Friday, March 28, 2008

Now With Bleaching Power....

The following are actual advertisements from the 1930's. And while their ridiculousness is apparent and a little too easy to make fun off, the real joy will be stumbling along someone's else's blog in 70 years to find them making fun of the retarded Swiffer commercials. Though, I don't think we have to wait that long...

Cobwebs up in your who-ha? No wonder you're going to be using an industrial strength cleanser to douche. Can you imagine if no one wised up to what cleaning "down there" with Alkyl(C12-16)dimethylbenzylammonium chloride would do to the lady parts? I can imagine what the commercials for Lysol would look like today. A shot of raw chicken juices spilt on the counter, black mildew in the shower grout line and a cobweb infested va jay-jay. Hey, since you're already spaying your trash can to disinfect, go ahead and perform little spray action in your crotch to brake thru the web of indifference.

Well, since it rhymed, it isn't really like calling her a whore.

"No Ill Effects?" "Easy to Swallow" No thanks. Ew, Seriously.

Virginia Slims has been right all along; we have come a long way, baby!

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Say My Name

...and I wasn't even drinking!

Last night my awesome neighbor, Liz, and I went to our favorite watering hole, Fric & Frac. I can count on one finger the amount of times that I've been to Fric & Frac and have been sober. So, last night- when I hadn't even had one drop of alcohol- you can imagine my surprise (I'm beyond embarrassment at Fric and Frac) when I couldn't remember one of the waiters name. I know his name. I've talked to him many a times before using the correct name, but last night: no dice on remember his name. I thought I remembered his name so when he was like "Hey, what's up Natasha?" I thought I had everything under control when I responded with "Not a whole lot, Tyler."

Wrong. Very, very wrong.

Not Tyler. Liz knew his name wasn't Tyler. Random guy at the bar knew his name wasn't Tyler and apparently, Not-Tyler knew that his name wasn't Tyler. I couldn't play this one off.

Not-Tyler: "Yeah, that isn't my name."
Not-Cool: "Son of a bitch."
Not-Tyler: "Want to guess again?"
Not-Cool: "Not really"
Not-Tyler: "It rhymes is "Ared."
Not-Cool: "Oh! Hey, Sared, what's up?!"
Not-Tyler or Sared: ::walks away::

So you can put me down as not cool and not funny. And still single.

Monday, March 24, 2008

T(rash) Bagging

Last evening, while checking out at the grocery store, I noticed that this particular mass retailer ::coughwalmartcough:: had for sale "reusable & recyclable" grocery bags that are made out of 85% recycled material. Freakin' sweet, right? Right. Because who needs 352 plastic bags shoved into 1 more of those plastic bags hanging off of her cupboard handle? Not this girl.

And since I know every small part is part of the larger one, I put 4 of them with my stuff to buy. And I put them at the front of my stuff. Now, dear reader, if you were the check out girl at Wal-, uh, I mean the grocery store - would you deduce that, indeed, the customer probably wanted to use these grocery bags at their present purchase? You would? Well then, you're not dumb enough to work at Wal-- fuck, er, the grocery store.

Riddle me this, how does it make sense to put these grocery bags INSIDE of a plastic bag and then put that bag in my cart? It doesn't. Which is why I took them out of the plastic bag (which, I'm not sure if she caught is the very object I am trying to not use anymore) and asked, nicely, for her to use the reuseable bag to bag my groceries.

You can take the trash out of the landfill...... but it just goes and works at Wal-mart.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Chaharshanbe Suri

It's finally here! Happy Chaharshanbe Suri, everyone! To translate, Happy "last evening before the last Wednesday of the year [solar calendar] that should be celebrated by jumping over a fire and then enjoying sweets and hot tea with your family" day. I'm so excited. The Iranian New Year (Norooz), is one of my more favorite Iranian traditions that my family celebrates. Third to only arranged marriages and ALWAYS cheating at card games.

To my parent's neighbors: please do not report us to the Department of Homeland Security. Thank you, Allah bless.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Elevator Etiquette

For those of you unfortunate enough to have to ride in an elevator (and not in an Aerosmith sort of way but in a corporate, 9-5 sort of way), I offer these tips to help make your time spent in the elevator efficient, effective and inoffensive to others. But more importantly to help me not hate you.

1. If you are going to be THAT asshole and take the elevator to go 1 (ONE) floor, please stay towards the front of the elevator and do not wedge yourself in the back. Not only do I hate you for being lazy, I hate you for pushing me out of the way and making me bump into the older, fat lady next to me. Just take the GD Stairs next time.

2. If the floor button you're traveling to is already lit, it is unnecessary to push it again. The elevator is not keeping inventory of how many people on the elevator want off on 8.

3. Use deodorant before using an elevator.

4. If you and I are one of the last people on the elevator, it is okay (recommended, in fact) to readjust and move away from me. Now, let me add a few clauses here. If you're hot (guy from this morning, are you reading this?) stay put (because you did and thank you!). But if you're not attractive, please move to the opposite corner. Is this unfair? Yes. So is life, now get off my leg. And regardless of your aesthetics, if you never follow #3, always follow #4.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Spring Forward

Daylight savings time should not be privatized. Think about it; the government is just "sitting" on this hour of our time and then come October, that's all we get back. Just one hour. We should demand that interest be earned on that hour! One hour of our lives have been taken from us and it's just sitting in the bank, not working for us. I'm decent at math, but don't know how to compound interest. And anyone know what the current market interest rate on time is? According to my estimation, I think we should be getting about 3 weeks back this Fall. But, someone should check my work here...

Friday, March 7, 2008

Employees Must Wash Their Hands Before Returning to Work

One of the most gross, nastiest, vile thing just happened.

As I was washing my hands, a lady came out of the stall and WITHOUT WASHING her hands proceeded to TOUCH my hair. "Oh, it's so pretty!" which I almost countered with "Ew, skank, stop touching my hair with your pee-paws!" I also wanted to punch her in the mouth, but I was able to keep that in check too. She then left. WITHOUT WASHING her hands. It's cold and flu season, beotch! Wash your nasty toilet hands. Ew! Seriously.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Four Wheeled Chastity Belt

My Fab-Friend Shan is having babies! 3 to be exact. She has come to terms with the fact that she has to get a mini-van. This story is for her...

In high school I drove a mini van. Sure, I rode in my fair share of mini vans to and from various activities that are the fabric of middle-class suburban youth: ballet, violin lessons and acorn collecting for Burr Oaks Nature Center, but I actually piloted my own mini van my junior and senior year of high school.

It all started innocently enough; I pleaded with my father for a car. Any car. In a stroke of fatherly genius (a moment I find my dad still chuckling over from time to time) he bequeathed me the (at the time) 11 year old family mini van. This van was 5 years younger than me. One of my first memories EVER is seeing my dad role into the driveway with this beaut fresh from the dealership. And now it was mine. In all of it's maroon, extended-version, Dodge Grand Caravan glory. When I took the keys from my dad, after thanking him best I could, my first thought was "Oh well, at least it doesn't have wood paneling." Over time, the presence of wood paneling really became least of my concerns...

Let's start with the side view mirrors. There weren't any. Well, there weren't any after being in my possession for less than a week. Shortly after realizing that this wasn't a joke my father was playing on me (the kind I would find funny, anyway) I proudly took MY CAR to the car wash. And since it was an effing boat of a van and I didn't really feel like washing it myself, my local Phillips 66 car wash was just the ticket. The swelling pride of putting your first car through the car wash at the corner gas station was quickly stuffed as 30 seconds into the "wash" I heard metal crunching and tearing. Loudly. Not positive on what is going on, I slammed on the brakes. Which, I am sure would have achieved something useful if the car was on and wasn't in park. But alas, it wasn't and I quickly found myself clueless. Until I saw both of my side view mirrors being ripped off the frame of the van by the car wash's brushes. This satisfied "What the eff is making that sound?!" but at the same time created "Is this car wash systematically ripping apart my car to get to sweet human insides and eat me?!?" Yes. That is my rational train of thought. 2 minutes and a buff dry later, I ran inside to tell the attendant that his "car wash just ripped off my side view mirror."

The gas station ended up paying me over 1500 bucks to get my mirrors replaced, but I didn't. I drove that van sans side view mirrors for almost 2 years. Even passed a Missouri State Car Inspection with them missing. By the way, thank you God for making me a girl; I owe you one.

But really, who needs side view mirrors when you have a rear-view mirror and stellar peripheral vision? What really would have come in handy is 3 working doors. This van kicked it old school. There was only one sliding door and none of the doors opened or closed at the touch of a button. Good, old-fashioned arm strength had to be used when opening and closing the sliding door. That's if it wanted to open at all. Sometimes it just wouldn't budge. This could have been attributed to the fact that a regular sliding door closing "method" I used was while the was door open, accelerate down hill really fast and them slam on the breaks. Bill Nye the Science Guy taught me that inertia would take care of the rest. Oh boy, did it! It shut the door so well, in fact, that the door wouldn't open for days, weeks even, or if it was particularly cold outside.

A similar fate met my passenger side door. Younger Brother #1 was riding shotgun and when he got out of the car a freak gale force wind came and ripped the door off of it's hinges. Once closed, it wouldn't be opened again for a very long time.

So, if you're paying attention (and I won't blame you if you're not) you should now put two and two together and get that I only had one working door, and that's if you don't count the back hatch, which had to be propped up with a broomstick handle to stay open, so we won't count that.

It was the norm to expect to have to crawl in and out of the driver side door if you were wanting a ride with me. But, honestly, if you were desperate enough to need a ride from me, your shame wasn't going to suffer any worse for wear.

Among other things that were wrong with my van were:

  • No A/C
  • Windshield wipers that only worked sometimes
  • Leaked oil. A LOT
  • Would smoke if driven too fast and or for too long

Had nice rust patterns above the rear wheels, which, if far enough away might have resembled flames. So, toss up on whether that was a good or bad thing.
All in all, I honestly can't complain too much. It was a car. It was a free car that always won when I hit something. My dad seemed slightly offended when he was offered less than $500 trade in for it when we went to get me a new car. And I think the van sensed that. As we were moving the van from one end of the parking lot to the other, the passenger side headlight popped out of it socket and just dangled back and forth from it's wiring. "Take that!" it seemed to tell the dealer. And he did. For $300.