The Junk Drawer

We’ve all had moments where something fortunate happens to us and it can’t be explained by logic or reason. Some call it luck, some call it fate, some call it divine intervention. One of those moments happened to me this week.

WARNING! The post includes the following: cats, rodents and bugs. If you’re turned off by any of these things, I urge you to click away now and come back tomorrow.

When I started this blog two months ago, I vowed it wouldn’t turn into a blog about my cats. Just so you know, it’s still not going to be a cat blog, but this story does involve a cat, so I have to make an exception. It’s more about bugs, which isn’t much better.

First, let’s meet Stinky.

Stinky is one of our first cats together. We got her and her brother from some friends almost 15 years ago. Her brother, Calvin, is since deceased (RIP buddy). In human equivalent years, Stinky would be on Medicare by now. She’s a self-confident old girl whose partying days are behind her. She doesn’t care, for instance, that this pose is not a good look for her. She lets it all hang out and we let her do whatever she wants. At her age, she’s pretty harmless.

However, there are times when she surprises us and acts all kitteny and spry. About two years ago, she shocked us by bagging her first mouse (I’ll spare you the picture, and yes, I took a picture). We didn’t witness her kill her prey, we only saw the damage. She dropped it on the patio and then laid down next to it, all proud of herself. Luckily for us, the mouse was gone the next day and we didn’t have to worry how to dispose of it. We presume it met its second demise at the claws of some other ravaging animal that happened upon a free lunch. Such is nature.

After the mouse incident, we realized Stinky’s days of being harmless were over and now we had to be mindful of whatever she set her eyes on out in the yard, whether it be bugs, birds or chipmunks. No one is safe now.

Fast forward to this week. I’m reading a book all comfortable on my nice new couch and for reasons unknown I decide to check on Stinky. Despite the collar she wears to keep her within the bounds of our invisible fence, she’s been known to not care too much about the shock fence and sometimes crosses it despite the zap to her neck.

When I look out back, I’m instantly relieved to see her still on the patio, but this relief quickly turns to fear when I see that she’s crouched over the edge of the porch staring at something. This can’t be good, since cats stare at only two things:

1. Imaginary objects that exist only in their pea brains.
2. Living things that are smaller than them that they’re thinking of killing.

I’m instantly aware it’s something in Category #2. I can just about make out what that something is — looks like a meaty spider. But because it’s fairly dark outside, I can only make a positive ID if I get within inches of it.

I don’t have many choices here. Get closer and see what it is, and freak out. Consider that whatever it is might jump on me when I get very close, and freak out. Pick Stinky up by the hind legs and drag her away from what she wants to maim, kill and eat, and freak out. Basically, I’m freaking out. And Dave is nowhere to be found, so that is not an option either.

With my crappy options, I proceed anyway. I opt for picking Stinky up by her backside and she begins to growl at me. Not a problem, since I don’t have far to get her in the house. When I get to the door and deposit her inside, I glance back to see what it was she was so intent on investigating.

Meet the praying mantis.

I suspect what I thought was a balled-up spider was just the head of this thing. What will give me nightmares for months to come was the fact that it RAN AFTER ME while I was carrying Stinky inside. I barely made it in before I slammed the door shut on it.

Can someone please explain to me why bugs can’t just simply be gross? Do they also have to torment me by chasing me down?

It was long, ugly and FAST! Apparently they can attack and kill prey larger than themselves. Read more about that here, but only if you’re not eating right now.

Once safely inside, with the door shut, I began to thank God that I got up off the couch when I did. I don’t know what made me go check on Stinky, but I’m convinced if I hadn’t done it at that exact moment, I would have had to try and get this disgusting creature out of her mouth somehow, some way. I can barely think about it without wanting to throw up. I like to think it was divine intervention that saved me.

I’m sorry if I grossed anyone out here, but if you stuck with the story, thanks. You’re a better person than me.

Taking a twist on New Year’s resolutions, I’m making one for the new month. Starting today, October 1, I’m vowing to stop using "like" so much in conversation. A friend and I were discussing how much you hear it uttered in every day speech, sometimes as much as ten times in a couple minutes. Believe me, now that I’ve said it, you are guaranteed to hear yourself do it. And if you’re like me, you’ll be shocked at how much.

Today, while talking about whether I could keep a resolution such as this, I counted how many times I used "like" and stopped short every time I did it. It was so often, I almost rendered myself speechless. An exercise like this makes you keenly aware how much you use what are called "discourse markers." These are words or phrases that mark a boundary in speech, and usually serve no purpose. Other examples are "you know," "I mean," and "actually."

There is some disagreement as to whether the words are unnecessary filler, or are essential to conveying information in conversations. I see it as a little of both. Whatever the case, it’s annoying to hear it so much, from myself or others. Just listen to a teenage girl on her cell phone for five minutes, and you’ll, like, know what I mean.

Here’s how my resolution will work: For every time I use "like" in a sentence, I will drop a quarter in a jar. The way I see it, I’ll either succeed at ridding myself from my own annoyance quickly, or I’ll have a nice little nest egg to use for my next trip to Paris. Either way, I win.

If you want to follow along with my resolution, I’ll be keeping a daily "like" counter in my sidebar, updated each morning. I may not always be aware I’m saying "like," so if you work with me and hear me say it, feel free to point at the jar on my desk and wait for the clink. You might also want to buy me lunch, because I’m pretty sure in the first few weeks, I’ll be completely broke. Like, bummer.

UPDATE: The experiment is over. Click here to see how it turned out!

I love a good deal. One of the best is combining my grocery store club card with a pile of coupons to realize fairly significant savings. It gets better when my store runs a program where you can redeem points for an additional percentage off, depending on the amount accumulated from past purchases. Dave and I amassed about 1,200 points, so that would earn us 20% on top of our regular savings. We were looking at about 35% off the total bill.

Until we got to the register.

After filling two carts to the brim with a lot of things we don’t buy until this gigantic points program runs, we gleefully queue up to the register. I announce to the cashier with great fanfare that we’d like to redeem our points.

She begins scanning our items and says “Do you want include these points for the bakeware?”

“Bakeware?”

“Did you pick out all your bakeware already?”

“Bakeware?”

Dave chimes in, “Bakeware?”

“Yes, certain pieces are worth certain points and you turn them in against your total points.”

Again, Dave. “Bakeware? I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The poor cashier must’ve thought we were on drugs or stupid or both, given our stoney-faced stares and furrowed brows. “We usually give a percentage off discount for the points program, but this time you get bakeware instead of a percent off.”

We didn’t want bakeware. We don’t cook. We microwave, we use the stovetop, but we definitely don’t cook. Besides, there’s nowhere to store bakeware since our kitchen cabinets are too small. I’m not happy about this little turn of events. Dave just wanted to get scanned and get out, but I wasn’t about to leave empty-handed.

I look at her all hangdog and ask “Where is this bakeware?” She points to a display nearby and off I go to pick out bakeware I have no intention of using. EVER. When I get to the display there’s another woman scoping out what to get and I chat it up with her how this bakeware thing is such a scam. She agrees, “Yeah, they offer a percent off every other time and then we get bakeware now. No warning. Just bakeware.”

I choose three items whose point value gets me near the 1,200 mark. I pick them out based on who I think I’ll be giving them to right after I get them home. I think my sisters will like what I selected. They use their ovens.

After packing up all our things, I look at the so-so discount for this trip. I’m severely peeved because it could have been a great one. Today’s discount amounted to only 12%. Had the store run its usual program, it would have been 32%.

Yes, I know we’ll use everything we bought, but it would have been nice for the store to have posted a notice somewhere that this points redeeming period would not get us any kind of savings. Bakeware is not a deal unless you cook, and even then it’s not much to write home about. Bastards.

After reading my post But I don’t want to look like Cher, my niece Amy wrote me about a cool tool at MyHeritage.com. You can upload a picture of yourself (large, front-facing ones are best) and have it tell you which celebrity you resemble the most.

When I first tried it, I got rather unexpected results:

Imagine my disappointment when it reported, "Sorry, no faces were detected."

I informed Amy that MyHeritage thinks I don’t have a face, at least not in that picture. Because my niece is not as lazy as me, she cropped out just my face and resubmitted it.

Drumroll please………!!!!

MyHeritage thinks I look like figure skater Michelle Kwan. Do you agree?

If you have a face, submit it here and drop a comment in the drawer to let me know who it thinks you look like. Then I can imagine who my readers are!

I had a commute today to beat all commutes. It started out so normal. But as soon as I turned onto Rt. 512, things got a little interesting.

Route 512 is a four-laned, divided road (highway in reality, given the speeds people drive). I turned onto it and was greeted by a fairly open road. I traveled along for about a quarter mile before coming upon another car — DRIVING THE WRONG WAY.

This is the first time I’ve ever encountered a wrong-way driver, so I didn’t know what to do except to slow down. The first thing I thought was "Who could be drunk at this hour?"

The driver was mercifully driving slowly and weaving around only a little. I decided it’d be best to come to a full stop and put my four-ways on to alert all the drivers behind me. All of us stopped, but the assumed-to-be-drunk driver kept going…. or coming, as it were.

On approach, I could get a better look inside the car. I was wrong about the driver being drunk. The driver was not drunk at all. The driver was an old woman who could barely see over the steering wheel. I shuddered when I saw this. And I shuddered some more when it was obvious she had no intentions of stopping or correcting her mistake.

I just kept sitting there, watching things unfold in my rear-view mirror. There she went, staying in her wrong lane while all the other correct-way drivers got into single file to give her all the room she needed.

After observing her make it all the way to the next light, I had to assume that at some point she’d find her way. Or that someone else would be able to stop her. I mean, what exactly is the protocol for this? Do you call 911? Do you jump out of your car and flail your arms in front of her? Do you dare?

All I can do is thank God she wasn’t driving full speed. Otherwise, this might have been a whole different kind of post.

Lady, I hope you made it where you were going safely. And I hope you stop driving. Forever.