Chuck E. Cheese is the Root of Terrorism

The other night, my mom received a text message from a family member talking about being at Chuck E. Cheese, then going home for dinner, and commented to me about the unfortunate situation of being at Chuck E. Cheese.  Hours later, after we had conversed about literally many other things, the following conversation took place:

Mom: “I wonder whose birthday party they were at?”

Me: “Um – the hell are you talking about?”

Mom: “She said they were at Chuck E. Cheese, and then going home for dinner.  Nobody just goes to Chuck E. Cheese, so I assume they’re at a party.”

Me: “Untrue.  Used to go to visit the rat with Heather and the boys alllll the time without eating there or attending parties.  Good way to get out of the house in bad weather or just to do something different.  In fact, that’s how I got stopped by airport security that time.”

Mom: “Um – the hell are you talking about?”

Me: “Oh.  Did I never mention that?  Yeah.  That is a thing that happened.”

So, rewind several years.  I lived in Cincinnati with my cousin Heather, her husband, and 3 kids during the summer between my junior and senior years of undergrad.  Best.  Summer.  Ever. 

Like I said above – every now and then, Heather and I took the boys just to play around at Chuck E. Cheese.  On one occasion, she purchased what she thought was 30 tokens, but what turned out to be $30 worth of tokens.  Whoops.  Neither of us was in the mood to put in a marathon session at House of Chuck, and quite frankly, the giddy gleam of insanity in the eyes of the then-six and three year old boys over the prospect of SO MANY tokens was fairly terrifying.  So I figured, no big deal – I’ve got a small bag inside of my purse, I’ll pocket the extras and we’ll use them next time.   There were more tokens than space in the bag, so they were crammed in pretty tight – no room to even jingle about!

Fast forward.  Like, weeks forward.  We were flying back to San Antonio to visit for a week or so.  And let me just tell you – two adult women, taking a six year old boy, a three year old boy, an infant boy, the double stroller and everybody’s respective carry-ons, was an Event with a capital E.  That’s ten pairs of shoes and two sets of hands with the ability to tie.  We may or may not have also been smuggling a small animal.  Anyway - the point is, we were BUSY.  People and babies and backpacks all over the damn place.  The last thing in the world you want to hear in such a situations is . . . 

“Ma’am?  There is something suspicious in your bag that we can’t scan through and we need you to step over here so we can search more thoroughly.”

Awesome.  Of course.

I immediately thought, “OK, what did these tiny little turdburgers slip in my purse?  A toy gun?  Bullets?  A machete?”  I was a teensy bit nervous.

One by one, they took everything out of my purse.  If anybody knows me, I have a big purse.  This was going to take a while.

Then they took out a small, obviously heavy bag.

Oh, for the love of all that is good and sacred in this world.  I forgot about the sack full of goddamn Chuck E. Cheese tokens.

Very Large Intimidating Security Man Digging In My Purse: “Ma’am, what’s in this bag?”

Embarrassed As All Hell Me: “Ahem.  Erm.  Well.  Chuck E. Cheese tokens.  A lot of them.”

Slightly Confused Still Scary Security Man: “ . . . I’m sorry?”

Only I Could Manage This: “Me too.  I am so sorry.  That is a bag stuffed full of game tokens for Chuck E. Cheese and it is probably the reason you’re having trouble scanning my bag and yes I imagine a giant misshapen chunk of metal would look suspicious on your screen and please let me get on a plane now and pretend I wasn’t this stupid.”

Bemused and Scary Man in Uniform: “Carry on.”

And God love Heather, after that summer she let me come live with her for three years while I went to law school.  And it never seemed to bother her that she was harboring a suspected terrorist.

Sarcasmo

Deliver Us From Tebow

I don’t want to get in to religion with you guys.  I really, really don’t.  Most of you really wouldn’t like what I’d have to say.  I do take pride in that I actually have researched and given thoughtful consideration to several different religions before settling my beliefs, and I am open to conversation on the topic.  I absolutely do not judge people on the basis of religion, but it genuinely surprises me how often people try to be staunch, stubborn supporters of their respective religions, yet they really know nothing about them.  But this isn't a post to start a debate about various religions and their merits, and I promise you I am not trying to start an argument.

That said, I am almost 100% certain that in no religion is God or Jesus portrayed as a frigging genie that comes out of Aladdin’s lamp to grant you wishes when you ask nicely.  

I don’t care what Saturday Night Live told you (in what was one of the best sketches they’ve done in years, just FYI), Jesus does not win football games for the Denver Broncos because Tim Tebow asks him to. 

I have nothing negative to say about The Good St. Tebow himself.  He is free to believe whatever he wants, however hard he wants to believe it, I’m only interested in how he plays football.  But for Pete’s sake people.  He might have prayed harder and longer than most of us, but I’m still pretty sure that no religion magically grants him a direct line to Jesus to ask special favors for himself.  Some of the reactions to Sunday’s game seriously alarm me.  People actually believe that the Broncos won because Tebow chats with Jesus!  Where do people even learn that this is a possibility?!

It’s getting a little out of control.  It seems like nobody realizes that there are ten other guys out there on the field with Timmy T, and quite frankly, I am completely bored with hearing about him like he’s the second coming.  He’s good, but he’s not THAT good, not by a long shot.  That one set of footprints in the sand isn’t Tebow carrying an entire football team on his back.  I respected the hell out of Ben Roethlisberger when he was interviewed last week about playing Tebow, and he answered by saying he wasn’t playing Tebow, the Steelers were playing the Broncos. 

I don’t want to take away from the Broncos win Sunday, even if I, as a Steelers fan, am a tad bitter.  Alright, fine, I’m a shit-load-crap-ton  bitter.  But while that OT pass from Tebow was glorious for sure, let’s call a spade a spade – if you want to credit holiness for the Broncos win, it was the holiness of the Steelers’ offensive line (see what I did there) that really sealed the deal. 

And, anyway, aside from all that?  If God was a genie that popped out of Aladdin’s lamp, that would make him Robin Williams.  And everybody knows damn well that if anybody here on Earth is God, it’s Morgan Freeman.

Sarcasmo

Hamlet Makes a Terrible Bedtime Story

Probably this isn’t want Shakespeare had in mind . . .

But . . .

To pee or not to pee.  That is the question. 

Every freaking night it’s the question, and I still haven’t mastered it.

You know what I’m talking about, don’t act like you don’t.  You do your nighttime routine, whatever it may be, and you get in bed.  You wallow into your little you-shaped indention in your mattress (your “Jennifer-hole,” as I like to refer to mine), and burrow under the covers like a molerat.  And then . . . you start thinking you kind-of-maybe-might-sorta-have-to pee.  And the debate begins.

On the one hand, it’s not an urgent type of thing.  You know you don’t HAVE to get up right now and handle things.  You know that even if you did, it would probably take forever to actually coax your pipelines into commencing operation.  PROBABLY it won’t be an issue until morning.

Or it will wake you up in an hour and become a lot more urgent real damn quick.  Maybe you should just get up and handle it, seemingly unimportant though it may be.  But jeez . . . it’s just starting to get warm and cozy.  That new down comforter is super comfy.  Just forget it.  Roll over and go to sleep, it’s not that big of a deal.  Just go to sleep.  Sleep, dammit.  Stop thinking that there is a slight chance you might have to kind of tinkle, and just sleep.

Youdon’thavetopeeyoudon’thavetopeeyoudon’thavetopee.  Just sleep already!

Except you CAN’T.  There’s no forgetting it, no ignoring it. 

And now, not only do you have to pee, and not only have you forfeited your hard-earned cozy spot and subjected yourself to cold tiles and cold porcelain, but you just wasted 30 minutes of your life arguing with yourself about it, when you could have just taken care of business when the idea first occurred to you.  You could have been sleeping this whole time, you fool. 

Sarcasmo

Things That Make Me Crazy - Part 3

So I've been out of touch for a while.  Whoops.  Just because I wasn't blogging doesn't mean stuff wasn't driving me batcrap crazy though.  So -

Hey, world?  Stop calling things cake that aren’t edible.  This is a weird trend that I don't understand.  Diaper cake?  Not a cake.  It’s a stack of rolled up diapers and ribbon.  It’s cute and all, but it’s not delicious – in fact, it’s pretty much the opposite.  Call it a diaper tower, or a diaper Taj Mahal, or whatever, but it's not a cake.  Dishtowel cake?  (I’m looking at you, craft nuts on Pinterest.)  Not a cake.  The towels can be used in the process of making a cake, but they themselves are not cake.  Therefore, there is no such thing as a towel cake.  These aren’t things – stop trying to make them be things.  If somebody showed up at my baby shower or wedding shower or whatever with a cake made out of anything other than sugary confectionary goodness, your ass is getting kicked out until you bring me the real thing.  And a real present.

Hey, Facebook?  Let’s work on completing our thoughts.  I’ve noticed a lot of posts recently about your feelings.  Well, no, not your feelings particularly, just feelings in general.  You start out with “That feeling when . . . .” and then go on to describe an awkward or uncomfortable situation, without providing any more information.  So . . . what about it?  What about this feeling?  Did you have this experience?  Did you enjoy it?  Did you dislike it? Why did you feel the need to tell me about it??!!  What did we accomplish?  Just stoppit.   My issues with your use of cryptic song lyrics that are meant to be deep reflections of your feelings, but instead just wind up making me judge your taste in music and remove you from my newsfeed, are issues for another blog another day.  And don’t even get me started on how little I care when you constantly post status updates about your many trips to the grocery store and what you ate for lunch.

Hey, Pinterest?  We have a fairly new relationship, but already, I’m seeing some red flags.  You see, I hate stupid people . . . and you manage to expose me to way more stupid people than I’m comfortable with.  You provide me with a lot of cute and enjoyable things I would like to share – but when the pin itself has misspelled words or poor grammar, I not only refuse to pass it along, but I get angry at you for propagating moronic behavior.  Get somebody monitoring that junk, and probably I'll pin even more things.  Because I don't pin enough as it is . . . even though I'm still not 100% certain as to your actual purpose.

Hey, Dallas Cowboys?  Don’t look at me like that.  You know what you’ve done.

Sarcasmo.

An Impassioned Plea to Men Everywhere

Dear Menfolk:

I don’t get it. 

I don’t care if you’re a regular Joe, a football player, a politician, or a stripper – a gentleman’s genitalia is not attractive.  

So what the hell makes you think we want to, A) see it, or B) do anything with it just because you showed it to us?

I realize that most of the species in the animal kingdom pick up ladies by utilizing their impressive physical features and sexy mating squawks, but I was under the impression that we homo sapiens had become more evolved.  Sure, physical characteristics are important to us ladies to some degree, but there are better ways of catching our attention than wagging your winkie at us.  Sure, some muscles might be nice, or good hair - but how about we try dressing well, being intelligent, having good manners?  None of these things, which I’m willing to bet would interest most women, involve nudity.  A nice smile will catch my attention quicker than your crotch.  

In fact, on that note, I would like to issue a challenge.  I would be willing to bet serious money (ok, I’d bet someone else’s money, since I’m unemployed with a large amount of debt, but you get the idea) that no woman in her right mind would tell you she agreed to marry you, date you, even let you buy her a drink, all because you  just up and showed her your special parts and she liked what she saw.  Committing the crime of indecent exposure isn’t a good way to pick up chicks.  It’s also not a good way of keeping one once you catch her – I’m sure you can do some special tricks with it, and that’s great and we’re happy you can, but we still don’t need to look at it.  Not on Twitter, not in an e-mail, not on our phones, not in person.  Not only do we not want to look at it, but we’re going to get damn sick of the news headlines and late night standup jokes if you’re famous and the pictures get leaked (which, let’s face it, they always do).  No matter what kind of naughty acrobatics you can perform, it’s still the body part which most assures us that God indeed did have a sense of humor when he created man, and absolute proof that he liked Eve more than Adam.  He clearly wasn't just scraping the bottom of the barrel for leftover, misshapen parts when he put her together.

On behalf of women everywhere, I beg of you, in the name of all that is good and holy in the world – please, pretty pretty please, figure out a better way of attracting women.

Sarcasmo
Only this time, I’m not being sarcastic – I really, really, really want men to stop showing off their kibbles and bits.)

PS - This is another blog post I found that shares my confusion and distaste for such behavior.  Enjoy.  http://qcreport.blogspot.com/2011/06/ive-got-to-hand-it-to-me.html

The Unemployment Chronicles

When someone asks the relatively harmless question “What have you been up to lately?” and all you can come up with as a response is that you bought some new underwear . . . stop.  Take a look around.  This that you see?  This is a view dangerously similar to the one from rock bottom.  Best go ahead and grab a shovel.

For the first couple of days, unemployment was fun.  I am a big, big fan of Not Doing A Damn Thing, and I do it well.  I am the MVP of Not Doing A Damn Thing.  But then it got boring.  And then it got sad.  Such is the life of the unemployed. 

We only know what day it is by what shows up on our DVR.  I watched “So You Think You Can Dance” last night, thus, today is Friday.  Our best friend’s name is Netflix.  We have constant headaches, because apartment maintenance only happens during midday hours, when most people are at work or school.  We name our houseplants (my hibiscus, Glenn, says hello, and asks that you don’t judge).  Trips to Target are even more exciting than ever (and not just when it’s to buy new underwear)(and let’s face it . . . they were pretty exciting when you weren’t bored out of your skull).  We Youtube Russell Brand’s rant about the injustice of watching Cops as an unemployed man, and realizing that there are dogs who have jobs while we eat our Froot Loops in front of the TV at 11AM.  We watch reruns all day, hit IMDb when faces look familiar to make sure things aren’t just completely running together, and wind up spending the next couple of hours memorizing the entire film career of Joe Pesci.  (FYI, there were some really cool guest stars on “House” back in the day . . . Jeremy Renner, Tyson Ritter, LL Cool J . . . shame it went down the drain.)  We become so detached from current culture that we think an old guest appearance by LL Cool J is fun.  We go to bed late and sleep late, effectively reversing the idea of a normal day, and become nocturnal pod people who look forward to midnight reruns of “Will and Grace”.  We wear a path to and from the pool and to and from the beer drawer in the fridge like they’re the freaking Oregon Trail. 

I’m pretty confident that everybody in the state of Texas has my resume at this point.  I’ve applied with everyone from tiny one-man criminal defense firms to Exxon.  It’s pretty pathetic at this point.  I haven’t had a single interview.  I can’t even get the time of day to get a rejection letter from most places.  I promise I’m qualified.  I graduated law school in the top 20%, and then went ahead and got another law degree for good measure.  I didn’t have an official internship during law school, but I was terribly busy dealing with that whole “my-dad-suddenly-died” situation, which apparently doesn’t fit anywhere on a resume.  So sue me.  I worked in a District Attorney’s office all through undergrad, and was a research assistant for a professor who is totally willing to sing my praises all through law school.  Maybe that extra degree makes it appear that I am overqualified, and will be too expensive . . . I can promise you that is not the case.  I am past the point where I am looking for a job that “pays well” and will gladly accept one that just “pays.”  So I really don’t understand why I can’t even get a response from a single one of these places.  According to my resume, I have what they’re looking for.  If they choose not to hire me after an interview, that’s fine.  I have no problem with employers hating me as a person, but there’s nothing reprehensible about my resume dammit!

Like I told you, I’m in a pretty pathetic state.  We won’t even get into the issues about month-to-month rent on my apartment and the unholy amount of student loans looming.  I think you get the picture of the swift downward spiral toward rock bottom that I am currently on.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have "Deadwood" reruns to watch.

Sarcasmo

MIA

I realize that many of my lovely readers check on a regular basis for new posts, and so must have seen by now that I have been MIA for a couple of weeks.  I'm sorry about this - I've been working super hard lately on my thesis paper for school, and it's gotten down to finals crunch time, so I've just been having to focus my attentions elsewhere.  I haven't given up on the blog - I'll get back to it very soon :)