Wrapped.Around.Her.Finger.

I’d just like to state up front that I’m not the type of person to judge people.

Wait, why are you laughing? Okay, okay, so you’re right. Judging people is actually one of my favorite ways to pass the time. It drives Cleatus crazy. Every now and then he’ll demand that I tell him one person, JUST ONE GOD DAMNED PERSON, that I actually LIKE. And, usually, I’m all “My mom? I like my mom.” And then his head explodes and I judge him for being so fucking messy and inconsiderate and now I’m going to have to mop AGAIN and I just did that last week, GAWD.

So, now that we’ve established that judging people is an art form and I am a master at it, I’d like to introduce you to my neighbors.

There are three boys, ages 7, 9 and 11,  that live in the unbelievably small house next to me. I’ve never met the parents, but I have seen the dad and his hair is straight out of the eighties and, seriously, does he even own a shirt? Because he needs to start wearing one. They also have a dog and a cat and god knows what else is lurking in there. During the summer the kids keep a box of horrors in their side yard and they fill it with random bugs.

Anyway, the parents are the laziest parenters I’ve ever seen. The kids are outside pretty much all the time, regardless of the weather, and they are NEVER dressed appropriately. The oldest boy wears an old ladies purple coat in the winter and I would feel sorry for them not having money to buy their kids proper clothes except the boys like to brag to me about all the video games they have and they eat out every single day and I’m fairly sure that if they can afford video games and Burger King they can buy a $20 winter coat at The Wal-Mart, for the love of Christ.

See? I told you I was a professional judger.

The kids don’t behave AT ALL and the youngest one often knocks on our door and then just walks in. He has left our house crying multiple times because if I don’t yell at him he doesn’t leave the house and he’s not allowed inside the house because, obviously, he DOESN’T LISTEN. Anyway, he leaves crying and then comes back TEN MINUTES LATER, OH MY GAWD. If my child came home from the neighbors house crying, I don’t think I’d allow him to go back. Or maybe I would beat him for entering their house without permission.

So, we recently bought the kids a trampoline, because we don’t care if they break their bones, and also, THEY LIKE IT, no horror stories, please. My biggest concern has been other kids in the neighborhood jumping on it when we aren’t home. The kids are only allowed to jump if either Cleatus or I are outside to keep an eye on them. For the last month or so I’ve been able to put off letting the three heathens from next door jump, but today they come over and I caved.

I knew the mom wouldn’t care if they jumped on the trampoline because they leave a ladder up against the side of their house that the boys climb up to the roof with. And then they jump off the roof. Yes, really.

Anyway, we went out back and I told them to go get their mom and have her come outside and talk to me before they got on. One of them ran over and yelled through the back window (um, okay?) and she said yes, they can jump. He came back and repeated that to me. I told him that was fine, but before they could jump I needed to speak to her personally. I wanted to make sure that she understood they were not allowed to jump unless I was outside and also to tell her to keep the little fuckers out of our sandbox because they keep forgetting to cover the lid after they play in it. Also, wouldn’t it be nice to meet the woman whose children I have been screaming at for the past year?

She refused to come outside and yelled at the boys to just come inside the house.

Seriously. I don’t even know what to make of that. I mean, I understand if you’re in your pajamas or in the middle of something, but seriously. We’ve been neighbors for a year, she’s fine with them playing on my property and in my house without ever meeting me, and now? She’s refusing to come and speak to me? Parenting fail.

There. I feel better. Judging people is fun.

Judge someone in my comment section (just not me, please). Try it. You’ll like it.

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Before you go, why don’t you click over to Buns In My Oven? Check out the yummy new things I’ve been cooking up in my sidebar to your left. Don’t worry. Everything I cook is made with magical calorie-free ingredients.

One would think that spending an entire week spreading the word of God and passing out goldfish crackers and wiping other children’s asses would generate a lot of good karma, but alas, one would be wrong. My back is all jacked up. In fact, as I type this, I’m a bit high from the Tussionex cough syrup that I just took. No, I don’t have a cough, I took it for my back. What? It was the only narcotic I had in the house. I love narcotics.Please forgive any spelling and/or grammatical errors. Also, this may not make any sense at all, especially considering that I’ve completely forgotten what it was I sat down to tell you about.

Moving on to happier topics, Vacation Bible School is over, thank the Lord. I managed to behave quite well, if I do say so myself. There was only one incident where I came very close to harming someone and that someone wasn’t even a child. It was my seventh grade helper. She was playing dominoes on the floor with the other helper while I was wrangling five three year old children and muttering quietly to myself about how you just can’t find good help anymore when I heard Seventh Grader start to WHINE because Three Year Old had the audacity to interrupt her game of dominoes. Three Year Old then proceeded to climb all over Seventh Grader and Seventh Grader looked at me and tattled on Three Year Old. No, I’m not kidding. She sat on the floor, was shocked and upset to learn that three year old children like to climb on people who sit on floors, and then she whined to me that Three Year Old was HURTING her. She didn’t bother to pick up or remove Three Year Old, she just sat there and WHINED about it. I ignored it for as long as possible, because REALLY, you are three times that child’s size, YOU CAN HANDLE THIS BY YOURSELF. But then I decided that if she didn’t shut up I would have to stab her and stabbing people in church is generally frowned upon so I picked Three Year Old up and played a puzzle with her.

At closing ceremony on Friday one of the kids started dancing around saying she had to go potty. I hate the closing ceremony because it’s when all the pre-school classes come together and sing church-y songs that I don’t know the words to and all the kids and all the teachers are singing and doing hand motions and I’m standing there looking like a heathen who doesn’t know the words. I jumped at the chance to take the girl to the bathroom to avoid the singing, but of course the child had diarrhea and probably the singing would have been preferable. Remember how I said wiping snot off of children who you did not squeeze from your vagina was gross? Yes, well. Wiping diarrhea is so very much worse.

Wow. I just kind of blanked out there for a few minutes. That Tussionex is good stuff.

I should probably go to bed now, although poor Cleatus would probably prefer I didn’t. He said that last night I whimpered and cried all night. I don’t really remember it much though since I was all doped up. Whatever. Like he really needs sleep anyway.

Over and out.

So. Today was the first day of Vacation Bible School. It was, you know, bible-y. And there were a lot of kids. I was in charge of snacks and games and have you ever tried playing Follow The Leader with a group of three year olds? I don’t recommend it, especially not after loading them up with hawaiian punch and m&m’s. (Let it be noted that I was not in charge of SUPPLYING or CHOOSING the snack, just the adminstering of.)

Some of the kids were cute (not as many as you would think) and some were snotty and screamy. I’d like to state for the record that I have no problems wiping snot off of my children’s faces, sometimes even looking in to the used tissue with a weird sense of satisfaction, but when it comes to other people’s children? Wiping snot from their faces is a bit disgusting. It makes me shudder just thinking of all the snot I squeezed from noses today.

There was one little girl, though, that I fell in love with.  She walked in the room and I about fell over. She reminded me so much of Cindy-Lu when she was younger.  Her sweet little voice, her chubby hands, her sturdy little body. She was a bit of a whiner, just like Cindy-Lu, but she would stop whining the minute I picked her up and cuddled her. I did a lot of cuddling with her. At one point my heart started breaking when I remembered that Cleatus and I would never have another sweet little toddler running around our house, but then one of the screamers wandered over to me and I remembered that I don’t actually like kids, so I put the sweet girl down and went back to my job of pretending to be cheerful and loving towards all the kids. Even the screamy ones.

The highlight of the day was when this adorable little seventh grade helper asked me what grade I was in. Well, either that or getting to stare at the sexy daddy helper that monitored the playground. It’s a toss up.

I just found this in my drafts folder from a couple of months ago:

I’m trying this new thing and it’s actually working kind of well so I thought I’d share it with all of you.

First, you do a load of laundry the normal way. You know, put the clothes in the wash, put the clothes in the dryer. Easy, right? Here’s where it gets tricky! Instead of taking the clothes out of the dryer and moving them to the laundry room floor a laundry basket, you actually take them into the living room or bedroom or wherever and you FOLD them. After you fold them you put them away in the appropriate dresser drawer. It’s really kind of amazing how handy it is to have clothes folded up and put away where they belong instead of in a big heap on the laundry room floor in the laundry basket!

I’m obviously a housekeeping genius, so I thought I’d share my knowledge with you all. I’m using this blog for the greater good, you see.

I don’t think I need to tell you all that the laundry? It is sitting on the laundry room floor in a laundry basket right now. I think I lasted about a week before I realized that it’s really not worth all the extra effort of folding things and putting them away if people are just going to pull them out and then WEAR THEM AND MAKE THEM DIRTY AGAIN. Can you believe the nerve of my family? Wearing my freshly laundered and folded clothes? It’s enough to make a person crazy.

So, now my advice to you is this: Hire a housekeeper.

You all think my husband is cute, right? I mean, look at him! Those eyes! Did you know that sometimes they are blue and sometimes they are green? Hot, right?

But you don’t know him like I do. I mean, he’s not just a pretty face. There is SO MUCH more to him than that.

Drawing courtesy of Cindy-Lu.
(It probably goes without saying, but this picture is drawn to scale. Obviously.)

My, my. What a nice large belly button he has. And those scrawny little legs are so sexy. His heart is nice, of course, but we all know it’s his wiener that I love best.

UPDATED: Why are you all looking at the thing over his LIP? Who cares about his mouth! It’s the dick we are focusing on! But, to keep you all happy, I asked Cindy-Lu what that was and she said it was his extra nose. Meh. Whatever. At least she got the male anatomy part drawn correctly.

Have you ever gotten distilled white vinegar in your eyeball? Yep. It feels about like you’d imagine. Kind of tangy and ouchy.

Would you like a flower?

(Yes, I know. Her bangs. I’m trying to grow them out. It is a long and frustrating process.)

Have you been reading Buns In My Oven? Because, dudes, tomorrow I’m going to be giving AN INTERVIEW (via telephone) to a REPORTER for a FANCY CHEF who wants to feature one of my recipes in a COOKBOOK and, oh hi, I’m famous.

If your neighbor broke your drainage pipe that ran under your driveway and then called the city to complain because it wasn’t draining properly EVEN THOUGH IT WAS HIS OWN FUCKING FAULT and then the city told you that you had 14 days to fix the drainage problem or they would start charging you hundreds of dollars each day that it wasn’t done, would you a) murder your neighbor in his sleep, b) break his knee caps, or c) drown him in the dirty ditch water? I’m leaning towards option C. I’ll have Cleatus link to the news story so you can all read about the tragic ditch water drowning while I’m rotting away in a jail cell.

(My laptop is broken. Again. And I would either fix it or buy a new one, but instead I’m spending my money replacing a fucking pipe so that my neighbor doesn’t have to worry about his ditch getting a bit of water in it, because God knows the world would come to an end should someone have to deal with water in their ditch. So, posting may be light for a bit until I have whined so much that Cleatus finally throws his hands up in defeat and hands me the credit card. Don’t worry. He’s weakening.)

Last summer I wrote a post about what a total pain in the ass it was to get the kids ready and going for Vacation Bible School in the middle of summer. They were used to sleeping in and waking them up early for bible school was KILLING me.  Remember that? (That post is actually the most viewed post on this site! Weird, huh? Go back and read it and just try counting all the grammatical/spelling errors! It’s fun!)

And then, do you remember how I went to a wedding once? In a church? And I was all GOD DAMN IT. Outloud. In front of all these church people? Remember?

Even if you don’t take the twenty seconds to click through and read those links, just answer the following questions real quick:

1. Am I church-y?
2. Am I a good role model?
3. Would you trust me with your precious little bible-lovin’ children?
4. Do you think I’ve ever actually read the bible?
5. Is “bible” supposed to be capitalized?

The answers, in case you couldn’t guess, are no, no, I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT, no, and probably.

You can imagine my surprise when I was dropping Cindy-Lu off at preschool, which just happens to be at the church the kids attend with their grandmother, and her preschool teacher, who I love and adore, pulled me aside to ask me a question.

Y’all. I was totally caught off guard. I expected her to ask me to tell Cindy-Lu to quit using the word “hate” so often or to remember to bring Cindy-Lu’s book bag to school with her. Or maybe she’d ask me why the pictures Cindy-Lu draws of her daddy all contain a third leg. Most likely, she’d ask me to tell Cindy-Lu to stop mentioning how it tickles her ‘gina when she jumps up and down.

I did NOT expect her to ask me to help at Vacation Bible School this summer.

Me. At Vacation Bible School.

I think it’s a good sign that my first response was “Oh my gosh, really?” instead of “ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?”

I just hope I can keep up the good person act for an entire week. Pray for me, internets.

I went to get my hair done last week by a lady (Hi, Lynn!) that I hadn’t been to in years. Many, many years. On the drive over I was thinking about how long it had been and wondered how long my mom had been going to her for her hair. Ten years? Twenty years? One hundred years? Who knows. Either way, it reminded me of the only time my mother seriously considered disowning me.

I should mention that I was a bit of a wild child.

A friend and I got drunk at my house once and an ambulance had to be called for my friend. She drank so much that she started puking up her chinese food from dinner. (Beef and brocolli, and y’all, if the whole brocolli florets littering my toilet seat told me anything, it was that she needed to chew her food a little better.) I told her to puke a little quieter but she wouldn’t listen and my parents heard her. They came upstairs to my room to see what was going on up there, but they wouldn’t believe me when I said she had the flu and they called 911. Such jerks, my parents.

I also ran away. Twice.

And, of course, I smoked pot. Lots and lots of pot.

But, my parents? They still loved me. They never kicked me out of the house or punched me in the face or did any of those things that they probably really, really wanted to do.

And then, one day, my mom came home from the hair dresser and she beat the living crap out of me for giving her lice. Okay, so I exaggerate. What she actually did was turn on her super-disapointed voice and say “Kaaaaarly. If you let your friends use my hair brush again I will end you.” (Or something to that effect. I can’t remember the words other than the “Kaaaaarly” part. My parents were really good at summing up the big long  “I’m so dissapointed in you” lecture to just one word-my name.)  I just know that my poor mother had lice and didn’t know it until her hairdresser told her about it.

My mama was pretty embarassed.

The thing is, a few weeks prior to her hair appointment I had lice too. I KNEW I had lice in that way that you know something but refuse to admit it to yourself. My head itched like you wouldn’t believe, but there was no way in hell I was going to tell anyone I had lice. I mean, lice! Bugs! In my hair! If I admitted that they were there my life would be over. First, I was a teenage girl with dirty bugs in my hair. That’s pretty traumatic on it’s own, but when you factor in the fact that bugs are my nemesis? NOT A GOOD SITUATION. So I just pretended I didn’t know, tra la la, hey mom, mind if I borrow your brush?

The weird thing is, pretending they weren’t there worked. By the time my mom had figured out that she had lice, mine were GONE. Seriously, they were just gone. I pretended them away.

That’s probably why I have such a bad habit of just pretending things will go away now. Bills? Just pretend they aren’t there. My child’s nose picking habit? What nose picking habit? The dirty dishes in the sink? I don’t even HAVE a sink. No blog post in over a week? WHAT BLOG?

So, it turns out that when you want to learn something new, say “sewing”, you should probably, I dunno, PRACTICE before just jumping right in. I mean, I DID practice, of course, I just didn’t realize that I needed to practice a lot. I sewed a couple of semi-straight lines and I called it good and I cut out the dress pattern and then, well, I don’t know what the fuck happened after that. I’ve blocked it from my memory. Luckily for you, I have photos. I should warn you though, it’s a bit like looking at a bloody car wreck. You don’t want to look at the gore, but you can’t tear your eyes away from the horror.

Cute fabric, huh? Ignore the “arm holes” and thread poking out from them.

So, apparently, the stitch wasn’t supposed to be so…thready. Or something.

Again, with too much threadiness.

The aftermath.

I can’t believe that I didn’t get any pictures of the whole dress. I somehow managed to cut the pattern wrong or sew it in the wrong place or something, because instead of being a dress for a tall-ish skinny 4 year old, it would have better fit an extremely fat midget. Basically, the “sides” that I sewed together were actually not the sides at all, but the neckline and hemline. Also, hemline? I don’t know if that’s the right word considering my sewing capabilities.