Amazing Things

Every once in a while I am sitting alone in the quiet of my house and I flashback to when I was nineteen and stupid and let myself be convinced to eat the worm out of a really bad bottle of tequila for my friends' amusement at a house party. I'd like to say I had the good sense to only pretend to swallow the fermented insect, but the memory of it's rubbery texture haunts my tongue to this day.

What makes this memory even more spectacularly hideous is I'm fairly convinced the worm was found out back in my friend's garden and placed in the tequila bottle earlier that night by the hyena's I called friends. They were just waiting for someone dumb enough to choke it back.

This little memory only proves what my big brother Stretch has always known. I am the most gullible idiot out there.

For the record, I'm no longer a fan of tequila. Or worms.

Besides my alarming stupidity and spectacularly dopey teenaged behaviour, I am still amazed that at one point in my life, I looked at a bottle of booze, saw a dead bug floating about and thought to myself, 'looks good!'.

I like to think I've matured a bit over the last fifteen years, but no matter how wise I become, there is always something new and fascinating that amazes me.

Like the bum bra. Which I had never heard of until another blogger mentioned it on twitter. (Who ever said spending time on twitter was wasteful was obviously wrong. *cough*Boo*cough*)



I don't know what amazes me more. The fact that someone thought of something to lift and separate the cheeks or the fact that when I saw this I actually considered purchasing one to see if it works. Then again, my arse currently sags almost as much as my boobs which is a feat in amazement all of itself.

Then there is the Wine Rack. Lindsay Ferrier wrote about this a while back and I just haven't been able to forget about it's existence.



It's like a water bra gone wrong. How thirsty would one have to be to wear this contraption? And how could one wear it inconspicuously while sucking out it's contents? Not only would your date think you are cheap (in every sense of the word,) but he'd likely grow a tad suspicious when your cup size slowly started to shrink. The amazing thing is I. Want. One. Think of the fun I could have at football games, smuggling in my own booze.

I'm amazed at my own level of personal trashiness. I ought to be ashamed.

Yet it's not really surprising that I gravitate towards the trashy when one takes into account how I go out each morning to drive my kid to her volleyball practice.

I'm not exactly the picture of elegance. Most times I'm in my truck wearing nothing but Boo's ripped up old parka, my sleepers and a bathrobe which has seen better days. I'm barely awake enough to drive let alone groom myself. For the most part it works out fine as I never leave my vehicle and no one ever sees me. But then there are mornings like today when I drive into town only to realize I don't have enough gas to drive back home, leaving me with two choices.

I could either go back to the school and retrieve my daughter so she could pump my gas but then I'd have to enter the school and risk facing other parents and staff members who otherwise think I'm a normal human being and thereby scarring my daughter for life as she endures the endless ridicule of having a troll for a mother, or I could suck it up and pump my gas myself.

I chose option b. Only to realize I couldn't pay at the pump because I live in Buttfark Nowhereville and the small town I was stuck hasn't arrived in the 21st century just yet so I'd be forced to actually enter the store and pay in person.

It wasn't bad enough that I had to show myself to the cashier/owner I had become friendly with, while wearing my jammies and having my hair stick up in every direction. No. Turns out, half the town fuels up their vehicles before commuting to the city. And I knew each and every one of them.

I'm never going to be able to hold my head up high again.

And let me just tell you, I could have used a butt bra and a wine rack at about 645 am this morning. It could have only helped.

My lack of dignity never ceases to amaze me.

But every now and then, something non-tacky or personally humiliating catches my attention and fires up my imagination. Like my friends and how they chose to associate with me, even knowing I'd kill for a bra to put my beer in and a bra to hoist my arse back into place.  And every now and then, one of my friends does something amazing. Like write a fantastic book and then donate all the proceeds to a charity.



Jason is on a mission to raise money for the Garden of Dreams Foundation and is using his talents to do so. I don't normally pimp other people's projects (mostly because I make a lousy pimp...I'm a much better ho) but this is a charity that I believe in and a book that deserves to be read by children everywhere.

Go take a look and consider buying the book. Not only will you be making a child you love happy but you'll be helping children suffering from devastating illness, homelessness, abuse, hunger, extreme poverty and tragedy as well.

The fact that I have such talented and generous friends, well, that amazes me even more than a butt bra ever could.

*What amazes you? I can't be the only one amazed by life's oddities. What's some of the things that drops your jaw? Let's all be freaks together in the comment section.*

How to Survive Kamikaze Dogs and ATM Skimming

Most Fridays are days like any other. My children run around behaving as though they were raised with a pack of wolves, I yell at the kids not to yell at each other (which, for the record, is the best ineffective parenting tip I could ever share with y'all) and my husband does whatever it is he does when he's not at home.

He keeps trying to explain what he does for a living and I keep tuning him out. It's a vicious cycle.

(It's not like I'm not interested in what he does everyday. It's just that he suddenly stops speaking English when he's explaining his job and starts speaking Charlie Brown. Everything I hear sounds like Wah Wah Wah and the skies start to darken and images of a naked Clive Owen pop into my head unbidden. It's a sickness I have and should never be construed for lack of interest. I'm very interested in my husband's paycheck career. I swear.)

However, this past Friday was special. It was the grand daddy of all Fridays. It was the Friday the Universe had been saving for just that time when you think life is going really well and you are ridiculously happy so it decides you need a kick in the pants to wipe that smug joyful look off your face.

First a dog tried to blow up my house and then a pack of faceless zombies robbed me blind. Not to mention, my husband brought home pizza but forgot to get extra cheese on it. Which basically meant it tasted like I was eating bread with ketchup and green peppers on it.

This is what happens when you tattoo "One joy scatters a hundred griefs" on your arm. The Universe pulls out all the stops to see if it's true.

For the record, all the joy in the world can't ever make a soggy arse pizza with hardly any cheese on it taste good. I'm just sayin'.

Luckily for me, I was born with a fair sized schnauz and while esthetically speaking my nose isn't much to look at, it works fairly well. Which is what saved my house, my family and the neighbour's moron dog from being sent to the next life in small pieces after what surely would have been an epic explosion.

However, if you ever notice a dog the size and colour of a feral polar bear tearing through your garbage on your front lawn, happily munching on your son's crappy nappies, don't do what I did. Which is chase it off with a big stick while threatening to make him into a rug. Because said dog will remember that moment you interrupted his five star dining experience and when he gets into a fight with a coyote and is bleeding to death, he will seek a final revenge.

He'll crawl under your basement-less house to lick his wounds as he slowly bleeds to death. It's as though he were flipping me off and giving me the finger. If he had fingers. Except, because the dog has a brain the size of a pea, he won't realize he doesn't quite fit under your crawl space and will end up ripping off your gas line. Thereby gassing himself as he slowly bleeds out under your house as you happily play Brain Buddies on Facebook.

The dog survived and lives to dumpster dive at my house again, the gas line has been fixed and I learned a valuable lesson. I'm not sure what it was, but I know I learned it. Still, Friday was not done crapping on us. I just didn't know it.

It wasn't until Sunday that I found out a gang of faceless zombies robbed me blind. Oh, ignorance really can be bliss sometimes. I was on my way into the city to purchase lunch supplies for when the kids returned to school. (That sound you hear? It's the sounds of angels singing Hallelujah! Hallelujah!)

I never carry cash with me simply because it tends to fall out of my pockets. I have the same problem with cell phones, keys, wallets and drivers licenses. Anything I stuff in my pocket I can kiss goodbye. My pockets are like the Bermuda Triangle. Once entered, you'll never see it again.

Because of this, I tend to use my debit card for all purchases. Which I keep on a chain around my neck. Well, not really, but now that I've thought of it, I might totally try that. Anyways, there I stood at the till, trying to pay for my apple sauce and wet wipes and my card kept getting declined.

Now I'm no stranger to that moment of shame when you have to look into the cashier's eyes and explain you have insufficient funds in your account. It wasn't too long ago my husband and I struggled to keep the roof over our heads and food in our children's mouth. But thanks to my husband's hard work and my penchant for selling my soul online, we make a tidy living right now. And I knew darn well there was money in our account.

Afterall, I hadn't left the house in days so I hadn't had a chance to blow all my husband's profit on Cheetos and batteries just yet. Yet there I was, red faced and penniless at the check out counter. Luckily for me, my sister saved my bacon and my pride and paid for my purchases.

The moment I got into the car I called my husband to yell at him for blowing all our dough on pay-per-view porn in my absence.

"What are you talking about? I just got paid. You know that. There is money in the account. It was likely just a card glitch. Go to the bank and make a withdrawal at the ATM machine," my husband wisely advised.

So off to our bank I went. And still I remained penniless as the ATM machine scolded me for exceeding my maximum daily usage amount.

As I cussed out the machine and the Universe in general, it dawned on me to phone the number on the bank card to get to the bottom of this little problem.

Turns out, according to Tiffany, the voice of reason and an employee of the bank, my card had been hotcarded. Thanks to that faceless gang of criminal zombies who skimmed from my account, unbeknownst to me.

I was a victim of identity theft and fraud. To the tune of almost four thousand dollars. My crew of zombie frauds was hard up for cash apparently.

The date of the theft? Friday. As a dog was engaging in suicide warfare on my house and me, a pack of hoodlums were robbing me blind.

Just when I thought the Universe was done with me and Friday was behind me, it crept up and bit me on the arse.

Luckily for my husband and I, the bank is being gracious about the theft and the money will be replaced. And once again, I learned a valuable lesson. Only this time, I know what that lesson is. Protect yourself. From kamikaze dogs and faceless crooks. Because you never know when either is going to attack.

So the Universe won this round. This week, when Friday rolls around, I'm not even going to get out of bed.

For more information on atm skimming and how to protect yourself, you should read this. Then read this.

You're on your own though for gas happy dogs. I can't find any credible source of information for that type of trouble.

Slobber Puss

Sometimes, when life gets hard, the skies are so smoky the sun can't shine through, your water pump breaks leaving you without clean running water, people continue to throw around the R word because they think it's funny or socially acceptable and health problems plague your small family members, all one needs is a good snuggle to remember the joy their life is seeped in.

As the tattoo on my arm reminds me, "One joy scatters a hundred griefs."

Or, less eloquently, one kid's slobber can cure a thousand blues.

Sometimes, I need the reminder. And a tissue.