Don’t Hate the Player, Unless You Hate Player

The other night, I’m cruising down the highway with the “oldies” (read: now playing 80’s music) station blasting from the radio. A great tune, “Baby Come Back” by Player, comes on. An essential piece of the yacht rock canon. I crank it and enjoy the keyboard and rockin’ guitar.

Fast forward to yesterday, and I think, “I should add that to my Spotify playlist that I have created specifically for yacht rock.” Well, guess what. That song isn’t available on Spotify.

You can find other songs by Player – even the album on which “Baby Come Back” was featured, but that particular song, their FLAGSHIP song I would go so far as to say, is inaccessible.

Sure, take away the one song you’re known for. Real smart strategy, Player.

So I bought the mp3 on Amazon for a buck 29. But I wasn’t happy about it.

#firstworldproblems

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Those M&M guys got me triggered

I haven’t posted in a while, mostly because I’ve had a huge mental block around writing anything funny. But something I saw recently on the back of Entertainment Weekly magazine triggered me big time, and I need to talk about it.

M&Ms has a new ad campaign featuring the caramel M&M. Now, I’m a purist when it comes to snack foods. Get the hell out of here with your BBQ potato chips, and don’t fuck up my Oreos with flavors like mint, birthday cake, red velvet, etc. Same goes with M&Ms.I like them plain, and that’s it, so caramel doesn’t interest me. I also like them chilled in the fridge, but that’s irrelevant. Just thought I’d mention it. I do enjoy a good Milky Way, though, but that’s also irrelevant. It does, however, set the precedent that I have nothing against caramel, which should become relevant at some point in this post.

Here is said ad. Just take a look at it and then we’ll break it down.

So you have two M&M characters, those walking, talking pieces of candy wearing gloves, saddle shoes and no shirts or pants, basically encasing a piece of caramel into a lifeless shell. The caramel has eyes, a pair of glasses (which clearly aren’t going to fit inside the shell), and what looks to be an orthopedic shoe. And the tagline at the bottom, “We’re making caramel fun.”

Murderers

Our friendly little M&M guys are murderers! They’re forcing poor caramel nerd into the shell against his will. Probably breaking his glasses. And how’s he going to breathe in there? There aren’t any eye holes or mouth holes … or foot and arm holes for that matter. So how is that going to work out for poor caramel nerd?

This guy agrees with me, sorta:

So they shoved nerd boy into the orange shell and then THEY PULLED HIM APART????? Savages! Arrest these two immediately.

I mean, this isn’t even getting into the whole idea that they know full well that they’re going to be eaten by humans. Or do they? Are the red and yellow fiends unaware that they, too, are destined to be tossed into the mouth of a hangry person who probably was out of other options in the vending machine but still wanted chocolate? Like, dang, no Three Muskies? Welp, I guess M&Ms are better than nothing. 

Then finally, the tagline. “We’re making caramel fun.”

Is caramel notoriously known as being an old stick in the mud? It’s sweet and chewy. It goes beautifully on popcorn, apples, and many other things. What’s not to like about caramel? I don’t know anyone personally who has said, “oh no. Caramel is just an old fuddy dud. Someone should, I dunno, encase it in a thin chocolate shell. Now THAT would be something, alright!”

Honestly. This whole ad campaign has me beyond puzzled. What are your thoughts on this head-scratcher?

 

Karma Boomerang

My kids’ last day of school was last Wednesday. By Friday, they were constantly at each other’s last nerve, not to mention mine, so I took them to SkyZone to blow off some steam.

We were there no more than 20 minutes of our allotted hour when the phone rang. It was my mother-in-law.

“I hate to be a busybody, but I just drove past your house and your side door was wide open. I assume you were just coming in and out of the house, but I wanted to check.”

Um, I was at Skyzone, no one else was home, and I have three indoor cats, one of whom is terrified of humans and would never be seen again if she escaped (most of my family would probably not really care about this). So this was a BIG FUCKING DEAL. My MIL just had knee surgery so I couldn’t ask her to go searching through iced-over snowbanks to find my stupid felines. I called a friend who lived nearby and then I pulled the kids out of their dodgeball game to speed home.

I second-and third-guessed myself on the way home. I KNOW I locked the door and closed it behind me. So, did someone break in? What was I going to come home to?

About halfway home, I got a text from my mother-in-law. “All’s well. I think the anasthesia is still messing with me. Sorry for the confusion.”

The fuck?

So she basically hallucinated that my door was ajar. And then I wasted 30 bucks at Skyzone, got my friend and her husband all up in arms, basically for nothing. I was pissed. Salty.

Welp, karma’s a bitch. One stupid turn deserves another.

I am at work today, which really sucks, but I drove up the street to grab some lunch. I noticed that this weird guy was walking into the place where I was planning on going to, so I got Snapchat ready on my phone because I’m an asshole. I hurried out of my car so I could get the snap.

But what I also did was throw my keys on the passenger seat, and then lock the car using the manual button. Hello? Locked out of the car. I guess I deserve it for making fun of someone. Luckily my husband is off work, and he is SO THRILLED to have to come to my office to pick me up and drive me back to my car (I had to walk back to the office from lunch, which was my way of punishing myself for being so dumb.)

I hereby relinquish my  rights to make fun of anyone for the rest of the week. If I can go that long.

Coco-nuts

My youngest child has very odd taste in food. He thinks it’s a treat to go to the health food store and pick something out. He comes home with all sorts of oddities: star fruit, melons, a giant cabbage one time, and tonight … a coconut.

Somehow, even though my husband took him to the store, it became MY job to figure out how to open up the coconut. Read a wiki, got the coconut milk out, and then took it out to the driveway to smash it open with a hammer. Success! But then, all the meat of the coconut was still attached to the shell.

No problem, I thought. I’ll just jimmy it out with a knife. A sharp knife. Great idea, right?

My husband walked by my operation and I asked him what he thought the odds were that I was going to injure myself. He just chuckled, which I knew meant 100%. I agreed. It was a matter of time.

I think it was less than 30 seconds later that the knife slipped out of my hand and I stabbed myself in the other hand. In the palm. I cried out in pain. “What’s the matter?” my husband called from the other room. “Stabbed myself,” I answered.

At first I didn’t see blood, but then I SAW  BLOOD AND LOTS OF IT. For a tiny little puncture, that fucker bled like crazy. But I totally deserved it. That was a dumbass move and I paid the price. Pro tip: don’t jimmy out coconut meat with a sharp knife. I don’t have another answer for you at present. I have to stop hemorrhaging blood so I can figure it out.

---

One day later …

Still about half of the coconut meat needed to come out, so thought I was going to be smart and just smash it into bits so I wouldn’t sustain any more injuries. I took a huge piece of coconut to the driveway and threw it to the ground with gusto.

The shell back bounced up toward me so I went to stop it from hitting my face and/or vital organs with my OTHER hand. The shell was all jaggedy so when I put my hand out to stop it, I got rewarded with more lacerations.

Conclusion: coconuts are dangerous, and should be outlawed.

Drunk people: continuing to love me. #CollegeEdition

A while back, I wrote a post about how drunk people love me. I am not around them all that often, or at least random ones who aren’t my friends to begin with, but my power to be a Drunk Magnet was put to the test a few weeks ago when I visited my college campus for my somewhat annual girls’ trip.

Of course, it’s hard to avoid drunk people on a college campus, especially if you are at a bar. Which we were. Multiple of them. And while not drunk, I certainly was not refraining from alcohol. But some poor soul definitely was refraining way less than I was, and our encounter went something like this:

My friend Em just happened to notice a table opening up. She went over to the table, waving her arms at us to signal her score. Meanwhile, Drunky McGee, a young woman obviously having some trouble, just sat herself down at same said table. I should mention it was Dad’s Weekend and there were Drunk Dads a’plenty to be found everywhere. This young lady was with daddy, and daddy was also lit like the Fourth of July sky. Slumping over in her newly-acquired seat, girlfriend paid zero attention to her father’s pleas to vacate, nor the stinkeye she was receiving from a gang of 40-year-old women who just wanted to sit the eff down and not deal with this nonsense. And yet, because she failed to stir, we took the opposite tack.

“Are you ok?” one of my friends asked her.

It had the effect of flipping a switch on a wind-up doll, or a Teddy Ruxpin. Her eyes came alive, she sat up, and suddenly she found herself at a table with her NEW BEST FRIENDS. I am going to use all caps a lot, because she shouted questions at us incessantly, beginning with: “WHAT SORORITY ARE YOU GUYS IN?” None of us were in sororities while at school, nor were were in them now. “We’re not in one,” we told her. “NO! WHAT. SORORITY. ARE. YOU. GUYS. IN?” Apparently she was not  going to accept “none of the above” as an answer, so we made up some greek letters in a sequence and that appeared to appease her. Next question. “WHERE ARE YOU FROM?” We told her our respective cities. “WHAT DORMS DO YOU LIVE IN?” I’m pretty sure the dorm I lived in doesn’t exist anymore but I told her anyway. The fact that she thought that a bunch of 40-year-old, wrinkled bitches were her peers was hilarious. Now it was time to get to know her. “What year are you?” one of us asked.

Ready?

“Freshman,” she said.

This little Tootsie not only was completely intoxicated to the point where she was fooled into thinking middle-aged women were her sorority sisters, but she was in a bar with her dad, underage. Gotta love it. I think her dad finally convinced her to get up, but not before she slapped a tequila shot out of his hand, spilling it on my friend’s pants. Damage done. I hope she doesn’t remember this shining moment from Dad’s Weekend, but she gave my friends and I something to talk about, as we screamed at the top of our lungs, “WHAT SORORITY ARE YOU IN?” at each other  for the rest of our time there.

I see you, drunk people. Who will be my next story?

Back in the Hi Life Again

I don’t know if I have discussed how I am a food hoarder in this blog. Even if I have, it’s been a while, so let’s go there again. I hoard food. I have no idea why I do this. I didn’t have siblings, so I never had to fight over the last piece of chicken or extra dessert. I had enough food to eat at all times, and my family was financially stable so there was never any fear of me not being able to have food.

And yet, I hide food, particularly candy, so others won’t take it from me. Maybe it does have to do with being an only child. I don’t like to share. So, there we go. Self-diagnosed. One issue down, a million to go!

So I recently came upon Hi-Chew at Five Below. I was shopping for some stuff for my kids’ goddamn Elf on the Shelf, aptly named Cookie, to “bring” to them. Don’t get me started on the Elf. I hate it with a passion and I hate whoever invented it and I hate parents who don’t hate it. Upon seeing the cases of Hi-Chew, it took all I had within me to not buy out the entire stock. I purchased six packs of it, intending to keep two for myself and give four to the boys.

Not familiar with Hi-Chew? I wasn’t either, until about two years ago when my kids bought it from the concession stand at a baseball tournament. I thought it was gum, at first. Its consistency can be described as somewhere between gum and taffy, or maybe a really chewy Starburst. But it’s really the flavor that makes the candy so wonderful. It legit tastes exactly like whatever flavor it’s supposed to taste like. For instance, the grape flavor takes exactly like grape juice. The mango flavor, exactly like mango. The snozzberries taste like snozzberries. It doesn’t taste like that generic candy fruit flavor that every other kind of fruity candy has.

I read up on Hi-Chew on its Wikipedia page, and there’s a few things about it that I wish I hadn’t read, particularly with regard to its ingredients. But good news – it’s gluten free!

Anyway, my Hi-Chew is now safely stashed in my usual hiding spot and I will be DEVASTATED if it is discovered. I have a grape and a mango. Soon, my kids will also have these flavors, as bestowed upon them by Cookie. Or …. since they aren’t expecting them … Cookie may gift them to me!

Strangers in the night, exchanging glances

A few nights ago, I was walking my dog through the neighborhood after dark. I do this most nights and usually see nary a soul. But on this particular night, I was more than a little unnerved to see a lone figure moving slowly toward me. Something about the situation just weirded me out. Maybe it was the fact that I was a lone female, or maybe it was just the way the person was moving so slowly. Almost deliberate.

I attempted to cross the street with the dog and walk opposite this slow-moving person. My dog growled, which caused the shadowy figure to look up and I realized …

This was a person out looking for Pokemon.

They had no interest in trying to jump me or anything sketchy.

They were simply in pursuit of catching ’em all.

I felt much better after that.

People are losing their shit over these cicadas, yo.

Hey girl hayyyyy!

Like an ex-boyfriend who texts you out of the blue, the cicadas are returning to the surface of the Earth this week after a 17-year underground vacay. And people are FREAKING THE FUCK OUT about it. I guess if you haven’t seen something in 17 years, it’s kind of a big deal, especially when the “something” is a huge, disgusting looking bug creature and about 50 billion of its closest friends coming to have a party in your backyard.

I think it’s creepy AF, to be honest, that these things have been LIVING UNDERNEATH US THIS WHOLE TIME. I had no idea! I’ve been just living my life for the past 17 years just completely chill, unaware that the ground below me is swarming with these hard-shelled alienlike insects.

I was at the hair salon tonight, and there were at least three separate conversations about cicadas that I heard. Including the one that I had with my stylist. Basically everyone is completely weirded out that this is even a thing. And how do people know that they’re coming THIS WEEK? Was there a Facebook event set up for it? 1,000,000,000,000 cicadas replied “Yes” to “RETURNING TO THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH!!!!!!!!” scheduled for May 25 at 9 a.m. Who exactly has been in contact with the underground cicada network to know their comings and goings?

I don’t know if this has anything to do with the cicadas, but dogs are losing their everloving minds today. I know of four dogs that ran away today. My dog was trying to dig under a rock near my driveway and then did a full-body roll on the dirt she was able to excavate. Is she hearing some almost-surfaced cicada that she was trying to dig up? I hear that dogs will eat them, which is just super gross. Dogs eat a lot of gross things – for instance, poop – but a live cicada is next-level nasty.

They haven’t made an appearance in my neighborhood … yet … but I am on the lookout for them. I feel like I might wake up one morning and they will have moved in to the house. Maybe one will cook me breakfast. Maybe one will clean the house. Probably not, but that would be pretty cool if they did. I mean, if they’re just going to be around for a little bit and then disappear again for another 17 years, the least they could do is contribute to society like the rest of us.

 

Intro to the Women’s Restroom

I thought that since the women’s restroom has been a hot topic in the news lately, I would provide any newcomers to the ladies loo a quick synopsis of what to expect.

Overall, women are just as gross as men. You wouldn’t think so, but the inside of the little girls’ room is just as nasty as the place where the dudes go. Sure, sometimes we have mouthwash, little mints, nice-smelling lotion, and every once in a blue moon, sometimes for no apparent reason, there’s a restroom attendant inside who does useless things like hand us a paper towel when we are fully capable of doing it ourselves and then for some reason expects a tip for such a useless thing.

Some fancy ladies rooms have these sitting rooms when you first walk in the door. There’s usually some kind of lounge chairs inside, looking somewhat comfy and inviting. Perhaps there is a ficus or some other large-leafed, tropical plant. There might be a table with an upholstered chair, suggesting that you come fix your makeup there. Back in the day, a golden ashtray stood nearby. Ladies probably used to congregate in here, smoking cigarettes from those fancy cigarette holders. They probably wore silk gloves. Last time I checked, no one does that anymore, unless it’s Halloween or ComiCon.

Nowadays, those lounge chairs look out of place. Why would I want to stay here longer than I need to? The only thing I’m doing in here is taking care of a bodily function and maybe making sure my dress isn’t tucked into the back of my underwear before I leave. If I want to lounge, I’ll put on some yoga pants and do it at home.

Your typical ladies room has none of those frills, however. If we’re lucky, we have a tampon machine. I’ve never personally had to use the machine, but I have to imagine that what’s inside would be made of chunks of fiberglass and cardboard. You’re welcome for that little visual.

So picture your typical mens room, minus the urinals, plus the tampon machine, and perhaps minus a few pee stains on the floor. That’s one thing I’ll say about the ladies – we usually make it in the toilet.

But …

I’m not kidding. It’s gross in there.

Take, for instance, the restroom at my office. It never fails to surprise me how my fellow ladies are total pigs and don’t clean up after themselves. One thing that drives me nuts is the sink. There is guaranteed to be a huge puddle of water covering the surface of the sink. I really don’t know why or how this happens. But I always grab a huge wad of paper towels and soak up as much of it as I possibly can. Of course, the next time I’m in the restroom, the sink is right back to being waterlogged. If I fail to wipe off all the water, inevitably, I lean against the sink and get a nice waterline right near the crotch of my pants which ends up looking like I had some kind of pee accident.

So here’s something I never understood. If someone forgets to flush the toilet, and you’re the next person to walk into the stall, WHY don’t you just flush it? What is going to happen to you? Lots of women will see an unflushed toilet and make a hasty retreat to the next stall over. What’s the big deal? If it bothers you that much, then just take care of it. People make mistakes and forget to flush sometimes. I’ll just flush it. Unless it’s overflowing, which sometimes it is, I don’t feel violated by flushing down someone else’s pee and TP. I consider it a public service.

Paper towels are a problem. If you miss the trash can, can’t you bend down and pick up your paper towel? Apparently some ladies in my office cannot. I get that you might not want to touch the floor. But there are sinks and soap just steps away! That is just pure laziness.

I don’t care if you don’t clean your bathroom at home on the regular. That’s your business. But when you’re at your place of employment, some protocol should be in play.

Anyway, my point in divulging all this is to say that I really don’t care who is using the restroom with me, as long as they aren’t a pig and can clean up after themselves.

My big night out … in the ER

I have this big problem now that I’m 40. Well, it probably started a few years ago, but now more so than ever.

Every time I have any symptom outside of a cold, I automatically assume I’m dying. And you know what? I’m going to be right one of these times.

I have a few health issues that make me more sensitive to changes in my body than the average person, so that’s part of it. But the other part is just that I’m completely insane.

Last night I was having these extreme coughing jags where I was almost making myself throw up. All that hacking also gave me some severe chest pain. My husband convinced me that it wasn’t a heart attack, but I thought maybe I was having an asthma attack or something like that (I’ve never been diagnosed with asthma). The coughing stopped for about an hour and then came back with a vengeance, and it felt like someone was stabbing me. After WebMD told me I was likely already dead, and additional googling of symptoms basically foretold my doom, I decided it was time to hop in the car and drive to my local emergency room.

I’m no stranger to this place. They practically know me there. It’s not something I’m proud of, but them’s the facts.

When they were acting more concerned with my cough than my chest pain, I relaxed a little bit. They decided they wanted to give me a breathing treatment, do xrays and bloodwork as more of a precaution. I fired up some Netflix on my iPad and enjoyed being a room to myself without kids asking me to get up and get them a glass of milk, or some spicy Cheez-It’s. Actually, it was starting to feel like I had booked myself into a weirdly-themed spa.

Then the (nurse? murse? intern?) knocked on my curtained-off room, saying he was there to take me to get my xray. The curtain parted and it was fucking Joe Manganiello in a pair of scrubs. I got off the hospital bed and he seemed shocked that I was going to walk myself to the room. As he was not equipped with a wheelchair or anything, I’m not sure what his plan was to transport me there. Maybe he would have carried me? I should have pretended to faint or something. I was hoping he’d reprise his routine from Magic Mike, but no dice. He did, however, basically look at my boobs because he did the chest xray. Granted, he was standing in the other room, but I hope he liked what he saw.

He took me back to my room and left, which is a shame, because I’m sure I could have come up with other body parts we could have x rayed. Anyway, I again just settled in for some quality Netflix time on the bed that was perfectly angled for optimum comfort.

And quite some time went by where nothing happened. I think I got through an episode of “Once Upon a Time” without anyone checking on me.

Then I had to pee.

I should also mention that by this point, I was hooked up to an IV and they had a bag of saline going. And I was rocking a hospital gown, open in the back, and my jeans.

I hit the call button and they had to rig my IV pole thing and I had to take that with me. So I was looking good strolling down the hall of the ER to the restoom. They informed me that someone was in there, so I stood outside, waiting.

And the scariest person in the world came out. I don’t want to discriminate but this person definitely looked like an addict of some sort. He looked high AF. His eyes wouldn’t even focus, and he dropped off a pee sample at the nurse’s desk. I’m not trying to judge, but I can’t think of many other reasons a guy this young would have been an ER patient. So THAT’s who used the toilet right before me. I have to tell you, it was almost enough to make me hold it til I got home. I reallllllllly had to go though.

Finally, my results came back and thankfully there was nothing seriously wrong with me. Other than my lungs were spasming from all the coughing, so much so that I needed an inhaler. They let me go home, and at this point I was ready for bed anyway. I had enough Netflix time. But when I got to the parking lot, I started coughing so hard, I thought my lung was going to come out on the pavement. I guess I should have gone back in to see if Joe Manganiello was still there to help me out.