The Junk Drawer

This is my dearly departed cat, Calvin. RIP, buddy.

Calvin was really a dog in cat’s clothing. He would rather be outside, terrorizing birds, squirrels and anything else that dared come into the yard, than sit on my lap getting nice chin skritches. My husband Dave would put him on a leash and take him for walks like you would a dog. He practically barked.

Calvin would also rather take off a few fingers than allow you to pet him on the head like you can do easily with most cats. I don’t know how or why he got so angry, but towards the end of his life, I stopped trying to touch him.

He was the Hannibal Lector of the cat world. In fact, whenever he went to the vet, they had to muzzle him. That requirement came after the time he bit straight through the rubber glove of a vet’s assistant and made the guy bleed. A big, red warning note was stamped on the top of his medical chart.

We were told the next step would be to medicate him before he was allowed back for any kind of visit. It was that or he would be blacklisted.

By then, I’d been fed up with many of his behaviors, not the least of which was him peeing on the carpets in almost every room of our house. I spent many a Saturday shampooing and disinfecting the rugs.

Were we lousy cat parents? No. Calvin was just one bad ass cat who showed his general displeasure by spraying everywhere.

But it’s not like we didn’t try to make him a happy, normal cat. We did.

How?

We took him to a cat therapist.

That’s right.

We plunked down $75/hour to have a cat shrink tell us what we could do to make Calvin the sweet ‘ol cat he was supposed to be.

We knew how insane the idea was, but we did it anyway out of desperation.

Of course, we laughed to ourselves the entire time we sat in the therapist’s office, realizing how ludicrous it was to spend that kind of money trying to straighten out the plum-sized brain of an animal who couldn’t understand English, much less what brought him to see a doctor who studied at a real school and knew the difference between all the classifications in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

So, yeah. The visit.

We brought him into the office in his carrier and the nice doctor talked to us about Calvin’s bad behaviors for a while. Then she said she would try to coax him out of his carrier and “get him comfortable.”

She opened the carrier door, stuck her hand inside the hole and he bit her. Duh.

That ended the hands-on portion of the program.

She talked more about what we could do to enhance his calm and then the kitty equivalent of Prozac came up. Prozac. For cats. Um. No.

Since I was mostly concerned with his spraying the inside of my house instead of using his litter box, she said “Oh, that’s an easy fix. Put out more boxes. One in every room.”

Now you’re talkin’, sister!

I wouldn’t have thought it would work, but she was absolutely right. Multiple boxes all but put an end to Calvin’s spraying and I could reclaim my weekends as my own again. No more rug shampooing.

Was the kitty shrink a success? Not really. Calvin remained an ornery bastard until the day he died. I’d venture to say he might have been happier that way. Cranky was his thing.

If you ever took your pet to a shrink, I would love to hear how your experience went.

No? Then at least you’ll have a story to tell your friends. You now know someone who actually did and admitted it.

Yesterday my husband and I attended a birthday party for my brother-in-law. I was disappointed to find out from other guests that I missed the part of the show where my husband tried to walk through a patio door without first making sure it was, like, open. Smooth move, Dave.

Though he’s not so great with walking through glass, he does have a knack for screen doors.

The year: 1992

The place: Our townhouse

The event: Escaped cat

One morning before work, I had enough time to let one of our cats out into the backyard, which overlooked a wooded area and a small creek. I put Calvin in his harness and tied the leash to a fence.

From the breakfast nook I could keep an eye on him, but when I had my back turned for a split second, he managed to wriggle his way out of the harness and escape to God knows where.

Not prone to too much panic, as this had happened before, I grabbed a can of cat food and went outside to open it up in the hopes that Calvin would hear a familiar yummy sound and come running back from wherever he ventured off.

He didn’t.

I began calling his name, pleading more desperately with each shout.

Still nothing.

I ran inside for a jingle bell toy he liked and returned outside to ring it in an annoyed, I-mean-business kind of way.

Time ticked with no response.

Looking over the bank, down to the creek, I saw something orange and white moving about the brush. It’s him! Good that I found him, bad to see how inaccessible he was. The hill dropped at a 45 degree angle.

Now I panicked.

So what’s a girl to do? I ran back to the house and yelled through the screen door “Dave!!! Calvin’s in the woods!!! I can’t get him!!!”

A formerly-sleeping Dave bolted out of bed, stumbled downstairs and shot through the door to begin search and rescue.

And by “through the door,” I mean through the door.

Like a gorilla in the mist, my beast of a husband took out the entire screen door, right off the tracks.

Huh. That’s sort of unfortunate.

Without skipping a beat, he handed me the door, said simply “Here. Hold this,” and went off to retrieve Calvin.

And so there I stood, regretting having turned a peaceful morning into a three-ring circus, holding an ineffective jingle bell toy and a giant, slightly-bent patio door that would never again close properly.

Awesome.

We usually consider people who live on the edge as the types who enjoy thrill-seeking adventures such as skydiving, rock climbing or race car driving.

Tonight I met a guy who could beat them all.

He was going to buy a tub of sour cream.

Let me ’splain.

I followed him to the courtesy counter at my grocery store. He had the sour cream in hand and I figured he’d be in and out of the line in no time at all. Spotting another container of sour cream peeking out of a bag on the counter, I realized he was there to make an exchange.

He told the cashier “I looked and looked and could only find this one.”

“Let me see,” said the cashier.

“But it’s just like all the others. They’re all expired,” the man reported. “This one is the most recent. June 21st.”

The cashier, not knowing exactly what to do about the exchange, stood there for a moment and said nothing.

I figured the next move she’d make is to give the guy his money back because he couldn’t find a tub that still had some time left on the clock.

But no.

He said “It’s only four days past expiration. If I smell it, I can tell if it’s still good yet.“

No, buddy. If you smell it and deem it safe, you may just find yourself in the ER a little later on.

Either because you ate it or because the wife who probably sent you back to the store to get a new one is going to kick you in the spleen for bringing home only a slightly less hazardous one.

Dude. Livin’ on the edge doesn’t always end well.

I took these pictures in July, 2008 to submit to a fun blog called Ugly Mailbox.

Thought I’d share it here, too, since there’s so much going on at this house.

I remember being scared that the owner would come out and shoo(t) me away with a rifle in hand.

Discuss.

I’m sending out a prize package to Babs of Beetle Blog for winning the latest What’s That Wednesday contest.

She lives in the UK. I’m in the US.

My post office insists I complete a customs declaration for overseas packages, including a description of items being sent.

The clerk probably thought I wrote this just to see if anyone pays attention because, aside from the card, tell me this doesn’t sound totally made up.

Note to Babs: Be sure to take the monster out right away and feed him. He’s going to be hungry by the time he gets there. And probably angry.

Every spring a honeydew melon shows up on the roof of the university building where I work. I do not understand what’s happening here, but I’m sure students are behind it.

Is it a prank, part of a scavenger hunt or some weird tradition they keep up for the sake of tradition?

Sometimes the melon disappears suddenly. Sometimes it rots until it’s black and stinks. Sometimes it’s placed off to the side. Sometimes, like this time, it’s right in the middle.

Always I ask “why?” but I will probably never learn the reason.

And that gives me a one way ticket to Crazytown. Why? Why is it there?

Incidentally, this is the roof from where I take Windy pictures. She turns two tomorrow (!!!!!) and there will be a cake on Monday. If you work with me, come on over to my office and we’ll celebrate!*

* Tours of the Melon-Windy roof run every hour. Admission is free.

A couple days ago on my lunchtime walk, I purposely avoided a man and his dog while crossing the street because the dog was unleashed. My walking partner asked if I was afraid of dogs and I said “Yes, the ones over 30 pounds do.” And this one looked like a 50lb pit bull mix, not the friendliest looking pooch. He said “Yeah, but he’s missing a foot.”

I hadn’t noticed right away, but the dog didn’t have a left hind foot. He could still walk easily and I assumed he could run after me easily, too, and rip my face off.

That night I had a dream wherein one of my cats’ paws fell off. I saw it a few inches from her body, lying on a pillow. She wasn’t in pain or anything. The paw was detached, that’s all.

So I took her to the vet and they gave her a replacement paw.

And what did the vet replace it with? Of course, a bacon-wrapped scallop paw.

And why did I have this dream?

Because of this video I’d watched earlier in the day:

Finally. The weather’s perking up around here and I got out for a long walk today with my jam-packed iPod of dance tunes. If anyone saw me walking, they either knew I had downloaded the best music ever, or wondered whether I was having a spasm and thought they should call 911.

I’m not afraid to dance-walk-spaz in public. It ain’t pretty, but you get to a certain age when you just don’t care anymore what people think of you.

But I didn’t find my groove right away.

First, I suffered through five minutes of electroshock therapy, courtesy of my iPod.

It seems that if it’s dry enough and that if you create enough static when you walk, that static builds up in the device and finds its way out through the path of least resistance.

That path was straight to my ears.

For the first five minutes of my walk, I couldn’t figure out how to stop shocking myself in the head.

I kept the iPod in my pocket.

Shock. Owwww!

I held the iPod in my hand.

Zzzzzzzppp. Aieeeeeee!!!!

I realized that the long black Matrix coat I was wearing created enough friction brushing against my legs that I repeatedly got shocked once a block.

I tried holding the coat close enough to my body to keep it from brushing against me but that didn’t work either. I finally gave up and removed it all together.

Luckily, the sun was out full force and I’d been walking fast enough, albeit painfully, to sweat a little and fend off the cold.

Has this ever happened to you and your ear buds? Or do I just have a super-electric personality? Yea, that’s gotta be it.

Yeah.

I was all excited to build a snow bunny today. Wouldn’t that just be so much fun?

What I had in mind:

What I made:

I’ll take questions now.

I don’t know why I let you guys in my unconscious head. It’s really a mess in there. But here’s a dream I had last night.

I was outside my childhood home and there was a woman I work with standing near me. We observed a big swarm of bees and I panicked. She said “No need to worry. It’s only Bee #4 you have to worry about.”

I was happy that I could identify Bee #4 by its trail of curly smoke following it as it flew straight for my head. I picked up a fly swatter and beat it to pieces, but it was still alive and I freaked.

I woke up thinking there was a bee in the bed and that at any moment I would be stung.

So if you’re ever scared of bees, don’t worry. Just kill #4. And kill him good. He’s a bastard.

The end.

I want to work where my sister Marlene works. Her co-workers are exactly the kind of crazies I need to be around 40 hours a week.

I received this list from her today. A list of words, phrases or topics that are either prohibited or encouraged in her lunch room at work.

Yes, they’re keeping a list. Do with it what you will.

Prohibited Words:

· pimple (includes “goose-pimple”)

· blackhead

· moist

Note: “Moist” is acceptable in reference to baked goods, chicken… i.e. things that are supposed to be moist. “Moist” is unacceptable in reference to anything gross. (Feet, fungus, basements, bathroom floors)

· E.V.O.O.

· Rock hard

· rebut

  Note: The word “rebuttal”, as well as “flying buttress” are acceptable.

· genitals

Note: Words such as “bajango” and “hoo ha” are acceptable substitutions for the word “genitals”

· bequeath

· secrete

Topics:

· Food poisoning experiences

· Bug-eating experiences, accidental or intentional

· Gleeking experiences

· The Charmin bears

· The apocalypse

· Rachel Ray

· Any situation involving body fluids, especially when conversation is taking place in the presence of Louise.

Prohibited Smell Addendum: All citrus and banana scents will be kept a minimum of 10 feet from Marlene. Additionally, measures shall be taken to prevent wafting.

Encouraged Words and Topics for the Lunchroom

Words

· Smokin’ cookies

· Oh, snap!

· Delicious!

· Bodacious

· Giddyup

Topics

· What we are eating for lunch

· What we ate for dinner last night

· What we will eat for dinner tonight

· Foods we like / dislike

· Things we’ve seen on television

Note: Things we’ve seen on television that reference any of the prohibited words and topics are also prohibited.

—-

Feel free to add your own words you love or hate, or to question any number of these words or phrases. Marlene, feel free to provide explanations for any of them in the comments section.

Me thinks you’re going to have to explain why “rebut” is on the list. You don’t have to explain why Rachel Ray is. We all know she is the devil.

Last night I joined my sisters and niece for a nice drive around town to look at Christmas lights on houses that were all decked out. A columnist for our local paper takes submissions for decorated houses and then publishes a “best of” list with directions so people can take a tour.

When we hit the house that was deemed a “Disney wonderland” all of us jumped out of the car in excited anticipation. Except for sister Ann. Turns out Ann was nice and cozy in the car and wasn’t sure the sights would be worth freezing her butt off for.

So what did she do? She told her daughter that “if the back of the house is really nice, text me and I’ll get out.”

Text you and you’ll get out?

Why don’t you ask her to take a picture on her cell phone and then bring that back to show you?

My dear sister, Ann, you lazy, lazy bum.

So let’s hear it. Where and for what have you requested a text or texted someone because it’s too hard to walk a few feet? If anyone says “The shower, I needed a towel” your phone privileges are hereby revoked.

I don’t get it. My husband Dave refuses to keep lighting this pumpkin in our front yard.

I’ve been bummed the last few days it’s gone unlit. Dave gets home from work a little before me and would always light the little guy. When I drove up the block in the dark, I could see Mr. Pumpkin Head waiting for me. He was my beacon to home.

I asked Dave why he doesn’t light him anymore.

Um. Because his skull is crushed in and it looks like he’s in pain?

Still. You can get the scalp off enough to light a candle in his brain. And all you’d need to do is wear protective clothing. And hold your breath. And pray nothing’s living in there.

What. is. the. problem????

What in the wide, wide, world of sports is going on with some people?

Little tip here. You have to read the following very carefully. This is the opening to an actual article from a New Jersey paper, The Trentonian.

They courted for more than ten years before she finally popped the question.

Amy Wolfe had experienced a decade of ups and downs with her lover but wanted to move forward with her romance.

So, Wolfe, 33, a Pennsylvania church organist, will go ahead with her plans to marry an amusement ride at Knoebels Amusement Park in the Poconos.

Wolfe claims to have objectum sexuality, a condition that makes sufferers attracted to inanimate objects — in this case she’s head over heels for an 80-foot gondola ride called 1001 Nachts.

You next!

Don’t we have enough to worry about with the people in our lives thinking they know what’s better for us?

Now software wants to get into the act?

My sister Marlene emailed this to me today. It’s a screen snapshot of a co-worker’s Lotus Notes program.

The screen shot came attached with a note: “Things just aren’t making a whole lot of sense today.”

No kidding.

What’s the matter, brainless program whose opinion wasn’t asked for? Not feelin’ the 16th vibe?

Kinda like ordering surf ‘n turf and getting a salad.

Thanks. But no.

Each September my town hosts the Celtic Classic Highland Games & Festival, a celebration of Celtic culture with music, food and athletic competitions involving big burly men.

In kilts.

Here’s an example of a kilt-clad burly man throwing a 56lb. (25.5kg) block across the grass, as I stood on the sidelines hoping the officials knew when to duck.

One of the longest food lines was at this stand. If you don’t know what it is, I suggest you stay ignorant. It’s not for the weak of stomach.

If you don’t look it up, perhaps you can guess what’s in it by looking at it on a plate. And, no, it’s not impolite to ask a complete stranger if you can take a picture of his haggis. As long as you ask nicely. I didn’t even have to flash my blogger badge.

Looks a little like cat food, no? Meow.

About a thousand men walked the grounds in really gorgeous kilts, some with cute knees to match. It’s easy to get used to seeing men in skirts when they look like this.

Not half-bad!

Or this. Beautiful!

But then there’s this. GI Joe kilt!

And then ….. well. This.

Gotta hand it to this guy. Nobody’s gonna make fun of him for wearing a skirt. Nobody.

It would be so much easier directing people to my house if I had one of these. "Pull in at the seven foot bird."

When my husband and I parked outside this house to take pictures, I’m pretty sure no one wondered why.

Polly want a cracker? No? How ’bout some junk mail?

Holy Marge Simpson! Look what blew into my yard today.

I don’t I remember the last time I saw a woman wearing one of these, but there must be at least one bouffant-headed woman in my neighborhood.

If you happen to wear a bouffant hairstyle or something else as worthy of protecting, you may be interested in other products the Betty Dain company makes.

Or not. I’m guessing not.

The Sister Mary Catherine: For when you’re feeling particularly pious on rainy days.

The Wedding Cake Topper: What? Why? I don’t get it. That’s not a cap. It’s a pair of granny panties.

The Bee Keeper: I could have used one of these last week. Of course, no one would have wanted to sit next to me at lunch. But that’s the price you’d pay for the bee keeper look.

The Conehead: For the severely pointy-headed among us.

The Dork: "Trendy and masculine?" Nice try, Betty Dain. Nice try.

In my last post, I asked you to tell me what your favorite gross food combinations were. You didn’t disappoint. I told you I would pick one disgusting combination and award a Junk Drawer magnet for best worst one.

Since there were so many icky combinations, I decided to put some of them to a taste test because I’m nothing if not adventurous. Or stupid.

The ingredients:

• Cheerios cereal
• Pre-cooked bacon
• Peter Pan peanut butter
• Italian bread
• Minute Maid orange juice (concentrate)
• Sweet pickle slices
• Breakstone’s cottage cheese (Eek! I’m gonna eat it!)
• San Georgio elbow macaroni
• Welch’s grape jam
• Whole milk and spaghetti sauce (not pictured because I’m a dumbass and forgot to put them out)

For my journey, I started with the combinations I thought were gross, yet intriguing, and moved toward the ones I thought were sure to make me hurl.

First up, whole milk and orange juice concentrate, suggested by Babs Beetle. She says "I used to half fill a glass with orange juice, the kind you have to dilute with water, then top it up with milk and wait for it to curdle – about 10 seconds. Once it was all lumpy I would gulp it."

I put about 2ozs. of concentrated OJ in a glass and then filled the rest with whole milk and stirred.

This stuff is delicious! It reminds me of a place that may still be popular in shopping malls called Orange Julius. I’d forgotten all about it until I drank this. My recommendation is to make sure you do use full-fat, whole milk and perhaps add crushed ice. It’s extremely rich, though. You have been warned.

Grade: A

Next items: Orange juice and Cheerios cereal, offered up by Jenny, who wrote: "I guess I discovered this next thing when one day I poured a bowl of Cheerios and then discovered we had no milk. So I put orange juice on top and … WOW! IS THAT EVER GOOD!"

I took the rest of the concentrate and diluted it to make regular OJ. Poured it over the Cheerios and dug in. It was a fairly enjoyable sweet treat for breakfast, but the OJ gave it a biting aftertaste. Think of it as a candy bar in a bowl. With a kick.

Grade: C+

Next, we have the peanut butter-related combinations.

First, peanut butter and sweet pickle slices. Heather says, "I like peanut butter & pickle sandwiches, but the pickles have to be hamburger dill slices."

I have to admit I thought this was pretty high on the gross scale. To me, pickles should only be eaten straight up or on a burger. Let me tell you, this stuff was divine. The savoriness of the peanut butter, mixed with the sweet and tart flavor of the pickles, makes for a surprisingly good combo. And who doesn’t want a little crunch in their sandwiches?

I took a good four bites out of it, but had to discard it because I had a lot more to eat. If not for the calories, this one would have been completely finished off.

Grade: A+

Our second bacon-related combination is the one I believe was mentioned most often in the comments — bacon and peanut butter. I had such high hopes for it. I think you’re all familiar with my bacon addiction. What could go wrong?

Here’s what can go wrong. Apparently my bacon addiction is so bad, I now need 10x the bacon to get the same delirious reaction to it as I once got. I couldn’t taste the bacon! Did I make it wrong? How many slices should I have put on? Five are pictured here. All I tasted was the peanut butter. I’m so depressed.

Grade I wanted to give it: A+

Grade it got: D

Damn.

Now here’s where I encountered my first feelings of trepidation. The very idea of mixing grape jam and macaroni is so completely bizarre to me, and when I combined them in a bowl, I wanted to throw it out before tasting it. But I soldiered on.

Just look at it. Think about it. Does it look appetizing? No. Would you want to eat it? No. How did I like it? I didn’t. IT. IS. NASTY. Grape jam belongs on only one thing. Toast. Period.

A woman named Kathy suggested this and I wish she had a blog so I could link to it, and you could all go over and tell her she needs to have her head examined. Or her stomach.

Grade: F

For our last test, I spread my culinary wings. I don’t recall ever having eaten cottage cheese in my life. Why? Because to me it looks like yogurt that’s a year past its expiration date.

SewDucky suggested this concoction: "… cottage cheese, heated, with either pistachio pudding or spaghetti sauce mixed in. Everyone thinks I’ve lost my mind."

Everyone is correct.

I still have the aftertaste of this dish, and not a good aftertaste. I would characterize the flavor as sort of like manicotti filling, without the benefit of being enveloped in a blanket of pasta and being flavorfully-seasoned. Couldn’t take more than two bites. Warming it up did not help.

Grade: D

I hope you enjoyed my little taste test. You’ve all been so good waiting patiently for me to announce a winner.

******* Drumroll please *******

Winner in the category Worst Food Combination I Never Thought I’d Like: Peanut Butter and Pickles

Winner in the category Word Food Combination I Wouldn’t Eat Again For Any Amount of Money: Grape Jam and Macaroni

I’ll contact the winners shortly. As soon as I clean up my kitchen and explain to my husband why the garbage is full of half-eaten sandwiches and mushy things.

Today’s post is short and sweet. I recently told a friend how I love the taste of uncooked instant oatmeal combined with a fruit yogurt.

That fact made her sick and it got me thinking about things people eat, specifically, foods we combine that have no business fraternizing in the same cup, bowl or dish.

So let’s have it. What foods do you put together that you love, but that make others ill when they see you eat it?

Grossest combination wins a Junk Drawer magnet.

Oh, and if you remember the circumstances under which you thought to put the foods together, include that too!

Go!

Though my husband Dave is recovering from very painful shoulder surgery, I consider myself the one who had the real major medical problem of late.

I had a wart. On my forehead. For any woman, a crisis of epic proportions.

After a day of searching The Google for wart remedies, including wearing duct tape on it (not kidding), I came to the conclusion that I really ought to ask a doctor about it before I go making things worse.

So I called my sister Ann. Ann is a nurse. Fact: If you work in the medical profession in any capacity short of the janitor in a hospital, you are the doctor in the family.

I asked her what I should do to get rid of Walter the Wart, who I’d gotten so used to seeing every day that I named him. Yeah? What of it?

She gave me a quick reply: Vitamin E.

Every night before bed, I pricked a capsule of Vitamin E and spread the miracle juice all over Walter and then put a Band-Aid on him. We slept like babies.

The next morning I would remove Walter’s bandage, wash up and go out in the world with a big wart on my face.

To my co-workers, thank you for not wondering aloud why I looked like a Cyclops for two weeks.

Gradually, over about ten days, Walter got smaller and smaller until he disappeared and I returned to looking normal, which isn’t saying much.

So there you go. Vitamin E, the wart remover and scar preventer, brought to you by my non-doctor sister. If you’re absolutely sure you have a wart and not something scary like skin cancer, give it a try.

Footnote: In my research, I learned there are several causes for warts, among them stress. You know what causes stress? A giant wart on your forehead.

A few weeks ago, I glanced out at the back yard and noticed a patch of what looked like weeds. I didn’t think much of it until they started to grow larger like this:

I decided to bring this situation to my husband’s attention and it was only then that I found out he surreptitiously planted sunflowers.

Sunflowers?! How could you?!

I know. I should be glad. Sunflowers are…. well, sunny. And happy. And yellow and bright.

But they scare the crap out of me.

Why?

Because Dave planted them at our old house and at night, in the faint glow of a street light, they looked like PEOPLES!

Big, swaying heads of PEOPLES in the darkness!

So now when these things grow right next to our house, I’ll be jumping out of my skin every time I look out the window.

Would it be bad to call 911 because I think flowers are breaking into my house?

OK, let’s hear it. What irrational fears to you have?

Do you have a monkey butt? If you do, I’m very sorry. But don’t worry. Apparently there’s a product on the market to cure your ill. I found this stuff at my local Rite-Aid pharmacy and gasped when I saw it.

It’s the kind of thing that’s easy to mock, but I’m also guessing people actually need it and buy it. Kudos to the company for trademarking "Monkey Butt." I would have loved to sit in on the marketing meeting where the name was suggested and agreed upon.

And, yeah, I took pictures right there in the first aid aisle. Luckily I was wearing my Blogger Press Pass. It helps if you look official.

Pssst! I have a secret. I’ve discovered a quirky, little-known game that’s played every year at Harvard commencement. It’s a game anyone can enter. All you have to do is show up and buy a ticket to get in.

Here’s how you play:

1. Show up within one hour of the ceremony. If you check-in between 11AM and Noon, it costs you $20 to get in. If you show up later, you have to pay $50. But half of that goes to financial aid fundraising, so it’s still worth it.

2. The neat thing is you can get part or all of your entrance fee back by looking for randomly-placed graduates eating cheeseburgers in their seats.

3. The game is played by taking pictures surreptitiously of up to three people eating cheeseburgers and presenting your photos to an appointed judge. Any picture showing a graduate who spots you taking the picture doesn’t count.

Each valid picture is worth a certain dollar amount off the price of admission. For example, if you have one cheeseburger picture, it’s worth $5 off. If you have two, you get $10 off. If you achieve the trifecta of cheeseburger picture-taking, it’s worth $20 off.

You can see that if you arrive between 11AM and Noon, and paid only twenty dollars to get in, you can possibly get a refund on your entire ticket price!

Aside from the chance to earn back your entrance fee, the photo judged the best is signed by the university president and gets displayed outside her office for a week. And you get monster bragging rights!

Do you believe me? You shouldn’t, because this is just one more bizarre dream I’ve had in a long line of dreams I tend to have as a result of seeing or hearing things before my head hits the pillow.

How this dream came to be:

1. I watched a show on the Travel Channel called Extreme Pig Outs, wherein some pub makes a 15lb. (6.8kg) cheeseburger and if anyone manages to eat it, they get their name on a plaque and eat free at the establishment for the rest of their lives.

2. I fell asleep watching an episode of Gilmore Girls, wherein daughter Rory announces she wants to go to Harvard.

3. I watched the Kentucky Derby, wherein longshot Mine That Bird stole the race at 50-1 odds and paid $103.20 on a two dollar bet. A trifecta win paid a whopping $41,500.60.

It’s possible my next post will be about me writing a post about a dream I had that led to writing a post. Or maybe after reading this, you will.

One of the reasons I admire cats is their fastidious nature, especially with their bathroom habits. I love that my cats feel the need to bury their business.

It means I don’t have to see it au natural. A deposit covered in kitty litter is infinitely more tolerable to clean up than one that isn’t.

Which is why I was monumentally grossed out when one of my cats came running up from the basement and flung from his butt a large deposit that hadn’t detached itself at the litter box. Right there in the living room. Thanks, buddy.

He looked at me. I looked at it. Both of us ran away in horror.

I immediately went to the sink, wet some paper towels and, when I picked it up, almost vomited. In my hurry to get rid of the offense, I forgot that the deposit would be piping hot.

Now. Dog owners. Here’s the question. If you take your dog for a walk and you have pooper scooper laws where you live, how do you collect and carry away your dog’s business?

I’ve very serious. I want to know how you do doggie doo duty. Do you use a special glove? Do you use a plastic bag, grab it from the inside, then turn it inside out and knot it? I mean, plastic bags are thin. Don’t you want to vomit? Do you wait for the deposit to cool off before picking it up?

This whole process of having to clean up after a dog like that blows my mind. I once saw a guy dressed in a business suit, walking his dog before work. He held a cup of coffee in his left hand and a bag of poo in his right. I wouldn’t do it myself, but man, I admire anyone who can.

Woof!

My husband Dave loves him a good horror movie. Bring on the gross, the gory and the gruesome.

But what makes him run screaming from the room whenever I take it out and use it?

This.

I’ll spare you any pictures of my dead foot skin. But I will tell you that it looks exactly like finely grated parmagean cheese. Buon appetito!

The fact is the thing works and I’m on my way to smoother, sandal-wearing feet. My piddies are probably the least cared-for part of my body, until now. Hey, if it takes a cheese grater to do it, it’s all good.

Have you eaten breakfast yet? Are you eating it now? Sorry.

I’m still in shock. Another bag flew up into a tree at my building.

All fresh and new and STUCK.

So which one of you put it there? I know you’re all trying to make me insane. You know this means war.

At least our Windy has a friend now. FOREVER.

I’m serious. If I find out one of you put it there, I’ll hunt you down and make you climb up and get it out. And I don’t care if you break all your bones when you fall out.

You know what this means now? New bag needs a name. Drop your suggestion in the drawer and I’ll run a poll after I’ve picked a bunch that I like.

I wouldn’t have believed this if I didn’t see it with my own two eyes. Windy got a mate.

My mom celebrated a birthday this weekend. I think when it’s my birthday, I should celebrate her again.

Why?

Because I weighed 10 lbs, 8 ozs. (4.8 kg) at birth.

And she didn’t have a C-section.

Yeah.

For the record, my mom was, is and always will be rail thin. I’m guessing I stole everything she sent down the chute. She must have thought she was eating for six.

Oh, and if anyone was born fatter than me, there’s a Junk Drawer magnet in it for you. And sympathies to your mother.

I work on a college campus. If you have kids in college located in a city where it snows in winter, I’ve got some helpful advice.

Your kids need pants. Particularly the boys.

See, it’s been like 10 degrees for the last week, and yet I’ve seen at least four students walking around campus in shorts.

Any kid smart enough to attend the university where I work is smart enough to know about hypothermia.

So the only reason for this insanity is that you haven’t been sending them enough pants. They need a care package, pronto!

Oh, and send socks, too. I saw a kid yesterday wearing flip flops.

If you want to know what else your kids are doing at college, ask me. I’ve seen everything. Strike that. You don’t want to know.

I’ve been sitting here, what? Three years, three winters, and someone finally realizes I might be cold? I shouldn’t complain. At least someone thought to give me the scarf. It’s soft and beautiful, but a blanket and butt-warmer are really what I need.

I also can’t turn my head, my legs are killing me and my sciatica is really acting up. Beyond the pain, I’m extremely bored looking at these few squares in the pavement. For three days in the fall, I stared at a wet leaf that just wouldn’t blow away. Drove me insane.

Last winter when a guy cleared snow, he almost ripped my foot off with the plow. Easy, dude. I live here!

My nose runs a lot in this weather and I know you can’t really see my purse, but there are Kleenex in there that I’ve been dying to get at. They’re so close, yet so far.

Two nice ladies walked by me today and took my picture. I wish they would have sat down and talked to me because, twenty feet away, this is my permanent company. He’s been asking me out for a year. Why am I a creep magnet?

Hi! I’m a dork.

Blogger’s Note: Click here to see reader Richard Wall’s wonderful interactive panoramic view of this location.

In this season of giving I bestow upon you, my faithful readers, a gift like no other. And that gift, of course, is BACON.

I found a cool site that will baconize any web site simply by adding its URL to the end of it.

Here is the site: http://bacolicio.us/

If you’d like to see The Junk Drawer in all its bacon glory, click this: http://bacolicio.us/http://www.junkdrawerblog.com

Freaky and delicious! Walk back from your screen and it looks even more realistic.

You’re welcome.

To get away from Bob of Survivor. People kept confusing them for twins and the chicken was insulted.

Dude, eat something. Anything. Grass, bugs, another contestant. Something.

I’m terribly sorry for this post. If I lose some readers over it, I’m prepared to pay that price. But when I saw the deposit one of my cats left in the litter box, I couldn’t resist.

I swear on a stack of Bibles, this picture was not doctored. If it grosses you out, just imagine for now that it was made with water.

Whoever left it there is incredibly gifted. I mean, seriously. All it’s missing is the bow tie. I’m trying to figure out which cat made this masterpiece so I can enter him or her in some kind of contest.

Damn. 

Playboy Bunny Pee in a Box

Out shopping today, I came across this inexplicable gift bag among a wide selection of pretty and colorful bags I’d rather get. I cannot think of any occasion where anyone would want to receive this bag or anything in it.

Except perhaps Happy Birthday …. You’re old enough to mow the lawn now!

Or Congratulations on moving that big pile of mulch from here to over there!

How ’bout Wishing you the best at your tractor pull. Here’s mud in your eye!

If you’re a guy who likes to haul stuff around your yard, maybe you’d be happy if the bag contained keys to a Gator HPX 4×4 utility vehicle with an 854cc, three-cylinder, liquid-cooled, 4-cycle Yanmar diesel engine delivering 33 ft. lbs. of torque @ 2500 RPMs.

If you understand any of that and it excites you, your significant other has my sympathies.

I like nature. I like animals in nature.

I like squirrels. I like squirrels eating birdseed nearby. They look cute.

I like squirrels with their bushy tails, eating straight from the bird feeder. Very happy squirrels.

What I do not like is when happy, bushy-tailed squirrels get spooked because I put down my coffee cup too loudly on the patio table and they flip out and fall off the bird feeder, run down a pole, get confused, spin around a few times and then RUN UP MY LEG.

I’ll thank them not to do it again.

Shake a leg and head over to HumorBlogs.com

My dear niece, Amy * recently had surgery to remove a growth on her pituitary gland. The pituitary gland is located at the base of the brain, which I thought was at the back of the head, just above the neck.

That’s not where it is. Here’s where it is:

Actual Amy brain, with growth

You might wonder how a surgeon reaches this part of the brain. Well, they don’t saw your skull open and pull unwelcome pieces out through a hole. They actually take a trip through your nose and do all the work from the front of your face.

The surgeon was very blunt about how she’d feel after surgery: “You’ll feel like someone punched you very, very hard.”

Amy’s surgery went extremely well and she’s home resting for three weeks, complete with colorful bruises from the medically-sanctioned beating she got. Along with some lovely pharmaceuticals, she was given a list of restrictions she must adhere to for a whole month.

The one restriction driving her batshit is that she cannot blow her nose, not even once. FOR AN ENTIRE MONTH.

Think about it.

I blew my nose twenty times since she had her surgery and every time I stopped to think “What if I couldn’t do that just now?” It pains me to think that no matter how desperately she needs to blow, she can only let it drain.

I try my blessed best not to blow my nose in solidarity to her predicament, but I just cannot NOT blow my nose. She’s not handling the restriction well at all, as you might imagine. She continues to wear gauze taped above her lip as a reminder that she can’t touch her nose, blow her nose, or God forbid, pick it.

Here’s my plea: Would you guys please think of Amy the next time you blow your honker? Say a little prayer next time you use a tissue? The girl needs some help getting through the next three weeks.

We’re just counting down the days for her. On Thursday, June 26th, that noise you hear will be Amy letting loose for a month’s worth of plugged up nostrils. After that, we’ll all breathe a little easier.

Thanks, guys.

* This post was pre-approved by Amy’s brain.