Phil Collins

Jeremy and I were watching tv a few nights ago when a commercial for Phil Collins came on. Immediately, in my head, I thought, "Oh my God, Phil Collins sucks (only in much worse language). The best thing about Genesis was Peter Gabriel!" Jeremy turns to me and says, "You should buy me some Phil Collins." Who the hell have I married! Okay, so music has been a longstanding issue in our relationship. I have the good taste, and he has horrible taste. But Phil Collins? We're reaching an all time low here! Yes, with much embarrassment, I went to the store and once bought my mom a Spice Girls cd, but I could never bring myself to buy Phil Collins! I have tried to sway him toward better music over the years, but to no avail. He still persists in calling Radiohead "radish head." I tried to get him to listen to the Pixies and got an "eehh." Are you insane man? I have the ultimate Nirvana collection (thanks to bootlegs and ebay), and he exaults the wonders of Shania Twain. So, maybe I am a bit of a music snob, but Mariah Carey? I had no idea she put out so many cds before she cracked! Oh, and to suffer through just one of those cds--the horror! I put in Bob Mould, and he puts in Faith Hill. I put in Bright Eyes, and he puts in "insert various crap here." So, I have come to the conclusion that he must be deaf. He often doesn't seem to hear what I say, so maybe he isn't pretending. I will say, the worst was when he made me listen to Faith Hill for 8 hours in a row. By the end, when we were stuck in a car in a traffic jam, it was all I could do to keep from screaming out the window! Then again, maybe he is just trying to torture me.

Domestic Skills

Basically, when it comes to anything domestic, I suck at it. Oh, I do not feel bad about this, but rather it has been a source of pride. How many people can say they have messed up rice pudding their first four times trying to make it? I have no idea what I did, but each batch has been inedible (and in some cases crunchy). Jeremy has even taken to calling friends and family to get their recipes. I find that very funny since I've messed up the 4 different recipes I found online. I guess he thinks someone will have the magic recipe that I can actually cook.

But anyway, this is about laundry. I have been doing laundry for many years. For all those many years, I also really haven't bothered to figure out how to actually do laundry. In fact, it was only about two years ago that I started separating whites from colored clothes. Over the years, I have turned whites pink, lime green, lavender, and various vomit-like colors. I probably should have figured out the whole separation thing much earlier, but I kind of figured "what's done is done." So yes, it took me over 10 years to think "gee, I could prevent this from happening to the white clothes." You'll also be happy to know that just a few months ago, I figured out I could add bleach to the whites. Unfortunately, at this point, I'm really not sure it's making any of the clothes whiter.

So, a few weeks ago I took a good look at the washer. Suddenly, I realized I had no idea why it had settings for cold/cold, warm/cold, and hot/cold (these may not even being the settings--I really have no idea other than there were a lot of mixes). I have always set the washer on warm/cold. Why? Because it's in the middle. As I looked at the different settings, I realized I had no idea what they were for.

The following week, I was on vacation. I asked my friends and their husbands what these settings were for. Every person I asked, male and female, knew what the settings were for. Unfortunately, it started to get too complicated. They started talking about separating more colors from colors and whites and a different temperature setting for each group.

Sadly, I tuned out. So, I will happily continue my bad laundering skills. The laundry is either colored or white clothes and it's all warm/cold (or is that cold/warm?). I haven't completely destroyed anything for a while.

One of those days

I was up and ready to go by 7:30 this morning. I had all intentions of having a productive day. First, I was stuck going to court in a county a half hour away for a speeding ticket. Yes, I could have paid ahead of time, but according to many online "sources," if you go to court here and plead guilty, they often reduce the speed on the ticket, which would have meant no points on my record. So, prepared for a lengthy amount of sitting around and waiting (I'm much more used to bigger city traffic courts), I packed up a whole bunch of stuff to work on. Arriving at court, I was immediately shuffled into the office used for traffic court. No actual courtroom, just an office with a secretary. She then proceeded to simply process my ticket without even offering to reduce the speed. So, 2 hours wasted driving to court and dinking around waiting for my appointed court time (which apparently I did not need to do). This should have been a good indication of the rest of my day.

I got home, and decided to call Motorola to see if they could help me with my cell phone. The screen had mysteriously gone from bright to dim to black on Jeremy yesterday while he was fishing. So, I called them, and they guided me through their repair process. This involved simply removing the battery, waiting 10 seconds, then putting it back in. Easier said then done. I spent 10 minutes trying to get the damn battery out of the phone. I finally got it out, waited, then put it back in. Nothing. Then the woman told me I needed to take the battery back out so I could get the serial number off of it for her to verify that it was still under warranty. 1. I had the receipt right in front of me, purchase date of 2-15-07, saying I had a one year warranty, and 2. she couldn't have mentioned getting that the first time I hatcheted the phone to get the battery out? This time she put me on hold so I could find something (a screwdriver) to pry it out. 10 minutes later, I gave her the number and then she told me, yes, it's still under warranty, and here are your three options: mail it in to Motorola, find a local Motorola store, or take it to my service provider. Um, thanks for the help? Time wasted: 30 minutes.

Since Jeremy needed something picked up from interoffice mail at the local bank branch, I figured I might as well go to Verizon, then stop by Office Depot to pick up the ink cartridge for the fax machine. Arriving at Verizon, I had to enter all the info into their little cue system, then wait for the three people ahead of me to finish before I could speak to the tech department. Finally, it was my turn. The guy popped off the back of my phone and showed me little white dot had turned red. Apparently, this means water got in it, and there is nothing they can do (also, why didn't the damn Motorola "help" lady mention this little factor? It would have saved me the entire trip to Verizon). Now, this wouldn't be quite so bad, but in February, I lent him my phone for 3 days when he went back to NC for work. In that three days, he managed to lose it, forcing me to plop down $200 to replace it. Needless to say, when they told me what had occurred and that the warranty was now obsolete, I exited the store mumbling several (or better yet make that a stream) of choice words, most of which started with an f. Time wasted at Verizon: 45 minutes.

By now, it was already 1. I still had not managed to do one productive thing. Since Office Depot was right down the road, I figured I might as well try to find the cartridge. Can I find it? No. Why? Because their lovely computerized self help ink cartridge system only lets you put in the make/model of the fax machine; I only brought the number for the ink cartridge itself. So I have to track somebody down to help me, which is easier said than done. Apparently, nobody works in the store on Monday afternoons. Finally I found someone, and he (I shall refer to him from here on out as putz boy) tries to help me. 10 minutes later, he guided me to the two slots for Sharp ink cartridges, and, of course, the one I needed is the one that is sold out. Putz boy says, "wait just a second, I'll go talk to my manager." I thought maybe they had a new shipment that just hadn't been restocked. So I waited and waited and waited. When he came back, he told me that the manager said they could order one for me and have it shipped for free. I asked how long it would take. "I don't know. We don't know until we put the order in." I'm just shooting for an estimate here, so I asked, "1 week or less?" He hesitated, then responded, "I don't know. Maybe?" I could order it online and have it faster than that. So I left with nothing. Time wasted: 35 minutes.

While headed to my car, I realized that Target was right down from Office Depot. Might as well give it a shot and see if they have the cartridge while I'm there. So I headed into the store. Of course, ink cartridges were not by the office supply section. That would be too easy. Instead, I had to meander through their entire electronics section, which seemed to have aisles going haphazardly in every direction, only to discover that no, they do not carry the cartridge. By this time I was just frustrated. So I looked at shorts and bought a pair of shoes. Time wasted: 1 hour.

Once I get home, I decided I might as well search for the best deal on ink cartridges, as long as I'm ordering it online. After way too much research on my part, I finally decided on Best Buy (they had the cheapest price, plus were offering free shipping on ink cartridges over $20). I went to place my order and quickly discovered that no matter how many times I entered my zipcode for tax purposes, it would tell me the zipcode was invalid. Since this is required for purchases, I couldn't check out. So, I am forced to call Best Buy's help line, wait on hold, get transferred, and wait on hold again before someone finally helped me. Could she fix this problem so I can just place my order? No. Instead, we had to walk through all my information, and she had to place the order for me. She informed me "Oh, there must have just been some little glitch because I got your zipcode to go through no problem." Um, I was still online, and I still couldn't get it to go through. In fact, while waiting for her, I entered five former zipcodes from four different states. All of them put in the tax info when I hit their little go button, then gave me the "invalid" error message when I tried to check out (by the way, Georgia has much higher taxes than either Minnesota, Iowa, or North Carolina). Time wasted in online ink cartridge search and order: 2 hours.

By this time, it was almost 5. Jeremy had somehow managed to break off some piece in his rifle while cleaning it and needed to take it to the gunsmith (my luck was rubbing off on him). I decided I might as well ride along--maybe that would be relaxing. We got there, Jeremy walked up to the door, and it was locked. I just started laughing. Then, the storeowner next door came out and told him the guy has closed down for good. There are no other gunsmiths that we know of in the area. Absolutely nothing went smoothly today, nor has much of anything really gone right. The only thing I actually managed to accomplish the whole day was paying a speeding ticket and ordering an ink cartridge. So what does he suggest doing? Fishing! No, no, no, no, no, no!!! And no!!!

Me, Motor Skills & Fishing

Let's just say, when it comes to any sort of coordination, I am deficient. I could be looking at a wall and walk into it (and, in fact, have done so). Also, if I get flustered, all logic goes out the window; I can make quick decisions while in such a state, but they are the worst possible and most illogical decisions ever made. Finally, while I love being outside, if it involves doing something that involves motor skills, much less while flustered, nothing good will happen. This brings us to my fishing trip last night with Jeremy.

The first problem is that we have entirely different "styles" of fishing. I like to bring a book, relax, look around the river, and if something happens to get stuck on my 1 line, I reel it in. Jeremy, on the other hand stares intently and nonstop at each of 2-4 poles he has in the river and is constantly springing up to reel in. As you can imagine, my style of fishing annoys him. So, last night I decided to try his way, and stared intently at my poles. I got bored. So, I was constantly reeling in, even if it was just a twig hitting the line (you never know, right?). This meant continually utilizing what low levels of coordination I had. Consequently, Jeremy spent a good portion of the evening rebaiting my hook and unsnagging my pole, and, in the meantime, growing more and more irritated and snappy with me.

That's when the first big problem occurred. I go to cast, and somehow my reel handle gets stuck in my hair as I raise the pole over my head, and the bait plops down into the water. So, I'm sitting there with a reel stuck to my head, and Jeremy starts snapping at me to get the bait out of the water before a big fish ends up hitting it. This, of course, makes perfect sense, but he has made me edgy and flustered (not that having a reel stuck in my hair didn't already do that), all thoughts flee my mind, and instinct kicks in. How do you get your line/bait out of the water? Why, reel it in of course. So, now I'm sitting there with a wad of hair wound around and around the reel handle so tight that I have made my entire pole into some sort of new hair accesory, and my bait is still in the water. By this point, I think Jeremy is ready to throw me from the boat (he still won't tell me what he was thinking). He grabs my line, pulls my bait in, turns around and sits down, leaving the pole still stuck in my hair. Not wanting to "bother" him (okay, not wanting to get yelled at), I spent the next 5 minutes fruitlessly trying to get my hair off the reel. Finally, I had to break down and ask him to cut the hair with his fishing knife, which he does while mumbling the whole time--probably about how the hell something like this could happen to me (after 10 years around me, he should just expect things like this to happen to me).

So, fishing resumes, only extremely silent as he tries to pretend I am not there (at least I think that's what he was doing). It's also getting darker and darker. Now, I am the worst person to sit still and do nothing, much less silently in the dark. Needless to say, this was not how I pictured night fishing. I'm bored, restless, and have not gotten a single bite in hours. I can't see much of anything anyway, so I become more and more fidgety, which makes Jeremy more and more irritated. Finally, he decides we should just go. We have about a mile of dark river to navigate back to the dock, and about halway back, the spotlight starts slowly dying. Suddenly, my wimpy flashlight is now the "bright" light, and I am the one in charge of verifying there is nothing in front of the boat that we can run over. This makes me even more tense--you try looking for stumps in the dark in dark water with a ligth little better than a candle! Not to mention I know nothing about boating--as this fishing trip had already illustrated, I can't manage to get an anchor set in a timely fashion or recognize which end of the boat is front or back, so how in the hell am I going to help navigate the damn thing with only dim light in a river filled with alligators!

Needless to say, by the time we got back to the dock, I was more than ready to pack it in. I was tense, edgy, and feeling horrible for having ruined my husband's relaxing fishing trip. I have a feeling similar thoughts were going through his head, otherwise he would never have told me I needed to grab the rope for mooring the boat and jump out before we hit the cement on the landing. You can probably see where this is going already: darkness, no coordination, tense, and jumping from a moving boat. Again, all logic deserts me, and without thinking, I jump. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but what felt like a long downward fall and a lot of bouncing occurred until I finally came to rest on my side on the cement (Later, Jeremy also confirmed that there was some rolling involved too and some mopey sniffling). I laid there silently with no thoughts going through my head. From up above, I hear silence, then "Are you alright?" My knee, shoulder, hand, and wrist on my right side are banged up, as well as my left knee, but I'm more immobilized by the sheer stupidity of the whole situation. "Yes," I reply, still not moving. Soon, he is looking at me over the side of the boat. "Are you sure?"

Limping up, I spend the next 10 minutes ineptly "helping" him get the boat back on the trailer. This pretty much meant I just stood there and did nothing. On the plus side, he felt so bad, he didn't make me try and do anything else, which is probably safer for both of us anyway. I can definitively say, now, that I am done with fishing for a while. I am going to play some lovely, coordination free computer games that do not cause any sort of injury for the rest of the weekend and enjoy my television.

Relapse

I did it, and I'm not proud of myself. Today I went to Super Walmart. I really do have a valid explanation! You see, I had a list of a wide variety of items. Not a long list, but enought different things that I would have had to run to several different stores otherwise. I figured I could shoot in and be done within half an hour. WHAT WAS I THINKING!

The first problem is that we moved, and this "new" Super Walmart not only has a completely different layout than my old, but also a completely asinine layout. Not that this is exciting, but here was my shopping list: dog food, a shower curtain liner, shampoo and conditioner, printer paper, and soda. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out where the shower curtains were. Near the bath/kitchen aisle? No. Near housewares? No. Near bedding. No. How about toward the front of the store near the seasonal aisle of coolers and picnicware? Yes! On to printer paper. This only took about 10 minutes of searching, and of course, the logical place for all office supplies is near the sporting goods and automotive sections.

Fortunately, the shampoo/conditioner aisle was in the same place. Unforturnately, it was being restocked by some sort of Walmart bouncer. I couldn't get around her, so I had to go back down the aisle and through the next aisle to get to the opposite end. Lucky me, my brand wasn't in this half of the aisle either. Where could it be? Obscured by the Walmart restocker/bouncer woman. I politely said excuse me. She huffed, gave a lovely disgruntled Walmart employee sigh, and snarled "Just a minute," as she continued to put bottles on the shelf. It was obvious that coming down off the little ladder only to get right back up again was more energy than she wished to expend, so she was going to finish what was left. Now, this wasn't a whole lot, but enought when you're stuck in the shampoo aisle. As most of you know, there's not a lot to look at in this aisle, though, for all it's worth, I did notice that White Rain and Herbal Essence Products have new bottles (don't ask me when they might have been redesigned). All said and done, another 10 minutes down the drain locating and waiting to get shampoo and conditioner.

As for the dog food, I could have kicked myself. Searched and searched for a pet aisle and could find no little hangy signs pointing the way. Given this store's layout, for all I new it could be next to the sewing aisles or maybe shoes. Nope, after another 10 minutes of wandering, I found it right down from the hair care products.

Of course, you may be wondering why I didn't just ask a Walmart employee where things were. I may be wrong, but this seems to be true of all large rambly stores: 1) When you need help, all store employees magically disappear or 2) If you finally find someone, they will be helping another person and stubbornly refuse to even acknowledge your presence until they finish speaking to that person (because of this, I once spent 20 minutes waiting to ask someone where plumber's putty was in Lowe's). There was the lovely bouncer woman, but she disappeared immediately after finishing her restocking. Plus, I think she actually would have ejected me from the store if I asked her a question.

I managed to quit smoking a few months ago, and haven't really craved cigarettes for a while. However, by the time I reached the checkout line it was all I could do to keep from buying a pack. Every line was full, every customer had an overflowing cart, and of course, no self check out lines or express lanes open. I finally settled on a line that only had two overflowing carts ahead of me. This just happened to be the line with the slowest checker-outer person ever. Dead people move faster than him. There weren't even any real magazines to look at, just tabloids (by the way, Jennifer Aniston is dating/having a baby/adopting a baby/being stalked by the new man she's dating/drinking water--the drinking water part I deduced on my own).

Finally, after 2o minutes, I am going to check out. Then slow-mo boy starts talking to me. Crap, now he's even slower. Seeing my dog food, he of course wants to know how many and what kind of dogs we have. This was not the problem, as it is the standard formality for people who have/love dogs (and the odd thing is we're always interested in the responses). The problem was the story he proceeded to relay. I will give you the summary version, but basically his dog always tried to play with baby chickens and killed them. What a lovely story with which to regale a perfect stranger in a checkout line!

So finally, I am home free, almost ready to cross into the parking lot, when lo and behold, someone says Ma'am from the side of the entryway. Crap! They're selling something that I don't want, but I tend to be overly polite. So, 10 more minutes wasted listening to the deal Walmart was running on subscriptions to the local paper. I don't want the local paper. It's a piece of crap. Also, why the hell is Walmart selling papers? I wish I could immediately say no to these people, but instead I end up stuck, trying to politely extricate myself. In my head, I'm really telling them to f*** off.

All said and done, my quick, half hour Walmart trip took me nearly two hours. Why did I do it? Why don't I learn? Pavlov had better luck with the dogs.

Home Alone

I realized this week I could be the perfect "bachelor." Jeremy's been gone all week for work, and I have lapsed into some sort of adolescent lethargy when it comes to taking care of myself. I didn't have to make food for the both of us, so I haven't really made any food at all this week. In fact, the closest thing to cooking I've done is macaroni and cheese. Other than that, I've found myself subsisting off of bologna sandwiches and cottage cheese. I did get hungry for something sweet, so I finished off the bag of marshmallows.

To some, this might sound somewhat pathetic, but it's awesome! hehe. I have reclaimed a ton of time usually "wasted" on domestic things. Between Sunday and today, I left the house once (I was out of beer). I went several days without showering, and nobody was here to complain! I did get a bunch of work done on the dissertation, as well as some other writing done, but I worked the hours I wanted--noon to whenever I quit. One night, I stayed up until 7 a.m. playing the stupidest computer game ever. I rewatched a bunch of my favorite movies (ones that Jeremy gets tired of seeing) and read a couple of books.

So, essentially, what I've learned from this whole experience is that when he's gone, I turn into a stinky, slovenly person who cannot feed or set a bedtime for themselves. Also, nobody tells me to quit working, so suddenly, after 10 or 12 hours, I decide I need some relaxation time. The next thing I know I have like 3 hours to sleep. Hmm. And supposedly marriage benefits the man more!

The Grocery Store

I think I've become an express lane nazi. I find myself counting the # of items people have in the express lane because, more often than not, they have twice as many as they should. In the meantime, I am stuck with my two little items, waiting for them to check out 30. Is it wrong of me to think that they should rot in hell? Okay, that's a bit extreme, but I actually will put items back if I want to go through the express lane and have even 1 over! I just have this overwhelmingly guilty feeling if I try to sneak that one extra item through. This is apparently not the case with most people!

Also, I have discovered another pet peeve. Why can't people push their shopping carts nicely into the stalls in the parking lot when they leave? It really doesn't take that much time to snugly fit your cart into the preceding cart in the stall. Instead, carts end up randomly spilling into the parking lot, and then people complain when the carts meander into other parking places and/or cars.

On the other hand, I often wonder what people think when they are stuck in line watching you put your items onto the belt to check out. I had to laugh at the expression on the person's face behind me the other day. We drink a lot of different beverages, most of which we were out of. So my purchases included: Mt. Dew, Diet Dr. Pepper, Orange Juice, Milk, 1 case of Coors Light (for Jeremy), a 6 pack each of Guiness, Harps, Bass, and Hoegarden (I wasn't sure what beer I was in the mood for), two bottles of red wine, two frozen pizzas, and some fat free bologna. Yes, the liquid diet for me!