CasLikeThat

A firm believer in coupons and sales, holiday shopping gives me ample opportunities to see how many discounts I can combine to get that originally-priced-at-$40 item for less than $10. And then I do a little victory dance/yelp and scare all the children being dragged around Macy’s at nine o’clock on a Saturday night and parents give me the look and I give them the look right back because shouldn’t your kids be watching cartoons and not screaming in the women’s pajamas section at nine o’clock on a Saturday? Exactly.

I was especially surprised to see the mall here had people directing drivers/traffic and suggesting areas to park. It was great: I turned into the parking lot, was pointed towards an open spot, and had the added benefit of knowing there were people out there watching and paying at least a little bit of attention. Even though I received a hot pink can of pocket-sized Mace for Thanksgiving, a little extra peace of mind is more than welcome. Not that I usually feel threatened or insecure. I’m pretty sure my 3 weeks of martial arts in 2004 and the subsequent self-defense classes provided by my employer, combined with my misguided sense of I could totally kick their ass but just to be safe I’m going to be a total paranoid wreck and IS THAT GUY FOLLOWING M–oh, never mind, that’s his car, keep me in a protective bubble.

Basically, what I’m saying here is that holiday shopping was going well. And then I got to Target.

First of all, Target is located next to PetSmart. And PetSmart was having a giant, fluffy, adorable Adoption Drive with the local shelter. Puppies with festive bandanas around their necks? Old, extremely adorable dogs with festive bandanas around their necks? Middle-aged and really well-behaved dogs with festive bandanas around their necks? All of them, swoon-worthy. For everyone. It’s the bandanas. They make any dog 1,700 times more snuggle-able. Instantly. Which basically means the parking lot was a shit show. Besides the fact that I–and everyone in a vehicle around me–had a sixteen second moment of panic and pause every time there was a speed bump, even though they were all clearly marked with signage and painted bright yellow, there was rubbernecking in the worst way in every single aisle of the parking lot, because the PetSmart/local shelter people aren’t dummies and spread those dogs out to cover a ridiculously huge amount of space. This, of course, coupling with the general “It’s the month of December and you’re in a Target parking lot” insanity.

I ended up parking in the grocery store parking lot, a 5-minute walk away. Arguably not the worst decision I’ll make during this holiday season, especially if I keep baking and eating cookies, but when I was done fighting my way through crowds of disgruntled parents dragging their sobbing, “BUT I WANT A PUPPY” wailing children past the scented candle aisle, it made for a long, heavy exit.

If only I could apply my couponing/discounting strategies to maneuvering a parking lot. Maybe I’ll take up Risk-playing and studying The Battle of Tippecanoe for ideas for shopping in 2012…

“Coming in 2008! Check back for the delicious taste of roasted garlic cheddar.”
-The Easy Cheese section of Nabisco’s website. Now. Right now.
In 2011.

And, yes. I Googled Easy Cheese as soon as I walked in the door tonight. I needed to make sure it actually existed, and wasn’t the product of NyQuil and pad Thai.

Can you imagine how Easy Cheese was pitched? Because, I mean, it’s imitation cheese. In a can. It provides spurts of medium-density fluorescent orange paste that tastes like morning breath smells after a night of binge eating dairy. (I’m aware this is also what certain real, less amusing, more expensive cheeses smell and taste like, but that’s beside the point.) I mean, at some point, someone, somewhere, was like, “You know what sucks about cheese? It takes so much effort to get it into decorative shapes on your crackers and baked potatoes…UNTIL NOW.”

I begrudgingly admit there was a time in my life where I’d have been willing to sprain the shit out of my index finger to get the last bit of neon “Cheese” out of the can.

Then I realized Easy Cheese wasn’t actually easier than a hunk of cheese + a knife, especially when I considered the amount of time I’d spent picking dried bits of Easy Cheese out of the squirting mechanism so it would actually work. I didn’t give a crap about avoiding fake food until a few years later, so I can’t chalk my consumer outrage up to the apocarotenal coloring or any other questionable-sounding ingredient. Mostly, I was a lazy teenager and pissed that Easy Cheese was such a time-waster.

That’s not to say I don’t think Easy Cheese technology doesn’t have a place.

I had a brilliant idea–the product of NyQuil and pad Thai:  An Easy Cheese/Silly String hybrid product that would shoot string cheese out with excessive force. It would be somewhat edible, but mostly dangerous, and could probably take the paint off a car.

Some of my earliest memories involve cleaning. Or being yelled at for not cleaning.

I remember the blind panic that would set in 30 minutes before my mom would have company/family over, where I would be reorganizing my sock drawer just in case some confused relative sauntered in, opened the drawer and promptly fainted from the shock of all those unpaired socks, while my brother vacuumed the bathrooms for the third time that morning, while my mother made sure the sinks were empty and void of any indication they had been used. Ever.

As a young adult/teenager, any showing of possible unkempt behaviors (e.g. failure to make my bed, fold the underwear or squeegee the shower post-use) resulted in grounding or additional chores. As a result, I am annoyingly tidy, though not quite as annoyingly tidy as my mom. Sorry, Mom.

I try to manage my expectations for others, because I seriously doubt there are many people not directly blood-related who are in the same neurotic, Lysol-obsessed, Febreeze-toting, bulk Windex-buying, vinegar-scrubbing stratosphere. I can’t stand doing laundry, but goddamn would I love to organize your closet, get the odors out of your carpet and leave your kitchen glistening.

I understand “boy/man clean” and “weekend clean” and “I have a busy life” clean. I can respect the effort, or the amount of fakery put into making it appear that, at one point, there was effort.

What I can’t respect is an astonishing lack of  basic cleanliness.

For the past year or thereabouts, Joey and I have had our charming Broad Ripple home on the market. The market sucks, we started off with a realtor who wasn’t particularly interested in getting our place sold, and then I went ahead and moved out to DC, since married people are supposed to live in the same zip code or something like that, and I missed Joey. Anyway, we let someone in Joey’s family who was in a bit of a bind move in to the house, to watch over it, keep it staged/clean/ready for showings/potential buyers and allegedly pay rent of some sort so we weren’t paying DC rent and an Indy mortgage.

And then everything went to hell. No rent was paid. When I came back from Indy to work from the office, I was asked to not stay in my own house because it really wasn’t a good time for this person to have a “guest.” I popped in anyway, unbeknownst to Family Tenant, after a showing and saw crumbs on the counters, furballs the size of Barbie Dream Cars drifting calmly across the floors, laundry on the floor and promptly had a meltdown. No rent was paid. I asked Joey to have a talk with this family member–and he did. (Or said he did. Whatever.) Then we switched realtors and the new one asked Joey to talk to Family Tenant about keeping the place cleaner. And he did/said he did. No rent was paid. Then we kept getting feedback from showings about how the place was somewhere on the scale of “dingy” to “filthy,” so Joey had/said he had another chat with Family Tenant. Somewhere around this time, I started having nightmares about cobwebs, Hoarders, dust bunnies coming to life and smothering me and never getting the house sold. And Family Tenant kind of attempted to pay a little and make excuses about why he couldn’t really afford rent until Father of Family Tenant called and told him he really should be paying something if he’s going to be living there.

So, this past weekend, Joey and I went to the house to put in some time doing maintenance and cleaning since our realtor told us it was  necessary for someone to do something. And, also, our realtor spent her own damn time cleaning hair off the doors (?!) before the last open house.

After only being in the house once in about a year, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I seriously didn’t expect to spend 45 minutes of my life scrubbing bird shit off a screened-in deck and the deck furniture, and another hour and two sets of rubber gloves chipping dried dog drool off windows because Windex couldn’t cut through it. The white built-ins had an impressive dust film turning them gray, the bathroom had mud paw prints on the floor and enough hair/fur to knit a sweater, the landscaping was a wreck, all the perennials in my window boxes and planters had been yanked out for whatever reason, the white baseboards and trim are beyond cleaning (but I tried, anyway) and there was a stack of white take-out napkins on top of the toilet because Family Tenant didn’t have toilet paper in the house. (We did a walk-through a few days before we did actual work, so he was out of TP for at least 3 days.) Family Tenant is in his 30s. Joey spent about 8 hours touching up paint, cleaning off the front porch, mulching, pulling weeds and cleaning up. I spent 3 hours cleaning before a showing we ended up having on Sunday, and only managed to take it from unappealing and filthy to moderately unattractive and dirty. I can’t actually put into words how disgusted, frustrated and angry I am. So here’s a picture of Sharktopus, instead:

I spent 7 minutes collecting my thoughts. I neglected to add a segment about alcohol, so please just assume that’s all the white space.

Is it just me, or has there been a steady uptick in the number of “This is what I wore today” style blogs? I’ve managed to stumble upon many of them in the recent past and developed an increasingly fierce complex based around my lack of high-heels, patterned stockings and navel-grazing necklaces.

This will never be a style blog, mainly because it’s none of your business if I’m wearing the same tank top for the third day in a row and I happen to like these Gulden’s Spicy Brown Mustard stains, they’re charming and add character, thank you very much, and also because I have the personal style of someone who would welcome adult-sized Garanimals with open arms. Working from home may be the best/worst thing that’s ever happened to my wardrobe.

I spent most of high school wearing ill-fitting jeans and solid-colored t-shirts or sweaters because it’s safe and I’m lazy, but also because the one time I branched out of my comfort zone, I decided a taupe neck scarf was the way to go.

Here’s all the style advice I ever needed, and the only style advice I will ever give:

The cool kids will not invite you to their parties if you wear taupe neck scarves in public.

Earlier in the month, Dan Rottenberg, a veteran journalist/editor, provided women everywhere with some suggestions to help us avoid being raped, apparently inspired by the brutal sexual assault of CBS News reporter Lara Logan that took place earlier this year, and her attire in a photo taken at a 2008 awards show, which happened to show some cleavage.

Rottenberg apparently wants us to forget she was brutalized while in Tahrir Square, covering Mubarak’s ousting and people in the crowd were accusing her of being an Israeli spy. For good measure, let’s also forget when she was attacked in Egypt she was wearing a jacket, a sweater, a shirt and pants. Not a v-neck or anything that showed off her biscuits.

From Rottenberg’s editor’s letter:

Earth to liberated women: When you display legs, thighs or cleavage, some liberated men will see it as a sign that you feel good about yourself and your sexuality. But most men will see it as a sign that you want to get laid.

Basically, it’s the blame the victim dog & pony show rapists have been using since fishnet stockings and makeup were first mass-produced. Why are women raped? Because of what we wear, of course. To avoid being attacked, ladies, we must all invest heavily in puce turtlenecks and mom jeans. Anything else is a fairly clear indicator that we want to get laid. Or raped. Whatever. It’s easy to commingle “sex” and “sexual assault” when you’re an active member of the “blame the victim” fan club.

Rottenberg goes on to say drama is very high on the hierarchy of needs for males and  ”conquering an unwilling sex partner is about as much drama as a man can find without shooting a gun.” No, seriously. He wrote that. Normalizing the urge to rape is a foolish, irresponsible, assholeist thing to do, and if I had a penis, I would be offended by that statement.

Last I checked, most men are not simply wandering around looking for some unassuming young lass to tritz by in a halter top and yoga pants or whathaveyou so he can drag her into an alley and gang rape her with six-to-ten of his closest friends. Or, y’know, whatever it is rapists do these days while they’re taking advantage of women.

The incredibly (eye roll) helpful (eye roll) suggestions Rottenberg provides women includes the gem “Don’t trust your male friends.” Really. Really? “Sorry, guys. Staying in tonight. Can’t trust y’all to keep that sex weapon concealed. But have fun on the rape hunt!”

Arguably, I am most upset by this guy because, as a journalist, he shouldn’t be this irresponsible with what he writes. He shouldn’t start his post off with a three-year-old picture of a sexual assault victim and use her attire in that three-year-old picture to justify her recent attack–especially when she wasn’t wearing anything mildly suggestive when attacked. He shouldn’t sit around firing off editorials that normalize the desire to rape women. He should probably refrain from offending just about everyone by saying women are responsible for attacks against them because men are not to be trusted and everyone should just know better.

And, if Dan Rottenberg seriously believes he needs drama and, as far as drama goes, “conquering an unwilling sex partner” is the next-best-thing to shootin’, I hope he can suppress his urges long enough to take an extended hunting trip with someone with worse aim than Dick Cheney.

• If you don’t understand that links, like vases, television sets and tibias, can be broken
• If you are particularly convinced that “scrolling” would involve parchment paper and ribbons
• If you have forgotten that “you” has three letters, or that “your/you’re” requires more than two letters
• If you don’t understand that not everything on the internet happens instantaneously and you have less patience than a monkey on a six-day crack binge
• If you’re not sure if you have dial-up internet, or if you still have dial-up internet and live within a 25-mile radius of civilization/a Walgreen’s
• If you don’t have something (or anything) nice to say
• If you can’t express yourself in proper case

…You’re not internet-ready. But! Good news! Pens, paper, envelopes and stamps still exist! They may be more expensive than the last time you bought them–and there’s still a line at the post office!–but they’ve withstood the test of time and are now the preferred method of communication for the internet-incompatible. You’re going to be doing the interworld a giant favor!

Moving to the DC area required a certain amount of downsizing. And since Joey and I are somewhat prone to, “eh, fuck it”-style behaviors, we got rid of our chairs. All of them.

I can’t pinpoint what prompted us to be all purgey with the sitting materials, but I assume we collectively had a moment where we thought the floor would be nice. Minimalist. Or just a hell of a lot easier after moving 500 miles. What we forgot, however, was our dogs don’t understand the concept of humans on the floor, and 160 pounds of love, drool and fur trying to sit on top of you isn’t particularly soothing. And, so, we made do cramming on a lonesome couch for several more months than most people would probably consider sane, especially since there are three adults living here, and having any company come over was…challenging. I can’t ask people to sit on the coffee table without looking freakishly overconfident in the sturdiness of $25 IKEA furnishings.

With spring break looming and three house guests on their way, I felt compelled to find a proper addition to the living room. While Joey was away at SXSWi, I dragged Jimmy furniture shopping.

Little did I know, buying a chair is far more difficult than buying a washer/dryer, window or anything else I actually have experience buying, like sweaters and pants. I assumed you could walk in to Store X, indicate a chair you’d like to purchase and have it delivered in a reasonable amount of time, or could simply pull around and have them load it in your vehicle. I knew that at, like, real furniture stores you’d have to order your couch/chair/dining room set and wait 2-3 weeks for delivery, but I went to Store X. Which is Value City Furniture. And I’m impatient, so when the frighteningly bitter salesman looked at me like I was an idiot and told me they, too, require me to sit around and wait for the furniture fairies to conjure up my chair with their doe-eyed magic cobbler friends, which takes, on average, several days, depending on their delivery schedule, I balked and dragged Jimmy to HomeGoods where we didn’t find a chair, but he managed to find a retro-chic track jacket.

As we were leaving HomeGoods, Jimmy noticed another furniture store, which was built in to the outlet mall. Outlet malls, in general, excite the pants off me. So I can buy new pants! At fantastically discounted prices! Seemed like it could be worth a shot.

Walking in, I’m not sure what disturbed/intrigued me most. It was dead silent. It was wall-to-wall furniture. The furniture made no sense. Nobody was there.

Picture your favorite department store. Now take out the walls, aisles, merchandise, jaunty background music, employees and other shoppers. Fill it with bizarre home furnishings, being careful not to leave room for aisles or logic. I mean, stick that 80′s-style purple suede couch next to the contemporary white leather chair, and make sure that’s backing up to an entire living room set that may have been stolen from a 97-year-old woman’s attic, sans dust, because it’s new furniture. I mean, if you’re at all interested in piecing together a visual, just throw in whatever the hell you want. Florals, stripes, plaids, leather of every color and fabrics with varying sheens looking like it’s fallen out of the past 14 decades. The less sense it makes, the closer you are to the reality of this place.

Now add lions and tigers. Seriously. Smaller-than-life-sized, larger-than-any-sane-person-should-reasonably-feel-comfortable-wanting-to-procure, with painted faces and signs telling us not to touch them.

Jimmy and I stumbled upon the herd (pride?) while trying to figure out if there was actually anyone in the store, since standing in a semi-clearing and yelling, “Hello, I’d like to buy a chair!” didn’t draw anyone to us. I’m positive Jimmy and I could’ve looted the place, were we so inclined. And I’m also positive the lions and tigers would come to life in the dead of night and stalk us until we returned the pilfered goods, if they didn’t just maul us outright.

IKEA never looked better.

I like tanning beds.

I know, I know. It’s horrible for me. It’ll give me premature wrinkles. It’s a cancer box. And twenty years from now science is going to prove that tanning beds cause aged bones to turn into mango chutney and glow purple. I know.

It’s not like I’m tanorexic, baking myself under the bulbs like a muffin in an Easy Bake Oven six days a week. I go once, maybe twice, a month, and that’s if I’m feeling ambitious. Occasionally it’s nice to sprawl out inside the equivalent of a heating blanket on crack, let my chronically frigid feet thaw out and listen to glorious white noise or shitty rap, depending on my ability to figure out the music system.

One thing never fails to get me, though.

It seems that every tanning salon employee in the history of the world has been trained to upsell based on the assumption that people going into tanning salons are idiots. Which, to some extent, we are. We’re at a tanning salon, after all, just waiting for our bones to slither down into mush and start to glow.

If I had a bottle of (nice) tequila for every time I heard some version of, “You should go with the Diamond bed instead of the Silver bed because the Diamond has 4 percent fewer UVB rays, so it’s good for your skin.” …

Good for my skin? Shit, I must be drunk. Why are there so many empty tequila bottles in the living room? WHO IS THIS MAN WITH THE GUACAMOLE IN HIS SOMBRERO? Where do I get a guacamole sombrero? And why is there another smashed mini-fridge under the balcony?

UV rays are well-known carcinogens, not gentle smooches from forrest fairies. I’m not there to pretend I’m bathing myself in milk and emerging a radiant shampoo commercial model, I’m there because my feet are fucking cold and I want to pretend to be a muffin for 10 minutes of my month.

So, a note to all the partially-gelatinous minions of The (Tan) Man: If you’re going to upsell me, don’t lie to me and tell me I’m doing something good for myself–just tell me the more expensive beds have idiot-proof radio controls so I don’t have to suffer through Chris Brown crowing his way through another shitty song.

Joey was doing Weekend Dad duty with the dogs this morning when he noticed a note taped to our door. The note was from “a neighbor” and accused us of not picking up the dogs’ #2. Which we do. Always.

He jumped to the conclusion that the note must be from the family across the hall. They’re perfectly pleasant people and I wasn’t convinced they were the note-leavers, but I was still 2/3 asleep at this point and really not in any shape to offer a coherent argument, unless said argument involved French Toast V. Breakfast Sandwich, which this clearly did not. So he writes a reply note, which included a crack about how their children are loud, and tapes it to their door.

They eventually tape their own reply to his note onto their door, basically saying that they think their children are just fine, and oh yeah–they didn’t leave us a note.

I drafted a lovely apology letter asking them to please ignore my surly old man of a husband and telling them I find their children well-mannered and lovely.

And then I wrote my own reply note, which is currently taped on the door all people around us would need to use to go to the garage or outside–and I included the original note.

Dear Passive-Aggressive Note-Leaving Neighbor:

As a habitual #2 picker-upper, I am confused by your note. I can’t remember the last time I left a steaming turd pile outside. In fact–on MULTIPLE occasions–I have picked up #2 not belonging to my pets. If the bags are out, I walk until I find them, even at 3am. If you remember otherwise, I can only assume one of us was drunk.”