The Junk Drawer

I’ve just been tagged for a meme. A meme (rhymes with "dream") is a set of questions that are answered by one blogger, who then "tags" another blogger for that meme. That blogger then answers the questions posed, tags another and the process continues. Memes give bloggers an opportunity to write on a subject they might not have otherwise considered.

My pal Mike, author of the Mr. Grudge blog, tagged me for a Five Things About Blogging meme. I was glad for the tag because I thought at some point I might write about my blogging experience so far. What better time than now?

Thanks for the tag, Mike. On with the meme!

How long have you been blogging? I started my blog three and a half months ago. It’s been a highly satisfying experience so far. Although The Junk Drawer is a small fish in a big pond, I’ve developed a decent following in a short time and hope for greater exposure as I get better at marketing it and new readers find me.

What inspired you to start a blog and who are your mentors? Over the years I’ve written some short humor stories just for the fun of writing them. I’d e-mail them around to family and friends and get responses like "You need to publish this," or "Why aren’t you writing for a living?"

I always took these remarks with a grain of salt, until I sent out a funny story about a one particularly hellish tech support experience I had with my 82-year-old father. The response was overwhelming. "Will you please do something with your writing already!" I made a half-hearted attempt to submit the story to some traditional media outlets, but quickly realized that route would get me nowhere. Thinking it’s better to self-publish than not publish at all, The Junk Drawer was born.

While not a mentor in the sense of handing out writing advice, my husband is always there for me and so it feels right to mention him here. He’s thrilled I took up blogging, and the man thinks I’ll get a book published some day. He believes 100% I am capable of it, and his unwavering faith in me allows me to think for a moment that the idea isn’t so ridiculous.

Are you trying to make money from your blog, or just doing it for fun? Without a doubt, just doing it for fun. I see no money from this in my future. Since I’m averse to most forms of advertising, you’ll never find any ads on my blog.

Tell me 3 things you LOVE about being online. First and foremost, I love my readers. It amazes me that I have a group of loyal readers who keep coming back every day to see what’s new in The Drawer. I hope I can live up to their expectations whenever they visit. Second, I love this method of writing — sometimes fast and furious — because it forces me to write with a sense of immediacy and purpose. My goal is to post every day. Sometimes that’s difficult, especially for a humor writer. If I have a bad day, it’s tough to write funny. Lastly, I love the blogging community. I rub shoulders with some amazing and talented writers, and their success helps keep me motivated and challenged to write my very best.

Tell me 3 things you STRUGGLE with online. First, the numbers. There are well over 100 million blogs in existence today, and I’m competing with all of them for attention. Second, marketing myself is a job all its own. In addition to trying to write a quality post every day, I’m trying to get the word out about my blog. It’s a tedious process, fraught with pitfalls and stumbles. Sometimes you cast your line out to various social networking sites and blog directories and no one bites. I wish I had an assistant for just that kind of work. Lastly, it’s a struggle to find useful information about blogging that doesn’t involve how to make money. It seems to be the primary focus of many blogs, and finding help for non-commercial blogs takes a good amount of research and patience.

Thanks again, Mike, for inviting me to do this meme. Now I get to tag someone else. Kev over at Special Kind of Stupid, you’re it! Kev’s is one of the first great humor blogs I stumbled upon after I started blogging. I’d like to read his take on the 5 questions. Now get crackin’!

People are worried about me.

A couple days ago, I was working on a client’s PC in another office installing some software that takes forever to load. Since waiting for software to install is akin to watching water boil, I thought I’d at least be productive and check for voice mail or email messages. Nothin’. I looked around for something interesting to read. Nothin’. I stared at the wall and wondered how I was going to avoid gaining 17 pounds over Thanksgiving weekend and got all stressed out.

And then it happened. I heard a paper shredder in the distance.

Oh, yeah, baby. Now we’re talkin’! See, there’s one thing in this world that is no bigger stress reliever for me than shredding documents. Yoga? Sorry, no can do. Meditation? Not my thing. Visualization? Only if it looks like this. Sending paper through a slotted, metal-toothed grinder and watching it turn into tiny confetti dots? Priceless.

Seems the client whose computer I was working on was sifting through a humongous container of confidential paperwork that her office collects for shredding. The bin was busting at the seams.

I asked her if she really had to shred all that, and she said “Yeah. It’s a big, annoying job. Even our student workers don’t want to do it.”

I started to tremble and shake.

“Raquel? Um, would you mind if I helped?”

Looking up from her 300 lb. paper pile with a seriously confused look on her face, she asked, “Are you feeling all right? You really want to do this?”

“Yes. I know. I have a problem. But I like to shred paper. It’s destructive and productive! And if you don’t let me do it, I won’t fix your PC.”

“You kidding me?”

“No. Now are you gonna keep looking at me like that, or are you gonna let me get this party started? Move it, sister.”

So there I stood, gleefully feeding a few sheets in at a time, while Raquel sorted out non-shreddable items and things that could just go in the recycle bin. She started to realize what a wonderful discovery she just found in my neurosis. She started to think that together we could make a serious dent in the pile. She started to think she found a sucker who might just do this on a regular basis.

She found me. A paper-feeding, paper clip-pulling, confetti-dumping, maniacal demolition machine.

We worked through the bin for about thirty minutes. All the while, her office mates sauntered up to me and asked “What’s going on? Did Raquel put you to work?”

“No! I like it! Now stop bothering me. You’re screwing up my rhythm.”

One guy who didn’t know me asked if I was brought in just for this job. When he found out I was just doing a favor and getting my jollies in the process, he asked if I would come over to his office and do his shredding.

“Listen, dude. Don’t toy with me. If you’re making fun of me, I can take it. But if you’re telling me you have a fresh pile of paper somewhere that needs to be sent through this shredder, you better mean business because if you’re kidding, I’ll take you down, I swear to God.”

Backing away slowly now, he whimpered “Lady, you’re scaring me.”

As Raquel and I plowed through the documents and emptied the receptacle a few times when it got full of glorious confetti, I realized my fun was coming to an end. The software installation I’d been monitoring finally finished. The shredding party was over.

Raquel thanked me profusely, since we’d gotten through more than half of the bin’s contents. She just couldn’t get over how much we got done.

I asked her if I could come back sometime and finish this pile, or even do future piles. And we all know there will always be future piles. Whoever said we’d be living in a paperless society by now couldn’t have been more wonderfully wrong.

She said, “Of course. We can put you on a schedule.”

Happy in the knowledge that I’ll always have a place in her office for shredding whenever I want, I left and skipped down the hall to my own office. When I passed by our reception desk, I noticed a co-worker sitting next to our own shredder with a pile of papers.

“Want some help with that?”

“Kathy, are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah. It’s my catharsis. Now beat it before I have to hurt you.”

I love to shred, I love to shred!

Don’t deny me shredding, or I’ll beat you on the head!

I’m pleased to announce an addition to the Food That Looks Like Stuff collection. The piece, called Carrot Love, was submitted by a friend and colleague who clearly has an eye for art. Study it carefully.

This photograph reflects the highest standards of excellence that The Junk Drawer strives to achieve when accepting items for publication. This is exactly what we’re looking for. You know, pictures that would make adolescent boys snicker.

"Come on, baby! Gimme a kiss!"

I’m blushing because this week I received not one, but two, awards for The Junk Drawer. Applause, applause! Let’s start the show.

Bucky at The WVb (West Virginia Blogger) awarded me with the Be The Blogger Award. This award was created by Mark at Me And My Drum to recognize bloggers who make their blogs their own, give it everything they’ve got, are interactive with their readers and know how to have fun!

I do feel I am my blog. And I’m thrilled that I have a decent amount of loyal readers. I try to make your visits worth the click. It’s very gratifying that people keep coming back to The Drawer, day after day. Thanks everyone!

My second award is the You Make Me Smile Award, given to me by Moonshadow at Kansas Born. She says I crack her up, which has been the goal of The Junk Drawer ever since I gave up giving boring tech support tips. I am truly honored.

I’m spreading the love by tagging a few fellow bloggers for these awards:

J.D. at I Do Things So You Don’t Have To for her laugh out loud funny and for blog originality. I Do Things is my blog away from blog.

Kev at Special Kind of Stupid for Best Blog Name and his dry sense of humor.

Karl at The Frog Bog for his slightly twisted view on life. Karl rocks.

Jeff at View from the Cloud for his creativity and hilarity. Jeff is the brainchild behind our Noises Support Group, and that deserves an award of its own.

Cardiogirl at Cardiogirl: 19% Body Fat 100% Fun for her refreshing, honest and fun blog. Her stories are both heart-warming and hilarious, done just right.

Terry at Bent Objects. Terry is an extraordinarily talented wire sculptor who I predict is going to make The Big Time for his creative, fun and thought-provoking art.

Maureen at I’d Rather Be Blogging for her cozy, comfy mixed bag of a blog. I feel right at home here.

Bethany at The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks for Best Specialty Blog. Her blog is the reason I’m going to get in a car accident because I’m driving around looking for signs to submit to her site instead of watching the road.

Thanks Bucky and Moonshadow for the awards. I’m humbled and happy that my little 4-month-old blog brings a smile to your faces.

I’m going to change out of my designer gown, kick off my shoes and take my hair down now. I got all dressed up for this award ceremony, you know! Roll credits…….

Blogger’s Note: I realize this makes the third post about food in four days. I’m sorry. It’s not my fault.

I blame my pal J.D. over at I Do Things. She’s the woman who throws entire pies away when she and her husband know they’ve had enough and shouldn’t eat anymore. Today, she sent me a note about the time her husband threw away a perfectly good box of chocolates he received as a gift just so he wouldn’t be tempted to eat it. Her note reminded me of the time I, too, had a box of chocolates destined for the trash.

I used to love Cella’s Chocolate Covered Cherries before I bought two boxes and sat down to plow through one of them. All comfy on the couch, TV remote in hand, I opened the box to see that one of them was sporting a full head of hair. I just about threw up.

You can click that picture to get a better look, but I wouldn’t recommend it. All you need to know is the little guy down front needs a box of Just for Men hair coloring and the one next to him isn’t much better off. The remaining others are in the early stages of decomposition, and thus have much less-developed hair follicles. But they’re on their way.

So irritated that I couldn’t enjoy my sweet chocolaty snacks that night, I drove back over to the store where I bought them and informed the clerk of my gag-inducing discovery and that I wanted a refund.

I opened the box to show her the funky confections. She freaked just like I did, then called her manager over to have a look. "Ewwww, look at this," she says.

The manager, strangely NOT horrified, says "Yeah, we got a letter about that on Friday."

"You got a letter? About the hair? On Friday?" I asked, on a Monday I might add.

"Yeah, they said there was some problem during manufacturing. Wanted us to pull them all off the shelves," she explains.

I ponder for a moment why a person would remember reading a warning about a science experiment being carried out in a box of chocolates, and then do nothing about it.

I didn’t have the patience or energy to ask her why they didn’t pull them by now, but I did stay long enough to get my money back and see that she removed them all from the shelves.

After a year-long moratorium on buying boxes of Cella’s, I recently resumed eating them. But I always give them a thorough once-over just to be sure none of them is wearing a wig. Hair is not a good look for them.