door. Leaving her stunned, the spider still on the wall. Somewhere, she is telling this story and Bob doesn’t come out in a good light. But Bob, Bob is perfectly happy with how this went all down. Bob doesn’t do spiders. Ever. Today, I’m going to be more like Bob. But my spiders are mean people. I’m not going to do mean people. And I’m going to try to not do mean people kicking thoughts. Odds aren’t good on that one working but I’m going to give it a shot. Also, still haven’t found the spider… Moving house might actually have to happen. |
AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
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