Farts on a Plane!

Ok, people, I am on VAY-CAY-SIOOOOON.  Which means when I planed my vacation, I was not including in these plans to sit on a plane at 30,000 feet having my nasal cavity assaulted by an over-weight, middle-aged man's ass gas.  I was planning on drinking heavily, sitting on a beach taking my chances at skin cancer and scuba diving my butt into a border line narc'd status. I was not planning on attempting to breath through an airplane blanket for 3 hours while hoping the fumes from Fart-Man did not cause the plane to break apart.  First off there is no escape at 30,000 feet, second the oxygen masks will not deploy just because some inconsiderate jerk ate his body weight in sauerkraut the night before and has decided to gas every passenger on a 747. There is no escape.  However, there is a way to fight back.... And the best line of defense against this onslaught - believe it or not - comes dressed in Gap kids and looks suspiciously like two boys about 10 years of age (I think that is how old they were).   

Anyway, fart-ass in the third row has gas. Not just gas, but G-A-S and could probably take out a small nation with one ass-cheek tied behind his back.  It was silent kind (at first).  The kind where they let loose about five minutes before everyone's oral-factory senses could figure out what the hell just assaulted them.  These sneaky little bastards were flying around the plane for about 45 minutes. Roughly one every 5 minutes or so, before Fart-Man fell asleep.  Then the fun really began.  

Apparently, Fart-Man had been making some sort of attempt at hiding the sneaky little pops while he was awake, because once he was asleep....all bets were off.  So every so often you would hear this "pppttthhheww" in between his snoring.  This guy was a double barrel shot gun: snorts and snoring out one end ~ toots and shoots out the other.  I don't know which was worse.  

But let's face it: Farts are funny.  Even to "grown" ups farts are funny.  Oh sure, we try to do the adult thing by ignoring them.  We even pretend that our eyes are watering from some sort of allergy to dust mites or tearing up over the in-flight movie.  We delicately try to breath out of our mouths in hopes of not getting too much of the offending gas.  YEAH, that lasted 20 minutes before people started making eye contact with each other and making faces. The guy next to me was about to have an epileptic fit trying not to giggle at the insanity of the whole thing.  I mean these farts were deadly and what could we do?  It's not like we could ask the guy to go spend the rest of the flight in the john?  Although that was one idea that we tossed around after about 2 hours into the onslaught.  Hell, the captain even came out of the cockpit and asked the flight attendant what the hell died in First Class.  So grown adults spent the most part of a 4 1/2 hour flight giggling,devising ways to get Fart-Man to stop, and trying not to breath through their noses.  Someone even suggested we could get the Air Marshall to arrest Fart-Man as a terrorist since he was definitely harboring weapons of M-ASS Destruction. Comments were made as to how much was in his "ARSE-enal" and conversation pretty much went down hill from there.  Yeah, we were gas-happy at this point and all bets were off when it came to making fart jokes.  It was pretty funny (but you probably had to be there).

Now, I love it when kids say things that they really shouldn't.  And I love it even more when they say things that embarrass the living shit out of their parents.  So here we are basically being held captive by Fart-Man and his peel-the-paint-off-a-wall fart attack and there are two kids seated in the fourth row opposite Fart-Man.  At first they were all whispers and little comments to each other:

Kid1 : "EEEEEEWWWWW did you smell that?"

Kid2: "AAAWWWW That was gross!" (followed by faces of choking to death and gagging)

Kid1: "You smelt it - you dealt it!!"  (I giggled because that was a favorite from my days as a kid and it's good to see the good ones never die.) 

These and other comments were followed by ssshhhhes by Mom and Dad.  As the flight went on, the comment started to get louder and louder ~ as kids tend to do when shut in a plane for four hours without anything to occupy their time besides Fart-Man and his toot-a-thon.  Then when things really started to get bad:

Kid1: "DUDE!! (all kids speak Dude - apparently) That was gross"

Kid2: "Yeah, Dad's farts don't stink that bad and he really farts a lot"

Kid1: "OH Yeah! Remember that one time when we were in church and Dad farted really, really gross and it smelled so bad that Mom's eyes cried and Mom tried to pretend that it was the guy in front of us and Dad was all proud of his fart and Mom was really pissed and we got in trouble for making strangling noises cause Dad's farts smelled gross?"

At this point, the couple in front of Kid 1 and Kid 2 were trying to simultaneously shut their kids up and sink into the seat cushions to die of embarrassment. Althoug I think Dad was secretly proud of his de-facto win in the fart competition.  If Mom could have made a hole to disappear into by sheer will alone, she would have.  Everyone else was doing their best not to laugh but that only added to the insanity of the entire flight.  

Somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico at 30,000 feet, 24 adults lost the battle of wills against fart-man and began laughing so hard it woke up the tooting terminator.  And my vacation began with a Toot.

Home Alone

Factoid #8 about Moi:  

I do not now, nor have I ever had, the Home Depot gene.  I do not care to know that there are 70 different types of washers.  Or that not all of them come with a Maytag repair man.  And if my toilet breaks, I want some other poor bastard to fix/un-plug it instead of me (who has discovered that cat litter + toilet = emergency maintenance phone call).  I do not care to paint, spackle or grout my way across one side of a room to the other.  I bring this up because my entire family apparently has this gene.... and it appears to be a DOMINATE gene.

My parents were in town for three weeks.  I saw them for ~maybe~ a grand total of 6 days since they spent the rest of the time playing day-laborer over at my sister's house.  Which is cool because sisss-tohhrrr got a big ol' house for a steal and it is awesome!!  Side note on the house:  The previous owner is now on a long vacation courtesy of the Department of Corrections for trying to off the husband in the house.  Apparently when my sister tells you she got a killer house... she really means it.  And the irony of the whole thing is that the block on which the house is located is LOADED with all sorts of law enforcement officers.  Seriously, you got more people with badges and guns on that block than strippers at the AVN conference in Vegas.  (AVN? You'll have to look that one up yourself ~ sorry.)  Anyway, now she and Hubby are busy doing their version of "Design on a Dime" and back to my point.

I was seriously screwed out on the Home Depot gene.  My dad is an architect and works on construction sites where he supervises people building things for a living.  Da Mamma (and hubby) just build their own version of the backyard "Taj Mahal".  So you would think, totally basing this on Dominate-Recessive Gene science, that I would at least know that a screwdriver isn't just for Happy Hour.  Don't ask me how this gene skipped me, but it did.  I was starting to feel a little left out until I found out that Michael Kors doesn't design tool belts and that Martha Stewart has "little" people to do the "dirty" work.  Seriously?  Do you think that bitch ever really scraped paint off a wall?  Yeah, I don't think so.  Now I don't feel so bad. :-) 

Pole Position

The story is true, the names, dates, and personal information have been changed to protect my ass from getting hit by the real people involved. (Yes, once again I am writing a post where the names have been changed to prevent others from pointing and laughing.)

It was a dark and stormy night.... 

Well, I really don't know if it was dark and stormy, but it was late at night. Sorry, I always wanted to start a story that way.  This is the story of Guy and Girl. It's a cautionary tale of love, liquor and one person headed for a fall...

A couple of months ago, after a nice diner and a few glasses of wine (define few: more than one bottle but less than the entire Merlot section at the liquor store), Guy and Girl had decided that their romantic evening was going to end with a bang and headed to the bedroom to "retire" for the evening. Well, wouldn't you know it? A little wine, a little song selection from the ol' iPod, a little kissing and BAM!!! Down comes the do-it-yourself-at-home-imaginary-stripper pole right in the middle of the king sized bed. Warrent's "Cherry Pie" was wafting through the rafters.  Which BTW is the OFFICIAL song of strip clubs and hoochie-mamma-psuedo-strippers everywhere. Girl started doing her best imitation of Tawny Kitaen on a Jaguar. She had mastered all the required stripper moves while slithering seductively over the silky comforter, when it came time to do the often imitated and highly coveted "Hair-Flip-With-A-Smile". Now, don't be confused. This move has a 9.8 degree of difficulty and has been repeatedly been low-balled by the Russian Judge ever since that Olympic pair skating disaster in Salt Lake City '02.  Anyway, done right, this move can slay a man at 50 paces and remove more cash from his wallet than his sixteen year old at the mall with his credit card.

Back to the story.  Girl stared Guy straight in the eyes, she lowered her lids in the sultry bedroom come-hither seduction glance. She pouted her lips in her best Angelia Jolie pout and began the championship hair flip portion of the maneuver...

...And fell ass-backward off the bed!!!

I'd Like To Thank The Academy

Arte Y Pico Award.

Holy Xanax Batman!!  Guess what Mjenks has given me???  (And no, I don't need a penicillin shot to clear it up.)  He gave me an award for my blog!!  Yep, someone actually reads my blog ~ which amazed me since I recently learned that my family doesn't read it anymore because they think I am too mean. Bitter?  Just a little, but that's for another blog... and since they apparently don't read it anymore, I am free to talk about a whooooooolllllllee lot of sheeet now. :-)

Back to the award.  Mjenks ~ who by the way, is Brilliant in his blog own writing and recognition of other fabulous bloggers ~ has deemed my tales snarky enough to be awarded the blogger version of the internet chain letter.  After 5 days of figuring out how to get that damn award picture onto my computer, I am ready to make nominations of my own (Remember: Blond + Big Boobs + Keyboard = Lots of calls to tech support.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be3alRoxkOo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRBIVRwvUeE

Now I have to pick one of my fav's in the blog world.  Which is kind of difficult since Mjenks (http://matthewjenks.blogspot.com) IS one of my fav's and I don't think I can pick him. It might be like the award winner version of re-gifting and that is so not cool.  Originally I was to pick 5, but I have a hard time with that since I read a lot of blogs and sharing the love is difficult.  So I decided that I would pick my next favorite blog ~after Mjenks, of course ~ do you think he might have noticed the sucking-up I am doing here?  Then I would add the other blogs I read to my links on the right.  Since I usually find the blogs I read through links by other bloggers, I think that is slightly fare. (We'll call these the nominees.)

So my pick for the Art Y Pico Award is:

DG's World by DG - My (I wish) twin in another city Blogger.  She is too funny on the snark and WAY more smarter than I am (get it, huh-huh?)  Plus, her gratuitous postings of hot photos of Eric Bana and Viggo Mortensen had me at HELLO!!  Not to mention she has FABULOUS hair and a way better life than I do.  And I am sure her family reads her blog... again am I bitter?  

http://dgsworldbybigd.blogspot.com

So everyone hurry off to read her blog and the ones linked at the right.  Remember, it's an honor just to be nominated and leave some love for people when you read their blogs. And DG - tag girl, you're it.

yeah, I know it's not one of my more snarky posts, but it's hard to be yippy when someone gives you an "at-a-girl".  

Disclaimer for the winner:
1) Pick a blog that you think deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

It's All About Me

I have received a couple of e-mails from people asking me about me and why don't I tell more about my personal life instead of just stories.  Basically the gist of the e-mails was that I tell "good (I swear direct quote) stories", but that they didn't know anything about me really.   Well, dear friends there are a few reasons for the anonymity: 

1. My new career.

2. I'm not very interesting on a day-to-day level.  Who really wants to know that I walked out of a high paying sh*t job, changed careers where I am struggling to find an actual job, basically flat broke, knee deep in debt and have three cats?  Seriously, now you know how pathetic I really am.

3. The FBI relocation program frowns on its participants giving away their secrets (just kidding).

The primary reason is that I tend to say some pretty mean and/or honest things on my blog and the board of education would probably not be impressed with my ability to conjugate the word F*&K.  Since I have changed my career and am now a probationary teacher, keeping my location, real name and other identifying marks secret helps to keep any conflicts of interest at bay.  But since my loving fans (I love that you actually said you were a fan - thank you!!) have asked, I thought I would give you some fun facts about the Me that is Lisatastrophie:

#1:  I'm not a real blonde (Hell, I can't remember my real hair color because I have been playing bathroom chemist since I was in Jr. High).

#2:  I LOVE pageants.  I will sit and watch the Miss Who-the-hell-knows pageant just so I can see the crowning moment... and sit in my flannel jammies, eating Neapolitan ice cream while thinking "I got my ice cream and you can't have some.  Want a lick?  Psych."  (Word to Eddie Murphy)  

#3:  I have the "after-market" addition of two of the three components of the "Holy Trinity of Stupidity" - and I love them and don't care who knows that they are store bought.  Trust me, I actually celebrate the first day a guy had a conversation with my chest and not my face.

#4:  I love to scuba dive.  I swear it's the only way you can legally say to a guy "I'm going down" and not have him immediately get visions of porn in his head (those visions come about ten seconds later after he comprehends that you are going diving off the boat and not diving off his lap).

#5:  I don't really eat all the Ho-ho's and take all the xanax I say I do.  I would if I could, but my rear is already headed south for the winter and I can't afford the cost of that much xanax.  But until the day my butt stops growing and xanax becomes a non-scheduled drug, a girl can dream. 

#6:  I won't watch Survivor, The Amazing Race or any other reality t.v. show that has any socially redeeming value.  However; I will glue my big butt to the couch faster than a fat kid on a Ho-Ho when it comes time for a Rock of Love, Legally Blonde: Finding the Next Elle Woods, or any other train wreck "reality" show.  Especially when it's an all day "marathon" showing of the episodes.  Cause my IQ can't get low enough from all that peroxide alone.

Which brings us to #7:  I will kick you ever-lovin'-rear-end at Scene It, so don't even go there.  I can't remember all 50 states, but I can throw down on 6-degrees of Kevin Bacon like it's nobody's business.  I love movies and t.v.  I even watch the BAD BAD BAD movies.  You know, the ones where you walk out of the theater and realize that you will never have those 2 hours of your life back and you start praying to Gawd* for forgiveness at having wasted them foolishly.  I mean, whoever thought that Stripper Zombies actually NEEDED to get made... was wrong.  (*yes, I spell GOD, G-A-W-D cause I don't want to take His name and get in trouble.  I'm already in hot water for some other sh*t I've done and don't need to add to that mess.)

Some quickies:

I'm almost 40.  I have two sisters.  Three cats.  My Mom says I'm much nicer in person than I am on my blog.  My Dad won't comment.  My Aunt says I have a "peculiar" sense of humor.  And my friends are just hoping I don't end up teaching their kids.  

So now you have some fun facts about me.  Thank you to those of you who wrote to ask.  I promise I will start "revealing" more about me personally in future blogs.  I also promise to figure out how to do the tweeter thing everyone keeps telling me about.  I am soooooo not a computer person - which is completely ironic given that my last career was in...computer software.  :-0

Four for the Fourth

In a step away from my traditional snarky insightfulness (and because my mom gave me grief about deep down being a nicer person - yeah, does she know me??...there will be an upcoming blog on that one I promise), I have decided to do a different kind of post.  

It's the 4th!  That wonderful holiday where we wrap ourselves in the flag, drink beer, burn sacrifices of meat on the grill and attempt to blow ourselves up with what basically amounts to the small arms department of a third world country in fireworks.

So today I am celebrating America by picking four American that I think are noteworthy and have stuck in my mind as a slice of Americana.  And since I don't normally do these kinds of blogs I am tagging everyone who reads it to do the same on their blog.  Pick only four that you want to light a sparkler for and toast to the greatness that is the Red, White, and Blue and list them on your blog. 

1. Margaret Sanger - The woman who brought women the right to have sex and not worry about getting knocked up.  She advocated birth control in a day when the only birth control option you had was brought to you by those inventive people at the Vatican.  And we all know white people ain't got no rhythm to begin with.  So what made them think we were going to have it in bed, is beyond me.  Too bad Margaret was also a racists b*tch who believed in eugenics (basically a form of euthanasia and forced sterilization) because that totally undoes her legacy of founding Planned Parenthood.

2. Abraham Lincoln - Aside from the obvious things he did as 16th President, he inspires me in his failures.  A personal note about me:  I have done a lot of things in my life that, well...let's just say didn't quite work out the way my "master plan" had  intended.  Learning that President Lincoln also had some issues with things working out as well as he had intended as helped give me hopes that my plan for World Domination will one day succeed.

3. Miss America - Since 1921, she has never failed to inspire, entertain and instill body size issues in thousands of young girls.  I love this last bastion of the "Good Old Days".  Every September, for three hours I was glued to the t.v. to find out who Bert Parks would serenade with those famous words, "There she is, Walking on air she is, There she is...Miss America".  She has become as cheesy as they come, but I love it.  So pass the Two Buck Chuck and let the air kisses begin.

4. Eleanor Roosevelt - She was the best president this country every had.  (Cause you know she was running the show in that administration!)  Eleanor showed the world that women are equal and that behind any historically significant man, is a woman who is really doing all the work.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY USA!!

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.