All posts by Licketysplit

Mr. H and the case of the haunted poor life choice

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I pawned jewelry for the first time today, and that was very exciting. I got to fill out a form for the police department and everything. I feel slightly bad that a nice man named Mahmoud is now the proud owner of our CURSE, but oh well! Then I had extraordinary I’m soaking in it parking, and later I came home and found a check in the mailbox. Parking spots and checks are the first delicate spring robins of changing luck. Also, I met two sets of twins at the playground, and I only have ONE CHILD. Luck is as plain as the nose on my face.

Mr. H had an old engagement ring kicking around from when he almost married a nice substitute teacher who would have probably born him triplets. He could have twelve-year-old triplets had he played his cards right! We found this ring stashed in a box when we recently rearranged the house, and I tried it on and felt pure evil wash over me. I believe he purchased it at an ancient tomb in the mall, and no good can come of this. I am going to be so pissed if a ybab starts sleeping and our house immediately sells now that this is out of my space! We had the power all along. Now I have to sell a vintage camera once owned by a Nazi, and we might get to go on vacation. And then I should probably do something about the possessed painting too. Dammit.

That the night come

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Take that, NO!vember. I am going to get on a plane and go somewhere…five to ten degrees warmer than here. Yes, well played, me. Well played! The only catch is that I am going with a ybab, and I have to decide whether to strap her to my back and carry the carseat while carrying the bag on my head, or strap the carseat to my back while dragging her on a leash attached to a cute animal backpack, or perhaps check her at the curb and pay someone to push me along in a Smarte Carte (“we’re the carts at the airport and a whole lot more…” More! I like that. OMINOUS).

Anyway, since No!vember is the Soup Nazi of months (recently held over in regular runs of “NO SLEEP FOR YOU!”), I am sure something will deviate from plans in an interesting manner. My ybab is currently starring in public as “That Kid,” you know, the one you said you’d never have back when you did not have children. If you never have children, well, you win! Please send me a card from sleeping in and reading an entire newspaper.

In a recent deviation from scheduled living, a local university has announced plans to build a giant dorm in my front yard. I am faxing a note simply reading “THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE” every hour on the hour. If all goes well, I will bankrupt them in toner costs. It is my right as a citizen. Man, the only thing worse than children is grown children.

NOW I know how Joan of Arc felt

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This just in: it’s stinking November! Didn’t I just warn you about this? Faaaaack. It’s too early to go to the Caribbean.

Dismember? Nofunever? I will think of the perfect Novemberism right after I post, I’m sure. Nonmember. That’s me. The Democratic Party called the other to thank me for my generous donation a few years ago. I said yes I am so nice like that, the things I do for those children, but what good did it do? And the poor lady read a script about all the ways they screwed up and all the things they are going to do differently next time around, and would I consider doubling my donation? I said I had left the party. I don’t know if this is true, but I am not about to part with my no money yet. But please don’t start out by telling me how you suck when you want to ask me for money.

Me? Oh, I am fine, thanks for asking! More about me: Last night I got hella free candy because I had the foresight to have offspring. That made it all worthwhile, let me tellyoo. Abdominal surgery, sleepless nights, and the occasional poop on the floor? Certainly a bargain price of a snack-size Kit-Kat! Oh, give me a break, give me a break! Break me off a piece of that.

Allrighty, what’s good about November? How psyched are you for November? Guy Fawkes day!!!!!! That is in November. Thanksgiving is in November, and that’s generally fun if you put aside historical context and all. I make a mean quinoa pilaf. Veteran’s Day, well, that could be a downer. Depends on who you ask. Halloween candy on sale? Don’t need that and would not want to catch obesity from looking at it funny either. Christmas decorations will slowly start to become more contextually appropriate. I think we should just neatly excise October and November from the calendar. Halloween can be moved to September, right after my 25th birthday. The Vomitola calendar is awesome. St. Croix’s Day is a real day! So is “everyone’s attractive” day! Except that is not really true. We just pretend and feel better.

Handwashing is key

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October starts as a tickle in the back of your throat, a nagging little sensation that something bigger looms. I can get over this, you say. Let me take some zinc. The next thing you know, October has put a copy of “Star Wars: Episode I” in the dishwasher, unbeknownst to you. Why is there even a copy of that in this house? One can only blame A. Husband. Why did one marry someone with such poor taste? October is bungled logistics and petty grievances and the horror of taking a shower every day. October secretly arranged to go out to lunch with your Saturn Return and talk about you, and then they strike up a friendship born of shared distaste for you and stay up late on the phone, planning new pranks. I know, says October, I am going to call and ask if she has Prince Albert in a can! This wakes up a ybab, by the way.

If caught in time, October can be cured by a brisk walk and smoking an entire pack of cigarettes while listening to Ziggy Stardust on repeat five times. There is currently no vaccination for October, and even if there were, it would probably give you cankles and ennui. October is highly contagious. You may have contracted October just from reading this.

The only thing worse than October is November!

Oh, screw you, October, don’t make me take an adult ed pottery class. Don’t do me like that.

The 7 habits of really useful engines

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Someone in my household has an affinity for a certain telenovela about trains with ghastly faces. These trains are bossed around by a man wearing spats and a top hat no matter the time of day, and the trains are quite concerned with his approval. In the episode we watched the other day, a train named Henry insists he simply will not work in the rain. So Sir Topham Hatt bricks the motherf*cker up in the tunnel where he stopped, all Cask of Amontillado style. And the train is all “Whatever, it’s Britney, bitch,” but Sir Hatt really means it. He disrupts an entire railway line out of pure cold spite, and eventually Henry gets all rusty and infested with spiders. If only they taught such techniques in the business school of today.

If the plant you wish to flee, go to sector 7G

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As if Casa Vomitola has not already been in enough of a state of anomie lately, I got an email from Martha Stewart that was all “HEY LET’S PUT SOME GLITTER ON SOME PUMPKINS AND CALL IT A DAY.” This cannot be up with put, so I decided to resign from this uncomfortable communication once and for all. I am not sure how I got on this list in the first place. It probably had something to do with our wedding years ago, or perhaps it’s someone’s idea of a joke. Periodically, I open the Martha emails to find I can do something new with pork, or hot glue gun silver almond dragées to my baby or a turkey or something, but mostly I’ve been blithely deleting them.

When I clicked “unsubscribe,” I was taken to the following screen dominated with a Mao-like Martha, her smile cleverly applied in post-production. This screen told me to LOG IN TO MY ACCOUNT instead of just having one of the monkeys burn my email address in the database like every other unsubscribe function.

Oh hey, seems I don’t have an account, or at least they can’t seem to send me a password at the email address they regularly spam. Yes, I checked my junk box. So I must CREATE A LOGIN , giving them more information in order to get them to stop talking to me. The more I ignore you, the closer you get, Martha Stewart!

I dutifully filled out an account using plenty of raving in the form fields, and I finally was allowed to tick off “Do not send me anything ever.” But today I see that I am not actually free! Martha wants me to do something else with pumpkins. WHAT? Didn’t we already have this conversation? I am not going to go out with you just because you liked me first! We have standards here. I clicked “unsubscribe” again, only to be taken to this lovely unstyled Vignette error page:

(Note my username)

Apparently my rejection has caused the website to be so depressed that it simply can’t get out of bed. I decided that in the name of usability (theoretically how I earn a living) and all that is holy, I’d send the previously featured screen shots to MSLO customer service to help, but when I clicked on “Contact Us” I found that while I could get plenty of info on paint samples, anyone having an actual issue with the website gets a five or six question FAQ on downloading clip art instead of the means to actually submit a trouble ticket of any sort. That’s not the Martha I know! The Martha I know cares about every little sparrow and pixel. The Martha I know would print off my desperate email with ink she made herself, trim a lovely Scherenschnitte pattern into the margin, and dispatch a hand-raised snow white dove to my house to tell me it is sorry in original song!

But I did find the answer to one of my questions in the FAQ: It takes up to three weeks to be unsubscribed from the mailing list. Because I guess the SQL statement has to go out to the calligrapher.

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In short, I feel overreaction is a mainstay of comedy! Don’t make me explain a joke, people. But srsly, this is wretched usability and a total disconnect from the public face of the brand. Or perhaps I am just taking it out on poor Martha because I have already spent this week dealing with the RMV, investment companies, actual criminals, a rogue play group, a no-sleep recidivist, insurance companies, and more. At least I did not walk five miles past lions or snipers to carry my groceries home, right? And nothing’s on fire. Yet.

Getting to no

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I am still SELF-IMPROVING! No, really. I ate a vegetable. I did not smite anyone, even though I felt like it. And just between you and me and the tubes, there are a lot of people who could use a smiting these days! But that is kind of old school, smiting. These days we are “disappointed with the outcome but mindful of your sincere effort.” It is not the fault of the little creatures that they suck.

When kicking it old school, one usedta might cast one’s cares on to the Lord, but today, one casts one’s cares into a series of folders and calendars. The aim is the same: stop worrying about stupid crap. Maybe regrow a leg if you need one, or at least remember to research leg regrowth on the internet. I would like to grow the capacity for human love some day! I hear it is lovely. The internet tells me that my Asperger’s is acting up. It is October: no wonder. A wretched October day! Rhymes with holy. Er, rhymes with getting things so done that they are dead!

Don’t you love it when I rap crazy at you, internet? I have to go call my mortgage company now.

Do not let you live

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Nermally (the world’s cutest kitten), I let a fair number of people live every single day. I am also teaming with friendly bacteria. However, today I received great insult when I discovered that an invoice about which I’ve wheedled and nagged for almost two months is late because the person who claimed to have submitted it never submitted it. Clearly, someone is lying, but I should have known enough to claw my way up the mountain and speak with the head yak sooner! Bah! It is a stroke of luck for all involved that I am so filthy rich that I do not even need this invoice. When the check comes, I’m going to cash it and roll around in it and then stuff it in a drawer and forget about it. My ybab might eat some of it. A cat has been on a diet, so she might want to eat some too. I don’t care. I am retired now!

GotNothing.com

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So I took my new H2 to get detailed yesterday. I woke up with a start upon realizing that finger prints from the sales staff potentially lingered, and that simply won’t do. My detailing place staff wears gloves made from the skin of infant eels, as well they should. On a whim, I also decided to have the engine parts system converted so it can run on human blood. It has to be premium blood, but I am sure it will be worth it in cost savings and environmental benefit. I also remembered to stick my “Don’t blame me, i voted for Bush!” sticker on the rear armor panel. That new assault vehicle smell! Nothing like it.

Speaking of nothing, there is nothing in my inbox because I read Getting Things Done. I decided that system was too hard, so I am implementing my own system, Takin’ Care of Business. It is so great! Now I delete everything without even reading it. I also repurposed my paper shredder as an in-box for paper mail, and I bought an automatic labeler. Everything around the house is conveniently labeled “MINE!!!!” or “MiNe SuCkErS!!11” I am, in fact, achieving a state of pure bliss.