Mile High Club Membership

Well, it's official.  Anyone flying on any airline is now a member of the Mile High Club because if you don't think we aren't getting screwed by the airlines, I have some beach front property in Oklahoma to sell you.  I am dumbfounded.  After the latest announcement that US Air is now charging $2 for a soda, tea or water in an effort to "defray" the cost of fuel, I have decided that the airlines must be run by the same asshat monkeys that run my insurance company. (Oh, more to come on their latest round of F-Ups - so stay tuned.)   

TWO DOLLARS!!!!  (Flash backs to scene from "Better Off Dead" where Jon Cusack gets chased by some black-hoodie wear 10 year old on a bike.  One of the BEST movies - ever.) 

Anyway, soda cost $2.50 for a 12 pack at my local grocery store.  So don't tell me that the over-head on soda is sooooo high that US Air needs to charge me for almost every can in the 12 pack. Plus, they don't give you the entire can to begin with - just a small plastic cup loaded with ice. Let me be the first to tell you, if some air waitress*(1) hands that little plastic cup to me and then tells me that I owe her $2.... You might just see the re-invention of the word Bitch.  Cause I am going to make "going airline" the new "going postal".  You can just call the Air Marshall now and tell him I'm-ah-comin'.

I can (kind of) comprehend the fee-f*cking they are giving us over luggage.  Some of us (who, moi?) simply do over-pack and the weight does affect the fuel.  But they have been carrying coke, tea and water on flights since day one and a 12 oz soda's weight hasn't changed. Hell with that logic, are you now going to start weighing us as we buy our tickets?  Anyone over the "average" weight of 150 pounds will now have to pay an "excess weight" fee?  Like I can just drop those extra 10 pounds at the gate if I don't want to pay the fee?  Hell, if that's all it took I would have been dieting at the airport instead of trying to over come my failed attempts at bulimia.  (I got the bingeing part down, it's the purging part that I haven't mastered.)

Which means they are now asking me to sit on a flight and die of thirst unless I bring my own drink.  And I can't bring from home since I can't take it past the Gestapo-wannbe-security check point.  Because GAWD forbid someone actually use that water-filled bottle for water instead of something like, oh say, a drive by wet t-shirt contest when those long flight delays get a little dull or a Zoolander Gas-Station-Wake-Me-Up-Before-You-GoGo inspired water bottle fight. So I am now forced to buy from the in-terminal vendors. Who by the way are just LOVING this little turn of events, since I am sure they are running out there and racking up the price of their drinks as we speak.  

What's next?  Are they going to charge me for the air they pump in? Pay toilets? Good thing they aren't serving in flight meals and charging me for drinks.  That will keep me from needing to use the lavatories the entire flight.  I mean, it's bad enough when I am in First Class and some "regular" person from coach comes up to use the First Class lavatory, but now I am going to have to pay for the after-smell as well?  (Cause you know that the toilet in First Class is Oh-So-Much-Better....yeah, whatever, you are still sh*ting in a space smaller than a broom closet.) 

OH!! I know, how about charging me for the tray tables and in flight magazine? Since I won't be getting a meal or drink to put on the tray, my using them should be a privilege and paid for along with my $2 non-alcoholic beverage. I mean seriously, why don't they just come out and announce that other than sitting in your seat and doing absolutely nothing the entire flight, they are going to charge you for it.  Want to get your carry-on from the over head bin?  $5 please.  Want to lean your seat back and stretch out?  $3 please.  Want to watch a movie (even if you brought your own headset)? $5, please.  Want the flight attendant to give you a kiss before the nickel and dime screwing you are getting? $20 please.

Thank you for joining the Frequently Screwed Flyer Mile High Program of the Airlines Industry.  We hope you enjoyed your flight and the @$$-raping we are giving your wallet.

*(except for my sister who is a FLIGHT ATTENDANT and not an Air Waitress, thank you very much!! Because in all honesty, their job is your safety ~ NOT to get you a freaking soda and some peanuts!)

Crazy Cat Lady Starter Kit

I swear I am so NOT going to become that weird ass teacher who lives in a little house at the end of the cul-de-sac with an overgrown lawn and 400 cats.  If only for the reason that I am not a house buying person. With that being said....

Introducing: SAMSON. 

Who joins my already two cat-infested apartment after being found abandoned with his little sister. (She has found a good home with another person.)  Toothless (aka Bud E Phat) is taking to him like the cat version of Foghorn Leghorn.  At times he is all "Go Away Kid, You're Botherin' Me" and others he is instructing Samson on the proper arts of cat life in my house:  2 hour power nap sessions, followed by 20 minute spurts of run and attack, repeat as necessary especially in the middle of the night. (Bud is also throwing his weight around. When Samson gets to be too much for him, Bud E. just lays right on top of him.  Then I hear these meews for help and have to go apply the jaws of life to lift 20 pounds of Phat-ass off a 2 pound kitten.)

Elsa the Lioness has decided that a new level of cat-bitchiness can be achieved through hissing and growling.  Since she is such the little attention-whore, she is a little miffed at not being the cutest thing in the house anymore and it has pushed her highness into a slightly anti-social mode.  She's also pissed that I have never put a picture of her on my blog and decided that she was going to hack up everything she ate until I did.  So here is the gratuitous picture of Ms. Lioness:

It's official:  I now have my crazy lady starter kit. I swear on my stack of Jen Lancaster books, that I am never fostering another homeless animal again.  I have SUCKER written all over my forehead.  

I'm off to go play some Stevie Knicks music, find a tie-dyed broom skirt and wear silk scarfs around my head and body.  

Secret Agent (Wo)Man

Warning this post might not be suitable for all readers...especially my Mom and Dad...

I have made it a point not to blog about the people I know unless they are forewarned and have given me the two thumbs up... or the middle finger (whichever the case may be).  So I asked Friend X if I could tell this story and she said it was OK as long as I left out any details that would lead back to her. Yeah whatever, I am totally ratting her out...

Friend X and I were at lunch a few months back.  Lunch usually consists of a little food and a lot more margarita.  We have it perfected to a nice ratio of food-to-margarita, but have decided to keep working on it for purely scientific reasons.  Since our lunches happen to involve some form of super-secret girl talk we just happen to be talking about Battery-Operated-Boyfriends or BOBs as they are so lovingly referred to in girl circles everywhere.

So friend X wants to get one, but is currently in a long time type relationship (married, living with, shacking, sleeping over every weekend... one of those) and doesn't want the significant other (SO) to know she has it.  Note:  Girls - they know.  It's like their porno collection.  We know about it.  We even know where they hide it.  Trust me, they know all about BOB.  

So, this is where the boundaries of friendship really gets tested.  You KNOW you are someone's BFF when you will go into the porn store and buy your friend a BOB so that she does not have to be seen in public doing it. But wait!!! It gets even better.

Off to the porn store I go.  Into the porn store I go.  I stand in front of the BIGGEST WALL OF BOBS I have ever seen.  (Insert 2001: A Space Odyssey music here.) Did you know that BOBs come in more choices than the Regularly-Operated-Boyfriends????  And more colors. And more sizes. This is not a decision I was going to make because there is no way on GAWD's green earth that I was going to return it if I made the wrong choice.  So I call friend X.  The conversation went something like this:

Me:  OMG!  Holy Crap!  Have you seen this selection?  Ok, what do you want?  Big?  Small? Pink?  Purple?  Some thing with one speed?  Wait, this one here says it has three speeds - slow, medium and who the f*ck needs a man? (giggles) Which one do you want?

Friend X:  UH, I don't know.  Does your phone have a camera?

(OMG!!!! Do YOU see where this is heading, because I totally didn't!!)

Me: Yeah.

Friend X:  OK, take a picture of them and then send it to me.

Me: ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME??!?!?!?!  I am in a porn store! On SUNDAY!! I am already going to languish in at least one circle of hell for this! I am NOT taking a picture of the Great Wall of Vibrators and sending it over my phone!!!

The clerk at the store is now looking at me very intently and starting to wonder what kind of whack job she has in her store. After I lower my voice, friend X and I discuss the matter at hand and she finally decides on one. I make the purchase.  And by the way guys, BOBs are more expensive than a long night at the strip club! 

Now comes the hand off.  Friend X wants her new BOB like right now, but SO is at home.  To get him out of the house she sends him on a mindless errand that she knows he will take forever and a day to do (and I know he will F-up and have to call her 20 times to get right and will still bring back the wrong thing, but that's not the point).  In the mean time, I am to drive BOB over to her house and transfer custody.  Did I mention I had to stop and get batteries for BOB?  Yeah, I hold so many girlfriend credits right now, she will be owing me into 2015.

Insert Mission Impossible theme here

I get to her house and hand over BOB. To which she immediately turns and runs towards the back of the house. OMG KITTENS!!!  I swear to all that is Holy, I thought she was going back there to give BOB a test run!!  I start screaming like a mad-woman & telling her get her @$$ back into the living room RIGHT NOW!!  (I can't even begin to tell you how many Ho-Hos and xanaxs I was thinking I was going to need to get over this entire experience. Trust me, they don't make enough to cover this one.)  Friend X comes back with the non-discript-brown-paper-winno-beer-bottle-bag that BOB was wrapped in and quickly shoves it into my chest. So, now I am in charge of getting ride of the evidence as well.  Damn, do I have to do everything!?!?  (If she had asked me how to use it I was going to pimp slap her like a $2 hooker owing me change!)  I walked out the door and promptly deposited BOB's cover in the neighbor's trash can. Yeah, let them figure that one out. (Good thing Spike TV plays back to back CSI episodes and I am now an expert on all things evidence.)  

It has been a couple of months since the BOB incident and neither one of us has really spoken about it. Which is good since I don't think I could handle anything else without forever crossing the TMI barrier.  I do however intend to bring this incident up should I ever:

a) need to be bailed out of jail at 3 am, on a rainy middle of the work week night

b) need a pet-sitter for six months while I am in some other country and can't be reached

c) get really slossed at the next Chicka lunch

After all that, there really isn't a good way to end this post except to say "And They All Lived Happily Ever After".  And that I now have a buy-one-get-one-free card at the porn store that I have no intention of redeeming. And that even I am a little "shocked" that I posted this... (it may not stay up for long).

SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER

Ladies and Gentlemen:

A moment of respect for the best summer kick-off song EVER!!!  

Yes, School's Out for Summer and Alice Cooper is playing it loud & proud on my iPod ~ totally amped up by my cheap knock off Bose sound system, thank you very much....It goes to 11 (Bonus Bonus points if you get THAT movie quote correct).  Now to sit back, relax and kick it old school style at the pool...

At least until summer school starts and I have to try to make Kreb's Cycle more interesting than whatever is going on at the mall.  Which is where most of them were when I was trying to teach this sh*t in the first place, because GAWD forbid that they actually get an education instead of the five-finger-discount they were getting at Forever 21.  

Here's some interesting stuff I noticed/discovered this year:

I had kids who were on the free lunch program but apparently their parents could afford to shell out for fake nails and tattoos (YES!!! TATTOOS - in MIDDLE SCHOOL!!). Damn people, get some priorities straight.

Teaching "responsible decision making" at the end of the school year is a little bit behind the power curve (three of my students were knocked up this year).  Hey Mom & Dad! Time to pony up and have that discussion about how babies are made, because if you don't, your baby will be bringing home another baby to feed.  And since you can't take care of the first one you got, this might be the time for that little talk... Just a thought.

Kids will say what they read and hear.  If you happen to say "slap my bitch" out loud to your friend/spouse/anyone you think that phrase is oh-so-appropriate to say to ~ your kid is going to repeat it at school.  Don't ask me where he learned it when I call to tell you Little Johnny just told me to "suck it" when I asked for his home work. Trust me, that phrase is not on the language arts curriculum. Again with the stepping up on the parenting skills.

Since we are on the parenting skills... Some of you all need to get some!  I don't know what your parents let you get away with when you were a kid, but if I had even THOUGHT about doing half the sh*t these kids do.... OOOOHHHHH, I would have been knocked into next week and spanked again on Friday!!  It is NOT my job to parent your kid.  It is my job to teach Little Johnny to read, blow up the science lab, understand history and develop whatever critical thinking skills he will need for the future if he ever wants to do anything more than deliver for Double Dave's pizza. Not to instill the basics tenants of appropriate bathroom behavior. Since when is writing your name on the wall of the bathroom with urine acceptable? Writing it in the snow...maybe.  On the wall in the middle of the school day in the Texas heat...not so much.  

School's out and I have time to regain my sanity and dignity. (Really, seeing an almost XX-year-old woman cry like a baby at the last bell of the year ~ not a pretty sight and dignity was nowhere to be found.)  Also to reflect on why I chose to teach.  (It chose me really.) The moments are small and few, but when they do happen and the light goes on in a child's mind, it is the most wonderful feeling to know that you helped flip the switch.