Thursday, October 27, 2005

Bad Idea Redux

I have joined yet another book club. I belonged to one a while ago and quit, for some very good reason that I forgot and now suddenly someone asks me to join one and I am all "Oh book club! Great idea! Yes! I am in!" like a dork.

The book choices are lame (like Danielle Steele novel-lame) unless they are my books which I know are not lame because I have already read them. So the only non-lame books in the club are books I have read. Now I will have to force myself to read these ridiculous waste of time books so I can have something to say about the attractive female executive who fights the glass ceiling by sleeping with her boss.

SHATNER VOICE: Why-do-I-do-this-to-myself? Is there no way I can blame my husband for this? No way at all?

Mayonnaise

What is up with the people who don't like mayonnaise? (As I type this I know some of you American readers are pronouncing it man-aise, which is to my Canadian ear terribly exotic sounding. In Canada, we pronounce it mayonnaise, and now you probably just did it again...anyway...).

Why is it that people who do not like mayonnaise dislike it so intensely? Their dislike is so intense it seems to be expressed in degrees of revulsion. They are all "UUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHH Mayonnaise!!". While you sit there with your tuna salad sandwich suddenly feeling like you're eating the contents of a military hazing bucket. It's eggs and oil, peeps. Egg yolks and oil. I think there's a psychological component at play in the mayo hating and I will leave it at that.

Personally, I do not like the taste of cilantro; I find it tastes a lot like soap, which if any food should rate on a revulsion scale it is something that tastes like something that is, well, inedible. But au contraire, cilanto dislikers just say "I don't like cilantro." We don't make Mr. Fresh Salsa consumer feel like he is drinking someone else's vomit by indulging in it.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

The Horror, The Horror (and I do not mean the existential horror of man's existance

I am going state right up front that I am not crazy about using other people's bathrooms and even less crazy about people using mine. Someone pops into the bathroom and if I am not hearing the sounds of handwashing within about 30 seconds, I start to get nervous.

So, last week a visitor to my bathroom actually clogged it up, Al Bundy-style. And if that's not horrifying enough for someone like me, actually waited until the water tank had refilled itself and then, when the water level was at its absolute maximum height, flushed again (!) so that water et al began pouring out onto my bathroom floor, down the heating duct and out into the carpet in the hall. The old ball 'n' chain actually had to get out the carpet cleaner to suck the water out of the heating duct. Incidentally, I have a new name for the carpet cleaner now and that's the "no fucking way will I ever use that machine again" machine.

You haven't really lived until you spend your afternoon, running out of "rag" towels and having to revert to using your actual family bath towels (gah!) to clean up someone's overflow. As these situations tend to go, this one just kept getting better with caulking around the floor moulding disintegrating, linoleum bubbling up and water (ahem) stains being left on the ceiling in the garage. Witnessing this damage the person (who, by the way is notoriously cheap) then says, "Oh well, that's what insurance is for!"

I tell this story and my father-in-law tells me that he saw a news report that said the toilet bowl is far cleaner than the kitchen sink. Dudes, I do not know what you are putting in your kitchen sinks, but I can maybe make a few suggestions about what not to put in there, if you need some.

Moral of the story: Please don't ever use my bathroom.

wtf?

In reading these comments it is so encouraging to me to see that I am finally recognized for my contribution to the fields debt consolidation, portable air conditioning and perhaps most significantly, my huge contribution to the field of driveway alarm systems.

I cannot tell you how tirelessly I have worked to bring you, Dear Reader, the most up-to-the-minute information in these important fields. Finally someone, (Bless you chimes&alarms) has taken the time to recognize it.