The Junk Drawer

Back in November, I wrote about a cake I bought from a new bakery in town. I threw it out because it was too dry and the icing looked better than it tasted. I promised I’d give them a second chance and post back about it.

They blew it. Again.

Yesterday after a 45-minute walk with my sister, I thought I’d reward my effort and ruin whatever benefits I gained from exercising by making a return visit to The Dry, Gross Cake Bakery.

Everything looked scrumptious in the case and I ordered three items (pictured above): A Napoleon, a Southwest pizza thing (don’t remember what it was called), and a half-dozen donuts.

The Scorecard:

1. The Napoleon: Not horrible. The cream and flaky pastry part were serviceable, but the icing was overly-sweet and gummy. It may or may not have been fondant, which is a bakery staple for wedding cakes that looks really pretty, but sometimes tastes like crap. Grade: C+

2. The Southwest pizza thing: Bad all around. The bread was rubbery and tasteless. What I remember of the topping was diced tomato, corn and some unidentifiable meat. I thought it had cheese, but no such luck. Had the topping been 100% bacon, I could have salvaged it. Instead, it went in the trash. Grade: D.

3. The donuts. Ah, the donuts. How can a bakery screw up a donut? Donuts are Pastry 101! I should have known something was wrong when the cashier handed me the bag containing a half dozen of the lovelies. They were so heavy, I almost lost my balance. In my opinion, glazed donuts are supposed to be light and airy. Artery-clogging, yes. Deliciously sweet and fattening, yes. Brick-heavy, no.

Here’s a closer look. See that nice sheen? That’s perhaps how a glazed donut should look. Except for one thing. That’s not the glazed side. It’s upside down. Go ahead and click to enlarge, just put your sunglasses on first.

That shininess is caused by deep-fryer fat globules that are soaked all the way through. I wanted a donut, not a blob of lard. It tasted oily, burnt and slightly rancid. And crunchy. Donuts aren’t supposed to be crunchy, right? Grade: A Big Fat Lardy F!

Now look at the bag they came in. The grease reached flood stage about two inches from the bottom of the bag. It’s soaked through solid up to the first crease. If I thought all the grease got sucked out of the donuts, I might actually consider eating the rest. It seems such a waste to throw them out, but that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Here’s a question: It’s obvious I’m never going back to this bakery, but should I let the owners know how dissatisfied I am with their products?

They should know how un-yummy their stuff is, so they could at least fix the donuts. I refuse to believe I’m the only one who finds crunchy, oily donuts unappetizing. I wanted to love the bakery because they’re close to home and I need a new place for all my forbidden food needs.

I don’t want to post the name of the bakery, since I’m not a professional food reviewer (although I should be). If you know me and want to know where it is, give me a buzz. The rest of you don’t have to worry about stumbling into this greasy dive trying to pass as a bakery.

Among the qualities I wish I was blessed with is the ability to tell jokes. Can’t do it. I’d have to read from a card to get it right, and somehow I think cue cards detract from the hilarity, don’t you think?

“A duck, a nun and a priest walk into a bar…” Wait, wait! “It was a dog, a nun and a priest.”  Oh, poo! That’s not it! Let me check my cards. Yeah, real smooth.

I’m a little better at practical jokes. I once kidnapped a Chia Pet Turtle from an office I used to work in, took pictures of it — blindfolded — and then sent pictures back to my officemates with a ransom note that I had a friend mail from out-of-state while she was visiting family. The note was made from letters I cut out from magazines and newspapers and was signed “The CLA” (Chia Liberation Army). Ahhh, good times.

The last joke I tried to play was on my husband, Dave. My niece gave me a stuffed black cat that looked like our kitty Shadow.  Attempting to scare up some fun, I put it in Dave’s car, attached to the steering wheel. He usually leaves for work fairly bleary-eyed, and I thought it might be fun to give him a heart attack. It didn’t. He thought I was lame, but gave me an “A” for effort.

A few days went by and I thought I’d try to scare him again by sticking the cat in the dinnerware cupboard. He went in for a plate that night, gave me a weak shoulder shrug and blessed my little heart for trying.

I gave up my quest to scare him with the cat, forgot all about it, then came home to find this when I went to heat something for dinner.

Don’t do this to someone you love because they just might die on you.

When I opened the door and found the cat in the microwave, I let out the kind of scream that comes from deep within. A scream that surprises you because you never knew you could make that sound. A scream that is followed by a punch to the husband.

My heart did not stop beating fast for about five minutes. There were no laughs. I was mad at Dave for a day. Yeah, I love a good practical joke. Except when it’s played on me.

Anyone pull off a Class A stunt and not get punched for it? I need some recommendations because I haven’t gotten back at Dave yet.

One of my favorite bloggers, Kev over at Special Kind of Stupid, is paying me back for tagging him with a meme in November. He’s assigned me the “To Do List” meme, a list of five things I have to do unrelated to work. Here goes nothin’.

1. Send two friends their birthday cards I bought two weeks ago. One is sitting in front of me as I type, the other is on my desk at work. I see the cards every day and every day I tell myself to mail them already. Yet, every day they sit there not wishing anyone a happy birthday. So JD and Alice, I’m thinking of your long gone birthdays and hoping you had good ones. I do realize I’m possibly the worst friend in the world. Please forgive me. Still, I wouldn’t expect the cards any time soon.

2. Clean the litter boxes in the basement. Ever since our arthritic cat Stinky started having trouble taking steps to get there, we decided to move one of three litter boxes to the second floor where she spends most of her time. It seems like all three cats are using it, but you never know. The boxes in the basement may now look like two huge archeological digs and we’re going to need a backhoe to clear it out. I wonder if those kids we hired to shovel our driveway do poo detail.

3. Backup my hard drive in the home office. Yeah, I know. I’m a computing consultant. I should backup regularly, but I haven’t done it in months. Yesterday a client came to my office nearly in tears because his hard drive crashed and he needs tax data recovered. It might cost him a fortune to save it, assuming it’s possible. My advice to everyone is “You don’t put on your seat belt expecting to get in a car accident, but you do it anyway, just in case.” Same with your data. I half-jokingly told my distraught client to pray to St. Isidore. For the uninitiated, he’s the patron saint of computers and the Internet. Who said you couldn’t learn anything here?

4. Clean up the remnants of the pumpkin on my back porch. Yes, part of my autumn display is still there. From October. I’ll spare you what it looks like after having spent six months exposed to the elements. I did at least get rid of 90% of it, but the 10% that’s left would give you the dry heaves if you saw it. But if you’re into science experiments, I’ll be running the Guess the Mold, Win a Prize contest in April. Stay tuned!

5. Write my final blog post. I have a will for myself, but I don’t have a will, so to speak, for my blog. If I got hit by a bus tomorrow, how would you guys know where I went? I know it sounds morbid, but I’d like to write a post that will be published in the event of my death. I would hate to have people asking where I am in the comments section and my husband having to deal with that. You’ll know if it happens. The post title will read simply “I’m Dead. The Junk Drawer is Now Empty.” It’ll be hilarious.

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.

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Humor-bloggers prefer the belly-flop.

My husband Dave and I have been dieting religiously the last six weeks, but we lost our minds tonight and ordered take-out.

Here’s what Dave asked for when he placed the order by phone:

• Four cheeseburgers with mayo
• Two perogies
• One garlic knot

Here’s what we got when I picked it up and brought it home:

• Four cheeseburgers with mayo
• Two orders of perogies (3 to an order)
• And this…….

One garlic knot.

Every other time we’ve ordered from there, “one garlic knot” meant “one order of garlic knots,” which contains six knots. Ordering one garlic knot is akin to ordering a single french fry. It’s just not done.

The joke was on us. We got exactly what we asked for.

I don’t know about you, but we can eat about ten of these, and that’s after the burgers and perogies. So who took ownership of the one knot? Our cat, Stinky. She was smelling it up and down while I took this picture. Now we don’t have to split it, which is good because half a delicious knot is worse than no knot at all.

If you think my brain is twisted enough when I’m awake, you should see how things look when I’m asleep.

Here are a few of the recurring dreams I’ve been having for years:

1. I’m lying on the couch in the living room of my childhood home. The room is packed from floor to ceiling with very large balloons. They are suffocating me. It’s only when the clown comes downstairs and parts the balloons as he walks through the room that I can breathe again.

2. I’m suspended on a girder that sits perpendicular to the top of a familiar bridge in a nearby city. I straddle the end of it and, as it pivots, the girder swings way out over the river and I’m screaming. I don’t know how I got there or if I can get down. I feel death is imminent.

3. In my childhood neighborhood, I’m swimming through waterless air down a hill near my home. I do the breaststroke all the way to the little candy store at the bottom of the hill and around the corner. When I get there, I land lightly on my toes and walk into the store, where I go on to buy Giant Pixie Stix. I consider it very normal to have flown there.

4. I’m trying to put a punch bowl-sized contact lens in my right eye. It does not seem impossible that I can do this. In fact, I manage to squeeze the lens all the way in — and it fits perfectly. I don’t know how. It just does. I never put one in the left eye.

Why do I keep having these bizarre dreams over and over? Beats me. I suppose if you want to try and analyze them, you can. But maybe I don’t want to know.

I’m just glad I stopped having the one where I’m being chased by a homicidal maniac with a cleaver and a gun.

Care to share your wackiest dreams? Scary, fun, inexplicable? Recurring or not, let’s hear ’em!

* Yes, that’s me in the clown gear.

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My worst nightmare is that my ranking drops at Humor-Blogs.com. So click that link!

Now that the weather is getting warmer here in Pa., my sister Marlene and I have begun walking 30-45 minutes a day after work. We weave our way through her neighborhood, happy in the knowledge that spring is right around the corner and that we’re so dedicated to our exercise routine. We’ll be hotties by May, I’m sure of it.

Our walks are always pleasant and uneventful. But last Thursday was different. As we passed a random house, I heard a dog barking nearby and glanced over to find an unleashed one running straight towards me. I prayed there was an invisible fence that would stop it in its tracks. No such luck. He ran out into the street, right up to my knees and thought to himself “Do I take a bite out of the left leg or the right?”

I screamed immediately and Marlene grabbed my hand and pulled hard. “Come over here! Hurry!” My heart was already racing from our aerobic walking, but it was beating even faster at the prospect of having to fend off this creature. Its owners called to it, but it did not respond.

Marlene yanked me along and I never looked back. And then I almost started to cry. Still shaking a block away, I lectured to no one in particular that dog owners need to leash their dogs. Yes, I know most of the time dogs are fuzzy-wuzzy puppy wuppies, but you can never really predict how they’ll act in every situation.

I’m afraid of a lot of strange things, but my fear of dogs is not without reason. When I was a kid we lived near a couple who owned a German Shepherd we’ll call Satan. Our backyards faced each other, split by a small alley. Whenever they couple would come home from somewhere, the dog would freely jump out of the car and start barking at everything. He was as nasty as they come, but its owners loved him. “Oh, he won’t bite,” they would always say.

One day while sledding down the Ice Hill of Death, I made the mistake of heading down just as they were coming home. My timing couldn’t have been worse. Their car door flew open and out came Satan.

All I remember was “Uh-oh. This isn’t good.” I was completely prone. Laying on my back and unable to stop the sled, it wasn’t long before I was met by a face full of glistening, razor-sharp teeth. I’m shaking as I write this. I never felt as defenseless before or since.

I remember screaming as Satan lined up his jaw, ready to take that first succulent bite of me. He went right for the head. Because I was shielding my face with my arm, that was all he could manage to sink his teeth into. Luckily, I was wearing a very thick coat and his teeth only got as far as the inner lining. Thank God for small miracles.

The woman yelled “Oh, it’s OK. You’re OK.” Um, no. I’m not OK. Your dog’s trying to eat my face and would you kindly get him off me? Her husband managed to break things up and I hightailed to my house, tears freezing to my face.

When I got my coat off and showed my parents my arm, we were all relieved there was no blood. He hadn’t punctured the skin, but there were rows of swollen red marks where a clamped jaw had just been. My peace-loving parents contemplated the rest of the night whether they should press charges against the owners, since it could have been much worse and I was still such a mess afterward.

They ultimately decided against it and everyone went on their merry, separate ways. Our families never spoke again, though a few evil eyes were exchanged over the years.

No, I wasn’t seriously hurt and I’m thankful for that. But some thirty years later, I still remember what that bite felt like and I’ll always be fearful of strange dogs, except ridiculously tiny ones that I can swat away like gnats. It’s the big ones that do me in every time. Thanks, Satan. Thanks a lot.

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!

You may notice in the comments section that some people have a picture associated with their names, and others just have the default Junk Drawer icon (shown at left). How is that done?

This blog uses a WordPress plug-in called Easy Gravatars, which harvests images (or avatars) associated with email accounts registered with My Gravatars. It’s a free service, where you enter your email address (you can create more than one) and then associate a picture with it. When you use that email address on a blog comment, the picture you choose will appear along with it.

Sign-up is simple. Go to Gravatar.com and enter the email address(es) you use on blogs. Choose an image to use for that email, crop it and then associate it with that address. When you leave a comment on any gravatar-enabled blog, your picture will show up next to your name.

If you have any questions, or if you want to test it out, drop a comment in the drawer.

Note: I got some help with my Junk Drawer icon from The Awesome and Talented Kev at Special Kind of Stupid. He was able to tweak a larger logo I created using Flickr images. Eventually, another version of this icon will appear at the top of my blog. Thanks, Kev!

If you’ve ever watched the Deleted Scenes section of a DVD, you probably thought You know, there’s a reason why they were deleted. Today we have the blog version of that.

Here’s a list of some ideas I had for posts that didn’t make the cut for the reasons specified. If someone actually wants me to take these ideas through to completion, cast your vote in the comments.

1.  Guess the mold, win a prize.  I have a picture of a Tupperware container with some mold firmly attached to the lid. The mold is chunky, blue and hairy. I have a separate picture of the food that caused the mold. I was going to have a contest to see if anyone could guess what the source of the mold was, just by looking at the lid. It is so foul, though, I’m afraid I would lose readers. And I cherish you fine people.

2. Ugliness upstaged by uglier ugliness. On December 27, I posted what I then billed as The Mother of All Bad Pictures. I have since found a picture that is worse. I am shocked anew every time I look at it. I don’t want to believe it’s actually me. It’s from the 5th grade. I look like a troll.

3. As a remedy for writer’s block, I wanted to pose a simple question: “What would you like me to write about?” But my husband thought it was a bad idea to admit I didn’t have anything to write about. But I also thought it might be fun to see what you asked for. As long as the questions aren’t rude, vulgar or too personal, I’m up for anything.

So should these ideas remain buried forever? Or are you just a little bit curious?

It’s the weekend, but school’s still in session. Click the Feed Me tab in my blog’s header to get a tutorial on subscribing to my blog via RSS feed or email.

I also include an explanation and fix for a recently-discovered problem with Blogger’s page redirection. Thanks, Google. You’re the crappy gift that keeps on giving.

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!

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

I have issues and everyone knows it. It’s really only a question of degree.

While waiting to collect two friends for lunch yesterday, I was standing by one of their desks and noticed it was not aligned with the wall. “Rich, why is your desk crooked?”

“I don’t know. Does it bother you?”

“Yeah. I know. It shouldn’t. But fix it.”

And so he lifted the 200 pound desk and righted it because he knows if he doesn’t, I will whine and complain and then no one’s getting to lunch on time.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is an anxiety disorder:

characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Repetitive behaviors such as handwashing, counting, checking, or cleaning are often performed with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away. Performing these so-called “rituals,” however, provides only temporary relief, and not performing them markedly increases anxiety.

I’m pretty sure I don’t qualify clinically, but I have my fair share of odd behaviors that might put me in the ballpark. Here’s my list of things that some might consider obsessive, irrational or just plain stupid. Is there an NIMH definition for stupid?

Let’s begin.

1.  While driving, I’m troubled if I’m delayed by anything that puts my car under a bridge, however briefly. I don’t like to sit under an overpass because I think the bridge will fall and crush me.

2.  I’ve never pressed the mileage reset button in my car. When I bought it new 7 years ago, there were only 16 miles on the odometer. I have never pressed the button that resets it to zero. I can’t do it. I don’t know why. I just can’t.

3.  If it’s raining and I pull into my garage, I have to keep my wipers going until all the rain is cleared. I can’t let one or two streams of water crawl down the windshield. No drips allowed.

4.  If I turn off a two-way lamp that has only a single-wattage bulb in it, I have to turn it to the OFF position, not the second position because I’m afraid juice will continue to flow and somehow that will start a fire.

5.  I must align picture frames wherever I find them crooked. I’ve realigned pictures in my colleagues’ offices, in other people’s houses, and just recently, in a restaurant. Does that embarrass me? Yes, but I do it anyway and I feel better.

6.  I won’t take a shopping cart at a store if it has papers or coupon flyers in it. I won’t pull them out. I’ll pick another cart.

7.  I never let a microwave run down to zero on the timer. I have to catch it to within 10 seconds of finishing and manually shut it off. I love catching it at the one second mark. It makes me feel like I beat it in a race.

Shake your head if you will, but I would bet some of you have weirder things on your lists. Do you have any rituals? Anything you always have to do (or can’t do), yet can’t explain?

Please share. The only thing that keeps me afloat is knowing there are people worse off than me.

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Humor-bloggers are an obsessive bunch.

While cleaning out a closet this morning, I ran across this photo I took some years ago when I was on a random picture-taking excursion. I love this guy. His eyes look so soulful to me. It makes me feel guilty for wanting a delicious char-broiled quarter-pounder right now. With cheese.

Seeing it, I’m reminded of one of my childhood memories involving cows, ice cream and my dad’s Lincoln Continental.

Around the time my sister Ann and I were seven and five years old, respectively, a favorite treat was our Dad driving us to a nearby dairy for ice cream. Part of the fun was driving fast over a hilly section of the road leading up to the dairy. Dad would speed up before the incline and coming over the crest we’d get that flip-flop feeling in our stomachs and shout WHOOOA!!! as we came down the other side. Funny, the little things we remember.

When we got to the dairy, Dad would go in and chat it up with the owner and Ann and I would stand outside the cow pen and hope that one of the mammoth creatures would saunter over and say hello. I can’t think of any small dairies that still exist around here, but if I see one, I have an irresistible urge to stop and moo at the cows.

On one particular visit, Ann and I were all moo’ed out and went inside to collect our ice cream. Typically, we’d get started licking in the store and be just about done by the time we got home. But this trip was different. It was the first in a long series of incidents that end with the question Why do these things always happen to me?

My problems started almost immediately after my Dad got out onto the country road. It must have been a hundred degrees that day and so the ice cream melted faster than I could lick it.

And then the dribbling started. All over my hand, down my arm and all over my lap. And then Dad found out. Nevermind that half my cone was running down my leg, all I could think was how mad he would be when he saw the mess I just made of myself.

If it’s one thing we kids tried to avoid was bringing harm to his only prized possession: his deep blue, formerly clean, 1970 Lincoln Continental with the doors that opened outward in opposite directions. He worked hard all his life to support his family and make sure we had what we needed. The car was the one thing he allowed himself to splurge on.

Unable to pull over on the narrow, one-lane road, he opted to at least keep things from getting any worse. “Stick it out the window! NOW!,” Dad shouted.

“Oh, no! Dad! My ice cream!”

“Get it out of the car!”

I did as instructed and shoved my delicious treat out the window. All my glorious chocolate ice cream hit the wind and, unbeknownst to me, rained down all over the side of the car. I thought for a second that I could stick my head out the window and keep licking, but I was too busy sucking it off my arm and hand.

What’s interesting, in hindsight, is that my Dad didn’t make me throw it out the window. Only stick it out the window. Perhaps none of us guessed that so much of it would splatter back onto the car door.

It did in a big way.

When we eventually got out of the car, we gathered ’round to assess the damage. What we had before us was the Kathy version of a Jackson Pollack painting. Thick splats at the start of it, thinner towards the middle, and dot dot dots where it tapered at the end.

I don’t remember my Dad being mad at me. After all, it only required a quick cleaning. What I do remember is I’d given up a perfectly good cone to the forces of physics and wondered whether it was possible for me to still eat that. The one rule for ice cream and kids? Do not separate.

Last week I wrote about the attempt by the Nielsen Ratings company to get my husband Dave and me to become a Nielsen Family. You can catch up here. The saga may not be over. If it continues, I’m getting a restraining order.

Here’s where the story picks up.

Three days after I contacted the Nielsen representative to tell her for a third time we wanted no part of becoming a Nielsen family, she called and left a message at work. All she said was “I need to confirm one piece of information you gave me, so I can update our records. Please call me.”  I didn’t understand why she needed more information other than us saying no, but I called her back anyway to be polite.

What she wanted to confirm was whether I said there were no children in the house, or if I said there were no children under 18 in the house. I replied, “No children at all in the house.” Fine. End of story. NOT SO FAST. Because Nielsen has such trouble understanding the difference between yes and no, she asked me for a fourth time if we would like to take part in the program.

So here we are again. Her begging me to join and me begging her to stop. I repeated that we want no part of this and that I hoped this would be the last time I’d hear from her. She thanked me for answering the question and we ended the conversation. I hung up wondering if the question she asked was bogus — used only as a way to get me on the phone again. I can’t tell you how much I regret giving her my phone number.

That night I received another letter from Nielsen. “Our sampling department chose your home to represent television homes in your community. As a member of the panel, a small unit will be attached to your TV and any VCR in your home.” It goes on to say how we’ll be remunerated and thanks us for our cooperation. The problem is, we’re not cooperating. We’re not participating. We want this to end.

I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that the woman who came to my house didn’t immediately tell them we weren’t participating, and so the letter was sent to us on the assumption we said yes. That she didn’t tell them after the first time I said no tells me she had no intention of giving up on us.

And so it was no surprise that she showed up at our house again on Sunday. This was a week after the first series of no’s and three days after the last phone call where I said no.

When the doorbell rang, my husband looked out and saw a car with New Jersey plates. A-ha!!! I remembered from the first visit that she drove from Jersey and I knew it had to be her.

“Don’t answer the door!!!! It’s Nielsen!!!!!”

To be sure, I waited until she walked back to her car. I recognized her immediately. We are now annoyed in a borderline-call-the-cops kind of way.

She and an unidentified man remained seated in the car for another five minutes or so.  Her partner was seen flipping through what looked like a small phone book, while he casually smoked a cigarette. I was crouched down on the floor of my dining room, watching for what they’d do next. They eventually drove away and then I thought it was over.

Not exactly.

The next day, on the way home from work, I approached my house and what should I see a few doors down but a car with New Jersey plates, idling in front of a neighbor’s house. Oh. My. God. Could it be?

As I passed slowly by the car, I quickly looked over and saw it was indeed our Nielsen friend again. She had her head down and so didn’t see me. But now I had a new problem.

If she looked up, she was going to see me pull into my driveway and into the garage. Then she’d know for sure I was home and I had no doubt she would barrel down the street and pound on my door. She did it before, she can do it again.

So I drove around the block, pulled over on the street that runs behind my house and called my husband. “Dave? Look out back.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m hiding. The Nielsen lady is back. She’s out front, six doors down. I can’t come home. She’ll see me.”

“Hmmm. Then go to a movie. I’ll hold dinner for you.”

“Wiseass. No, seriously. What should I do?”

“I’ll put up the garage door and you can come around opposite her. If you floor it, you can get in quick. Ready?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you in a minute.”

I backtrack the way I came and floor it up the street. The garage door is open. I don’t see that the woman is where she was parked before, but I have no time to see where else she might be. I shoot in and lower the door. And then we wait. No one comes to the door. No one loiters outside. I think we’re finally safe from the Nielsen people.

What’s clear is they haven’t found another family to replace ours. Because we refused, they need to find another house on our street. What I don’t like is how they’re going about it. To be idling outside people’s homes, flipping through directories, tells me they haven’t sent a letter of invitation to anyone else. Now they’re just desperate.

There is something seriously wrong with this process. Under any other circumstances, if a stranger came to my house uninvited, twice, and kept badgering me to join their group, it might be considered harassment by communication (at least in the State of Pennsylvania). It’s not as though I was selected for jury duty and refused to participate.

There is no legal reason why a person needs to take part in the Nielsen Ratings system. If asked, and a person declines just once, they should cease and desist immediately. If I receive one more phone call or visit from them, I’m contacting the company and you’ll be hearing about it here. Stay tuned.

Think I’m overreacting? Nielsen doesn’t just want to know what you watch. They want your brain, too. (See last paragraph, first page).

Be afraid. Be very afraid.