What I Think About When I Pee

Have you ever noticed how often people have to dodge murderers in public restrooms? I mean it happens all the time in the movies – that suspense riddled scene in which the shotgun toting psycho killer kicks open stall by stall searching for his prey only to find that they’ve somehow eluded him by some trickery of stall swapping.

This is why I can’t enter a public restroom stall without part of my brain formulating my hide/escape plan in case of psycho killer. Should I go under or over? Is the gap around the door small enough that I could pull my feet up and perch on the toilet to avoid a lazy gun toting psycho who just checks for feet?

I was in the public restroom at an upscale department store the other day and I almost couldn’t do the deed. There were actual walls between the toilets – floor to ceiling! My only escape route would be under the door. Hello shotgun splatter to the face –come on people, that’s just poor planning right there. I was tempted to talk to store management about it.

And what do men do? Sure in the movies their bathrooms are lined with stalls, but according to the men in my life there’s usually only about one or two stalls in a normal public men’s room and the rest are urinals. You can’t hide behind a urinal! This is why I’m able to take the long lines for the women’s restroom at stadiums in stride. I’ll trade a bathroom stall door as a shotgun shield over a defensive urinal cake toss any day.

Onion Hands - Look for the Las Vegas show soon!

You know how some people have special gifts like being double jointed or having a pouch that they can carry their young around in – no, sorry, wait – those are marsupials. But anyway, my point is that some people are special. They have gifts that others do not and they use those gifts to further their fortunes or help others.

I’ve recently discovered my own gift. I’ve actually known that I’ve had it for several years but it’s taken me this long to embrace it as a gift. You see my hands absorb and retain the odor of onions for incredibly long periods of time. Now, now, you’re probably saying to yourself: “This woman is an idiot. Everybody’s hands smell like onions after they cut them – who the hell does she think she is?”

Well, do your hands still smell like onions 5 days later? After repeated hand washings and showers? Do they? Well mine do.

Now for years I considered this as somewhat of a curse. However, recently I’ve been watching America’s Got Talent and I’ve determined that based on the level of skill and talent that most of the people on that show possess – I could really be in the running next year.

Just picture it – me on stage with my hands outstretched. I could show a video clip of me cutting onions several days earlier (I’ll hold up a newspaper or some other proof of the date) and then I could show me washing my hands repeatedly. Then when the video is over I stick my hand under Howie Mandell’s face and ask him to “Smell my finger!”

I think it’s brilliant. People will be wowed. They’ll be blown away! I’m not sure how it would translate into a Vegas show(the prize for winning America’s Got Talent) but if Criss Angel can make a whole show out of Gothwear, excessive eyeliner and melodramatic arm movements then I can transform this into something too. Maybe I could do garlic too just to spice things up.

As a side note I’ve recently discovered that I can eliminate the onion odor on my hands by jerking off my kitchen faucet. While that sounds like fun I think I’ll see if this talent show thing works out first.

Probably

Let me set the scene:

I’m at Wal-Mart standing in the checkout lane waiting for a Mexican midget* to pay for his fishing lures (seriously – I can’t make this stuff up!). I’m nonchalantly leaning on the cart, clad in knit Capri pants and an oversized t-shirt. Now I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t look my best. It was hot and I had hastily pulled my hair back in a messy ponytail. I’m not exactly what you’d call “skinny” or “of a healthy weight” either but I’m no cow, and if I died tomorrow it would not require the use of a crane to lift me out of my house, nor would I have to be buried in a grand piano crate.

Anyway, at one point I happened to turn my head to the side and witnessed a kid about 15 or 16 two aisles over who was aiming his cell phone camera in my direction – actually , right at me. Upon my turning towards him he embarrassedly flipped his phone shut and put it in his pocket.

I checked behind me in the line of his aim and determined that I had to have been his intended target. My internal sense of self loathing caused my heart to race and my palms to sweat. Would I be the next entry on People of Wal Mart? It seemed unlikely. After all, none of my excessive folds of flesh were hanging out, my butt crack was not exposed, I was not wearing leopard, zebra, or giraffe print, no cleavage was visible and I was not accompanied by a pimp.

I turned to my husband who at that time just walked up to me, told him the particulars of this kid’s behavior and said, “Do you think he was taking a picture of me?”

And do you know what he said? Well, just for fun, let’s first go over what SHOULD have happened. He should have scoffed, put his arm around me and said, “Of course not. Why would he? Unless of course he wanted a picture of the pertiest girl in the store!” (for some reason he should have turned into a redneck - a redneck with a heart of gold, but still – maybe because we WERE in a Wal-Mart).

At the very least he could have said, “Nah, he was probably aiming for the Mexican midget in front of us.”

But that’s not what he said. Instead he shrugged and said,”Probably” and then engrossed himself in the checkout lane magazine rack. The ONLY good thing I can say in his defense is that he did send the kid a couple menacing glares. But still “Probably?, PROBABLY! Probably?”

Sure he couldn’t have been aware of “the crazy” going through my head at that point, but what other reason does anyone take a picture of a stranger with their cell phone than to ridicule it? How could my husband think this wouldn’t damage me irreparably on a mental and emotional level? “Probably!?”

Will he be catching hell for this for the rest of his life? PROBABLY

(* In no way or form do I intend any disrespect to “little people” in this post. I use the term “midget” which I believe is no longer politically correct, but I’m too big of a fan of alliteration, and “Mexcican little person” (or would it be “little Mexican person”?) just isn’t as much fun as “Mexican Midget”. Oh and I mean no disrespect to Mexicans either, or to people who like to fish, with lures, or with midgets, or just with Mexicans in general . . . I don’t know that I’m making this any better, perhaps I should stop now.)

Strong Enough for a Man, or a Woman Who Runs Out of Her Own

I ran out of deodorant a couple days ago and I'm either too lazy or too busy (this distinction depends on whether I'm feeling self-loathing or self-justified) to go to the store and get some.

I've been using my husband's in the mean time. The problem though is that it's AXE deodorant and therefore I've had to strap my arms to my sides so as not to cause a stampede of highly attractive women every time they get a whiff of my pits.

I slipped up yesterday at work and raised my arms to pull my hair up in a ponytail and before I knew it, half the Human Resources department was in my cubicle. I had to beat them off with a stick, which was actually quite cathartic.

I'm Baaaack, and unable to dispatch the undead

Okay, so I know nobody is reading this blog anymore, and why would you? I haven't posted on here for a year for God's sake. If you're still checking this thing for content then you really ought to get some form of a life. Join a gym, start collecting taxidermied animal parts or stalk a celebrity or something because that's just sad.

The reasons I stopped posting were many and justified, but who cares right? The point is I missed this blog. I thought I would be fine with my other creative outlets but I'm not. I can't cuss on them first of all, nor can I relate things such as this:

I tried to kill a vampire in my dream last night. I kept stabbing him over and over again with an orange colored pencil (it was all I could find that was stake-like) but I couldn't seem to locate his heart and I just kept thinking, "Jesus Christ, I've got to be close to it right, maybe nicked an artery or something!" and then he walked away and came at me from another angle and I got behind him and started stabbing his back thinking I could pierce his heart from the back but nothing was happening.

So I start thinking maybe I'm stabbing the wrong side of him and then I'm looking down at my own chest and re-enacting placing my hand over my heart for the national anthem - you know to refresh my memory and make sure the heart is on the left and then I'm doing the whole, okay, so do I stab his left or my left and then I realize "Stupid bitch you're both facing the same direction, keep stabbing him on the left!". Thankfully he stood patiently and waited for me to figure it out.

Then as I'm stabbing in vain, another vampire comes into the room but I don't have to stab him because he's my roomate's boyfriend (don't ask me where the roomate came from she just appeared when vampire 2 showed up but in my dream this seemed normal). So the guy I'm stabbing sees that this vamp is co-existing with us humans and he realizes that he can shake off the societal shackles of his species predatory nature and doesn't have to suck me dry and then he's all like, "I know you've just attempted to kill me at least 50 times, but let's put all that behind us and make out."

Now first of all I'm just really frustrated because I've always thought that stabbing would be my thing right. I've always felt that if I had to kill someone I'd be pretty adept with a dagger you know. Don't ask me why it's just a thing I have okay. I don't actually plan on stabbing anyone so chill. So there I was unable to even stake a vampire who's just standing still and letting me stab him repeatedly. It was demoralizing really but I rationalized that the fault lay in my implement rather than my skill alone. A colored pencil really shouldn't have been my weapon of choice. After all shouldn't vampires be staked with wood? And while there is obviously wood in a colored pencil is there really enough? Did the fault lie in the fact that I was impaling him with colored graphite (or whatever colored pencils are made of) instead of a nice sturdy sharpened stick? I concluded that it was so and then felt perfectly at ease taking him up on his offer of making out. Which by the way is really awkward when fangs are involved.

And it was at that point that I woke up and realized that I've been watching way too much True Blood.

See. Where else am I going to be able to express something like that? Maybe a psychiatrist's office but I don't have the time nor the adequate health coverage for that - and hence the Rambling Amy blog is officialy back up and running.

Now I can't guarantee I'll be posting incredibly often but I shall try my best and if anyone is still reading or starts reading, I'd like to apologize in advance for the crap you're going to have to scroll through.

In Memoriam

It's been a tragic couple of weeks. We've seen the loss of two cultural icons: Farah Fawcett, the golden haired beauty, and Michael Jackson, the undisputed King of Pop.

The airwaves have been filled with countless video montage memorials. The nightly news shows have dedicated hours of coverage to these worthy individuals. Sales of Jackson's music have soared, radio stations are playing hour long blocks of his greatest hits. News sites like CNN posted memorial banners at the tops of their home pages. Everyone has been talking about these tragic deaths.

However, another recent tragedy has occurred. Another iconic figure has disappeared off the landscape of our culture. The great Billy Mays died on Sunday and I've been extremely disappointed in the lack of coverage on this tragedy.

Sure there has been some internet coverage. Some TV coverage as well but I feel the poor man has been slighted. Sure he didn't revolutionize the pop music industry, and I'm sure he never looked good in a bikini or feathered hair, but Billy had his own magic and he will be missed. Doesn't he deserve an infomercial montage from Katie Couric? Shouldn't the sales of Oxi Clean be through the roof by now?

So in honor of Billy raise your glasses and then pour them down the front of your shirts! The power of Oxi Clean will take out the stain!

After I clean my bathroom with Kaboom I'm breaking out the orbital sander and using it on my hardwood floors to simulate years of wear and tear. But I know that Orange Glo will renew it to it's former shine in no time.

Farewell Billy.

Okay, now I've go to lose 5 more pounds

In my last post I talked about how my upcoming 15 year high school reunion was going to be the catalyst for my new healthy lifestyle.

Well, it hasn't been going all that great so far. I give you exhibit A. The Monte Cristo:


Now if you've never had a Monte Cristo before, well you should. It's like a ham and cheese sandwich wrapped in a funnel cake - and if that's not enough to turn you on then I think you should probably consult some sort of professional.


My friends and I have been in love with the Bennigan's Monte Cristo for quite a few years, and things were looking pretty black when they announced a few months ago that they were closing half their restaurants. Thankfully though the one in our city remains open for the time being but my friend Carrie and I still harbor some fears that the current economy will rob us forever of the joys of the Monte Cristo and so we made it our mission last night to discover the recipe for the monte cristo and to learn how to prepare it to perfection at home so that we would never have to go without its greasy goodness.


We found a recipe online, purchased our supplies and set to work. We prepared the sandwiches:

We dipped them in the batter and placed them in my ancient fry daddy.

We dowsed with powdered sugar - we were a little more generous than the usual dusting you get at the restaurant. Less is not always more my friends!


And then the moans of satisfaction commenced!

Notice the contented faces, the powdered sugar on the lips and the shirt. Ah, it was a beautiful thing.

And we ate it all!

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check and make sure my little gazelle workout machine will still hold my weight.