Things I Don't Understand About Men

I'm an educated person and I'm reasonably smart, but there are still plenty of things I simply cannot wrap my brain around. So I thought I'd get Tinalicious and add a category to the ole blog called Things I Don't Understand. And this post will mark the first installment in my perhaps futile attempt at understanding. Today's topic: Men. And these are in no particular order. I'm not going for rank and order here...just going with the proverbial flow.

Why do men hock up phlegm? And furthermore, how did they learn such a disgusting habit? I mean, really, do their dads pull them aside at a young age and teach them how to do that? Or are they genetically predisposed to such an excess of phlegm that it results in them hocking up those snotty wads? I have never once hocked up a loogie in my entire life. I can barely imagine it, let alone actually do it. Gross, man. Gross.

Why must they flip channels on the TV....so freaking much? The Hubs does it ad nauseam during every commercial break. And the hilarious part is, he will flip and flip and flip so much, that he will forget what channel he started on to begin with, which results in more flipping in order to find it! Commercials are annoying, I get that. But why is it so hard to just sit there and wait for the show you're watching to come back on? Or how about taking a potty break or grabbing a little snack? Better yet, grab me one! My theory? Commitment Rebellion! Makes no difference if they're in a committed relationship or not; either way, they want to rebel against commitment whenever possible, even if the behavior is completely subconscious! Think about it: if they flip the channels, they aren't truly committed to the show they were watching--it gives them a sense of power freedom to flip through all 108 channels, even if they forget what they were watching in the process. And they avoid using turn signals for the same reason; Heaven forbid they should change their mind at the last minute...and have to turn the signal off (Lord knows how strenuous that would be!). And they sure can't allow their driving to be controlled by a commitment...to traffic laws.

Why can't they leave the thermostat alone? In my mind, the thermostat only needs two settings: 65 degrees in the winter (for heat) and 73 degrees in the summer (for air). If it were up to me, there'd be no changes and no in-betweens. The Hubs--like many men I know--has different ideas. The same guy that can work outside in 10 degree weather without ever getting chilled has to come home and wanna crank up the thermostat because he's cold. WTH? He's also the one sitting around in just a bathrobe or cotton pants with no shirt. Ummm....PUT SOME CLOTHES ON! And hey, grab me a snack while you're at it...and leave the thermostat alone. Sheesh.

I'm sure I'll continue on this topic again in the future. There are so many things I don't understand about men, but my brain is turning to mush and needs a blogging break. One can only be so thoughtful and witty when the eyelids are winning the battle with the brain. G'night, all!

A-Choo

Yes, I'm sick. I have a nasty, unwelcome cold (yeah, like a cold is ever welcome!) that has rendered me absolutely useless, whiny, and annoying to everyone around me for the past four days. OMG, FOUR DAYS? If I'm only at day four--and feeling worse rather than better, that means this will not be a quicky seven-day virus. No no, oh joy of joys, this will likely be a ten-day reign of infectious terror that will ravage every cell in my aging body.

OK, so I'm being a tad bit melodramatic. It's just a cold, right? It could be worse; it's not like I have the Swine Flu or something. But man, what is it with colds? Shouldn't there be a bodily limit on how many colds one has to endure in their lifetime? If there were such a limit, surely I'd have met mine long ago, after catching most of my daughter's colds, my husband's colds, and the colds of many a sneezing/germ-spreading student when I was a teacher for a decade! I've had more than my fair share of colds in my forty-two years, if I do say so myself. Sniffle.

Think about it: doctors say that there are over 100 viruses that cause the common cold (which, just FYI, is why it's not possible to cure a cold...because it would be impossible/impractical to diagnose which virus a person is infected with at any given time); they also say that the average person gets up to 4 colds per year. So with that bit of enlightened medical insight, shouldn't I have had every single cold virus possible by the age of 30...at the latest?! Yeah well, so much for statistics. They should revise that to say that the oh-so-lucky-few-and-far-between get 4 colds per year...the rest of us get screwed. Cough.

And what is it with cold medicines anyway? Why can't they make one that actually works? My left nostril is so plugged that I'm getting a migraine trying to breathe through it, and there is no decongestant that works for me. Yet it says, right on every decongestant box I've ever read: temporarily relieves nasal congestion due to the common cold. Do they really expect us to believe that it worked on the lab rats, but it's not gonna work on us? Or is it just one big pharmaceutical lie...something those drug-makers sit around laughing about at our snot-nosed expense? Sniffle.

But puh-lease don't tell me to breathe through my mouth. There is nothing worse than the duty breath and chapped lips that result from breathing through your mouth. Like it's not bad enough that I'm sneezing every five seconds, blowing my nose enough times to single-handedly keep Kleenex in business for the next 40 years, and snoring loud enough to wake the dead (and The Hubs!). Yeah, I really want to have breath that smells like poo and cracked lips to boot! I think not. Hack.

I just want to breathe, people. Is that asking so much? I'll tolerate the lethargy and nose-blowing, and the occasional coughing. I'll even put up with the incessant sniffling. But just let me breathe--through both nostrils! Seriously.

A-choo.

I Wore Bell-bottoms to Thrifty's!

It's Flashback Friday, and this week, we're hitting the 70's, big time! Travel back with me now, and see how many of these things you remember about being a child of the 70's.

You wore bell-bottoms, and if you were lucky, your bell-bottoms were Dittos (Can you feel the fit?!).

You'd go with the the Fam to Thrifty's Drug Store to get ice cream cones, by the scoop, on a hot day. And oh yeah, it was only 5 cents a scoop.

You used your cassette player to tape songs off the radio.

You knew the words to Muskrat Love, and you weren't afraid to sing them.

You had skates...you know, the kind with four wheels, and you loved to go to the Skating Rink.

You loved the "sweathogs" of Welcome Back, Kotter, and your favorite phrase was, "up your nose with a rubber hose."

Disco. Need I say more?

You had a huge collection of 45's. (Any younger generations are gonna be stumped on this one!)

You rode a bike with a banana seat, and you thought you were cool doing it.

You had a Pet Rock, or you knew someone else who did. (Now THAT is what I call marketing genius: sell rocks, and become a millionaire!)

You thought Sea Monkeys were real.

Everything in your mom's kitchen was harvest gold or avocado green.

Tiger Beat was your favorite magazine.

You begged your mom for some Love's Baby Soft perfume, and bubble gum lip gloss.

Your hair had "wings."

Wallabies. And I don't mean animals.

Asking your Magic 8 ball if you would marry Shaun Cassidy, or maybe Leif Garrett?

Drive-In movies!

I could go on and on about the 70's. It was a wild decade, to be sure. But as I look back on it, one word comes to mind that really sums it up for me:

Groovy!

The Fish N Chips Incident

Well, I wasn't planning to blog again today, but something happened this evening that just screamed for a late night addition. We'll just call it The Incident for now, and it went a little something like this...

The Hubs and I went out to eat this evening, and we had our grandson Dylan along. It started off just like any other Family Friday at Friendly's (a local eatery). You know, exchanging unwitty banter about our day, deliberating over the menu that we should have memorized after eating there at least 75 times, and listening to our grandson sing the lyrics of his favorite new song, "I'm squishing up my baby bumble bee," the perfect song to accompany any meal. Food arrives, and we begin to eat. Dylan is having his usual, popcorn chicken. I'm having grilled chicken. And the Hubs, the oddball, is having Fish N Chips (at least it wasn't Smelt this time). Nothing too out of the ordinary at this point. Chew and chat, chew and chat...ask Dylan a third time to stop singing that song until we're done eating.

Then, a little more than half way through the meal, the Hubs somehow manages to drop an entire piece of his heavily fried fish onto the floor. And, being the considerate guy that he is, naturally he picks up the fish. After all, he doesn't want someone to step on it, so he does the right thing and picks it up. And then, with little or no thought at all, he put the tainted fish off to the side of his plate...far away from the remaining fish and fries, so that he'll remember why it's there...and not...eat it. Great, smart move, my man. I would have put it on the table myself, but hey, whatever works for him. So we continue on to finish diner, chew and chat, chew and chat, and I listen to Dylan talk about how great ranch dressing is on french fries.

And then it happened. I turned back to the Hubs and glanced down at his plate. The tainted fish...has disappeared. WTH? It was just there a second ago--I saw it with my own eyes! But after a cursory look around the table, that freaking fish is nowhere to be found. Where the heck is it?

Yes folks, he...ate...it. {insert gagging noise here}

"OMG," I half screamed. "You did NOT just eat that fish, did you?" And he pauses, glances at the plate, and kind of shrugs, as I wait for the look of horror on my own face to be mirrored on his. But it never happens. He's slightly baffled by his obvious, um, mistake, but there's no evidence of disgust at all, after having eaten something to which the 5-second rule can in no way apply, considering we're in a public place--with a carpeted floor no less! All he can manage is, "I guess I did." Allrighty then.

Dinner for 3 at Friendly's: $34.95

Tip for the waitress: $5.00

Opportunity to tell the Hubs not to kiss me for a week, until I'm relatively sure that the Fish N Chips Incident isn't going to come up to haunt us: priceless.

Tina Trivia

I thought I'd do something different today and share with you some useless interesting facts about, well, me! After all, I'm just a faceless name on a page at this point, so why not? And besides, I'm itching to blog, but I'm in the midst of a full mental block, so this will be better than nothing. These won't be in order of importance or anything. Just random things that are coming to me as I write.

I like pepper, and lots of it, on only 2 things: cottage cheese, and macaroni and cheese. I don't know what it is about those two glorious cheesy edibles, but to me, they taste ever so much better with lots of black pepper. {a-choo} The Hubs looks at me like I'm some sort of freak when pour the pepper on my mac-n-cheese. Yeah, like he's one to talk. He puts pepper on hot dogs! Freak.

I dislike, no...hate...no...despise...eggplant. Eggplants are the only veggie I've ever tried that I cannot stand. It quite literally makes me gag. I don't even have to know that there's eggplant in something before hand--I can taste it in anything, and it makes me wanna hurl. Where did that sick thing even come from? It looks like it was brought here by aliens! Yuck.

I cannot locate all 50 states on a U.S. map. I do know what all the 50 states are, I just don't know where all the 50 states are. And seriously, I can not for the life of me ever remember being taught that! I did move around a lot though growing up, so I could have just missed it in transit one year. I think I can locate all but about 10 or 15 when I really try; I can definitely pinpoint the general area the missing states belong in...just can't, with any certainty, put them in their proper places. What can I say, I'm geographically challenged.

I have to drink my hot tea with milk in it. Most people think I'm weird when I do that. And truth be told, I thought I was kind of weird at first too. I'm not sure why I ever started doing it, but I loved it and have never stopped. If I lived in England, I'd fit right in, because they put milk in their tea all the time! My mom says that it must be that bit of British ancestry in me that makes me love that splash of milk in my tea. I do believe she must be right. Cheerio, and pass the scones!

When the movie Grease came out in 1978, I was just shy of my 12th birthday. Much to my mother's chagrin, I saw that movie at the theater 10 times. I thought it was the best movie ever made and I could not get enough of it. I got the soundtrack and played it over and over and over...and we're talking vinyl here, people, a full size record.

[Do today's 12-year-olds even know what a record is?!]

As a side note about the soundtrack, my mother did not like some of the songs on there--Greased Lightning in particular. There were some questionable phrases in that tune, lead among them, "pussy wagon," that Mom just did not want my impressionable ears to hear. Funny thing though, even though I heard that phrase every time, I was absolutely clueless as to what it meant. I didn't find that out until a few years later, and then I just thought it was funny! And geez, by today's standards, that phrase is pretty tame. But I can see why Mom would be a bit bugged by it.

Grease still ranks as one of my all time favorite movies. I have it on DVD (natch) and when I'm feeling like waxing nostalgic, I pop it in and travel back to the age of greasers, pedal pushers, teen angels, and sock hops. How can you not love Sandy and Danny and all the gang? Right on, man.

Grease is the word.