Silly Soapbox: Beer-Can Barriers

Sometimes I wonder how many of my so-called ‘problems’ are very much like this:

Seemingly impossible to fix from my perspective.  Laughable from the outside.  ”Stupid girl!  Why doesn’t she just knock the cans over and get her squeaky toy?”

Oh, the beer-can barriers of life!  The things we let the world convince us of!  The things we convince ourselves of!   *bangs fist on podium*  Let us take back our right to wide open spaces filled with squeaky-toy goodness!  Let us shrug off the shackles of the empty can and say the words every aluminum product fears: I will recycle you, mutha-trucka!

*takes a moment to regain composure*

What are your beer can barriers?  What kind of funny tricks do you make your pets do for a giggle?  Let’s chat.

Silly Soapbox: The Rectangle of Filth

The Rectangle of Filth.  AKA, public restrooms.

I don’t enjoy them.  Really, who does?  (If you just raised your hand, shame, shame on you.)  Even little children hate them – have you ever seen a little child in a public restroom who isn’t covering their ears with a slightly terrified look in their eyes?  I believe little kids are more sensitive to the darker spiritual forces in this world, which makes me think we should all enter public restrooms trepidation and respectful fear.

Even though I attempt to avoid them as much as humanly possible, the facts are: I have three kids, and I’m pregnant.  Thankfully, my two oldest boys are now fully capable of handling themselves in the bathroom unassisted, but with a three-year old and a bladder that’s fighting for real-estate with an ever-growing fetus, it’s nearly impossible for me to run errands without having to enter what I like to call The Rectangle of Filth.

Entering a public restroom is a risky endeavor that makes my blood pressure sky-rocket, my palms sweat, and my stomach churn.  It’s a race to get in and out of that putrid enviornment as fast as humany possible – which is never fast enough, especially with a pokey pre-preschooler in tow.

My daughter has learned to make a game of it – the sort of game that rides on my nerves the whole time.  She keeps one hand firmly planted on one ear to protect herself from the noise around us, but with the other, she takes days off my life.  Thanks to my insistent repeating of the phrase, “Don’t touch anything.  Don’t touch anything!” she now enjoys putting her little, chubby finger as close as she possibly can to the stall door, the toilet paper dispenser, anything, and say, “Wook, mom.  I not touch anyfeeng!”  She’s also been known to utter a few “Hoopie, hoooooopie!!” at me, which is the ‘scary’ ghost sound she likes to make when something is creepy.  For those of you who think three-year old’s humor can’t possibly be sophisticated enough to mock, you haven’t met my daughter.  She clearly finds my discomfort in public restrooms a source of entertainment.

There are two scenarios you can face upon entering the Rectangle of Filth.  The first, I like to call Russian Roulette.  You’re faced with an otherwise empty restroom, and all the doors are closed.  You must choose one to kick open (because we only open doors in public restrooms with either our feet or our elbows) out of the availiable stalls.  If there are five stalls available, there’s a 99% chance that 4 of those stalls will be unusable due to a plethora of conditions that we all can easily picture in our minds.  And there’s a 75% chance that the one acceptable stall won’t have any toilet paper.

If, by some stroke of luck, you manage to find the acceptable stall first, and it’s equipped with appropriate amounts of toilet paper, you breathe a sigh of relief, open, close, and lock it with your feet/elbows, and get down to business, promising yourself you’ll play the lottery later that night.  Because really, finding the first stall in acceptable use condition just doesn’t happen.  Ever.  It’s literally the luckiest day you’ll have all year.

The second scenario is called the Que from Hell.  There’s a line.  A long line.  Your daughter is almost-but-not-quite touching everything and everybody saying, “Wook, mom.  I not touch!  I not touch!”  You’re seriously considering a straight-jacket made for toddlers just for these moments, while trying not to dwell on the fact that waiting in line means one thing:  You’ll only get a chance at one stall.  A stall that was previously occupied by somebody’s derrière immediately prior to yours.

Here’s the icing on the cake.  Watch the person coming out of the stall that you will soon occupy.  THEY LOOK GUILTY!!!  Why?  What on earth were they doing in there that they should look guilty about?  It can’t be the act itself – we all do it…so what were they doing, and why do they feel so guilty about it?

This is so much worse than the Russian Roulette scenario.  Sure, in RR, you face the danger of having to see a multitude of things that can kill your appetite for weeks to come, but this guilt that strangers carry out of the bathroom stall with them…it keeps me up at night.  What were they doing in there?

I have no solution to the public bathroom.  Handwashing and anti-bacterial gel once free of the Rectangle of Filth are all I can come up with.  But I do have one favor to ask:

If you find yourself in a Que from Hell experience, for goodness sake, when you leave your stall, LEAVE IT WITH CONFIDENCE.  Don’t inflict more stress upon the masses who are waiting patiently to relieve themselves in the Rectangle of Filth.

Silly Soapbox: How the invention of the Dishwasher makes up for the invention of Pantyhose

There are some things that bring balance to the universe.  A wrinkled, toothless great-grandparent holding an smooth-skinned but equally toothless grandchild.  Thanksgiving gluttony (one of my absolute favorites) followed by grueling New Year’s resolutions.  Elaine from Seinfeld dancing at a party and Mikhail Baryshnikov dancing in Giselle.  Some of these ying-to-yang scenarios are altogether pleasant – who doesn’t love seeing generations of families love one another?  Some of them are comical (personally, I find Elaine and Baryshnikov equally entertaining, though in different ways).  But sometimes, balance is achieved only through the age-old dilemma that has plagued us since the dawn of man:

Good vs. Evil.

If you’re a woman, and heck, in some cases, if you’re a man, there is a better chance than not that you’ve experienced pure evil in your life.

I’m talking about…(dum, dum, dummmm)…Pantyhose.

Pantyhose aren’t simply a harbinger of evil.  They are evil.  It’s true.  All the red flags are there to warn us:

*Tiny packaging.  I mean, come on.  How can something that can literally fit into an Easter egg actually be expected to comfortably fit over half my body?

*Unnatural colors.  Remember Data from Star Trek? They chose the color ‘natural’ based on his skin tone.  The Oompa Loompa’s from Charlie and the Chocolate factory? Yeah, that’s ‘tan’. Oh, and don’t forget the weird, off-black color.  They got that from the Uruk-hai in Tolkien’s novels.  Not exactly flattering.

*Words like ‘Extra Support’ and ‘Queen’.  These seem like good, positive words, right?  They’re not.  They’re well-crafted lies from the Evil One (aka, Pantyhose).  Extra Support means “Squeeze your fat behind in these and I’ll remind you all day how imperfect you are.”  Queen was a term Pantyhose used to describe size when I was younger.  Sounds nice, right?  It’s not.  Instead of meaning a woman or thing regarded as excellent or outstanding of its kind (straight from the dictionary, thank you), what Pantyhose really means is, ”You ate two dozen donuts yesterday and now I’m mocking you.”  Pantyhose is that ‘friend’ who says nice things to you, but the meaning is something different.  Way, way different.

Don’t get me wrong.  I still succumb to the lure of hosiery from time to time.  It happens.  Spanx has an undeniable siren song – I think many of you would agree.  After a few kids, the lure of a smooth mid-section is…intoxicating.  But I’m not here to discuss whether we should or shouldn’t wear them – I’m here to discuss how the evil they’ve forced the world to put on one ridiculously constricting and fragile (don’t get me started about runs!) leg at a time has been evened out.

Let me introduce you, my friends, to the DISHWASHER.

How many of us grew up washing dishes by hand?  How many of us, even now, find ourselves at this chore after dinner?  I’ve been there, through the bulk of my childhood, and most of my adult life.  Some homes we’ve lived in have had dishwashers, others haven’t.  The last five years were spent in a house sans dishwasher (and abnormally low countertops, which meant washing dishes was a major pain in the…).

We recently moved – into a house with a bright, shiny new dishwasher.  And I was reminded how lovely a contraption it is.

My dishwasher delivers on his promises.  He washes my dishes.  He dries my dishes.  He sterilizes our sippy cups.  He doesn’t balk at pots and pans, and he handles my wine glasses with white gloves.  There is no false flattery here – he doesn’t tell me what I want to hear, and then snigger behind my back.  No, folks.  The Dishwasher is a class act (much like my dryer, Mr. Rochester).

If Pantyhose are Pure Evil, then Dishwashers are our Knights in Shining Armor.  Sure, the two foes may fight on different battlefields, but I’m convinced a victory in the kitchen can overcome a ruined day from a run in those off-black stockings.  A clean kitchen in half the time at night can make up for the oncoming morning where you must wrestle yourself into a pair of unyielding and mocking Spanx in the name of fashion.

Tell me your thoughts!  Who out there is with me?  Or do you belong to Team Pantyhose and are itching to put me in my place like a size-too-small-girdle-strength-support-top-incarnation-of-evil?  :)  I open myself up to any and all comments!

Big grins,

Myn

Silly Soapbox: Popsicles

Popsicles.  I love ‘em.  For so many reasons.  So sit your butt down while I wax poetic about the virtues of the rainbow colored family of frozen treats.

#1: They’re dangerous.  You don’t think so?  Listen to this:  They’re cold.  So cold, that if you eat them too quickly, you run the risk of freezing your brain plumb off.  PLUMB OFF, people.  I swear I’ve had this nearly happen to me multiple times, and while in the moment it’s terrifying, after it’s over…whew!  What a rush.  The danger factor is definitely a perk, especially for those of us who wish we were into extreme sports, but aren’t.  I never feel quite as dangerous as I do when there’s a popsicle in my hand.

#2: Adding to the danger factor is this little fact:  They melt.  You have to eat them quickly (running the risk of destroying brain matter), and if you don’t, they melt.  All over your hands, your clothes.  Leaving you sticky and stained.  You walk a fine line while eating popsicles.  Too fast, dead brain.  Too slow, permanently stained garments.  Sure, your hands will wash, but facts are facts: Red Cherry and Blueberry flavored popsicles stain forever.  Some people think that souls are the only thing that are eternal.  I say souls, and popsicle stains.

#3: Danger isn’t the only thing that makes popsicles so attractive.  They’re sweet, but not in a heavy, ice-creamy way.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love ice-cream.  I do.  But sometimes you just don’t want a creamy, sugary concoction resting in your gut.  Sometimes you want an artificially flavored, high-fructose corn-syrup sweetened watery-frozen concoction instead.  *raises hand and jumps up and down a little*  I do!  I do!

#4: The thing that sets popsicles aside from the standard ice-cream cone is this:  The jokes.  The popsicle takes the cake for this fact alone.  Because the popsicle is a giver.  It doesn’t simply satisfy our child-like pallets, or our need to live dangerously.  No, the popsicle wants to invest in our minds by asking us questions.  Questions we have to wait to get the answers to until our tasty treat is gone.  Questions that not only make us think, but make us laugh.  Oh, dearest reader.  This is the sign of a true friend.

Take a couple of these gems, straight from the sticks that I collected today (there is a small chance this post was brought on by a four-month old fetus demanding popsicles, and the sticks might be the evidence) as examples:

Why did the baseball fan give the house a pair of sneakers?  Because he wanted to see a home run. *ba-dum-bum*

What do you call a pony that surfs?  A seahorse. *giggle, snort*

What did Mr. and Mrs. Steak name their son?  Chuck.  *snicker*

And so, my friendlies, let us all revel in the wonder that is the popsicle.  I wish you all happy weekends with dye-stained tongues, non-frozen brains, and new jokes to share with your friends.