My reign of terror at the Laundromat? It comes to an end!! (Shoots off confetti at the audience!)(Hopes nobody gets it in the eye)(except maybe YOU right there!)

This past Saturday morning, Andy and I woke up extremely early SIX-THIRTY! He got up and put on his big boy pants so he may take the dogs out, go move our cars and open the back gate while I decided to stay in bed and send my support from there. With my eyes closed. And hugging my teddy bear.

I was all snuggly when I heard my car alarm go off. I jumped out of bed, because I know how over reactive my man can be, and ran to the front door. Meanwhile Andy ran the length of our long driveway and came into the house through the back door, which doesn't make sense because my car was parked in the front but whatever, yelling "BEE! WHERE IS YOUR KEY FOB???" (as my car alarm was going nuts waiting to be shut off) (as he was holding my car keys with my, ehm, KEY FOB that shuts off my car alarm). So I say "you are holding it" in English because that is the only language he understands and he bellows "NO I'M NOT! WHERE IS YOUR KEY FOOOOOOB??" so I take this thing that he's holding that he claims is NOT my key fob, walk to the front door, push the button on this imposter key fob and miraculously shut off my car alarm.

I slowly turn to look at him and he's just standing there, seething. Then he walks into the bedroom and I look at the time. 6:45 which triggers the rage within me. When he came out of the bedroom I let him have it boys and girls. I can't even remember what I said but I'm sure it was mean (because my voice was all snarly) and I ended it with "so you better apologize"

And he did.

I don't recall the last time Andy said 'I'm sorry'. Wait, I do. It was that one time he accidentally elbowed me in the head while he was sleeping. But that one shouldn't count because I smacked him on the stomach to wake him up and told him what he had done and he opened one eye and said 'oh sawrry' ::snore:: I'm sure that in the rule book (The Marriage Rule Book) there is an entry that clearly states that half conscious apologies are invalid in the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, California, Hawaii and maybe Alaska.

Anyway, the reason we were up so early and moving the cars around was because we needed to make room for the delivery truck that was dropping off our BRAND SPANKIN NEW WASHER!!

The delivery dudes (or "happy marriage makers" as I call them) arrived at 7:01 and, after they installed it and hauled away the old washer, were gone by 7:15.

I was so happy, I was doing dance moves I haven't been able to do since the late 80s.

I have to thank my mother and father-in-law (or "fairy godparents of smiling, happy couples" as I like to call them) for their awesome gift. They took pity on the people I have to interact with at the Laundromat and decided to intervene on their behalf. They knew I was down to my last nerve and the chains holding me back from doing serious damage to people hogging all the carts, dryers, tables, wouldn't keep me back for much longer.

Thank you Mom and Pop R.!

Here is a picture of my beautiful new washer. See how it spins for me??

Here is a picture of it standing nobly next to my dryer (which will hopefully be replaced in March).

My heart sings for you, my beautiful washer!

Later that morning, Andy cleaned out the garage (with some help from me) (but it was mostly me standing around saying stuff like "ewww! Look at all the spider eggs!" and Andy correcting me by saying "They're spider SACKS, Bee" and me saying "look, they can be spider eggs, sacks or balls for all I care because they are still EWWW!" and then him telling me to get out of the garage because he didn't need me jumping around every time I thought something was crawling on me and knocking over his elaborate balancing crap-o-stuff.).

After the flood of 2008, we stored a bunch of stuff in the garage. Materials, tools, stuff I bought on ebay which years later has me wondering what kind of drugs I was on (must have been good ones):

I know I just became cooler in your eyes.

When I opened the box, I was stunned. Was I thinking about changing careers and trying to break into the clown industry? Holy crap!

To answer your unspoken question, no, I never wore them. Just opening the box now makes me want to disinfect my body. And to some extent, my mind.

We took a break in the middle of the day to have lunch at Costco. I know I've said I don't eat any of the samples because I'm afraid of contracting small pox, eating more than my daily recommended intake of other people's skin flakes AKA dust and being pressured into buying 80 lbs of crab salad (and I don't even like crabs, edible or otherwise) but my mom came with us and hit every sample table from the front to the back of the store.

She'd walk away with portions for herself, Andy and I. By the end of our stay, we had to be rolled out of there. The freakin place was packed but now I know why people go there at around 1 o'clock. Why pay $8 per person at Corner Bakery when you can eat for free?

After we were able to tear my mesmerized mother away from the Costco blender demonstrator (who thinks he's so cool because he has a Madonna microphone) (but I'm not impressed unless he sings Lucky Star and shines one me wherever I are), we made our way home and lived happily every after.

Well, until the free booze wore off.

A dirty hole is nothing to be ashamed of.

I know I promised reruns but I had a quickie (not to brag or nuthin’) so I had to come over and share. I’m not really here. At this moment I'm probably sitting in a corner wondering where two curtain panels disappeared to. I blame the laundromat people because that is when I last saw them. Bastards.

I bought a shelving unit over the weekend (MADE IN THE USA baby!) to organize all the miscellaneous items in my life that I need to keep because I know I will use them at some point during my lifetime and because now that we shop at Costco, we have massive amounts of detergent, paper towels and enough toilet paper to survive The 40 Year Poop War I’m predicting.

Anyway, I got mad at Andy because he yelled at me for asking him to help me get it into the house. He said “Why do you need MY help if YOU yourself got it into the shopping cart and then into the car?? If you could do that, why wouldn’t you go that extra mile and get it in the house by yourself??” okay, so he didn’t say that exactly but I can read between the lines!

I had interrupted an important rescue-mission/battle/nut-gathering thing, you see and we all know this is likened to an act of treason! I calmly asked him why he couldn’t just tell me he’d get it after he conquered a new world instead of being an unreasonable butthead. He argues that I always want everything NOW NOW NOW! He said it in a manner that implied that was a bad thing.

Of course now I was angry so I decided to build the Shelving Unit of Discord myself. Who needs a man? Not this semi intelligent semi fashionable semi hungry chick! I have my own tools! (I bought them on sale because they came in a cute little black and red case.) (I got a set for my mom too.)

I was disappointed to learn I only needed a hammer.

I struggled with the damn Shelving Unit of Discord for 3 hours. At one point Andy came out of the dungeon, he must have left someone he trusted in charge of the safety of the galaxy, and he brought me a long screw driver so that I may “clean up the holes because it’ll be easier”. I don’t know if you know this about me but when I’m pissed I’m poisonous. I told him to go away before I cleaned up his hole and he said something about my mouth hole and went back to the important task of saving the Earth or you know, its ugly brother, Fantasy-troll-land.

Back to me.

I swore, I sweated, I sliced my delicate hands with the sharp edges so I swore some more but louder and with more feeling so that the neighbors would know without a doubt how much my soul was suffering. In the end I was proud at what I had accomplished. I had a nice, sturdy, shelving unit that could hold the weight of 4 miniature ponies juggling bowling balls.

I liked it so much I wanted another one. Trying to exit the doghouse, Andy offered to pick one up on his way home from work. He had it put together in 10 minutes TEN MINUTES!! He didn’t gloat though because he was happy to be back on my good side and he also knew I wouldn’t share the dinner my poor, sliced up hands made (pasta shells in Alfredo sauce with broccoli and lemon pepper chicken) if he so much as uttered a single little ‘I told you so’.

(can also be converted into 2 separate 2 shelf units which is what I did)

Now you’re probably thinking that Andy is a master craftsman and I should have left the building of things to a MAN but I’d have to hit you over the head with a led pipe and disagree. You see, when I moved MY shelving unit, I did so easily without having pieces fall apart in my sliced up little hands. Andy’s, however, came apart easily because you could only lift it, awkwardly may I add, from the bars holding the shelves and not the shelves themselves.

The difference? My shelves were forced into their slot holes by a woman determined to fit a half inch bracket into a ¼ inch hole but Andy “cleaned up the holes” so the shelves were all loose and wiggly (loose and wiggly- your nickname in High School?).

Woman 1,452,151 Man -7,487,778

(don’t do the math, Brian)(I typed in ‘don’t do the mEth, Brian’ but the top half of my eagle eye caught the error but I still think it’s good advice. Do not do the math OR the meth, Brian!)

The moral of the story?

Sometimes it’s okay to have a dirty hole.

P.S.

Brother Dan finally posted and he says he did so to take up my slack which I thought was nice of him and then I remembered he owed because he hates my dogs. He knows what I mean.

If she bends over, you'll know what year she was born. Also, see a duck mooning the crowd.

We went to the Laundromat again on Monday. I think we all know how much I detest that place. Every time we go, something happens that infuriates me!

This time it was a stupid washer that didn’t let me select any other cycle other than ‘woolens’. Normally I would have just taken my clothes out and found one that had its entire workable buttons but the ones that weren’t being used, had little out of orders signs. I decided to just leave it there, what could go wrong?

Well, it turns out that the soap compartment wasn’t working properly and so my clothes received the same cleaning my uncle Ricardo gave himself when he was 10 and he pretended to shower by wetting the top of his head but not bothering to remove the dirt stains from his face.

The options were to rewash them which would mean spending more time in the demon’s armpit or just dry them and call it a day. My uncle Ricardo would be proud.

Next up, a lady set her basket on my table. Some of you may remember the near nervous breakdown that caused the last time. This time I remained calm (as calm as a teeny tiny raft on a raging river), cool (as cool as a walrus in a sauna) and collected (as collected as the hippo stamp)(I don’t know what that means either but I couldn’t come up with anything anti-collected). I decided not to say anything until it was time for me to use the table. When her husband went to move the basket without me having to say anything, I heard her say “leave the basket there”

It. Was. ON!

Unfortunately, she left the L’mat (that's what we cool non washer having people call it) to have dinner while her clothes were in the wash so she didn’t see me grab her basket and throw it on a washer. I told Andy “Don’t worry babe. If she comes in here and says something, I’ll take her outside!” but my Andy, being the kind hearted person he is said “uh Bee? She and her husband are both bigger than we are…” so I told my man he could wait in the car while I took care of them both.

I really thought she'd say something when she came back because she was also a Latina and I know I would have said something but she didn’t. She must be one of those higher plane people with normal blood pressure I keep hearing about.

Things at work are a little better since OZ is on vacation yet again. Boy, the economy hasn’t hit that dude one bit! Anyway, he still has peculiar requests when he calls. His most recent one was odd even for him. He wants me to Google ‘why we should send a refund to an insurance company’. When I asked if I may just CALL the insurance company themselves and ask them directly why they’re requesting the refund:

“No! JUST GOOGLE IT! I want a full report when I come back on Monday!”

Um okay? While I have my googler out I will also ask “why does my boss think google is a magic 8 ball?”

That man cracks me up. He cracks me up like a baseball bat to the head cracks me up.

We took my mom and Natalia to the Botanic Gardens on Sunday and while Natalia, my mom and Andy tanned, the sun left its mark on my scalp, chest, arms and feet the way a soccer ball did to my thighs when I tried to stop a goal (what a fun memory! The imprint of a half moon on each thigh was an awesome thing to explain to people). I remember being able to tan just by standing near a window now I have to cover up like I’m 106.

I love going to the gardens. I was happy to see that a lot of the plants/flowers they planted are the same ones I’m trying to encourage to grow in my garden. Sadly, mine got too much water earlier this year so they’re struggling but I’m hoping they come back healthier next year.

Of course, plants aren’t the only things you see at the botanic gardens.

There was also a woman in a sheer maxi-mini dress in 5 inch platform stripper shoes. I didn’t take a picture of her, even though I could have, because I worry about the content I put on this here blog. I certainly do not want to corrupt/offend anyone with delicate sensibilities so instead I drew a picture of her.

censored for your protection.

Yeah I know! Ewwwww!

So anyway, later alligators.

So hello there! Did you miss me? I had a great time on my mini break, thanks for asking!

I know you’re probably dying to know what crazy high jinks we’ve got into but we had a pretty tame weekend so no juicy news for you!

Okay, I'll tell you about it anyway...

On Friday I continued with my landscaping and grub killing extravaganza. I am now the meanest, shortest, smelliest grub killer in the Midwest. Also, my sister took this picture of a bird taking a crap in my frog planter. To the bird I ask, "what the hell bird? the whole world is your toilet but you chose my freakin frog? asshat!"

Damn thing even turned away pretending to be embarrassed.

That reminds me of an old joke my uncle Curly used to tell me. He said that when he was out in rural farms delivering The Coca Cola and he needed to go, um, poopsie, he would go in a field, drop his pants and close his eyes. When I would ask why he closed his eyes he'd say "So anybody driving by wouldn't see me going poopsie" and when I would question that logic he would reply "if I can't see them, they can't see me!" Yeah, pretty much my whole family is weird.

On Saturday, at the BCD (butt crack of dawn), we went to the laundromat and I threw the mother of all tantrums because the machines were all being assholes! We then moved my momma and she is now officially on a separate floor which means all toys that belong to people under the age of 30 have been relocated and now my house doesn’t look like the McDonald’s play area.

On Sunday we took our one day vacation (because there is no budget this year for going anywhere exciting… sorry Wisconsin) and went to my in-laws’ campground where we all fell asleep in front of the TV and probably snored in unison.

On Monday I cleaned my house and rid it of all the construction dust that had accumulated because my logic was “what’s the point in cleaning today if it’ll look the same tomorrow” (you may recognize that logic if you have teens/preteens/husbands) from top to bottom then went to see Angels and Demons so that I may rest my old decrepit bones.

And now you’re jealous because my life is much more exciting than yours. What can I say? Not everybody can be this cool.

I enjoyed every last drop of this Holiday weekend and today was crashing about the office because I’d forgotten how to walk around walls. My only consolation is that we are already on Tuesday and it’ll be the weekend in no time. Hopefully.

I just heard it will rain until tomorrow night. I'm glad because we've obviously NOT had enough rain.

P.S.

To Brian and jean knee who thought something catastrophic had happened to me like pig flu or death, thanks guys! You always know how to brighten my day! Jerks.

P.P.S.

Does anybody watch Jon and Kate + 8? (For those of you who have lives and have no idea who they are, they are a young couple who over fertilized themselves and had 8 kids. They have been on TV for about 4 years or so.) I can’t explain why but I’ve become obsessed with the Jon and Kate Gosselin drama. Will they stay together? Will they get a divorce? They went from looking like they loved each other to hating each other in the blink of an eye. I really hope they pull it together because I’m running out of shows to watch.

Yet another day at the crappy Laundromat.

I am seriously thinking about just washing my clothes in a giant tub and stomping around like Lucy did when trying to make wine... only drunker.

I figure it'll make my clothes cleaner and also give me the much needed exercise my butt needs. I'm just hoping I won't land face down in the tub and then accidentally drown myself in the process.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to market that as the new weight loss fad and I will only charge you, because we're buddies, $29.99 (tub, water, soap, booze and clothes not included). No need to thank me for the special offer, it is my pleasure.

We tried yet another Laundromat from hell and this one provided us with some unwanted entertainment. There was a couple there with 3 kids who came to do laundry as a family. Right now you're thinking "Family bonding over suds and fabric softener? How cute!" You'd be wrong though. It seems the guy might have been checking out some chicks and the wife went ballistic (as she should) at his eye-wandering sorry ass.

Now, if they didn't have those little tykes as witnesses to their horrible behavior, I would have grabbed some popcorn and enjoyed the show. Instead their kids just kind of stood by silently while their father called their mother a bitch and their mother mocked their father by implying he wasn't much of a man.

Here are some random little snippets from these paragons of parenthood:

Dad:
I don't give a fuck whose listening! (maybe I should have stopped walking back and forth looking for change?)

Dad:
What about the kids? They're kids! They won't remember this later! (au contraire mon ignorant douche, I remember each and every argument my parents had)

Mom:
Oh please! Like you would know what to do with one of those women if you had them! (he has 3 kids, I think he'd know)

Mom:
Don't push me! I'll call the cops!

Dad:
Do you think I care if I'm locked up? I don't give a fuck!

Dad:
Where is the goddamn attendant?

Mom:

I don't know! It's not like I own the place!

Dad:
Yes this is your place! You're the one who wanted to live in the fuckin suburbs!

Wait a second! Do not go offending my little suburb! That was over the line buddy!

Now we are at the nucleus of the problem. He was taking out his frustration on his wife because he feels he would get better treatment in a Laundromat located in Chicago. I hate to break it to you sweety but THEY ALL SUCK. Be it here, France or the moon, they're all dingy, dirty and smelly. I remember hearing about one in New York that had a bar in it. That one sucks too but you're too drunk to figure it out until you wake up with a hangover the next day and wonder why there are rats mixed in with your whites.

We can't get a new washer until the laundry room is rebuilt which is closer to being finished than not but oh dear lord is it dragging.

So anyway, if you're looking for me, I'll be in the backyard playing a fiddle while I'm knee deep in sudsy water and dancing a jig.

"I can't reach the clothes line, Pa'!"

P.S.

You guys were all extremely supportive of my new movie making endevour but I snorted when I read:

People in the Sun said...

I laughed. I cried. But most of all, I think you have provided a mirror to society.

That part where the two lovers meet on the driveway, then go their separate ways... I need to be alone now and reflect.

April 6, 2009 11:01 PM

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Men, Laundromat, Arm Pits.

I have a question, how does your unconscious body know when you’re mad at your significant other?

THE HUSBAND and I had a... disagreeeeeeement last night (I know, I know yesterday I declared my deluded love for him and not 24 hours later we were in a cage match but what can I say? We’re not perfect. Or, you know, he isn’t.) so he stayed in his corner and I stayed in mine the whole night. How do we know not to let our arms wander over and seek out the sleep-hug?

I have to admit though that I slept like a baby since I wasn't being tortured by his iron tentacles without freedom to stretch however/wherever I wanted. So. There.

In other life threatening news.

What is wrong with this picture?

You see that white basket there? That. Is not. My basket!
The very bad stranger man decided he would just use my table, the one I had just cleaned for my folding purposes, and put his crappy basket on it while he put his mismatched orange and purple clothes in the washer.

Me to myself: ‘Okay. Breathe. I can deal. As long as he moves it when he’s done… nope he’s leaving it there. He just sat down! Okay. Relax. Don’t cause any(more) scenes. I’m sure that when all my clothes comes out of the drier and he sees I need the whole table to fold my laundry he’ll move his basket. WTF! He’s not moving his basket and is now staring vacantly at the wall!’

I know you probably think I was overreacting but there is a strict code of conduct when at the Laundromat and this guy was breaking the rules all over the place!

Me to him “I need you to move your basket.”

Me to myself again: ‘okay, he moved his basket but now he’s just staring at me. Hey what if he’s a mobster doing his laundry after a hit? Man, I wish I would have been nicer to him and maybe smiled when I told him to move his basket. Unless he might think I was hitting on him? Oh man, what if he follows us?’

What was Andy doing during the turmoil going on in those few minutes of my life? Why, playing with his phone of course! But that’s not why we got into a fight.

In other critical news:
I am now going to share a little bit more than I usually do but it’s for the sake of the rest of the femmes out there who need to be aware of a very important crap product discovery.

I recently bought a new type of deodorant. It’s called Secret Clinical Strength (1.6 oz) and it cost $8. My usual one (I forgot what my usual one is called I think it starts with an “M”)(but it's not Maury) only costs about $4 for over 2 oz and sometimes they’re on sale buy one get one free. I wanted to try the Secret one out to see if in fact it did the job the little box claimed.
Here is my review:

Don’t buy it.

The deodorant comes out in sloppy little clumps and it doesn’t roll on as smoothly as every other deodorant I have ever used in my entire life. As a matter of fact, a clump fell on my foot which pissed me off to no end because, in my mind, I just threw out a dollar. It also burned me a little but that’s probably because I have delicate skin.

The protection was okay but I think it’s the same as my regular deodorant. In conclusion, clinical-almost-prescription my ass.

And so ends my post for today.