You Forgot Your Pants

When I saw this photo the other day, four things came immediately to mind:

1. I wonder if this person shops at Wal Mart.
2. This could be the poster child for What NOT to Wear.
3. I have to use this for WTF Wednesday.

And 4. You forgot your pants, lady.

5 Things I Don't Understand About the Hubs

Let's face it: there are a LOT of things I don't understand about the Hubs. About men in general really. But that's OK because, you know, ignorance is bliss and all. But sometimes I get to thinking about things the Hubs does, and I just feel compelled to turn it into a blog post for a small but undoubtedly hip portion of the whole world to see. And maybe some of you will be able to relate. And then we're like...bonding. Or something.

So here are 5 things I don't understand about the Hubs.

Why does he put his dirty clothes on the bedroom floor before he showers--when the laundry room is but a few wee steps from the bedroom? I mean, he can literally take 3 steps from our bedroom door to the laundry room door--and just another 2 steps to hit the laundry basket. Why is that so difficult? He does usually get it there eventually, but sometimes the clothes sit there for quite awhile. Taunting me. It's like he knows I have just enough OCD tendencies that I'll be forced to pick up the dirty clothes and make that laborious-five-step trek to the laundry room on his behalf. It's dark. Sinister really. Like some evil Jedi mind trick or something.

Why must he use multiple napkins at every single meal? I can get by with one napkin--or even no napkins most of the time. But him? No way. He always uses more than one napkin; usually three or four. And I just don't understand the need for that many napkins. Seriously. How many trees must be sacrificed on a daily basis all in the name of him wiping his face 133 times per meal? One. Is. Enough. Just put the napkin down, fella.

Why must he wear socks to bed? I'll never understand this. He says he doesn't like the feel of the sheets on his feet. And no, it's not the sheets--because he's done this with every single set of sheets we've ever had--no matter the cost of them or the thread count. And what's worse is, he frequently gets hot and/or sweaty in the night--fall, spring, summer, winter...makes no difference. I tell him it's because of the socks. The socks trap heat in. He doesn't believe me, of course. But no matter, I just don't understand the whole smother-your-feet-with-socks-in-bed-and-get-all-hot-and-sweaty thing. I'd never wear socks to bed. Unless...

Why does he sneeze through his nose? He's always done this for as long as I've know him. It's one of his greatest mysteries. I don't understand how or why he does that. It's not...normal. We've debated about this for years, to the point where he even asked the doctor about it, who said it was fine that he did that. It may be 'fine,' but it is not normal. I've told him before (not that he remembers) to look at babies and children sneeze. How do THEY do it? Through their mouths--like A-CHOO. Why? Because that's N-O-R-M-A-L. It's automatic. We don't have to stop and think about it, it just happens that way. From. Birth. But not with him, no. And I'm sorry, it's just weird. Whenever I see him do it, I'm just...

And finally (at least for today), Why does he use sour cream on his baked potato whenever we eat at a restaurant, but when I have sour cream at home he never uses it? It's just not logical.

But hey, my mental confusion about the Hubs has at least allowed me to use Michael Jackson and Spock Reaction Gifs in the same blog post. So really, it's all worth it in the end. Right?

What Dafuq Wednesday

OK, for this week's WTF Wednesday, you're going to have to do a little work. It'll be worth it though, I promise. Just follow the directions on this meme.

When you get to #4, look in the clouds to the left. And feel free to come back here and comment on what you saw.

Future Movie Star

For most of my childhood I wanted to be one and only one thing: a Movie Star. And let me clarify this by saying I didn't just want to be an actress. No, no, I had my eyes on the real prize. Movie. Star. You know, as in being so famous that everyone in the world would know you, and want to take your picture or get your autograph. I always believed as a child that I would grow up and be that movie star.

So, from the age of 4 onward, I would literally practice my movie star pose. And it made a regular appearance in candid photos taken by my mom. See for yourself...

That is me in 1971, at age five, giving my well-worn-over-the-shoulder-movie-star pose for mom's ever-present Kodak instamatic camera. In my left hand, a cup of juice, as all movie stars of the day would drink, I'm sure; and in my right hand, a pair of sunglasses--removed only for this Kodak moment because, after all, a movie star needs to retain some modicum of anonymity. Ahem.

All through my childhood, I would be the one wanting to put on shows or plays, either at school or at home, in my ongoing attempt to finely hone my acting chops. After all, one can't be a Movie Star if one cannot act! I adored the spotlight, and the applause, which I would get even when my acting sucked (and it often did) because I was--if nothing else--oh so cute.

My movie star dreams lasted well into my teen years, at which time I also began practicing my movie star autograph. Because really, if you're gonna be a movie star, you have to have a cool signature that you can scribble in a hurry when clamoring fans ask for your autograph. I worked hard perfecting mine, making sure it was very loopy and fun, and worthy of a famous movie star. And in fact, the signature I use on checks or other documents to this day is based on my well-practiced movie star autograph from my adolescence. 

But alas, my dreams of movie stardom never did materialize. At some point they just became a fond memory from my childhood. Instead I became an art teacher. Luckily, I was able to keep using my autograph skills to sign hall passes and such while I was teaching. And I still had my share of the spotlight--even if it was for a classroom full of students. But the movie star pose disappeared about the same time I began to hate having my photo taken. So it is no more.

Am I sorry that I grew up and out of my movie star dreams? Not really. I look back with fondness at that little girl with big dreams. It's a part of who I was, even if it's not who I became. And I wouldn't trade that for anything.

I'm linking up this post to Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop for this week.

Your Call Is Not Important to Us

I'm sure you've had one of those calls...you know, the one you make to some business or some such, and then you get put on hold, which is made worse if you first have to listen to a multitude of computerized prompts to get to the Hold part, and worse still if when you get put on hold you have to listen to some seriously horrendous musack. OK, and yes, I do realize that's probably a run-on sentence. Thank goodness I don't get paid to be 100% grammatically correct. And who am I kidding really, I don't get paid to blog. At least not in money. And how much is chocolate really worth these days?

But I digress...

I am bringing this stuff up about being on hold because of a recent phone call to the IRS. Which arguably could stand for I'm Really Stupid. And why, you ask? Well I'll tell you why. 

First of all, the IRS really does have seriously horrendous musack while you're on hold. I mean, it's worse than bad. It gives bad a, um, bad name. And you really would think that considering all the money the IRS steals from hard working Americans, that they could afford some slightly less annoying musack while we're on hold. Michael Jackson, anyone? Anyone?

Secondly, you can only hear "Your call is important to us...yadda...yadda...yadda..." so many times before you really want to just take the phone and lunge it into your own chest. Repeatedly. 

And thirdly, because I waited on hold for over an hour. Yes, you read that correctly, folks. Sixty. Plus. Minutes. All to find out why the Hubs and I had gotten a notice about an incorrectly applied Employer Tax Deposit. See, I had to call to find out why the payment didn't apply correctly. Nowhere in the notice I got did it explain--anywhere--WHY the payment went awry. 

So finally, after over and hour of waiting, when I finally got through to "Ms. White," if that's even her real name, and I told her about the notice and asked what the problem was, guess what she told me? 

"Your payment arrived late."

Me: 

When is it due? (Honestly, I've been making those payments for years and hadn't even realized it was due on a certain day of the month!).

Her: The 15th. 

Me: But I made the payment on the 12th.

Her: But it didn't post until the 16th.

Me: 

And furthermore, may I just say, WTF?

But I was growing old tired of the phone call at this point, so I stated that I'd be sure to be more prompt with my payments in the future. Ahem.

Before I let dear "Ms. White" go, however, I wanted to get my tax dollars worth and point out something for the sake of tax-paying Americans everywhere. That being, that if the IRS would have simply bothered to put one simple sentence on the payment error notice that they sent me--one that stated that payments are due on the 15th and that my payment was received one day late--then I could have avoided being on hold for OVER A FREAKING HOUR, and I wouldn't have had to bother the dear, dutiful, now-sighing-a-bored-and-patronizing-sigh-in-the-background Ms. White with such a trivial issue in the first place!

Seriously. Would it have been that hard or costly to put one simple little sentence on that notice to explain that? It's not like the IRS paid for that paper notice, or the ink that was printed on it, or the envelope it was mailed in, or the stamp that was affixed to it. I DID. So how difficult could it be to include in such notices the actual reason you are getting them?! Wouldn't that just be a clever idea or what?

In the words of my mother, Ergle.

So really, what I got out of this whole experience is, other than that the IRS stands for I'm Really Stupid, is that when you are on hold--be it for 60 seconds or over 60 minutes--when they tell you that "your call is important to us," they are actually lying. Like, for real.

And also, perhaps more importantly, somewhere in the IRS call center is some lady allegedly named "Ms. White," who is way too easily bored and annoyed

Musical Chairs

OK, so I was sitting on the couch last night, watching TV in my polka dot pajamas. Not that it matters what I was wearing, but I'm trying to paint a picture for ya. It was late, very late, but I'm a night owl so it's just how I roll. When, at exactly 1:48am, I heard a loud noise on the porch, and I was like...

Yes, there was definitely someone, or something, on my porch. And since the Hubs was in bed, naturally I needed to go see for myself what was out there. So I went to the kitchen and opened the front door and then looked outside.

What did I see, you ask? I saw one of the chairs from the table on my porch...sitting out in the middle of the street. So I'm like, WTH?! And I was annoyed, and sort of freaked and wondering if the idiots who put the chair there were still around.

Obviously I couldn't leave the chair in the middle of the road. I needed to go out there, in my polka dot pajamas, at almost 2am, and retrieve the chair. I had to be brave. I had no choice. And after all, if necessary I could always use my special power to scare off any hoodlums or potential serial killers...

So I grabbed a jacket and my shoes and went out and got the chair, and assessed my porch to see if anything else was amiss. There on the table I found a No Trespassing sign, which I knew belonged to The Freak Next Door's house. So apparently my late night bandits had hit up my neighbor's house first, attacking some of his signs--because yeah, that'll teach them--before they decided to come over to my house and play musical chairs. Makes perfect sense.

The Freak Next Door doesn't even live there anymore (small miracle)--his brother does. But The Freak was an idiot and his overdone signage was just one of the many reasons he was long overdue for some karmic retribution--even if he isn't living there and didn't get to see it for himself. But me? What did I do? 

 Oh well, I guess I should just be glad that my chair was unharmed and there was no real damage, and nothing was stolen (for a change). Living in town is starting to annoy me more and more though, and the plans that the Hubs and I have to move to our farm property is becoming a lot more appealing. But until that happens, I'm just gonna have to hang in there and deal with this nonsense as it occurs. 

That being said, if I ever find the idiots who are creeping up on my porch at nearly 2am while I'm in my polka dot pajamas and minding my own TV-watching business, I will only have one thing to say to the police who will inevitably be called to the scene:

Things I Don't Understand - Bathroom Edition

For whatever reason, there seem to be some Things I Don't Understand today. This isn't shocking, of course. It is just my way. And as is also my way, lucky you, I'm going to share with you these things I don't understand, all related to things in the bathroom.

Why does Shower Gel expire?  Seriously. What's in that stuff that makes it expire? And what happens if I take a walk on the wild side and use the shower gel after it expires? Will I get a rash? Will it burn? Will I sprout horns or webbed feet and become a genetic mutation of my former Tinalicious self? 

  

Why do the blades in my razor rust? Isn't that just trouble waiting to happen? I mean, if I cut myself with my razor, and if I haven't, say, had a tetanus shot in awhile, couldn't I, like, get lock jaw...and die maybe?! Think about it.

Why am I the only one who realizes that the toothpaste tube should be squeezed from the bottom? I'm right, right? Or is there something wrong with me? Hmm.

Why the Hubs can't see a crooked bath mat. Dude. If I can see that the bath mat is crooked, then HE can see that the bath mat is crooked. This is not rocket science, fella. And no, it's not saying more about my OCD tendencies than about his ability to rectify stray bath mat problems. Sure it does say something about my OCD, but that is not the point. No. It's not. I just think it's logical enough to figure out: if you move the bath mat from its original anally-aligned position, then you are perfectly capable of moving it back.

Even though I'm the one who almost always has to replace the toilet paper roll, why do I still forget to check the status of the roll before I sit down to do my business?

If I'm at home, this isn't as big of a deal. I mean, who hasn't done the penguin walk with their pants down around their ankles to go fetch another roll of TP? We've all done it. But what about when the roll is empty and you're in a public place? 

Anyhoots, I think that's enough pondering of the great mysteries of things I don't understand--the bathroom edition. All this potty room talk is making me have to pee.

Buckle Up

OK, boys and girls. It's official. Tinalicious is fully moved to Blogger, and I am ready to get back to blogging. I am so excited I could pull an MJ and do a Thriller dance.

Now that that's out of my system...and once this holiday weekend is over, I'll be amped and ready to go full throttle and get down to blogging business once again. So in the meantime, enjoy your Labor Day. Get your grub on and enjoy your obligatory BBQ buffet, or whatever you have planned for this end of summer holiday. I know I will. After all, calories don't count on holidays. No seriously. They don't. I read it on the Internet so it must be true.

Ahem.

But then get ready for a Tinalicious Tuesday. And as they say,

I'll be blogging you soon!

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