Attention Walmart Shoppers:

May I have a moment of your time. Thank you.

I understand that Walmart sucks. Believe me, I have been going less and less because of it. Still, some things are just cheaper. So we all have to go. That means we all should get along as well. In order for me to get along with you, I need you to do a few simple things.

1. Can you please remove the clown nose and put down the ukelele. I really like that you like to be different. Trust me, you are different. However, I cannot possibly take you seriously or prevent my teen daughter from erupting into laughter as you walk by. Do us all a favor and just try to shop like a normal person.

2. I appreciate your need to arrive at that item 2 seconds before I do. I realize that it will give you 2 extra seconds to stand in line since there are no registers open. However, do you think that you could go around me as I walk and not attempt to go through me. My heels and my rectum would appreciate not making acquaintance with your cart.

3. When you get to said item, can you please not spread out in front of it so that I cannot reach the one thing I need most and came to Walmart to purchase? I already know what I want. Can I just get it? 

4. You have very cute kids. I love their smile. I love the way they are dressed. It would be a shame if they fell out of the cart that they are standing in while you walk three aisles over and grab yourself a soda. Especially since you placed a very large toy that takes up half of your cart in the back so that all three of them now have to stand.

5. Speaking of your children. Since they are standing, it makes sense for them to reach. When they do that, please do not scream at them and smack them in the hand. All three of them are under three and if you did not want them, I can point you in the direction of the pharmacy.

6. Walmart sucks. I realize that. They never have more than a few registers open at any time. That does not mean that I want you to bring your 1200 items and use the self-checkout. They are intended for those like me that ran in and purchased fewer than 12 items. While I wait on you to ring up the other 1150 of yours, I am forced to watch the kids try and climb out of the cart. If I turn my head I am face to face with clown nose ukelele man. In the meantime the friendly gentleman behind me has decided that I need a butt massage. With his cart.

7. If you ignore the above, then please pay attention to this. If you have no idea how to run your debit card, enter your pin number or work a register then please for the love of all that is holy go to a regular register with a cashier. This is painfully slow.

8. You are an employee. When someone needs your assistance at said self checkout, can you get to them quickly. When you finally do ring their order up and get it fixed, must you get in line behind them, and in front of those of us that have been waiting with ukelele man for 30 minutes. I see that you want a candy bar. Do like the rest of us and wait for the old lady with 1200 groceries to decide what the hell her pin number is.

Another great adventure inside what is the 'good' Walmart in my town. We won't even go into the bad one and what happens there.

Visiting My Happy Place...

When you are little bit crazy with a side of opinionated it can be difficult to avoid confrontation. It's amazing that I've spent so many years working with kids considering how very much their parents piss me off. Fortunately for us all I was raised in the south and we did learn a little bit more than how to install a gun rack in the window of a pick-up. Those who still reside in the south would tell you that we learned how to have manners. They would shout from the rooftops that we learned to say please and thank you and be happy about it. Let me set you straight. They are full of shit. We did not learn manners. We learned how to lie.

Those of us 'ladies'  that grew up in the south learned that we don't tell someone when they are a moron. We learned that we are to bite our tongues rather than respond to insults and innuendos. Most of all, we learned that we simply do not say what we feel or what we are going through regardless of how true it might be. Instead we plaster on a pretty little smile and tell everyone that asks how happy we are.

I'm guessing at this point you get a pretty good idea of why I'm happier in the Midwest. Don't mistake that for being ashamed of where I came from. I just happen to be the person that spits out whatever crosses my mind at the time and deal with the consequences later. It does me well up there. There, well let's just say I embarrassed my family a few too many times.

That being said, I would not say that I thrive on arguing. I don't feel some intense pleasure from telling someone what a jackass they are. Well, okay, maybe Grumpy. But otherwise it's just the way it is. Neither good nor bad. Unless it invades my happy place.

Facebook is my happy place. I spend far too much of my life trying to work and pay bills. I enjoy getting together with friends here and people from church, but Facebook is where I can let loose and just be myself. If I ever ran for office, Facebook would be at the center of the scandal. Oh yes, there would be a scandal.

So yesterday I commented to a perfectly innocent conversation about dessert. It was never intended to be a political debate. It was never intended to result in my insistence that the other party was small minded, ignorant and not worth the time it takes me to debate. Yet somehow that is what happened. It was a friend of a friend and they felt the need to use condescending terms to demean people hoping to piss me off because of my political views. Hell, I was raised in the south. I am accustomed to those around me having a lot of crap to say about my political views. I do not fit the mold in which I was raised.

What pissed me off was the comment. The word that was used. The fact that I find it degrading to an entirely innocent group of people. So I said so. After which I was repeatedly insulted to the point where I used the block feature for the first time. I refuse to allow someone to encroach upon my happy place.

Considering the amount of times in life that I manage to blurt out the sheer stupidity of someone, I am thinking that it might be wise to revisit the Xanax idea. I am certain that a couple of those puppies and a mug of vodka would do the trick. Perhaps the world would be a much better place if I just opted to stay away from people altogether.  I'm not sure what would be the best idea.  With 80% of my friends list having polar opposite political opinions than I do, maybe I should just delete my account until after the election.

Let There Be .... Brownies...Or Cookies....Or Oreos....What??

In our house it is a priority to be healthy. We want to only eat good foods and exercise regularly. We strive to be as health conscious as possible. When you look at the salads and vegetables we have for dinner you would be ashamed for downing that bag of coconut creme Hershey Kisses by yourself in the closet.

Okay, I can cut the crap. The truth is, we aren't perfect. We eat junk. I would live off of chocolate and coffee with a side of liquor if it were up to me. Did I mention how very good those coconut creme Hershey Kisses actually are? And maybe I was in the closet. Maybe I was in the car waiting on Drama Queen to get out of her youth group. Who knows? Does it really matter?

Anyways, we try. We've been on a mission to try and make a few healthier choices. We have eliminated sweetened drinks. DQ might have a Coke or glass of tea occasionally, but even Grumpy went to diet drinks. A fact he is not proud of. Sometimes we cheat. Sometimes we have a dinner that is less than healthy. Meatball subs anyone? But overall we are making steps. One of those steps was to initiate dessert night. Now those Sundays in the car do not count. Our abolishing chocolate and other sweets from the daily menu only counts when Drama Queen is present. Since technically she INSIDE the church and I am OUTSIDE the church, it means I'm free and clear.

That said, we don't cheat between dessert nights. Really it should be called Crazee Lady, DQ and the Mom's feast. Grumpy could care less about dessert night. Most days. Yet it seems the week that I am wishing I had a chocolate IV. The week that I would kill my mother for a candy bar. The week that I offered to take care of a friend's ex for a lifetime supply of chocolate. THAT would be the week he give's a rats ass.

Yesterday I get an email from him. Yes he's located upstairs. We believe in communication. It says something about Slutty and I'm thinking what in the sam hill hell has he sent me now. Then I open it. It is a divine recipe from the Londoner called Slutty Brownies. Are you seriously kidding me? We are an entire week away from dessert night and he is going to send me that?? Brownies, cookies and oreos in one? With the promise of ice cream on top? The one thing that will kill me dead in my tracks.

He is a jackass and has joined my hit list. I will add him to the 'taking care of the friend's ex' list for free. I will bury them together. This is his punishment.

And dessert night has now been moved. It officially occurs today.

Who Really Needs Skin Anyway?

Raising a teenage daughter is difficult, but I'd take three of them if it meant I didn't have to deal with body hair ever again. Shaving is the bane of my existence and I do everything in my power to avoid it. It's winter? Cool, those 14 layers of pants will hide the hairy stumps that could likely kill a man. Avoidance is the key. Well no, the key would be winning the lottery and investing in permanent hair removal. Avoidance is the key for poor people. I'm good at avoiding. I do it constantly. Avoiding housework. Avoiding my job. Avoiding the fact that I can't afford what I'm about to purchase. So it makes sense to avoid any unnecessary hair removal. For years it has been a system that I perfected and it has worked perfectly.

Then I got older. Suddenly hair was visible on more than my legs. Short of wearing a ski mask, my hair growth either had to be taken care of or I had to succumb to the idea that people would mistake me for the man of the house. Unless that title also comes with the ability to play video games, nap on demand and eat without gaining a damn pound I don't want it. So that leaves me with hair removal. The one thing I do not love. In fact, likely the one thing I hate worse than teenage lingo.

Now most good girly girls would visit the local salon, pay a few bucks and have the problem taken care of. I might too if I didn't wait until I resembled a furry creature to tend to the mess. But this time around I was so busy that I let the problem grow. It wasn't until Drama Queen pointed that I had the picture perfect girlstache that I thought it might be important to take care of it.

Fortunately, I was in possession of some amazing lotion that I bought a while back. It removes the hair perfectly and it doesn't irritate my sensitive skin. If I even mention lotions my skin will break out. So this works for me. Except that a while back translates into about 8 years. And apparently those lotions expire. Which means that I could rub it all over my face and not once will it do a damn thing. So that meant a trip to Walmart. Don't judge, if you looked like a hairy man-woman you would choose Walmart over the alternative as well. I figured I was wearing pants AND a top so I was automatically in a class above the other patrons.

I purchased a brand name hair remover for the face that I shall not name. CoughNairCough. After visiting the self-checkout so that no one commented on how I grew a better stache than Grumpy, I headed home ready to be a girl for a few minutes. I threw some hair dye on my hair to cover the (bigfoot sized) handful of grey hairs that I had and I slapped on some of this unnamed lotion. Might as well make a full night of this girl stuff right? This was going to be easy peasy. Wait 5 to 10 minutes and the face looked like a female again.

I ended up, after testing that shit, realizing I had to wait the full ten minutes. So I did. I removed it and was pleased to see that you could see the skin again. Went on to handle the hair dye and grab a quick shower. It was during this shower that I first realized something was wrong. The water hurt. As in I felt like a radioactive chemical was coming directly out of my shower head with a distinct mission of  attacking my face. With a head full of hair dye I had no choice but to continue, but I prayed to the Gods that I would make it out alive. I just knew that someone was trying to do me in. It didn't dawn on me at the time that perhaps something was wrong.

It wasn't until Grumpy asked what I'd been drinking that I realized there might be an issue. I assumed the consistent burning was normal for this product and that it'd ease off by morning. His question made me wonder what might be going on. I ran to the nearest mirror and realized that he was right. Since that never happens, I had to acknowledge it. It actually did look as though I'd stuck half of my face into a vat of cherry kool-aid.

Now on a normal weekend I would have a couple of days to let it revert to normal. This particular weekend I had a couple of functions to attend. Functions that I didn't particularly want to attend looking like a man, but I didn't want to attend them looking like a messy 3 year old either. So I did the only thing I could do. I  panicked. I worried. I swore that I was going to be humiliated the next day at our event. Grumpy told me to sleep and it would clear up.

Of course, he can't be right twice in a row. It violates the woman's handbook of man's conduct. So I woke up and went straight for the mirror. I will say that the red ring around my face was gone. It was, however, replaced by a burn and several sores. It appears that in an effort to eliminate the stache, and what might have been the start of a beard, from my face the lotion had also taken skin with it. Apparently the directions should more accurately read: Leave on for five minutes and you will still have hair. Leave on for ten minutes and the hair will be gone, but it will take three layers of skin with it.

So here I sit at the end of the weekend and I have a ring of sores around my mouth. I've spent the weekend socializing with people and I know that they notice. How do you not? My face looks like something that makes you want to wear plastic gloves and  throw out any cups I drink from. I didn't mention it though. I figured starting off with 'Hi, I burned the shit out of myself trying to get rid of that freaky mustache' could make things a bit awkward. I'm sure they felt the same when they opted not to ask if I'd had all my vaccinations.

This is why my lottery winnings would first go to ensure that I had permanent hair removal. It is also why I will brave the salon and let the beautician yank that shit off with wax next time. At least if she removes skin along the way I will be able to sue. Then I can have the permanent removal I want. In the meantime, who really needs the skin on their face? Obviously I don't.