The Junk Drawer

Though my husband Dave is recovering from very painful shoulder surgery, I consider myself the one who had the real major medical problem of late.

I had a wart. On my forehead. For any woman, a crisis of epic proportions.

After a day of searching The Google for wart remedies, including wearing duct tape on it (not kidding), I came to the conclusion that I really ought to ask a doctor about it before I go making things worse.

So I called my sister Ann. Ann is a nurse. Fact: If you work in the medical profession in any capacity short of the janitor in a hospital, you are the doctor in the family.

I asked her what I should do to get rid of Walter the Wart, who I’d gotten so used to seeing every day that I named him. Yeah? What of it?

She gave me a quick reply: Vitamin E.

Every night before bed, I pricked a capsule of Vitamin E and spread the miracle juice all over Walter and then put a Band-Aid on him. We slept like babies.

The next morning I would remove Walter’s bandage, wash up and go out in the world with a big wart on my face.

To my co-workers, thank you for not wondering aloud why I looked like a Cyclops for two weeks.

Gradually, over about ten days, Walter got smaller and smaller until he disappeared and I returned to looking normal, which isn’t saying much.

So there you go. Vitamin E, the wart remover and scar preventer, brought to you by my non-doctor sister. If you’re absolutely sure you have a wart and not something scary like skin cancer, give it a try.

Footnote: In my research, I learned there are several causes for warts, among them stress. You know what causes stress? A giant wart on your forehead.

A few weeks ago, I glanced out at the back yard and noticed a patch of what looked like weeds. I didn’t think much of it until they started to grow larger like this:

I decided to bring this situation to my husband’s attention and it was only then that I found out he surreptitiously planted sunflowers.

Sunflowers?! How could you?!

I know. I should be glad. Sunflowers are…. well, sunny. And happy. And yellow and bright.

But they scare the crap out of me.

Why?

Because Dave planted them at our old house and at night, in the faint glow of a street light, they looked like PEOPLES!

Big, swaying heads of PEOPLES in the darkness!

So now when these things grow right next to our house, I’ll be jumping out of my skin every time I look out the window.

Would it be bad to call 911 because I think flowers are breaking into my house?

OK, let’s hear it. What irrational fears to you have?

Do you have a monkey butt? If you do, I’m very sorry. But don’t worry. Apparently there’s a product on the market to cure your ill. I found this stuff at my local Rite-Aid pharmacy and gasped when I saw it.

It’s the kind of thing that’s easy to mock, but I’m also guessing people actually need it and buy it. Kudos to the company for trademarking "Monkey Butt." I would have loved to sit in on the marketing meeting where the name was suggested and agreed upon.

And, yeah, I took pictures right there in the first aid aisle. Luckily I was wearing my Blogger Press Pass. It helps if you look official.

Pssst! I have a secret. I’ve discovered a quirky, little-known game that’s played every year at Harvard commencement. It’s a game anyone can enter. All you have to do is show up and buy a ticket to get in.

Here’s how you play:

1. Show up within one hour of the ceremony. If you check-in between 11AM and Noon, it costs you $20 to get in. If you show up later, you have to pay $50. But half of that goes to financial aid fundraising, so it’s still worth it.

2. The neat thing is you can get part or all of your entrance fee back by looking for randomly-placed graduates eating cheeseburgers in their seats.

3. The game is played by taking pictures surreptitiously of up to three people eating cheeseburgers and presenting your photos to an appointed judge. Any picture showing a graduate who spots you taking the picture doesn’t count.

Each valid picture is worth a certain dollar amount off the price of admission. For example, if you have one cheeseburger picture, it’s worth $5 off. If you have two, you get $10 off. If you achieve the trifecta of cheeseburger picture-taking, it’s worth $20 off.

You can see that if you arrive between 11AM and Noon, and paid only twenty dollars to get in, you can possibly get a refund on your entire ticket price!

Aside from the chance to earn back your entrance fee, the photo judged the best is signed by the university president and gets displayed outside her office for a week. And you get monster bragging rights!

Do you believe me? You shouldn’t, because this is just one more bizarre dream I’ve had in a long line of dreams I tend to have as a result of seeing or hearing things before my head hits the pillow.

How this dream came to be:

1. I watched a show on the Travel Channel called Extreme Pig Outs, wherein some pub makes a 15lb. (6.8kg) cheeseburger and if anyone manages to eat it, they get their name on a plaque and eat free at the establishment for the rest of their lives.

2. I fell asleep watching an episode of Gilmore Girls, wherein daughter Rory announces she wants to go to Harvard.

3. I watched the Kentucky Derby, wherein longshot Mine That Bird stole the race at 50-1 odds and paid $103.20 on a two dollar bet. A trifecta win paid a whopping $41,500.60.

It’s possible my next post will be about me writing a post about a dream I had that led to writing a post. Or maybe after reading this, you will.

One of the reasons I admire cats is their fastidious nature, especially with their bathroom habits. I love that my cats feel the need to bury their business.

It means I don’t have to see it au natural. A deposit covered in kitty litter is infinitely more tolerable to clean up than one that isn’t.

Which is why I was monumentally grossed out when one of my cats came running up from the basement and flung from his butt a large deposit that hadn’t detached itself at the litter box. Right there in the living room. Thanks, buddy.

He looked at me. I looked at it. Both of us ran away in horror.

I immediately went to the sink, wet some paper towels and, when I picked it up, almost vomited. In my hurry to get rid of the offense, I forgot that the deposit would be piping hot.

Now. Dog owners. Here’s the question. If you take your dog for a walk and you have pooper scooper laws where you live, how do you collect and carry away your dog’s business?

I’ve very serious. I want to know how you do doggie doo duty. Do you use a special glove? Do you use a plastic bag, grab it from the inside, then turn it inside out and knot it? I mean, plastic bags are thin. Don’t you want to vomit? Do you wait for the deposit to cool off before picking it up?

This whole process of having to clean up after a dog like that blows my mind. I once saw a guy dressed in a business suit, walking his dog before work. He held a cup of coffee in his left hand and a bag of poo in his right. I wouldn’t do it myself, but man, I admire anyone who can.

Woof!

My husband Dave loves him a good horror movie. Bring on the gross, the gory and the gruesome.

But what makes him run screaming from the room whenever I take it out and use it?

This.

I’ll spare you any pictures of my dead foot skin. But I will tell you that it looks exactly like finely grated parmagean cheese. Buon appetito!

The fact is the thing works and I’m on my way to smoother, sandal-wearing feet. My piddies are probably the least cared-for part of my body, until now. Hey, if it takes a cheese grater to do it, it’s all good.

Have you eaten breakfast yet? Are you eating it now? Sorry.

I’m still in shock. Another bag flew up into a tree at my building.

All fresh and new and STUCK.

So which one of you put it there? I know you’re all trying to make me insane. You know this means war.

At least our Windy has a friend now. FOREVER.

I’m serious. If I find out one of you put it there, I’ll hunt you down and make you climb up and get it out. And I don’t care if you break all your bones when you fall out.

You know what this means now? New bag needs a name. Drop your suggestion in the drawer and I’ll run a poll after I’ve picked a bunch that I like.

I wouldn’t have believed this if I didn’t see it with my own two eyes. Windy got a mate.

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.

I work on a college campus. If you have kids in college located in a city where it snows in winter, I’ve got some helpful advice.

Your kids need pants. Particularly the boys.

See, it’s been like 10 degrees for the last week, and yet I’ve seen at least four students walking around campus in shorts.

Any kid smart enough to attend the university where I work is smart enough to know about hypothermia.

So the only reason for this insanity is that you haven’t been sending them enough pants. They need a care package, pronto!

Oh, and send socks, too. I saw a kid yesterday wearing flip flops.

If you want to know what else your kids are doing at college, ask me. I’ve seen everything. Strike that. You don’t want to know.

I’ve been sitting here, what? Three years, three winters, and someone finally realizes I might be cold? I shouldn’t complain. At least someone thought to give me the scarf. It’s soft and beautiful, but a blanket and butt-warmer are really what I need.

I also can’t turn my head, my legs are killing me and my sciatica is really acting up. Beyond the pain, I’m extremely bored looking at these few squares in the pavement. For three days in the fall, I stared at a wet leaf that just wouldn’t blow away. Drove me insane.

Last winter when a guy cleared snow, he almost ripped my foot off with the plow. Easy, dude. I live here!

My nose runs a lot in this weather and I know you can’t really see my purse, but there are Kleenex in there that I’ve been dying to get at. They’re so close, yet so far.

Two nice ladies walked by me today and took my picture. I wish they would have sat down and talked to me because, twenty feet away, this is my permanent company. He’s been asking me out for a year. Why am I a creep magnet?

Hi! I’m a dork.

Blogger’s Note: Click here to see reader Richard Wall’s wonderful interactive panoramic view of this location.

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.

To get away from Bob of Survivor. People kept confusing them for twins and the chicken was insulted.

Dude, eat something. Anything. Grass, bugs, another contestant. Something.

I’m terribly sorry for this post. If I lose some readers over it, I’m prepared to pay that price. But when I saw the deposit one of my cats left in the litter box, I couldn’t resist.

I swear on a stack of Bibles, this picture was not doctored. If it grosses you out, just imagine for now that it was made with water.

Whoever left it there is incredibly gifted. I mean, seriously. All it’s missing is the bow tie. I’m trying to figure out which cat made this masterpiece so I can enter him or her in some kind of contest.

Damn. 

Playboy Bunny Pee in a Box

Out shopping today, I came across this inexplicable gift bag among a wide selection of pretty and colorful bags I’d rather get. I cannot think of any occasion where anyone would want to receive this bag or anything in it.

Except perhaps Happy Birthday …. You’re old enough to mow the lawn now!

Or Congratulations on moving that big pile of mulch from here to over there!

How ’bout Wishing you the best at your tractor pull. Here’s mud in your eye!

If you’re a guy who likes to haul stuff around your yard, maybe you’d be happy if the bag contained keys to a Gator HPX 4×4 utility vehicle with an 854cc, three-cylinder, liquid-cooled, 4-cycle Yanmar diesel engine delivering 33 ft. lbs. of torque @ 2500 RPMs.

If you understand any of that and it excites you, your significant other has my sympathies.

I like nature. I like animals in nature.

I like squirrels. I like squirrels eating birdseed nearby. They look cute.

I like squirrels with their bushy tails, eating straight from the bird feeder. Very happy squirrels.

What I do not like is when happy, bushy-tailed squirrels get spooked because I put down my coffee cup too loudly on the patio table and they flip out and fall off the bird feeder, run down a pole, get confused, spin around a few times and then RUN UP MY LEG.

I’ll thank them not to do it again.

Shake a leg and head over to HumorBlogs.com

My dear niece, Amy * recently had surgery to remove a growth on her pituitary gland. The pituitary gland is located at the base of the brain, which I thought was at the back of the head, just above the neck.

That’s not where it is. Here’s where it is:

Actual Amy brain, with growth

You might wonder how a surgeon reaches this part of the brain. Well, they don’t saw your skull open and pull unwelcome pieces out through a hole. They actually take a trip through your nose and do all the work from the front of your face.

The surgeon was very blunt about how she’d feel after surgery: “You’ll feel like someone punched you very, very hard.”

Amy’s surgery went extremely well and she’s home resting for three weeks, complete with colorful bruises from the medically-sanctioned beating she got. Along with some lovely pharmaceuticals, she was given a list of restrictions she must adhere to for a whole month.

The one restriction driving her batshit is that she cannot blow her nose, not even once. FOR AN ENTIRE MONTH.

Think about it.

I blew my nose twenty times since she had her surgery and every time I stopped to think “What if I couldn’t do that just now?” It pains me to think that no matter how desperately she needs to blow, she can only let it drain.

I try my blessed best not to blow my nose in solidarity to her predicament, but I just cannot NOT blow my nose. She’s not handling the restriction well at all, as you might imagine. She continues to wear gauze taped above her lip as a reminder that she can’t touch her nose, blow her nose, or God forbid, pick it.

Here’s my plea: Would you guys please think of Amy the next time you blow your honker? Say a little prayer next time you use a tissue? The girl needs some help getting through the next three weeks.

We’re just counting down the days for her. On Thursday, June 26th, that noise you hear will be Amy letting loose for a month’s worth of plugged up nostrils. After that, we’ll all breathe a little easier.

Thanks, guys.

* This post was pre-approved by Amy’s brain.