The Junk Drawer

Last weekend I met with a fellow local blogger to talk about the blogging process, technical and otherwise, what works and what doesn’t. In preparation, I jotted down some tips that have proven useful to me.

One of them is “Don’t waste a good post on Facebook where only your friended people can see it.” I did that recently with a status update about my failure to understand that Fiber One cereal needs to be eased into slowly, as I’d eaten twice the daily recommendation for three days in a row and paid for it dearly. That update saw over 20 comments. Shoulda, coulda been a post.

The tip about not wasting good material on social media sites also extends to comments I leave on others’ blogs. My friend Maureen wrote a piece some time ago about treating her parents to an anniversary dinner at a fancy downtown restaurant, complete with a ride in a stretch limo. She made reference to the Petula Clark song, Downtown. A song that prompted me to leave a comment, one that she said I should have blogged about.

The comment:

The stuff I remember. Here goes. When I was 12, I took part in a musical show at my school. Each grade had to perform some kind of dance or act. We did a little number to the Petula Clark song. We wore pink satin sleeveless dresses and if we were any older, we would have looked like hookers. We also wore long white gloves. Anyway, when I was being measured by the seamstress who was making the dresses, I was standing in a room full of other girls when she exclaimed “My, someone’s getting her breasts early!” I died a little and that’s what I remember every time I hear that Petula Clark song. The day I got noticeable boobs.

So today’s lessons are:

1. If you’re trying to develop a following on your blog, make it a home for all your best stuff. If you have an entertaining little nugget for Facebook, consider fleshing it out for a post instead.

2. If you’re a seamstress taking measurements for pubescent adolescents, watch what you say in front of other people. Childhood embarrassment lasts at least into your 40s.

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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.

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Because God hates us, my husband and I started a weeklong vacation on Saturday and then promptly got colds Saturday night. This is a first for us. In the twenty three years we’ve been together, we’ve never been sick at the same time.

Which means our first fear was “Who’s gonna get food for us?

While I was still looking and feeling like I belonged to the land of the living, I went to the store Sunday morning and picked up a few things to last a while. But then Monday night rolled around and I was tired of chicken soup and wanted something high in calories and sweet. And that meant donuts.

But how could I possibly show up at a brightly-lit store amidst the general non-sick population in my condition just to get donuts?

I quickly realized I didn’t care what I looked like, grabbed my car keys, headed over and walked right into my grocery store looking a sight. I appeared to be wearing my Halloween costume early. The costume is called Disgusting Slob. Let me set the stage:

1. At the time I had not showered for almost three days.

2. Unbrushed hair pulled back in a scrunchy with wayward hairs sticking out in all directions. No makeup. Chapped lips. Chapped nose.

3. I was wearing what I’d slept in the night before. Stretchy pants and a shirt with chocolate stains on it.

4. I was not wearing a bra.

Walking into the store was an exercise in sheer willpower. My legs felt noodly and my head was spinning like a top. In a fog, I made a beeline to the bakery and grabbed a container of one dozen glazed donuts.

I pretended that if I didn’t look any of the other customers in the eye, they couldn’t see me either.

I held my purse tightly against my chest so as to keep the braless ladies in place until I got to the self-checkout. Thank God for self-checkout. I would never have put a poor clerk in a position to look at me. That’s not playing fair.

I did NOT look at myself in the giant floor to ceiling windows at the front of the store because then I’d have real confirmation that I looked the way I did. Denial is a powerful thing.

p.s. I’m still wearing what I wore that night. I still haven’t showered. We still feel like crap, but the donuts were delicious. Now can one of you come over here and make us meals for the rest of the week? I promise I’ll shower for ya.

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Despite the rain today, I thought I’d crawl off the couch and get out for a walk.

Normally, I listen to music while walking around my neighborhood, but I stopped doing that because this is what I use to listen to music.

Antique Sony Walkman

The last time I carried this with me, a pre-teen riding in a car with his mother shouted out the window “Mom! What’s that lady got on her head? And what’s that discus thing she’s carrying?”

The mother shushed her son and said “It’s like an iPod, only Frisbee-sized. She must be destitute, so don’t make fun of the lady.”

“OK, Mom. But let’s pull over and give her a few dollars. Will that help her get an iPod?”

“I don’t think so. She’ll only spend it on CDs.”

“What are CDs?”

“The things she has to put in it to hear music.”

“What?”

“You put a disc in there and it spins around inside.”

“Mom, you’re going to make me cry.”

OK, so that conversation never took place, but I fear it will someday and then I’ll be the one crying.

Santa, please bring me an iPod for Christmas. That’d be swell and so 21st century.

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I’ve been blogging over two years now and managed to avoid discussing the topic of farts in all that time. Which is remarkable because farts are hysterical when executed at the right time and in the right place.

At a slumber party? Funny.

In the middle of your wedding vows? Not funny.

There are times, though, when they are both funny and not, depending on where you are positioned in relation to the farter.

Let’s go back to 1990 when I was taking a computer programming class at my community college.

Most of us students were adults earning degrees in evening classes. But one student, though an adult by chronological age, was about four years old by any other standard.

Why? Because he farted during every single class. Out loud and often. With no attempt to muffle.

He sat up front, three feet from the instructor. Every time Farty McFartster let loose up there we shot pity looks at the professor. That man never flinched. Not once. God bless him. He kept right on teaching. Was he fart-deaf?

Meanwhile, the rest of us were dying. We did whatever we had to do. Chomped down hard on a pencil. Put our hands over our mouths to stifle laughter. Or, in some cases, got up and left the room. Usually the ones in direct line of fire.

It was incredible to us that Farty never tried to suppress his air. He’d even lift up a cheek so as to give it a clear and unencumbered exit, without a hint of embarrassment.

During class breaks, some of us would head outdoors to bust a gut laughing about it and Farty would come out and try to join the party. We’d shuffle away from him as a clustered unit. We never allowed anyone to get caught alone with him. There was safety in numbers.

We wondered aloud how it was that Farty would ever get a job in the computing field, or any other, for that matter. We imagined him farting answers to interview questions.

If he did get a job, we figured no one would work within twenty feet of him.

We hoped he’d find at-home employment away from the ears of others, where he could play his fart symphonies to his heart’s content.

Farty, wherever you are, I hope you saw a doctor because somethin’ bad was a-brewin’.

And Farty’s co-workers, if there are any? We’re sorry. We didn’t have the guts to get him an intervention. We just took our credits and ran.

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Jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick! Will you look at my glasses?

I know I’m not the only one with asymmetrical ears, but this is ridiculous.

Also, the left plastic nose protector thingy fell off a couple weeks ago.

And this is my only pair.

Stepping on them and repairing with duct tape should complete the dork look I’m apparently going for.

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Woman #1: What is with this thing?! Why aren’t we moving?!

Woman #2: Because you keep pressing the square with the Braille dots on it. That’s not a button.

Woman #1: Oh.

Any guess who Woman #1 was? Any guess how fast she ran from Woman #2 when the doors finally opened? You just do not know how hard it is being me some days.

Be happy and grateful. For when you think you have done an unimaginably stupid thing in public, say it loud and say it proud: At. Least. I. Am. Not. Kathy.

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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.

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Yesterday a colleague asked if I wanted to attend a panel talk he was giving on the campus where we work.

Sure. Where is it?”

It’s in Whitaker Lab.

Is it in the auditorium next to the front door?

No. It’s near the back door on the parking lot side of the building.

OK, I’ll be there.

You may or may not know how directionally-challenged I am. How bad is it? Real bad. I got lost in my own neighborhood once, two tenths of a mile from my house.

Whenever I go anywhere I haven’t been a million times before, I always have reason to worry. Let the games begin.

I drive to the Whitaker building and go through the back door on the parking lot side, as instructed. No auditorium. Just a long corridor. Then classrooms. And no people. Of course, no people.

I can’t find anything that looks like a place a talk would be held. I dart into a computer lab to login and check the university event calendar hoping to get the room number. Nothing. Of course, nothing.

I look at the time. I’m going to be late.

I run up steps and down halls and make my way to the only auditorium I know in that building. It’s dark and deserted and clearly not the place.

DAM. MIT.

Sweating now, I ride elevators, travel more steps and more halls until I’m about to give up. I see doors that lead to a courtyard. If I cross it, I can go into another section of the building. Maybe it’s over there.

As soon as I exit, C-L-I-C-K. I am locked out. Of course I am.

I cross the courtyard and when I get to the opposite set of doors, I can make out a sign that reads “These doors kept locked at all times.”

Of course they are.

FRACK!

So there I am, standing in the freezing cold, sweating icicles straight from my body, having just locked myself out of the building. Stupid building!

The only way to re-enter is to walk through snow and ice around a neighboring building and come back in through the front door, which is two floors up and really far from where I entered.

At this point I’m muttering to myself that I can do this. You’re not an idiot. It’s not that hard! Where did he say to go again? Did I get it right? Where am I???

But then the muttering turns into belittling: You? You of all people want to fly alone this summer? How you gonna do that if you can’t even find a room in a building? You suck!

Ten minutes late, I’m completely broken, resigned to the fact that I’ll always be a lost person. I started to hear sad violin music in the background. I half expected a dog to walk up and pee on my leg. I work my way back to the parking lot. I’m going home a loser.

But then I have a flash of recognition. I once attended a lecture in a building adjacent to Whitaker. Yeah. The Sinclair building has an auditorium. And it’s right by the door.

BINGO!

The coffee and cookies I see outside the room are my first indication that I’m at the right place. I poke my head inside and see my colleague standing down front about to begin the talk.

What I wanted to do was yell down there “Dude! You gave me the wrong building! I hate you!”

But I didn’t. Instead, I mentally patted myself on the back, took a seat and thought I am not a doofus. I was just given bad information. And that, my friends, makes me a little less of a forever lost person.

And that makes me very happy.

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I had to cash a check today. To have everything ready at the bank, I pulled my driver’s license out of my wallet and slipped it into the side pocket of my purse with the check.

When I got to the drive-thru window, I dropped the check and my driver’s license in the plastic tube and waited for it to come zipping back to me with my cash.

When I got home, I took out the bills and fished for my driver’s licence to put back in my wallet. My license fell out — but so did something else. My doctor’s appointment reminder card for my next gynecological visit.

I’m sure the bank teller was pleased to be informed that I have an 8:30 appointment at St. Luke’s Professional Building on August 9th, 2009 for my annual exam.

I’m just glad I sent the license with it. I’m pretty sure you can’t cash checks with a card from your OB/GYN.

God.

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If anyone has Wii Fit, please share your experiences. And injuries, if any.

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I generally try to avoid showing my underpants and boobs to others in public, but I’ve done both when I was 12. Gather ’round kiddies. I’m going to see if I can make you cry.

First up, the crotch: Gymnastics class, YWCA.

I took an introductory gymnastics class at the Y the summer of 1977, and quite enjoyed it until my panty-revealing experience. Let’s begin.

Know that my gymnastics instructor was drop dead gorgeous. He was dreamy and delicious and just about the best thing that could happen to a 12-year-old girl who kept a diary with a tiny lock on it. Dear Diary, Please make Mr. McDreamy show us again how to do a handspring. Note to self: Keep sucking at it so you need extra help.

We were practicing backbends when it became apparent I was going to have problems. My one-piece leotard had snaps at the crotch. Three of them. At. The. Crotch. Why anyone wants metal buttons down there is anyone’s guess and I have no idea why I chose that one when I needed attire for my class.

As I bent over backwards, with Mr. McDreamy spotting me, all three snaps labored to stay connected — but didn’t. One! Two! Three! Helloooo, undies!

I do not recall the degree of horror I experienced. In fact, I think I blacked out for a while. I just know I never returned to class. Once you reveal your underthings in front of a man you wanted to marry someday and a gym full of laughing classmates, you can never go back.

Next, the boobs. Wait. Make that singular booby: Neighborhood swimming pool.

As I waded into the four foot section of the pool in my cute, hot pink bikini, I dunked my head under water and came up to find a young lad the age of eight or so staring at me. Blink. Blink. Mouth agape.

My first thought was “Hey, jerk. What are you looking at?”

My next thought was “Why is one of the strings to my bikini top floating on the water?”

Hellooooo, left booby!

Mortified, I dunked myself back in the water and retied my top, as the 8-year-old lad swam away yelling to all his friends “That girl over there just showed me her boob!”

I did no such thing, you perv. “And you can stop looking already!”

So kids, which was worse? Flashing my underpants at Mr. McDreamy or flashing my boob to a lucky young boy who’s probably never forgotten the experience?

You know what’s coming next. Let’s hear about your involuntary flashing experiences. The more mortifying, the better. Make me cry.

Extra points to any woman who’s had the misfortune of inadvertently tucking the back of her skirt into the waistband of her pantyhose after using the ladies room. I’ve seen it done and can’t believe it hasn’t happened to me. Yet.

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I met with a client today to clean a virus from his computer. As I worked on his laptop, he mentioned he saw me earlier in the day.

I asked when.

He said “This morning, when you were parking your car.”

“Oh, I didn’t see you. Where were you?” I asked.

“I was behind you,” he replied. “I recognized your hair.”

OK, so now not only do I have a big fat head, but that head is now identifiable from behind, by its hair.

Apparently I have a Weird Al Yankovic thing going on, with a touch of Don King. It’s what every woman wants.

——

Every time you click the smiley, I get a good hair day.

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Sniffle.

A client came to my office today to ask for password help on his laptop. While I worked on it, he glanced around my cubicle and noticed a movie poster for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World on my wall.

That’s one of my all-time favorite flicks and I learned it was one of his, too.

After exchanging a few laughs about the film, he asked me if I saw it in Cinerama when it first came out.

He remembered watching it in a theater with three screens side by side, where the film was projected in widescreen across all of them.

He said at first it was weird to view a movie like that, as you were distracted by the lines separating the screens from one another. But after a while you got used to it and your eyes stopped noticing it.

This post is not a study of cinematography. This post is about the crime perpetrated upon me.

Did you catch it? He asked me if I saw it when it first came out.

The movie was released in 1963.

I wouldn’t be born for another two years.

I know I have a couple gray hairs, but is it worse than that? Do I need a face lift? Maybe a little Botox? God, how old do I look?

Pass me a tissue. I think I’m going to cry.

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I’m pretty sure when you do the Weight Watchers thing you’re not supposed to eat this many in a day and a half, even if they are only 2 points each.

—–

Overindulge on laughs at Humor-Blogs.com.

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My husband Dave likes to think I have the answers to everything off the top of my head, including stuff I haven’t seen, studied or heard about in years. He has such faith in me. Silly man.

He phoned me from his office this morning to see if I could run to the store on my way home from work. In the same breath, he said "Write this down," and I dutifully scrawled the following:

3(n-1) = 5n + 3 – 2n

This randomness is typical of our conversations.  Hi. How’s your day going? Get eggs and bread. Solve for n.

I asked him why he was making me do algebra so early in the day, or anytime, for that matter. "Because Bill’s daughter got this in her homework and she told her teacher it wasn’t solvable. The teacher said it was, and now they’re having a dispute."

I quickly worked the equation and got this as a result:

3n – 3 = 3n + 3

You can see right away there is no solution. No value for n will make this statement true.

At least I hope there’s no solution, because I told Dave I was sure of it, and he told Bill "My wife is sure there is no solution," and Bill’s gonna tell his kid to tell her teacher "Kathy says there’s no solution!"

Apparently my husband has convinced his co-worker that I’m some kind of algebra expert. I was once. Twenty five years ago! I’m a lot fuzzier on algebraic formulas now. As I keep looking at the equation, I’m worried there’s some bizarre value for n that makes it true.

Is it solvable if n is an irrational number or something? Is there a mathematician in the house? Or a high schooler who’s currently taking algebra?

If this post gave you a headache, I’m sorry. Think of cotton candy and puppies instead. That’ll cleanse you of all things math.

p.s. Tomorrow I reveal the winner of What’s That? Wednesday!

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Results of having cleaned out my refrigerator. You may have some questions. Go ahead. Shoot.

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A computing consultant by trade, I tend to stay away from discussing tech support calls I get on this here blog.

Not because they’re not chuckle-worthy sometimes, but because there is an understood doctor/patient-type confidentiality agreement in place with the clients I serve.

But I think I can let one story slide. I feel I’m safe to share it because it happened many years ago in a former job and the woman who called has long since retired. I’m required to share it because it involved boobs.

The call went something like this:

Caller: Kathy, I’m having trouble getting to my forms for data entry.

Me: What screen are you on now?

Caller: It doesn’t have a screen number and I don’t know what it is.

Me: How did you get there?

Caller: I’m not sure.

Me: You should be able to get back to the main menu by pressing the F10 key.

Caller: Not working.

Me: Tell me more about what’s on the screen. Still not sure where you are.

Caller: It’s got some help stuff on it and it doesn’t have a place to enter a new screen number.

Me: OK. It sounds like you’re in a sub-menu. Try pressing the Esc key once, then F10.

Caller: Yes! That worked! Thanks!

Me: No problem. Boy, that’s a weird one. I still can’t figure out how you wound up there.

Caller: (Whispering) Well, I was a little embarrassed to tell you. I dropped a pen on the floor and when I leaned over to get it, my boobs smashed a mess of keys on the keyboard. I didn’t know which ones they took out.

Me: Oh, that’s rich. I don’t think I’ll ever get a call like this again in my entire career.

And I never did.

Remember, ladies. Watch your aim.

——-

Check out Humor-Blogs.com. It’s smashing!

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So you all know how bad I am about buying cards. I’m equally bad at sending them and associated gifts to the recipients on time.

These are the cute thank you cards I received this week from the children of my best friend, who I only last week put in touch with gifts I owed them long ago.

They call me Aunt Kathy because I’ve been friends with their mother since I was five years old, so we might as well be sisters.

Judging from how late I am in the gift-giving department, their mother should drop me immediately from her friend roster. I suck.

Give me a smiley! I might send you a thank you card. Next year.

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Yeah. So remember what happened to me the last time I went to the doctor for my injection? The time the nurse used my butt as a table?

Today I had another appointment.

The good news is that I didn’t get Nurse Ratched again. The bad news is people got a free show in Exam Room #5.

When I entered the room, the nurse asked me to sit on the exam table while she prepared the syringe. We had a pleasant conversation about holiday plans for the weekend and how the weather might turn nasty.

I heard other people chatting it up out in the hallway through the open door. Hmmm, wonder when she’s gonna shut the door.

She asked me to get in position, which means pants down, knee bent, lean towards the table. I complied. Hmmm, wonder when she’s gonna shut the door.

The nurse walked over behind me and warned me it would stick a little, but not bad if I didn’t tense my legs. Hmmm, wonder when she’s gonna shut the door.

Voices from the outside continued to waft through the hall and into the room. STICK! OUCH! You’re done!

Guess she wasn’t gonna shut the door.

Thanks. Hope everybody got a nice eyeful.

—–

Humor bloggers prefer their pants up in public.

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These are trying times. Kathy has no words. A whopping ten drafts in her queue and nothing worthy of posting.

I think if I don’t post something today, nothing will ever get posted again, the Junk Drawer will close shop and you guys will loiter outside wondering what the hell happened.

I have to get something on the page to kick start me out of this funk I’m in.

Come back in a couple days if this post bores you to tears. I’m about to tell you about my weekend:

1. I fell asleep on the couch at 5PM yesterday and awoke at 8PM thinking it was the next day already. I slept hard. I even had full, movie-length dreams. In one of them, I was standing in a reception line at a political function, holding hands with Henry Kissinger. Discuss.

2. I worked all day Saturday, brought a lunch, but ate it before 10AM. So the rest of the day I took from the other junk drawer in my life and gave myself a headache, a stomachache and left work on such a sugar high I don’t remember how I got home.

3. My husband cleaned the bathrooms, God bless him, but broke the toilet seat off one of the toilets. How is this possible? Broke an entire toilet seat off its hinges? Men, if you’re going to help clean the house, don’t do it in the manner you would, say, play football. Cleaning a toilet needn’t be a race nor a destructive act. It just needs to be wiped down — gently.

4. In the process of preparing to send DrowseyMonkey her prize magnet for having the fattest head, I got sidetracked researching whether I can mail it with U.S. postage or if I have to take it to the post office to get international postage put on it. I tried Googling for the answer to this simple question, but could not find a satisfactory one. I’m too embarrassed to ask Drowsey, so I’ll just head to the post office tomorrow where I’m sure a clerk there will tell me what a moron I am.

5. I didn’t have the energy to fix something that’s been bugging me for a month. Our wall clock is stuck at 4 o’clock. We don’t know why because the batteries are fine. The pendulum below the clock face continues to swing to and fro. I meant to check on why it’s malfunctioning, but now I’m getting really used to it being 4 o’clock all the time. Four happens to be my favorite number, so I’m keeping it.

6. Since I took such a long nap yesterday, I couldn’t get to sleep until midnight last night. But my body always, always gets up between 4AM-5AM, which means I’m running on fumes right now. I’m sorry. This is the kind of post you get on fumes.

Forgive me for having to post such lame material, but this was the prescription for funkitis and it had to be done. Pray I’m funkless tomorrow.

Night.

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Back in November, I laughed through a post by one of my favorite bloggers, Cardiogirl. She wrote about her experience working in a fast-food restaurant as a teenager and how she had to wear a hat as part of her uniform.

Only one problem. She says, “I hate wearing hats. I do not have a hat face. I do not have a hat head. I don’t look good in hats and I will gladly let my ears succumb to frostbite in the midst of winter.”

I dropped her a comment that I didn’t have a hat head either, which made wearing a ridiculous cowboy hat as part of my restaurant uniform all the more humiliating.

I told her about my goofy hat and vowed to search high and low for the one picture in existence showing me in the uniform, complete with hat, in all its splendor.

Cardiogirl, this one’s for you!

Big Fat Head, Circa 1982

Here’s the thing about the hat and my big, fat head. This hat was issued to me on the day of my orientation. The manager pulled out a few hats for me to try on and none of them fit. None of the women’s hats fit. God bless her, she was so nice to me.

Kathy, it doesn’t seem that any of these fit. Let’s try some others.

She went over to men’s uniform boxes and pulled out a gigundo hat that would fit only me and Charlie Brown.

Here, try this one.

Practically sobbing, I tried on the hat and it fit. Sorta. I knew in my heart I could probably have worn an even larger one, but I decided to make do with the one I was given. There was no way I was going to try on anything larger or I’d have to quit the job I hadn’t even started yet.

But here’s the confusing thing. You know damn well that when I sat down to write this, I had to measure my head to know once and for all how fat it is.

It’s not!

According to several sources, the average circumference of a woman’s head is 22.5 inches. Mine is slightly over average, at 23 inches. I have to say I was really surprised. Only two things could explain why I had to wear a men’s hat as a teen. One, my head was larger in 1982 and shrank since then, or two, my head is so seriously misshapen that it just won’t wear a hat very well. I’m going with #2.

Now here’s a little contest for you: If anyone — family members excluded — can name the restaurant I worked at based on the above picture, I’ll send you a Junk Drawer magnet. It might be tough because I believe the restaurant went out of business sometime in the mid-90s and may have been located only on the East Coast, United States.

Let’s make it two contests! Women only. Go measure your head and whoever has the fattest head gets a prize, too. Of course, you may not want to admit your achievement, but if nothing else, you’ll have my sympathies. No lying just to get a magnet. I have it on good authority they’re becoming collector’s items.

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Cleaning out a drawer today, I came across an interesting combination of Christmas pictures taken of me, my sister Ann, and my brother Michael.

When I held them side by side, I noticed something about us had changed between 1971 and 1973:

Christmas, 1971: Michael with good eyes, Ann with good eyes, Kathy with good eyes

New Year’s Day, 1973: Sometime in 1972 we all went blind.

I’ll leave you to pick apart these pictures. Ask anything you want. Let’s start with Ann’s pants.

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pinhead: (pin‘hed’) n.

1. dumbell: an ignorant or foolish person.

2. Slang. A stupid person; a dunce.

When I was little and looked at old black and white pictures, I thought it meant that there was no color.

Not that there was no color film. Rather, that there was no color in the world.

I’d ask if anyone had a more stupid idea in their heads, but I don’t think it’s possible.

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Dearest sister Ann,

I know we share the same dentist, but I didn’t know you had an appointment with him yesterday. I also didn’t know you told him we auditioned for The Amazing Race.

Yeah, well, I had an appointment for a cleaning with him today.

Here’s how our conversation went, if you can call it that:

Dr. M.: So, I hear you hung out with your sister this weekend.

Me: (mouth pried open, jaw aching, sucky thing hanging out of my mouth) Uh?

Dr. M.: You’re trying out for The Amazing Race!

Me: Aaggh, yah.

Dr. M.: I think it’s great you’re doing this! Most people just say they’re going to try something wild like that.

Me: Mm-hmm.

Dr. M.: So how’s that work?

Me: Wewwl, oo fiwl ow aa abblicashun and mayg a vieeodabe.

Dr. M.: No, I mean, how do you run the race?

Me: Oh, wewwl, oo run fum sheckpoin do sheckpoin doing crachzie dasks ‘n puzzlesh tying do bead all da uddu teamsh bag do da sheckpoin.

Dr. M.: That’s nuts!

Me: Wewwl, we yike do shink we can do ut.

Dr. M.: That sounds like a friend of mine who’s training for a triathalon. You have to be kind of crazy for that, but I really admire her.

Me: Aag, shash grade!

Dr. M.: Do you think you have a chance to get on?

Me: Bobbabby nod.

Dr. M.: Well, I still think it’s awesome you’re trying.

Me: Shanks.

Dr. M.: You have a cavity. Spit. Rinse.

Thanks a lot, Ann, for giving Dr. M. something to talk to me about while I’m at my most incoherent. It was so much fun for me.

Sincerely,

Your mumbling, drooling, cavity-head sister.

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As many of you know, I’ve been trying to lose weight for months and months. Strike that. I’ve been thinking about losing weight for months and months.

The problem is I have very little will power and therefore, the scale laughs at me each and every morning. Oh, Kathy, Kathy, Kathy, we’re not going to do this again, are we?

Tomorrow might be different, because today I had a guardian angel keeping me from eating all afternoon and he didn’t even know it. I estimate he saved me about 1,000 needless calories.

Part of my job as a computing consultant is to install and update software on a PC that gets mirrored to 36 other computers in one of our labs in the building. The gentleman who saved me today asked me to install some software for him, which I did last week. Before I sent it out to all the other PCs, I needed him to come to my office and thoroughly test it.

He arrived at 2:00 and tested for three straight hours. In an office the size of a walk-in closet.

How did that help me? His presence just a few short feet away kept me from diving into the following things, which I was too self-conscious to eat in front of him:

One Peanut Butter Balance Bar: 200 calories

One snack bag of White Cheddar Cheez-its: About 250 calories

Ten Caramel Hershey Kisses: 230 calories

Half a dozen Goetze’s Caramel Cremes: 260 calories

My office is more a candy store than a place to conduct business. There is a candy dish that sits at the front desk next to a trim and fit woman who makes sure it is always full. God bless her. She allows herself one Hershey’s Kiss per day, if she’s been careful with her eating the rest of the day. I’d kill for her discipline.

The bowl is very small, however, so rather than emptying it out in one visit, I go straight to the source and take directly from the drawer where the big bags of it live. It’s the other junk drawer in my life. I do replenish what I take, but I don’t know why I bother putting new bags in there, because I’ll be taking it right out an hour later.

Somebody please help me! Would anyone consider being my food guardian angel? You’ll never see a better deal in your life because I’d pay you to do absolutely nothing.

You’d come to my office, pull up a chair and sit and stare at me so I don’t eat. I would occasionally talk to you, but we don’t have to speak if you don’t want. You can bring reading material if you like, or I’ll give you a laptop and you can watch a movie or surf the web. Popcorn and candy obviously prohibited.

It’s either this, or the junk drawer has to go. Do any of you have struggles with an abundance of goodies in your office? Have you ever suggested a moratorium on junk food and been successful?

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Ahhh, bathroom issues at work. We either hear something we don’t want to hear, or see something we don’t want to see.

The two bathrooms nearest my office are single-use. You have to lock the door behind you because the only toilet inside has no privacy wall around it. The room has just the toilet, a chair, a sink and a trash can. And the toilet is at the farthest point from the door.

If you forget to lock the door, you’re in serious trouble. If someone comes in, unless you can cross the space-time continuum, there’s no way you can slam it shut before they see you.

Someone forgot to lock the door.

Here’s a run-down of the voice mail I got from a colleague who walked in on some poor sap.

Kath, the opposite of my worst fear happened to me. I walked in on a dude in the bathroom who didn’t lock the door. He was totally exposed, man. Just an island out there. He was an older dude. I don’t know who it was.

As I’m shuttin’ the door, I’m like “You gotta lock the door, dude!” He’s like “I know! I’m sorry!” Usually I’m scared I’m on the opposite end of that, totally prone! Dude. It was crazy. God! I have a 2:00 meeting. I gotta go. God!

When I met up with him later, he told me that in the split second he was witness to the horror, he could tell the guy was hunkered down for a long visit. He had the chair pulled up in front of the bowl and was reading! On the toilet! At work? The hell???

I will never understand why a man will take reading material into a bathroom at work, plan to stay a while, and forget to lock the door. Maybe he was so excited about the latest Wall Street Journal, locking the door slipped his mind?

When I use the ladies room, I probably check the lock four different times before I’m sure I’m safe. If someone walked in on me, I’d have to find a new job. I could never go back.

And let’s not forget there were two victims here. The obvious one, but also my colleague, whose eyes are still burning from the vision. No matter how brief the encounter, he’ll probably never forget it.

For the love of God, check the lock once, twice, three times if you have to. I’m not sure post-traumatic stress disorder is covered under my benefits plan.

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Every few months, I go to my doctor to get an injection that must be administered at a ventrogluteal site. What’s a ventrogluteal site, you ask?

My big ‘ol smiling butt, that’s what.

I’ve gotten quite used to getting injections this way. It’s not painful at all, and subjects me to only a mild amount of embarrassment. Pants down. Inject. Band-aid. Pants up. Done.

Not the last time I went.

This time, I got Nurse Rached who was either in a terrible hurry to get me over with, or never got the instructions for making her patients feel comfortable in a vulnerable position, or both.

I got myself in position, leaning at roughly a 60 degree angle against the examination table. Pants down. Cheek in position. Knee bent. Ready.

I could hear Nurse Rached prepare the various paraphernalia necessary to give the injection.

Typically, the nurse will toss out the syringe plastic wrap, cotton ball and Band-aid behind her on a counter. Nurse Rached apparently felt it was too time-consuming to turn around and lay the items down behind her.

So she piled everything up in a heap on my butt. Yep, there I stood. Me and my ass table.

Plastic wrap. Check. Needle cap. Check. Syringe!!! Check. Used cotton ball. Check. Band-aid wrapper. Check. Got anything else you wanna throw on there? Your coffee cup? A phone, stapler and tape dispenser and you’ve got yourself an office.

Needless to say, I was mortified. Um, you almost done back there?

Listen, I don’t go around leaving garbage on her butt, so I’d really appreciate not getting her again for my next injection. Besides, I hope to lose 20 pounds by my next visit, so it’s possible there won’t be enough room for disposables.

Lady, check the nurse manual. I’m pretty sure it says exposed butts are embarrassing enough.

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The bunnies requested blindfolds, but were sadly denied.

Sorry, bunnies. I don’t like looking at me either.

Addendum: For full-frontal nerdage, see Poindexter in a Dress.

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If you’ve read my 10 Things I Don’t Have the Guts to Do post, you might assume I’ve left most scary things to the experts. That’s not entirely true. I have tried some fear-inducing things in the past. Some didn’t end so well, and that’s why they were a one-shot deal.

The High Dive from Hell

I was lucky as a kid to have a community pool only three blocks from my house. It was my home away from home most summers. For years I watched other kids jump off the high dive, marveled at their fearlessness and wished I could be like them.

I don’t remember the circumstances that led me one day to climb that ladder and patter down to the end of the board. I guess I wanted to say that I did it, even if it ended with me passing out or winding up in the ER.

With a throng of friends cheering me on below, I glanced at the water that, to me, appeared a mile away. Fear punched me in the face and I wished I’d left well enough alone.

I considered heading back down the way I came up, but I reasoned that my embarrassment would be worse than the fear of flying through the air. Besides, it always looked so fun when other people did it. All I had to do was step off the board and fall in! Weeeeeee!!!!

Oh, yeah, and I should have planned the flying-through-the-air part.

When I jumped off the board, I did so feet-first. As soon as I was airborne, I changed my mind and decided I’d like to do a head-first dive. Physicists and people with an IQ over 23 know that unless you’re a cat, you cannot change your body position while falling such a relatively short distance.

But I tried anyway and damn near killed myself in the process.

According to diving experts, “At the moment of take-off, two critical aspects of the dive are determined, and cannot subsequently be altered during the execution. One is the trajectory of the dive, and the other is the magnitude of the angular momentum.”

I landed with a lot of magnitude. Do you remember that earthquake in Pennsylvania in 1977? That was me.

Here’s what a normal pike dive looks like for someone who’s planning to open the pike and enter the water head-on, perfectly straight.

Look again. That’s exactly how I hit the water.

Pain ripped through me in ways I hadn’t known before, like a hundred little knives stabbing me in the gut. All the physical pain was localized to my abdomen, but the emotional pain was much worse.

Because I was under the water, I couldn’t see the looks on the spectators’ faces. But I imagined everyone wincing in unison, while clutching their own stomachs. That had to hurt, I’m sure they thought.

What little ego I had before going in was washed away as I surfaced from the Dive from Hell. To their credit, my friends didn’t laugh at me. Instead, they gathered around to make sure I was OK and hadn’t broken anything.

My ribs were fine, and so was my head, but I certainly had the wind knocked out of me. The only thing broken was my spirit. I never tried anything like that again in my life. But I did learn two important lessons. One, if your instinct tells you not to do something, listen to the voice. It usually knows when you’re about to be an idiot. And, two, I’m not a cat.

—–

Humor-bloggers prefer the belly-flop.

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I recently asked readers whether I should flesh out some post ideas I had knocking around in my head. The overwhelming majority voted for my 5th grade troll picture.

You may remember my instructions for what not to do with curly hair. This picture takes it a step further and shows what happens when you straighten it out and then promptly walk outside into 90% humidity.

I managed to achieve The Bad Hair Trifecta: Curly to frizzy to flat-headedness in under an hour. I don’t even know why I’m smiling. I look like my brother Michael, in his long hair days (no offense to my brother). In fact, it’s more an offense to him.

Even if the hair looked okay, look at that shirt! Where did I get these clothes? Granted, we’re talking late-70s, but still. I was never a fashion plate, and don’t profess to be one today, but you would think I could find something in my closet other than Trapezoidal Cowl Neck Polyester for a school picture. What was I thinking?

Mock away — if you’ve made it this far. If you can’t take it, please come back in a couple days and I’ll have something more pleasant to look at like puppies and cotton candy.

Note: I will NOT be offended if you mock me mercilessly. I deserve it if I’m going to showcase the best of the worst on this blog. I do it as much for my own enjoyment as yours. The fact is, I’m old enough to know that this part of my life is safely behind me and it’s a healthy thing to laugh at yourself, loudly and often. Enjoy!

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Warning:  If you only watch public television or if don’t even own a TV, go away now or this post will make your over-cultured head explode. I mean it.

What we have today is my list of TV guilty pleasures. By definition, they are:

Shows that you wouldn’t admit to watching in mixed company.

Shows with little, if any, redeeming value.

Shows that you’re terribly embarrassed you enjoy.

I’ll link to some informational web sites about these shows so that non-U.S. readers, who may have never heard of them, can get a better sense of why I can’t be trusted with the remote control.

Here we go.

1. The Brady Bunch — (in syndication) I have seen every episode of The Brady Bunch more than a dozen times. I grew up on this show in the 70s and it’s got kitsch written all over it. Forty-something women have no excuse for knowing the dialogue word-for-word from any show that has been lampooned so brutally in theatre and movies. Bonus: I bought this book and thoroughly enjoyed it.

2. The Price is Right (current) — This is a long-running daytime game show featuring price-guessing games, played by people who look like they were pulled off the street five minutes before taping. It’s the kind of show most people wouldn’t watch, even if they were home sick with the flu. I have watched it when I’m home sick because there’s no greater remedy for what ails me than watching someone fall to the floor because they overspun the gigantic money wheel trying to get a spot in the Showcase Showdown.

3.  America’s Next Top Model (current) — This is a show for 13-year-old girls to learn how to damage their self-esteem even further than it already is. It has no redeeming value, yet I have been known to blow most of a Saturday watching marathon airings of previous seasons I’ve already seen. I hang my non-model-y head in shame.

4.  The Anna Nicole (Smith) Show (2002 – 2004) — Two words: Train Wreck. RIP, by the way.

5.  Family Feud (current) — “Survey Says!” this is a stupid show, but I love it anyway. The questions are as silly as they come, the contestants insist on clapping for every answer they give, no matter how dumb, and I hate the noise the answer board makes when correct answers are revealed. Yeah. What’s not to love?

6.  Supermarket Sweep (1990-1995) — The grand daddy of all TV guilty pleasures, and oh, how I miss it. After a series of grocery-related questions that earn contestants shopping spree time, they fire up their carts and run around the store trying to collect the most expensive items. The contestants whose carts are tallied and cost the most get to move onto the bonus round.

What makes this the all-time most embarrassing admission for me is that I used to TAPE THE SHOW and watch it after work every day. My sister Ann loves to mock me whenever the subject comes up and I absolutely deserve it. Here’s a clip of the best part of the show, where contestants run around the store collecting their items. Fast-forward to the 1:30 mark if you can’t stand the suspense.

Now, here’s the part where you embarrass yourselves. If you dare, drop a comment in the drawer and let me know your TV guilty pleasures. Remember, the embarrassment level is key here. The more you’re mortified, the better!

——-

No one at Humor-Blogs.com will let me have the remote.

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Fear keeps me from doing a lot of things in my life and I hate that. I think that’s part of the reason I read a lot of non-fiction books about people who’ve faced incredible challenges and go on to do amazing things. I live through their bravery and maybe — just maybe — it’ll teach me I can do more than I think I can.

Here’s a sampling of the things I’d never have the guts to do:

1.  Sing in public. I have no singing voice to speak of. Once, Dave heard me singing along to a song in the car and he quickly turned down the radio to hear me. I got so embarrassed, although he said the little bit he heard was so nice and I should do it more.

2.  Sky dive. The thought of it makes me ill, but the desire to say I’ve done something so insane looms large.

3.  Join my local writer’s group. I’ve toyed with the idea of attending a meeting of my local writer’s group, just to hear what real writers talk about. I want to learn what it takes to publish a book, but I’m afraid I’ll overhear “Who let the blogger in?”

4.  Take a trip on a plane all by myself. I’ve never done it (or had to do it, thank God). I’m directionally-challenged in the worst way. I’m afraid I’d get lost in an airport, lose my ticket, get on the wrong plane, or de-plane at the wrong city. If I ever had to do it for some reason, I’d need one of those airline babysitters whose job it is to see that small children traveling alone get where they’re going. Not kidding.

5.  Be a waitress. Not that I would ever need to be, since I’m gainfully employed at the moment. However, I consider waitressing to be such a ridiculously difficult job that I’m an obscenely generous tipper. I can’t understand how a person can take multiple orders, with special requests, write it all down and get it all correct, all while waiting on six other tables. One time I watched a server take a lengthy, specialized order from my husband and me IN HIS HEAD. I remarked for a couple minutes at how impressed I was with his talent. I thought “Uh oh. I’m making him forget our order.” He didn’t. Blew. My. Mind.

6.  Wear open-toed shoes. I wish I could, but I just can’t. If you saw my feet, you’d understand. Picture five gnarly, baby potatoes attached to each foot.

7.  Fire a gun. Come to think of it, I can barely look at a real gun. I don’t know why. Maybe I’ve seen too many crime movies. Guns scare the crap out of me.

8. Ride a horse. Aside from my fear that I’m too heavy for a horse to support me, I have visions of being thrown and landing in a back-breaking, never-walk-again kind of way.

9.  Drive in New York City. I live only 75 minutes from the city. I imagine all the weekend getaways I’m missing because I can’t dream of driving there or getting around in my own car. Yes, there are buses and taxis, but it would be nice to hop in my car at a moment’s notice and be able to get there and tool around town on my own.

10. Be a parent. I’ve no doubt it’s the hardest job in the world. I’ve always said I could easily get through a pregnancy and childbirth with flying colors. It’s everything that comes after that has me shakin’ in my shoes. Hats off to all the parents out there. I’m in total awe of you. 

Now it’s your turn. Anything you’d love to try in your lifetime, but don’t have the guts for? Have you ever tried something and regretted it?

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Today scientists uncovered what Poindexter would have looked like if he was a girl. Fact: If I was a boy, I would have been beat up a LOT.

I think I argued that I actually wanted those glasses when my mother objected. I insisted that brown went with my eyes.

It’s all about the shoes: I remember these shoes as the most fabulous pair that existed in 1973. Why? Because you could remove the blue dots snap-on thing that went over the toe and wear red ones if you were feeling a little “night on the town.” I recall having great difficulty choosing between blue and red for my Holy Communion. You know, because all the church-going paparazzi were going to be there.

What’s the verdict? Cute or scary?

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One would reasonably expect that if you entered a restroom at work that your private activities would be between only you and the toilet bowl. Not in our building.

A couple of months ago our restrooms were outfitted with the Kimberley-Clark Professional Toilet Paper Dispenser. It’s a fine toilet paper dispenser. Except for one thing.

Every time someone pulls paper from the rolls, something inside the dispenser shakes and shimmies so loudly, it sounds like machine-gun fire. How do we know? Our suite is located on the other side of the wall and the walls are paper thin.

What does this mean for us? Well, we get to hear every single time someone is about to …. er …. take care of the cleaning end of business. Once or twice a day wouldn’t bother me and my office mates, but our office is located next to a very popular, conveniently-located bathroom. Everybody uses it.

Yesterday I counted how many times we got to hear someone …. er …. get spring fresh. Thirty one times.

If you’re a regular reader here, you know I have issues with annoying noises and this is no different.  In fact, it’s worse than any of the other annoying noises because those aren’t attached to a private bodily function.

We’ve considered hanging a sign on the dispenser that reads: “Please pull paper gently. We can hear you.” But that will only serve to freak people out and we’re not that cruel. I decided the best thing to do is ask our Facilities Services staff to send someone over to either remove it and replace it with a quieter model.

Here’s the request I submitted:

The mens (Rm336) and ladies restroom (Rm334) toilet paper dispensers are incredibly loud. Everyone in our suite can hear whenever someone is in there. We never heard anything with the old type dispenser. It’s embarrassing to hear it all day, and so loud it disturbs our work. Hanging a sign “Please be quiet. We can hear you.” is not an option. Can they be removed, or fixed to be silenced? Thanks.

What happened today? A service repairman showed up in my office and asked “You the woman who reported a loud toilet paper dispenser?” Responding the only way I knew how to the most ridiculous question ever uttered in the English language, I said “Um. Yeah. Sorry.”

He and I then proceeded to discuss the problem at hand. I made him walk over to the kitchenette which is opposite the restrooms. I told him if he stood there for five minutes, he was sure to hear it. Every single time someone is in the bathroom, without fail, we get the noise.

I was really glad that one of my office mates, Jason, showed up to confirm to the nice man that indeed we are subjected to loud toilet paper rolling. We both explained that not only were we jarred by this loud noise, but that I could actually feel the vibrations from it under my feet if I stood near the shared wall.

That’s when he looked at us and said “It’s highly doubtful it’s the TP dispenser then.” Though it did just occur to us that it would be beyond bizarre to actually feel its vibration through the floor, we insisted we test our theory about the dispenser and MAKE it make the noise.

So off Jason went to the men’s room. “I’ll go nuts on the thing and I know you’ll hear it.”  The serviceman and I stood and waited as I grew increasingly embarrassed at having drug this guy over to our office to listen to our bathroom noise. I asked him if this was the stupidest job he ever got assigned and he said “Yeah, pretty much.”

Jason did like he said and went ballistic on the dispenser. The only problem was it didn’t sound like the noise we’ve been hearing. He ran back over and reported that it wasn’t the right noise. So I suggested it was the ladies room dispenser. Off I went to “fake pee” and do a number on the toilet paper. What I fast realized is it cannot possibly be this dispenser because you can barely get two good sheets out of the thing, much less pull down real hard so that the rollers shake and shimmy. I returned to the office deflated. “That’s not it!”

The serviceman who’d been humoring us all this time gave his assessment: “I think there’s air in the water lines. I’ll take a look.” He suspected that every time someone turned on the faucet to wash their hands, water and air ran through the lines and caused the noise. Just as we were getting over our embarrassment, we all heard THE noise. “Yep. It’s your water lines.” He rooted around in the maintenance closet, while I returned to my office with my tail between my legs. Whatever he worked on silenced the noise.

So it turns out our co-workers are not violent toilet paper grabbers after all, and we are the stupidest people on the planet. Thank God I never hung that note.

——-

Other humor bloggers are way smarter than me.

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After digging through box after box of old photos, I finally found both of my high school prom pictures. So can everyone stop harassing me now? The funny thing about these pictures is that I’m not prepared to say that I look like the Bride of Frankenstein. I actually think I look fairly hot, in a trampy, Little House on the Prairie kind of way. I don’t know. You be the judge.

Note: I have blacked out my date’s eyes, you know, to avoid getting sued and all that. He’s an oral surgeon now and could probably buy me ten times over. Please God, don’t let him find my blog.

First up, the junior prom (click to enlarge)

This is the gown that my Dad didn’t want me leaving the house in. Why? Because under that tiny tulle shawl covered an embarrassing amount of cleavage. Without the shawl, the gown looked and felt like lingerie from Fredericks of Hollywood and now, as a mature woman, I can understand why my Dad was having a coronary. Sorry, Dad.

Memorable moment: When some jerk slam-danced onto my toe and made it bleed. I got blood on my gown and when I told my date what happened, he went over to they guy’s table and had a few words. A few loud words. There may have been a punch involved. Not sure. Then he made him come over and apologize to me. The poor guy didn’t mean it, but he never spoke to me again as long as I was still hooked up with my prom date. Ahhh, fear. The Great Motivator.

Next up, the senior prom. The pendulum clearly swung in the other direction a year later because I zipped myself up so good, only my hands and face were exposed, and just barely. This gown says “Don’t look at me. Don’t touch me. And where’d I put my butter churner?” I don’t recall lace being so “in” that year. I might have just been trying to undo my hooker look from the year before.

Memorable moment: I don’t actually remember anything from this prom, since my brain cells were being fried up in the heat of this gown. Despite its being lacy, there were layers and layers of it, all conspiring to envelope me in a sauna of my own doing. The day was hot. The day was humid. I couldn’t breathe and I’m pretty sure I ripped this thing off and stuffed it in the garbage when the night was over.

So what’s the consensus, people? Bride of Frankenstein or hot, hot hottie? Go ahead. I can take it.

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It is amazing to me what I’ll stick up on this blog for a laugh. Those of you who have been expecting my prom pictures will be disappointed. I can locate only one of them. I found two, but they’re both of my junior prom. The senior one is nowhere to be found, though I promise to keep looking.

For now, you can have this.

It’s my 7th grade school picture and if it isn’t obvious enough, this is what NOT to do if you have very curly hair. I did not walk around with a book on my head all day. I did not sleep upside down. I fought the curl and this is the result.

I basically had an afro growing up. You cannot straighten my kind of hair because it’ll get really mad at you for going against the natural flow of things, revolt in the worst way, and come out looking like this.

In my earlier years, my poor mother would try to make me look presentable for school and have to contend with the kind of curls that don’t like to be bothered in any way, shape or form. Every hair on my head was anti-comb.

She would often use a detangling product called Johnson & Johnson No More Tears. It was a lie. There were many tears. "Mom!!! You’re killing me! Stop it!" You can’t get a brush or comb through an afro, and no spritzing from the J&J bottle was going to help.

She resorted many times to the only thing that got rid of tangles and my general rat’s nest. She cut the angriest curls out. Wouldn’t you like to see a picture of what that looked like? Let me keep looking….

——

I bet the people over at humor-blogs have good hair.

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In this season of giving, I present you with Blue on Blue – the worst picture in the history of picture-taking.

I once told someone I would only post this to the blog if I was drunk. But upon further reflection, I decided I can’t keep this to myself. Seeing it might actually make someone feel better about themselves.

This is a 12-year-old me taking part in a benefit walk for MS research.  For the record, I am not color-blind. I thought this ensemble matched perfectly because most of the pieces had blue in them, some shade of blue. I can’t explain away anything about this picture: the white belt, the short shorts, the tube socks, the hair. Oh, the hair! It’s just so wrong from head to toe.

Enjoy this snapshot because there will never be another one like it. It is the single worst picture that exists of me outside my prom pictures, which are a whole different matter. For my junior year prom, I wore what looks like lingerie. In the senior prom picture, I look like Ma from Little House on the Prairie in a pink, lacy, bustled number that goes all the way up to my chin. If someone wants me to post them, you’re going to have to pay me. That, or I’ll need to be drunk.

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Last week my husband Dave and I called for a plumber to fix a problem in our powder room. The toilet had minor issues, but we worried somehow it would turn major and we’d have a flood on our hands. For the record, we specialize in flooding basements, not bathrooms.

Nice plumber man shows up at our house bright and early and gives us the good news that it’s not a major problem. It costs $300 to fix a minor problem. I can’t help but wonder how much a major problem would cost. I’m clearly in the wrong business.

So he gets to work on our toilet and after about ten minutes realizes he needs more tools for the job and leaves to grab something out of his truck.

Because cats have a sense of humor, my cat Shadow, the one with occasional intestinal issues, decides now would be the right time to have some fun with everybody.

She got up off the couch, walked past my feet and stopped. And then she went pfffftttt. I thought "Oh, Shadow. No. Not today. Not now. We have company!" Well, plumber company. But still, company.

When Shadow passes gas, you know it instantly. She can pollute a whole room quicker than you can say "Where’s my gas mask?"

In all fairness, we were well-warned of her Silent But Deadly propensities by the foster parent who cared for her before we adopted her. The day we picked her up we were given one warning before we put her in the car.

"Shadow sometimes poops when she’s nervous. She doesn’t like cars much."

We thought how funny this was until Shadow let us know just how nervous she was only two miles out from the foster mom’s house. We were still twenty miles from home when it happened.

"Oh. My. God. She pooped. What are we going to do? Open a window! No! Don’t do that! It circulates up front! Air! I need air!!!"

We figured that the lesser of two evils was, believe it or not, to keep the windows closed. So now we were only 90% sure one of us would vomit. And then we hit construction.

We quickly pulled over and I tried to remove the offending deposit, but Shadow freaked out so bad in the carrier, I couldn’t get near it. So we were left with the poop and left with the gag-inducing odor.

The smell in the car for the entire ride home was criminally bad. It would have smelled sweeter if we had worn fully-loaded diapers on our heads and then submerged ourselves in a vat of sewage. The girl has a problem.

So back to the pfffftttt. After Shadow dropped the grenade and pulled the pin, she walked right into the powder room and began inspecting the plumber’s work so far. It almost didn’t matter that she walked in there with the cloud following her. The whole downstairs area was already a hot zone.

The one thing that came to mind as I pinched my nose was "What will the plumber think when he comes back into the house? He’s going to think it was me!"

When he arrived back to the work area, I looked up and said "Brian? It’s Brian, right?"

"Yeah."

"Um, that … um… smell you’re smelling? I have to apologize for my cat. She did it. I’m terribly sorry. You have to work in that small space and it’s horrible. I’m really sorry."

He looked at me point blank and said "I’m a plumber. You think I haven’t smelled anything worse than that? Don’t worry, I can take it."

I could have been no happier to write a check for $300 after forcing a complete stranger to stick his head near my toilet and smell my cat’s ass for the rest of the job. Plumbers are worth their weight in gold.

As for Shadow, she got a bowl of Beano for dinner and I may make her wear a diaper the next time we have visitors.

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Warning: This is yet another post about stuff that goes on at my grocery store. You might think I’m there everyday. You’d be almost right. See, our grocery store is just two blocks from my house, which makes running in for a few items on the way home from work too easy. I promise I’ll get back to non-grocery store posts as soon as annoying things stop happening there.

So I run over to get some cat food since we’re almost out. I’ve been given very specific flavor requirements by Dave, who thinks the cats can actually tell the difference between generic slop and Diet Ocean Whitefish Supreme. Um, they lick their butts clean every day. Do you think they have a flavor preference in the food they eat?

Before I head in the store, I remember to grab my cloth "environmentally-friendly" shopping bag out of the back seat of my car. I don’t use it enough as I should, but this time I remember to bring it. I’m trying to do my part to minimize plastic consumption in our household.

Once in the cat food aisle, I peruse the selections. I cannot find the diet version of ocean whitefish, so I grab a ton of cans of regular ocean whitefish. We’re all gaining weight in the house, so the cats can join in the insanity. A family that eats together gets fat together. I also grab a ton of salmon-flavored and then a bunch of cans that have pretty-colored labels. By the way, that’s also how I root for football teams. If I like your uniforms, you’re in!

A few more incidentals later, I queue up to the self-checkout line, cloth bag in hand. No sooner do I start scanning my items does a bagger from another aisle come over to start loading my items in a plastic bag. I quickly warn her "I have my own. Thanks." She retreats.

I scan some more items and a different store employee comes over and asks "Paper or plastic?" I reply, "Neither. I have my own bag. See?" He leaves to go bag someone else’s stuff.

I’m almost done scanning now, but I can see a cashier leave his now-empty checkout lane and approach my bagging area. By now I look like Medusa with snakes writhing out of my head and fire balls rocketing out my eyes.

I HAVE MY OWN BAG!!! I’m sure he thought I was demented. Or, perhaps by the appearance of my thirty cans of cat food and little else, I was just one of those Crazy Cat Ladies. No matter. He left my aisle and walked away with a story to tell his teenaged friends about the woman who went all postal on him for trying to be helpful. I’m sure they’ll call me something colorful. Bag Lady Bitch has a nice ring.

I’m hoping before I die, it will be commonplace to walk in a store with our own shopping bags and we’ll look back and ask ourselves how we could have been so wasteful "back in the day." Until then, I’ll keep fighting the "paper or plastic" question. But I’ll try to be a little nicer to those who ask. Besides, I’m sure I’ll find myself back in the store tomorrow to get something I forgot today, and I don’t want them running away when they see me coming. With my bag.

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So I just had a very embarrassing time of things at the grocery store. While waiting in line for postage stamps at the courtesy counter, a guy behind me says "I know you."

Uh-oh. I don’t know him.

He says "You live on my street, don’t you? Two doors down."

I’m not recognizing him in the least. I think I should know him if he lives only two doors away.

I give him my street name and he says "Yeah, we’re neighbors. You know Martha, two doors the other way."

Oh my God. He knows me and he knows who I talk to and who the hell is Martha? I try to get my bearings, but because I’m directionally-challenged and "two doors down" is not specific enough for me, I ask him "If I walk out my front door, which way is your house?"

"To your left." Nothing’s registering. "I’m the one whose red Jeep never leaves the driveway." That doesn’t help either.

"Which way is Martha?"

"She’s two doors to your right." Still nothing. I’m sure by now he can see light streaming straight through my ears, because clearly there’s no brain matter in there.

I’m so mortified and flustered by now and the cashier is trying to hand me my change and I don’t know who he is and he must think I’m a total moron. I try to salvage this go-nowhere conversation by at least asking his name, since it seems the neighborly thing to do.

He says "Andrew." We shake hands and he says in all seriousness, "Nice to meet you." How can I have been nice to meet? I’m a total clod. I wouldn’t know any of my neighbors if they sat on me.

I drive home and begin looking around for a red Jeep that never leaves the driveway, but realize he’s probably driving it home himself right now. God, just let me pull in the garage quick so I don’t have to see him again.

Still unsure who this guy is, I jump on my county’s tax records website and punch in my street name. Up comes all my neighbors’ house records and right there it is — an Andrew who lives two doors to the left. According to the records, he’s been living there 12 years. We’ve been in our house for ten. He’s been my neighbor for a decade and I didn’t know it.

I gotta get out more.

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My husband is a klutz. I know it. He knows it. We’ve come to accept that about once a year he’s going to do something stupid to injure himself that requires a road trip to the ER. We’ve been there four times in the last five years. I was thinking he was overdue, until I got the call today.

"I hurt myself again."

"What now?"

"Pulled a hamstring and it’s painful to walk."

"How’d you do it?"

"I tripped."

"Good one."

Since he could drive himself there, I just said "Call me when you get home" and let it go at that. I know he’s in good hands, the hands of all the ER doctors who know him by name.

Here’s a rundown of his visits over the years:

• Poked himself in the eye with an arm of his glasses. Putting them on his face. His face has always been where it is now and I’m not sure how he could get it wrong that time. "Honey, look. The directions say they go on your nose, not in your eye."

• Scratched his cornea while washing his face. Again with the face. Stuck his finger in his eye and then it blew up all freak like.

• Fell off a 4-inch step and sprained his ankle. I don’t let him climb ladders. Or step stools.

• Broke his thumb carrying a TV. His brother dropped his end and Dave’s thumb got in the way.
  

While I’m somewhat sympathetic to his propensity for injury, all I could think of today was "Great. Now how are we going to move the old couch and chair outside to make room for the new furniture coming tomorrow?" He can barely walk.

I ignored all the moaning and groaning while we not-so-carefully shoved both pieces out onto the patio. We’re going to throw money at the delivery guys tomorrow to move the pieces to the curb for trash pickup on Thursday. Only problem with that is they’re coming very early in the morning.

So this is what all my neighbors will be seeing in my driveway ALL DAY LONG. We were hoping to schlep it out there in the dark of night so we don’t look too much like The Beverly Hillbillies. Hey, at least it’s not on the front porch, where all good hillbillies park their furniture.

p.s. The cats are completely stunned at this point. With nothing but cushions and tables in the living room, they either think we’re moving again or we’ve gone the bachelor pad route. As one reader pointed out to me after reading what Lucky did to the new coffee table, the cats believe the house is theirs and they’re not too keen on what we’re doing to it.

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Blogger’s note: I did get a greenlight from all mortified parties here to post this picture. I offered to block out our eyes, but then you wouldn’t get the full effect of how stunning we think we look.

I present from the Embarrassing Picture files …. Polyester on Parade!

The scene: Aunt Sybilla’s house
The year: Circa 1970
The style: Early Partridge Family

Let’s break it down:

1. The socks: Not quite a match, eh? You might not have had the pleasure of seeing the socks had we figured out how to sit properly without our pants pulled up to our crotches.

2. The frilly pink tie thing on me. And a belt. And I’m missing a whole chunk of front teeth.

3. The pointy-collared, multi-directionally striped blouse on Ann. You’re gonna poke someone’s eyes out with those things!

4. Michael. Poor, brother Michael, looking like a cross between a young Ringo Starr and Woody from Toy Story. "Yer my favorite deputy!"

5. Are those brown shoes with purple socks, green socks, lavender pants and blue pants? I guess I should be glad we’re not wearing purple and green shoes. I could have so easily happened, you know.

And didn’t anyone think to comb our hair? Cripes. We look like the kids from Oliver Twist, only much more pathetic.

"Please, sir, may we have some other clothes?"

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I admit it. I am directionally-challenged and it’s embarrassing. When someone starts giving me directions somewhere, I can only remember the first one or two instructions. After that, I need a picture. Better yet, a chauffeur. MapQuest doesn’t cut it because then I have to take my eyes off the road. And trust me, nobody wants that.

You might figure I’d have the most trouble finding my way around over long distances. You’d be right, and wrong. It’s possible for me to have trouble no matter how far I’m driving. Here’s how I got lost two tenths of a mile from my house.

It was October last year, the day my township was queuing floats on the street behind my house for a Halloween parade taking place nearby.

I drove up to an intersection just two blocks from home. A cop explained that I wasn’t allowed to get through until the parade got underway.

"How long will it be?"

"About 20 minutes."

"But I have ice cream in my car." Surely, melting ice cream qualifies as an emergency and aren’t cops supposed to assist with emergencies?

"You can drive down one block and loop back to Maria Lane."

Simple enough, I think. And then I remember. I’m a dunce. I begin to worry immediately that I’ll get lost in my own neighborhood and I might find myself still driving around by dinner time, and all I’ll have to show for it is melted ice cream and a massive headache. ‘Course, I could eat the ice cream, but then I might do it so fast that I get an ice cream headache. Either way, I’m going to have a headache.

I continue down to the next block and enter what I like to call Suburban Planners Toying with Me. I imagined them all sitting around a big table, then asking a 4-year-old with a box of crayons to draw some figure eights and squiggly lines. "Looks good. Now dump the houses here." There are more roundabouts and cul de sacs than through-streets. I drive through all of them. Twice. "Hi. Me again." Wave real nice. "Just ignore me."

As God is my witness, you cannot traverse this ridiculous maze of suburban streets to save your life, and thank God I have food in the car because I might actually have to save it.

I have a cell phone, but Dave’s at work, so it won’t do me any good. But there might be a series of answering machine messages that go like this:

"Dave. I’m lost. Come get me when you get home. I’m a block away."

Beep.

"Dave. I’m scared. Little kids are pointing and laughing at me because they know I’m lost."

Beep.

"Dave. People think I’m casing their houses. I keep driving past them over and over."

Beep.

"Dave. Tell the cats I said good-bye. I’m never getting home. I ate all the food."

After fifteen $%*@# minutes of driving around in Dante’s seventh circle of development hell, I finally found the cross street I needed to get me home. When I got there, I screamed a colorful expletive I only bring out for special occasions such as this, and gunned it. Look out! There’s a gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough with my name on it.

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While trying to get to Lauter’s Furniture store in Easton on Sunday, Dave and I got sidetracked by numerous road closings due to what I later learned was the Via Lehigh River Relay Marathon. We tried every conceivable way to get to our destination, but kept getting redirected elsewhere by policemen.

In frustration we turned around and headed west up Northampton St. and as we approached 7th St., I shouted "Let’s stop at Easton Baking!" At least the trip wouldn’t be a total loss. Easton Baking is a fixture in town, been there forever. Located on a tiny residential street, there’s nowhere to park, but nobody cares. You just throw your car in park wherever you want and run inside. The neighbors must love this.

I dart into the store and get in a very long line. I’m not worried about the wait, since it’s moving quickly. Almost too quickly. I wanted time to peruse the selections, but the line moves so fast, I couldn’t get a very good look. It was all just a sugary blur.

I see immediately they have a system here and everyone but me knows how to work it. You get in line at the right, announce your order, have your money in hand and pay on the left. Absolutely no deviation is allowed. If you’re familiar with the Seinfeld "Soup Nazi" episode, this is the bakery version of that. I get the sense if you don’t do it right, an angry mob will chase you out the door and beat you senseless with fresh and crispy baguettes. "No bread for YOU!"

My anxiety is made worse knowing I haven’t a clue what to buy. When it came my turn, I blurted out "Just grab a big box and I’ll point at stuff I want!" I figured this was the fastest way to go about it and would ensure that others behind me wouldn’t punish me for not being prepared. I managed to fill the box with an assortment of stuff I may or may not have wanted.

While waiting to pay, I met eyes with a guy who’d been staring at me a while. I thought for sure he was going to say "You don’t have a clue, do you lady? You silly, stupid woman." What he did say weirded me out a little:

"Has anyone ever told you that you look like Cher?"

"Um, no. That’s a first. Thanks…. I think."

Maybe it’s the longish curly hair, maybe it’s the nose, maybe I looked all drag queen at 11AM in the morning. For the record, I don’t see the resemblance, and neither does Dave.

But it got me thinking of other women people have told me I looked like. Here goes:

Stacy London of TLC’s makeover show "What Not to Wear."
I think we have the same nose, and I can’t say I’m happy about it.

Justine Bateman of "Family Ties" fame. Back when I wore my hair straight. And again with the nose.

Amy Winehouse, who has a popular song out now called Rehab, with a running lyric "They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said no, no, no." She’s in rehab now.

Madolyn Smith Osborne, the actress who played opposite Chevy Chase in 1988’s Funny Farm.

So what do you think? Do I look like any of these women? You can leave a comment, but if you stick one Cher song title, one Cher reference, one Cher anything in there, you’re banned for life.

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Yesterday was my birthday and I’m feeling older than my age. I’m not at all close to AARP membership eligibility, but my out-of-shape body tells me otherwise. To add insult to injury, this week I saw a report about a 40-year-old American swimmer, Dara Torres, who’s gunning for her fifth Olympics. If she makes the team, she’ll be the oldest female Olympic swimmer at the age of 41. If this isn’t crazy enough, she had a baby a mere 15 months ago and yet has freakish washboard abs. It’s just not human. It disgusts me that she’s doing all this at about the same age as me, while I’m getting winded walking two flights of steps.

Today I felt aging pains quite literally as I began the process known as “Chunky Girl Gets Dressed for a Wedding.” Control top pantyhose should be a girl’s best friend, but they’re really not. They make all types of hose, but a woman my age always goes for the control-top variety. Control top, put another way, means “cram all the fat in one neat little package so nothing wobbles around too much and hurts anybody.” They should put that right on the box. I estimate I burned a hundred calories getting them on, so that’s a plus. But once you’re in them and the elastic band takes hold above the midsection, there is nowhere for an expanding, after-dinner stomach to go but straight out. Lovely.

I managed to get into my ensemble without too much difficulty, but what worried me was the shoes I’d be wearing. Four inch high-heel stilettos that should only be sold to 20-year-olds who consider flavored water a food group. I just can’t walk in these things anymore. I know it, yet I keep wearing them. My only other choice was near-flat shoes that make my legs look like tree stumps. I chose the painful ones because they look better. They make my feet swell up like sausages, but they look nice. And nice is the goal. Pain is a necessary evil. Dave was given pre-event instructions to not walk too fast in front of me, as I can’t keep up in these things. I teeter-tottered my way from the car to the church and marveled that I almost fell only once. During various parts of the ceremony, when most of the congregation listened to the minister extol the virtues of married life, blah, blah, blah, all I was thinking was when can I sit down and take a load off? I took every opportunity to remove my cruel shoes – in the church, in the car, and even later at the reception dinner table.

Speaking of dinner, we were having a wonderful time of things until Dave was joined by a few little visitors — ants. Oh, how nice. Makes the meal so appetizing, all those little black specks walking around. I won’t identify where the reception was held, but let’s just say it was a country club somewhere in the Lehigh Valley. Dave showed me the first one when it made its appearance clinging to a straw. “Kath. What’s this? That an ant?” “Um, yeah. That’s gross. Just toss it aside and eat your meal.” Ten minutes later while working through his crab cakes, he gets another visitor. This one’s doing laps around his dinner plate. I discreetly smash it into oblivion with a napkin and vow right then to blog about how it is a $10,000 membership fee country club can serve up ants for dinner. Lehigh Valley Country Club, do you know you have ants in your kitchen? Oops, did I just say that?

Following coffee and dessert, a photographer friend insisted she get a picture of Dave and me outside. I resisted the attempt, as I knew as soon as I stood up, the belly bulge was going make me look like I was pregnant somewhere in the range of 5-7 months and begged her to please restrict her pictures to head shots. I also had to consider that my shoes were choking my feet and making me walk in a way that twisted my back into a new configuration that was going to take my chiropractor weeks to undo.

But we were coaxed into going out anyway, where the photographer asks us to pose real nice and smile pretty. I realize the only way she’s not going to get a grimace out of me is if I kick off my heels, which I gleefully do since the spikes are sinking into the ground anyway. But the problem with removing shoes from your sausage feet is that sausage feet take the opportunity to swell five times bigger when they’re free from their constraints. I’m just hoping no one is looking at my big bulbous clown feet and wondering how it is I’ll get the shoes back on without a shoehorn, a pulley and three assistants.

The photographer mercifully obliges me by taking above-the-waist-only pictures, keeping my faux pregnancy gut horror from public display. I vow that tomorrow I’ll start exercising and lose a hundred pounds. If Dara Torres can keep her shape and kick the asses of swimmers half her age, the least I can do is get a little serious about dropping some baggage and stop having to squeeze myself into control top pantyhose. And I might someday want to wear those stilettos again. Until then, they’re back in the closet where they belong….until the next time, because as you can tell by now, I’m a glutton for punishment.

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Dipping into the Embarrassing Picture files, I present for your ridicule more thinking-I’m-stylin’ clothes from the 70s. Here, my sister Ann and brother Mike are striking a pose holding what was known back in the day as "real milk." Not 2%, not 1%, not fat-free, and certainly not that scary skim, oddly-blue milk. Real, fattening, practically-a-milkshake milk.

Observe carefully. Our attire might have been described back then as nouveau Austrian chic, or now upon further reflection, more likely answered the question ‘How can we make an outfit with all these leftover scraps of mismatched fabric?’

I actually didn’t mind being clothed in things that matched my sister’s outfits. We are only two years apart, so we were often dressed like twins (same style, different colors). But did they have to be THIS hideous? I don’t even remember having this outfit. I may have been so traumatized that it was stricken from my memory. I’m curious if these were dresses or if there were pants that went with the tops. Best left to the imagination….. or not.

Reader survey: Our mother took us clothes shopping in downtown Easton at a place called The Surprise Shop, aptly-named, since apparently what we bought was quite a surprise. Does anyone remember this store? I have faint recollections of it being a long and narrow shop with creaky wood-plank flooring. It was located a block or two west of the old Woolworth’s on Northampton Street.

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I was talking to my student assistant yesterday about some really bad pictures of me as a kid. It happens I had some particularly embarrassing ones floating around on my website and showed him this. The poor kid. Didn’t know WHAT to say.

Christmas, 1970. There is so much scary stuff in this picture. I think I’m wearing a smock-thing made of really bad fabric probably not meant for clothes. What is Ann wearing? Those pants!!! What is with the pants?!?! And just what is Dad doing? Is that part of a bike? A balloon animal in the making? Bert and Ernie are hanging out behind us. Ernie still had his hair. He later lost it in the "Scissor Incident of 1971," perpetrated by me.

Stay tuned to this channel for more of the same. The best (or should I say the worst?) pictures are not surprisingly from the 1970s.

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