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4.29.2010

BEGINNING OF NONSENSE TRANSMISSION

Admiral Boom. Don't worry, he plays pretty heavily later in this post.

Look. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but today was pretty ridiculous.

I had to wake up earlier than the dickens to deal with fancy real estate garbage. Tell me, who in their right mind schedules a four and a half hour broker open house on a Wednesday at 8:30AM followed by a showing at 1PM? Don't these people know I have two stupid dogs to deal with? Don't these people know there is nothing to do in Moscow? For six hours? 

Brandon graciously offered to tool around town with me until 2:00, which was his first mistake, because when you wake me up at 8AM I get really silly due to EXTREME SLEEP SHORTAGES.

I started the morning off by talking like that kid in Overboard (at the 0:22 mark, please). I am here to testify that there is nothing funnier than anything you could say in that voice. I finished out the morning by falling asleep in the passenger seat.

Then we got pulled over in Gennessee because our brake light was (still is) out.

Also we ate the nastiest lunch ever at the Jack in the Box in Lewiston.

Here is a tip from me to you: When you can buy two tacos for 99 cents, that is a sign. When your husband claims they were his favorite thing to eat, in high school, in Texas, that is another sign. Not good signs, mind yourself.

But what I really want to know is, who is this Jack In The Box person married to? He wears a wedding ring. (And suspenders.) I thought about asking the lady at the drive-thru to kindly pass my question up the management chain until it reached the big wigs, and then entertained a wonderfully heartwarming story in which the CEO of Jack In The Box honored my inquisitiveness with a lifetime supply of 99-cent tacos. The Holbs would certainly be happy with me then, wouldn't he?

By the time we got home at 2:00 I was two Almond Joys fatter and all together grumpy at the world.

To recover I had to drive to the mall by myself to partake in the Old Navy because isn't that what it's there for?

To get there one must drive past what I like to call the Battling Moscow Thermometers. There are three of them, and they can never seem to agree on the temperature. I like to pay close attention to them because I am convinced that one of these days I will crack the mystery. Some questions I have so far: Could the temperature really swing by six degrees on a one-mile stretch of the same road? Why can't they agree? What is in it for them, claiming differing temps? Today the First Bank told me it was 48 degrees out, while the University Inn claimed it was 54. The Second Chance Pawn shop told me it was 51. But why does a pawn shop need a blinking temperature sign anyway? Is their business somehow related to the weather? "It's cold! Want to buy some gold?"

(Second Chance Pawn should so hire me to write their slogans for them, that one just flew straight out of my brain. INSPIRED.)

I can sense already that this post is going to be very long and very, very stupid.

On the way to the Old Navy the local oldies station played a Backstreet Boys jam. Now, how am I supposed to feel about this? Even worse, how am I going to explain the Backstreet Boys to my kids someday? Will the Backstreet Boys be my generation's Styx? Then I started to wonder what it says about me that my boy band of choice was BSB, not N*Sync. And was that the right choice, given the Sexy Back? (Does Lance Bass cancel out the Sexy Back?) (Oh, these questions . . .) At the time I think BSB felt like the more sophisticated choice, which . . . well.

Lately I like going the mall because people seem to fawn all over me there. I don't know what it is, though I have an inkling. Today Ana, the manager at Bath and Body Works, told me how much she liked my earrings and then confessed that she had been stalking my Facebook page, and Anne, the manager at the Old Navy, told me that I looked fantastic for being fourteen weeks along. (But what does that even mean?) It's probably just the fetus they're excited about but you don't have to spoil my fun, okay? After all, I'm the one baking this fetus, and later I will push all my unfulfilled dreams on it, so, let's not forget to give credit where credit is due, am I right?

Then there was the whole thing about The Holbs and the 2-for-1 burrito that went down on my cell phone while I was trying on sandals at the Ross. It was an entirely confusing conversation wherein I just told him I was getting a salad and asked whether he wanted a Q'doba burrito or a Quizno's sandwich (so many Qs!), and he told me that Patty's had a twofer special on their big burritos, only but I wanted a salad, and then he said Well, don't get me a burrito unless you're having a burrito too, (for one), and I know my husband is about to graduate from law school but does that have to mean that he is now smarter than me? Because that whole thing made no sense at all.

So I got take-out Quiznos for dinner. I'm still not sure if that was the right answer?

It was really windy in the parking lot and I entertained visions of a grand tornado, big and black and angry, swooping down over Moscow to pick up our little shoe box of a house and deposit it across the country in . . . well . . . in where ever the dang hell we end up moving. I imagined our house landing precariously on the top of the Chrysler building, teetering and tottering this way and that, like a giant weathervane for all of Manhattan to see. We could be like Admiral Boom in Mary Poppins! Blowing those nuisance chimney sweeps to smithereens and marking the 6:00 hour on the dot twice each day. And then we wouldn't have to sell the house anymore or find ways to entertain ourselves for hours each day during showings that go nowhere. We may not even have to pay a mortgage anymore!

(How do mortgages work in weathervane situations?)

When I got home the ridiculous turned straight up stupid.

We watched Deadliest Catch while we ate dinner, prompting this little gem from the Holbscatch: "It's crazy that all these crabs just live in the ocean, isn't it?"

Then The Holbs built a Great Wall Of Holbrook out of pillows on the couch because I was talking too much.

Also we lost today's potential buyer due to the umpteen million beached trucks parked in my neighbors yard. Doesn't that just make you want to love up your neighbor? Love him up with a fist?

Now that we have gotten to this point I think it would be best to stop, as this is going nowhere, I have no thesis statement, and this has basically become a Masterpiece of Stupidity. And so.

END OF NONSENSE TRANSMISSION

27 comments:

  1. So I'm pretty much convinced that you and I were the best of buds in a possible earlier life... I'm just saying, Anne of Green Gables was one similar love, but you loved BSB too?! (I have to admit, I've been actually looking at concerts for them, is that sad? I'm a 26 yr old married woman!) Kindred Spirits indeed! lol

    Loved this post- it made my late night doing my journalism portfolio a little bit easier... thanks!

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  2. Nat I Love, LOVE how you can make an ordinary day so interesting to read about! Wish I could remember all the random thoughts that pester me through the day and jot them down so entertainingly (is that even a word?)
    for others to enjoy :)

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  3. Baaahaahha. Complete randomness and quirky fun. Can I have a burrito?

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  4. You know, it's a stretch, but you could make INSPIRED and EXPIRED opposites. Kind of. Just go with me...

    So, inspired, or inspiration, that's like a beginning of something. The inspiration is the start of an idea. And then expired, or expiration, that's an ending. Beginning and endings are opposites. Ergo, inspired and expired, also opposites.

    Yeah I know. I did say it was a stretch, didn't I?

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  5. He wanted a 2 for 1 burrito after the horror of the 2 for 99c taco? This is a man who doesn't value his gastro-intesinal system.

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  6. BSB was definitely the better boy band choice in the BSB N*Sync battle back in the day. oh, and the worm... interesting stuff.

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  7. Thesis statement?! Nobody told me we had to have a thesis statement.

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  8. I could not possibly <3 you any harder. And I'm guessing Jack is Wendy's.

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  9. The beginning of the end was that video clip. What was with that kid?!

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  10. In medicine, inspired and expired are opposites (breathing in and breathing out)! See, the Holbs is def not smarter than you!

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  11. Two things. I knew what voice you were talking about in Overboard without clicking on the link.

    And...I can't remember my second thing. I stopped in the middle of this post to get another cup of coffee, so that I could get the full effect of the randomness.

    Wait! THAT was my second thing.

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  12. $0.99 tacos are indeed bad. However, once in the SLC metropolitan area I saw a place -- an actual restaurant, not the street vendors -- selling $0.49 tacos. I'm not a math person, but I think that equates to the same amount of sickness in half the time.

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  13. Hiya! A silent reader here. Love your blog, no matter the silliness. As long as it makes me smile or LOL, I'm good!

    So the earth worm bit...there is a movie called
    "Squirm". It is an old Sci-Fi film about earth worms that come up from the ground after a terrible thunderstorm. an electical tower falls to the ground and sends a huge electric current through the ground causing these MASSIVE (the size of a small truck) earthworms to terrorize the town. It is the best movie ever for a good old fashioned scary, cover your eyes movie. But it is not so scary as to scare the poor fetus..but if you can find it to rent, it is worth it!

    And I know you are a Mormon, but there is a Catholic ritual for selling a house that I have seen with my own eyes work. I am not a Catholic. It is a St Joseph statue that you bury in the gound upside down in your front yard if you are having a hard time selling a house..google it to see what I mean....(now there is some silliness for you) :)

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  14. I say totally do what Janel suggested and get the St Joseph statue. I know its a little superstitious, but anything at this point could help. Better yet, go bury it in your neighbor's yard.

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  15. Hey! Two tacos for 99 cents was MY favorite in high school! In Texas! What!

    Though we all know how I turned out. Let this be a lesson to you, kids.

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  16. How could you possibly have preferred Backstreet Boys to N*Sync? I cannot get over this.

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  17. you have pretty much sealed my fate for this evening. watching mary poppins will be in order. oh how i love admiral boom. and also bert. *sigh* i'm pretty sure we've already addressed our mutual love of the julie andrews but it really would be a jolly holiday with her, wouldn't it? :)

    ok, i'm done being a dork now. (oh, who am i kidding??) haha

    xoxoxo, em

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  18. BSB vs nsync? If you prefered Backstreet-you were about the music, loved the ballads and weren't influenced by the hype of the over the top Disneyesque stageshow that nsync excelled in. One member being a "star" does not a boyband make. If nothing else, rely upon MTV and Rolling Stone's top 100 Pop Songs of the last 50 years (done in 2000) whichh placed Backstreet's I Want It That Way as #10. Nsync's Bye Bye Bye was down somewhere near #50. I suspect as we all "age", we will be more than willing to sing IWITW or Show Me The Meaning, or More than That or Quit Playing Games to our children instead of BBB. Sexy Back? Most Backstreet fans don't think Sexy ever left!!

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  19. Try painting your front door red. Of course I MUCH prefer your awesome GREEN door! But my sis just painted her front door red and she's had many people tell her since that it tends to attract potential buyers AND a red door supposedly keeps evil spirits out. LOL What fun! I wonder what a blue door would do?

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  20. I actually had a lot to say about this post, but I lost it all when I got to the part about the monster worms. Because I clicked on the link, you see, because I had to know what you were talking about. And DAMN, it grossed me out! For several reasons...

    Worms gross me out anyway, even the little pink ones. My brothers used to love torturing me by chasing me around the yard with worms dangling from their fingers after a rain storm. (Don't tell my brothers, but I'd still run away from them if they ever got the idea to scoop up worms and wag them in front of my face.) Ick.

    Now I'm supposed to go on living, knowing there are such gigantic, opaque-ish worms. That smell like lilies? Why, for the love of Pete, would they have to smell like my favorite flower?! I mean COME. ON.

    I'm going to have to force my thought grapes in another direction...

    Umm...I hope your today is much better than your yesterday. (I've spit on the last 3 days, just so you know. Spit on 'em cause they were stupid, and spitting on 'em was what made sense at the time.)

    And you thought your post was stupid. Betcha didn't know someone could do what I've done in this comment section, did ya?

    It's time for lunch. Somehow a salad sounds tempting. (And PS, sorry 'bout the Jack in the Box sitch; I can't bring myself to eat there ever since I got sick off a chicken pita thingy. Never. Again.)

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  21. In weathervan situations, you only pay your mortgage until the wind changes.

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  22. The article says the Palouse Earthworm DOESN'T smell like lilies. The lily smell was part of the myth from the 1800's that has been debunked through finding them. Also, they're an endangered species, how is that not awesome? This is the only place in the world where these worms live. That is an incredible find. I'm really excited about this whole thing actually. :)

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  23. Great post. I have to say though, that since I had my kids getting up at 8AM is a very rare luxury. Enjoy those lie-ins while you can!!

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  24. What a bummer about the almost-buyer. If your neighbors trucks are in the front yard, there might be laws against that, at least there are laws against it where I live in the midwest. If the trucks are in the backyard, I do not know if there are laws against that. Perhaps a project for the Holbs to research?

    Also, the earthworm thing is crazy- holy schnikes! I also heard about this giant bunny rabbit, if you are curious, check out the news article- http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36845356/

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  25. Commence slow clap. This was entirely entertaining and went perfectly with my 3 o'clock snack break.

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  26. Yuck@Jack in the box, and giant worms. This was delightfully entertaining!

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  27. I've heard this (and so have you, probably). Invest in a bunch of "throw in the oven and bake" bread. Stick it in the oven and bake it before the showing. The house will smell all homey and yummy and that's supposed to help. Same deal with cookies.

    Mary Poppins? Love LOVE!!

    Great post. Again. :)

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