The Junk Drawer | Humor for the Masses

I’ve punished you long enough. Yesterday’s What’s That? challenge elicited 83 responses and I couldn’t keep the contest going any longer, especially because we had a winner at Comment #36.

Stephanie Barr of the Rocket Science blog guessed correctly that the hole is an ink well from an antique desk.

Stephanie, you have a very good eye! I’ll be in touch shortly about your prize!

This partial row of desks is probably over 60 years old. It came from my old grade school. When they were renovating in the 70s, they said anyone could come and cart them away.

They sat in my parents house for a good 20 years before they were finally moved to my own home, where they sit gathering dust in the basement.

Among my grade school nightmares is one involving these desks. I will never forget the day a kid in front of me vomited all over himself and his seat.

The teacher took the vomit-dripping lad to a restroom for a hose down, while the rest of us students sat in the stanky room for a while until the janitor came to clean up the mess.

What annoyed me most was that I was asked to help clean it up. Why? Why me? Because I had the misfortune of sitting behind a kid who couldn’t hold down his lunch?

To this day, I can remember the smell of the vomit and the smell of the salts that were sprinkled on top of it to soak it up. Thanks for the memories, St. Jane’s Catholic School of the Vomiting Children.

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Got an easy What’s That? post for you today. I thought I’d be nice and not tax your brains too hard on a Sunday.

You know the drill:

1. The photo shows a small portion of a larger object.

2. First person to guess the object it’s a part of wins either 500 Entrecard credits or a Junk Drawer magnet, your choice.

CONTEST CLOSED: Click here for the winning entry!

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Happy New Year! And a pat on the back to all the smart people who got an artificial tree.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’re welcome.

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My husband Dave and I had the fortune of traveling to Paris in the summer of 2004, a trip I won on a $5 raffle ticket. Rifling through some boxes today, I came across an envelope stuffed with receipts, ticket stubs and other miscellanea we collected.

In this picture you’ll find the strangest thing I’ve ever saved from a vacation trip. Can you find it?

When you travel, do you save all the little papers and stubs you collect along the way? I think the fact we saved such seemingly insignificant items shows how memorable the trip was to us.

Going to Paris absolutely ruined us for every other trip we’ve taken since. Nothing else compares. If you have the chance to go, GO! It will change your life.

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I do frump really well, but today I’m a diva!

I had the honor of being interviewed by Vivienne at the deliciously spicy Diva Cosmos blog. Aside from giving me a really big head, she asked me a lot of great questions about one of the best parts of my blog — the comments!

Vivienne’s interview gave me a chance to reflect on why I think The Junk Drawer gets the number of comments it does, and how important they and my readers are to me.

I’ve always said that half the fun of blogging is reading through the comments after each post. If people stopped talking, I’d close up shop and slink away.

Click here to read the interview. If you have any follow-up questions, drop ‘em here or over at Vivienne’s place. You know comments are welcome!

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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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Of the 70+ guesses made on the Sunday What’s That? post, only one was correct. A hearty congratulations goes to Becca of the Gray and Becca blog!

The object shown was part of a paper towel holder.

The hint I gave you might have thrown you off track. I said it may or may not be Christmas-related. Do you hate me? I didn’t mean to confuse or trick anyone. (Yes I did.)

And now for something totally random!

I hate my own name today. There are five Kathys at work with whom I conduct business regularly. It’s a nightmare when several of us are involved in the same issue, as was the case today.

It’s pretty much a given that half the emails I read or send today will be from a Kathy or to a Kathy. In one exchange I talked to four Kathys in two minutes. I’m all Kathied out! Kathy Kathy Kathy! Doesn’t my name sound weird when you hear it over and over?

My phone just rang. It was from a Kathy. A Kathy who doesn’t work here. That’s it. I’m being stalked by Kathys.

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I’m posting this What’s That? item on a Sunday morning so that all you early risers can get in a guess before all the other sleepy heads. It’s your reward for getting up at an ungodly hour for a weekend day.

How this works:

1. The photo shows a small portion of a larger object.

2. First person to guess the object it’s a part of wins either 500 Entrecard credits or a Junk Drawer magnet, your choice.

What’s that? Hint: It may or may not be Christmas-related!

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Crap. I published a post last night that, after some reflection, I wasn’t happy with. So I deleted it.

Never do that. Why? Because the post will get picked up by Feedburner and sent out to places that draw from the feed. Immediately. And there’s no undoing it.

What does that mean? Anyone who uses a feed reader, such as Google Reader, will still be able to read the post. But if they click the link back to my blog to comment, for example, the post isn’t there. Instead, you get an “Error 404 - Not Found” message. Translated, that means “This blog author is very stupid.”

The recommended course of action if you want to delete a post is to simply change the post content to something like “This post has been removed by the author.”

Or, better yet, be really sure you want to post something before you hit the Publish button. D’oh! Geesh. You’d think I’d know what I’m doing by now.

Other notable Kathy mistakes:

The night before our wedding, I made tuna casserole for my husband-to-be and me. I forgot to put the tuna in. He married me anyway, knowing full well I couldn’t cook and that the tiny roster of foods I knew how to make included tuna casserole.

I let my car run out of gas.

Follow-up blunder: I walked two blocks to a gas station, bought a gas can and pre-paid for $10 worth of gas. The can took only $2 worth. I was too embarrassed to go back and reclaim the difference.

I wore a banana hair clip into my twenties. It’s customary to stop when you’re thirteen.

On my first visit back to the eye doctor after getting fitted for contact lenses, I showed up with a lens in only one eye. My doctor so carefully danced around my stupidity, saying “I’m unable to locate the second lens.” I asked if he was sure. I asked an eye doctor, looking through $20,000 optometry equipment, if he was sure.

For the record, I was able to come up with these mistakes in less than five minutes. I could run a whole new blog on my mistakes alone. It’s hard being me.

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Two of my favorite things: Christmas and bacon. Does it get any better?

Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donner and BACON!

Note: The whole ensemble was crushed up, tossed in Thanksgiving stuffing, baked and enjoyed. Rudolph, we hardly knew ye!

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A hamster I know is having a terrible time of things. His name is Seamus (pronounced SHAY-mus). See, he used to live in this house until yesterday.

It was a rockin’ awesome house. A colorful, activity-filled pad that made him the envy of all his friends. Seamus used to have notorious parties there. The bass-thumping, booze-flowing kind, and a rave or two. The cops came once, but they couldn’t arrest anyone because they didn’t have handcuffs tiny enough.

Seamus’ owner decided that this cage was too hard to clean, and so I joined her on a trip to SuperPetz, where she picked out a new cage that was easier to maintain.

Seamus got an Extreme Home Makeover. And not the good kind. This is Seamus’ house now:

* Not Seamus

See how it’s a piece of crap? See how Seamus’ mother doesn’t love him anymore? Even though it’s been explained to him that the downturn in the economy is not the reason he was moved out of his condo and into slum housing, he’s having a hard time understanding.

Don’t worry, Seamus. I’m calling PETA in the morning.

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Humor-bloggers love their pets.

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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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This will be a short post, as I was out very late last night at a dinner engagement. We were still being served food at 11:30PM, which means I’m very tired and bloated at the moment. I considered it marathon training for Thanksgiving dinner.

Here’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for AND the moment I missed because I was shoving pecan pie down my gullet.

The Junk Drawer’s 10,000th commenter was ……..

ImitationAngel !!!!

For winning The Junk Drawer Comment Extravaganza, ImitationAngel receives a Junk Drawer magnet, mug and mousepad, as well as a mug or mousepad with her blog’s logo on it. She’ll also receive a $20 Amazon e-gift card.

Thanks for all your comments leading up to the big moment! I could feel the frenzy by late afternoon and it was great fun wondering who the lucky winner would be.

I considered trying to get out of the dinner by explaining that I had to stay home to blogsit. But I’m not sure that reason would have gone over well with the host.

Don’t worry, though. I plan to staple myself to a chair for comment #20,000. I’m not missing that!

Thanks again everyone, and enjoy your Sunday!

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Now I’m workin’ on 10,000 smilies at Humor-Blogs.com!

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