Returns

To add to the Things That Are Not Cool About Moving list is the fact that you buy things that you are certain you didn't bring with you and then realize later that you did in fact bring them and now have duplicates.

Closely tied to this is when you think you did bring certain items and therefore don't buy them when you have the opportunity only to be proven wrong when you later search for them.

Even more annoying is when you heave a resigned sigh, go back the next day to buy said item, get back to your current domicile with it, and then the duplicate that you could have sworn you brought with you in the first place jumps out of its hiding place and goes, "Ta da!"

I have been to Wal-Mart five times in the past week.

Wal-Mart shopping does nothing if not provide ample opportunity to engage oneself in that age-old custom of People Watching.

The returns line at the Customer Service desk is a prime vantage point for the avid People Watcher. Follow me, if you will, through the glorious twists and turns of the conversation that follows:

Me: Hm. That line looks reeeeaaally long. Great. Ugh. Is this worth it for $5.56? That's at least a McDonald's meal. Sigh. Okay.

Joins queue.

Me: Oh. Well. The line wouldn't be half as long if Mr. I'm Next in Line wouldn't mind standing a little closer to the front desk than 20 feet back. Really? How big does your personal space bubble have to be, buddy?

Little old lady joins queue.

Old lady: Well! Just my luck to get here when the line is reaching to the cash registers! Ridiculous! Don't they know people are busy?!

Me: It's not really that bad. The guy at the front is just standing kind of far back.

Old lady: Oh. Hm. Did you make your scarf yourself?

Me: Well, yes. Yes, I did. This is my first crochet project, actually.

Old lady: Do you like my hat? I got it at the Dollar Tree. I wanted to go back and get one for my daughter, but they were out. I was going to tell her it cost me $5.

Me: Glances at black-sequined newsboy hat. Tell her it cost $20.

Old lady: Cackles. I should! I should do that!

Very pregnant Oriental lady joins queue.

Pregnant lady: Letuhn? Letuhns?

Old lady: What? What are you saying? What?

Me: Yes, this is the returns line.

Pregnant lady: Nods, smiles, satisfied. Settles in to wait.

Me: Huh. There's a Santa Claus over there.

Fellow queuers turn to look at standard Santa Claus sitting in front of cardboard fireplace.

Pregnant lady: Eyes light up. Picture?

Old lady: Yep, looks like it. The kiddies are getting their photos done.

Pregnant lady: Free?

Old lady: I don't know. Why don'tcha go ask?

Pregnant lady: Looks at line. Looks at old lady. Looks at Santa Claus. Smiles, but stays put.

Me: Catches photographer's eye. Excuse me, is it free to get a picture with Santa?

Photographer: Wipes sweat from under depressingly cheerful elf hat. Yeah. A free 5x7.

Me: There you are then, ladies. It's free.

Pregnant lady: Free? Free picture?

Old lady: You'll have to come back next year and get your kid's picture taken then.

Pregnant lady: Blinks. Confused.

Old lady: When are you due?

Pregnant lady: Smiles uncertainly. Yes.

Old lady: You're pregnant, aren't you?

Pregnant lady: No?

Old lady: Gives up, turns to me. She looks damn pregnant to me.

Me: Mhm.

Old lady: I mean, I had two of my own, I think I know what it looks like.

Me: I think, perhaps, maybe her English wasn't ... quite ... ah ....

Customer service rep: Next?!

Me: Oh! Me!

Unseen Academicals

I'll probably do a Thanksgiving post at some point. About the craziness that led to this:


And I did finally get my hands on the Pioneer Woman's cookbook, but with one thing and another, I'm having a hard time finding time to give it the attention it deserves. So that post too will be forthcoming. At some point.


But what I'd like to do now is let you know that I finally read a new book.

That's right.

A brand-new book that I have never read before.

I may be slightly cheating because I have read 26 (I just threw that number out there -- it could be 42, for all I know. I should count someday) other titles by this same author.

This is the same author who is the inspiration for this here blog's name and I would probably have to change it if he ever found out I was online.

So don't tell him.

I like the name.

This is the same author whom Queen Elizabeth II knighted earlier this year for his services to literature.

I don't typically pick up a Terry Pratchett book and think literature. What I do think is "BAH! Yes! salivatesalivate I will read an exceptionally thought-provoking book with many unexpected twists and turns with some cultural, artistic, historical allusions thrown in for good measure, and I will laugh myself silly all the while."

A respectable 400-pages long, Unseen Academicals was polished off by this reader in three days.

Pratchett's more recent titles in his Discworld series tend to satirize certain necessary and expected results of masses of people trying to bumble along together without too much bloodshed, i.e., that wonderful phenomenon known as civilization.

Such topics have included the introduction of an organized police force to a city, the modernization of a postal service, and last year, the transition to paper money from the stuff that goes clink-clink.

This year's installment is about the formation of organized football, or as we Yanks will ravish it, soccer.

Pratchett spins a fascinating yarn as he tags along with the laziest personages of the city (the Wizards of Unseen University) whilst they attempt to turn their passion for nine meals a day into a passion for the pitch. The reason for such turning of leaves is a centuries-old clause in a financial bequest that covers 87.4 percent of the university's food budget.

Such things will cause men of import to sit up and take notice.

I laughed my head off.

And it's not like I know the first darned thing about soccer.

Football.

That too.

I made the most amazing lasagna

I mean, come on.

You can't argue with this face.

And it will be embarrassing.

Last night, I baby-sat my 2-year-old nephew for the first time.

I also changed a diaper for the first time in about five years.

(Jenna? Apologies if he had a diaper thong on this morning -- not sure I got it to fit right.)

After all that, I have this to conclude:

If anyone ever takes a photo of me and him watching a cartoon together, we will have the same rapt, gawping expression on our faces.

Adulthood means ...

... getting excited about decidedly unexciting stuff.

When I was a kid, I would get excited about Barbie dolls.

I'm semi-ashamed to admit it.
But there it is.
Out in the open for all to see.

Every birthday for an indeterminate number of years (ie, I'm just not telling you), I would request some sort of Barbie-related paraphernalia.

This goes a long way in explaining why my parents' barn attic is filled to bursting with Rubbermaid tubs of:

* Barbies
* Skippers
* Any number of Barbie's friends that would mysteriously pop in and out of existence on toy-store shelves
* Barbie clothes
* Kens
* Ken clothes
* A Mustang
* A limo
* An RV
* A beach house
* A grocery store
* An ice cream shop
* A veterinarian clinic

I was the only girl on either side of the family.
I'm never admitting that I was spoiled.
You can't make me.

But today I filed for benefits for December and then for next year.

And I am ridiculously excited about new glasses and getting my teeth cleaned.

I don't have time to take over the world

On a daily basis, I am amazed how much more time-consuming work is now that I'm in an office.

Is it that I'm actually more focused and accomplishing more?

Or could it be I'm accomplishing less --
no doing the laundry while waiting for a monstrous file to upload

no running the dishwasher over my lunch break

-- and my mind just doesn't get to think about other things during the day?

And yet this is the year that my sister-in-law and I have decided to take over Thanksgiving.

It's a brutal campaign.

All Domestic Power Shall Be Ours!

Buahahahahahahaha.

But seriously.

This year, I volunteered to make these.

And these.

And this.

I will be making a grocery-store run for bizarre items like white vinegar and rosemary the day after I pick up Jeremy from the airport.

Which, apparently, will be a new airport that I've never been to before.
Because someone decided they didn't like the old one that I at least sort of was familiar with and abandoned it without telling me.

Jerk.

I'm a bit terrified of airports to begin with.
Well.
Okay, so, terrified is a bit strong.

But I like to know where I'm going. And airports rather defy that sort of planning. As far as I know, they haven't come up with a Google maps for airport layouts. You just have to get familiar with them over time by visiting them repeatedly.

But I won't have time for all that.
Is it very reassuring do you think for the person picking you up at an airport to call you on your cell phone first?

"Hi! Welcome to my city! Give me a day or two, I'll find you eventually. Just stay put. It'll be great."

After five minutes ...

I never realized that when you were the one faced with a white dress, you still aren't safely allowed to say what you think about it all.

Because other women are still married.
Or getting married.

And it's the women you have to watch out for.
The men don't give a crap.
I heard this masculine exchange just last night and felt a pang of envy:

Male A: "I'm looking forward to dancing at your wedding."
Male B, referring to Male C: "Didn't you dance at his wedding?"
Male A: "No. That wedding was lame."
Male C: "Bahahahahahaha."

Women will never have such freedom. Yet another area of inequality between the sexes!

Just because it's you this time around doesn't mean you can freely voice all those thoughts that have accumulated after five-plus years of silently wondering "Why?" at weddings.

I've included a list of exchanges I've had recently. Study the As closely, so you can recognize the traps for yourself.

Exchange 1
Q: "So have you picked out a dress?"
A: "Oh, ha, no. The only thing I know is that I don't want one of those strapless poofy ballgowns. Hahaha."
Chilled silence
Q: "I wore a strapless poofy ballgown."
A: "Ha. Haha. Oh. Really?"

Exchange 2
Q: "So I don't see a ring. Have you been shopping?"
A: "Yes. Good Lord, I tell you, it's like wedding dress shopping. After five minutes, they all look alike, and they're all tacky."
Chilled silence
A remembers that she went wedding dress shopping with Q and possibly ring shopping with Q's then-fiancé.

Exchange 3
Q: "So have you picked a ring?"
A: "Yes, it's pretty simple. Everything else was too ... um ... I ..."
Chilled silence
A realizes that Q has 50 diamonds on 4 rings on one finger on her left hand.

Wedding festivities are not actually taking place in my corner of the world for a couple years for one reason and another, so I hereby make you the following promises:
a) I will not be postulating on the concept of weddings et al with much regularity (I hear a cheer).
b) When I do (I hear a groan), it will be random and probably not make much sense.
c) I have every intention of doing for matrimonial writing what Anne Lamott did for maternal writing (I hear a "whuh?").