Tag Archives: life

The Scarecrow Conspiracy

19 Sep

I’m in a silent war with my neighbors.

Last weekend I spread autumn cheer all over my house and let a little of it leak out into the hallway in the form of a small, smiling scarecrow. I placed it just outside my door, facing the stairway that leads to the entrance of the building so that everyone who comes up the stairs will be sure to notice the cheery autumn greeting. 

The conflict

 

A few days later I left my apartment to find my little scarecrow turned around entirely, facing the corner as if he was being punished.   I thought it slightly amusing, turned him back around, and placed him up against the wall facing the hallway instead of the stairs.  I suspected that someone got creeped out by it staring at them (perhaps someone battling a fear of dolls or perhaps a crow battling a fear of scarecrows) and figured that changing the hallway coordinates of my autumn cheer would be helpful.

The next day I came out to find him exactly where I left him – but turned around.

It’s difficult to find the motivation.  Perhaps it’s really scaring the bejeezus out of someone.  Perhaps it’s just an impish little child playing with my mind.  Maybe it’s the girls in Apartment 19 upset because the girly scarecrow decoration solidified their hunch that hunky, charming Dave has a girlfriend.  

Mission complete.

Or maybe the entire building is conspiring against me.  Maybe they hate that I jumped the gun on fall decorations and they’re all working together to exhaust me of the scarecrow.  

I should go to the craft store, buy a bunch of autumn dolls, and stick them outside every single door in our apartment building.  The ones that are gone in a week are suspects.  I’ll start an investigative search and find the perpetrator.  And when I have him in my grasp, I will ask him whether it’s a fear of dolls or a fear of early decorating that has them at such odds with me.  

If it’s the latter, the punishment should be certain death.

No one who doesn’t appreciate autumn should be allows to live.  It’s the most glorious season of the year. ♣

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Movies: The Ultimate Survival Guides

18 Sep

I watched 127 Hours last night.

For those of you who are unaware, 127 Hours is a movie based on a true story and stars James Franco.  It focuses on the 127 Hours that a real guy spent stuck with his hand lodged between a rock and, well, a bigger rock, in the middle of nowhere.  **SPOILER ALERT** At the end he cuts off the portion of his arm that has him caught and with basically no food and water, drags himself to help and survives to live a long and lovely life.

I’m assuming that wasn’t a spoiler for most of you because it came out a long time ago.  But I don’t live in movie release time.  I live in Redbox and Netflix release time.  Sometimes it takes me a while to catch up to everything but boy do I save a bundle.  In fact, last night was the first time in a long while that I’d stopped by a movie theater.  I didn’t go in; I just stood outside with Dave pondering whether or not to drop 10 bucks to see The Lion King on the big screen.

Apparently the only time I consider spending money at the theater is when I’m offered to see something that I’ve seen several times and came out over 15 years ago.

Anyway none of this is my point. My point is that the dude cut his arm off.  And though by that time in the movie I was totally rooting for him to be free from his canyon of sorrows, I don’t think I could ever do it myself.   I couldn’t even watch James Franco pretend to do it – I had to turn away about half way through the hacking and ask Dave to tell me when it was over.

This concerns me.  I think about this sort of thing a lot.  Would I be able to cut a piece of my own body off if not doing it meant certain death? The answer every time is no.  Honestly, no.  I don’t think I can hack my own flesh up so much that I actually detach a limb.

What if I find myself in this kind of situation sometime?  I don’t do a lot of canyon traversing, but there could be a similar scenario.  And then what has a movie like 127 Hours taught me? Nothing at all.  I’ll die a stupid fool who will wish she spent every moment from the time she saw James Franco to the time she died learning how to psyche herself up enough to tear into her own flesh.

I think I watch too many movies because I spend most of my idle time thinking through these sorts of scenarios.  When I’m at work, I walk through what I’d do if someone had a gun in the building and was going on a terror spree.    At the store or bank, I walk through several robbery and heist movies.  

If I’ve seen it in a movie, on TV, or read about it in a book or the news, I’ve thought through what I’d do in my life if faced with similar circumstances.  A car flashes its high beams at me, I don’t flash them back, and then they drive after me and try to kill me? Check.  I stop my car at an intersection and a crazy killer opens the passenger door and holds me hostage to drive them somewhere?  Got it covered.  I’m walking down the street at night and the person I casually cross on the sidewalk turns around and mugs me?  

Well, I’ve thought that one out but it usually ends in me giving them my money.  So I try not to carry anything.  But then I’m afraid they’ll hurt me because they’re angry I’m poor so I usually just cross the street before people get to me.

It’s quite a predicament.  And don’t even get me started on how much the Saw movies messed me up.  When I saw the first one I had to sit in the theater afterward to recuperate.  Absolute mindexploder.

I read a book called Hatchet in elementary school and made sure to remember that if I’m ever stranded in a remote area and need help and a helicopter or airplane flies overhead, I can take anything metal I have on me and try to reflect the sunlight up to them so they come check it out.  I also read a book called Julie of the Wolves and now know how to stay warm on a cool wintry night on the tundra so I don’t freeze to death.  I even made to sure commit to memory the logic that Sarah uses in the movie Labyrinth to tell which door is lying about the correct path and which door isn’t so that I know how to get through the maze to the goblin king, David Bowie, and save a member of my family he has kidnapped.

You know, just in case.

You can't fool me, goblin king.

Let’s hope these writers did some research because I’m really clinging to these methods.

So right now the scenario I’m playing over and over in my head is whether I could hack off a body part to save my life.  I don’t know how to psyche up for that.  There’s gotta be something I can do to prepare myself.   Maybe I can hunt down the real life guy whose story was featured in this movie and try to get some tips.

After all, I’d sure hate to be in a similar pickle and think of this blog post and how I’d be able to gnaw off my foot if I would have just committed to figuring it out the day I wrote it. ♣

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Office Birthdays: A Big Bowl of Awkward Sauce

17 Sep

Office birthdays are so awkward.

I can’t handle them.  Offices are awkward, office people are awkward, and birthdays are awkward.  Together, it’s just way too much awkward sauce for me to bear.

The worst thing about office birthdays is that there’s typically a ‘process’ in place for how a birthday is handled.  It might be noted in an Excel spreadsheet somewhere or someone in the office might be in charge of always coordinating it.   Usually it’s the same exact protocol for everyone so by the time it gets to you, you know exactly what to expect and try to work up some genuine facial expressions.

They have smiles on their faces, but inside they're dying. DYING.

One of my favorites at a place I used to work was that the entire office would just “surprise” someone at their cubicle with a cake, a chorus, and one loan kazoo player. 

I quit before my birthday so that I didn’t have to face it dead on.

I’m usually the person who gets put in charge of coordinating birthday “fun”, so when my birthday rolls around no one does anything.  It doesn’t occur to them that someone has to actually make the birthday happen.  They just all stare at each other like confused baby deer and wonder where the cake and card has come from every other time there’s been a birthday in the company.

And then it occurs to them.  

Awkward.

Then there’s the whole gift-giving thing.  Again – gift-giving is a rough process to bear without the terrible assistance of a cubicle farm and a small sea of overeager smiles for a setting.   It’s so public and there are so many politics. There are so many things to consider when giving gifts in the office:  If I get Kevin a thing for his desk, like a doodad or something is that too typical?  Does it imply his entire life revolves around the office or that I don’t know him well enough? Should I just get food?  Will other people get food?  Can I give a gift card or is that too “hey this is how much you’re worth to me?”  What if he expects me to give him a really high amount because he thinks I make more than him.  I’m almost positive I don’t make more than him.  Should I get a gift that’s more than I can really afford just so that he doesn’t think I’m being cheap because he thinks I make more than him?!

You see?  Insanity.

I can’t navigate all that business every time it’s someone’s anniversary of birth.  I feel pushed into getting someone something who I have made a point to not get to know on too personal of a level.  It’s no offense to them or anything; I just don’t want to complicate my work life by having to wonder whether we’re still friends after I tell them they seriously need to take a computers class because I’m tired of trying to explain to them the entire user guide to the Microsoft Office Suite one day at a time.

For the record, that was a long time ago and I sincerely doubt the person is still alive.  If she is, hello Carrie.  I’m sorry.  But you really need to start rating yourself more honestly in interviews on the Microsoft Suite package. 

Luckily at my current job, I feel like I’ve got a good handle on the people I work with and can make semi-appropriate gift choices when necessary. 

Unfortunately, this coming week we’re celebrating my boss’s birthday and I’m absolutely drowning in awkward sauce.  

Maybe I’ll take a leave of absence. ♣

 

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Take the Plunge: A Reader Lollipop Challenge

16 Sep

It is done.

At 11:40pm last night, I submitted my hopeful entry to Real Simple magazine’s 4th Annual Life Lessons Contest – just 10 minutes shy of the official deadline.

I had a heart attack at 11:00pm, when it occurred to me that I didn’t confirm which time zone the 11:50 cut off was.   I had another when I didn’t get an email confirmation of receipt within 30 seconds of my sending it.  It took 60 seconds instead.

I’m actually kind of surprised.  I mean, I know I said I’d do it.  But seriously?!  I just entered a writing contest because I have a blog where I pressure myself publicly to step outside my comfort zone.  Hey, that’s pretty cool.

So allow me to encourage you all to do something this weekend that you’ve always considered but never done.  Maybe it’s to go in a shop you’ve always wanted to check out or to try eating at a place you don’t know if you’ll like.  There could be a class to take, a part of town to check out, a person you’ve wanted to strike up conversation with… whatever your Lollipop is, give it a try.  And if you don’t have anything on the backburner, check out my “What’s Lollipop Tuesday?” page for loads of suggestions from readers like yourself.

I’m serious.  

The best part of having a blog is my readers.  I’m so interested to see what it is that you’ve never quite gotten around to or what it is that you just wish you had a little more guts for.  Make it happen for yourself this weekend.

Listen – I entered a writing contest.  And pickle went swing dancing.  Swing dancing! They throw you around and make you wear skirts and things!

So do something new.  Just a little something.  Post about it in the comment section as a statement of intent.  

If I can pole dance, reenact the Battle of Bull Run, and enter the World Pinball Championships, you can try something new too.  Believe me.  Just give it a shot and see what happens.  If it ends up a mess, you can come share it with me and we’ll both have a laugh. That’s half the fun.

Go ahead – write a comment and take the plunge. I’m so looking forward to it. ♣

This is you thinking of a challenge for yourself. Take your time. This post is here all day.

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The Universe Has Subscribed to My Blog

15 Sep

I'm suspicious of the universe. ...This is not me. This is a guy in a park making a face that I appreciate. Takeaway: I am not a middle-aged man.

I think the universe has subscribed to my blog.

I’m not really sure which username it’s under, but it’s becoming exceedingly obvious that I am being stalked.  And I’m totally down with it.

You see, it appears that when I pull something from my brain, ball it up into a post of rage, and throw it out into the world, it is answered.  Answered!   I know you don’t believe me.  And that’s totally coolio because I have proof thanks to this handy dandy postaday blog.

Behold the proof:

Exhibit A: I once wrote a post about how I was upset that my favorite ice cream place in the entire city had been replaced by a cryptic sign that said “Coming Soon! Chica Loca Taco!”.  I mourned the loss of a fantastic and popular shop and demeaned the stupidly named store that was replacing it, as if Chica Loca Tacos had something to do with it.  It’s a classic illogical blame switch, courtesy of my brain (you’re welcome).  Shortly thereafter, my favorite ice cream store responded with a comment on my blog that they were moving across town.  And as if that were not enough, my first visit to the shop of deliciousness revealed plans for an authentic pizzeria by the same company name right beside the ice cream stand.

Coincidence? I think not.  This was clearly an example of specified marketing based on social media.

Specifically, my social media. 

Exhibit B: I don’t like work.  Like most people, I’d rather be home in my pajamas, sleeping way too long, making and/or eating excellent food, and watching things that I find to be entertaining. I’d rather be with family and friends and animals.  I’d rather be walking around the middle of the woods pondering the meaning of life.  I’d rather be doing oh-I-don’t-know anything other than working.  It’s the plight of the human condition, apparently.  At any rate the universe heard me.  And on a day when I really wanted to be doing anything other than finishing out the second half of my day, it was announced that our building had to kick over to emergency generators and that I would not be able to work.  I was sent home.  Essentially through the power of wishful thinking, I got an Adult Snow Day.  It was beautiful.

And behold Exhibit C, the most recent development in the case of of universe-stalking-Jackie’s-brain: A Dyson vacuum.  That’s right: A Dyson vacuum.  After dedicating an entire post to my frustration with my vacuum, which clogs so easily with dust and cat hair in its fifteen-foot-long hose that it takes an entire hour and a half to effectively suck even half the grit out of my carpet, there rained down a Woot from Heaven in my favor.

For those of you unfamiliar, woot.com is a website that features a ridiculously awesome daily deal.  Sometimes it’s on something you find useful and sometimes it’s on something that’s totally useless but totally cool.  And yesterday one of my readers (after having read my post of anger and disgust) notified me that the woot.com product of the day was a Dyson vacuum, which regularly retailed for about 500 smackos and was featured on the site for an absurdly low price.  Absurdly low.  Almost heart-attack-inducing.   And in less than two weeks, I will have a beautiful Dyson cuddled up in my closet after using it to put a hurting on my carpet and then breathing the fresh, clean, cat-hair-and-dander free air in my apartment.

Maybe I won’t wake up with congestion anymore.  

Perhaps I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

Regardless, I got about 15 responses through Twitter, Facebook, the blog, and my cell phone telling me that I should hands-down get a Dyson as soon as it’s humanly possible.  And yesterday, the universe made it possible.  It’s stalking me.  And you know, I really don’t mind.  The blogosphere is a strange and powerful force.  

I think three exhibits are enough.  I’m not really sure how many I have to submit or who my jury is, but I can’t imagine what other evidence you could possibly need to conclude that my blog is a universe-changer.

That’s right: A Universe-Changer.  Here’s to pizza and ice cream in the same store, free ‘snow days’, and vacuums that don’t suck.   Or rather, do suck.  In fact, I hear this particular kind doesn’t stop sucking.

Thanks, universe: you’re the best stalker ever.♣

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The Pie Plot Thickens

14 Sep

My apartment has been overrun by pie.

For those of you just tuning in, I’m at war with Dave.  A few Tuesdays ago, I made a genuine attempt to craft an apple pie from naught but the loins of the earth and tragically failed.  I ended up with a miserable lump of doughy fruit that promptly got ignored like a red-headed stepchild and thrown in the garbage.

It was a hard day.

I came home the following evening to the warm, enraging smell of an apple pie in the oven.  Dave was one-upping me.  He saw my pie and raised me a better pie.  A tasty one.  Actually, an incredibly delicious one.

It was a brief war, as I had no tolerance for his flippant pie baking and decided that if he wanted to be the head pastry chef, he could go right ahead and be such.  After all, there’s nothing that makes my blood boil quite like rolling out pie dough.  And it’d be nice to ask him to whip up a pie for special occasions, host gifts, and celebrations of all kinds.

Expecting it to be a quickly satiated passion, I left Dave to his own devices – but he was not so swiftly stifled.

First there was an apple peeler.  Then official lard (as opposed to shortening) for the crust.  There’s just an enormous tub of lard sitting in my fridge at all times.  Do you know that today he looked up what the best kind of lard was and concluded it was lard made from kidney fat?!  Absolutely revolting.  And apples by the bundle.  They’re everywhere.  I have nightmares of hallways of Granny Smith apples rolling at me like a tidal wave.  I run and run, but I can’t ever get far enough from their reach.

Dave is making pies so often that he’s moved everything off the kitchen counter and asked if the flour can just stay there over night because “he’s just going to get it out and do the same thing tomorrow”.  

He says cutting apples is meditative.

So I mean, here it is.  This is it.  Dave is clearly my cash cow.   I think it’s time I really buck up and admit this is the moneymaker.  We’ll put a nice zen spin on it since it all centers his chi so fantastically well.  I’ll have a little cartoon of him drawn all goofy and seated in meditation with a little pastry chef hat balancing on his head.  We’ll call them Zen Pies and we’ll make millions.

Or maybe just a few hundred at some Farmers Markets.  

But I imagine my chi will be slightly more centered with an apartment that reeks of pastries and a wallet with a little more wiggle room.

This, boys and girls, is my million dollar thousand dollar idea. ♣

Notice the orchid and fall decorations – both featured in posts of their own. Proof, ladies and gentlemen, that I am a real human being with real posts and a real struggling orchid.

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How I Learned about Geocaching and Almost Strangled a Groundhog

13 Sep

I’ve really been putting the suck in sucker these past few Lollipop Tuesdays.  A failed apple pie, a hanging herb garden that now only has 1/5 herbs still alive, and today: a lot of wandering in the woods that amounted to nothing.

Happy Lollipop Tuesday, ladies and gentlemen.

I’ve been taking adventure anywhere I can find it lately.  Flyers, newspapers – whatever.  So when I was out to dinner meeting some new people on Sunday and someone mentioned their obsession with “geocaching”, I signed myself right up.

I know, right? Double yoo tee eff is geocaching?  Geocaching (pronounced jee-oh-cashing) is, well, let’s just yoink a clip from geocaching.com, shall we?

Right.  So basically there’s an entire underground network of people out in the world putting little knick knacks and doodads in containers and hiding them.  They go online, list the coordinates of their hidden treasure, and when someone finds it they go online and post about finding it.  The idea is that you try to keep it a secret.  Non-geocachers are referred to as “Muggles”, a la Harry Potter and it seems to be a cardinal rule that a muggle not notice a geocacher in the midst of their adventures.

People can share things small and large.  They can include a puzzle that gives a hint when solved.  They can even share a view or perspective with you by leading you to a certain place in the world that they have seen and loved.  It’s actually pretty groovy.

Unless you’re a bumbling idiot like myself.

I’m not good with maps or coordinates or… let’s just put it this way: I’m not naturally inclined in anything Boy Scouts are taught.  Which is why I went to two different geocaching locations last night and wandered around for five hours empty-handed.

When I first started I didn’t have a GPS device.   I just mapped the coordinates on Google Maps, printed the map, and took a stroll because I thought it was all cool and casual like that.  But it’s not.  I just wandered around and around, digging at trees, stirring up brush with my foot – and watching the same groundhog go back and forth from a pond to a tree.

Back and forth.  Over and over.  For two hours.

Having no context for the experience, I had no idea if I was looking for something buried, hanging, or simply camouflaged.  I printed a few posts from geocaching.com that served as proof that the cache had indeed been found, but alas I had no success.   After I’d been sitting in the trees and dirt for a few hours, I asked Dave to drive to me with the GPS so that I could get some serious business done.  But as it turns out, GPS devices take absolutely forever to communicate with something in space when you’re in the woods and by the time my screen updated, I’d already gotten impatient and moved on.

I don’t have the patience for space travel.

By the time I really decided to dig in with determination (cache or die!), it was pitch black and I was armed with naught but a wee flashlight, a car GPS, and a dream.  I failed.  And I failed hard.  By my third hour there in the rubble, I wanted to shake the living daylights out of the groundhog and yell “TELL ME YOUR SECRETS, GROUNDPIG!”

It was time for a change of location.

So I drove to another area of town where there was rumored another cache.  It was a park and it was a wide open area that was much more friendly with the GPS.  And even though I was standing exactly on the spot that the cache was marked for, I couldn’t for the life of me find anything.  Not a single thing.  I printed off a few comments from other successful geocachers on the website and kept repeating them out loud to myself.  “Don’t take the high road or the low road.  Just outside the Game Field.  Don’t take the high road or the low road.  Just outside the game field”.  And just when the crazy started to really set in, I snapped out of it and instead traded insanity for rage.  

I’d been out and about all night long.  Five hours in the dark with a tiny little flashlight and a piece of paper promising me treasure and I found nothing.  I was enraged at my stupidity and suspicious that this was some sort of sick, twisted, elaborate joke.

But I went home and checked the spoilers online.  The caches are indeed there.  

I like to think sunlight would have helped, but let’s be honest: I was hopeless.   Navigation is not my forte.  

It’s evenings such as those that I have to remind myself that Lollipop Tuesdays are all about trying something new that I’m inclined to suck at out of sheer inexperience.  And sometimes that helps but most of the time it just enrages me.  

I want to try again.  I’ll feel vindicated if I find something.  And if I ever get any good at it, it will be a great trick to show friends when I’m out for a leisurely stroll (at a place of my own choosing of course).  And the idea that out there all over the world are little tiny secrets that someone has left for others is incredibly charming.

If I can ever find the damn things. ♣

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My Code Name Is Flamingo

12 Sep

I’m pretty sure I used counterfeit money this past weekend and passed it off as legal tender.

For don’t-put-me-in-prison purposes, allow me to first note that it was not my fault.

I stopped by the ATM to get out some spending cash before heading out to an arts and crafts store to unleash my inner autumn beast and having a fall decoration bonanza.    For some reason when I take cash out at the ATM and tell myself I can only use that to spend, I’m much more fiscally responsible than just having a piece of plastic, where I believe things are paid for with magic and sunshine.

But while at the ATM, I was dispensed a few twenty dollar bills – one of which was funky.

For starters, it was an old school twenty.  You know, back before Andrew Jackson’s head was so darn big?  I know there are still some in circulation but it said 1985 and looked like it was printed last week.    It wasn’t just that.  I mean, I’m no counterfeit expert but this bill felt like regular paper – not that part paper, part cloth feel that helps you distinguish a bill from a piece of scratch paper in the bottom of your purse.  …Or is that just me?

I would have been able to more accurately distinguish whether or not it was a piece of funny money if it was a newer 20 (because I can’t remember for the life of me what security features are on old school money) or if I had a smartphone (one more bullet point in my list of why I should update my phone from 5 years ago).  But as it were, I was out and about, without a guide, and needed to use that twenty.

Which I was almost certain was funny.

Oh, I left out the most concerning part, which was that the right and left borders didn’t at all match.  In fact, the right border looked like someone had trimmed it with a pair of scissors. …Using their non-dominant hand.

But alas, I needed to off the twenty for goods to celebrate autumn and I had no interest in returning to the ATM, which already dispensed me one questionable bank note and may very well give me another.  I could have held onto it until today and taken it in during bank hours, but I work the same times as them and they’re on the other side of town.  That’s a lot of running around just because my bank is involved in a dirty crime scheme.

All signs pointed to spending it at an establishment that didn’t sport counterfeit pens. So I chose Petco.  I couldn’t remember ever buying anything at Petco and getting my money checked for counterfeit.  And even if they do have the pens, I banked on the fact that there was probably a disgruntled kid working there over the summer that just didn’t care.  And I didn’t mind picking up a few things there.  After all, what fun is celebrating autumn unless I can get some treats and goodies for the kittens to enjoy the day as well?

These are the signs of a true, emerging cat lady.

After I gathered an armful of catnip, treats, and other unnecessary pet frivolities, I headed to a register with a yawning, jaded twenty-something who didn’t even look like she liked pets.

I briefly recalled an application I put in for this Petco many years before and a small, silent rage burned inside me.

It came time to settle up and I offered up my funny twenty to pay.   My gut wrenched slightly as I searched for the pen of truth on her register. What would I say if she marked it?  What would happen to me?  Would she just give the money back or would she call some sort of authority?

By the time my mind catapulted me to the back of a cruiser car, screaming wildly about the ATM dispensing bills that looked like they were printed off my home computer, the girl was handing me my change and wishing me a good day.

No pen, no questions, no concerns whatsoever.  In fact, she entirely neglected to hand me a ten dollar bill – a very crucial component of my fourteen dollars in change.   She apologized profusely for the mistake but I didn’t mind.  It wasn’t her fault.  I sought her out.  I knew she was an excellent choice and she went above and beyond the apathetic call of duty by not only ignoring the funny nature of the twenty I handed over, but being so completely oblivious that she didn’t even calculate basic math.

Successful transaction with criminal money and successful typing?

I should be a secret agent. ♣

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Diapers and Leashes: the Surprising Need for Specificity

11 Sep

We need to have a talk.  A serious talk.  

Yesterday I went to Petco and found these:

double-u. tee. eff.

Let’s discuss.

What on God’s green earth are these?!  

There simply aren’t enough combinations of question marks and exclamation points to accurately convey how stupefied I am.   Are there people actually putting these on animals?  Because I assure you that this is not a  joke.  Petco had these prominently featured on an end cap.  They come in a variety of sizes and feature several different types of disturbed, angry dogs on the front.

Look at that dog.  Really look at him.

Look at the fear in his eyes.  The desperation.    Not even the drawn-on smiley face is enough to distract you from the deep, deep sadness.

I think we’re starting to get confused.  I do.  Because there is absolutely no reason that anyone of sound mind could possibly put a diaper on a dog but that they are simply confused.  And since I’ve taken it upon myself to educate America on these sorts of things, let’s review.

This is a child.  It is a human being.  It does not belong on a leash.  If you have trouble keeping track of your child, I suggest you demonstrate a bit of authority.  If you have complete control over your child and are simply concerned that someone will take off with him or her, I recommend holding his or her hand.  

We use leashes on dogs because dogs don’t have hands.

There is no excuse for leashing a child and diapering a dog but delirium.  Somehow our nations has just mixed the two up.  Perhaps a series of recognition flash cards is in order.    We could show folks a series of pictures of dogs and then a series of pictures of children.  And then we can pose the big question.

Which one of these two figures is a dog and which is a child?

Winners will receive a pack of diapers (for humans, not dogs) and a leash (for dogs, not humans).

Apparently, there is a now a need for specificity in both those realms. ♣

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The Jackie Blog: A How to Guide?

10 Sep

Yesterday someone got directed to my blog by asking Google how to take out their contacts when they have acrylic nails.

Google is good for all sorts of life problems.  Interesting developments on your body you’re not sure whether to see the doctor about, how how to try new things without all the surprise that typically comes with new things, and basically anything you didn’t pay enough attention to in school and suddenly find a need for.

I’m so proud that when folks are in need, they can be led to my blog for their problems.   Unfortunately, Acrylic Nails Girl came to my blog and found that I had nothing to offer but a story of pain and perseverance, but perhaps it inspired her.  Perhaps I’m going the wrong way with this blog.  Instead of musings and ramblings of all shapes and kinds, maybe I should be focusing on ‘how to’ guides.  After all, I’m a wealth of information.

Let’s take a look at some other ways I’m enlightening America:

How to Cross the Street  

How to Handle Emergency Situations 

How to Get People to Leave You Alone 

How to File Taxes 

How to Get What You Want 

How to Lose Weight 

They’re universal in nature and straightforward in approach.  How could my blog not be a booming success with a ‘how to’ angle?

I’ll probably have to change the header image at the top.

That Yo Gabba Gabba creature really throws people off. ♣

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