what doesn't kill ya

Mind of Me

A bunch of crap is floating around in my head.  I shall share this crap with you.

I cannot get with the whole vanity plate thing.  WTF?  I saw two yesterday that made me nauseous with disgust:  "1SXYWYF" AND "TOOSEXY."  First of all, the decrepit dried out old man driving with the sexy wife plate was undoubtedly in the midst of some mid- or three-quarter-life crisis.  Dude was cruising around in a late model convertible Corvette, with his three remaining wisps of hair flapping in the hot wind.  And his wife?  All I can say is, a botox and silicone shortage is surely upon us.  Also, she really should be sharing some of her flaxen extensions with her poor husband's head. 

"TOOSEXY" chick was also in a Corvette.  She was pulled off to the side at the Wendy's Drive Thru, awaiting her Biggie Fries or some shit.  She rolled down her black tinted windows when someone approached with her bag, and outstretched her free hand (the one not holding the cell phone) to take the bag.  She didn't even look in the person's direction, or at least not that I could tell.  I couldn't see her eyes all that well through the bling-encrusted Chanel sunglasses that covered half of her Mystic-Tanned face.

I'm glad to see that humility is alive and well in my fine city.

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Today is the eve of The Weekend of Doom.  Yes, it's another weekend with all four kids, His and Mine. The group that "somehow forms a family," like the Brady Bunch. Except there's no Alice, no spacious split-level, no wacky camping trips, and no visits from Davy Jones.  However, there very well COULD be a broken nose. 

I'm taking bets.  Anyone care to wager on who will get sick?  How about who will come to tears first?  (John and myself are the favorites.)  Anyone care to bet on who clogs up the toilet?   Or how about who will burn themselves, get bitten by an unidentifiable creature, sprain an ankle or wrist, or get a bloody nose?  These odds are all outstanding.  Screw Vegas.

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HEAT.  Stifling, unrelenting, smoke-your-ass-like-a-turkey heat.  Heat in which we have chosen to live, and give ourselves a swift bitch-slap for doing so right about May every year.  The realization hits us that the next four months will be filled with convection oven cars, melted frozen goods, and sweaty ass cracks.  We will eat mostly ramen noodles, because most of our income is spent on electricity.  Electricity that is working to air-condition an apartment that gets daily twelve-hour beatings from an atomic fireball that sits directly outside the living room window.

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What do you do when your child is in tears, and you are fighting to keep from laughing?  It was all I could do this morning, to keep a straight face.  You know, because it would be so unbelievably cruel for me to LAUGH AT SOMETHING FUNNY.

I was getting ready for work, and noticed that Noelle's hair was disheveled.  I told her I wanted to fix it.  "Noooooooo!  My daddy said I could leave it down!"  (He had gotten her ready at his house and dropped her off - I was taking her to school.) 

"But I just want to pull part of it back, so --"  And with that, Noelle flung her self backwards, trying to flop on the toilet to mope.  Thing is, she had just peed in it before our exchange, and had not yet flushed the toilet.  But she did have her skirt pulled back up.

Her flinging skills are top-notch, so she landed right in the toilet.  Slam dunk!  The look on her face was priceless heart-wrenching.  Her legs dangled over the side, and I must admit she looked a bit like Bambi, with her limbs all over the place and whatnot.  I wanted to tell her this, because I thought it might make her laugh.  But it might also make her cry harder.  So I went another route.

"At least you hadn't pooped."

English-shminglish

We bought a file cabinet from Target.  Not a metal one, a cheap pseudo-wood one.  The kind you take out of a box.  The kind you must assemble in a Lincoln-Log fashion.  The kind whose manufacturers care so very much about the consumer.  So much so, that they anticipated said consumer's possible alarm after opening the carton holding their very fine product and being accosted by an offensive odor:

Thank you, cheap file cabinet manufacturing people, for easing my mind.  You give me hope for mankind.  Proper use of the English language, not so much.  But whats do I car about that thar stuff anyhows, I cautious when pick words.

Oh NO she di-int!

Things uttered recently by my 5-year-old daughter, in seriousness or in jest:

1. "My dinner had better be waiting for me when I get out there!"  (Supposedly in jest.  Hmmmph.)
2. "I wish I was Gwen (Stefani).  Then I would have a baby in my tummy."
3. Upon learning that Gwen Stefani gave birth to a baby boy:  "I might marry Gwen's baby someday.  You just never know."
4. "Katharine (McPhee) and Taylor (Hicks) are honeys."
5. To her stepbrother:  "You want a piece of me??"
6. In the car:  "Please put my cd in and play number six.  I want to rock out."
7. While playing Twister:  "I am officially freaked out."
8. Upon seeing that an episode of "Minute Meals" was starting:  "YESSS!  Rachael Ray!"  (Somewhere, I have gone terribly, terribly wrong.)
9. Out of the blue:  "Four plus four plus four equals twelve."  (Right on!  Maybe she can start balancing my checkbook for me when she starts kindergarten...)
10. "Do you have to be married to have a baby in your tummy?"  (For the love of GOD.)
11. While watching me eat a hard-boiled egg, and pointing to the the yolk:  "Are those ducks?"  (Chickens/ducks... baby chicks/yellow... yolks/yellow...  How in the hell do I know??)
12. To her grandfather:  "I don't want to be an astronaut anymore, cause my mama says that they have to poop in their spacesuits."  (Okay, I DID say that if they were on Mars or the Moon, outside of the space shuttle, they would have to go in their suits if the urge hit them.  Hey! I saw it on The Discovery Channel, no foolin'.)
13. In response to me asking her if she was a smart cookie:  "No.  I'm a smart chicken nugget." 

And this, my friends, is what they call a "spirited" child.