Printer Paper Costs Money and Other Things I Frequently Say

So, I am now in the "comic book printing" business. Or so it
would seem. My kids found a website where they can create
their own comic book stories and now everyone wants their
comic book creation printed (in color, of course) and several
copies (of course.) I'm seriously considering charging them
25 cents a page or maybe more. Now I'm out of colored ink.
Really, weird. We only bought this printer 3 weeks ago and
I think we've printed a total of 35 pages. I guess this would
be how printer companies make their money, eh? Where's
my  mirror? Yup...uh-huh. There it is. The word SUCKER
stamped across my forehead.

They are so going back to drawing their own comic books
with pencil and paper.

I Will Never Be Bulemic

Hi. Yeah, I'm a little nervous. Okay, a LOT nervous. If it weren't
for the fact that I never lose weight EVER no matter what, I'd
be wearing a size 6 by now from the nerve-induced diarrhea.
But you know, it's not a  normal person we're talking about here.
It's me. I've got to do something that I absolutely DO NOT
want to do. I have to suck it up and once again, take one for
the team. I hate this. If I had a choice... well, I guess I always
have a choice. I guess it would be more appropriate to say, if
I had a BETTER choice, I'd not do this. But I don't. I have
five others that I have to consider with far more scrutiny than
if my choice only affected me. So, yeah, I'm nervous and edgy
and poopy.....very, very, poopy. And NOT in a good weight-
loss resulting kind of way. So, I get to be the perpetually
pooping, fat, sacrificial kinda guy today. And I'm not happy
about it.
Motherhood and responsibility really suck it today.

Will the Laundry Ever Stop?

About ten years ago, a colleague of mine 
told me a story about his mom and how she wigged out one day doing
laundry. Apparently, Jerry was one of eight kids and his mother only 
did laundry once or twice a week. (Personally, that would set me over 
the brink of insanity. I've gotta keep it up daily so that I don't get 
overwhelmed. I digress.) 


So, Jerry said that he and his father were working on a vehicle in the
front yard. They heard the screen door slam and his mother came out
with her arms full of dirty laundry. She stormed over to the middle of the 
yard and dropped it in the grass. Then she went back in the house and 
repeated this process about three more times until the dirty clothes
were a small mountain up to her waist. Jerry and his father sort of 
ignored the behavior and went back to tinkering under the hood of the 
car. The last time the mother came out, she was in tears and striking 
matches and tossing them into the pile of clothes, screaming, "I CAN'T
TAKE IT! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! I hate laundry day. It never 
ends!"


Jerry's dad had to grab hold of his wife and force the matches out 
of her hands while Jerry stomped the laundry to make sure all the 
flames were out. 


I'm just saying. I can relate.

Piercing Girls' Ears and Other Female Rites of Passage

So, my younger daughter is now ten years old and finally has
asked that she be allowed to get her ears pierced. Actually, she's been asking for the last
two years but for whatever reason or other, we've just neglected doing it. Yesterday, I
went to WallyWorld to buy shoes for my middle son. While we were there, we saw an
employee piercing a little girl's ears. So I asked a few questions and when I got home, I
presented the idea to my husband that we have Samiya's ears pierced there. He was a
little leery so I looked up "ear piercing" in the phone book and the only thing that I could
find were various "body piercing art" and tattoo parlors. And when I told him, "Hey, we
could take her to 'Pauly's House of Paint and Pierce' downtown. It says here on their ad
in the yellow pages that we should look in Low-Rider magazine for their 'Free Ass-Tatt
with Purchase of Ear Piercing Kit' coupon. What do you think, Honey?" he was more
than agreeable to getting it done at our local discount savings department store.

I took Samiya in and helped her choose the 3mm 14kt gold studs. And then we got the
attention of the woman who worked at the jewelry counter. Samiya looked so young
sitting there on the chair with her fingernails in her mouth and her eyes open wide like a
deer caught in headlights. The lady cleaned her earlobes with an alcohol swab and then
marked her ears with a purple pen. "Okay, young lady," she said, "are you ready?"

"I think I've changed my mind," said Samiya.

"Too late," I said, "I've already paid for it. Man up."

The employee kind of gave me a nervous glance and said, "Uhm, we can always refun...."

"Yes, ma'am," said Samiya, much to my relief. I figured if we did the refund thing by the
time we got out to the parking lot, she'd have changed her mind again and who knows
how long we'd be in and out of Wally-World until I finally held her down in the parking
lot and pierced her ears myself with a paper clip and the spongy end of her brother's
new sneakers. (I jest. I KNOW a parking lot is a public place.) So, the employee
lined up her little gun thing-a-majig and "tak tak" she was done. Poor thing. She looked
a little stunned and her eyes watered up a little before she said, "That hurt a little. I think
my ears are on fire."

"You can cry if you want to," I told her.

"Nah," she replied, "I think I'll wait till I'm in the car so I don't make a scene. But can
you get some tylenol just in case it hurts more later?" So I did. And after a quick trip
to the fast food place on our way out, she forgot all about the earrings. "Mommy," she
told me on the way home, "I'm NEVER gonna do this to my girls when I have kids. It
hurts and it's scary."

"Yeah, well," I remarked, "YOU were the one begging for pierced ears for the last two
years,  not me. Remember that, too, when you're a mommy. Now we're in the same
club though, right?"

"Yeah, I like that at least we both match now." And my baby is one step closer to being a
grown up.

Redneck Home Beauty Secrets

It's been about three months since I've removed that blonde handle
bar mustache above my lip. While living in the Middle-East, it really
wasn't that big a deal. I'd go to any beauty salon and pay about 7
pounds (roughly $1.20) and have any unsightly facial hairs removed
with thread. (They twist up the thread and rip those suckers out by
the roots.) Now that I'm back in the U.S. and well, basically broke,
I can't afford to go to a beauty salon for this treatment or waxing and
certainly not electrolysis.

I tried tonight to do it myself with the thread but I couldn't figure it
out. So I did what any girl of Southern upbringing would do. I got
out a roll of duct tape and worked my magic. I pulled off a strip and
smoothed it down on my mustache area and then...ripped it off. WOO
NELLY! It was like the whole "pull the bandage off quickly and it won't hurt" thing....only
without the "and it won't hurt" part. But I'd started and had to finish. So I did this about twelve
more times and then had to stop because the tape wouldn't stick anymore due to the tears
running out of my eyes. And my upper lip was horribly red. I wondered should I have just
left the blonde mustache there. I mean, now I've got this ridiculous red swollen skin and I'm
not sure if it's from the ripping of the hair by the roots or if it's an allergic reaction to the
adhesive on the duct tape. Either way, the redness only intensified once I scrubbed the adhesive
residue from my lip. And thanks to these "green" grocery stores, everyone now uses recyclable
plastic bags which I can't exactly cover my head with for the whole oxygen thing. Hmmmmm.
I'm hoping that the ice pack I've got on my lip now does the trick before bedtime. My poor
husband is already going to have to deal with the fact that I didn't shave my legs. No reason
to give him nightmares on top of that, right?