Family Tree

It's a cold truth to face, but sometimes even the trustiest of pals can turn on a person. 

For instance, my longtime friend and ally, Internet Shopping, really fucked me this year. At Christmastime. Ouch. What did I ever do to you to deserve this, Internet Shopping? Couldn't we have just hugged it out instead?

Commence panicked last-minute double-shopping insanity. 

But the bright side of my orders not arriving in time is that I'm already well on my way to being done my shopping for next Christmas. Handy, right? Maybe I can wrap it up by April or so and make people think I'm a complete jackass - people just love it when you rub it in that you're way more psychotic about the holidays than they are. *cough, cough, Martha Stewart*

And on that note, I'd like to take a moment to gloat that I'm done my shopping for the future Mrs. Small Fry's** first Christmas as part of the family:

That's, like, decades ahead of schedule - eat my dust, Martha.

(**Notice that I'm waiting until the poor gal is actually married in before I let on just what she's getting herself into, 'cause you can bet that boy is karmically assured to wind up with kids just like himself.)

Be Good for Goodness Sake!

During a recent bout of insomnia, I got the good idea to bake gingerbread men. Mostly I wanted to have a cookie-decorating party, but also - what else is there to do at three o'clock in the morning? And then I got the even better idea to poke a skewer through the gingerbrains of a dozen of those little critters and string them with a bit of ribbon so I could hang them on our Christmas tree.

Which I hadn't put up yet. Dang. So I also did that. But really - what else is there to do at five o'clock in the morning?

By the time I had the furniture rearranged and the tree decorated and the place tidied up again, it wasn't so early anymore. Small Fry came downstairs. I set down my seventeenth cup of coffee of the day and assumed a defensive crouch.

7:53am: Small Fry gasps and runs over to stand, starry-eyed, in front of the tree. A misguided "Oh, he's so sweet! I should get the camera" synapse fires in my brain.

7:53:10am: I reach up my nose with an ornament hook and rip that idiotic neuron out at the roots.

7:53:20am: Small Fry throws his arms open and exclaims, "I love it!" ... and leaves the tree completely alone.

No word of a lie. He didn't touch it at all. Not with a dinosaur, not with his eyeballs, not even with his nipples. What a difference from last year! This year's tree didn't require one iota of parental management.

Um, sorry, camera-neuron. Guess that was a little rash of me.

But then tonight I looked over and saw this:

 and this:

and this:

And yes, I put up a fake tree this year, but that's not the point so quit judging me. The point is, those are tooth marks. Small Fry has been nibbling on my sweet little defenseless gingerbabies in situ, like so many endangered albatross chicks or something. 

I no longer have a collection of adorable, homemade keepsake ornaments: I am the proprietor of a retirement community for gingerbread amputees. Not to mention, the mother of a rather devious Christmas-tree-worshipping pagan with possible cannibalistic tendencies. *sigh* Merry Christmas to me.

Liquefaction

Dear Santa,

I have been a moderately decent human this year. Please bring me the willpower to lose ten pounds before Christmas.

Thanks,

Frecklepelt

Dear Frecklepelt,

My records indicate that you have in fact achieved your stated level of mediocrity over the past year. Thank you for your honesty, anyways. 

Unfortunately, willpower is on back order until the year 3000. In lieu of your requested item, enclosed is a really wicked stomach flu which may help you achieve your goal.

Sincerely,

Santa

Tenderfoot

Self, this is probably going to be hard to hear, but it needs to be said. I am your friend and I care about you, so please hear me out.

Self, you need to stop wearing your old work boots with your slacks at work.

I know, I know, you love your old work boots, and they're sooo comfy and your feet are soooo far away that, really, it's nothing but another unnecessary inconvenience in your life, but it's just the way it is.

No. No, please don't - please don't cry. I hate it when you cry. Well, yes, you do cry an awful lot, but that doesn't mean that I hate you, it just means that I frequently feel confused and agitated when I'm around you.

No, we're talking about your issues today. Specifically, your poor fashion sense. Quit changing the subject.

Now that is complete horse puckey, what on earth could possibly happen to your toes while sitting at your computer that would necessitate wearing CSA approved footwear? And don't you spend, like, the GDP of a small nation on pedicures every year? Why not show off those foxy tootsies a little?

Self, I hear what you're saying, but you really need to listen to me. Maybe it was endearing at one point in time back when you were a real biologist, but now... well, now it's just weird. You work at a desk. You wear mascara every day. Why can't you just change into one of the forty pairs of shoes you have hiding in your office?

Oh. Sorry. I didn't realize he didn't know you owned that many shoes. What do you do, buy them and smuggle them to work in your backpack?

Huh. Well, I guess that's one way to go about it.

But back to the boots. They don't even match with anything. No, it's not part of their charm, it's part of their, like, not-charm. They are the Anticharm. Plus, they smell. Oh yes they do! I dare you to smell them. Smell them! See? I told you so.

So are you with me now? Thaaaat's a good girl. Step away from the boots. It's okay, they've had a good life and they're going to a better place now. Sure, we can bury them in the back yard, sweetie, just as soon as the soil thaws a bit in the spring. We'll have a little memorial service, it'll be real nice. No, they'll be alright to sit over winter - I doubt they could get much stinkier.

S.H.*.T.

I was telling a group of work girlfriends over the weekend about this one time I accidentally mis-texted a wildly inappropriate message that was intended for my mom to a male coworker whose name happens to be alphabetically adjacent to hers on my recipient list... aaaand who also happens to be my boss. (What can I say - I've got fat thumbs and slow reflexes).

Most of the ladies laughed.

One of the ladies leaned forward, pointed at me and in the Voice of Eternal Damnation said, 

“I am so signing you up for Sexual Harassment Awareness Training.”

I totally S.H.A.T.

I can only assume that this means I'll be seeking alternate employment in the near future. Dear soon-to-be ex-coworkers: it's been nice knowing you. I would apologize for all those off-colour jokes/texts/emails over the years, but I'm not actually sorry - it's just how I roll. Maybe if you're not feeling too terribly victimized by my perverse sense of humour you could give me a call sometime. We could make out. Er, hang out.

(Oh, what the hell. I meant make out.)

To kick my job search off on the right foot, I'd like to use my blog as a forum for supplementing my formal resume (bo-ring!) with a list of some of my many "alternate" - yet highly transferable! - skillz:

- created well-received employee initiatives
- conflict resolution experience
- workplace safety training

- emergency preparedness planning background
- developed innovative terminology

- accomplished cook and baker
- um ... plant sitting expertise ...
- ... possesses high degree of hepatic fortitude
- really awesome hair ... and, uh ...

- hardly steals the covers at all.

If you happen to know anyone who's willing to pay top dollar for such broad-ranging talent, hook me up. Preference will be given to candidates who have completed Sexual Harassment Acceptance Training, or who have demonstrably comparable experience.
 

Plus, I'll Know Which Plants to Eat

People are all about the zombie apocalypse these days. I hardly know anyone who doesn't secretly believe they've got the ultimate in zompocalypse planning all worked out. Even weirder is that everyone is so frigging cagey about their plan, as if it's actually going to be implemented and they don't want anyone else getting in on their gig. ("Dammit, Greg, this was the office tower I picked out special for me and my flamethrower - what the hell are you doing here?")

Seriously. It's ridiculous. People don't even adequately plan for feasible eventualities like, say, retirement, or inclement weather conditions. Why the zombie apocalypse of all things?

Not to mention that their cherished zompocalypse plans invariably reveal gross tactical errors: castle defense scenarios; heading to the Arctic (it's not exactly hospitable for you there, either); not having a botanist on their team.

Me? I'm just going about my life as normal, contributing to my RRSP and carrying an umbrella. Truth be told, if the unthinkable ever comes to pass, I'll actually be looking forward to finally meeting someone who wants me for my brains.

Mitten String

It's been a beautiful fall here in Cowtown this year - so beautiful that we didn't have to crack the Rubbermaid of winter gear until last week.

In the past seven days, Medium Fry has already lost the two pairs of mittens remaining from the dozen or so we procured for her last winter.

"Maybe," she says, "you should put them on a string."

I like the part where she implies it's my fault because I haven't properly secured the mittens.

Know what, sweetie? To hell with a string. What we really need here is some sort of bungee cord, so if you even try to lose a mitten it comes back and smacks you upside the head. Now that would reinforce the principle.

Actually, I don't know who invented bungee cords, but after having been around for over a century don't you think they could use a little capacity upgrade? Consider the progression of the telephone - twenty years ago portable technology meant yelling into a four thousand dollar brick. Today, the iPhone is smarter than most people I know. But bungee cords? I'm not saying they're dumb, exactly, but they certainly haven't gotten "smart" in the sense that phones have - same elastic cord, same metal hooks, year after year after year. And sure, they hold your lunch box on your quad or keep your sleeping bag rolled just fine, but when it comes to any advanced parenting applications the traditional bungee cord falls sadly short.

What we need is a smart bungee - one that senses the issue at hand, then reliably calculates and enacts the desired parental response. The potential applications are limitless - The Mitten Bungee. The House Keys Bungee. The "you were wearing your glasses on your own face, where in hell could they possibly have gone?" Bungee.

And, at the pinnacle of bungee evolution, The Homework Bungee. The Homework Bungee would not only smack the absentminded child upside the head if ever s/he was about to misplace the homework, but would also ward off all manner of threats to the safe completion and submission of the homework, including (but not limited to):

- put the homework in the backpack*;
- zip up the backpack*;
- fend off hungry dogs;
- remind the child seventeen times to do the homework;
- find the kid some paper;
- find the kid a pencil;
- find the kid a calculator;
- find the kid a goddam full-size eraser;
- find the mom some patience**;
- sop up purple Kool-Aid spills*;
- find the mom some Advil;
- remind the mom what the fuck an integer is;
- check the homework;
- sign the homework;
- put the homework back in the backpack*;
- zip up the backpack*;
- fend off hungry dogs;
- remind the child seventeen times to hand in the homework*;
- repeat. Daily.

Come one, parents. You can't tell me you wouldn't willingly trample someone at Target on Black Friday if the Homework Bungee went on sale.

* Asterisks denote items for which a head smack is warranted. 
** Yep, I get one, too, for losing my shit^^^ over math homework. 
^^^ But seriously - I already passed Grade Six, why am I being punished?*
* Ow. Oh, I get it. Bad attitude.