The Junk Drawer

So you know those unlucky motorists stranded in snow on a Canadian highway for 24 hours?

Yeah.

Better them than me, because if that were me, I’d be the one pounding on other people’s car windows asking to be let inside because my car ran out of gas, I have no heat and no blanket or anything that qualifies as something smart people do to winterize their vehicles.

I put gas in mine. It makes it go. That’s helpful.

Here’s what I have in my car that’s not:

The front seat: Christmas wrapping paper, a shopping bag, ice scraper and a newspaper from last week that I picked up from my driveway.

The back seat: Jumpin’ Jesus. We have a Consumer Reports magazine, an alumni magazine, a shopping bag, a bag of plastic bags, notebooks, empty water bottle, ice scraper, a Congratulations on Your Graduation card I addressed and stamped a year ago but never mailed, a hoodie from a spring coat and a pair of bacon sneakers.

Nowhere in there is a blanket, first aid kit, water, flashlight, extra clothing and gloves or snacks.

Also nowhere for anyone to sit, actually.

So don’t ask me for a ride or anything. I clearly own and operate a junk yard on wheels. I’m an unprepared Pig Pen.

How ‘bout you?

UPDATE: OK, so y’all got me worried about being impaled by something in the back seat of my car in an accident.

So I got cleanin’.

Do I get a gold star?

There must be a sign on my back that fellow grocery store shoppers can see. It reads “Ask me anything. I have all the answers, even though I don’t work here.”

That sign had me shopping for baptism cards once for complete and clueless strangers.

Today it had me explaining eggs.

While I was scoping out butter, a nearby unkempt but harmless-looking young man addressed me thusly: “Can you tell me the difference between these eggs?”

Oh, God. Here we go again.

I don’t know anything about organic eggs, brown eggs, or Omega-3 eggs or the difference between them.

I don’t know if they taste different and I don’t know where they’re hatched, if they’re local or shipped-in, or if they’re more expensive or healthier than regular eggs.

I. Do. Not. Know. What about me says I know eggs?

In the millisecond it took for me to get all stressed out about this impromptu egg class, the young man followed up with this:

“The sizes. What are the different sizes? This is my first time shopping for my wife and I don’t know what I’m doing.”

I thought “OMG, dude. If you don’t know that the difference between regular, large, extra large and jumbo eggs is purely their size, then no one can help you. Ever.”

But because he was just so adorable and helpless, and I wanted his wife to have the illusion of a husband who can make egg choices all by himself, I decided to give the egg noob a straight up answer.

I said “There are large and extra large eggs. Jumbo is probably unnecessary. Just go with the large eggs and you’ll be fine.”

He grabbed the large eggs, thanked me as he walked away and I wished him a good breakfast.

Then I picked up eggs for myself. I opened the lid to see if any were cracked. Some were. At least three.

Egg noooooooooob! I forgot to tell him to see any of his were cracked!

There go my chances for becoming a Certified Egg Instructor at an accredited grocery store near you.

And I was doing so well.

This is a test post in case the title didn’t give it away.

‘Sup.

2:34PM EST: Now I’m testing edits.

Here is a cow. The cow goes moo.

I have a new love in my life. Don’t worry. There will always be bacon.

My new love and I met while I worked on a colleague’s computer. She noticed I was admiring something on her desk, which I used while I worked.

The attraction was instant and I fell hard. Be still, my heart.

When I finished my work, she gifted me with one.

So what is my new love?

A pencil.

But not just any pencil.

It’s a Pentel OE519 automatic grippy pencil with a twist eraser and deliciously bold 0.9 lead thickness. Oh, yeah, baby.

Hello? Are you still with me?

You fainted, right? I know! I did too!

And I almost had a meltdown yesterday when I couldn’t find it in my desk. I thought someone stole it. I wouldn’t blame them. I mean, it writes like a dream, very sturdy and forgiving — you can press really hard and not break the tip.

It’s smooth like a pen. A pen. But it’s not!

Don’t hate me because I have a groovy new pencil.

Hate me because I won’t let you use it.

Seriously. Try it and I’ll cut you.

Have a nice day.

I’m no fan of Christmas shopping. Not so much for the usual reasons, like having to shop with members of the insane general public and spend every last dime doing it.

It’s more because I’m the world’s worst gift-giver.

About five Christmases ago, I shopped online for really creative gifts for my husband Dave. Gifts I actually put some thought into. Things I assumed he would go nuts over and say “Wow! This is the best gift ever! You really outdid yourself!”

That was the year I got all artsy-fartsy and bought this:

An egg lamp.

An egg lamp that got used on a desk by the computer for a few weeks before it mysteriously wound up here and where it remains to this day:

An egg lamp that I thought was so funky and awesome and eggtastic and the gift to be outdone.

Wasn’t.

And then.

Last night my helpful husband said “Kathy, if you need any ideas for Christmas gifts for me, I would really like a small lamp for the computer room that I can sit on the desk.”

But …. but …. the egg lamp. I know it doesn’t cast enough light to read by. I know it doesn’t go with anything in the room. I know it’s only good for show and it was stupid and expensive and expensive and stupid, but still. It’s an egg lamp. Can’t you just squint and go blind a little?

No? OK, then. Let’s go with function over form this year.

Would this work? Cuz I really need it to be a winner this time.

So what about you? Have you ever bombed spectacularly in the gift-giving department?

If you’d like to read about more craptacular gifts, Tribal Blogs is having a worst gift carnival! Head on over to Redhead Ranting’s The Worst Christmas Gift, Ever and then check out the carnival to see more gift carnage. It’ll put you right in the holiday spirit!