LMNOP

It's Been a Raspy Couple of Days

So, I've been knocked out by a case of the Gross Nasty Whatevers since Monday and am just now coming out from underneath my blankets and cough drop wrappers.  Hellllo, world!  Were your lights always so bright?

Missing three days of e-mail, blog, and Twitter activity has me basically feeling like I have been alone on an international space station for a year, but I'll see what I can do to catch up.  In the meantime, I would like to thank the full-time medical staff at my house for giving me such excellent round-the-clock care:

Thanks, docs!

What We Do When We Aren't Attending Cutco Demonstrations

Over the weekend my friends Cassie, Carolyn and I went to a party where you were supposed to dress up like a high school cliche.  We decided to go as two goths and a prep.

I don't think there were any actual goths at my high school, unless they were really exceptional goths who did a remarkable job of being withdrawn.  This is entirely possible, because it was a magnet school, so it would make sense that the goths would have overachieved at goth-ness. 

Anyway, here are some things I learned about being a goth.

First off, it is physically impossible to make this face for more than 1.5 seconds at a time.

After that, you have to laugh at yourself.

Additionally, if you are planning on going anywhere as a goth anytime soon, you should know that black lipstick requires constant reapplication.  It also leaves a rather diseased-looking black imprint on whatever cup you are drinking out of.

Finally, if you need goth accoutrements in a hurry, I highly recommend hitting up your nearest Party City.  Mine had an entire goth section, and let me just say it was hard to stop at buying only these socks and nothing else.

At least they are something I can wear over and over again.

Tough Sell

On Friday I had the pleasure of being tricked into attending a Cutco home demonstration at my friends' house.  Carolyn and Cassie had innocuously invited me over for dinner; after I accepted, Cassie revealed that oh yeah, there was going to be a knife salesman there, and they wanted me to make it less awkward.  (This is something my friends routinely do.  They think a situation will be awkward, so they invite me in hopes that my natural awkwardness, which they are familiar with, will take over and cancel out the new, unfamiliar awkwardness of the situation.  It rarely works as planned.)

Cutco, if you didn't know, is sort of like Avon for knives.  The sales reps are mostly college-age kids, and they come to your house and try to convince you that you need to spend $1200 on knives.  They do this by employing subtle psychological torture.  I would not be surprised to find out that Cutco salesmen are trained at Guantanamo.

To be fair, there are people out there who actually need nice knives in their kitchens.  The problem is, my friends and I are not those people.  We are the kind of people who think we are having a good night, culinary-wise, if we have both milk AND cereal in the house.  Knives don't really enter into the equation too often, unless we are dealing with particularly wily packaging on one of our frozen dinners.  We are basically the worst people possible to try and sell knives too, and Carolyn told him that multiple times when he called to schedule the visit.  The Cutco guy assured her that she would be under no obligation to buy anything, he just wanted credit for the home visit to apply toward some kind of scholarship competition or something. 

Well, needless to say, the presentation was painful.  For example, at one point, the Cutco guy held up a paring knife.  "So, Carolyn," he asked.  "What types of tasks do you usually use a paring knife for in your kitchen?"

Carolyn looked at him like he had held up a scalpel and asked where you make the first incision on a routine spleenectomy.  This was not a question she knew the answer to.

The silence was getting really awkward, so I chimed in.  "You could use a paring knife for scaling asparagus!" 

The Cutco guy looked at me, grateful for the lifeline.  "Yes!  You like to cook?"

"Well, no," I admitted, ashamed.  "I just peeked at your binder and saw that it said 'great for scaling asparagus' under the picture of the paring knife."

The Cutco guy looked at me in disgust.  I had been busted for cheating at a knife sales pitch.

Things went on like this for over an hour, which was long enough for Carolyn to consume several sweet tea vodka and lemonades.  This made her hilariously belligerent; when the Cutco guy asked her to cut through a piece of leather; she feigned amazement, then looked at him and said, "Problem: I do not eat leather."  The Cutco guy seemed rattled at this point.  When he then suggested that unpredictable, tipsy Carolyn try holding a footlong bread knife to feel the grip, I thought it was a good idea to intercede.

"How about I hold it?" I said.  The Cutco guy, clearly still mad at me about the asparagus thing, shook his head.  "No.  I want Carolyn to try."  I decided to back off, because I have a personal policy of not provoking people who are holding sharp knives.  It is one of those healthy habits that has kept me around for so long. 

As promised, we bought no knives that night, despite a harrowing psychological showdown in which the Cutco guy all but threatened to not leave the house until we bought knives.  Cassie and I grew so uncomfortable during the desperate negotiations that we had to get up and leave the table multiple times; however, Carolyn showed impressive resistance as the Cutco guy went through page after page of knife sets in his catalogue.  Each time Carolyn declined to buy a particular set, he would turn the page of his catalogue and show her another set that was slightly cheaper and had slightly fewer knives in it than the one on the preceding page.  Finally, Carolyn interrupted him.

"I have an idea.  How about you just turn to the last page, with the smallest number of knives and the cheapest price, so I can just say no to that and we can be done."

It was at this point that the Cutco guy finally understood that no knives would be sold to us tonight.  Instead of leaving immediately, though, he asked us to provide him with the names and numbers of 10 friends who we thought would enjoy hearing his presentation. 

You can all be expecting to hear from him very soon.

I Love When Things Just Work Themselves Out

Accidentally spilling food and staining your pants: FAIL

Accidentally wearing your pants inside out: FAIL

HOWEVER--

Accidentally spilling food on your pants at the same time as you are accidentally wearing them inside out?

WIN.

The stain is on the inside of the pants!!!!

I Vaguely Remember Having a Blog Before I Went on Vacation

After seven long days without phone, Internet, or meals containing fewer than three courses--I'M BA-ACK!

The cruise was great, although if I had to characterize it in just one or two words I would forgo such obvious adjectives as "fun," "relaxing," and "sunburn-arific" and instead go with "completely dissociative."  If you have never been on a cruise, then I don't think I can fully describe the extent to which you become detached from your life at home.  The ship is your world, the people you are cruising with are all you know, and your daily schedule of "lie outside, eat to the point of vomiting, take a nap, eat to the point of vomiting, watch a show, dance, sleep" requires little variation.  By the end of the cruise, even your dreams take place on the ship.  That may sound boring, but as long as you like the people you're with, it's lots of fun--just completely all-consuming.

I have slowly begun to readjust to normal life, but it is harder than you would think.  For one, I have not broken out into organized dance in over 24 hours, which is really throwing me for a loop right now.  To give you an idea of how integral organized dance is to life on a ship, let me just say that I heard the Macarena, the Cha-Cha Slide, the Electric Slide, and the Conga all while I was waiting in line just to board.  From there on out, I would say I was involved in a minimum of eight organized dance experiences per day, four of which were usually the Cupid Shuffle.  (If you have never seen anyone do the Cupid Shuffle before, you should stop by my house tonight, because I now do this dance in my sleep.) 

Below, a picture of us dancing to "Jai Ho" (from Slumdog Millionaire) one night of dinner:

Besides being unable to cope with my suddenly dance-poor existence, I am also suffering from a deep aversion to performing the basic tasks necessary to take care of myself.  I am already pretty lazy when it comes to tasks like grocery shopping, cleaning, and laundry, but right now it's ridiculous.  Did I really take care of these things myself before a week ago?  Really?  Because right now I can only seem to remember a time where I would come home from having my dinner served to me to find that my bed had been made and a towel folded to look like a monkey had been placed upon it.  Turns out this is not so much the case at home.  If I want a towel folded like a monkey, I'm the one that's got to do it.

So, to recap: cruises are fun, and life after you've returned is strange and confusing.

My Internet Is Back Up! And I Got Older!

I turned 26 today, which means I woke up to an e-mail inbox flooded with 15% off coupons and ultra-sincere birthday greetings from every online retailer, mailing list, or online service I have ever provided my date of birth to.  This includes a website I visited once three years ago to download the installation instructions for a piece of IKEA furniture, and I have to say, every year it gets more and more bizarre to receive my automated birthday greeting from that site.  Believe it or not, I do not require annual contact from a web entity that one time offered me passive assistance in assembling a coffee table.  Weird, I know.

I also received greetings from actual, real-life friends and acquaintances, which I appreciated much more genuinely, even if they did not include coupons for The Gap.

Since my birthday this year seems to have fallen on a Monday and I am now far, far too old to do any intense celebrating on a weekday, I did most of my birthday-related activities over the weekend.  Megan and Tori took me out for sangria, cupcakes, and a movie about cleaning up after dead people, which was lovely; additionally, Kelly and Doug brought me to lunch at Gordon Biersch, where our waiter proudly informed us that the restaurant has an ongoing friendly competition with Joe's Crab Shack to see who is responsible for more DUI and DWI violations.  (I do not know how they track this information.  I also hope they do not plan on incorporating it into any future marketing materials.)

Finally, I had a nice meal with my family last night and then invited all seven of them back to my house.  We had cake and I opened presents, and then they got out of there as soon as they could because a.) there was a Celtics game on, and b.) the house I live in can barely accommodate me, my roommate, and our two little dogs, let alone a vast clan of McMahons.

I got all kinds of awesome birthday presents, like temporary knuckle tattoos, Firefly vodka, clothes,  awesome lip balm, and some other stuff that will be available on eBay as early as tomorrow (just kidding).

I have quite a bit of blogging to catch up on now that I have a functioning computer again, so stick around.  You will know me by my THUG WIFE knuckle tattoo.

Because It's Never Too Early to Learn That the World is a Scary and Horrible Place

When I was a kid, I had a book called The Greatest Natural Disasters of the Modern World, or something like that.  It was a chapter book, and each chapter was dedicated to a different catastrophic event in history.  The book was fascinating, and I read it more times than I can count.  Unfortunately, a side effect of this was that I became completely neurotic.  Basically, I was at the age where I was old enough to fully grasp the horror and destruction of a huge earthquake, tsunami, or volcanic eruption, but also to young to properly put the chances of any of those things happening to me in perspective.  So I worried.  A lot.  I felt relatively certain that my house would be taken out by a tidal wave (coming from where, I don't know--the Chesapeake Bay, maybe?  The local swimming pool?), and don't even get me started on earthquakes.

I thought of the book today while reading some article about swine flu hysteria, and looking back, I have one question: who the hell thought it was a good idea to write a CHILDREN'S BOOK about NATURAL DISASTERS?  Why make children feel even more insignificant and helpless than they already are?  I don't get it.  But there must be a good reason, because I checked Amazon.com today, and apparently making children scared of natural disasters is big business; there are hundreds of books on the topic.  Some titles you can buy for the lovable little scamp in your life:

Natural Disasters: A Chapter Book

 

This one is pretty standard as far as children's disaster literature goes; it also looks pretty similar to the book I had.  I like to think that right now, it is scaring the bejeezus out of at least a handful of kids.

Totally Weird Natural Disasters

I believe this one was created with the rationale that it's OK to terrorize kids, as long as it's WACKY!

MOTHER NATURE GOES NUTS!

This book is called MOTHER NATURE GOES NUTS!  I like that it includes a free toy, so you have something to play with while you lay in bed at night with your eyes wide open, trembling and wondering when death is coming for you.  How thoughtful.

Inside Access: Natural Disasters

This one gets the WTF? Award.  I wasn't aware that a plan crashing through a wall counted as being brought on by nature.

Graphic Natural Disasters: Tsunamis & Floods

The cover art concept for this one is the all-time winner: a bunch of horrified children, alone without adults, facing catastrophic mass drowning.  The boy in the left corner is my fave.

Milestone

I f-i-n-a-l-l-y finished the last book in the Twilight series today.  That means I can officially stop having awkward conversations like this one, which took place at the dog park Sunday:

OLD BIATCH (with disdain, upon noticing my copy of Breaking Dawn): Why are you reading a children's book?

ME: Actually, it's a teenager book.

OLD BIATCH (smugly): Are you a teenager?

ME: Well . . . no.

Whatever.  Granted, she may have had a point, but also, it's not like I was engrossed in Clifford the Big Red Dog or something.  At least this book had chapters.

Those Blanton Studios People Did Quality Work

To my mother, there is no greater sin than throwing something out.  Back when we all lived at home, it was not unusual for one of us to dispose of something--say, a half-empty bottle of shampoo--only to find it mysteriously back in its place a couple days later.  Apparently to Mom, the only thing more absurd than going through our trash was the thought that four ounces of Herbal Essences might go unused.

This phenomenon was not limited to bath products, though; clothes, shoes, and all sorts of miscellaneous discarded objects would all make Lazarus-like reappearances in our rooms, usually without any spoken explanation from my mother.  If we did happen to challenge her on the bizarre reappearance of an item, we would be given one of two responses: "That cost good money," or (if it was something like an "Earth Day 1990" pin), "I'm sure one of your siblings could use that."

Thanks in part to this practice of domestic Dumpster diving, my parents' basement has become home to a lot of bizarre crap over the past couple decades.  Since I moved out of my parents' house, my mom has taken to occasionally surprising me with boxes of random junk that she salvaged over the years.  Recently, for example, I was presented with a Looney Toons mug containing some old keychains, my ninth grade photo ID, and my old retainer.  This little terrarium of uselessness has been sitting in my car ever since, because while I have absolutely no use for any of the items and refuse to bring them into my house, I am also strangely unable to throw them out.  This leaves me to wonder if it is my genetic lot in life to hang on to such things, maybe until I have a child of my own to bequeath them to.  Because honestly, what future descendent of mine wouldn't want this?

Things They Don't Tell You In Yelp Reviews

Today I was reading the Best Week Ever blog when I came across this excellent picture:

Kids Happy Land, indeed.  Apparently it is located in Venice.  The post says, "I can’t tell if it used to be a fun place for children that was abandoned and fell apart over time, or if it’s some sort of trap to lure children to an empty room (and God only knows what that semi-visible piece of equipment is used for)."

Upon seeing this post, I was immediately reminded of a little something called the Fun Dome.  You see, there are a number of hotels and motels along Route 1 near the University of Maryland, most of them pretty plain and un-glamorous.  The College Park Inn is pretty par for the beige, ugly course--except for one thing: the sign in front that says "HOME OF THE FUN DOME."  Kelly and I would regularly drive by this sign on our way to Shoppers Food Warehouse and other equally important destinations, always speculating on what wonders the Fun Dome might contain.   Our conversations went like this:

"Do you think they have a moon bounce?"

"Totally!  It's probably right next to the pony making cotton candy!"

"Oooh, I bet you are soooo right!"

Well, one day (nearing graduation and trying to check all College-Park-related life goals off our to-do lists) we decided on a whim to pull over and actually ENTER THE FUN DOME.  We pulled into the parking lot, anticipation mounting, and entered the hotel.

The lobby of the College Park Inn looked pretty normal, and we weren't sure what to do next.  We decided our best bet would be to ask the front desk clerk for permission to check out the Fun Dome.  (Or rather, for Kelly to ask the the front desk clerk for permission to check out the Fun Dome.)

"Excuse me, sir, but my friend and I--well, we always drive by and, um . . . well, we were wondering if we could maybe check out the Fun Dome?"

The guy looked at us as if we had just asked for permission to go into the bathrooms and inspect the toilet paper rolls.  He shrugged his approval in a way that clearly said, "I guess that's fine, although I have no idea why you'd want to," and pointed us in the direction of The Dome.  We were a bit baffled by his seeming indifference to what we imagined was a non-stop carnival of magic, but there wasn't much time to think about it.  The Fun Dome awaited!

It is not too great an exaggeration to say that walking into the Fun Dome was the most disappointing moment of my life.  Perhaps the only statement MORE hyperbolic would be to call that shabby, pathetic room "fun."  Or a "dome."  That's right--IT WAS NOT EVEN A DOME.  It was just a room with dingy decor, dim fluroescent lighting, a pool table, and an inexplicable section of carpeting that looked like a golf green, but did not seem to have any holes, let alone any golf clubs or tiny little pencils.  It was The Let-Down Center.  The Official College Park Department of Un-Recreation.  The Edward P. Tumbleweed Memorial Nothing to Do Room.  The Sorry, There Is No Santa Claus Either Expo Center.

You get the point.  It sucked.

Thanks to some INTERNET RESEARCH, I can actually show you a picture of the Fun Dome.  Here it is:

Although frankly, it looks to have been put through the "imbue this hellhole with some natural lighting" filter on Photoshop, because the real-life Fun Dome is nowhere near as well-lit as that photo would suggest.  But even so, you can clearly see that: a.) the ceiling is not a dome, not even a little; and, b.) more fun can be had at your average Indian burial ground than at this place.

Although the main lesson to be learned from this tale is "do not go to the Fun Dome," I'd like to think it is also a story about life, courage, and the indomitable human spirit.  No, wait--that's the 1991 movie Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken.  This is just a story about how one time, I went to a lame place, and it sucked.  The end.