Tuesday, August 30, 2005

It's the Wednesday Two-for-One Crab Special!

Hope you're in the mood for some crab! Have a seat and put your bib on.

Years ago I knew this guy, let's call him Rick. He was a cute, popular guy in the town where I lived, and while I always thought he was a little full of himself, lots of girls probably would have liked to be his girlfriend. The lucky lady, at least at the time of this incident, was a girl I'll call Jessica. I never cared for her, because, well, I like nice people.

At some point during a boys' night out in a neighboring town, Rick ended up sleeping with a girl who, even by his own admission, was pretty skanky. You could hardly blame the guy, though--he had a penis, and she was a girl...and you know how men who have penises can be when they have access to girls. He had to do it, right? I'm just kidding, I know not all men cheat. And really, if you knew his girlfriend Jessica, you'd hardly fault the guy. She was not the most dynamic individual. If you put her side by side with one of those swan ice sculptures you sometimes see at weddings, you'd be hard pressed to tell which was which, and you might end up liking the ice chunk better. At any rate, Rick committed the crime of infidelity, and karma zapped him right in the crotch--he got crabs.

It took him a day or two to realize what the hotbed of activity in his undies was. By the time he understood that insects had, indeed, colonized around his family jewels, he had already slept with his girlfriend Jessica. (Clearly, the guy didn't spend much time on his feet.) So now he had a dilemma: There was always a possibility that he had not managed to transmit the critters to Jessica during their liaison, and if he knew that for sure, he could simply treat his own infestation and she'd never have to know about his penis's wandering eye. However, there was no subtle way for him to inspect her nether regions without arousing suspicion (short of chloroforming her), so that idea was impractical. Naturally, when she discovered the growing swarm in her formerly pristine cotton panties, she would know Rick had accidentally tripped and fallen into someone else's vagina. What to do?

I bet a lot of you out there are thinking there is no solution to a problem so delicate as this. You're probably thinking to yourself that the only answer is to admit defeat--go to Jessica, head hanging in shame, and confess. Beg for her continuing love, and then head to the drugstore, hand in hand, to buy a family-sized bottle of Crabicide, or Crab-Out, or whatever it's called.

Suckers. There's always a way out, if you're incredibly slimy and devious, as was Rick. Of course, it also helps if your girlfriend is dumb as a bag of hammers. Here's what Rick came up with:

He packed a bottle of wine and a blanket, and whisked Jessica off to a local farm, where he took her into the barn and had sex with her in the hay. Then, disheveled and picking hay out of their hair, they went back into town and retired to their separate homes. Lo and behold, the next day Rick showed up on her doorstep, aghast. Apparently he had gotten crabs from the hay! Had she seen any of the little buggers on herself? Wide-eyed, she shuttled off to the bathroom for a peek and wouldn't you know it, she had gotten them too! Poor Jessica--if only she had known how easily crabs can be gotten from a roll in the hay. Well, it's a lesson learned.

And yes, she fell for it, and never suspected anything untoward of her doting boyfriend. And Rick, so proud of himself for pulling off the world's most incredible scam on possibly the world's dumbest girl, couldn't contain himself; he bragged about it to my boyfriend, and probably half the town as well--although, as far as I know, Jessica never heard the story.


What's that? You're still hungry for more crab? Here comes dish number two.

My friend Josh (as he will herein be called), was never what you'd call the choosy sort when it came to women. If you wanted to sleep with him, there was no screening process you had to go through. Are you female? Then the answer is yes. It was that simple. Are you 200 lbs? Fine. 600 lbs? Also fine. Covered in feces? Okay. Handcuffed to a corpse? No problem. Eating the corpse? Perfectly acceptable. Not only was he he a dumpster diver when it came to women, but he was very proud of it. The more objectionable the person he slept with last night, the more people he would brag to about it today, cackling maniacally throughout the narration. I have many funny/disturbing stories about his escapades, but let's not deviate from the crab theme.

One night he slept with a girl named Dana, and as cruel fate would have it, he came away from the encounter with a batch of souvenir crabs. Thereafter he loudly referred to Dana as Fire Woman, since he likened the feeling of a herd of crabs munching on his manhood to what it must feel like to have a fire in his pants. Here's how silly and naive I am: When I heard him disgustedly refer to Dana as Fire Woman several hundred times, I assumed he regretted sleeping with her and therefore getting crabs--I actually thought branding her Fire Woman was his way of saying, "You wouldn't want to sleep with that girl, believe me."

Clearly, I underestimated Josh's willingness to overlook any and every flaw when it came to potential bed partners. Either that, or I overestimated his hygiene standards.

During a sexual dry spell, Josh went to the drugstore, picked up a bottle of DeCrabifyer, or Don't Be Crabby! or whatever it's called, and headed to Dana's house at 4 AM on a weeknight. When she stumbled out of bed and answered the door, Josh was standing there with the crab shampoo in one hand and a six pack in the other, and a big grin on his face, saying, "Let's go!"

And they did. She slept with him. (But no parasites were exchanged this time. Don't you just love a happy ending?)

Stay tuned next time for Gonorrhea Monday!

Monday, August 29, 2005

Here's hoping you never find what you're looking for

I have always believed that I am the kind of person who wishes others the best. I used to think that, in general, I hope everyone finds what they're looking for in life. Recently I've changed my mind. Judging by the things you people are searching for on the internet, it is not in your best interest, nor in anyone else's best interest, for you to find what you're looking for.

For example, there's the person who found my site by searching for rhino pooping pic. No, there's nothing on my site about rhinos pooping, and there sure as hell are no pics of it, but a reference was made to it by Phil, one of my commenters, in one of my previous posts, which is, I assume, the phrase that led this poop seeker to my site. Phil was telling me that someone mysteriously found his site by searching for rhino pooping, even though his site is most certainly not about that subject. Now, since he made that comment, someone found MY site a few weeks ago by searching for rhino pooping (once from a US search engine and once from a U.K. search engine) and, more recently, someone found my site by searching for rhino pooping pic. Please, for the love of God, tell me this is the SAME one or two people doing all this hunting for rhino dookie. I'm not okay with the idea that there is even one person out there so obsessed with this bizarre quest, but the possibility that there is a group of such like-minded psychos is just too much to bear. Here's a business opportunity for you: If anyone out there lives near a zoo, go take a picture of a rhino doing his business. From what I can tell, there's quite a market for such photos, and I bet the whackos in question would be willing to part with some cash in exchange for those highly sought-after pics.

To the person who found my site by searching for celebrity diapers: I know what you were looking for. You wanted to know which of your favorite stars wears adult diapers--I happen to know the answer to this. I know a lot of people in the adult diaper community because...well, never mind why. Let's just say I've got friends who have friends who have friends who pee themselves. The following celebrities wear adult diapers:
Tom Cruise (That's why he has that crazed look on his face all the time--he's probably thinking "I'm peeing myself and no one knows!")
Both the Olsen twins (Although to be precise, they're actually still in toddler diapers, not adult diapers.)
Bea Arthur (This one should come as no surprise.)
Gwen Stefani (It's true! Although hers is a diaper thong.)
Clay Aiken (Although he barely qualifies as a celebrity, and doesn't even need the diaper--he just wears it because he likes the feel of it.)

And while we're on the topic of pee, would the person who found me by searching for pee in my face please raise your hand? I didn't think so. I wouldn't raise my hand either if I were you, you urine-loving deviant. I don't even know what to say to you, besides maybe you'd like to rent some Tom Cruise movies, now that you know he's a walking pee sponge. You can at least fantasize about him while you're having trouble finding someone willing to degrade you in the manner you prefer. Please, God, tell me you're having trouble finding someone to do that.

Mr. Pee In My Face may be a sicko, dear readers, but he's a Boy Scout compared to this next guy, the one who found me by searching for stuff wheelchair goo in mouth charade. Don't believe me? Here's the screenshot:

All I can hope is that this guy doesn't work in or live within 100 miles of a nursing home. Or Larry Flynt.

To the person who found my site by searching for sweet karla, I guess you quickly discovered you found the wrong site. If you've read more than one post here, you already know I'm not sweet. If you were looking for mean karla, vicious karla, sarcastic karla, hateful karla or karla who is even now mocking you behind your back, then you've found the right Karla.

I might have to do a search on this one myself. Someone found me by searching the phrase prostitution victims of secret lemon grinder accident. Yeah, I know, you're a skeptical bunch, so here's the screenshot:

This must be a news story of some kind, so I'll want to poke around on CNN.com and Foxnews.com. It breaks my heart to think of those poor prostitutes, who, from the looks of that search string, fell into a lemon grinder by accident and met their grim death. I'm curious about the details on this story, because I didn't know grinders specific to lemons existed, particularly in a size that would hold several prostitute-sized people at once, nor was I aware that prostitutes had liberal access to these lemon grinders. What were those foolish, foolish prostitutes doing near that industrial-grade lemon grinder? Didn't they know they weren't licensed or properly trained in operating that machine? And what in God's name were they going to do with all that ground lemon peel? Let this story be a lesson to lemon-loving prostitutes everywhere. You may know a lot about fulfilling the fantasies of lonely, fat men using fake names, but you do not necessarily know a lot about lemon grinders.

Lastly, as you can see from the above screenshot, someone also managed to find me by searching for embarrassed by dark filthy warehouse-district sophomore sprawled on bartop scandal. This one might actually be legitimate. After all, I've been a sophomore twice before (once in college and once in high school), and I've been sprawled on a bartop or two in my time. I remember one time I got kicked out of the Lone Star in Kansas City because I was asleep with my head down on the table. (Okay, I guess you'd call that "passed out," rather than "asleep." Let's not quibble.) Anyway, all I can say in my defense is sometimes naptime rolls around quicker than you expect. Sure, I'd have preferred to sleep in my own bed, but I improvised, and I don't think I should be sneered at for that. I'd hardly call it a scandal, and I doubt I had the good sense to be embarrassed. The part I'm confused about is the part about the dark filthy warehouse district...although wait. At that same time, not far from the Lone Star, my friend John and his brother Steve were living in a dark, filthy "apartment" in a dark, filthy warehouse district of Kansas City. This place was never intended to be an apartment, but was supposed to be a place of business, with big glass windows all along the front of it facing the sidewalk. But there was a bathroom in there, so the incredibly thrifty owner rented it out as an apartment to my friends in spite of the fact that there was no kitchen. I guess he knew it would cost too much to get it into the kind of shape it would need to be in to rent it out as a business location. This place should have been condemned, and I mean it when I say it was never intended to be lived in--no carpet, no washer/dryer hookups, all big open street-facing windows and concrete floors; bare light bulbs hanging from the ceilings. Also, no hot water--and this was in the dead of winter in Missouri. John said he had to drink half a bottle of Jack Daniels just to be able to take a shower in the ice-cold water issuing forth from the filthy pipes. By the looks of his brother Steve, he was either not willing to take that step or still too cold-sensitive even when loaded, because the dude was just dirty-looking most of that winter. Anyway, those two meatheads may well have been with me that night at the Lone Star when I was nodding off over my tequila shot. They were probably stinking up the place with their unwashed clothing and their unwashed hair, and maybe it was the other patrons who were embarrassed about the scene--hence the word "embarrassed" in the search string. Ah-ha! Mystery solved.

So okay, that last search was legitimate, but the others are just unforgivable. You should all be ashamed of your creepy selves. I hope you never find what you're looking for.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Lessons I've learned Part 7

Sex toys go in the trunk, not the back seat.

Man, I'm going to get some frightening Google searches after this.

This story is about my gay friend Tommy. That's not his real name, although I'm not sure why I'm protecting his privacy. I think he'd be flattered to have his story showcased here, and will probably pout when he finds out I used a fake name. But since I'm too lazy to call him and ask how he'd feel about having the story told, he's getting a fake name.

Tommy got an unusual gift from one of his ambiguously gay friends--a big, black rubbery dildo. I say "ambiguously gay" because this friend of his was one of those gorgeous, studly athlete types who plays on a semi-pro sports team, and gives the appearance of being straight, but Tommy knows better. This particular item was (hopefully) the kind of thing purchased more commonly for comedic effect than for actual use--it was incredibly big, ridiculously long, and very rubbery. Novelty-like, really. Tommy named it Clifford--because the only thing funnier than being the owner of one of these doohickeys is being the owner of one that you've named, which you then can presumably refer to as if it's an actual person. As in, "Clifford hates rainy days," or "Don't talk like that in front of Clifford."

Tommy was on his way to Austin (a few hours' drive) one weekend to see some friends, and was speeding along in the little grey chick car he drives. I'm not a car person, but I think it's like a grey 1990 Cutlass or something--I always associate that kind of car with something a mom would drive, which is why I think of it as a chick car. Don't ask me what he was in such a godawful hurry for, but when the cop pulled him over, he was clocked at 100. I've known Tommy for years, and he's always driven this same old Cutlass, and the most shocking part of this story, to me, is that the car was able to achieve that kind of speed. I have to believe this story because I have no reason not to trust my friend, but really...100 mph? Anyway.

The cop marched up to Tommy's driver's side window and issued the standard, "Do you realize you're endangering the lives of everyone on this road" speech, with the standard daddy-yelling-at-his-little-boy attitude, while Tommy acted appropriately remorseful, hoping he could somehow get out of this ticket. No dice--because of the excessive speed, the cop said he'd have to arrest him. Arrangements were quickly made for a tow truck to come fetch the little grey chick car, and the cop continued to admonish Tommy. He handcuffed him and made him stand aside as he proceeded to inspect the car for potential evil. He began rifling through the overnight bag in the back seat, pulling out clothes, shaving kit, shoes...and Clifford.

In all the commotion of first being pulled over for speeding, then learning he'd be arrested and his car towed, Tommy had forgotten all about Clifford. The cop froze in place, uncomprehending at first, holding Clifford by the base as the upper 10 inches of Clifford lazily swayed back and forth in a rubbery fashion. Tommy, handcuffed, stood there horrified and mortally embarrassed, mouth agape, staring at the motionless police officer and Clifford, still swaying like a metronome. I imagine this moment happening in slow-motion, with the cop's first thought, "What is this? What IS this? What the...no. No. NO!" And his second thought, "God knows where this thing has been! I've got to wash my hands right now." The cop dropped Clifford like a lit match, clearly disgusted, and continued to sift through the bag, while Tommy thought to himself, "Well, the worst has happened, there's nothing more in there for him to find." Then the cop pulled out two gay porno tapes.

Tommy had no idea those were in there. He had only brought Clifford along as a joke to show to his friends in Austin. He had no idea how the tapes got in there--although he discovered later that his gay friend Chris (or Gay Chris, as he was cleverly referred to) threw them in there when Tommy wasn't looking, just to be funny. So by now the cop must have thought Tommy was some kind of deranged pervert on his way to a big gay orgy of some kind. If you knew my sweet, innocent little Tommy, you'd know this is far from the truth. Tommy hung on to his virginity a ridiculously long time, way longer than anyone else I know, and even now just seems too sweet and pure to be up to any shenanigans, much less on his way to a big gay orgy. I think of him as pure as the driven snow, if the driven snow were gay.

Then the cop got a call about an even more sinister law-breaker than the dildo-wielding Tommy--a female driving erratically, in excess of 100 mph, out-running several pursuing cop cars. She was believed to be armed and on amphetamines. All units were called to respond--including, apparently, Tommy's captor. To his shock, Tommy was hastily un-cuffed and told he was free to go! The cop tossed Tommy's filthy bag of orgy paraphernalia unceremoniously onto the roadside pavement and sped away. Tommy and Clifford were left to continue on with their weekend plans.

The lesson? It's along the same lines as "Always wear clean underwear, just in case you're ever in a car wreck." Always put your sex toys in the trunk of your car, not the back seat, just in case you're ever pulled over and searched by a homophobic cop.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Lessons I've Learned, Part 6

It's not enough to simply lock your bedroom door.

The story I told you about my 4 ridiculously messy roommates got me reminiscing about that (incredibly filthy, roach-infested) year we lived together. There was yet another lesson I learned from that time.

My roommates and I were all in ROTC...which might lead you to believe I'm a military chick, but that would only be true in the sketchiest sense. I was only in the Reserves, never the active Army, and I did it because it was either that or drop out of school after my sophomore year, since my mom could no longer afford my tuition, and the Army would pay it for those remaining two years. So I was in the Reserves and ROTC for my last two years of college, and after college I fulfilled my Reserve obligation and then got out. It was a great experience, and I had a lot of fun and learned a whole lot, but if you knew me you'd know that I am just not the military type. So I got out when my obligation was up, and went back to being the person of questionable morals and behavior that you've grown to love.

The ROTC department at my university was small--maybe 40 students in all, with only 4 or 5 instructors. The instructors were active Army people, not college professors. While the 7 or 8 seniors in my ROTC class did attend classes taught by the other ROTC instructors, we were primarily assigned to Cpt. Mitchell, while the juniors in ROTC had their own instructor, as did the sophomores and the freshmen. So the 7 or 8 of us seniors (including my roommates) spent the majority of our ROTC class time with Cpt. Mitchell, and we became very familiar with him. Maybe too familiar, as my story will illustrate.

One weekend there was a party at our house. I was not in attendance, since I had driven home for the weekend to see some friends, but apparently this was a hell of a party. Cpt. Mitchell was there, and had appointed himself bartender. He stationed himself by an open window and used a table as his bartop, where he poured tequila shots and basically badgered people into taking them. Every so often he would stick his head out the window and puke into our hapless bushes, then pour himself another shot and carry on, like a true soldier. By everyone's account, this was apparently a great party, probably largely due to the tequila shot pouring prowess of Cpt. Mitchell. When I returned on Sunday, my roommates looked like something that had crawled out of the sewer--each of them was sprawled on various pieces of furniture, moaning and squinting and retching and cursing God. I went into my room to drop my bags, and noticed my bed had been made--which was odd, since I hadn't made it before I left. In fact, I had locked my bedroom door before I'd left. I peered out my bedroom door into the adjacent room, addressed the crew of living dead and asked, "Who slept in my room?" Suddenly, life crept into the eyes of the roommates, who instantly looked guilty. They fumbled. "Um. Well.... Uh," looking from one to the other and back at the floor. I went back into my room and took the sheets and blankets off the bed, thinking the guilty looks of my roommates surely meant that someone had not just slept in there, but possibly banged a hooker or a farm animal, so I might as well wash sheets now and ask questions later.

That's when I saw the tighty whities.

The only thing worse than discovering that some unidentified couple had sex in your bed is discovering that they left their vile little undergarments there. And am I crazy, or would it have been better if it had been the girl that had left her underoos there? Somehow it was worse that it was men's underwear than women's. I wanted to burn my bed to the ground.

Now they had no choice but to tell me the story. Here are the incredibly seedy details:

Party ends at our place, guests crawl home. Cpt. Mitchell remains, and in spite of being so drunk that he has puked several times and looks like Charles Manson instead of the clean-cut Top Gun he had resembled at the start of the evening, he wants to go barhopping. Drunk roommates actually try to resist, but Mitchell insists--and he was, after all, our superior officer, and we were accustomed to taking orders from him. They go to a place so seedy that it actually has big, dark blue sheets thumbtacked up to cover the windows so that you can't see into it from the street. It looks like something you'd find in a warehouse district. Once inside, Cpt. Mitchell picks up some skank. He defiles the skank in my bed after picking the lock to get in, while my roommates stare wide-eyed at each other in the living room, unable to believe this turn of events.

But here's where the story gets even more madcap, more zany.

Our fearless leader and his skank fall asleep in my formerly bacteria-free bed. Just as daylight begins to break, there's a knock at the door. A hungover roommate peers out the window and realizes it's Cpt. Mitchell's wife! Everyone tries to ignore the knocking. She persists, then leaves--but returns again a few minutes later, banging even harder, crying, and calling "I know he's there! His car is parked right here!" Cpt. Mitchell scrambles into his clothes--most of them, anyway--instructs the girl to stay put and not make a sound, then sheepishly answers the door. His crying wife has the baby in her car; the family retreats to the Mitchell household, for what must surely have been a daylong crying and fighting session. (Let me also note that Mitchell had brought his wife to the states from Germany where he'd met her a few years before. She still had a thick accent and had no family here in the states.)

My roommates are then left with Cpt. Mitchell's...friend. Eventually someone takes her home, and soon I arrive to find the filthy evidence at the crime scene.

Naturally it would have made sense to throw his filthy little panties away. But I found his behavior nauseating, particularly since a big portion of his time spent training us to be leaders involved instructing us to behave with strong moral character. So I didn't want to let him off the hook so easily. I picked up his putrid little bloomers by hooking them onto the end of a pen (which I promptly disposed of) and put them into a paper bag, and delivered them to him as he sat at his desk Monday morning. He was embarrassed, horrified, ashamed, etc. I can't imagine a bigger scandal that could have rocked our small ROTC department. He had crossed a boundary by even attending the party--and then, of course, he bludgeoned several other boundaries plum to death. (And no, Cpt. Mitchell isn't his real name.)

The lesson: Locking your bedroom door is never enough when you live with a house full of guys. Someone will get resourceful and find a way to degrade themselves and someone else in your bed. Consider sprinkling glass shards in your bed before you leave for the weekend, or perhaps leaving a wolverine with newborn cubs under the comforter.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Happy Birthday Vanessa!


Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday Karla's friend Vanessa
Happy birthday to you!





Anyway, back to Vanessa.


She laughs at my unfunny jokes.
She sometimes gets me drunk.
So far, she hasn't stolen any of my valuables.
She almost never hits on any of my family members.



1515 South Lemon Street
Springbell, Texas 77322



Thursday, August 18, 2005

I'm bangable.

I'd like to thank the Academy for this prestigious award. If anyone needs me, I'll be home waiting for my trophy to arrive.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Three and a half more interviews

Go here to read my interview with Jane D'oh.

And go here to read my interview with Chris, at the curiously-named Satans Farts.

And then there's my interview Miss Burgoo (the sister of the above-mentioned flatulent Satan), found here. After that interview, she asked for an additional question, which I faithfully provided not one but two of, and she then answered them here. But it turns out I'm a total blogging moron--I've been waiting for her to reply to the extra questions forever, and it just occurred to me today that I've been only clicking on the link to the original post, which I had bookmarked (you know, the post for the first interview I gave her) instead of looking at the current day's posts. So while I've been waiting for her to reply to the extra questions, she's probably been waiting for me to link to her interviews on my site.

So now you know what a dope I am. (Or did you already know that?) My computer genius husband will roll his eyes at me. Go ahead, you can, too.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Lessons I've Learned, Part 5

Beware the horror lurking in your microwave

This edition of Lessons I've Learned will shock you, if only for the fact that, unlike my previous Lessons, it does not involve copious alcohol consumption.

For a period of time in college, I lived with 4 guys. Yeah, I know--that's a recipe for disaster. Of course, I knew they'd be slobs, since, well, they were guys--but naivete prevented me from understanding or predicting the unbelievable extent to which their slobdom would spiral. How can men live like that? These normal-looking, well-behaved, reasonably attractive guys blithely strolled from room to room in our cute little off-campus dwelling, kicking litter hither and yon as they went, sidestepping piles of clothing, stacks of dishes, and food items that had fossilized weeks before. I had two choices: To become Snow White to their 4 Dwarfs, thanklessly cleaning up after them day in and day out, or to stubbornly ignore it, hoping beyond common sense that they'd eventually muster up enough pride to tidy up after themselves. I knew it was the longest shot conceivable, but I'm an optimist, so I chose the latter. Who knew--perhaps eventually they'd grow ashamed of the filth, and each would start to pick up after himself just enough that the house would begin to exist in a general state of, if not cleanliness, then at least acceptable clutter.

This shows how dumb I was.

Time went by and the filth reached epic proportions. I can tolerate constant disarray, if I must, but what I can't tolerate are cockroaches. I can't stand insects of any kind, but roaches are an unspeakable horror. I cannot sleep if I've seen one in my home. I will perch in a crouching position on the center of my bed, holding a shoe in one hand and a can of Raid in the other, head swiveling from side to side, on the alert for anything that might resemble scurrying. I had signed a lease with these zoo animals, and had no place to move to in the middle of the semester, and yet I could not sleep at night if there was even the remotest chance that a roach might amble across the bridge of my nose as I slumbered. And our tiny kitchen was home to, seemingly, about 40% of the US population of roaches. I couldn't move a coffee cup for fear of igniting a storm of activity that would cause me leap 3 feet in the air and shriek like chimpanzee on fire. In fact, once when I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, I screeched like banshee when I saw a huge roach sitting comfortably on the bristles of Sid's toothbrush. On the bristles! His big, disgusting body covered the whole head of the toothbrush. This was not an acceptable living situation. I needed a solution.

Here's the best I was able to come up with: I moved into the basement room. The house had four bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs in the basement. I traded with one of my filthy cohorts, who was glad to get an upstairs room. My hope was that my room was far enough removed from the kitchen that the roaches would be too lazy to make the trek, especially considering my room was also scrupulously absent of any food items or even a sweet-smelling, potentially roach-attracting candle or tube of lip gloss. For good measure, I also kept a towel stuffed under my bedroom door to ensure that the crack that an insect might potentially enter through no longer existed. And, for my final display of genius, I kept a can of Raid handy, which I used every single night to spray the entire perimeter of my room before I went to sleep. The nightly inhalation of insecticide fumes lo those many nights may explain some of the questionable things you've read on this site, and which, if you know me, you've heard me say on a regular basis. But far more important than the health of my brain is the fact that I never once saw a roach in my pristine basement hideaway, so my plan worked. But that's not where the lesson comes in. Are you ready for the lesson? I don't think you are, but you wanted something to read today, so basically you're asking for this. You're going to be sorry, though.

Eventually I moved out of that litter box and into a house with my nice, clean boyfriend. I was careful to clean the hell out of everything I owned before bringing it into my new pad, and my boyfriend helped out in this task. As it happened, he was the one who cleaned out the microwave, and he was incredibly thorough, even taking apart the housing so he could get to the fan part. That's where he found the roach graveyard.

A nice little pile of dust had accumulated back there, and it wasn't hard to determine what that dust was made of, when you took note of the fact that there were also the dried husks of roaches in various stages of pre-dustification. Roaches would get in that little fan compartment and die, the heat would dry them out and over time, turn them to dust, and then the little dust particles would presumably FLY AROUND INSIDE MY MICROWAVE while my food heated up! I had often contemplated the security of my microwave from roaches, and considered the inside of that appliance to be a safe zone. After all, bugs can't get in there unless you leave the door open, right? Who the hell would think about them turning to dust and getting sucked up through the f!&*@ing fan? Oh, the cruel, Godless irony--I had been tediously soaking the carpet around the periphery of my room with Raid every night to ward off the roaches who might or might not wish to crawl, relatively harmlessly, about in my room, when in fact, I was even then digesting the roach dust that had coated the pizza I had reaheated and eaten earlier that day! I have been reeling from this revelation for years, my friends.

The lesson? GOD IS CRUEL! No, that's too simple. The lesson is this: Cover every single thing you heat in a microwave. If it's a bowl of soup, put a lid on it. If it's a burrito, put it inside a Tupperware container and put a lid on it. Even if you don't live with 4 of the filthiest jackasses to ever walk the earth, and even if you don't have a roach in your house--there's just no way of knowing what dead things might be, even now, decomposing in the depths of your appliances.

I have to go kill myself now.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Calling All Loons (or “An Open Letter To My Dear Readers”)

I've been getting some visitors to my site lately via some really, um...interesting search queries. This is maybe the most fun part of having a blog, in my opinion, so I save all this bizarre info in a .txt file deep in the bowels of my computer til one day when I feel like blogging about it. Today I was rooting around in those very bowels, and thought I'd share with you the fruits of my bowel-rooting. (Yeah. I can already see the Google searches that line is going to bring.)

First, we have the poor sod who did a search for Zantac chiggers. Was this person trying to treat his chigger infestation by pouring liquid Zantac on the affected areas? Was he so uninformed as to wonder if Zantac somehow caused his chigger bites? Or did this person perhaps have a chigger as a pet, and was seeking to cure the poor little thing's upset tummy? (Which makes me wonder how he knew his chigger had an upset tummy. Or why he'd have a chigger as a pet.) I guess the most likely explanation is that he had several chigger bites on his body--which as I've explained to you before aren't really chigger bites, but actual chiggers burrowed into your skin--and he, being a parasite lover, was worried that the Zantac he had been prescribed for his acid reflux might somehow negatively impact his precious chigger colony. In other words, this guy is a loon.

Then there's the fellow who found me by searching for chigger jokes. Are chigger jokes really in demand? Who is out there trying to stock his arsenal of jokes with some chigger humor? I'm not even sure most people know what chiggers are, so such a joke would probably go over like a lead balloon, unless you were in just the right, chigger-knowledgeable crowd. I must assume, then, that this search was done by the guest speaker at this year's annual Exterminator's Convention, as part of his plan to warm up the crowd with some insect humor. But this guy is no genius, clearly, because exterminators don't make their bread and butter from chigger control as much as from controlling other types of insects. So as you can see, this guy is a loon.

Sigh. And then there's the chap who found me by searching for Mexican butts booty. Never mind that I am no expert on Mexican butts, or really, booty of any kind, so there's actually no useful information on that topic on my site. But I worry about this guy. He clearly has a fixation, and one that could surely be better satisfied by loitering around the parking lot of an El Chico restaurant than by sitting at home reading my largely booty-less blog. I can imagine the disappointment on his face when he reached my site and found not the abundance of Tejano backside he had hoped for, but just a lot of barely-funny chigger references. I feel sorry for this dude--even though he's surely a loon.

And today's feature search? Well, you wouldn't believe me if I just wrote it here--you'd tell me I was making it up. I had to take a screen shot of this one.
Now, it's bad enough someone is searching for roughing it with the prissy little princess. I can only hope that "roughing it" in this goofball's mind refers to camping or living in a log cabin with no running water, and not some crazy porn-style aggressive interlude. Either way, that guy is an obvious loon. But as I'm sure you'll agree, the really fascinating element of this particular screenshot is the search for I adore creepy homeless dental sex. I'm trying to think of a joke to make here, but nothing I can think of is funnier than the search itself. I will say that, while I didn't realize until now that homeless dental sex was even a category of sex, I have to wonder if the word "creepy" is really warranted here—I think it’s implied. It would seem that this King of all Loons would find more info on the subject if he refined his search and left the "I adore creepy" part out, instead just searching for (shudder) "homeless dental sex." By the way, I’d like to issue a warning to all homeless folk right here and now: Keep your mouth closed. There’s a weirdo on the loose. It’s in your best interest to refrain from falling asleep under an overpass with your mouth open, at least until this bizarre Google searcher gets put behind bars for one of the many offenses he no doubt commits on a regular basis. God wiling, a nosy neighbor will soon notice the human bones half-buried in the back yard of his hovel, or the stench of decay emanating from one of his tinfoil-covered windows, and call the cops. Until then, hide those rotting teeth, my unbathed, transient friends.

So what have we learned from these various search queries? My readers are, by and large, goddamn loons.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

The world wants to know, damnit!

Fish on a Bicycle has interviewed me. It was just the two of us, at a trendy outdoor cafe in Hollywood. I was smoking a clove cigarette and wearing a studded Gucci t-shirt, and he was leaning across the table in earnest, holding his tape recorder close to me so as not to miss a word. People kept bothering me for autographs, but I screamed at them and threw my latte on one particularly pathetic hanger-on.

Okay, so he just emailed me the questions, as you might expect. I don't even smoke. Just read the answers, goofballs.

1) You are abducted by aliens. They are benign and albeit a characterless and cold lot, they are at least polite and concerned with your comfort. It turns out that they have a benevolent nature and they share with you, in lay terms, a secret that could end the suffering of millions. They describe to you, beyond dispute, in a way that you could easily relate to others a direct link between cancer and laughter. You are returned to earth safely and now have the opportunity to end the "big C's" reign of terror at the cost of abandoning one of humanities greatest gifts, humour. What will you do?

Lose the humor. That's an easy one. I would say yes to absolutely anything that would put an end to cancer, whether it would be for one person or many. Unfortunately, I didn't think of that when I was in school, because it would have been cool to go into a field where cancer research was being done. But I don't dwell on that with much regret--chances are, I wouldn't have been smart enough for it anyway. So my new slogan would be "Lose the humor, lose the tumor." Ho ho, sometimes I crack myself up. Oh wait, I can't do that anymore. Drat.

2) It's Christmas eve and you are six years old, it's almost time for bed. Can you describe what you see, and how you feel?

Believe it or not, this is an impossible question for me to answer. I remember almost nothing of my life before, say, age 9. Which is weird, because I didn't start on the booze and pills til age 11. (I'm kidding. I started booze and pills at age 10. Okay, I'm still kidding.) Seriously, though, I did not have a fabulous early childhood, and always wondered if there was some reason I don't remember it...like did something terrible happen to me that I blocked out? It's a mystery. At any rate, it's not such a sad story--there was a point in time when things dramatically improved (at the aforementioned age 9), and then continued to get better and better over time, til eventually I would say it became downright awesome. So the earliest Christmas I remember would be age 9 or 10, and I remember awaiting such holidays with some major excitement, although I do not recall the details of the night before. I know that the anticipation was always eased a bit because my mom was a big softie who loved gift-giving above all other things, and she would always break down and give me a gift or two before the actual day. I didn't even have to ask--in fact, as I got older, I used to say, "No, I want to wait til tomorrow (or whenever the gift exchange was to take place) and do it right," and she would say, "No, I can't wait! Open just this one." That one gift wouldn't be missed, either, because she grew up poor and her gift-giving policy when she became a mother was always "the more, the better." Our Christmas tree would be packed with so many gifts it would look like it was for 10 people, when it was really all for me. We didn't have a lot of money some years, either, so those gifts might all be little, dollar-store gifts that didn't cost much, but she insisted on having tons of them so I felt like I was having a windfall Christmas. Christmas was her favorite time of year, and she made a huge deal out of it, in terms not only of gifts, but also decorations, food, and cheer. Since she passed away two years ago, Christmas, by contrast, is really not much fun at all.

3) What is the biggest, most shameful lie you have ever told (and has it come back to bite you)?

Well, this isn't so much a lie as just bad behavior. I cheated on one of my first boyfriends, many years ago. He was certainly not someone I could have married, not only because we were too young, but also because he was just not right for me. But he was a genuinely great person, and he loved me and trusted me. It never really came back to bite me, but about a year after I broke up with him, I began thinking about it, and I started to see myself in a different light. Before that, I had always defended my actions, regardless of what they were, and felt that I was in the right 100% of the time. Suddenly I started taking stock of the little things (and bigger things) I did that were thoughtless or hurtful. That was kind of an epiphany for me, and from then on, I worked much harder at behaving in ways that show good character, but I am still bothered by the things I did back in the day that I now see were dishonest.

4) Project yourself into the future, your little boy has grown up. He's become a handsome, intelligent, articulate and (despite your influence) well balanced 18 year old. He calls to say that he'd like to bring his new girlfriend over, for dinner, and could they stay over? (The obvious implication is that they would like to share a room.) Let's say you are broad minded enough to agree. They arrive, giggling and holding hands, she is pretty, bright and in every way adorable, but 35 years old....discuss.

Funny you should ask such a question. I'm 8 years older than my husband--which, as you may have guessed, makes him 12 and me 20. (Okay, so those aren't our actual ages, but the part about the 8 year gap is true.) I am sure my in-laws didn't exactly break out the champagne when my husband told them about me (he was 21 at the time, and I was 29.) Even so, an 8-year gap is a bit easier for a parent to digest than a 17-year gap. I have some friends who have an even bigger age gap than that, and they are very happy, so I can't say I'm against big age gaps--but we are talking about an 18 year old here, which makes a difference.

I can't imagine agreeing to let my 18 year old sleep in the same room with his girlfriend. But more importantly, I would certainly expect the little beast to give me a courtesy heads-up on the advanced age of his wittle punkin before he showed up at the door with Miss Crow's Feet. (Brian told his mom on the phone, by the way, how old I was before introducing me. I believe she sat there for a second and then quietly said, "Brian." But then recovered and was very nice about it--and his whole family has always been wonderful to me.) At any rate, what I'd hope is that she didn't have kids--that would concern me more than the age gap. Naturally, I'd wish he was dating someone his own age, or at least closer to it, but I know better than to make a big deal about disapproving of his choice in a girlfriend for whatever reason--that would only strengthen his dedication to her, I'm sure. I assume that most relationships begun at 18 don't end in marriage anyway, so he might as well live and learn on his own. Now, if she had kids, I'd be incredibly nice while she was there, but eventually get around to having a one-on-one with him discussing the challenges of such a relationship--but then ultimately still let him make his own decision (like I'd have a choice anyway). But in your scenario, I am somehow broad-minded enough to agree to let them share a room, and the short answer is that I would not change my mind on that when I discovered her age. I would avoid anything that would so horrify him as causing a scene in front of his girlfriend. (I prefer to cause my scenes behind-the-scenes.)

5) And just to prove it's hypothetical, you have some extremely dead people to choose to marry, hurl off a cliff or shag stupid: Kurt Cobain, Michael Hutchence and Jim Morrison.

Well, there's no point in sparing Cobain's life, is there? He was very clear about not wanting to be here, and very proactive about making that happen. Plus, leaving him here to be tormented by that jackal Courtney Love is just plain cruel. So I'd push him off a cliff, and he'd probably thank me on the way down. Then I guess I'd be in the unfortunate position of having to shag Jim Morrison, just because I'd rather be married to cutie-pie Michael Hutchence than to Jim. I'd just have to watch him like a hawk and not leave him alone in hotel rooms. (I answered all these questions assuming these dead people would be alive again in your scenario. If they're still dead, then my answers would change based on the varying levels of decomposition. Whoever is less decomposed is the one I would shag, and whoever is most decomposed is the one I would marry.)

Monday, August 08, 2005

I discovered some terrifying things

After Undercover Celebrity interviewed me, a few people asked me to interview them. I kept it clean and refrained from asking anyone's bra size. I did, however, try to think of some unique (read: disturbing) questions to mix in with the normal ones.

Go here to read my interview with Lakeline.

Here's my interview with one of my favorite girls-inside-my-computer, Undercover Celebrity.

How about my interview with Fish on a Bicycle? His Most embarrassing Moment is a must-read.

When you're done with that, read my interview with the smartass Advanced Maternal Age.

...And here's my favorite one, the winner in the Answers That Were More Frightening Than My Questions category, my interview with Common Wombat.

I'm still waiting for a couple of particularly lazy bloggers to answer their questions (or perhaps they're so disturbed by the questions that they're busy getting an internet restraining order against me?)--I'll keep you posted. (Ha! Get it! "Posted!" As in, "I'll post a new blog entry about it!" Get it? Alright, you humorless assholes, don't laugh. What do I care?)

Oh, and the mysterious Nomidlifecrisishere asked for an interview, but didn't leave me a web address to send the questions to. Please, no more drinking while blogging, my nizzles.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

Dear Jackass, Volume 2:

Dear dental hygienist who cleans my teeth: During almost our entire, dreaded time together, my mouth is wedged open and your big meaty paws are stuffed deep inside it, along with 10 or 12 various picks, hatchets, kickstands, hoses and other tools of your distasteful trade. So STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS!!! No, I don't have any exciting plans for the summer, No I didn't go anywhere out of town over Christmas, No there's nothing new going on with me, NO NO NO! I understand you are one of those babbling fools who feels the need to fill every second of peaceful quiet with your inane chatter...fine. But why barrage me with questions that I would, by human design, need my mouth available to me in order to answer? And while we're at it, get some new questions. You've been reading off the same script of questions for 6 freaking years now.

Dear coworker who likes to tell me stories: I'm glad you find your life so fascinating; I am. I wish everyone were as thrilled with the minutiae of their daily lives as you are. But for the love of God, please do not try to draw me into your boring little circus. Oh my God, what's that? Your cat clawed your favorite sweater? FASCINATING! You were a total hottie in high school and all the girls wanted you? FASCINATING! You've been getting more buff now that you're spending more time in the gym? FASCINATING! Tell me more! No wait--don't. Tell me less--much, much less. Did you ever wonder why I suddenly race off to the bathroom every time you amble over to my desk with that "hey buddy, let's chat" air about you? You must think I have a bladder infection or a coke habit, but no, I'm just trying to avoid you. I will spend my entire 8-hour shift hiding in the bathroom like a prison escapee if that's what's necessary to avoid hearing one more anecdote about your creepy sex life.

Dear pothead friend of mine: You are so witty and interesting and great to be around--until 2.5 seconds after you get stoned. Then you are the intellectual equivalent of a burrito. While my very funny jokes suddenly sail over your fluffy, empty head, your own "jokes, " which make no sense at all, send you into giggle fits that go on so long a bystander would think you were having an extended seizure. Perhaps there are some potheads out there who can get stoned and still comport themselves as normal, functioning citizens, but you are not one of them. You look like a homeless middle-aged man and act like a 2rd grader who just discovered potty humor. I'd say I've decided to only hang out with you when you're clear-headed, except that it's too hard to speed over to your house before that 15-minute window of time ends.

Dear husband of mine: I adore you. I have no complaints about you.

Dear goofball customer #1: Have I told you how incredibly odd it is that you've written a poem to your dead cat, thanking him for "all the good times?" And that you're going to read it at his memorial service? Do I really have to tell you that's odd?

Dear goofball customer #2: Yes, you're in luck! I have all day to spend with you, listening to every last detail of your life. Go ahead, start from the story of your birth and continue on through to the present day, and don't leave anything out! Tell me all about your boring family, your kitty cat, the time you got overcharged for a purchase at the mall, and the strict diet your doctor has put you on. Don't even give a thought to the knot of other customers angrily shifting from foot to foot and tapping their toes, or to the towering stack of work next to me, about to topple over and crush me to death. I've actually been waiting all day for someone as interesting and talkative as you to come in and entertain me. Go ahead, describe that persistent back pain to me again.

Friday, August 05, 2005

If you've got any sense at all, this will bore the pants off of you

The very sweet and lovely Undercover Celebrity interviewed me. This was interesting for me, because, well, I find myself fascinating. Unfortunately for you, I'm not that interesting to anyone else. Nonetheless, here are my answers.

Question 1: What is your favorite guilty pleasure?
Oh hell, it's only the first question and already I'm about to admit to something I'm ashamed of. Damn you, Undercover Celebrity. Okay, here goes: Sometimes I watch that insipid Sex in the City. But listen, it's hardly a guilty pleasure, because while I do feel incredibly guilty for frittering my life away in such a manner, there's almost no pleasure involved, honestly. In fact, I sit there and yell at the TV throughout the entire episode, things like, "What in God's name is she wearing?! NO ONE wears a ballerina skirt with suspenders--and there's a REASON for that! She looks like an ass!" And that heinous-looking Mr. Big--I'm supposed to identify with Carrie as she swoons over that pompous, unattractive turd? While wearing a freaking ballerina skirt? Ack. I'm getting angry just thinking about it. But I'll probably watch it again, damnit.

Question 2: What bad habit do you wish you could break (but really have no intention of breaking)?
This is unrealistic. I'm expected to pick just one, from the novelty-length list of bad habits I have? Okay. It would be great if I could stop mentally mocking people I see in grocery stores, at work, at the post office, you name it. It's a terrible habit, but incredibly entertaining, so I don't think I'm going to be able to stop. I have whole sarcastic conversations with them, in my head, in which I tell them things I would never dare to tell them in real life, like, "Your cell phone conversation with your sister is fascinating! Everyone within a 20-foot radius can hear it loud and clear, but I hate the thought of the people out in the parking lot missing out on it. Can you shout just a tad louder as you complain to your dopey sister about how expensive your foot fungus medicine is, you self-important cow?"

Question 3: What's the best pick-up line you've ever heard?
This one came from my friend John, but he didn't use it on me. I heard him ask a girl who had just gotten into his Volkswagen van, "Are we gonna have sex or not? Because if not, get out." (She eventually got out, so I guess it's not "best" as in "most effective," but "best" as in "most humorous.")

Question 4: Common, but I have to ask: What was your most creative Missourian pastime?
That's a tough one. You already know about us sitting at a picnic table in the back of an El Camino playing quarters while someone drove us around. We also used to have fun driving to Camden to party on a cruise boat, although 9 times out of 10 that would involve having to bail Travis out of jail by the end of the night, usually for public urination or open container. But here's the best one: Our friends had a band, and they bought a big yellow school bus to drive from gig to gig. They tore out all the seats and put in couches and armchairs. We used to buy a keg (or two) and drive around town all night drinking in the school bus, making stops to pick up passengers whenever someone stood by the side of the road and waited for us to stop. The driver would swing the door open, the passengers would get on, and by the end of the night, we had a schoolbus-load of drunks passed out on the various couches. Yes, you can do that in an incredibly small town. The cop (who drove his own mini-pickup truck with a camper shell on it instead of a real cop car) used to wave to us as we drove by.

Question 5: And, for the grand finale: Another rousing game of shag, marry, push off a cliff. Please put each of the following men into the aforementioned categories: Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, and Jude Law. (Theme: Hollywood Men you Love to Hate)
Well, I can't marry Jude unless he can assure me we'll never have a nanny, so I guess I'd shag him, marry the adorable Vince, and push the hot-but-retarded Colin off a cliff before he multiplies again.

Want to play?
The Official Interview Game Rules:
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below asking to be interviewed.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Lessons I've Learned, Part 4

Not all butt rashes are obtained through sexual contact

So I've had a rash on my butt. Don't jump to conclusions and assume that I blacked out at a frat party and woke up wearing only one sock and someone else's puke. Likewise, don't assume that I like to hang out on the docks, looking for sailors ready for a party. (I mean, I do like doing that, but still, don't assume.) There's a perfectly innocent explanation.

My friend Mick and I graduated from college together. As a little graduation gift to himself, he decided to take 2 weeks and drive to California to visit his dad. He'd be driving his motorcycle, and wanted some company, so he asked me to go.

If you've ever lived in Missouri, you know this is a very silly question. The answer to "Do you want to leave the state," no matter where to, or for how long, or by what means, is always yes. If you were due to start your new job tomorrow, or get married this evening, and someone asked you, "Do you want to take a road trip to Illinois with me right now to transport some used kitty litter to my ex-convict cousin Switchblade to use to bury a corpse with?" the answer would be yes. When you live in Missouri, you occupy a large portion of your time dreaming up scenarios which might take you out of the state, for any reason at all. I had ridden a motorcycle only once before, and it was a big comfy Honda Gold Wing driven very slowly by a responsible retired man of 56 around the block in my small hometown. The trip probably took 4 minutes. Mick's bike was a very small Honda something-or-other, no luxury bike, and Mick was no retiree; he was 22. But I didn't even blink before shouting, "Yes, I'll go!" It's just lucky for me he had asked me to go someplace interesting and beachy like California, because I'd have said yes to a trip to Kansas.

The trip took us 3 days to get there and 4 days to get back, with a week spent in California. The trip highlights:

--It rained on us as we drove through the mountains in Colorado, and we stopped at a laundromat in Salida to dry our clothes. While waiting for them to dry, I walked across the street to a Wal-Mart, the only business in sight. Somehow, because God is a jokester, I ran into my ex-boyfriend--who I had recently broken up with and now loathed--and who, of course, like me, lived in Missouri. How we happened to meet up in Colorado at that moment, when neither of us had any idea the other would be in Colorado, is beyond me. Small, cruel world.

--While on the road, we slept wherever we happened to be. We had sleeping bags, and would sleep wherever we found a spot most of the time. Outside Vegas, in fact, we just slept not too far off the side of the road. If you knew what a prissy little princess I am, this would impress you, but actually, I didn't even mind it; it was an adventure, and as I said, I was out of Missouri. And then sometimes, for a break from roughing it, we'd get a hotel room. (Nothing funny happened, I can assure you. Not only did I have a new guy I was seeing back home--who was none-too-pleased about this trip, by the way--but Mick had recently gifted a friend of mine with chlamydia--after I set the two of them up. She thought he was very cute and very smart and very witty til the communicable disease portion of the relationship. That can be a real downer in a budding love story, apparently. I suppose that could be my Lessons I've Learned Part 5: Don't play cupid to people who may have STDs. And yes, I've changed his name for this story, just in case he ever finds my blog and decides to hunt me down and kill me for revealing his seedy sexual history.)

--We planned the Mojave desert portion of the trip so that we'd be going through in the middle of the night, and hopefully therefore not scald our skin right off our bodies. A wise move, but you'd be surprised--driving through, it still felt like we were driving around in a very big oven. And it's not hard imagining why there are emergency telephones all along the highway at regular intervals, because if your car happened to crap out on you in the middle of the day, it would take about 14 seconds for you to die of exposure. So yes, for the curious among you, the desert is indeed one hot mother.

--A creepy moment occurred in Vegas, moments after Mick and I had been talking about The Doors. He was saying he loved them, I was saying I hated them. Then we stopped at a gas station, where we found an abandoned Doors CD sitting on our gas pump. Creepy.

--When we arrived in California, I learned we'd be staying on his dad's houseboat. That was actually kind of cool--we had the place to ourselves, and it was small but had separate sleeping quarters. It was neat to stay on a boat for a week...except for the fact that I discovered on that trip that I get sick on boats. When we were docked it was okay, but when we went out into the open water, I got green. Nice. Still, I got to do a lot of sunbathing, and really, we didn't spend much time on the boat anyway, but instead visited various beaches and touristy spots while we were in town.

--Oh yeah, the rash part. So it turns out that a tender, delicate booty like my own doesn't necessarily take easily to sitting on a bike for days on end. I had acquired a minor rash by the time we arrived in California. Then I sunbathed almost every day, because, well, I'm an idiot. I'm also a very white, very pale idiot, so I burned. Then after a week of cooking my rashy behind in the sun, I hopped back on the bike for the return trip home. Rash stacked on top of burn stacked on top of rash. Ow. Not a very Jack Kerouac scene.

--And for the final trip highlight: The wasp in Mick's pants. We were almost home, maybe an hour away, and I was sitting there admiring the passing scenery, my legs continuing to get pelted with insects and debris, as happens on a bike. I was sitting behind Mick, naturally, but there was no need to hold on to his waist or anything; it was a small bike, but I had a little back rest and I could lean back on that, leaving maybe six inches of space between his body and mine. For no reason I could imagine, he began sort of hopping left to right in his seat while driving, kind of doing a crazy shimmy. I thought he had lost his mind. He then pulled over, leapt off the bike and raced for the ditch, where he was able to quickly drop his shorts out of the sight of passing cars (and me), shrieking the entire time. Turns out a wasp had beaten incredible odds by managing to get between Mick and me at 70 MPH and insert himself into the tiny gap at the top of his shorts, and was apparently then disappointed to find that frolicking in the crack of Mick's butt was not all he had hoped it would be. But the wasp was soon freed, and we were back on our way home.

The lesson: When embarking on a motorcycle trip cross-country, take into consideration the general well-being of your butt. I'm no biker chick, so I still don't know how to properly advise you in avoiding bike-induced butt rashes, but there's got to be a way. Bring along a pillow, maybe--liberally slather your posterior with lotion, perhaps--or at the very least, understand the wisdom of letting irritated skin heal before cooking it in the sun for several days.

Monday, August 01, 2005

To the person who found this site by searching for "adult diapers"

Damnit, I'm sorry.

Once again, my smartass attempts at humor have slowed a desperate person down in their search for help with an urgent problem.

There you were, shifting from foot to foot, struggling to hold back the tide, while frantically searching the internet for a solution to your hair-trigger bladder (and possibly bowels--but let's not think too long on that possible scenario). You needed help--and fast! And along with the rest of the tangled mess of info you undoubtedly turned up in your search, you also found my silly little blog--which was clearly no help at all. As you soon discovered, I know nothing about adult diapers, except how to use them in a joke now and then. That's bad news for you on two fronts--because not only do you probably not find adult diapers to be funny in the slightest, but if you do, a giggle fit, however small, might just invoke the kind of reaction in your nether regions that you've been trying so valiantly to avoid. In the end, it's you who will be left to clean up the mess, quite literally, and I just want to say I'm sorry. I never intended for such a thing to happen. That's what I get for trying to be cute.

So to make it up to you, I'm going to offer you some advice regarding your problem. Admittedly, I'm no expert, so you can take this advice for what it's worth--which is absolutely nothing at all. That being said, here's the only so-called wisdom I can offer you, oh Person In Need of Adult Diapers:

1) Do not even consider cloth diapers. I know, I know--they're better for the environment, they don't clog up our landfills, blah blah blah. This kind of do-gooder attitude is to be admired and revered--but only when we're talking about tiny little baby butts housed in tiny little baby diapers. Your big-girl or big-boy diapers, when filled, will have far more formidable a presence than those baby diapers you're used to seeing at your cousin's or sister's house. You do not want to have to wash those buggers out, I can assure you. Your environmental concerns will go right out the window the second or third time you find yourself dumping a 2-gallon jug of Shout on your formerly-white, bath-towel sized cloth diaper.

2) Do not eat Mexican food, ever. I know, I know--it's yummy beyond words, particularly if you live here in Texas. Here, you'll find none of that wanna-be Mexican food like they sell in Idaho's and Missouri's so-called Mexican restaurants, and you will surely be tempted to partake of that authentic goodness. But heed my warning: Avoid this urge. For someone like yourself, who apparently lacks the proper constitution for it, it can only end in disaster. Woe unto you (and any unfortunate bystanders) if you ignore this plea.

3) Avoid alcohol. Not only do you not need any extra fluid in your overwrought bladder, but you also do not need the lowered inhibitions that a mind-altering substance can bring about. If you must drink (say, to keep up appearances at a company Christmas party, or perhaps in order to find a particular member of the opposite sex attractive enough to continue chatting with in a seedy bar), then at least do so in moderation, and for the love of God, avoid beer at all costs. May I recommend Jaegermeister? It will dry you up like the Mojave desert, at least until you find yourself ejecting it from your throat while curled into a fetal position on the bathroom tile.

4) Do not, under any circumstances, wear any clothing on the lower half of your body that contains even a small percentage of lycra or spandex. Such clothing is intended for people wearing tiny, or perhaps no, undies...NOT, I repeat, NOT for the wearers of adult diapers. Yes, I know--it's not fair that, on top of the inconveniences your condition already presents, you now also have to carefully scour the racks at your local department store looking for only the roomiest, un-clingy-est clothes, but must I remind you that life is unfair? Just as it's not fair for you to have to have to constantly contend with your wimpy bladder and/or bowels, it's also not fair to make the rest of us visually aware of the potential horror going on down below.

So there you have it, my bathroom-frequenting friend. I hope I've redeemed myself for the thoughtless joke I made previously in my blog concerning adult diapers. You needed help--you deserved help--and finally, I was able to rise to the occasion and provide that help.

You're welcome.