I have officially gone insane.

I have a tendency to talk to inanimate objects. That's not that unusual, right? Everyone, including me, curses their work computer (you'll notice I specify "work" computer. My home computer and I have a very good relationship, and I only speak lovingly to him…..it.), or coaxes the senile toaster into doing its job…right?? 

But I think in my case, it's maybe gotten a bit out of hand.

For example, today I had a conversation with Vladimir.

Vladimir is my car. We haven't known each other that long, but we are becoming quite close. I named him Vladimir after the jolly mustached man in the movie Anastasia.

(guy on the left)

I have always liked that movie, and I likewise named my Macbook after another character in said movie, Bartok the bat. 

I also have been reading way too much Tolstoy and have grown to like Russian names. Hence, Vladimir seemed to fit. 

Anyways, today as I was searching for Vladimir in the very large parking lot of my place of employment so that I could warm him up before my mom and I left for the day, I began monologuing, and it went something like this…

Vladimir, where the cuss are you?!?! Oh! There you are Vladimir. Did you miss me? See, you needn't have worried, I was just at work, and I am back now. Now, I know you want to go home, but we have to wait for momma, ok? She'll be here in just a minute…….

We (I) said some more stuff after that, but I don't really remember it all and I'd rather not disclose it. I think I was pondering aloud how Vladimir would look with a beard, but decided he should stick with the clean cut look.

And then I realized that maybe I need to find some friends.

-Rachel

Coffee Cup Sizes and Dr. House

Before I begin hating on coffee cups, I want to share with you the two most beautifully encouraging comments that I received this week.  We’ve been up and running for only one week, and we have gotten TONS of positive feedback about making you guys laugh which happens to be our goal.

“Whitney Bradley, The writings of you and Rachel Dupont HAVE made me laugh like a FOOL! Keep it going :)” -Hannah Nobel

“Hi Whitney, you don't know me. I'm Rachel's brother's girlfriend's eldest brother. Your blog is amazing. It looks great. I can read it easily. The white text on black background is the way to go. Also, everything both of you write is pure gold. Keep it up or you may have a revolt of at least 8 people. No pressure.” -Adam Plomaritas

So I made you guys an award for being my favorite people:

Those things at the top that look like butts are actually very intricately drawn bald eagles, you just can’t tell because your mind isn’t used to art of this magnitude.

REAL STORY

The other night, I was driving my two-hour drive back to Jackson when it suddenly hit me...if I didn’t get some coffee in the next two minutes, I would be sad was going to die. Probably from a brain aneurysm because my head felt a little funny. 

Oh, shout out to whoever finds me after I have this aneurysm (my head still feels funny): I would like you to get me Dr. House.  Don’t tell me he’s made-up.  I would like him to be my doctor, and I would like you to ask him to please skip his two wrong diagnoses and get right to his third correct one.  Also if you could tell him to not discover something extra, like that I am a man or that I’m pregnant with eight children who are being absorbed by my small intestine, that would be great.  The show “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant” has taught me that whether your a guy or a girl, fat or skinny, there is about an 85% chance that a baby is going to fall out of you at any second and that stuff freaks me out.  So I really need to spend most of my time continuing to worry about that and not something else.

So I stopped to get some coffee.

I can’t remember the name of the obscure no-name coffee shop, but it probably had the word “java” or “mocha” in it.  Then the owner probably tried to make it something cute, so maybe they called the coffee shop “Polk-a-Mocha” which is supposed to sound like “polk-a-dot” but it sounds nothing like “polk-a-dot” because they are idiots.  Then you sit on the bench outside Polk-a-Mocha in the dark, amongst the serial killers, wondering if the name of the shop is instead somehow related to James K. Polk since no one could be so stupid that they think “mocha” is a proper substitute for the word “dot.”  Forty minutes later, you realize that who the heck cares why some no-talent Indie musician names his coffee shop Polk-a-Mocha and now you don’t even want your latte.  I have no idea what the name of the coffee shop was, it wasn’t Polk-a-Mocha, I just hate cute coffee shop names.

If Polk-a-Mocha is a real place, I made a new banner for you:

I got in line behind a sixty-something man who was telling the guy in front of him that “they should really put this stuff in an IV” as if he was the first person to tell the coffee IV joke.  I wanted to tell Old Guy that I was there, twenty years ago when that joke was told for the first time, and I crawled out of my crib and punched the person who said it with my baby fists.  Also if you injected coffee straight into your veins, you would probably die, and death isn’t funny and also it’s just a bad joke. I held myself back, but I did make him this award since I was making one anyway and I found a yellow marker that I hadn’t used yet:

He gets a star because it’s the only thing I can draw besides the bald eagles.

When I was about eleven, my cousin taught me the art of ordering at Starbucks.  After pronouncing “grande” as “grand” for a couple months, I got the hang of it.  However, I’m still intimidated every time I go into Starbucks because all of their employees like, genuinely want to know how I am doing.  Their kindness confuses me so my mind overcompensates and I end up yelling “I want a mocha. CALM DOWN.”  Then there was the other time that they asked me how I was, and I started crying because of the Holocaust. They gave me free coupons because Starbucks cares about my feeling, you guys.

Anyways, I have learned that Starbucks must not have managed to obtain sole ownership of the words “tall,” grande,” and “venti,” but they somehow managed to have rights over the ordering them “tall,” “grande,” “venti.”  That means every other coffee shop on the planet also has a “tall,” “grande,” and “venti,” but they are all jumbled up in a random order so that you never really know what size you’re going to get.  Sometimes  when you order a “tall” it’s like, “here’s your magnifying glass so you can find your coffee. sucks to be you.” And other times they practically have to hire a helicopter to airlift your drink from some sort of military base.  I was at (not) Polk-a-Mocha, and I wanted a “Starbuck’s tall.”  I ordered and was waiting for my coffee when I realized that the barista practically needed a semi-truck to haul my drink to the counter.  It turns out that she just had impressive semi-truck-like upper-body strength.  This is also when it started to make sense why I just paid about $26 for a cup of coffee, but I didn’t question them Polk-a-Mocha because I have an anxiety disorder I’m super rich.

 
I kinda looked down at the coffee cup, well, I guess I looked up at the coffee cup since it was practically equally proportional to the Washington Monument (that might be an exaggeration).  Then I told the barista in my best valley girl accent that this cup like, totally would not be fitting into my cup-holder.  She really didn’t care, but she should have because now there is officially material about her on the interwebs.  Then I asked, “ummm, could you maybe put this into two smaller cups?”  She though this was a really stupid idea.  She said that if she gave me two cups, she would also have to give me two lids and two sleeves which would cost the company like forty whole cents.  I told her I only really needed one hand to drive, so I could skip one of the sleeves and get 3rd degree burn which would only cost her about twenty-eight cents and also a hospital bill.  I added, “IT’S FOR MY CAR SAFETY.”  She still didn’t care, so I asked her if I could borrow a red wagon (the color matters) and some bungee cords to get my coffee to the car and properly secure it to my roof.  I might not have said that last part, but I thought it, and is was a good thought.

This is getting too long so here’s a quick summary of everything else that happened once I got my coffee to the car:  I balanced by cup in the passenger’s seat, hit the rumble strip every 15 seconds as I tried to get a drink, did the “mom arm” to keep the coffee from spilling when I had to brake for stoplights, and also I was up until 5am because I was so hyped up on twenty gallons of coffee.

-Whitney

PS  France may or may not have emailed me today and they may or may not have included this picture.  Apparently I’m a big deal over there seeing as I watch all over all of parliament.  Basically I run the French government.

Sort of fun day at work...

I am a typist, which means I sit in a cubicle typing lots of technical words and numbers that all sort of look the same after eight hours straight. (*side note: "cubicle" is a fancy word for "large box". They only call it a cubicle because it is not socially acceptable to keep people in boxes, but if you call it something different then it sounds more humane so there are fewer risks of getting sued for human rights violations.) 

Anyways, the other day there was not much typing work to do so I was asked to help out in other areas, doing monkey work. "Monkey work" is what I call the work that a toilet trained monkey could handle, but they assign it to me because the Michigan climate is not good for monkeys, and, more importantly, I probably cost less.

First, I was told to tear down a bunch of cardboard boxes. This was fun, in a vindictive sort of way. 

Next, I was asked to go back to my computer and type/cut out some labels to put onto the doors of the supply cupboards. I spent the next hour painstakingly determining an adequate font size, adjusting the outer dimensions, and cutting them out with the edges as straight and smooth as I possibly could. My efforts were partially due to a bit of perfectionism/OCD, but mostly, I just figured that the more time I spent on monkey work, the less time in the afternoon I would have left for my regular boring typing duties. Let's face it, cutting and measuring and pasting is way more fun than documenting.

Before I could put the labels onto the cupboard doors, however, I had to remove the old labels from the doors. The woman I was working for asked me if I was ok with working with chemicals, to better remove the adhesive.

Of course I am ok with chemicals. Chemicals are fun!! You can use chemicals to explode things!!! And chemicals are the chief source of super powers and mutation. The more you work with chemicals, the more likely it is that you will get to be a super hero!!

Instead of saying this, however, I calmly and professionally replied that I had no objection to using chemicals. Had I explained why, she probably would've sent me down to HR for counseling, and then I wouldn't get to play with chemicals at all, now would I? ….I mean, "work." Work with chemicals, yes.

So, armed with a bottle of paint thinner (to dissolve the adhesive), some paper towels (to apply the paint thinner) and a scraper (to scrape the gunky gunk off), I donned a pair of latex gloves and got to it.

Latex gloves are exciting to me. I always feel so sophisticated and doctor-ish when I wear them, and I couldn't help but pretend I was in one of those hospital tv shows like Grey's Anatomy.

So I scraped away at those labels as if a man's life (and major organs) were in my hands.

So finally I finished with surgery, and I wiped the sweat from my forehead and ripped those gloves off my hands the way that surgeons do, turning them inside out in one quick snap so all the blood and guts and paint thinner stays on the inside. 

Then it was time to apply my new labels where the old labels had been. I had spent over an hour on these things, using extensive trial and error and throwing away many before I got it just right. Then I laminated them, because everything looks better when it's behind shiny plastic, and trimmed the edges nicely. As I did this, I had been wondering if anyone would notice my work, if they would look critically and admiringly at those cabinet doors and talk amongst themselves about how much nicer they were than their predecessors. I imagined it something like this... 

Just when I had decided that most likely no one would even notice that the labels had been changed but she who had told me to do it in the first place, someone else happened to walk by, glance at the labels I had made, and say in all seriousness, "WOW, those are NICE!!!"

That's good enough for me.

Hey, it beats sitting in that darn box. There you go, monkeys. You could be filthy rich for your species and severely over worked, but because of me, you are still in the jungle munching on green bananas while I perform intense label surgery. You're welcome.

PS Hey, cubicle! Remember your cousins? That's right--you're next!!! 

-Rachel

The Time that Brushing My Teeth was Nearly a Momentous Occasion ...and One Thing I was Thinking About

I know this is a lot of reading, but I love you, so you can’t give up on me!


Things I was thinking about

Stripper Poles
I was discussing stripper poles with Ryan.  I’m not sure how we got to this topic, but lately I have been trying to avoid serious conversations to the point that if I hear you say, “Whitney...I have this problem...” I will say “awww,” but I will be thinking about karate chopping you in your Adam’s apple.  Anyway, stripper poles are relatively non-threatening topic.  I think I said that I didn’t understand the appeal of stripper poles.  Whenever I see one (on TV of course) I have never thought, “wow, it would be wicked fun to dance all sexy on that.”  On the contrary, I tend to want to put on a fireman’s hat, cut a hole in the roof, and slide down while making European siren noises.  You know, “eeee ooo eee ooo” not the American “weeeooowwwwweeeeooowwww.”  Then Ryan was all like, “what if we combined the uses of metal poles and our firemen slid down the poles in lingerie as they went to put out fires?”  And then I smiled at him and told him that I married him for brilliant ideas like these.  Now, when my house is on fire someday, I very much hope that the firemen show up at my house in red panties and a push-up bra.  I would probably still say “hey, why the panties bro?”  And he would be like, “who are you to question MY fireman wardrobe choice and also please move out of my way because your house is on fire.”

Before I get to the actual story, I need to introduce you to two of my favorite people.

This is my mother.

This is my mother in the 90s when she had a “bouf.”

This is her killing me when she finds out I have posted hideous pictures of her after she specifically said, “don’t you dare post hideous pictures of me on your (stupid) blog.”

I love my mother dearly.  Together, she and my father have blessed me with copious amounts of hair, the ability to bottle my emotions with minimal explosions, untamable anxiety, the need to drink least two lattes each day to function, and the desire to be involved in insane shenaniganary.  Most importantly, my mother has bestowed upon me her feistiness. I can’t think of a less gay word to describe my mother, so I’m going to go ahead and dub her as “fierce.”

This is my sister, Kelsey, “Seestor.”  Apply a Russian accent as you feel appropriate when reading “Seestor.”

No words could possibly encompass the vastness of Seestor’s madness.  I think I’ll sum it up with this: Once she fake died for 40 minutes.  You think I’m kidding you because no one possibly has the stamina to do such a thing, but she did.  And I am proud.  She didn’t even take a break.  I was in the basement when I heard her screaming and shrieking so I emerged from the basement to watch.  I watched for awhile as she fell/flopped on the floor/whatever furniture she found herself around as she dramatically threw herself about the living room.  I was secretly hoping that she would knock herself out by flopping onto the corner of the coffee table or something, but that failed.  Eventually I got bored and left, but she continued her death scene for another half an hour.

All this to say, Kelsey is, without a doubt, the most hard core person I know.

Actual Story!

When I lived at home and Kelsey was still in high school, “bedtime” was my favorite part of the day.  We shared a bathroom (the room with sinks is connected to a separate shower room) and it takes Kelsey about 3 1/2 hours to take a “quick shower,” so we almost always ran into each other.  She is usually yelling at me, “why can’t you flush before you open the door!?” then I would verbally insult her which leads her to randomly grab one of my body parts with angst.  One glorious evening, as Kelsey and I were brushing our teeth and taking turns making faces at each other in the mirror using only our eyebrows, the door burst open and in came my mother holding up the “stop in the name of love/stop it’s Hammer time” hand as she scream “SSSSTTTTTOOOOPPPPPPPPP!”

“Holy expletive,” I thought.  “She has either replaced our toothpaste with cyanide to kill us off, or she has added some kind of acid to melt our teeth and make us all gummy like some ninety year old woman named Ruth. Either way, she is now rushing in here, currently regretting her decision.  But it is too late; I am going to die/be gummy.”  This is a warning to my mother: If you ever do try to disintegrate my teeth with an acid or some type of weaponized Mountain Dew concentrate so that all I have left is gums, I will gnaw on your leg when you least expect it.  This will be uncomfortable for both of us, but mostly for you.  Beware, woman.

Then she made some crazy eyes at us and said:

And so I witnessed the largest overreaction. Ever.


My mother began to calm herself down, and as she did,  I stared at my mom, slightly curious about why she feels that our gums didn’t deserve to be cleaned by a medium-grade bristled toothbrush, which I gotta be honest, I had no idea existed.  If I knew that there were different levels of toothbrush, I long ago would have purchased myself the “you will bleed profusely, but your friends will think you’re cool” level and watched my mouth bleed as I flexed in the mirror.  Then the dentist would call me things like “dedicated” and not “irresponsible for only flossing your teeth the morning before you come to visit me, the dentist.”

This is basically the end of my story, I just really wanted you to see how my mom looks with crazy eyes.

-Whitney

A Whitney and Ryan Conversation

In case you feel like reading some more!  But if you are offended by the word “ding-a-ling” being used in reference to a male body part, then stop reading.  This doesn’t get inappropriate at all, I promise, it just gets funny, and it is necessary to the story.

So I needed a break from homework, so I went to the basement to find my mom and dad watching football.  Both of my parents get this really mean look on their faces when they watch TV.  I’m serious, it is like they are hurt and confused by whatever is spewing out of the the thing.  Football seems to be a relatively unoffensive channel to be watching except for the constant puns dealing with “tight ends.”  This apparently infuriates them.

Me: “Who’s Playing?”

Dad: The Patriots and the Steelers. (I’m not sure if it actually was the Steelers, but I really don’t care.)

Me: Is Tom Brady still their quarterback?

Dad: Yeah, he’s married to a model.

Mom: That’s too bad.

Me: Why?

Mom: Because he texted pictures of his ding-a-ling.

I had no idea what she was talking about, or why being married to a model makes this a worse offense, but apparently it does.

An hour later or so, Ryan stopped by.  He went to put the cat in the basement, so I followed him because I was bored and also I wanted to harass kitteh.  My dad had left the football game on and Ryan’s all like...

“What’s this?” 

Me: Football, but we’re rooting for the Steelers (or someone else) because Tom Brady texts pictures of his ding-a-ling.

Ryan: What?  To whom?

Me: Um.  The President.

Ryan: Why?

Me:  I don’t know. I heard it’s for the our nation.

I had heard no such thing.

About 20 minutes later, I was complaining to Ryan about how much I hate the German language because it’s a pain to learn.  I think I said I wanted to learn Spanish instead, and Spain would help me attack Germany to rid us of the language.  I also threatened the jerks who built the Tower of Babel, but they’re already dead.  Ryan said he had a friend named Juan Pedro who was born in Spain but lived in Germany and to think about that.  I didn’t want to think about that.

Me:  It’s too late.  I killed Juan Pedro.

Ryan:  I didn’t know you knew Juan Pedro.

Me:  I did before I killed him last week.

Ryan:  You went to Germany and didn’t tell me?

Me:  Duh.  It was for your job.

Ryan:  You killed Juan Pedro for my job?

Me:  Yeah, he was keeping me from going to war and when Germany takes over America with its “ichs” and “fragens” then the Germans will get the best jobs.

Ryan:  Someone should tell the President.

Me:  He’s too busy looking at Tom Brady’s ding-a-ling.  It’s for the nation.

-Whitney

Terms/Words I HATE.

Here are just a few of my least favorite terms. Believe me, there are way more, and every day I find a new one. ...Or six. These are just some of the top few.

(1) Feelings.

When someone says, "I have feelings for you" I picture them grabbing me with large purple tentacles. When they say, "You hurt my feelings", i imagine them with large purple tentacles that are bleeding profusely. 

Just say that word slowly and I think you'll understand. FEEEEEEEEEElings. Ewwwwwwww.

(2) Condiments -or- Condominium.

Now, do not mistake me, I do not have my head in the gutter, but when I hear these words I automatically think "condom". I do not want a condom on my hamburger, and I certainly do not want to live in one.

Just be more specific.

Say, "mustard," or "ketchup", or "small house", as applicable.

(3) Navel.

A belly button is a cute little thing that sticks out of your middle. A navel, however, is a hairy, lint-infested thing that now resides where your belly button USED to be, because you failed to maintain a reasonable level of personal hygiene. Make sure not to confuse the two…and also, make sure you clean your belly button thoroughly and regularly.

Need I say more?

(4) Bowel movement.

I'm not even going to illustrate this one. For the love of humanity, just call it "poop"!! Believe it or not, it sounds better.

(5) Moist.

Now, why say "moist" when "damp" is such an adequate - and far more appealing - substitute? It's the same basic principle as "navel" vs "belly button". One sounds just sounds icky, while the other seems to imply some degree of cleanliness. For example:

Together we can make a difference. Together we can help mankind. USE LESS DISGUSTING WORDS!!! Or don't. And I just won't talk to you. Ever.

-Rachel

The Deodorant Vandal

Every morning this week I have woken up to find myself in bed with at least three sticks of deodorant.  I didn’t even know that I owned that much deodorant.  I can never find it when I actually need the stuff which is both a burden on me and anyone who happens to walk by me that day.  The thing is, I travel back and forth between school (where I live with my parents) and my actual apartment so much that every day I wake up having no clue where I am for the first 15 seconds of consciousness. 

You know when your friends decide at 4am that it is a good idea to start a game of Risk?  You comply because you have very few friends, and you don’t want to lose these last few nerdy friends even though they participate in outlandish games that involve too much thinking.  You look down at the board, look back up, and all of a sudden it is four days later and you’re not sure how you’ve managed to go this long with peeing.  You also wonder, more importantly, how did you go this long without ice cream?  If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you probably have cooler friends than I do.  Good for you! If you have some idea of what I’m hinting at, then you need better friends and you now have an idea about the kind of confusion I feel upon waking up in the morning.  Except I am extremely aware that I need to pee.

Being this confused every morning is hard enough, but finding yourself in bed, surrounded by antiperspirant is an entirely new level of perplexing. This was my thought process each morning for the first few mornings waking up to my unexpected guests:

Morning 1: “Where am I?  Grand Rapids? Yes? Yeah.  It’s Monday, and I have to do things.  What is this? Deodorant? Three deodorants? Is that the plural for deodorant? Deodori? That sounds best. Oh, I just threw this stuff on my bed and forgot to clear it off before I went to sleep.  I can eat ice cream later.” 

Morning 2: “Friggin deodori.”

Morning 3: “$^%%O*^%$^%#^%#$!”

Morning 4: “Shouting ‘MONEY SIGN, PERCENTAGE SYMBOL, EXCLAMATION MARK’ yesterday obviously did not intimidate this deodori.”

Morning 5: “Investigation.  **Singing a made-up song in a blues-y manner** Gonna investigate the case of the deodori bum bum bum.”

Before I even got out of bed on morning five, I carefully smelled myself. “Maybe,” I thought, “I’m being overly-careful to make sure that I smell good the next day.  Look at me...caring about others.” 

Nope, that definitely wasn’t it.

Could I have deodorized something else?  Indeed I could have.

There isn’t really anything else in my bedroom other than my bed since I’m poor. To make myself feel better about the severe lack of income, I pretend that I try to live like a minimalist.  Material possessions always suck when I don’t have them.

This left me one choice.  I must have applied deodorant to my wall.  So like the hot stuff that I am, I got out of bed to smell my wall.

***Sniff...Confused Squint...Sniff Again...Squint Some More...AND...***

Found it!

Yeah that’s right, I put deodorant all over my walls.  Now, I have taken Ambien to fall asleep for years which had led me to eat an unfortunate and unplanned amount of calories.  It also causes me to put dry macaroni noodles on my ice cream before consuming which leads to chipped teeth.  Sleep eating is a common occurrence for most people who take Ambien.  However, I am the first person that I have ever heard of that has deodorant-ed their walls.  For a second, I thought that this must have been an act of kindness on my part.  I must care so much for my walls that I want to them to smell nice and have minimal pit-stains.  Then I remembered that I’m not very nice.  If I discovered that I sleep-harassed my walls, that would have made much more sense.  Therefore, it must have been an act of vandalism!  That would continue my streak of being mean and being bad at things!  Sadly, deodorant to wall application is the worst act of vandalism that anyone could ever pull since deodorant rolls on clear and smells like fields of flowers.  If I am a vandal, then I am the worst, but from now on I’d like to be referred to as: The Deodorant Vandal.



-Whitney, The Deodorant Vandal