HALLOWEEN

The worst Halloween I ever had was the time I dressed up as Bob Marley and everyone thought I was Whoppi Goldberg.

“But I’m wearing a RASTA HAT!” I protested. “I’M WEARING WHITE LINEN!!!”

“But you’re a GIRL,” people said. That was a poor argument. People cross dress all the time during Halloween; that’s part of the fun.

I was so angry since I spent more than I wanted to on a stupid dreadlock wig and RASTA HAT only to fail as the reggae legend, that I proceeded to get drunk and tell people that, “If I was Whoppi Goldberg, then I would be wearing round purple sunglasses and have a “Celebrity Squares” cardboard box around me! DO YOU SEE A BOX?? GAW!!”

That was the only time I left Halloween early to go home.

I tend to have non-mainstream costumes for Halloween, a combination of:

a.) trying to be original and funny
b.) really liking wigs and
c.) being too lazy to go to the costume shop a MONTH in advance, before everything is picked over and sold out.

This turns out some odd costume choices year after year, some successful, some not. A major success was an ELECTRIC jellyfish.


IT'S ELECTRIC! BOOGIE WOOGIE WOOGIE
(clear umbrella + glow sticks bought on Ebay, bubble tape from the post office)

A failure was the tooth fairy gone bad. (goodwill dress + lace "gauze" headband, odd, ablong “tooth” shapes cut out of construction paper+ scary hair roots, uh, part of the costume)


LEAVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY SO I CAN PAY FOR HILIGHTS!!

Yes, it was an artistic fail, and I ended up losing the “teeth” pliers throughout the night but I still think I looked better than Paris Hilton’s boyfriend, ThankYouVeryMuch).


Fairy.

Two weeks ago, I was talking to someone about my Halloween costume history, including the “Whoppi” disaster, and he said I should think about “just being a witch.”

NO! I told him that I had planned to dress up as Vodka this year. Yes, vodka, my best friend.

I envisioned this costume as a potato sack dress (vodka is made from potatoes after all) and I would have arm floaties that were filled with vodka (and soda) and I’d put a straw in it and offer people sips all night.

And then I’d have an “air mail”-type stamp on the potato sack that said, “Smirnoff or Bust” and I’d pin little love notes on me from “Orange Juice” and “Red Bull,” like “can’t wait to screw” and “Frat boys are waiting for you” (respectively).

But, alas, the vodka costume will not make its debut this year, for a variety of reasons:
a.) I am flying back to South Carolina from New Orleans this Halloween weekend and I’d have to have the costume assembled by, uh, today
b.) I’m lazy
c.) Whole Foods doesn’t have any potato sacks because their potatoes come in boxes (no fun.)
d.) I’m too lazy to call anyplace else for a potato sack

So, I’m going to just repeat a costume from three years ago. Shhh don’t tell.

It’s a cute one — a Broadway dancer — and all of the pieces are still in South Carolina so I don’t have to pack anything other than tights and shoes.


TAP TAP TAP!

And since I’m not wearing a mustache or pants no one will confuse me with someone else…like Charlie Chaplin.



Or, uh, Hitler.
Which may or may not be better than Whoppi. ha

-Jenny

P.S. Looking forward to seeing some Chilean miner costumes!!!

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

I got a funny email forward entitled, “why boys need mothers” and there are all these pictures of little boys doing stupid dangerous things like scale the refrigerator with a rope, light a firecracker from their butt hole and put a dirty toad in their mouth.

A few days later, I got another funny email forward entitled, “why women live longer than men” with a bunch of pictures of GROWN MEN doing stupid dangerous things like work under a car that had a ghetto-rigged “jack” made from crates, someone drunkenly asleep at a bus stop…upside down...

and oh, a guy lighting a firecracker from his butt hole (never gets old!)

This is all fine and good when the guys put themselves in stupid danger.

It’s quite another thing when guys put the girls they are dating in stupid danger by association.

This happened to my friend Katie when she dated idiot Rob. They were in a long-distance relationship and she was visiting him one weekend.

They had been, uh, rolling around in bed and later, as she was dozing off to sleep, she readjusted her position which required her to put her hand under her pillow, and she felt something cold and metal.

“What the?---” she lifted the pillow and saw a gun. A GUN! Chillin right there under her head!
She was shocked, and horrified.

“WHAT THE?—“ she pushed Rob, who woke up with a start. “Why is there a GUN under the pillow?” Katie demanded.

“Oh, there were sketchy new tenants at the shopping center I supervise, and they had to come drop off rent here the other day, so I wanted to be prepared,” Rob said.

“I guess I forgot to put it away, haha.”

Katie wasn’t amused.

“Is it loaded?”
“Hell yea it’s loaded!”

“Ok, that’s GREAT, Rob, we’ve just been messing around and rolling on pillows, what if it had GONE OFF and put a BULLET through my head?”

“Oh, no, it wouldn’t have done that,” he said.

“Why not?? Is there a safety on it??”

“No,” he said. “But guns just don’t go off like that. It’s not how they work. Now let’s go to bed.”

(Rob, meet Plaxico Burress)

And how about Tom? Tom, who thought Lisa was lying when she told him she was allergic to dairy products.

Lisa had an odd form of lactose intolerance where she could have some food like cheese and ice cream, but not others like milk and cream cheese icing.

But, it doesn’t really matter what her dietary restrictions are. Tom shouldn’t have tested her intestinal limits.

Tom, in a most non-Toolbag move, had cooked Lisa a very large and extravagant lobster dinner for her at his house. There was corn on the cob, there were perfectly crisp chopped potatoes and there was cake.

“With vanilla icing,” he said.

Lisa said the dinner and dessert were glorious and (ok, sometimes girls look at reciepts) expensive and they had just settled into watching a movie when Lisa’s stomach started…jumping.

She didn’t have time to explain what was going on before running toward the bathroom and RAPLHING up all the expensive dinner, sweaty and panicked.

Tom, in another non-Toolbag move, went to go check on her and get her a cold washcloth or whatever you do with people when they throw up (I don't know, I’m a non-puker, normally).

Lisa profusely apologized for the grossness. “I’m so sorry I ruined our dinner, I don’t know what’s going on,” she said, embarrassed and scared.

Tom then hesitated and said, “I know what’s going on. The cake had cream cheese icing, I didn’t think it was a big deal. I’m so sorry.”

“WHAT???” Lisa said from the porcelain throne.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think you were serious about being allergic to cream cheese,” Tom said. “I thought you just didn’t like it.”

Lisa yelled and screamed and told him that he was an EFFING A-HOLE and asked him how HE would feel if she knowingly poisoned him.

The worst part was that Lisa was so sick, she couldn’t even leave his house, and had to spend the night, most of it in the bathroom.

Puking: made possible by boys.

I bet she wished for a loaded gun under his pillow. ha

-Jenny

Who framed Robba' Rabbit?

I just got off the phone with an actual detective, who I imagine sitting in a little room with a wooden desk and small window, drinking hard liquor coffee, looking at pictures of criminals with a magnifying glass, whose name may or may not be Detective Eddie Valiant.


I need to stop watching HBO late night.


Unfortunately, it was NOT Eddie Valiant and we were NOT talking about PATTYCAKE, although I did mention cake, since THE PEOPLE THAT BROKE INTO MY HOUSE ATE CAKE OUT OF THE FRIDGE before (or after) stealing a laptop, camera and diamond ring.

Not only did they eat the cake, but they also drank — and then threw on the floor — the Brita water dispenser (No one ever refills that thing!!!)

The perps then LEFT THE FRIDGE DOOR OPEN, a thoughtful “EFF YOU,” and by the time my twin sister, Joy, got home, all the food had spoiled. Joy said the stick of butter had turned to liquid.






Total nightmare.

I’m talking about this from an absent homeowner stance. Joy, who is still living in South Carolina in the house, has had to deal with an extra large helping of shit over this.

I’m just trying to help the best I can from way down here in Toon Town New Orleans.

Have you ever had your house/car broken into? It’s much more common than I realized. Tell someone your house was broken into and you’ll hear story after story about home and car break-ins, the occasional gunpoint robbery and even a grocery store holdup (America! Fuck yea!)

I had heard about these experiences before, but this was my first time (that’s what she said!!!) Sorry, this is no time for jokes.

It makes you feel completely violated (that’s what she said), and it fills me with RAGE just thinking about the piece(s) of @$%#^&$*#&@#* rummaging through my stuff, which, yes, is still all over the house in South Carolina.

In addition to rage, Joy and our roommates are also scared for their safety.
I mean, what would have happened if Joy had come home on her lunch break to take a nap and seen people eating cake out the fridge? It’s frightening and gross, to think about.

And what’s with this security breach, anyway?
Our house is in the suburbs! Near the beach! In the four years we’ve lived there, we haven’t had so much as a chair stolen from the backyard.

Which is exactly what I told EDDIE VALIANT today.


Just kidding.

But, for real, this nightmare is ongoing. We’ve gone from Pleasantville to CRIME SCENE. We had to buy new doors, new locks, new butter for the fridge AND an alarm system.

But the thieves don’t care about the alarm system. It’s been going off every other day from someone or something trying to get in the back door.
Obviously these @$%#^&$*#&@#* aren’t scared of the alarm or the poo poo police.


Take me seriously!!!

Eddie Valient didn’t really have any answers for me, other than to say they’ve arrested six people (six??!) and the “rash” of break-ins is caused by people “affected by the economy.”

Oh, they’re “affected” by the economy? Well, who isn’t?? I can only afford happy hour prices for God sake!!! And I haven’t had cake in months.

It’s infuriating that people can get away with taking things from other people’s houses like it ain’t no thang. I wish I would have thought to rig up the house with nets and thumbtacks, Home Alone style.

Like, have the TV prompted to the old movie with the gangster:

“I’M GONNA GIVE YOU TILL THE COUNT OF THREE....TO GET YOUR UGLY, YELLA, NO GOOD KEISTER OFF MY PROPERTY!... BEFORE I PUMP YOUR GUTS FULL OF LEAD!”

OK, let’s not downplay the situation into something childish. Clearly, this calls for THE DIP.




-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

I know several guys who are from countries other than the U.S.A. and yes, I think their accents and scarves and Adidas sneakers with dark skinny jeans are...very nice.

But I also know some guys who just SAY they are from other countries to get girls when, really, their parents are the ones from another country and they personally have never lived there.

Yet, when necessary, these guys use an accent, (um, mimic their father’s accent) or embellish their exotic life story in order to make girls think they are…very nice.

Take Connor, for example, who I met at a bar and who was wearing a ridiculous T-shirt that said “The department of redundancy department.” In an odd British hybrid accent, he said, “It’s cool, I can wear things like this because I’m “Eurotrash.”
(uhh, Australia isn’t in Europe, genius).

“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“My parents moved here when I was four,” he said.
“Do you even remember it?”

I left to go to the bathroom and when I came back, I found redundancy department talking to another girl who was laughing at his shirt, twirling her hair, eyes lit up.
It had to be because of the accent. Because he wasn’t even cute.

That’s the problem with this faux foreigner breed. American ladies eat it up like it's the real thing.

(Oh, and for the record, my foreign exchange student date in high school was totally LEGIT.)

This whole being attracted to foreigners thing was NOT the same with American girls and European men when I studied abroad in Spain.
(I don’t think American girls have a very good reputation outside of Tom Petty songs.)

But, tell a girl on “this side of the pond” that you’re from England, mate, and she’ll swoon. She’ll start fantasizing about living in a castle and being a princess.

My friend Stuart found out about this trick quickly.

I met him in college. His parents moved “to the states” oh, TEN YEARS BEFORE HE WAS BORN, and he didn’t really have an accent but he would change his voice when he’d go out and talk about his parents’ coat of arms and name crest.

(Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for hometown pride. But saying you’re from somewhere just to get girls makes you a bloody arsehole. Ha)

Stuart got so carried away at a bar with this RUSE that he even brought out the bloke to me personally.
I spotted him one weekend at a busy bar downtown, surrounded by a group of giggly American girls.

He was wearing a silly fedora hat. I told my friend who I was with all about him, that he tells everyone he’s from London when he really graduated high school in Maine or something.

But, I remembered he was nice when he wasn’t trying to show off and I had known him for years, so I thought I was safe to say hello.

“Hey, I thought I saw you over there!” I said to Stuart as he walked by and nodded at me.

“Oh, yea? You saw me?” he asked, in an exaggerated English accent, sizing up my friend.

“Yea, you were surrounded by girls,” I laughed.

“Look,” Stuart said, looking down at me. “Everyone here wants to s*ck my d*ck, OK?”

I was horrified.

“Oh really?” I raised my eyebrows. “Well then you should go FIND those girls, because NONE OF THEM. Are around HERE,” I said, making a dramatic circle with my arm around me, my friend and everyone else in range.

He fixed his fedora hat, smirked and walked to the bathroom before I could properly wail on him.

“God, his accent was really stupid,” my friend said.

“Yea, that’s because he’s NOT FROM LONDON !” I screamed in Stuart’s general direction.

“He’s not from London?” a girl who was just on Stuart’s arm asked me when I loudly repeated the line within earshot.
On purpose.

“No, he’s not from London. He just says he is,” I said.

“Nope…," I took a deep breath. "Not. From. London,” I repeated, a few minutes later, when Stuart returned to the bar. He faced me, gave me a look and put one finger over his mouth, like shhhh.

I told him something only an American girl would say in public.

And then I wished for a Sheppard pie in the face.

-Jenny

Why I care about the Chilean miners

I was stuck in a plane once for over THREE hours on the runway, hot and annoyed and sick of pretzels and peanuts.

So I can’t really imagine I’d do very well stuck in a CAVE the size of a New York City apartment with 32 other people for 69 days. I’d crack.

I know for a fact that I’d be a textbook psychology case, switching between being sad, weepy and hopeless, to fuming mad, with probably a few panic attack/hallucinations thrown in the mix.

This would be especially true for the first 17 days, when the miners DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IF ANYONE WAS LOOKING FOR THEM. Seriously, how do you talk someone through that???

“I’M GONNA DIE! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!"
“It’s gonna be OK, here have an ounce of water.”

I’m sure I’d work myself up into daily tantrums, especially if we had to split a teeeeeny tiny portion of food.

“HOW COME MANUEL GETS MORE TUNA FISH THAN EVERYONE ELSE?” I’d snarl. (Just kidding. I don’t eat tuna fish. That’s cat food. You know, now that I think about it, I’d probably die from starvation.)

My inability to handle being trapped in a mine is a reason why I’ve been so curious about these miners, and why I've been reading online articles ad naseum about what they had to go through to survive.

Did they fight with each other? Did anyone crack up, and need to be pinned down so he wouldn’t eat another miner’s leg?

These are questions I’m hoping journalists will ask.

I liked that two brothers were down there, because if I’m ever stuck in a mine, I’d like it to be with my brother and twin sister. And I don’t think I’d even want to gnaw their legs off. Maybe.

During a family vacation in Nevada when I was 10 or 11, our family toured a cave at The Hoover Dam (odd) and I remember they turned the lights out in the cave so we could see how dark it was. For like four seconds. It was super scary.

“Someone in this dark an area would go blind in a day,” the guide said. A deer had somehow gotten stuck in the cave and was eventually found and had gone blind, he said. I believed him.

So, thinking about being in darkness like that ALL DAY EVERY DAY makes me itchy and anxious. I know they had headlamps, but they probably didn’t have enough juice to keep it on all the time, right? So they’d have to sit in the dark a lot?

Did they even know what time it was or what day it was? Were there ANIMALS down there like lizards and bats…and deer?

I used to go camping pretty frequently so I have a bit of a grasp on primitive things like no indoor plumbing and no internet access. And that gets annoying after 5 days. I don’t believe I’d do very well using a trench.

Do you think they smelled bad when they came up to the surface???
Were they able to brush their teeth? How long can you go without brushing your teeth??

I want to know how the head/leader guy, the one who talked everyone through the whole ordeal, managed to stay so freaking level-headed. How did he do it? How did they all do it?

Because I’d like to learn. Sometimes I feel like I’m on the brink in rush hour traffic. I’m certainly not a candidate for any job where getting trapped indefinitely would be a possibility.

If I’m hungry and tired at the same time, I cry.
I hate when my hands are dirty.
I'm kind of spastic.
Also, I get sucked into emotional roller coasters and my head would likely explode with so many feelings happening at once.

Here's a predicted rundown of my range of emotions if I was stuck in a mining cave for 69 days:

1.) Sad and scared. WE’RE GOING TO DIE! I STILL HAVEN’T SEEN A WHALE IN THE WILD OR BEEN TO AUSTRALIA! I'LL NEVER KISS MY BOYFRIEND AGAIN!!! WHY ME??? WHHHYYY ME????

2.) Angry and mad. HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN? WHY ARE CONDITIONS SO UNSAFE??? WHY COULDN'T I HAVE TAKEN A SICK DAY TODAY???

3.) Happy and hopeful. WE’VE MADE CONTACT! WE’VE MADE CONTACT! HI MOM!!!! WE COULD GET OUT OF THIS!!! IT WAS WORTH ALL THE WAITING!!

4.) Demanding and bratty. SEND ME DOWN A MEXICAN PIZZA!!! AND KRAFT MAC AND CHEESE!

5.) Annoyed and irritated. WHY IS THIS TAKING SO LONG? I THOUGHT Y'ALL HAD CALLED NASA?? GET ON THIS PEOPLE!!!

6.) Excited and narcissistic. PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD ARE WATCHING?? IM GONNA LAND A BOOK DEAL!!! I’M GONNA GO TO HOLLYWOOD!!!

7.) Sad and scared (again). I HAVE TO FIT IN A CAPSULE WHAT SIZED? AND IT COULD GET STUCK ON THE WAY OUT OF THE CAVE AND THEN I’D BE ALL ALONE?? WHERE WOULD MY TRENCH BE???

8.) Reverent. DEAR GOD PLEASE LET ME SURVIVE THE FIFTEEN MINUTE RIDE IN THE CAPSULE. PLEASE LET ME GET OUT OF THIS CAVE ALIVE. PLEASE GOD PLEASE GOD PLEASE GOD PLEASE GOD (Pretty sure I’d chant this the whole way up.)

9.) Surreal. I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING! LOOK AT EVERYONE'S FACES I FORGOT WHAT IT WAS LKE TO HUG SOMEONE! AND I GET TO MEET THE PRESIDENT!!! I REMEMBER WHEN I WAS SAD AND SCARED AND NOW EVERYTHING IS FINE!!!

10.) Demanding and bratty (again). EXCUSE ME BUT I BELIEVE I REQUESTED A MEXICAN PIZZA A MONTH AGO.

AND DON’T SMELL MY ARMPITS.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

*This is a repost after my dad made me delete it the first time. But I’m too lazy today to write a new one, and it’s also an amazing toolbag story. Probably the most toolbag of the toolbags to date.*

*earmuffs mom*

Two years ago, my twin sister, Joy, and I were at my grandmother’s 100th birthday party in New York, when I got a call from my roommate in South Carolina.

A call from her was odd, since we had more of a texting relationship. (Why call when you can text, really?)

“What’s up?” I said, getting dressed for the birthday party, in the small upstairs bathroom.

“OK, well last night, I caught Ben…pleasuring himself on the couch,” she said.

“Um.. What.”

I didn’t have much time; I had to go fan out napkins and set up all the tiny finger sandwiches.

The story was that Liz had asked Ben to come over after he got off work at 2 a.m. He worked at a bar downtown. He’d be over by 3 a.m., he said.

Liz woke up at 3, and Ben wasn’t there.
“Where are you?” she asked, groggy, after calling his cell phone.

“I’m about to walk in the front door,” Ben said. He stupidly had a copy of the key to our house. “I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”

Liz heard the door open and had fallen back asleep, waiting for Ben to get into bed. When she woke up a half hour later, alone, she decided to look around.

She heard noises from the living room, and tiptoed in to see what was going on. We have two entrances into the living room, and she chose the right entrance — the one where Ben’s back was to her.

As such, she was able to take in the ENTIRE SCENE of Ben WITH HIS PANTS DOWN, a laptop on his lap, pleasuring himself to a pornographic website.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING???” Liz had asked Ben, who jumped off the couch and quickly pulled his pants up.
“Uh, nothing.”
She told him to leave and he did, unapologetic.

“So, now what am I supposed to do?” Liz asked me on the phone, as I was about to walk downstairs for the birthday party.
She sounded stressed out.

I didn’t know what to say, so I called Joy into the room, and gave her the rundown.

"Who's computer was he using?" Joy asked immediately, knowing full well that Liz didn't have a laptop, and I had brought mine to New York.

“GROSS!" Joy shouted when she realized it was hers. “Now I’m going to get a virus!!”

I told Liz that Ben was rude and vile, and Joy and I never liked him and said she needed to break up with him immediately.

The sad part was, we weren’t surprised by his behavior. Ben had long thought our house (Joy and my house that is) was his house, and this was the last straw.

He had spent every single night at our place, done his laundry repeatedly, took showers and ate our food.
And he did this when Liz wasn’t even there. This is why you must not hand out copies of your key to just anyone.

I remember Joy and I were in my bed watching TV one night (we sleep in the same bed sometimes, like puppies) and Ben had used his key to waltz in the house when Liz was at work, stuck just his hand in the slightly ajar room where we were and waved, then walked in the bathroom and turned on the shower.
Horrible.

Liz, in her distressed state, agreed that Ben was a shit, and even admitted that he came over so much because THE ELECTRICY AT HIS APARTMENT WAS SHUT OFF.

“Um. What.”

“Yea, it was totally shut off because he didn't pay the bill,” Liz said. “He said, ‘I’m not too concerned about it, it's not really a high priority right now."

And why should it be? He had our entire house to live in and not pay a cent! Jenny and Joy have electricity! They have water!
THEY HAVE WI-FI!

I told Liz that Ben needed to get his electricity in his own apartment turned on again, like NOW, because clearly, he had made himself TOO comfortable in our house and we were effing tired of it.

She did — and he did — but unfortunately, they had NOT broken up by the time we returned from New York.

Ben continued to come over, even though he knew that WE knew what he had done with Joy’s computer. He wasn’t embarrassed at all.

In fact, a week or two after the um, couch situation, he saw me flipping through a Victoria’s Secret catalog (they just bombard you with those things don’t they??) and he made a joke about how the only thing good about the magazine is for men to pleasure themselves.

I glared at him.

“Really, Ben?” I said. “Really?”

“Oh, they’re not my type,” Ben responded.

(Liz described the online porn he was watching in great detail. It was certainly was not lady-like enough for the Victoria’s Secret models.)

Ben and Liz broke up a short time later, thank GOD, and she has since gotten a new boyfriend and actually moved in with him. They split the electric bill.

Ben is long gone, but one thing remains: Joy's password on her laptop:
“Don’t jack off.”

It's case sensitive.

-Jenny

Things I wish I liked to drink

Most of the things I drink are inappropriate. Diet Coke before 9 a.m., 5-hour energy shots Friday afternoons and a healthy supply of vodka.

Ok, I do drink a lot of water (my mom tells me that my bedroom looks like the movie Signs with all these half-drank water glasses) and I do enjoy orange juice…with my vodka. Ha.

But, the problem isn’t the things I like to drink. The problem is things I DON’T like to drink, which is pretty much anything AHH-ppropriate, such as: iced tea, Bloody Mary’s and coffee.

These are the three drinks that are most commonly drank at most polite functions, like luncheons, business meetings, baby showers and brunch.
Allow me to break this down:


1.) Iced tea. Hot tea is fine, but iced tea has this horrible aftertaste like lemonade gone bad. And then, most of the time, you get a straw-full of sugar granules when you add Sweet-and-Low to it and lemons make my face pucker.

But, iced tea is all the rage in South Carolina, where I lived for almost 10 years, and it’s just the puuuhfect companion to all that peanut brittle or benne wafers or whatever and I’m always the a-hole ordering a diet coke instead of iced tea, getting looks from Southern ladies staring at my too-dark drink.

I haven’t paid much attention to the iced tea supply in New Orleans, but my friend (and iced tea lover) tried to find some in the French Quarter last year, to no avail. I didn’t mind, haha.


2.) Bloody Mary’s. I think tomato juice tastes like vomit, and so do olives so I won’t be ordering these, thank you very much. I’d rather have iced tea.
But, aren’t Bloody Mary’s just the perfect brunch drink? They’ve got enough stuff in there to make it look like you’re not drinking anything alcoholic, too, which is great when your my parents are there, and checking you me out.

White Russians (uh, for example) don’t go over as well if you’re in the business of drinking under the radar, KnowWhatIMean?

“A White? Russian?” my mom embarassed me in front of a server one morning.
“TWO LIQUORS?!?” she responded, after hearing the ingredients.
"There's milk in there!" I pointed out.
(The dude abides.)


3.) Coffee. I’ve talked about my dislike for coffee before, but let me tell you, this is the beverage I’d most like to...like.

Then I could be all like, “Wanna get coffee?” “Let’s get coffee!” and make coffeeshop friends. I know people who actually keep up with their baristas and go to their weddings and tell them Happy Birthday.

Also, people don’t stare at you in the elevator going to work if you’re drinking a cup of coffee. They stare at you when you’re slurping on a Diet Coke.
How can you drink a Diet Coke so early in the morning? I’ve been asked.

Well, how can you drink…uh…poison?

(My boyfriend says I make really bad comparisons when it comes to things I don’t like the taste of, but really, coffee does taste like poison with its bitter aftertaste.) ANTHRAX, I TELL YOU! ANTHRAX!!

(I also think tonic tastes like B.O. --- horrible, smelly body odor and believe that if a big, fat guy were to wring out a sweaty gym shirt into a glass and add vodka, it would taste just the same. But that's another blog entry.)

And besides, I’m not alone on the coffee=poison charge. My grandmother really did used to say that coffee was poison for kids. And at age 25, she still considered me a kid. I didn’t mind, haha.

Speaking of grandmas, my boyfriend’s grandmother prides herself on her coffee and it’s kind of a big deal to be offered coffee and drink it at her house.
So, that is the only time I’ve ever drank an entire cup, for real. At age 27.

I know, I know, I was trying to be appropriate. So…yes Nana, I’ll take a cup and please pass me the vanilla flavoring.
Like, all of it.
No seconds, thanks, I’m good after just one cup.

But if you have any Diet Coke...holler.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

There’s a good way and a bad way to juggle two people when you’re dating.
The bad way is getting caught.

Worse than bad (yes there is a worse than bad) is deliberately getting caught.

Yes, deliberately. For example, bringing one girl to the same restaurant where your other girl said she was having dinner.

Is there an excuse for this? Maybe Andrew was trying to show Gina that he was super desirable.
Or maybe he just wanted to tell her that he had moved on. But this incident was only two days after they had some hot and heavy text messaging. (um, no sexting kids.)

“What are you doing tonight?”Andrew texted that Friday night. Gina said she was going to an October Ocktober Fest party at a bar downtown, and that he should come.

“Yea, maybe I’ll see you there,” he wrote back.

Gina told him that she was grabbing a bite to eat before the fest at a restaurant a few blocks away because not everyone likes cabbage rolls and hot German sausage you know.

So, there was Gina eating pizza with three of her friends, and she had a few beers and started getting all giggly about seeing Andrew, when she got a text message from a co-worker.

“Andrew is here at October Ocktober Fest and he’s with a blonde girl.”
(Can’t hide, fellas. Can’t hide. Ha)

Gina, a brunette, stared at her phone.

“What?” she thought. “Is someone visiting him from out of town? Does he have a sister?”

Gina consulted with her friends about this information, but they just shrugged and said maybe her coworker spotted the wrong guy (nope) or that the blonde girl was just a friend (nope).

But why would he bring a date to something that he knew she was going to be at??
He’d have to be a complete idiot to do that, her friends agreed. It’s probably nothing.

But right then, at that exact moment, Gina saw Andrew through the window of the restaurant OPENING THE DOOR AND WALKING INSIDE with the blonde girl on his arm.
The same restaurant that she told him less than an hour before that she would be eating at.

Panicked, Gina thought of the easiest option. She bolted to the bathroom.

She saw Andrew bring his date right over to where her friends were sitting and INTRODUCED the blonde girl to everyone at the table. Sensing an uneasiness (and perhaps noticing the empty seat that was so obviously Gina’s) he left without even ordering a beer.

Gina was devastated. When it was safe to come out of the bathroom hallway, she and her friends had a nice, long bitchfest.

She didn't hear from him until the next day.
“So how was your night?” he texted. Seriously.

Gina responded all sassy.
“It would have been better without that blonde girl.” Snap.

“Look, we talked about seeing other people,” Andrew wrote. No, they hadn’t.

Gina didn’t respond, but in a cathartic move, took his big T-shirt that she had been sleeping in and drove it over to his house and threw it on his fence. Double Snap.

“Thanks for the tshirt” he wrote hours later.

Gina enjoyed imagining him being stared at by his neighbors as he unhooked his shirt from the fence.
But, in all honesty, she was really letdown and disappointed, because she really did like him.

See, kids, sexting doesn’t pay off. Thank God there’s plenty of beer in Ocktober to drown out those sorrows toolbags.

-Jenny