Photo Montage of Things I HATE

You know what I hate? Lots of stuff. I guess the holidays bring out the Satanic qualities in me -- ironic considering who's birthday we're celebrating. I didn't realize how grumpy all this smiling and present-giving and being nice was making me until yesterday when I thought of 18 blog entries in one single day. I have been letting it build up, I suppose. The result is this photo medley of some of the things most bothersome in the course of this holiday season.

1)

I found this in my Trader Joe's pickle jar a few days ago. There is no photo editing done on this thing -- promise. This is a little more than coincidental considering my last blog dealt with my sensitivity to certain visual features, textures and smells of food. I think the fate gods are messing with me. Now, before you go having a good laugh at my expense, I urge you to stop being so insensitive. I mean, come on, some poor frog is now without his scrotum and all you can think to do is laugh that it turned up in my pickle jar? Shame on you!

2)

I challenge any person alive to figure out how to use these new Costco 'twist-ties' that they put on their bagels. Tear where? Twist what? These things are worthless! Basically, here's what happened: some conservative, Bush-loving MBA student came to the Costco CEO and said, "sir, I have an idea. If we do away with the standard 1-inch wire twist ties, we'll save .000000004 cents per bag of bagels. This equates to 8 trillion dollars per year." (because NO savings is insignificant when you're moving Costco volumes!) Then the Costco CEO says, "But, what will we replace the wire dealies with?" and the MBA kid says, "with a piece of tape. We'll write 'Tear Twist' on it and people will fiddle with it and get really irritated. Eventually, they'll lop the entire top of the bag off, out of desparation, and the 80-pack of bagels will be hard as a rock within 24 hours. They'll come back and buy even more." I bet that idiot MBA kid got a raise. Well, it's time we stop being such naive consumers. I'm going to start a picket line in front of Costco to bring back the twist ties. If we don't, then what's next? No lid on the mouthwash? No plastic wrap around the 24-pack of T-Bone steaks? No shopping bags by which to carry your 300 pounds of unnecessary shi&*& out of the store? Oh wait -- that's already the case. Well, at any rate, DOWN WITH COSTCO!!!!!!!

3)

This is a beautiful Christmas present pin for my step mother-in-law. Unfortunately, my idiot dog ate up the box and wrapping. My husband found it in the middle of our backyard. Now I'll have to take it out of the box and put it in a plastic baggie and she'll surely think it came from the Family Dollar. There's 30 bucks down the drain. By the way, I looked online for some rescue organizations specializing in retarded dogs, but couldn't find any. If anyone knows of one, please let me know.

4)

My little pip-squeak nephew told me about this shirt on Christmas Day. "What are you insinuating" I asked him. He had that look of pity on his face. Come on, people! I can't have my 16-year-old nephew who has never even kissed a girl taking pity on me. That's downright pathetic. However, if the shoe fits.... Is anyone reading this thing?

Banana Mysteries

You know what I hate? That I can't eat a banana in peace anymore. It's my favorite fruit -- always has been, but for the past couple of years, I've had to eat it while breathing heavily through my nose so I don't gag. Chalk it up to my overactive imagination. Any and all foods can start to remind my tongue of gag-able elements such as slime, rot, putridness and salmonella if I let my imagination run free. Tofu is the worst -- they say that this malleable cube-paste can take on the flavor of just about anything you add it to. What they don't say is that can also lodge itself midway in your esophagus and take two days to get slowly coughed back up one booger-sized chunk at a time.

Yes, my imagination makes it very difficult to eat in peace. Eggplant becomes whale tongue, eggs become loose gray matter and jello cubes slide down the throat like slippery bird livers. It's not easy being a spaz. But, it isn't my imagination that ruined my love for bananas. It was actually a girl I worked with a couple of years ago. She saw me take the first bite out of the banana I was eating at my desk and just about crapped herself.

"You EAT the top of the banana?" she asked, as if I had just shoved a shoehorn down my throat.

"Yeah, so?" I said, giving her the credence that I always give people who still wear two-story bangs. You heard me right -- two story bangs. I had me a pair circa 1984. You part your bangs horizontally into two equal sections. The basement bangs receive one rotation of the curling iron. The top story bangs receive two rotations. Voila! Instant lift!

"Eeew. Well, I won't tell you what's in the top, then," she said while shaking her hands free of the cooties that my apparent nana-eating self was atomizing around the building. I wanted to tell her that she was ugly, but instead I swallowed 15 times and finally got the banana bite down.

I tried not to let her advice bother me, for the last thing I needed was another fantasy food mutation. But, it was something about her complete hysteria over my eating the top of that banana that really started to get my mind in motion. I began thinking about the possibilities of what could be in the top of the banana. Here are some of the ideas I came up with:

-- Monkey love serum. This is the most logical in my mind, and, consequently, what I think of every time I eat a banana. I can only imagine that monkeys, with their love of perverse sex acts (oh, come on -- you know you've seen the little perves "doing stuff" at the zoo), perform some type of hybrid pollenation/mating ritual act that results in my banana becoming polluted with, what else, but ape jizz.
-- Fingernail dirt from the dirty jungle dwellers who are paid 3 cents a day to pick bananas. I'm sure that it's not all that uncommon for a disease-infested fingernail to "accidentally" slice the top of the entire bunch. I mean, come on, how else with the dirty jungle dwellers stick it to the man? It's not like they have jungle dwellers unions or anything.
-- Poop. I don't know how it would get there, but poop is the most disgusting thing a person could accidentally ingest, so it had to make the list.
-- Banana worms. Have you ever noticed that when you peel a banana, there are little mealy banana "shreds" all over the sides? Are you sure that they're banana shreds and not long worms smothered and mummified by the banana peel? Are you sure you're sure???

So, what have YOU all heard about the tops of bananas? Maybe you can enlighten me. Please comment if you have a hypothesis of your own. And, I'm sorry that I've probably ruined the act of eating bananas for you. Someone had to tell you though.

How you (used to) see a banana.

How I see a banana.

Doubt Planters

You know what I hate? Doubt Planters. You know these people -- they slip you subtle insults and prey on your low self esteem. They plant the seedlings of doubt which start to grow into vines of doubt which then wrap themselves around your spine until they eventually swallow it whole. My kindergartener had a run-in with a Doubt Planter the other day. The seed has now been planted; the vine is growing. Here's how the event went:

While getting ready for school, I handed my 5-year-old her blue metallic go-go boots. These are the boots she's been wearing -- with pride -- since the first day of school.

"I don't want to wear my blue boots anymore," she says. "J.J. said they're dumb."

"J.J."? I say, about the little 'tard who I've personally witnessed picking his nose. "Who cares what J.J. thinks."

But there's no talking my daughter out of it. The boots are history.

I try to explain to her how little someone else's opinion matters -- especially that of a booger-picker! I try telling her that J.J. is probably very unhappy, perhaps living in a meth house or in a group home for 'tards. But none of this means anything to her at this fragile age. She only knows one thing: that her boots are dumb.

It hurts me. Why? Because she's mine. But also because it's hitting too close to home. I'm reminded of what I like to call "The Sperry Top-Sider" incident. Let me explain...

When I was in fifth grade, my mom had a really wise idea. Her idea was to put me into modeling school. Teri Shields was certainly making a great living off Brooke, so you can't really blame my mom for trying. She was determined to make it work -- even on our modest budget. She involved my older sister, Julie, which was a recipe for disaster. Julie loved to torture me and this whole modeling gig was great fodder for her plan. It was 1980. Julie was in high school at the time, and I was in fifth grade. Some kids at her school were experimenting with the sailor look. No kids at my school had even thought of the concept and even mentioning it might get your ass kicked. Nevertheless, I was an aspiring model (along with the 30 other kids who paid their dues to the Plaza III Talent Agency) and 'haute couture' needed to become my middle name.

I still remember the day Julie and my mom came home with that sailor suit. It was all one piece -- a "mechanic-meets-yachter" ensemble that remotely resembled something I'd seen once on the cover of Seventeen. I wondered how the kids at my grade school would like it. But, the problem was, I didn't have the right shoes. Neither my wallabes nor my hurachee sandals looked right with these duds. My sister told me about these new shoes she'd seen on the feet of the fashion elite at Sunnyslope High School. Sperry Top-Siders they were called - also known as "boat shoes."

Under my sister's evil infuence, my mom took me to TG&Y. For anyone who remembers TG&Y, it was a dime store. TG&Y. Yellow Front. Pic N Save. Dime stores. And aren't you supposed to get things like toothbrushes and Juicy Fruit at dime stores? Exactly. Lo and behold, they had some Sperry Top Sider knock-offs for a mere fraction of the cost. Of course, they were plastic and made your feet smell like rotten blue cheese, but they were boat shoes nonetheless. So, my evil sister and stardom-seeking mom talked me into it and we got a pair to go with my sailor coveralls.

I checked myself out in the mirror in my full get-up. It was pretty hot. So, I did it. I wore it to school the next day.

The minute I stepped onto campus, the fingers were pointing and the laughter filling the entire campus. I was the effing freak for the day. I got laughed at more than the girl with the greasy fingerprint glasses that took up half of her facial real estate. It hurt. Lots of doubt seeds were planted that day.

What I did still have was the hope of a bright future in modeling. My mom really believed in me. She couldn't afford a professional photographer to do my portfolio, but when you see the pictures below, you'll realize we didn't need one. Our Kodak 110 and my ability to look cute while doing very natural things was all we needed...
These are the infamous sailor coveralls. Note the bare feet. This must have been taken right before our trip to the TG&Y. In this particular shot, I'm showing the modeling agents that not only am I really cute, but I make a great stand-in for a hunting dog. "The dead duck is over there -- where my knee is pointing..."

This is me after sticking a perfect dismount off the pummel horses in our living room. Now, some gymnastics equipment salesmen will tell you that you need the cushy blue mats to land on, but I'm here to tell you that orange shag carpeting works just as well.

Ahhhh. Here's me doing what I loved best on a Friday night -- sitting on the fireplace reading an encyclopedia. Those were great days.

I see a rim of white rubber in this photo -- where the red arrow is. I might be mistaken, but I do believe these are the TG&Y "Ferry Plop-Siders".

If I'm not mistaken, I appear to be wearing a pony-tail holder as a bracelet in this shot. Now I understand why my mom so desparately wanted me to be a model. I guess we were poorer than I originally thought...

This must have been my mom's back-up portfolio. You know -- if I didn't make it as a real model, I could always have a shot at making the cover of Pedophilia Monthly or Amish Designs.

Dammit! You know what I just realized? That could have been ME screaming "what a feelin" in Flashdance if my mom had learned to center her pictures better. Some casting director probably had my shot sitting next to the one of Jennifer Beals. "Well, I do like the little flat-chested one. The only problem is that I can't see the top of her head or her feet. She could be a conehead or have a clubbed foot. The problem is we just don't know. So, go ahead and call up Jen."

Geriatric Grocery Affair

You know what I hate? Seniors day at Fry's Grocery Stores. I never knew there was a seniors day until yesterday, when I stumbled into the establishment for some much needed food items. I should have heeded to my keen sensibilities when I entered the parking lot and noticed that every handicapped space was taken and that, in general, there were an overabundance of Cadillacs and Lincoln Town Cars. But onward I went, thinking to myself, "how crowded could it be on a Wednesday morning?"

When you're talking about seniors, the quantity isn't as important as the quality. One low quality senior is the spatial equivalent to 3 normal quality people (unless they have a cane, which is a 3.2 equiavalent). Let me explain: low quality seniors are aisle sprawlers. They park their carts in the center of the aisle, then stand on either side of it to casually read ingredients -- out loud! This not only causes a gridlock in front and back of them, but creates a faux commotion that draws the attention of the other low quality seniors, which brings me to my next point: low quality seniors create pandemonium in already crowsed aisles. This is a real phenomenon -- and if you don't believe it, test it out some Wednesday morning. What happens, is the low quality seniors see that people are congregating around a certain food item. They don't realize it's a traffic jam caused by one of their own. They are thinking only of that measly social security check and how whatever item is creating such a hubbub must be really, really cheap! What ensues is an aisle-bursting brouhaha that fills my heart with, what.... that's right -- with HATE!

This brings me to my next point: you can't be rude to a senior. I think most humans are genetically programmed to feel this way. That's why when you become checkmated into a corner by a low quality senior, you just smile and patiently wait. I saw a lot of innocent Wednesay morning shoppers roadblocked in by low quality seniors yesterday. Most people are too nice to even say "excuse me," not that it always helps. You'd expect an aisle-sprawling senior who eventually realizes she's created a 100-foot backup to get embarrassed and step aside. Not the low quality seniors. They own the world, remember? They've been on this Earth longer than you and your parents combined and they have earned the right to do whatever the hell they want. I love this attitude, but at my age, I'd never get away with it. I'd probably get shot within a month. I am counting the days until I'm 65, though. Forget about the 10% discount at Denny's -- I'm much more excited to rule the world like the low quality seniors that were irritating me so much yesterday.

I was so happy to finally get my groceries and leave Fry's. Because of the unusually high traffic within the aisles, I had only 10 minutes to get to the school to pick up my kids -- it would be a stretch, but I could just drive fast. Except...what's that? Oh yes, it's a Lincoln Towncar in front of me going 25 MPH -- and it appears to be driving itself! You know what I'm talking about -- the "headless" driver phenomenon that, when you were a kid, you hoped was either a magic car driving on its own or a freak of nature headless wonder let out of the asylum long enough to take a quick joy ride. You'd beg your dad to catch up to it, but when you finally came parallel to it, your imagination deflated as you realized the car was being driven by a 43-inch grannie who could barely reach the pedal. Yeah, you remember.

Before you go thinking I'm ageist and mean, remember that I have grandparents who I love. They are pretty cool old farts, and I sincerely doubt they're aisle cloggers. So, I would place them into the high quality senior category. But, they are getting older, and that sense of ownership over the world might just explode at any time. I won't begrudge them what they've earned -- I'll just smile and wait patiently as Grandma reads me the ingredients from the back of the Ritz cracker box.

Spitting Menaces

You know what I hate? Loogey-spitting Exercisers. I came to this realization yesterday, when climbing North Mountain. I'm huffing and puffing and barely staying conscious and all of a sudden I see a gelatinous monster loogey slowly traveling down the steep grade of the mountain like green hot lava on the side of a volcano. Now, being the hateful martyr that I am, I can't just look away. I have to inspect it, and inspect it well, for this will allow me to fill my heart with more hatred for the mysterious person who so rudely put it there. So, now I'm severely out of breath, dehydrated, AND nauseous. Thanks, rude, loggey spitter!

Of course, I can relate to the need for spitting when one exercises. There's something about exercise that generates a lot of phlegm. I actually suffer from exercise-induced asthma and for anyone who knows anything about asthma, it gives the sensation of having your lungs filled with mucous. I know, I know. That's gross. Tell me about it. Ten minutes into my exercise, and all my organs are coated with the stuff. But do I hawk one on the trail for all to see? No, I don't. I'd rather die of phlegm asphyxiation than join the not-so-elite crowd of Loogey-Spitting Exercisers. I am courteous that way.

Only once can I remember publicly spitting to try and rid my mouth of a lot of viscous phlegm. And I learned my lesson -- the hard way. I was in high school, and had just been asked to run a mile and a half in the middle of September (in Arizona). This was part of "weight training" class which was really a ruse for what should have been called "High School Torture 101." I ran the mile and a half, and ended the ordeal with a large amount of phlegm lining the inside of my mouth and esophagus. While rehydrating at the drinking fountain, I thought I'd discreetly deposit some of the phlegm into the drinking fountain. Gross, sure, but not as rude as plastering it on the sidewalk as a public display of poor manners. Well, discreet it was not, for what was supposed to be a single spit turned out to be a very long rope of phlegm. It was like those magic tricks where a guy pulls a handkerchief out of a hat, but it's connected to another handkerchief and another and another. This was the same exact concept -- the loogey trail that would never end. I had both hands goin' at that thing, trying to break it off at some point, but it was really rubbery and refused to concede. As peers were yelling for me to "save some water for the fishes," I was wrestling an infinite procession of phlegm. That's the last time I tried to spit.

In a few weeks, I will be running in my first half marathon -- the PF Chang's Rock and Roll Marathon. I'm excited about this, except for one thing -- the vast amount of loogeys that I will have to wade through. For anyone who's run in an organized race before, you'll remember that the loogey dump begins about one mile into the run and continues through the end. (This, coincidentally, is the same distance at which the bowels begin to warm up, but I'll save that for another blog!) For me, this means 12.2 miles of loogey infestation. I think I heard they expect like 50,000 people to run in this race. If even a small percentage, such as 10 percent, turned out to be Loogey-Spitting Exercisers, this would still be 5,000 loogies. That, my friends, is a LOT. Imagine if someone could figure out how to put a marketing message in all those loogies. That would be some sweet advertising. If anyone could do it, Microsoft could.

The moral to this story is that disgusting bodily fluids should remain where? Ah, yes, in THE BODY! More specifically, in YOUR body where they belong. Don’t subject the rest of us to these public displays of poor manners – it’s just downright rude!

A Ho-Down

You know what I hate? Ho's. Or, to put it more mildly, needy skanks. It's really not the 'skank' part of these particular women that bothers me; it's the 'needy' part. Needy women dilute the female's power, influence and mystery. Needy women reduce the female kind to dog-like status (e.g. pet me when you feel like it, but I'll be right here when you need me). Not that there is anything wrong with dogs -- I love them more than 99.9% of the human population -- but come on, when it comes to self-respect, they're pretty low on the totem pole. Plus, what do dogs call their owners? That's right -- masters! So, when a woman acts like a dog, she's basically handing over all power to her man. She, in essence, has become a slave to the man!

I came to the realization that I'm angry at needy skanks the other day when driving. Let me paint the setting: I'm late. There are two lanes -- left and right. In the left lane are White Wannabe Rappers. The White Wannabe Rappers are driving a car that's worth about $500 atop wheels worth about 3 grand, wearing their hats sideways, and sporting some ground-thumping, bass-heavy music from their car's stereo. I hate them immediately. Not only do they look ridiculous, but they're driving slow and let's not forget...I'M LATE.

In the right lane is seemingly innocent Needy Skank. I don't know she's a needy skank at first. She looks like a normal girl to me and since the White Wannabe Rappers are driving so slowly, I switch into Needy Skank's lane, cause at least she's driving the speed limit. Right at that moment in time, Needy Skank notices the White Wannabe Rappers and thinks they're pretty hot in that Eminem-kinda way. So, she slows to their pace and begins to bop to their music and bat her eyelashes at them and act in a generally whorish manner.

Even the White Wannabe Rappers are too good for this poor Needy Skank. Why? Because guys can smell a Needy Skank from a mile away and this girl's got it bad. Guys stay away from Needy Skanks, because while they are generally generous with their affections, they often turn out to be stalkers. So, they look at her once then ignore her. "Move along now," I'm mouthing to her, hoping she saves some remote shred of dignity. But no, she layers on the charm and starts REALLY boogying to their thumping tunes, all the while just waiting for some attention -- a smile, nod, just a turn in her direction. Nothing. By this time, my cheeks are bright red, for not only is she making a complete fool of herself, but she's also making ME REALLY LATE!

Finally, she gets a hint and moves along, and I finally get to go around the low mileaging Wannabe Rappers. I start to digest the situation, as I often do. What makes this girl so needy for attention? What did she expect from the exchange -- a friendly nod? A phone number exchange? A proposition? And most importantly, why the hell is she watering down the female power by acting so pathetic?

I'm pissed at her for being so pathetic. All the bra-burning and equality and respect that women of the past century have fought for has been nudged backward by this girl. Girlfriends -- we're better than this. I mean, I'm getting older and I appreciate an occassional whistle from day laborers huddled in the Home Depot parking lot. But, I don't beg, or even ask, for my harrassment. I earn it the good, old-fashioned way -- by acting completely arrogant and unintersted. Of course, I really AM arrogant and uninterested, but the point is that I don't reduce myself to a state of neediness. And you shouldn't either.

So, any woman out there reading this who might think she has to tape her cleavage upward the next time she goes out to the club, I urge you to reconsider. Instead, walk into the club with an air of confidence and power, and I guarantee, your attraction will be magnified!