Transcript of the Muffin Debacle

So a few times a week, I treat myself and stop off at the coffee kiosk on my way to work. Good coffee, and no line like at Starbucks. 

The other day I stopped for my morning coffee, and what follows is entirely true. Names have been changed to protect the idiots. Except me.  The dialogue is between “Me” (really, Me) and “SCG” (Smiley Coffee Girl).

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Me:  I’ll have a large mocha and….Hmm…what kind of muffins do you have?

SCG: We have blueberry and cappuccino!

Me:  Okay, I’ll have blueberry.

SCG:  Oh (long pause).  Sorry! We’re out of blueberry (she tries to look a little crestfallen).

Me:  Hmm. Well…. never mind then.

SCG: But wait!! The cappuccino one is really good! I’ve heard that a LOT of people like it!! Really!

Me:  Sigh…Well, okay (realizing this is my only shot at breakfast, and that it takes them 15 minutes to toast a bagel).

SCG: Great! You’ll love it.  I think it even has like, coffee in it, so it gives you a little extra, y’ know??

Me: (I grinned at her. What do you say?)

(skip forward a few minutes and my order is ready)

SCG: Here you go! I hope you enjoy that muffin! We should get more blueberry tomorrow! OK? Bye-ee!

As I drive off, I try not to laugh at her. She was very sweet and helpful, and I’m only being mean if I continue to mock her in my head.  Must….resist….

Anyway, a few minutes later I come to a stop in traffic. I reach in my bag, deciding to give this cappuccino thing a try, strange as it sounds. 

She did say she heard a lot of people liked it!  Who knows, it could be my new favorite.Like that time I tried sushi! Oh, wait, that ended badly.

Ah screw it. Here goes.

Unwrapping the package, I glance down at the muffin I’m holding.

 

It’s blueberry.

 

 

The day he became a man…

My son just yelled from the bathroom, “Mommy I wish there was a potty in the living room!”

“Why is that?”

“So I can watch TV while I go!” he responded happily. “Wouldn’t that be AWESOME?”

Yeesh.

Le Sigh!

Is it SO bad to absolutely loathe my job, when I know I should be glad to even have one?

Such is my dilemma.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Out of the mouths of babes…

I was reading this blog  today that talked about the precious life lessons our children learn from us. 

Ok, not really -it was more like the swear words we let slip out, that they of course, memorize immediately and in context.

Yesterday my car wouldn’t start, and son yelled out helpfully from the back seat, “Stupid piece of shit!…Right, Mommy?”

Sitting on my mom’s lap pretending to drive: “C’mon, idiot, get the hell outta my way!”

Dropping his plate on the floor: “Aw, dammit!”

And the best, related to me by his teacher at school: “I dropped my paintbrush, and I almost said DAMMIT but I didn’t. My mommy says it all the time, though.”

He knows he’s not allowed to say these things, and gets in big trouble when he does. But the twisted part is, he’s so little, and to hear this come out of his mouth is at the same time horrifying, cute, and hilarious!

I TRY not to swear in front of him. But he’s got little bat ears that hear me from fifty feet away, especially if I’m saying a bad word!

I suppose it’s only fair though…I can tell that he’s doing something he’s not supposed to based on just the level of silence coming from his room, lol.

A few years ago (pre-motherhood), I lived with a friend of mine who had a 2 year old. We would be hanging out, talking, and suddenly she would declare ominously, “It’s TOO QUIET. What the hell is she doing now?”

I would have been thinking how nice and peaceful it was, but she apparently had her mom silence-meter working, that meant her daughter had pooped under the crib and was busy smearing it on the walls, trying to flush toys down the toilet, or climbing onto the tall dresser.

My silence-meter kicked in when my son was about a year and a half old, and I still have to use it everyday. Yesterday it meant I found him cutting up all the mail into tiny pieces, covering his floor like a blizzard. “Look, Mommy, I’m doing my homework!”

No Means No!

Fourth of July – officially another holiday to spend money on. Sigh…

I could do what most people were doing: load down my car with lots of towels, blankets, drinks, food, sparklers, chairs, sunscreen, bug spray, bottles of water, extra clothes, camera, batteries for the camera, change for tolls, cash for snacks, etc etc.

Instead, I opted to take advantage of my son’s 4-year old viewpoint of the world, wherein he doesn’t yet know what he’s missing out on. So goes the life of the single mom on a budget!

Anyway, this meant one short trip to the grocery store where we got some popcorn, drinks, and he got to help me pick out fireworks.  Of course, being 4, he already has expensive tastes.

“OOH! We need THIS ONE!” (pointing to the huge rockets that are 30 bucks)

“No.”

“HEY! Look at THIS!!!” (huge variety pack of huge rockets, conveniently priced at fifty bucks)

“No.”

“But we NEED it…!”

“No.”

At this point I’m just saying no out of habit. Sometimes I catch myself doing that without even thinking. The problem is, if after I say “no”, I waffle even a little, he jumps on it and becomes unbearably whiny, going for the chinks in my Mommy-armor.  That’s why sometimes I’ll say no to things not really paying attention, just reflex. This time, however, there’s a good reason; fifty dollars worth.

Anyway, to distract his attention from the the HUGE rockets, I showed him the GREAT, REALLY COOL multi-packs available. With a little bit of enthusiastic prodding, he was able to see that ten (tiny) glitter fountains are WAY cooler than the rockets.

Why? 

Because there are MORE of them. And MORE is BETTER!

I love kid logic, especially when it works to my wallet’s advantage. =)

So, once we got home he was desperate to shoot them all off now. Now! NOW!

I explained that we have to wait until it’s dark outside. He looked at me like I had just sprouted five heads and a purple tail.

Every five minutes: “Is it dark enough yet?”

“No.”

“Is it dark enough yet?”

“No.”

“NOW is it dark enough?”

“Yes.”

“REALLY?”

“No.”

I’m so mean, lol.

I finally gave in and we went out and played with sparklers for awhile. I’m disappointed by sparklers these days – I remember them lasting a lot longer. I absolutely loved sparklers as a kid, but the ones they make now are so cheap and spark for about a minute and a half (listen to me, old lady, wheezing, “…back in MY day…”).  But we made the best of it.

 

 

 

 

 

Once it FINALLY got dark, Nick started streaking through the house, shrieking, “It’s dark now! Firework time! Mommy, COME ON! It’s FIREWORK time!!”

So we set off all of out cool fireworks….which took all of ten minutes…but luckily my helpful neighbors had apparently re-mortgaged their house to enjoy their own great fireworks, so they more than made up for the low-end models I had picked out.

Nick and I were cheering the fireworks, and…swear to god…he started doing the Arsenio Hall ‘woot woot woot’. I laughed so hard, and finally was able to ask where he learned to do that.

He shrugged, “I don’t know. I guess I just picked it up somewhere.”

My tires die at home.

It’s true.

Most of the time, my lovely loyal tires politely wait until we get home to go flat. It’s really very considerate, because I sure don’t want to be flying down the highway and get a blowout!

Instead, I wake up in the morning, rushing-rushing-rushing to get ready, run out the door, and….SHIIIIIIIT!

It’s a damn good thing I’m handy with a lug wrench.  I’ve changed LOTS of tires in my life, once even when I was 8 months pregnant in the middle of the summer heat. Yeah, that sucked.

Years ago, I did get a flat on the highway, because a truck ahead of me let loose a piece of sharp metal right in front of me…I was all set to put my spare on when I realized…SHIIIIIIT, my spare is flat! Sigh…

You’d think I’d learn! It happened again 2 years ago when I hit a curb.

Tire flat.

Spare flat.

That was a long night.

Anywho, now I’m off to the land of new healthy tires and pushy salesman who want me to pay $60 for the tire, and another $140 in warrantees and extra services!

Lack o’ snark!

On the way to my son’s school, there is a road that curves off to somewhere.

I’ve always idly wondered what’s down that way, but am always in a rush and never checked it out.

Today when I picked him up, he says,

“Mommy, I never saw down THAT road! Let’s go there!”

There are a million things to do at home – dinner, dishes, cleaning, bathtime, etc.

But nothing really pressing.

So sure, why not?

So we drove, and drove…and it turns out it’s just a subdivision yet to be built. In the past year, pretty much everything in this area has been on hold, waiting for…money, I suppose.

So much for, “If you build it, they will come”!

Anyhoo, it curved around to a really pretty lake. So we stopped, got out, had a nice time just hanging out for awhile.

Farther down the road is a huge intersection and stop light.

For…who?

There are NO houses here, lol. They went to all this trouble to put in roads, street signs, landscaping, and a friggin stoplight!

Ah well.

Anyway, just around the corner there is a fenced field right next to the road. Nick was SO excited because there were horses, cows, and best of all, a POOL!

Ok, not really a pool…it was a watering trough for the animals. But it took a lot of convincing to talk him out of climbing under the fence and ‘go swimming with the horses’!

A Map, you say?

How do you spell lost?

I think it’s something like “F$$$&#(@$*#:()$ D!@#$*!!!!!!”

Yeah, I got MORE lost tonight than I ever have in my entire life. I spent 2 hours driving up and down roads trying to find my way, turning around, and eventually realized I was headed back home.

Stop for directions, you say?

Well that would go a lot smoother if there was ANYTHING at all at the exits I pulled off.

Check the map?

Ermmm, don’t have one.

Call someone for help?

Nope, phone battery died 20 minutes down the road.

Car charger?

Ah, hmm, someone small and curious broke it last month.

The only person with me was my 4 yr old son (see: small and curious culprit), who tried to be a helpful navigator by piping up with, “Mommy, I think you’re going the WRONG way!” and “Can we just go home?” and my personal favorite, “Why don’t we just look at the map?”

Tomorrow, I get one of those GPS thingies.

Oh, and repair the damage to my steering wheel from banging my head on it.

Imagination is for people who don’t dream…

I’m tired.

Esshausted, actually.

This can all be blamed on:

-my over-active imagination
-too much Medium/CSI/Cold Case-type shows
-boredom
-a big, rambling, mostly empty house
-my uncanny ability to remember freaky details of my dreams

This means when I have a freaky dream, I wake myself up out of it, think “Damn that was freaky!”, then go back to sleep and ‘remember’ the dream all over again.

A couple of nights ago I watched some show that detailed the Black Dahlia murder from decades ago. Curious because I’d heard it mentioned before but never knew the details, I kept watching.

*GORY DETAILS ENSUE* (because I can’t wait to share!)

Well apparently some actress was sawn in half while still alive, drained of blood (how thoughtful!) and then left on the side of the road in pieces. Etc. etc. I finally turned the channel when they started re-enacting it.

So of course I had a dream about being drained of my own blood. Yay, that was fun! Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt, and afterwards I had a nich chat with someone about how it was done.

I have 2 older brothers, and when I was younger they always wanted to watch the scariest shit on TV. I didn’t want to, but I knew that if I acted scared I’d never hear the end of it, so I watched anyway. I can still remember MANY entire scenes from some of those movies in detail (shudder). Dark hallways still creep me out! I’m such a chicken sometimes.

But I did learn some good life lessons…I know that if I ever see green smoke coming out of a door that is slowly creaking open, well then I probably shouldn’t go check it out.

If little tiny crazed men are chewing through the door, and the phone is melting…maybe don’t stay in the house and hide in a closet?

And if I ever realize that all my friends are hanging from trees in pieces, then NOW is a good time to fucking run.

And not upstairs, either.

You just can’t make this stuff up!

Times are tough. 

People losing their jobs, losing their homes, struggling to keep up with the bills and to keep food on the table for their families. Many are driven to desperation – scrounging for part-time work at Burger King, letting the Hummer get repo’d, having to *gasp* use state assistance programs, etc.

I found this stellar example:

Deputies bust woman after check for new boobs bounced….

Bradenton, Florida — A local woman is under arrest on charges she used a bad check and then stolen credit card information to pay for her breast augmentation surgery.

Julianne Marie Johnson, 44, is being held in lieu of $105,000 bail on charges of grand theft, passing a worthless check and fraudulent use of a credit card, Manatee County jail records show.
 
Sheriff’s investigators say Johnson initially paid a plastic surgeon with a check the bank returned because the account was closed. She then used account information she stole from an acquaintance to pay the bill, they said.

Detectives traced those transactions to the PGA National Resort and Spa in Palm Beach Gardens. They said they went there to take her into custody. When they found her, she was having a massage at the spa.

Then I read the online comments:

“My ex-wife talked me into new breasts. Afterwards, I never saw them again. When I divorced her, I asked my lawyer, in addition to the house I wanted one of the breasts. Only fair. She got the old car and the left breast, I got the house and the right one. I keep it in a jar on top of the piano.”
 

“Please keep us “abreast” on this story.”

“Fyi, fake breasts don’t bounce like checks do.”

(LMAO)
 

 

 

 

You know, I’ve been through some rough times. 

Everyone has. 

But have you ever thought, “Damn, my boobs are getting a little saggy….Hmm, no money….Better use a bad check….Nah, nobody’ll notice; it’s only several thousand dollars!”

 

You know what that reminds me of? Bank executives getting million-dollar bonuses while their banks are supposedly failing.

But such is American life.

So sure, why not?