Saturday, July 31, 2010

Venn diagram of dating

Inevitably on a first date the guy will look at me near the end and say something along the lines of "You're so normal! And cute! Why are you still single?" which just shows how perceptive most men aren't.

I've decided to make this handy Venn diagram of dating to whip out when asked this stupid question. Seriously, I am going to print it out on cards. The tiny red dot in the middle represents the intersection of required attributes. On the cards I will add a caption that says "Are you here? Probably not, if I have to show you the card."

You're welcome.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Clouds of Evil

So, I'm about as even-tempered as as a grizzly bear. Well, imaginary grizzly bears - I don't spend a lot of time with scary ass wildlife so I may be projecting here, but I imagine grizzly bears are either happy or pissed off, which is pretty much how I roll. My emotions are pretty freaking far from complex. Here's a pie chart!





That's me up there. Usually I'm in the pink, rarely am I blue, but sometimes I am red hot. I know how to deal with all of these states. Every once in a while, so rarely that it doesn't even register on the Mood Pie, something else happens - and it always confuses me. This happened to me last week.

The day started normally enough - with me waking up to my demon cat in my face, standing on my boobs, and yelling at me.




He's really sweet actually, he's just a complete asshole in the morning. So I got up and wandered into the bathtub, totally happy that it was a work from home day. Work from home = bubble bath before the calls and drama start. Work from office = flailing around with makeup, packing food for the day, trying not to step on demon cat with heels, and suck ass commute. I should draw that later, it will be cathartic. Anyway. Bath.





So nice! After a bath I'm usually awake enough to make coffee without burning the house down. Unless, of course, the kitchen has managed to COMPLETELY REARRANGE ITSELF overnight.




The cabinet knobs were totally out of reach. I couldn't find the cinnamon. The coffee had been sucked into an alternate universe and replaced by inexplicable and illegible symbols. And the asshole cat was starting to get on my nerves. I convinced myself the housekeeper was to blame.

Coffee-less and crabby, I started to work. This didn't go well. Everything everyone said was irritating, like nails on a chalkboard or bees in your clothes, all at once. Nothing on the internet was working. BFF was instant messaging me gibberish (she really wasn't. Everyone was innocent. Except the clown babies).




The world was just all wrong. What was happening here? I started getting irritated with everything. All the irritations built up until I was surrounded by a Miasma of Rage.







While demon cat tried to sharpen his claws on my ankle I realized that everything couldn't have started to suck all at once. Something must be going on here, some evil force was at work. I stopped grumpily messaging BFF and tweeting assy nonsense and decided to figure out what was causing my panties to get so twisted. I took a deep breath and looked outside....





And found the problem. Cloudy days do not make me blue, they make me PURPLE. Like stinging insects are invading my skin. I'm not talking about pretty white fluffy clouds in a blue Texas sky, either, or the kind of clouds that bring rain and thunderstorms (mmmm thunderstorms). I'm talking about heavy, oppressive, completely pointless fucking clouds that produce NOTHING but pain and misery. They screw up the air pressure, they refract light, they turn the sky weird colors and make the grass all wrong, they STAB MY EYES and invade my brain with irritation. Their sole purpose is to ruin my day and make everyone tense. Maybe they are tense because I'm grumpy and stressing them out or maybe they are susceptible to the gas of irritation these clouds put out - what the fuck ever. All I know is, on a day like this, do not talk to me. Everything will sound wrong.

I closed my curtains, took some advil, put in a Buffy dvd, and shut out the sky. After that I could function again.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

On Friendship

I have two friends who don't get along anymore. Let's call them Taco and Cake.

I love them. Taco is crunchy, spicy goodness. When I first met her I was drawn by how crazy intense she was. Taco is really smart and loves to party.
Taco introduced me to cake. Cake is lush, and sweet, and quiet. She is chocolatey awesomeness. If you're sick, cake will bring you a treat and rub your back for you. Cake listens to your problems and is always on your side. Cake is always there for you.


One day Taco was having some serious personal issues. Like most of us, she is a normal taco person, trying to find her way in the world. She may have a hard outer shell but she's not impervious. She started talking about some of her difficulties.

Cake jumped in and offered some unsolicited advice.


Taco, like me, is NOT a fan of unsolicited advice. She was also having the kind of trouble where she really needed reassurance that it is OK to be herself. Tacos are awesome. She need a Taco hug and some affirmation...it wasn't a tough love moment.

Taco got pissed off.


She put her shell back on and geared up for war. I watched, horrified, as Cake and Taco battled it out. Things were said, actions were taken. It was awful. Taco entrails and cake crumbs went flying.


Cake and Taco don't talk any more. It's over. I still hang out with Cake, and Taco and I are buds, but they don't get each other at all. Taco can be a little prickly but sometimes that is what you want. Other times your sweet tooth demands chocolate cake. But now, if you put them together, it just ends in a giant stomachache. I don't want them to be cranky that I still see the good in each. I wouldn't be able to choose between them.

Because friendships are complicated. Your friend is never going to be exactly who you think they should be, they won't act all the time like you want them to act, and they aren't always going to be, for you, exactly what you need in a friend. That's why we need multiples of them. I need the one who is always going to tell me the truth, and the one who will give me a hug when I'm blue, and the one who challenges me to make me think or to be a better person or to stop wearing the same fucking nail polish color all the time. I need the friend that makes me know it's ok to be me and the friend that makes me feel safe enough to get crazy when I need that too.

It's not ok for friends to damage each other, but sometimes that happens. We brush up each other in this life and hopefully it enriches us as people, but sometimes it leaves bumps and bruises and chips in our armor. I don't think friends should be cruel to each other. A true friendship is one in which you can be honest and open and know how to say true things when the other person is ready to hear them and in the way they need to hear it. One thing I've learned in my years of friendship is that it's my job to try to BE the best friend I can be and give my friend what she needs - and it's also my job to accept her for who she is, flaws and prickly bits and mushiness and all.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Too High

The summer between high school and college was one big party. Friends, partying, boyfriend, working, etc. The only problem I had was trying to figure out the logistics of having sex with boyfriend since he lived with his parents and I was living with my best friend's family (long story). One night our friend invited us over to where he was housesitting for the weekend. I told my temporary family some obvious lie about sleeping over at a friend's house and started planning for sessytimes. I pictured a sultry scene with me lounging around and boyfriend getting ready to pounce on me.

But, of course, our friends were not on the same page as far as expecting me and boyfriend to use this opportunity to have crazy monkey sex as soon as we got there. We had to socialize. These were boyfriend's friends, and they all had something in common - something I had never tried before.

Our friend came out with some snacks. Everyone perked up at this.

I looked at the pot brownies and thought to myself - why the hell not. If I'm ever going to try drugs, it might as well be with boyfriend and friends of ours that I can trust. I mean these guys were high all the time, they were way too stoned to ever lace the drugs with anything or try to do anything icky to me. I wasn't a big drinker and I'd never been drunk or even tried cigarettes. So I grabbed a brownie and took a tentative bite.
The next hour was a blur, a hazy montage of deep throating brownies and doublefisting joints. I'd been rolling joints for bf for months so I was a pro at that.

Oh yes - OH HELL YES. I suddenly became ravenously hungry and crazy horny.

I begged boyfriend to get me a burger. I was going to DIE if I didn't get a bacon cheeseburger RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. And then have sex.

So boyfriend saddled up and drove to the nearest Burger King. I went up to the room we were supposed to sleep in and started fantasizing about both my upcoming bacon burger and the crazy wild monkey sex. The excitement kept me going for about three minutes, and then....

I passed out. HARD. So. Hard. Boyfriend appeared with a bag of fast food and a giant erection and found me drooling on the borrowed bed. I woke up long enough to take two bites of burger and then fell back asleep. He went downstairs and continued to get wasted with the guys. I ended up with no burger, and no booty.

The moral of the story:

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Fun with roommates!

My freshman year of college was awesome. AWESOME. You know that saying: "There's a time and a place for everything - and it's called college"? Yeah, that was me. I lived a very very sheltered life up until then, for reasons we won't get into right now, but I moved into this suite with four other girls, a bunch of boys next door, and tons of alcohol and weed and a roommate who used to trip balls regularly and it was nuts. I shared a room with a blond ROTC girl; in the second bedroom we had another blond girl (both blond girls were named Jenny. It was confusing.) and this awesome Samoan girl. In the 3rd bedroom was, again, a blond girl, but she was a super Northern California hippie with parents who worked in state politics. Her family had a big name in local circles, which of course meant they never had any money because they were always campaigning.

So, not blond roomate (Tepa) somehow picked up a boyfriend in another state. One of those states in the middle of the country? I don't know how this happened because chatrooms weren't real yet and online dating hadn't been invented - this was in 1993, kids, the world was a different place. She liked to call him and they would talk for DAYS. We had one phone in our dorm room and no one had cell phones yet. Think I'm exaggerating? Not so much. Check this out.

Tepa got on the phone with her boy. She sat in our living room, talking and glaring at us if we tried to sit out there. This was not a problem at first, most of us were in and out and doing someone.



We all eventually made it to bed and went to sleep...all except Tepa. She stayed up talking to Boy. I have no fucking idea what anyone has to talk about for so long, especially when they could be out drinking or getting a little bit high and experiencing the young virile males growing abundantly in the dorm halls like perky little party favors.

Eventually our hippie roommate wandered out and mentioned vaguely that she needed to use the phone. Her parents had screwed up some money thing but her next quarter's tuition was due, so she needed to call her politically hippie parents and wrangle some school cash.


Tepa was looking a little worn around the edges. She nodded at hippie roommate and gave some indication that she would be off the phone soonish and waved her off.

Hippie went into her room and smoked some substances. A short time later she remembered she needed to use the phone, and started to feel a little panicky.

Tepa flailed an arm at her, apparently to mean 'bitch, please, I will get off the phone soon if you leave me the fuck alone for a minute'. She had been on the phone for 15 hours at that point. I was wandering around with one of the other blond roommates (a Jenny) and thought, uhoh. This can't end well. Vodka?

Around 3PM hippie roommate tried again - for the last time. She had spent the last 2 hours sobering up and working herself into a cute little hippie righteous indignation and she stormed out, hair flying everywhere, and squeaked out a final demand for the phone.

Tepa flipped her shit and started screaming at her that she had to learn how to share the phone, that she would get off the phone when she was ready, and that spoiled hippie roommate would just have to learn to wait and like it. Hippie roommate said "Parents! Tuition! Deadline! Money!" and it degenerated from there. I was taking a 'nap'. I don't remember exactly but my 'naps' were always either alcohol- or boy-related, so there you go. I wasn't fated to 'nap' for long this time. Tepa flew across the coffee table like a deranged person and went after hippie roommate. I suspect that this was due, in part, to mental and emotional exhaustion for being on the phone for so long. Talking on the phone while eating, peeing, drinking, and not sleeping is not fun (I've had to do 3 day conference calls like this in my adult life - trust me - that shit will get to you eventually).

Tepa attacked poor hippie roommate.

I came running out with one of the Jennys and saw Tepa slamming our roommate's head into the coffee table. We were shocked and scared. People came running into our suite and the boys next door pulled Tepa off of her (she was a big big girl). The rest is a blur of ambulances and campus security but I remember that Tepa was still screaming about how 'that bitch needed to learn to wait for the phone'. It was surreal, and totally a Jerry Springer moment, and we were all ZOMG ROOMMATE CRAZEEEEE.

Summer was in the hospital but somehow her tuition issues worked out, Tepa was kicked out of the dorms and hopefully suspended for a quarter, and the story made it around campus.

Epilogue: Tepa called me 6 months later and tried to borrow money to pay an $1800 phone bill. She then called me a year after THAT asking for my credit card number so she could call a psychic to help her find her wallet. I moved into an apartment my senior year with two girls who said, after hearing what dorms I had lived in my freshman year: "OMG, did you know that girl Tepa?" Yes, yes I did. She was batshit crazy.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Please stop

The joy of dating sites - among other things - is the fact that you can message or wink at someone and if they are interested, they respond, but if they are not interested they can just politely ignore it. Most people understand this and just move on. Occasionally you'll get a real wacko who will berate you for not answering - because tying to force people to like you usually ends well - but 98% of the time it works out decently for everyone. If someone has really put a lot of time/effort into their message and I'm not into it, I might send back something polite but usually I hate to encourage someone if there is no chance. As most women have realized by now, some guys will take literally anything as encouragement.

Like this guy. Every time I've tried online dating I've had someone like this at least once. This guy takes your silence to mean 'please message me more, your attempts to woo me will eventually win me over IF YOU JUST KEEP AT IT.' I have no idea what he would do if I DID respond; possibly hunt me down and saw off my leg so he could hump it at home or, depending on how crazy he is, maybe lose interest entirely (yay)! More often than not, however, communicating just causes the crazy to escalate. As much as I enjoy a good confrontation, feeling as I do that it cleans out the pipes, I tend not to do so with clearly unstable males online who have access to my picture.

Anyway. Message #1 (remember, my OKC profile says You should message me if... "You aren't batshit crazy"). Also, I talk about bacon flavored popcorn, because if you've had it, you would too. This message isn't so bad:

"Bacon Flavored Popcorn!
Jul. 14, 2010 – 2:18pm No friggin' way!

I've heard of chocolate covered bacon but popcorn. Where do you get it? Do you have to meet some guy behind a convenient store? Hook me up!

:D,
(boy name)"

Slightly amusing, but the profile picture is creepy, not cute, and oddly lit. Like maybe his camera filter has been rinsed recently in blood (scary!). His profile is also really weird, and not in a fun way. So I ignore him.

2 days later, message 2:

"Watchadoin?
Jul. 16, 2010 – 10:18pm :)

(boy name)

I'm not Batshit Crazy. I know because I've dated Batshit Crazy and I'm not it. lol."

Thus proving that self-awareness is not a life skill he has managed to pick up along the way. More ignoring.

Yesterday, I updated my You Should Message Me section to add, underneath Not Batshit Crazy, the following: "You are an alpha male" and "You are not easily confused", because I am tired of the emails asking me what batshit crazy is.

Today I received message 3 from this poor misguided dude:

"So far I should still message you.
Jul. 20, 2010 – 7:56pm Batshit crazy. Nope
Alpha male. Check (but not type A)
And what was the last one? Uhh, wait, lemme look it up... Darn.

How 'bout two of three. :shrug:

;)
(boy name) "

AGAIN WITH THE MASSIVE FAILURE. You are batshit crazy if you continue to message a woman who is clearly, unequivocally, and adamantly ignoring the shit out of you. You are obviously confused if you think emailing her again is going to work. It won't.

I do not want to talk to you. I think it is horrible that I might have to respond to you to tell you that I don't want to talk to you. That feels all wrong and squicky and I don't want you to think that leg stealing/humping would be the next logical step in our non-relationship.

Please, just stop. Do not inflict your crazy on me because at some point I will be tempted to respond with MY crazy, which is a thing that you do not want.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Penis spam

Oh email spammers, why do you want me to take care of my penis? I do not have a penis. If I did, would I need your advice about it? Are they really so hard to take care of?

If I had a pet penis, I would keep it in a velvet box and take it for walks. I would never ever let the cats play with it



and I would keep it clean and train it as to appropriate penis behavior, such as not chasing cars or spitting up in front of company. I don't think I would get it any squishy friends to hang out with, mostly because they kind of freak me out.



Other than that? It would be on its own. Because if the penis needed any more care and feeding then it would be way too fucking high maintenance for me and I just don't deal with anything that needy. Also, penis email spammers, help me understand how people knew how to take care of their penises before email? Was there a secret snail mail mailing list before that? Smoke signals? Or did the penises just suffer in silence from substandard care?


Poor little guys. Sad penis! :(




Magazine scammers will GET YOU

This is my BFF's favorite story of me and a blackout rage incident - she emailed me some details I'd forgotten, such as actual words I used, etc. Enjoy :)

I lived in the dorms my freshman year of college, but my dorms were special - they had converted an apartment complex into an awesome dorm situation, so we lived in suites. I had 4 roommates in a 3 bedroom 2 bath suite with a living room (no kitchen though). My suitemates were a combination of ultra conservative and fucking crazy, which ended up with . One afternoon I was sitting in our living room watching the X-Files - yes, I'm really that old, shut up - when someone knocked in our door. In a suite with 5 girls, this happened a lot. LOTS of boys dropping by with treats or invitations or random leering. This boy, however, did not want to give us anything - he wanted to sell us some magazines. You know the spiel; reformed kids from bad circumstances given magazine sales jobs to keep them busy and employed. I of course got super excited, because I get super excited about every freaking thing that is new to me, and I ordered a few magazines. Why not! I'm on my own! I have a little money! Magazines!

He took my money and went on his way. A few months later I realized I had no magazines - they never came. I was also broke from that and other random unexpected expenses (lingerie. It's a problem).
That fucker SCAMMED ME. I found out later that this was a thing - they target freshman dorms right after move-in. I actually found that out for sure a few years later in my Persuasion Theories class. Persuasion Theories was awesome, it was under Communication and Psych and you learned about cults, and random hard sell sales techniques, and pyramid schemes AND ABOUT THE FUCKING MAGAZINE SCAMMERS. Ahem.
Fast-forward to December; BFF and I went to a nearby big city mall for some Christmas shopping. Shopping!


We were walking along happily gossiping, talking about how awesome college was and what was probably contributing to the freshman 15 (alcohol, crappy food, and 420 munchies most likely) when we were approached by a guy. Guess what he wanted.

That's right, astute reader. HE WANTED TO SELL US SOME MAGAZINES.


I was enraged. I started seeing clouds of blood. Instead of politely refusing, which is what I normally do when approached by random people selling ridiculous crap, I started foaming at the mouth. My hands turned into tiny fists of fury.
"....Magazines?" I said, in a white-hot fury.
"Uh, yes ma'am, magazines, we have a 3 for 1 deal on..."
"I don't want your magazines. Why would I give you MY MONEY only to never ever get your crappy fucking magazines?!"
He started to look a little freaked out, but the kid had heart. He was adamant that it was legit, I'd get the magazines, etc.
"It's a scam! A SCAM. You will take our money and we will never ever get the magazines and"
(Things get blurry here for a while. More of me ranting about what a scam it is. He gets VERY DEFENSIVE.)
BFF is standing by in shocked silence, clearly wishing she were someplace else but also having my back and wanting to see the fireworks.
I ranted a little about the guy who sold me magazines at the dorm. He decided to attempt logical argument to win me over as to his innocence:
Salesdouche: "Well, most murderers are men, do you think EVERY man is a murderer?"
ME: "I would if he was standing in front of me waving a fucking KNIFE."

The End.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Cop blocked!

I'm a creature of habit. I like to have a few things every week that happen in almost exactly the same way each time, which then means that everything else can be completely batshit crazy. One of my favorite things is my weekly lunch with Ed - we've worked together so long that we are totes BFF. Also he is ridic hot. Aaaaaand he loves a good bargain.


So a few weeks ago we decide to eat at Peiwei, where you can get a free drink if you call in your order and it's not ready when you get there. He loves this and thinks it is the best thing ever - he won't call them until he's picked me up and we are on our way there so he can get free drinks.


(Wheeee! Soda!!!!)


This drives me freaking crazy, seriously. We are grownups who make decent money, we don't need to scam restaurants out of sodas - which cost, what, $1.50? Plus I end up waiting and we all know how I feel about THAT. (Hint: Not good)


This time we get there and Ed goes through his routine. Oh, the food's not ready? SURE I'll take a free drink! Thanks! And he scampers off to the soda machine, feeling like he just won something.


I sigh dramatically and move over to the waiting area when I'm faced with something that makes me realize that waiting isn't always bad....sometimes there are perks. What do I see standing a few feet away from me but a very tall, very dark, and very handsome cop. Welllll hello there, officer, can I show you my uniform fetish?His hotness has totally flustered me, which is rare. I don't fluster easily.



I'm giving him flirty glances and trying to come up with something to say to him that isn't an obvious sex invitation because, seriously, my brain has checked out, when suddenly Ed comes back and solves the problem for me by COMPLETELY AND RANDOMLY CHATTING UP THE COP.




And not in a 'oh have you met my single friend hottie mchotpants over here' kind of way, either. He is giving off some sort of vibe like HE is a cop groupie or, possibly, that we are a married couple and he is trying to pick up the cop for a 3-way. This is not helped by the fact that Ed is wearing his wedding ring, touching the cop, lots of eye contact, and kind of flirting. Ed is completely straight btw, he is just really, really friendly and enthusiastic and about as clued-in as a 4 week old puppy. He at no point mentions that we are NOT a couple nor does he even realize that I am totally wetting my panties over this cop. At least now I have an excuse to talk to the cop but I cannot seem to avoid ALSO giving the impression that Ed and I are together (remember how we've been friends for so long? We have that kind of chemistry).

Anyway.

No cop for me. We leave Peiwei and I am completely exasperated. I point out to Ed that he totally cop-blocked me and he was like, what? Um, Ed, hot single buff copman...very single female friend.... can you do the arithmetic here? Once he gets it Ed is completely embarassed. Agrees we may need a signal for when we're out together so I can indicate interest. I stare at him, unsure why it is not only hard for him to figure out how to do wingman stuff but also why he keeps forgetting that I might be interested in someone (it's rare, but IT HAPPENS.)

Here is the serious part:

I was teasing Ed about this again a few weeks later, because we give each other shit all the time, when he suddenly gets serious and says 'Well, you wouldn't really want to date a cop anyway."

I wouldn't?

No, he says, they are in danger all the time, etc. I start to think about it and realize that yes, I know it's a dangerous job. I don't know how Dallas stacks up with other cities for cop injury rates but I realize....is it any more dangerous than walking around while female? I mean, given the rate of violence against women, is a police officer in Dallas more statistically likely to be injured in the course of his career than a woman is just for being female? I don't think I'm expressing it well and I'm certainly not trying to sound inflammatory but...yeah. Being a woman is a dangerous business, and we do it all day and all night every day of the year.

What's up = No sex

I'm going to do a cartoon soon of our favorite types of online daters - you know, the ones we love to hate. In the meantime here is another winning exchange (this guy is 6 years younger than my minimum age range I set, btw)

HIM: your super cute =) we should totally be friends

ME: I AM! Thank you :)

HIM: hahaha whats up =)

I was tempted to ask him 'my super cute what?' after his first email but I didn't think he'd get it. Words cannot express how much I can't stand text messages or emails that say 'what's up?' like that, all on its own. The only time I ever say 'what's up?' is if someone is IMing me and not getting to the point, and it is my cleverly disguised way of saying what the fuck do you want, why are you talking to me. In the past when booty calls would text me 'what's up' I would just get irritated and text it back, which usually ended in a sort of angry satisfaction for me but, in those cases, no sex. Today's dating lesson:



Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Best email ever

The OKCupid dating site has a section in your profile that says 'You should message me if...' and you fill in the blank. I wrote 'You should message me if you're not batshit crazy', thinking, if anyone doesn't get that they really should not be contacting me. This is an email I received an hour after setting up my profile. I've copied and pasted it so please don't think I'm exaggerating, it was exactly this:

"hey
Jul. 13, 2010 – 11:30pm Babe what the hell is batshit crazy?? lmao. If you weren't hot I'd think your crazy hehe. jk :-)"

I'm hot AND crazy, and I know the difference between your and you're.

NEXT

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Alien Channel

I'm fascinated by the show Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. Why does the History channel show so much alien shit? Is it just to torture me? Because I cannot stop watching it. I have things to do but I cannot leave couch (another contributing factor: my alien cat has my legs trapped).

But guess what I just learned! Not only is it possible that aliens tweaked our dna to make us smarter but they may have encoded data in it. Really? This guy actually just said that if we could read the encoded data it would probably tell us that Aliens were here 1000s of years ago.

Headline: Alien graffiti artists visit Earth and tag human DNA with this important message "zomg we wuz here! LULZ!"

How I got banned from gas station

When I was in high school I had a super awesome VW Rabbit diesel. It's name was The Cloud (clouds aren't blue, but in my defense, I was 16). My HS bestie and I were terrorizing our small town when I realized I was running out of fuel. There were exactly two gas stations in my town which supplied diesel. We pulled in to one of them. The other one was a mile away, which in our tiny town seemed far. I was totally broke but I found $5 in my pocket and, back in the day, that was enough to get me almost half a tank! But I wanted to save $1 so I could get a taco. Still, $4 was a respectable amount of gas, multiple gallons even.
I pulled the nozzle out and flipped up the pump lever. Back then you didn't pay before you pumped, so you had to really watch the pump to make sure you didn't get more gas than you could afford and still be able to get a taco. I love tacos. As I was moving the nozzle towards my gas tank something happened - the pump malfunctioned or something - and diesel starting spraying ALL OVER MY CAR. BFF frantically rolled up the window while I stared in shock at the fuel going all over my car. I didn't know what to do because I wasn't squeezing the handle. Since I hadn't started it I didn't know how to make it stop. None of the other people at the gas station came over to help me as I continued to spray diesel on my car. BFF was screaming at me 'make it stop! make it stop!'
Were we going to catch on FIRE? And EXPLODE? I didn't know.
All I knew was that we were being attacked by an evil gas monster that clearly intended to drown me, The Cloud, and BFF.


Finally I figured out to flip down the lever on the pump and the diesel stopped spraying all over my car. The gas station manager ran out and starting screaming at me, telling me I had to pay for the gas (diesel). I looked over at the pump and realized I had managed to spray $22.74 worth of diesel on the car and the ground. BFF came out of the car, grabbed some paper towels, and started wiping down the car. I was still in shock. Gas station man was still yelling at me. Really, dipshit? I started crying and mumbling that I only meant to get $4 worth of diesel. I knew enough not to mention the taco. This sent gas station man into a hysterical rage. (In hindsight? Clearly he should have used the emergency shutoff switch. I don't know if he was asleep or jacking off in the bathroom but he was a complete asshole). He managed to drag me into the gas station and continued to yell at me.
Finally my evil twin had enough and took over. I don't know what I said, but I know I called him a little fucker and told him he couldn't charge me because his pump malfunctioned all over my car, and that if anything happened to The Cloud as a result of the diesel attack I'd be coming back. He took my $5 (no taco) and I gave him a lingering death glare before scuttling out to my car. (My evil twin side wasn't fully grown yet, and this small battle wore her out). He yelled at me to never ever come back. Somehow when I got in the car I had a few gallons of diesel in the tank (BFF?) and I drove off, smelling like gas, banned from one of the two gas stations in town with diesel, and with a 10 year phobia of pumping my own gas.


UPDATE: I sent this to my high school BFF, who informed me that the gas station was torn down and replaced by a Safeway parking lot. I WIN IN THE END, EVIL GAS STATION MONSTER!!

10 minute tacos!

These are my famous fish tacos! You can make this in 10 minutes or less, including prep time. They are ridiculously good and very low calorie and healthy.
Ingredients
1) 1 tilapia filet, thawed
2) small handful of grape tomatoes. Seriously, GRAPE tomatoes. These are not cherry tomatoes. They have a very very specific flavor. Get them.
3) PAM 0 calorie cooking spray
4) Seafood seasoning (if you don't have it or don't want to go to the store, use a little season salt. You can use sea salt instead but this stuff adds actual flavor. Cajun spice would work just as well.)
5) 2 small soft corn tortillas
6) Cilantro
7) Red onion
8) Black pepper
9) optional - chopped up jalepeno, Louisiana hot sauce

Supplies

1 small pan
spatula
flat bowl (like a pasta bowl)
small bowl for chopped up goodies

Get to work
1) Heat your small pan on the stove over medium to medium high heat. Do not get too hot. While you wait for it to heat coat lightly with PAM
2) Heat a corn tortilla until slightly crispy at the edges. Flip it. Wait. Put it in bowl. Do the second one. Both sides, edges slightly crispy.
3) While your tortillas are heating, if you don't suck at multitasking, start making your pico de gallo. If you do suck at multitasking do the pico earlier. Get a small cute bowl. Take a handful of grape tomatoes. Slice them lengthwise down the middle and then cut across that to end up with chopped pieces. I use approx 6-9 grape tomatoes.
4) Dice up some red onion. You should end up with less onion than tomato, but enough to see it. I love onion so I use quite a bit.
5) Your tortillas are done. Take the bowl with the tortillas and set it in the microwave or inside the oven. Do not turn either of these devices on.
6) Rinse and pat dry your tilapia. Season one side with the seafood seasoning (see above) and some black pepper. Add a bit more PAM to the pan and then put the tilapia filet in. Season the side facing up with pepper and seasoning. It should look like this






7) Let that side cook/sear for about a minute. While you do, get your cilantro out and start chopping it.
8) Flip your fish, wait another 30-60 seconds. Chop more cilantro. Add cilantro to tomato/onion bowl. (If you are using jalepeno, add it)




9) Use your spatula to chop up the fish into smaller pieces. In thicker sections you may have to press harder to break up the fish, but it has already cooked enough that it should flake fairly easily into what we want:



10) Let the fish pieces cook another 30-60 seconds and then remove from heat. Get your bowl of tortillas out of the microwave and prep the tortillas side by side, kind of propping each other up. Spoon in your fish.
11) (optional) sprinkle some Louisiana hot sauce on the fish right now
12) Scoop out the tomato/onion pico you just made into your tacos. Eat!

13) So fucking good. Resist urge to make more.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Drive thru drama

Ever have a rage blackout? I do! Not so regularly now as back when I was in college (oh, the stories I hear but don't remember because it really was a blackout from rage, hahahaha) but they do still happen. This one came back to me a few hours later.

So here is how it started. I left work super exhausted because I was still getting over being sick but I had a fuckton of work to do. By the time I left I was already fighting to not tell someone to go eat a dick for asking me a stupid question. Here is a rough sketch of me right then; please note, I am still holding it together but you can see by my slightly squirrelly eyes and wonky hair that all is not well with me. In fact, my evil twin really wanted to be let out to play.



I decided on the way home that what I really needed to get my shit together was some grilled chicken from KFC. MMMMM grilled chicken! I zoomed home, somehow avoiding the craptastic traffic. I pulled into the KFC/Taco Hut parking lot near my apartment, ecstatic to see just a few cars in the drive thru line (I hate waiting. If I see more than 3 cars waiting to get to the talking part, I take off). I pulled into line, noticing that the lady in front of me was not pulling up as close to the person in front of her as is traditional, but she seemed to catch on soon enough that she needed to pull up. We moved along until it was my turn to order. The lady in the white SUV again didn't pull up enough and this time it was preventing me from reaching the talking box. I tapped my horn politely, she scooted up, and I ordered my chicken. As soon as I ordered I felt myself relaxing. Soon I would have two pieces of dark meat grilled chicken! So happy. We pulled up again, so there were now just 2 cars in front of me.

That's when things started to fall apart. I smelled something burning coming from the drive thru window. I didn't see any smoke and there didn't seem to be any screaming or running around, so I thought, alrighty. Chicken soon. Chicken. (That was literally my train of thought. A train full of chicken fantasies.)

Car pulls out and white SUV lady is at the window. We wait.

Seven minutes later, we're still waiting. I start to wonder what the fuck is going on. Then I settle down, thinking, chicken.

A guy sticks his out out the drive thru window and looks down the line of cars. I look behind me, but no, nothing exciting. Then I try to figure out what he was looking at. More nothing.

Five minutes later I start to panic. Are they out of chicken? Am I going to be stuck here forever? I'm wedged between the white SUV in front of me and a GIANT red pickup truck behind me. I feel trapped. I take my shoes off to relieve some tension, and tentatively think, chicken? That didn't work. Three cars (that hadn't ordered yet) pull around and take off.

I want to leave too but I am super stuck. I'm tormented by the thought that if I give up and somehow get out of the line (and don't forget, I'm seriously the second person in line) that as soon as I drive off the lady in front of me will get her food and I will have just barely missed out on my chicken. I start trying to remember if I saw her pay. Are the credit card machines down? After five minutes of this I realize that there is really no way I am going to solve this problem for any of us and for the sake of my own sanity, and for the safety of everyone, I should probably leave. Also I was feeling really lightheaded.

I turned my wheel, inched forward, turned on my little blinker, and tapped my horn. No response. Guy behind me starts yelling, asking wtf is going on. I decided I REALLY need to leave before this turns into some kind of chicken riot or reality TV stunt. I honk more. Still nothing.

So I yell out my window and ask the lady in front of me to move up. I honk again and hold it down, then ask her more firmly to move up and let me out.

She yells at me 'back up!'

I look behind me in case the earth has swallowed up the mass of cars in line behind me, but no. The big red pickup is still 3 inches from my rear bumper, and the person behind him is just as close. I decide this bitch is crazy.

So I start screaming at her (because, obvs, that works with crazy people) "Pull UP, lady, and let me OUT!" She yells back "If I pull up then the people behind you will just pull up too!"

What the fuck does that even mean? Is she afraid of losing her spot at the window?

(Side note: At this KFC, just like the other fast food places around here and I assume in most places, if there is something about your particular order that will take a couple minutes longer than normal they ask you to pull up and they will walk the food to your car, and everyone else can go on there merry way. I had assumed they had a more widespread issue since they hadn't waved her on, but her bizarre response made me wonder. Also, the drive through guy kept sticking his head out the window and looking at the cars.)

She AGAIN tells me to back up. I look at my clock and realize I've been here for 25 minutes with no end in sight and no explanation for what is going on. I really want to go home and play with my Wii.

I tell her to 'move her fucking car and let me the fuck out' and start honking like a madwoman. She's waving her hands around frantically like she doesn't know what to do. The guy behind me is grumpy, and I'm contemplating getting out of my car. I cannot believe she is being so stubborn. I yell up, exasperated 'two feet!'(waving 2 fingers in the air) 'you just have to move two feet to let me the fuck out!'

This is what I looked like at that point:



She must have seen something in her rearview mirror because she finally said 'Fine! Just leave!' and inched forward just enough for me to escape. I guess she felt like I was abandoning her? Too bad for her, guilt trips don't even work on me when I give a shit about the person trying it. I cannot believe that she was arguing with a potentially psychotic stranger about moving forward 12 inches to let me out. And where the fuck was the manager of the KFC for those 25 minutes? Why was he not coming out and letting us know what the hell was going on? They could still be there for all I know.

I came home, made some macaroni & cheese, and totally spaced it until just now. I truly believe that if I in any way thought that it would help me getting my chicken I would have happily removed that woman forcefully from the drive thru line.

Batshit Crazy Boss

I have a boss who is absolutely nuts. This is how he handles conflict.

Step 1: He realizes his employee has made a mistake and needs some guidance.



Step 2: Boss hates conflict. Has a brainstorm.



Step 3: He approaches other employees in an effort to build consensus.



Step 4: He schedules an 'impromptu' chat.











Step 5: Boss pats self on the back for providing such clear guidance. He then reports back to Joe, Little Mike, and the Mouse that he ripped you a new one. They all believe him, but feel slightly dirty. They each suspect that they really lost the FUBAR account.

Bob's evil twin is plotting revenge.