My Epic Home Fail (Turned Right)

Right when I was just starting to love Home Depot, I suffered an awkward situation yesterday, Easter Sunday. And in my world, that means there ain't NO going back.

I'm trying to find a paint swatch and hear a voice behind me yelling, "So you into sailing?"

No one answers. Someone must be on the phone, I think. 

NOPE. The guy working the paint counter suddenly appears beside me like a magician and repeats, "So you into sailing?" I give him a blank stare (not the ice breaker I'm accustomed to, after all), and he clarifies: "Your tattoo!" 

"Oh." I hate when people ask about tattoos; it's personal. Plus, let's face it, I feel like a total dork saying, "IT'S MY 'FRIEND SHIP'. MY BFF HAS ONE TOO." So I ramble about how I randomly got it (false) and why regret tattoos because they're already on you forever? So just deal...blah blah, ramble ramble.

Anyway, I'm already fed up by the time I tell them I need a high-gloss paint in red delicious. See, I had a huge chipped area around the doorknob that needed touching up. 

"We don't do samples in gloss," he says. 

"Ugh, seriously? What's the cheapest I can get that's not a sample?"

"A quart." 

Okay, no. So I get the flat paint in the 3-dollar sample size. At least it's the same color. 

When I go home and slap the paint on the door, I'm in for a treat. It looks NOTHING like the other paint:

I gasp. Shit! I can't stop! I was too confident and heaped too much paint on. I have to at least attempt an even application of this wrong color, or else I'd have three colors going on. I dart my head left and right to make sure Hairy won't round the corner and witness this monstrosity. 

(The natural next step? Posting this to SnapChat.) 

Thankfully, after 30 minutes or so, the paint dried and looked MUCH better: 

This should've taught me to be a little more careful: do more test runs, have a sense of propriety (using gloss paint with gloss paint, no ifs, ands, or buts, etc). In fact, it just made me cockier. All's well that ends well, right? #winning

Why You Should Never Throw a Surprise Party

Surprise parties are a risky little game. Naturally on the perfect world of television sitcoms, they go off without a hitch.

This might be a reality check for some of you, but lemme tell ya: they do not. Not in my experience, regardless of if you’re the recipient or the planner.

ON THE RECEIVING END (this sounds like a little something else, haw haw)

It was my freshman year of college. I was young and naïve. I told my new friends it would be rad if I got a surprise party sometime. But on my actual birthday? Come on.

First off, my actual birthday was a rainy, dreary day the Addams family would rejoice in. I spent my afternoon trudging through a dry reading assignment—and fell asleep. When I awoke, it was time for my birthday dinner. I had chosen a place and everything.

Groggily, I climbed out of bed and dressed myself. My friend texted me, asking if I was ready. Yup, I was ready—for a quiet dinner of thoughtful discussion, maybe.

I lethargically opened the door and was assaulted by punks screaming HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYY!!

My reaction was a bit delayed; after all, I had been sleeping.

“Oh…wow…damn!”

What followed is me trying to get into party mode after I was in quiet, introspective mode. An attendee even told me I looked out of place at my own party.

Point being, surprise party recipients can’t put their party pants on.

ON THE GIVING END (arguably the worse position to be in—we ARE talking about parties, right?)

First I had to kick Harrison out of the apartment.

“I’m having a girls’ night,” I argued.

“Fine,” he said. Later he grudgingly made plans with a friend about 30 minutes away. Whoops.

Within an hour of his departure, the surprise party attendees arrived and we had hastily erected the party décor. I was ready; we were all ready—minus Hairy.

“Harry,” I texted, everyone waiting with baited breath around me. “Come back over. Girls’ night is canceled.”

“I’m hanging with Taylor,” he said.

This wasn’t going to be easy. “Come back, I feel sick,” I pleaded.

“Maybe later,” he said.

I couldn’t cope with an unofficial arrival time. I pulled out the big guns. “I’m vomiting though—I’m having a bad migraine. I need you to bring some Excedrin. We ran out!”

“Ughhh, I’ve been drinking though!” he argued.

By this point I was corresponding with his friend, who sent an LOL and some clarification: “He’s only had two beers!!” (Why was he letting him drink? He was in on this whole operation!)

Taylor was a bump on a log. After dramatic arguing, Harrison finally left. By this point everyone had been over for two hours. Our partiers were not in a party mood anymore. People were yawning.

Shit.

I ran around like a football coach, giving a pep talk and slapping faces, and tried to reinvigorate the party. It slightly worked.

Buuuuut Harrison finally walked in, we yelled "surprise" and all that nonsense. With mouth agape, Harrison happily exclaimed, “LET’S GET DRUNK.”

So not a total loss, especially considering I got engaged at Harry's surprise party (yay alcohol). But was it worth the ulcer? …Well, I guess so.

My Cat from Hell

Stimpson J. Cat, the most reckless of kitties

Don't let his precious face fool you--this is the face of a stinker, a serial destroyer of worlds.

I swear I could write a book on the cat-astrophes that Stimpy causes. It would be the feline version of Marley and Me.

This very morning, for example, this asshole decided to jump in the pantry and knock bottles of Tamari soy sauce and sesame oil off of the shelf. The first bottle shattered and soy sauce flooded our utility room. Then he somehow managed to gnaw the cap off of the sesame oil, and I STILL don't know where it is.

Stimpy being Stimpy, he decided to jump in the puddle and soak his paws. He then sprung onto the counter tops and ran around the house. So yeah, paw prints were EVERYWHERE.

The last thing I wanted to do while half-asleep at 7 a.m. was to clean up this mess. BP's oil spill had nothing on this.

To add insult to injury, Stimpy decided to supervise while we slaved away to restore order to our kitchen. When that got boring, he thought he'd kick back and chew on our television cords. (!!!!!!!!)

(I joked about burning the house down after finding an oriental cockroach in it, but shit got too real when he pulled that stunt.)

Not gonna lie, Hairy and I are pretty beside ourselves. Ever since we moved Stimpy has been acting anxious and mischievous. I'm going to try to remind myself of better days long past to calm myself down.

People say dogs help them stay in shape. But I bet they can't "cat" in yoga like Stimpy can. (He's lacking when it comes to cow, though.)

Wake up and feed me, hooman.

Occasionally Stimpy will rally Twinkie to be an a-hole too. This pic is from when they decided to stare me down in hopes of feeding them. I call it their gangster rap album cover.

Did you know Stimpy is an aspiring traveler too?

He sucks sometimes, but I'm stuck with him. At least he looks dapper AF in a bow tie.

What annoying things do your pets do? Anyone want to start a support group for parents of bad kitties?

3 Sexy Men

Rainy days are Justin Timberlake days for some reason--maybe it's the fact the last syllable of his name connotes a body of water. When a coworker asked what I was listening to, I responded, "JT, he's my number two. Or was, before I found out that he uses the word 'bae.'"

(Shudder, amirite?)

With the news that Aaron Paul was welcomed to the cast of the upcoming Dark Tower movie, I pondered over my love for him and my former love for Justin Timberlake. Which again got me thinking: who IS my top 3 at this point in time?

My definition:

Top Three (n): Three celebrities you'd be allow to cheat on, preferably with approval from your significant other.

My hubs, for example, had a thing for Kate Beckinsale in her Underworld days, where she could be found wearing a skintight leather bodysuit. If Kate of that era materialized, I’d tell Harry to go for it. That’s just too good to pass up, ya know?

So without further ado, and after much pondering, here are my top three:

3. Aaron Paul

Aaron Paul isn’t just a pretty face; he starred on the BEST TV show of all time, Breaking Bad. This is objective—it literally is ranked. He was only supposed to appear on the first season, but people loved him too much, and instead he became a foil to Walter White. Jesse, while repeatedly making poor life decisions and often those harmful to others, was ultimately innately good.

And as I mentioned, he’s now starring in a movie adaptation of my favorite book series, The Dark Tower by Stephen King. #winning

2. Charlie Hunnam

This option surprises me, but as they say…girls like those bad boys. And he’s pretty much a psychopath in Sons of Anarchy. I think this also combines my love of unkempt mountain men sorts of guys with pretty blondes.

I really don’t know how to justify this one except I think it’s a mixture of his voice and the ‘tude as Jax Teller in SoA that gets me.

(Funny enough, he was also in the news recently. Superfans who are superjealous of his girlfriend since ’07 have been cursing this girl out and picking her apart…to which he has issued a public note telling fans to stop and harass him instead. Ah, chivalry.)

1. Leonardo DiCaprio

Well duh, if you know me, this is a given. It’s been a part of me since I was 7 years old. He helped me realize at that tender young age that I did, in fact, like men. When I was 9 I watched Titanic every day for a month. Gawd, that is a LOT of death and misery to have ingrained in my impressionable young mind. I couldn’t watch that even twice in one week today.

But seriously, I consider myself a quick judge of character, and I do actually believe we are soul mates. We both give a huge shit about the environment and live for good storytelling. I could go on, but I’m sure you’re sharpening a stick and ready to fight me because YOU are his soul mate. Mmhmm. But really, I do believe this. And I’m sure my therapist BFF would tell me this is a sign of narcissism.

--

In hindsight, is it bad I have a top 3? And that they're all blonde when my husband is most definitely not? Oh well, I'm sure everyone has their own top three whether it's secret or not.

So with that being said, who are YOURS?

The Moment I Became a Man

People measure relationship compatibility through different requirements: the same religion, values, aspirations, blah blah. But here’s a true game changer: DOES YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER KILL BUGS?

I know, I know—how is this an important consideration, you ask? Well, let me tell you.

**I am warning you ahead of time of the profane language in my reenactment below. To maintain a sense of realism, I have decided to keep the f-bombs.**

Last night Harry and I were knackered and prepping for bed at about 10 p.m. I had just brushed my teeth and noticed my fat cat Twinkie pawing something under our dresser.

“She’s so cute,” I coo, watching her head cock to the side as her tail whipped around. Then it occurred to me—what was she playing WITH under that dresser?

Then, as if on cue, it emerged from the shadows. This was the moment in a horror movie where trembling violins screech out an alarming note.

I gasped. Goosebumps burst from my skin.

From under my dresser slithered the biggest, fattest, creepy-crawliest cockroach I’d ever seen.

It was a billion times bigger and hairier than this. And it HISSED.

“HOLY SHIT,” I screamed. “OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT.”

Harry’s head darted to me. “What??” But he couldn’t miss it for long. Out of the corner of his eye was that…thing.

“HOLY FUCK! OH MY GOD!”

“What do I do? What do I do??” I shouted. This would become my mantra for the night. See, the roach was too big to squish. Guts would fly everywhere. We would feel its steely limbs under our shoe with how big and mighty it was.

First things first: I grabbed my hobbit slippers. My feet were bare and vulnerable. The last thing I wanted was to feel the roach crawl over my naked foot.

Then Harry and I bolted the hell out of that room.

The world was fucking ending. We paced in circles; I kept slapping my arm and my ankle. Ghost cockroaches were covering me. My skin was CRAWLING.

“What do we do? Like what the fuck do I actually do?” I repeated.

“I don’t know!” Harry yelled.

“We have to kill it!” (Duh.)

“Yeah, but how??”

 “I don’t know! You go figure it out.” I wanted to stick to the stereotypes and cower in a corner, pointing at the beast, while my hero killed it.

Harry sliced the air with his arms. “No way, nuh-uh! I’m not going back in there!”

“Well I’M not killing it! You’re shittin’ yourself if you think I’m going back in there.”

“We can’t stay here tonight!”
“Well where will we go?”

“I don’t know—a hotel?”

“Let’s kill it with fire!” (The easier option would’ve been to just burn down the whole house, in my opinion.)

Naturally, this went on for a good while. Then I decided to get serious. I plugged in my computer and took this to Facebook. I released all my inner anguish at having my home invaded by God’s worst creation.

While the status was cathartic, no one gave me any good advice. Just a few weak lol’s.

So I weighed my options. The only worse thing than having a cockroach in our home was having it proliferate in our home—in which case, burning the whole house down would indeed be the best solution. And how unfair was that? This was a foe that could survive the nuclear apocalypse. I didn’t stand a chance against that!

“All right, so you go in there, you kill it, and I’ll back you up for emotional support,” I proposed to Harry, who was still shuddering and biting his nails.

“No way. I’m not killing it. YOU kill it and I’ll be your emotional support.”

You know your husband is a weenie when you have to agree to kill the bug from Hades itself.

“Fine.” Lawd help us; our lives were in my hands.

I shook off my desire to numb my pain with vodka shots and picked up my weapon of choice: a vacuum cleaner. I turned off my brain and wondered what awaited me in the room of horrors.

With a shaky inhale, I tiptoed in the room. And almost immediately, I heard it. That’s right, I could HEAR the sound of its slimy legs scuttling on the ground. I die again just thinking about it.

“Turn on the vacuum! I found it!”

The vacuum roared. I charged in, brandishing my weapon and yodeling a battle cry at the top of my lungs.

“DIEEEEEEEEEEE!”

I sucked it up in a second. The deed was done.

The vacuum handle fell with a clatter. Even though the bug was gone, our lifetime trauma had only just begun. We stood around reflecting on what transpired when we heard the familiar scuttling sound...coming from the tube of the vacuum handle.

The bastard was trying to escape!

“TURN THE VACUUM BACK ON!”

He fell backwards, I imagine, and whirled round and round in the belly of the vacuum. After a good few minutes, we flipped it off.

I doubted the cockroach was still alive. “His kind is gonna outlive planet earth,” as I reminded Harry.

My hubs was quiet—a man changed. His eyes were empty, and that’s when I realized he was incapable of making a decision. When I recognized this, I knew what we had to do.

“Outside. This vacuum is going outside.”

With that, we tossed the vacuum on our patio. It was supposed to rain, but at least we wouldn’t share the same habitation with the cockroach. It was finished. Glory hallelujah.

I don’t know how I did it, but some minutes later I began to decompress. It was probably some stray cockroach. I didn’t have the energy to ponder the possibilities of a whole cockroach family crouching in our house. Harry, on the other hand? He was still tense and giving himself a hug in a corner.

“Let’s go to bed, Harry.”

“No. There could be cockroaches in there.”

“Well what do you want to do, stand guard all night?”

“No.”

“Come to bed,” I insisted. To prove the world was a safe place to be again, I did a cockroach inspection in our bed sheets. All clear.

“Come on.” I patted the mattress.

He finally conceded, but only if we could spoon.

Guys, this is my 28-year-old husband. I am the world’s biggest wimp, but I felt like Indiana Jones as I consoled him into the night. 

So there you have it. Marry someone who can kill bugs so you don’t have to. When you have two people with a phobia of cockroaches in one house, nothing is going to happen—and you’re going to destroy your vacuum cleaner.

Dropping a Deuce at Work

It happens. You spend 8 hours (or more) at work per day. If you’re gonna hold it in, well, let’s just say the strength of your bowels would give Arnold a run for his money. You could drive home, but that’s a waste of gas (pun intended). You could hobble to the farthest bathroom in your building to reduce the risk of seeing a colleague, but clenched buttocks make this a dreadful task.

So you take a risk and go the bathroom near your cubicle. You evacuate your colon as quickly as possible—before anyone can walk in. But the stench hovers in the air like a heavy cloud of China smog. It ain’t going nowhere.

And suddenly, the door swings open and someone marches in. Crap! You think, with the awful realization that the latest visitor is probably thinking the same thing. You try to hurry. You wipe as much as you can, but it takes a miserable while.

With horror, you hear the other person is finishing up in the adjacent stall.

You flush and get the hell out of there, but of course, at the same time, the visitor emerges from their own stall. You make eye contact.

“Hi,” you say, your voice squeaking like a prepubescent child. As if your dignity hadn’t eroded already. You give a lopsided smile before quickly rinsing your hands without soap and sprinting the hell out.

...This may or may not be autobiographical.