The Junk Drawer

I generally avoid writing posts made up of a stream of random thoughts, but you know, sometimes you just have to write anything.

So here goes, the brain dump:

1.  2011 was the year I ate a PBJ for the first time in my life. 2012 is the year I ate scrapple for the first time ever.

Liked it, didn’t love it. I wanted it to be more like sausage, but it wasn’t firm enough. Little crispy on the outside, loosey-goosey in the middle. Made much better when lying in a pool of maple syrup, though. That is all.

2.  Today while leaving work I spotted a student practicing walking on a tightrope pulled taut between two trees, only inches off the ground. Wanted to ask “What for?” but was too lazy to walk over and probe. Cool, though. Rock on, Sidewalk Wallenda!

3.  On the way home from work, a tiny piece of plastic bag blew into my car and settled on my dash. Then it blew out the other window. I thought of Windy and smiled.

4.  The other day I freaked out when I found what I thought was some kind of mutant curly worm behind the toilet bowl. So I let it sit there until I got the courage to investigate closer.

It wasn’t a worm. It was a large shaving from my eyeliner pencil. Why was it there? Because I sharpen the pencil over the toilet bowl so the shavings can go down a pipe instead of shaving it over my trash basket, which has open slats in it and I’m always thinking the shavings are going to fall through the slats and onto the floor where I’ll have to clean them up later.

So instead of shaving the pencil over a trash can, I’m shaving it over a toilet, where debris falls on the floor, I still have to clean it up, but now I have the added stress of thinking it’s a bug that will jump on my face and burrow a hole through my eyeball.

Also, how does one miss a target the size of a toilet bowl? Oh, wait. Men do it all the time. Never mind.

5.  For all you cat owners, I just read a post on a pet website that claims to sell an “unbreakable” plastic pooper scooper. You know what’s unbreakable? A slotted metal spoon you’d use for spaghetti. Seriously. Plastic always breaks, and unless your cat leaves 10lb deposits, a metal scooper will last you forever and then some. You’re welcome.

6.  After watching an interview with a very pregnant Jessica Simpson yesterday, I had a pregnancy dream last night. I was close to delivery and the only thing I could think of was “We don’t have any diapers.” So in my dream I went on Facebook and asked all my friends whether I should buy Huggies or Pampers. The winner was Pampers.

7.  Expired Greek yogurt has the consistency of regurgitated oatmeal. Discovering you’ve eaten expired Greek yogurt is scary and keeps you close the bathroom. Just in case.

8.  I hate whistlers. There is nothing fun about hearing a person whistle. It doesn’t make me think “Oh, what’s he so happy about? I would like to feel happy too, so I shall whistle as well.”

It makes me want to roll up an old sock that my cat plays with, encrusted with kitty spittle, and shove it in said whistler’s mouth.

The end.

OK, bees, wasps and any other flying things that try to hitch a ride in this….

Your lives will end in a very bad way ……

Yesterday I went outside to enjoy the balmy weather we’re having, and took a short walk around the courtyard of my building.

Within seconds I was hit in the head by a directionally-challenged wasp. Peripherally, I saw it coming in for a landing, and then heard it pierce my wall of curls.

Then silence. Did it die on impact? Is it still in there, wondering why what he thought was a shrub is so soft and smells like Pantene?

I flicked and fussed and shook my head until I was sure it was out.

I walked back into my office and met up with a student assistant who had just started his shift.

Trailing behind me was a client who followed me into the office and started chatting with the both of us.

I turned away from them to log into my PC and heard the client ask “Is that a wasp up there?”

Oh, for crying out loud.

I knew instantly I hadn’t gotten it out of my hair and that it must’ve hitched a ride with me to my office. It was clinging to the ceiling, surely perplexed by his new surroundings.

Big mistake, buddy.

It took ten minutes of my student’s merciless swinging, swatting and smashing to finally get it injured enough to stay on the floor.

A fighter, he was.

After a few pitiful wing waves, it gave one last gasp under my bookcase, where it shall remain. Because me no likie bugs, dead or alive, and I ain’t touchin’ that thing. I can barely even look at the picture of it.

Incidentally, killing wasps and photographing them is now considered “other duties as assigned” to my work study student. Thanks, Chris.

Wasps should really consult with the bees in the neighborhood, since they too have been victims of my Venus Flytrap head.

Bugs, fly with caution. Just sayin’.

A part of me died today.

It happened at exactly 1:12PM.

I recall glancing at a digital clock in my mother’s apartment before announcing that I was hungry and would make a sandwich.

“Do you want me to make you some tuna fish?” Mom asked.

“Yeah! Would you mash it up good like you did when we were little?” I asked.  “And mix it with a ton of mayo?”

“Sure,” she replied.

And then it happened.

We went to the kitchen and she began to prepare the tuna fish.

I went to the fridge to grab the mayo.

‘Mom? What’s this?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” she replied.

“What do you mean what do I mean? What is this?” I asked, holding up a jar of Hellmann’s mayonnaise.

“It’s mayo.”

“It is not mayo. It’s the wrong mayo. Where’s the Kraft?”

She gave me a shrug.

A shrug, from the woman who raised me on Kraft. Kraft, the best and only worthy mayo on the planet.

“Mom. Now you hear me and you hear me good. This isn’t mayo and I want to know when you started buying it,” I demanded. The inquisition begins.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she answered.

She scrunched up her nose and rolled her eyes. And then she gave me what she thought would be a conversation-ending Mom wave-off.

But no.

We’re not ending this conversation! Oh, no we’re not.

“How can you say that? You bought Kraft forever. You raised me on Kraft. I have Kraft in my bones for crying out loud. I don’t understand how you can do this,” I cried.

I’m sick about this discovery, trying to process it all. Meanwhile, my mother is still mashing away at the tuna, ignoring me completely.

“Mom, really? How can this be? Tracey used to always come over the house for the good sandwiches because we had the good mayo,” I reminded her.

See, my best friend Tracey lived in a Miracle Whip house, poor thing. Not even mayo. She was livin’ the high life at my house with tuna sandwiches made with real mayonnaise for years and secretly wished she lived in The House of Kraft.

“Stick with us. We’ll always have Kraft. We’ll take good care of you,” I assured her.

But evidently we won’t always have Kraft.

We’ll switch and we won’t tell anybody.

I’m still in a tizzy, as I set the Hellish mayo down on the counter, then walk away in utter bewilderment. Mom continues mashing the tuna.

I’m faint.

What will people say, Mom?

How can you even look at me?

How can I look at you?

The sad truth was sinking in. Mom was on the other side now. I don’t know what it’s like to be on that side. The world is all wrong and weird and backwards on that side.

I mull over when this could have happened. There was no announcement. No vetting of new mayo. No mayo caucus.

This is the stuff of family meetings. We should have had at least a phone conference about it. A newsletter. Something!

Maybe she’s been buying it for years and I never noticed. Maybe she switched when she had a coupon for ACK, BLEH, I can’t even say it – Hellmmm……..

Whatever the reason and whenever it happened, I know one undeniable fact.

My mother obviously never had a preference because once you have Kraft, you never switch. You just never switch!

Tonight I lick my wounds. My childhood will still be filled with Kraft memories, but I can never make a sandwich at my mother’s house.

Not unless I bring my own mayo.

And don’t think I won’t.

My friend and co-worker Jason finally finished a bathroom renovation last weekend and that’s how he came to receive this from me.

Toilet paper is the perfect congratulations gift, wouldn’t you say?

He took the renovation plunge almost two years ago, which is about twenty three months longer than I could stand to wait. I’d rather the job just whiz right by.

Sometimes the work would happen in explosively productive sessions, sometimes he would only get tasks done in a trickle.

Some days he’d strain to get the smallest job done.

Many times he was too pooped to keep going.

But keep going he did.

If something didn’t go right, his motto was always “No worries.” He’s not the kind of guy to make a stink about anything.

Now that he’s done, he’s flush with pride and bowled over by the results of his hard work.

And that’s why we shower him with gifts to wipe away the memory of such a crappy project.

Today I helped a client, a Professor Emeritus, troubleshoot his email.

I often have to take my glasses on and off because I’m near-sighted. While working on his PC, I took them off so I could do close-up work.

When I finished fixing his problem, I stood and gave him his seat back.

He tested sending an email message, expressed his satisfaction on the fix and I prepared to leave.

I picked up the glasses on the desk and motioned to put them on.

But they wouldn’t go on because at some point between fixing and standing, I had already put glasses on my face. My glasses.

It’s really hard to put a second pair of glasses on top of another.

And it’s worse when you do it in front of someone who would rather like to keep his.

So there sat one of the smartest gents in my college looking quizzically at the stupidest woman on the planet.

I said good-bye, nice to see you and went running back down to my office, where I realized I would now have to avoid him forever.

The end.