Things That Are Dead To Me

Dear the following listed items,

I’ve given you a chance… many of you multiple chances. Chancity, chance, chance, chance and there’s a good possibility that you will never get another, so take a good hard look at what you have done, come up with a plan of reconciliation, and get on your knees and tell me you love me or you and I are (in a hushed voice) over. I’ll send you to a list where no amount of clapping can bring you back.

Truly yours,

Ms. Whitworth MD… PhD… emmm, MBA BS, the third.

#1: Myspace

Good luck getting off this list. I feel dirty even thinking about myspace.com. It’s not even because it feels overly commercial, corporate, or professional for that matter. I’d get rid of it entirely if it wasn’t still a good tool to use when “researching” people. “A Place for Friends”… more like a place for shitty rappers and shirtless bro’s to try and lure me into looking at them. Eh, no thanks.

#2: Boom Noodle

Was alive to me, until I was sitting across from a friend at dinner. I ordered a bowl of white rice, he ordered SOMETHING THAT WAS MOVING (which I later found out are bonito flakes, and come from fishes) when it got to the table. It upset me so much tears began to well in me lil’ eyes. True story. So please, for the love of God, don’t let any food that I am near during meal time move. It’s too much of a shock for my heart to take.

#3: Most of the state of South Dakota

And I say “most” because I don’t know that I have experience all of the people or land mass to make a definite “all” yet. But I do feel comfortable sticking with “most” as my negative experiences have been too strong in this state to even go into detail. I don’t think I have a single friend from the big SD. And should you be from there, can you at least do me the favor of pretending you are from North Dakota- which is a fine state or even Wyoming or Nebraska. Big D- as far as you and I am concerned- there is no “us” ’cause ‘merica only has 49 states.

#4: Beecher’s Handmade Cheese

YOU know what you did! Even trumping the deli, you were the worst… mostly due to the management (that is no longer there, may I add). Much like South Dakota, I have nothing left to say to you.

#5: Birthdays

I have forgot a considerable number of birthdays this year, including my dear mother’s, been stood up by an entire birthday party, and as far as my own birthday this past year… no, wait, my birthday party was pretty fun, I must have been confusing it with something else. Be that as it may, I’m now at the age where birthday gifts aren’t really given anymore and having a birthday is a big production anyway, so what is the point? Dead to me.

#6: Everyone on my “Do Not Answer” list in my phone

This is as close as I am going to get to even touching the category of individuals that have upset me enough to make this list. And yes, I do actually have a certain someones in my phone under “do not answer” as their name. Are you one of them? I don’t know, try calling sometime and find out. It could be an adventure.

#7: The dogs upstairs

And if they don’t quit their barking in about five seconds, they will be. At least we are down to only two of them again, instead of three. It is one thing to live in a basement under the scratching of doggie nails on the floor that doesn’t stop during the larger portion of the day- but it is another to live under mean, smelly, old, unattractive dogs that bark at you even though you have been living there for a year. I hope they have their rabies shots because I have seen a lot of mean looking raccoons lately and mysteriously the gate might just be left open if those dogs don’t start treating me a little better.

#8: The Cast of Full House, et al

You maybe asking the question “What has the cast of Full House ever done to you”? What have they done, period? Other than their lack of entertainment skills and ability to be, in any situation, unfunny or take up too much space on the cover of a gossip tabloid where P. Sway should be honored or his life and dance moves more completely? That’s what I thought. Oh, by the way, America is still waiting for the funniest home video. Bob, youtube does your job so much better than you ever could and did.

#9: World Political News

Over it. OVER IT. Does nothing new ever happen in world politics? I mean, seriously, I think half of it is just stock footage/photos at this point in time. Gimme some dogs being rescued or kittens doing funny tricks. I never see foreign animals on in the news, which is a shame. If this could be promptly remedied, perhaps I would consider moving this off of this particular list.

#10: The Recession

I can only play so many Depression Era games before even I get bored. I just want a decent job, the excuses to stop, a better place to live and a manicure already. Recess… is over.

And that’s about it. I’m officially tabooing these items.

Wear Me Out

One of my friends once (recently) told me that my fashion sense was somewhat like that of Blossom’s… you remember, the chick with the big hats and crushed velvet outfits.  I guess I haven’t made as much progress in my ensembles as I had thought.  

Yes, I can admit that I have made some poor decisions when it came to choosing my own clothes during my early years.  Let me recap some of those mistakes for you, in order that makes the most chronological sense:

-Velcro® Troll™ Shoes- OK, it is not my fault that I was once a child.  Let’s just clear that part up. And along with being a child, comes the addition of velcro® on all sorts of articles of clothing; for baby hands, it just makes life easier.  So the velcro is not the upsetting part and must be put aside to focus on the real problem.  The troll part, which is what was these shoes a mistake.  I can recall them vividly: they were white and pink with an actual removable troll head that attached to the tongue of the shoe as well as an image of a troll on the side of the shoe.  What one does with a removable troll head is beyond my comprehension.

-Purple Suede Shoes- Another bad shoe choice, but I loved these ones.  They were crushed deep purple suede with a bit of a chunky heal (and by that I mean, as much of a heal as is allowed for a 9 year old) and actual black ribbon for the laces.  The image that follows is actually what the shoes looked like.  

-JC Penny t-shirts- Well, really, it was one shirt in particular that I recall.  It was a white t-shirt with a lady bug with a white shell that was spotted like a soccer ball and bellow that read the words “don’t bug me, I’m playing soccer” in purple and black letters.  Gross you say?  Yes, and let me also explain that I wasn’t even playing or interested in playing or even watching soccer at the time.  And what is worse?  I picked it out myself.

-Tinted sunglasses- I had several pair: green, red, purple and perhaps even yellow- all which were very round and very small… think, oh, Diane Keaton or Elton John, only cheaper versions, as I believe them to have been purchased at our local dollar store.  

-Baggy Jeans-  In middle school I started wearing, not just flared jeans, but baggy flared jeans.  Oh wait, it gets better.  I had two pairs of these jeans and both pairs had embroidered cartoon girls on the back pockets.  Oh baby, yes.  I might also add that one pair was that of a very light wash, the other a medium blue.  

-Pants Only- For the majority of my high school career I refused to wear skirts, dresses, or jeans (probably due to the baggy jean fiasco of my middle school naivety).  What does this mean?  I wore a lot of pants.  Oh yes, I forgot to mention, they were mostly dress pants.  Whoot whoot.  Let me also state for the record that not all of the dress pants I owned and wore were black.  Some were grey, some were khakis, and some were forest green.  I also think I owned a pair of brown chords.  It wasn’t until senior year when I actually bought a real pair of jeans- primarily because I was then interested in exploring the converse and jeans look.  It was a good cross over. 

-Dusters- Most articles of clothing whose ownership ended up being a mistake I have come to realize, were primarily purchased in pairs.  My “dusters” where no different.  I possessed and regularly wore two- one grey and one black.  Modern society questions why would a person even need one.  I mean, granted yes, I lived in Montana and that look was stylish back in the late 1800’s, though made of different material and cut, but there is and was no excuse for this behavior in the modern world, uncivilized territory or not.  And yes, for the record, I wore them OVER my dress pants.  

-Cat collars- I used to wear, as bracelets, my cats’ collars.  I just wanted to be closer to them during sophomore health class…  Sometimes I would even wear several at a time, many of which were jewel studded.

-Puffy jackets- I have two in my closet right now: one is shiny purple (pictured bellow) and one is shiny green.  Both have furry hoods.  I still wear them on occasion, though I know it is a mistake, but cold times call for warm jackets- both serve their part well.

-I am sure my next big regret will be my overuse of bandanas (pictured above), but fugg it, I don’t care!

Confession Booth

Dear Father, forgive me for I have sinned… sort of.

1.) During the summer between the third and fourth grade I was outside my house in Nowhere, MT, USA.  As I was saying, it was summer and I was out in the yard riding my bike when I heard an indescribable crunch.  I drove back around to discover that I had ran over a small mouse.  It was still kind of twitching, still barely alive, so instead of leaving it or putting it out of its misery, I took it inside my house and let it “live” in the doll house my grandfather built.  Needless to say, it died later that day, but I didn’t want to move it, so it essentially rotted away in that doll house for about a week before I convinced my younger brother to get rid of it for me.  My mom still has that dollhouse and I managed not to get some sort of mouse flu.

2.) In the fourth grade, in Mrs. Laden’s class, we were assigned to create calendar pieces for the upcoming month.  The directions were simple and clear: color in the object, cut it out, and put your name on the back.  I turned my piece in and then took another (as there were more days in the month to be completed than there were students).  Instead of completing this second piece as assigned, I turned it in uncolored, not cut out, and with “anonymous” written on the back, only, I couldn’t spell so it read “annonimos” or something along those lines.  Mrs. Laden. was furious and threatened to punish the whole class if the author, who she hotly pointed out was a terrible speller, did not confess to their idea of a joke.  I, of course, did not confess and let this kid named Carl Tibbets take the fall for me.  For this he was punished and his privileges were taken away for the rest of the year.  I never bothered to correct the injustice.  Years  later I confessed to Carl that it was me but he had convinced himself otherwise and so I dropped the subject letting him believe his version of the events.

3.) I cried harder and for a longer period of time when my cat died than when my grandfather died.  He died when I was a senior in high school before Tripod- who died when I was in my senior year of college.  

4.) When I thought I was going to get fired at one of the retail locations that employed me, I decided to start giving every good-looking guy, elderly person, or friendly customer our employee discount on their purchases.  I wasn’t even allowed access to the code to issue an employee purchase “technically” but I knew it and, thus, used it liberally.  

5.) I submitted artwork for a t-shirt design once in middle school.  However, the artwork was not original, seeing as I traced over it using computer paper and a box lamp.  And even though I didn’t win, I was still a finalist.  In fact, two of “my works” were in the final 10. 

6.) Again, when I was a youngster, my family had several cats.  On occasion, one of our cats would have a litter of kittens.  I used to like to play this game with the baby kittens called “mama to the rescue” where I would remove one of the kitten s from the litter and hide it somewhere in the house and wait for the mama cat to come and find it.  I stopped playing that game after I hid one of the kittens on the book shelf and when the mama cat came to retrieve it, she dropped it on her way down.  Though the kitten was perfectly fine, I still felt really bad about it.

7.) It was the end of third grade and I decided to make a move on my year long crush.  I gave him a secret note at the end of school one day, as everyone was leaving their classrooms for the buses.  I told him it was a note from our teacher and not to open it until he got home.  He was with a group of friends and acted nonchalant and coy about the matter and began to open it, right there, in the presence of his friends and me.  It was at this point that I made a mad dash for the first open room I could find.  I hid in the boys bathroom (yes, the boys bathroom), as it was the closest thing, and I only had seconds to spare.  I heard him laughing, with his friends, in the distance.  I assume it was from the note’s contents.  That afternoon, I stayed in the bathroom sobbing for a good 30 minutes until I was sure the coast was clear, because now I had not only spilled my guts to, oh, about 6 people, but also trapped myself in the boys bathroom.  I also missed my bus.  Since then, and it is because of this reason, that I have yet to make the first move on a boy.  

8.) I once had a secret, well, we’ll call it “shrine” to a certain boy-bander in middle-school, though my friends and I all supposedly hated that type of music.  The shrine was in a shallow closet I had in my room, near my bed and was wall to wall, ceiling to floor covered with pictures from Tiger Beat types of magazines which I would also purchase in secret.  There may have also been some sort of candle in there… probably a tea-lite.  Incidentally, I also kept my science fair project in there, which were containers of moldy milk, arranged by date and how long they had been out of the refrigerator.  

Mothers Day 09

This one is dedicated to my mother- because I didn’t get you a Mother’s Day gift this year.  Sorry for the, er, belatsion (and yes, I just created that word.)  

This is a little special glimpse into my family life, which may be a rare opportunity, so cease this moment, cuddle up with your loved one, and get to know a little bit about a woman I call mom.  

And so, to celebrate my mother, I have compiled a list of my all time favorite moments… some may call them precious moments, in which she was livid, and I mean really angry.  Fond memories ma:  

1.) When I didn’t clean my room- Only once did the threats of throwing all of my shit away if I didn’t clean up my room ever come into fruition.  I refused to pick-up my room for two or so weeks in the fourth grade and one night my mother went into my room with a big black garbage bag.  The bag from the kitchen.  The bag with garbage water and banana peels and leftover sloppy joes in it.  I only rescued a few things on the top.  Even back then I wouldn’t go dumpster diving, not even for my own things.  If you ask my current roommates, I am sure they would say that I still haven’t learned my lesson.

2.) When my I learned to drive- When I was first learning to drive, my mother instructed me to pull into the gas station so she could buy cigarettes.  I overshot my right turn, drove the van up and onto the sidewalk, into a bunch of bushes and ruined her oil pan.  No pedestrians were harmed in the process.

3.) When the cat came back- Kali Nanna, our calico cat, had a batch of kittens: Milo, Honey, Jean, and Oreo Elvis Presley.  One day, with out informing my younger brother and me, she took the kittens down to the Co-Op gas station near our house, as it was there that they had a cage for “free” kittens (usually given away to farmers and ranchers to become field cats).  Michael and I came home from school, discovered this, and raced, our little hearts pounding, down to rescue these kittens.  We only managed to rescue Honey and Jean, Milo and O.E.P. had already been adopted.  I don’t know which she was more angry at, my brother and me for bringing back two kittens she really didn’t want, or the gas station for letting two kids freely take animals with out question.  Oddly enough she let us keep Honey and Jean after their rescue.  We never questioned this decision.  

4.) When my younger brother learned to drive

My brother learned to drive at a much younger age than I…. when he was 5.  My mom picked me up from a friends house and left my brother in the car.  Somehow, he managed to put the car in drive, drive through my friend’s garage door, then throw the car into reverse and take out their fence.

5.) The Christmas pie incident

My younger brother was in pre-school, I was in kindergarten.  It was Christmas day and there was one piece of pie left over from dinner.  It was cherry pie.  My younger brother had saved it… not only saved it, but licked it and made sure he marked his territory.  Later that night he decided to consummate his pie lust- whipped cream and all- might I remind you, this was the last piece of dessert in our entire house, aside from the usual stocking candy.  For some reason my dad was in a bit of a mood and decided to get rid of our Christmas tree post haste- incidentally dragging the tree over the cherry pie right as my brother was abut to chomp on the first bite.  No bites were had, but plenty of tears were and my mother was furious at my dad for “ruining” Christmas for everyone.   

And finally, my all time favorite moment when my mother was pissed off, I call this one

6.) The video: 

For sake of protection for the parties involved (i.e. my younger brother- gosh he is in a lot of these stories- and his friend Nathan), I am going to simplify this story.. you’ll get the idea.

-This is from the perspective of my friend Kristin and I while watching the incident at a safe distance at the park across the field from our house:

1. Mom Comes Home- Kristin and I see van slowly pulling up the long drive way to our house, we have no time to reach the parties (my 10 year old brother and his friend) inside the house before she gets there first.

2. Mom enters house

3. Moments later, mom leaves the house carrying video

4. Mom steps on video…. over, and over, and over again

5. Mom throws said video in our dumpster

6. Nathan begs my mom not to tell his mom

7. Van drives rapidly away from house- where to?  I do not know.