The things that go through my head

The latch on my gate has been broken for the last couple of weeks, thanks to the cold spring winds slamming the gate shut. The latch got bent out of shape and I proceeded to bend it back into place with a hammer.  The next time that the wind bent the latch I ordered my boyfriend to pound it back into shape. Thanks to the stress and strain of the metal being bent and re-bent, the poor latch broke.  This is why I had to stand outside with my dog while he did his business. The weather is beautiful and all the snow is melting and mud-puddly. It’s the perfect weather for a housebound middle-aged, young-at-heart dog to run amok on our block.

Just think of the outdoor adventuring my dog can accomplish on a wet spring day!  So much garbage to discover among the melted snowbanks. He could luck out and find a carcass to drag home. Maybe an errant cat could saunter carefree through the neighbours’ yard. This would require running off at a frantic pace to let that cat know that such impertinence will not be tolerated. Perhaps a young child dropped a few French fries at the local McDonald’s for my sniffy dog to discover and enjoy. Without a pesky gate latch to hinder his movements, he is free to run and sniff to his hearts’ content.

Unless his owner decides to keep a stern and watchful eye while the middle-aged dog takes a load off, there is no way, no how that he will stay in the yard. Unfortunately, the same spring fever that hit the dog also hit his owner. While the owner was supposed to supervise the dog (or fix the gate), she wandered about the yard, picking up garbage, splashing through the mud puddles and deciding what yardwork needs to be tackled once the snow is finally gone. Once the dogs’ owner snaps out of her spring induced reverie, she realizes that the dog is nowhere to be found. Panic sets in momentarily. “OMG Did Winston get run over?” She takes a walk to his usual hideouts. She finds him in the first place that she looks. Do you know where that naughty dog was found?

Squatting in front of my neighbours’ sidewalk unloading a pile of puppy poo. Winston looks sheepish, ashamed and embarrassed, the way he always does when he is caught in the act of pooping in an inappropriate spot.  I give him my stern “What Do You Think You’re Doing?” look.  He finishes and runs back to the yard sheepishly, head hanging low, his little legs quickly scuttling back and forth, propelling him back to the yard. He stands expectantly in front of the gate. I stand by the front door in my grumpy owner voice. “C’mon boy, it’s time to go inside”. But he stands his ground and whines and I swear he is trying to tell me something.  If I didn’t know any better I would think that my dog wanted to show me something in the backyard. Curiosity gets the better of me and I decide to humor my dog (and myself). I follow him to my backyard and he saunters over to a gigantic turd, which obviously does not belong to my twelve pound Jack Russell terrier. He then looks at me expectantly, as if to say, “Your turn to sniff the mystery turd”. I decline but I realize that pooping in front of my neighbours’ yard was Winston’s attempt to right a wrong.

I cleaned up his errant poo when he wasn’t looking, so as not to upset my dog and nullify his retaliatory action. Then I proceed to fix the gate in order to keep my dog in the yard and all the other dogs out.

No gate will keep the cats out, unfortunately.

Proof I fixed the gate.

As I was driving my children home from the dentist today, we got into one of those really irritating conversations that parents of small children get into a lot. Katrina likes to ask Fear Factor type questions. “Would you eat a bucket of worms for a million dollars? Who would you rather live with if the whole family died?” Katey busts out with my blog post title and it got me to thinking. First of all, why do all 9 year old children ask these sorts of cryptic, morality questions? Secondly, isn’t paying a person $100 million to kick a puppy exactly like the Jerry Lewis Telethon that these disability activists are so upset about?

Kid 1 felt that kicking a puppy for $100 million is not bad because you could pay for really good vet care and the puppy would be good as new in no time. Of course, the puppy wouldn’t know anything about the money and would just think that you were mean to her and angry at her for some reason. Could you really hurt an innocent creature and make her fear and hate you, just to get a pile of money?

But Kid 1 explains that puppies are stupid and would forgive you sooner or later. Then we bickered back and forth about the amount of money. She agreed that it would be wrong to kick a puppy for $10, or $20, or $50, or $100, or $500. At $1000 the child hesitates but says no, she could not kick the poor, wee innocent creature for $1000. Finally, she haggled the price to $10 000. Despite my patient parental explanations, I could not get my child to agree that kicking puppies for money is wrong.

Whoa, there. You have no idea what this could possibly have to do with Jerry Lewis. Does he kick puppies? No, but he does kick the disabled. You probably think that Jerry Lewis is a generous guy that spent his life fund-raising for some worthy cause. Unfortunately, Jerry Lewis of Telethon fame, was awarded Humanitarian of the Year at the Oscars, thus tainting real humanitarians everywhere. Here is a video that I hope will help you get the picture.

Jerry uses condescending and insulting language to raise money by tugging on peoples’ heart strings and appealing to their guilt and pity. It would be nice if he actually listened to what these people had to say.

The Trouble With Jerry sent the Academy Award committee a letter explaining why they think they should rescind the award. They responded with the defense “He raised $800 million! How much money did you raise, losers” (I made up the losers part.) But it’s true that they really thought that all that money makes up for all the damage that is caused by portraying people living with disabilities as pathetic. While people with disabilities may be a minority population, it would be wise to consider that anybody could be hit with a disability at any time. We all live in fragile meat caskets that can be damaged by accident or disease. Then we may find out what it’s like to be told that you are lesser than or that you should stay in your house if you don’t want to be pitied.

Is the respect of an entire community worth $800 million? I certainly don’t think so.

Now I have to figure out why children always ask these strange questions which make no sense and lead to all these tangents. I just hope that nobody thinks that I am conflating people with puppies.

I was bored so I updated my blogroll with a couple of blogs that caught my attention. I have to say that I love Margaret and Helen. They are a couple of old ladies that have been best friends for 60 years. And they got a lot to to say about a lot of things. They don’t like Sarah Palin or George Bush or Anne Coulter. I completely understand. I do wish that they didn’t discriminate against the big-footed. They love to pick on Anne Coulter by mocking her emu-sized flippers. Those of you that know me personally know how much pride I take in my own personal, gigantic man-feet.

Yes, you heard me! I got size 11 feet. I can wear a men’s size nine, maybe squeeze into a wide size eight if I haven’t eaten in several days, which is never going to happen. Before I had children they were size ten. Having kids made them get even bigger. I can go swimming without any flippers and go skiing without any skis. I love being me, big feet and all. I could not possibly put down another human being merely for the size of their feet. Make fun of her for writing terrible books, run her down for being a deranged lunatic. But don’t pick on her for having clown feet.

Big feet are awesome. They are the greatest things in life. Any guy who would refuse to date me based on my big feet would surely be an intolerable knob. It narrows down the dating field considerably.

Other than the big-feet hating, I really do love Margeret and Helen. They are hilarious and witty.

She sure can turn a phrase. I just had to bring you this awesome quote which made me really happy to read.

Lonni and I are in complete agreement on one point: that women don’t own what our bodies eject. There are plenty of bodily effluents over which I would be happy to waive my jurisdiction, after they’re out and away. But — and this is where Lonni and I part ways — until they’re out, they’re mine. Take my used kleenex, my earwax, my excised tumors, but unless I’ve given you the secret password, stay the hell out of my canals.

And for crying out loud, if a kid is what gets ejected, by all means set it free. Don’t shake it or hit it or send it to bed without its supper. Don’t imprison it in a nuclear family or in some bleak concentration camp of a school. Don’t tell it to lose weight or how pretty it looks in makeup. Don’t abuse it with patriarchal myths about appeasing imaginary dude-centric celestial concierges. Don’t force it to marry some asshole in exchange for money. Don’t throw it out on the streets if it’s gay. Don’t expect a goddam thing.

I only wish I had been introduced to this line of thinking as a young teenager with no life experience. My life would have been completely different. But I will do my best to follow this awesome parenting advice. And I will make sure that my children read some good literature, when the time is right so that I don’t scare the bejeebers out of them.

That bit about school being a bleak concentration camp does touch a sensitive nerve with me, however.

I once went to the Midtown Plaza mall in downtown Saskatoon. It was the biggest mistake that I have ever made in my life. First of all, like every gullible consumer, I wandered aimlessly about the mall with a wad of cash burning a hole in my pocket. But I was also thirsty for a glass of water. No, I did not say a hot steaming cup of Starbucks, I want water. H2O. Not carbonated, over-priced sugar crap. WATER! As a lifelong participant in the educational system, I like water fountains. So off I went in search of a water fountain. Did I find a water fountain, you ask? No, I did not. Therefore I only had two options. 1. Suffer through my thirst until I get home and slurp directly from the tap or 2. Purchase a Dasani or Evian water bottle from the vending machine, wasting my hard-earned cash and contributing to pollution and the planet’s impending ecological collapse. The mall-builders neglected to put in water fountains in a nefarious scheme to separate me from my hard-earned cash. Well, it worked. Are you happy that you pried $1.75 out of my wallet? I certainly hope so.

I hope that you do not require more reasons to hate the mall. But just in case you do, I can provide. I walked past Cole’s bookstore and came across a lame display designed to separate consumers AKA suckers from their hard-earned cash. The display was entitled “20 books to read before you turn 20″. This is not enough to condemn the display. No, it was the books they chose that elicited a mighty eye-roll from yours truly. I have to admit that I have not read “The Diary of Anne Frank” or “The Book of Negroes” and I have no reason to dismiss those books as hackneyed garbage worthy of disdain. In fact, both of those books are on my grand list of “Books I Must Read Before I Die”. The book that gave me pause was “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand. I have to admit that I have not read this book and I never will. You see, I suffered through a couple of other Rand books, namely “Atlas Shrugged”. I can not emphasize how terrible Ayn Rand is. Her books are horrible. She tries desperately to be an honorary man by going on about “mankind”. Thanks a lot for erasing the existence of women, jerk. I have no respect for a female writer that is too lazy to use gender inclusive language such as “humankind” or “humanity”. Did she not grow up in a male-dominated world? Did she not feel anger and frustration while reading textbooks in school written exclusively from the male point of view? It sure used to anger me A LOT when I would read absolute garbage dismissing the female experience.

Also, she loves to write gross sex scenes wherein hetero chicks orgasm while men degrade them. It is impossible to read any of her horrible “literature” without scrunching your nose and thinking “EWWWWW!!!!”. I am an expert on Ayn Rand because I once read one of her books. Trust me when I say, don’t read Ayn Rand. Unless you like projectile diarrhea in written form.

Also, Rand is in love with cancer sticks and compares things she loves to smoking. All the time. And no, I am not making this up.

As if that wasn’t bad enough to convince me that Cole’s hates all women everywhere and female experience, they have to put up a truly odious display. A poster entitled Books for Boys. The books were books that any child living on planet earth could and would enjoy. If you answer yes to the following questions, you would like these books:

1. Do you like getting dirty?
2. Do you like taking things apart?
3. Do you like learning new things?

And that is what everybody likes to do, no matter what the configuration of their personal genitalia. It’s what makes you human. There was no “Books for Girls” display, but that was probably a good thing. They are so stupid that they would have probably put books about kittens and rainbows in the “Books for Girls” display and that would have made me even more cranky than forgetting that girls even exist. I wish Coles would realize that girls are human. How about a “Books for Kids” display?

Coles can forget about ever getting my hard-earned money ever again.

I’m starting to sound like a cranky Andrea Dworkin style radical feminist, the older that I get. And that’s all right with me. Male as standard, female as secondary (or worse, non-existent) is the foundation that misogyny is built upon.

I hate The Mall.

Remember a few months back when I got into a hit and run accident and totalled off my beautiful little white 1996 Pontiac Firefly?
Well, I have to admit to having gone through a wee bit of post-traumatic stress, being the overly sensitive person that I am. I used to be a very aggressive driver, maybe a little too much. No, I didn’t drive around town swearing and waving my middle finger out the window while weaving in and out of traffic, leaving a trail of road-rage inflicted drivers in my path. But I did find it rather difficult to stay below the speed limit and I am impatient with people that chat on their bloody cell phones when the light is green. I’ve got places to go and things to do! So I may have occasionally needed a little restraint. But I really took it the other way after the accident. Here I was driving 30 klicks when I wasn’t even in a school zone. Luckily, my boyfriend took me to skool with a few well-placed snarky comments. I totally had it coming.

I was giving him the pleasure of being a passenger in my fine new purple Geo-Metro. (I can never remember the year.) Did I tell you that she only has 123 000 klicks under her belt? That she doesn’t burn any oil between oil changes? That the parts to fix my car are super dirt cheap? That my brother is a Geo Metro aficionado that fixes my car for nothing? No? Well, there you go. My purple Geo Metro is the sweetest ride ever. It also came with a free Nickelback CD and a working CD player. Yes, it’s true that I miss my AM/FM radio and tape deck, but CDs are OK too. But the best thing about my car is the fact that I can drive to the farm four times on a full tank of gas.

As we were driving he pointed out all my flaws as a driver. The fact that I was being tail-gated by an angry swearing dude on a cell phone because I was going really slow. Well, so what, I like driving slow. Of course, I always used to lose my temper at people that drive twenty klicks under the speed limit. Hmmmm. Maybe I am being one of those stupid drivers I am always complaining about.

I wasn’t going to drive like a complete and utter tool! No more of this nonsense. Life is too short to drive twenty klicks under the speed limit and obsess about the number of deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents. It just isn’t worth it. When I took the kids skating in Radisson last night, I drove like a maniac, in the dark, on the highway, over the speed limit, and I didn’t even freak out when I saw a deer crossing sign. I didn’t even fret upon the fact that nearly everybody I know that lives in rural Saskatchewan has totalled their car by running over an innocent deer. I have almost forgotten about that deer I almost murdered because I just didn’t see it. Lots of people die that way. And I didn’t even worry about it. Really. It was really nice.

Am I normal?

sexistcandy

So you say that Yorkies aren’t for girls!  Well, take this, you smelly, sexist candy.  We girls with our scary vaginas are going to OM NOM NOM the life out of you. No wait, we won’t use our scary vaginas, contrary to popular belief they do not contain fangs.  We will eat it with our teeth.  So there you go.  As a revenge for putting sexist crap on your extremely delicious chocolate bars, we spent our hard earned money on you, oh sexist chocolate bar, therefore making money for whoever cooked up this nefarious scheme.

Want to hear a pointlessly funny tangent about my life?  Of course you do, or you wouldn’t have made it this far on my internet soap box.  When I proclaimed to my eldest child Hannah that I was not going to spend my hard-earned money on her anymore, do you know what she said to me???

“HA HA HA HA HA HARD-EARNED MONEY DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH!  You only work 30 hours a week.  You don’t get to call it hard-earned money until you pick rocks out of ditches.”

What an impertinent little brat!  Can you believe the audacity of some peoples’ children?

* This delightfully cheesy animation that my daughter KT made me.

* A McNally Robinson gift card for $25 to spend on books.

* The opportunity to gorge on the previously mentioned birthday cake.  No candles though.  I didn’t want to burn the house down.

*A box of Timbits.

*Too many Happy Birthday! Facebook messages to count.

*A warm, sunny weekend.

*A soaking wet dog.

*A mis-spelled text message from my brother stating “Your old.”

All in all, it was a great weekend.

Nothing pains me more than sitting there in front of the teevee, watching some show deemed appropriate for children, and hearing the phrase casually uttered “She’s just playing hard to get!” by some over-eager pimply-faced jerk. Why just the other day I was watching “The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show” and Bugs was pursuing some uninterested and unfortunate female. The female is always a hussied up version of the male. When Bugs wants to fool old Elmer Fudd, all he has to do is don the female drag that we girls all know and love-mascara, eye shadow, creams, powders, high heels, dresses, big hair- that universally distinguishes the genders. The biggest problem with playing hard to get is the fact that she isn’t playing. She just wants you to leave her alone and move on with your life.

Every woman or girl inhabiting Planet Earth in the presence of males has been subjected to the torment of being pursued by some jerk who just won’t take no for an answer. In my own life I have been lucky enough to have been accused of playing hard to get, when I just wanted HIM to leave me alone and get on with his life. Honestly, does anybody genuinely think it’s romantic when a guy follows you around, singing songs under your window, banging on your door, begging for your affection and drunkenly slurring words of love on the phone at 4:00 am? No? I didn’t think so.

But it seems to me that every romantic comedy under the sun uses this over-used trope. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t care and lets him know that. Boy pursues girl anyway making a complete ass out of himself. Girl finally sees the light and reciprocates affection. They get married and live happily ever after.   If I happen to be watching it, I die a little inside and bang my head against the wall in an attempt to dislodge the brainwashing toxins. How about this: Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t care and lets him know that. Boy pursues girl anyway making a complete ass of himself. Girl finally sees the light and kicks him in the balls. Boy takes the hint and moves on with his life. Or even better, boy takes the hint before girl feels she has no recourse but to inflict violence on the hapless male.

Are you kidding me?  This is ridiculous.  Refusing to take no for an answer makes you a rapist.  It’s not funny and it’s not cool and I don’t ever want to see it again.  So that’s why I quit watching television.  It’s way too gross and depressing.

You will not be surprised to learn that the existence of opposing viewpoints are greatly offensive to one particular religious group. This time, it’s PZ Myers blogging about Christian busdriver Ron Heather who refuses to drive a bus because of the offensive language sprawled across the side of it. Want to know what message got him so upset? Check it out:

Wackaloon Busdriver

For those of you that are too lazy or busy to watch the video, the bus had this message on it:

There is probably no God
Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

I have to wonder what else offends this guy. Would he be offended by images of aborted fetuses plastered on the side of the bus? I would presume that he would be offended by gross, disgusting images like that, just like most people would. I am sure that no self-respecting bus company would allow anybody to buy anti-abortion advertising. That’s why the pro-life wackaloons have to buy their own truck and put their own fetus images on it. They are limited in the ways that they can enjoy and express their free speech rights.

Anyway, if I was a pro-choice wackalloon with too much money and free time HA! I would start a little advertising campaign of my own.

You are more likely to be battered by your spouse during pregnancy than any other time in your life. Use condoms.

*Picture of C-Section*
Childbirth and Pregnancy Change Your Body Forever. Use Condoms.

You get the picture.

But hey, I was just wondering. What would you do if you were a bus driver and there were offensive images or words on the bus. For me, an offensive image is a picture of Adam Sandler promoting his latest mind-dump of a movie. For you, it might be breasts that offend your sensibilities. Maybe you are okay with breasts if they are cleavage spilling out of a tight-fitting dress. But as soon as your eyes are assaulted by the sight of a baby being nourished by boobs you are thrown into fits of apoplexy (whatever that means). Or maybe it’s aborted fetuses. What would you do?

I would make rude comments about the company and probably get fired. “Adam Sandler movies are the worst. I would rather have my crotch sand-blasted than sit through one of his atrocities. Why do they insist on advertising this mind-rot” But I sure wouldn’t quit doing my job.