Too Lazy Saturday Travel Photo

More Like Mills Fleet FUN!

My friends and I stopped at a Mills Fleet Farm on a recent girls' weekend trip, because, obviously. There was shopping to be done. I still needed some dark denim Wrangler farm girl jeans and some Cowboy boots. Because, obviously.

I tried on some other shoes, too:

I posted that picture on Facebook, because, obviously. Ten minutes later, I received a text from my little sister Kasey. She had apparently also just paid a visit to the old Fleet Farm:

Like a couple of freaking twins separated at birth who get reunited and show up to meet each other for the first time in the same freaking dress.

Good Night, Moon

On a recent trip to Kansas City, Summer suggested that I stop mooning people.

Only, I never really moon people. At least not the full moon. I like to go more for just an "inch of butt crack".

Exhibit A:

I pulled that trick out when hanging with some new friends. Everybody loved it! (In my mind). Except Summer. She was more...horrified. I really couldn't figure out why, since this is basically my best trick and she's seen it a million. It wasn't until the next day when she informed me that what I thought was an "inch of butt crack" was more like "my entire butt".

Too Lazy Saturday Travel Photo

Hal-isms, Vol. 41

"I can't take jokes that don't make any sense and are prerogative and racist."

"I live in a world where there are Tawny Harshas stuffing animals. Not where you take a picture and put it on the Eiffel Tower. Is that so wrong? I guess you'd call it a dream world."

"I'll just hold on to my memories."

"You and I could buy a $10 bill for five dollars. And when we go to sell it it'd be three dollars."

"Oh. You 'love' me. Thats great. I'll put that right in the bank. And when the Doctor asks me how I'm doing, I'll tell him my daughter 'loves' me."

Deer in headlights. Now you know how THEY feel, Dad.

Wait For It...

McShash (my cool friend who's always in the know about cool stuff) hipped me to this dumb stupid video and I love it so much. HILARIOUS.

Pure Poetry.

My brother sent me this text tonight -- a photo of a poem I wrote to him when I was younger:

If you can't read it, here's a transcript:

ODE TO PETE

My love for you Pete

stretches from here to Crete

it will outlast time

and unlike a mime

it proclaims loud and clear

that I hold you so dear

your picture I hold close to my heart

even though in the past in my face you would fart

hold me down on the floor

from your butt the juice would pour

I could not withstand

the force of your hands

holding me down

in your stench I would drown

the air would turn grey

but...I love you anyway

BONUS JOKE:

How do we know Jeffrey Dahmer was a careless smoker?

He left BUTTS behind the couch.*

*#1: The Jeffrey Dahmer reference dates this poem to approximately 1992, or me at 15. #2: I'm so sorry. That joke is terribly insensitive and I would slap my 15-year-old self up if I had a time machine. Who am I kidding? If I had a time machine I would slap my 15-year-old self up for perming my short hair:

My apologies to the victims' families.

Summer-isms, Vol. 57

"We should put on lipstick. In case there's a man."

"I shushed myself. You need to recognize."

"It was real embarrassing for my mom at the Pizza Inn."

"I got so excited because I thought I didn't drink for two days."

"I STOLE from goodwill cuz I never assumed anyone was going to buy me anything."

Sunday Favorites: It's Raining Men!

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. This story originally appeared on August 23, 2010 when I was bar tending at a lodge up North: 

Hallelujah!

I've never felt so very attractive and wanted!  At the Lodge, to date, I have had five offers for dinner and four marriage proposals.  All of the men are over 50, all but one were very drunk, and here are the propective dinner locations:

Subway

Hardee's*

Chocolate Moose (International Falls-style Perkins)

Thunderbird Lodge (classy joint)  So far this guy is in the lead.  Obviously.

(Not an actual photo.  But not too far off.)

Here is the International Falls fishing Lodge mating ritual, as far as I can tell:

Drunk guy sees I am not wearing a wedding ring.

Drunk guy figures he is single (maybe.)

Drunk guy finds us to be immediately compatible.  (= both single).

Drunk guy asks me out.

To Subway, for a sandwich.

*The Hardee's guy (60-something...) asked if I want to "hook up".  Horrified, yet skeptical, I asked him what exactly "hook up" meant.  He said, "you know, go to Hardee's for a coffee."

I'm Just a Really Good Person Who's Jokes Go Over Most People Heads Most of the Time

Summer and I took a road trip to Kansas City to visit an old friend. On the way we stopped to go pee pee at a rest stop somewhere in Iowa.

 

We saw a little old man helping his little old lady wife walk toward the bathroom. I noticed them because they were going way too slow and totally in my way and at first it sort of irritated me and then I stopped myself, thought about it, and then decided not to be irritated and instead just be patient.

 

It's at just such times I'm reminded of WHAT A GOOD PERSON I AM.

 

I wondered what they were going to do once they got to the door of the Women's bathroom and he could no longer help her in.

 

"Can I take over from here?" I asked and offered her my arm. She hesitated at first but then smiled and said, "I guess so!" and we walked in and I helped her into her stall.

 

I REALLY AM A GOOD, GOOD PERSON.

 

I even waited for her to finish so I could help her out of the bathroom. It was no big deal, because I had tons of zits to pop. On the way out of the bathroom, she remarked to me as she leaned on my arm, "gosh, this is great!"

 

So I joked, "you're just faking, right?" (As in, you don't really need help, you just act like you do so you can make new friends! hahahahahahaha!!!)

 

She looked at me, horrified, shook her head and said, "No!"

 

Basically.

Garbage Pail Kid

When Kasey and I were kids, the Cabbage Patch doll craze was in full swing. Of course our family had no money for Cabbage Patch dolls, so we could only dream of them and stare longingly at our friends who cradled theirs and dressed them up and framed their Adoption Papers boasting names like Corey John and Beatrice Celeste and signed by none other than Xavier Roberts himself! They would bring them to school and enforce nap times. Kasey and I knew we would never know this true joy, but we got close enough to smell it and on several occasions my friend Tera let me hold her little Randall Alexander.

I have mentioned that our family managed an apartment complex on the wrong side of the tracks in South International Falls, Minnesota. I may have even mentioned that the kids in my family were forced to do manual labor for as little as $2 per month. 

But did I ever mention the best day of our lives? The day my dad came running into the house with a bald-headed Cabbage Patch doll in hand? He beamed proudly and gave it to Kasey and she squealed with delight. Her very own Cabbage Patch doll!

I was so excited I wrote about it this letter to my Auntie Julie, claiming full ownership even though my dad gave him to Kasey.

Never mind that Ethen Nathanial was dirty, naked, from the dumpster and had a noose around his neck.

Now That's Good Parenting.

Fallopa-who?

My friends Tara and Beth and I used to eat lunch together every day in Junior High. One day in the cafeteria, Tara started coughing. She grabbed her chest, looked at Beth and me and said, barely audibly:

 

 

"I got something caught in my fallopian tube."

Nope. In case any of you were wondering...



Esophagus. She had something caught in her esophagus:

 

Summer-isms, Vol. 56

"I'm gonna make you a sauce so good girl."

"Well, guess what? She has acne scars."

"I have never typed the word fart."

"He wants to make paper dolls out of me."

"When three people are holding hands I don't want to be one of them."

Sunday Favorites: First World Problems

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. This story originally appeared on April 30, 2012 when I was griping about my job:

Last week, as I was removing the 37th staple from the 37th bank statement in a mortgage loan file that I was preparing to send into underwriting, I couldn't help but feel VIOLENTLY ANGRY towards the loan officer who stapled them all together. It's like, I know where the bank statement starts and also where the bank statement ends. Do we really need to be stapling them? My nails are just tore up, guys. TORE UP.  Gosh my job is so irritating. Probably the worst in the whole world. I can't think of any worse job in the whole world. I'm paid hundreds of dollars a day to remove staples. It's not enough if you ask me.  

These mobile salespeople in Vietnam would agree that I am so mistreated:

I waved to this person and they waved back. I assumed it was "Hi!", but in retrospect I realized it was actually, "don't take my photo."

It's a difficult yet effective way to sell stuff on the go. You can even operate a food truck this way. Got a  pho (noodle soup) business? Bring it to the people. I saw a woman with a pot full of soup on each side and asked her if I could try lifting it.

O. M. Gee!  I felt like a champion power lifter.  It was so heavy.  HEAVY.  That smile is actually a wince.

So, you cart around thousands of pounds of merchandise hoping to sell a couple bucks' worth each day. Later on I told her about the staples and the low pay. (In sign language of course.) She was like, "Lady. You got to QUIT. That sucks."

Now That's Good Auntie-ing

Little Miyo, Puddin 'N Pie. Said my truck was "old fashioned". And then she only ate two bites of her $8.00 Cherryberry Frozen Yogurt Sundae. Back in the olden days she'd a been cruisin' for a bruisin'. But today is 2013 and you can't physically harm a child legally, so...

...Instead I made her carry all of my Bed Bath and Beyond purchases (I bought an over-door shoe holder for my shoes and also a fan! since my apartment has no A/C. And some Barkeeper's Friend because, well, you know.) And I wouldn't help her. Not for the entire quarter-mile walk back to Ol' Blue across the world's largest Urban Sprawl parking lot. (I also bought her a book -- James and the Giant Peach -- at Barnes and Noble and since she had no space to carry it I shoved it down her shorts.)

That'll learn her!

The Inevitable.

Well, it was just a matter of time. You can't buy and drive a 1987 Dodge Dakota pickup truck that had been sitting in a garage undriven for seven years without expecting a problem here and there. The main problem is that the truck stalls a lot. It just dies every time I try to push the gas during the first ten minutes of running it in the morning. The idle is turned up high enough that I just idle all the way down Lake Street and hope for no red lights. And up until now, I had been able to tweak/restart/jiggle/adjust/swear my way through all of Ol' Blue's hiccups. But the other night, she finally just. wouldn't. start.

At two in the morning.

In Dinkytown.

So I had to get 'er towed to a mechanic. And thus began a week of a new type of swearing. That night Tan from Saigon Garage on Lake Street cleaned out my carburetor for $180. I got the truck back the next day and it did run, but it still didn't seem quite "right". 

Two days later, I broke down on the way to work. Directly in front of Saigon Garage. I couldn't believe my luck! Tan got it started though and told me to come back the next day. Well of course I couldn't get it started that night at work and had to get another tow over to Saigon. But I got a new starter for $229 and he did some other things that I couldn't quite understand (his English is not as good as mine) and now Ol' Blue is purring like a kitten and running better than ever!

The point of this whole story is that all week my dad has been beside himself because of me having car problems and being stranded and him being so far away and not being able to help out.

Here's what he said to me:

"KADY. You can't be having your truck towed every day. Not a woman of your statue."

Hal-isms, Vol. 40

"Kady: Kiss the ground you walk on and thank your lucky stars I'm your father."

"When you're the only sensible person, you take a lot of grief for it."

"Don't write that. It's out of context."

"It's all gonna be to your chagrin someday."

"It was one catastrophic after another."

Sunday Favorites: Bathrooms

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. This story originally appeared on May 1, 2010, when I had a giant epiphany about bathrooms:

I had an epiphany yesterday.

I am probably shooting myself in the foot with my bathroom fear because I'm spending WAY too much time in there, trying to mentally prep myself for the task at hand.

First, I either foot-push or middle-finger-push the door open slowly, scanning the floor and walls and ceiling for geckos or spiders.  Then I step into the stall slowly, slowly, slowly, turning sideways to make myself skinny(!) so I don't touch anything.  I look around again for creepy crawleys.  Then I use a piece of my kleenex to lift the lid in a Western-syle toilet to check for spiders, bugs, rats under the seat.  Then I step from left foot to right foot, mustering courage to begin the process.  My hands are usually in the air in front of me, or at my sides, waving slightly.  I breathe in and out, slowly.  Then I usually make sure my camera, wallet, purse, sunglasses are secured before I unzip my pants and slowly, slowly turn around. The rest of the procedure is carried out in a similarly slow and tedious fashion.   

The epiphany is this:  Why not hurry up, pee and get the heck out of there?!

Triathlon? More like Sharknado.

This was BEFORE the swim.

Then the rain stopped and we applied our sunscreen. A creepy neighbor offered to take our photo. She kept saying, "keep rubbing girls...keep rubbing it in..." And then she took a picture with her own personal camera.