Appreciahating

Text Message Du Jour: Violating Vampires' Constitutional Rights

2011-12-14T11:16:00.000-08:00

My brother and I like to keep updated by texting each other breaking news:

Me: Most random thing ever: Christopher Meloni from Law & Order SUV will be a regular cast member in True Blood season five.

Topher: Whhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaa?! Elliot?!

Me: YUP.

Topher: I have a feeling a few vampires are getting punched.

My Adventures in España, Part 2: And Now, a Reflection on My Love/Hate Relationship With Ham

2011-12-13T09:49:00.000-08:00

Dear jamón, jamón ibérico, bacon, jamón serrano, jamón–flavored potato chips and any other forms of pig meat product available in Spain,

When I was much younger, there was one unfortunate Christmas season when everyone miscommunicated and no less than three different people showed up to the same party with a honey baked ham.

After everyone had finished pigging out (pun intended), there was still enough ham left over to feed a family of four for a month. And surprise! My family of four volunteered to load all that ham in our Jeep Cherokee and take it back to our house to finish it off.

Thus began “Hamageddon.” My younger brother and I were served ham and eggs for breakfast, ham sandwiches for lunch and ham slice with a side of creamed spinach for dinner every day until our arteries exploded from the excessive sodium intake.

This hamtastrophe stuck with me for years and haunted every form of ham that presented itself in my life. But now, years later, I was finally over it.

That is, until I traveled to Spain.

The conclusion I have drawn, which, it should be noted, is not based on any kind of actual knowledge or scientific fact, is that Spain must be overrun by wild pigs. Never in my life, with the exception of Hamageddon, have I see so much ham. Ham in Spain is an acceptable breakfast, lunch, and dinner food. It is also a snack flavoring and topping for various tapas.

[Spanish nativity scene, complete with wild boars.]

Screw the Flower Arrangements, Let’s Use Ham!

Let me make a wild generalization about Spaniards as a whole: they think the leg of a dead pig makes for an awesome table centerpiece.

I’m not sure why, but shops and various eateries have taken to displaying dead pig legs on wood plaques or hanging them from the ceiling by rope. Then, supposedly, if you were in the mood for some ham (and who isn’t?) the shopkeeper could easily grab a pork-carving machete and slice you a hunk directly from a preserved pig leg, hoof and all.

I’m Just Going to Give Up on Romance and Marry Some Ham Flavoring

I’m not going to lie; I only have room for two true loves in my life: my cat, and any and all types of potato chips (no one is going to be particularly surprised when I die alone, are they?).

While traveling in Southeast Asia during college, I made it a personal goal to sample as many potato chip flavors as possible. Some personal favorites were nori seaweed, spicy chili squid, and seafood and mayonnaise.

However, nothing could prepare me for the incredible array of ham-based potato chip flavors in Spain.

My travel companion Blonde Beyonce looked on in disgust while I made it a personal mission to consume every ham-related potato chip flavor I could get my hands on. This was a simple task, as most markets and movie theaters offered Ruffle’s jamón chips as a mainstay. I also stuffed my face with ham and cheese-flavored Lays and BBQ ham chips (fuck yeah, let’s throw some ham slices on the BBQ!).

I'll Take a Big Mac Jamón, Please

Well, duh, McDonald's in Spain offers a burger topped with jamón ibérico. Was that even a question?

And Then I Considered Buying Everyone a Bottle Opener Shaped Like a Disembodied Animal

Spaniards are well aware that the prevalence of ham in their country borders on absurd. If they weren't, they wouldn’t offer ham-themed souvenirs to tourists.

Not only did I encounter a bottle opener shaped like a dead pig’s leg, I also found the same disgusting animal product in magnet and key chain form. While I was tempted to buy them, it occurred to me that nobody else back home would understand why it was hilarious that my keys were now attached to the hoof, leg, and thigh of a dead pig.

I Don’t Think This Qualifies as Breakfast

One morning, I ordered the “breakfast special” and received thinly sliced ham on a baguette doused in olive oil, and a cup of coffee. Well, obviously that would be the breakfast special.

And Then it Became Clear I Knew Nothing About Where I Was

“Boy, it’d be hard to be Kosher in this country,” I said. “There’s nothing to eat but ham!”

Blonde Beyonce consulted her guide book briefly. “Well, I doubt that’s a serious problem, because King Ferdinand expelled all the Jewish people in the 1400s.”

“…Oh.”

Well, that explains a lot.

My Adventures in España, Part 1: So Many Future Husbands, So Little Time

2011-12-05T17:10:00.000-08:00

[C'mon now, what man wouldn't love this?]

My ability to select appropriate romantic companions has been in question since that time Soldier Boy picked me up from the airport wearing guyliner and a fedora, an unfortunate fashion decision which kept my mother laughing for three days straight. After she was able to properly breathe again, she suggested I attend therapy – as I possibly had “man issues.” (This coming from a woman who only enters into relationships with men at least 15 years her senior – and I’m the one with “man issues”?)

Prior to my departure for Spain, my hair stylist/psychoanalyst informed me that I seem to need to date men who are like my father, re: emotionally unavailable, high maintenance and prone to various forms of insanity. I then immediately threw myself off a bridge, because no self-respecting young woman wants to hear that she is trying to date her own father. Because, oh god, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Anyway.

So I went to Spain for a wedding, and watching the flawless bride and groom kiss under a shower of bubbles and rose petals outside a 14^th century cathedral made my ovaries go all whack and threw me into a romantic comedy-esk frenzy, obviously. Blonde Beyonce and I then decided that the only logical course of action was to fall head-over-heels in love with some unsuspecting – and handsome – victim, er, man, and live happily ever after.

Future Husband No. 1: The Catholic Boy

Blonde Beyonce reasoned that the easiest way to marry me off and ensure her own future happiness would be to throw me in the path of her cousin (because, hello, I would make the best in-law of all time).

Her sales pitch included the following points:

1. He is going to be a lawyer.

2. He is incredibly sweet and would totally “take care of me.”

3. No, really, he would take of me. Like, forever. FOREVER!

4. He used to be a model! Isn’t he beautiful?!

5. Unfortunately he lives on the other side of the country, but that’s not important when it comes to true love, right? Right?!

6. WE’D TOTALLY BE IN-LAWS.

All of these things seemed enticing; however, dearest Blonde Beyonce neglected to mention until later that her cousin was, adorably, extremely Catholic, and therefore was guaranteed to be completely terrified of me and my persistently inappropriate behavior.

Most romantic moment: After the wedding reception, Blonde Beyonce’s extremely Catholic cousin had had too much to drink and was completely mortified by this fact. My story about puking off a balcony earlier in the night while under the care of the groom’s father did not seem to make him feel any better about his predicament (in fact, this probably convinced him once and for all that there was something terribly wrong with my moral fiber). However, he was extremely thankful that I kept him from puking on the bus (although, once he got off of the bus, it was a different story) and that I kept him company in the lobby of his apartment building while he avoided his extremely Catholic grandmother, who was upstairs threating to beat him with her bare hands.

Future Husband No. 2: The Flamenco Dancer

While in Barcelona, I met the man of my dreams. Well, when I say “met,” I really mean “saw,” and when I say “man of my dreams,” I really mean “man that I would have one passionate night with in a cheap hotel next to the Mediterranean.”

I and about 60 other women had this exact same revelation at the exact same time as Antonio (probably not his real name) shook his head like an angry stallion and threw sweat all over his adoring audience while he danced on stage in his bright red flamenco shoes.

Blonde Beyonce and I turned to each other, clasped hands and squealed like 12-year-olds at a Back Street Boys’ concert in 1999, and all the panties in the room went flying. Antonio (still probably not his real name) was that sexy. I downed my glass of sangria in one gulp and ordered another, lest I become parched while basking in the presence of his manliness.

Most romantic moment: Me yelling, “I’LL TAKE HIM” at the top of my lungs, and immediately being drowned out by the sound of 60 other wailing women who, it seems, would gladly throw Antonio down on the floor of the basement theater and have their way with him. Upon realizing Antonio was sporting a wedding ring, I confided in Blonde Beyonce that I simply didn’t care, and I would gladly become his second – or third? – or fourth?! − wife.

[Our Barcelona apartment, site of many a drunken declaration of love.]

Future Husband No. 3: The Los Angeles Local

Sometime during the wedding rehearsal, Blonde Beyonce very slyly left me in the company of a man from my home town who was miraculously good looking, available, and hilarious. As it turns out, my execution was fucking flawless, because I managed to A) get his phone number, B) bond with his awesome sister and C) meet his parents (yes, we basically reached month three of dating in one evening).

However, my over-blown confidence about the situation became obvious about the time I was drunkenly stumbling back to my Barcelona apartment with the bride and Blonde Beyonce. “I’M GOING TO MARRY HIM!” I said. “I LOVE HIM!” I said. I was then forced to throw all these sentiments out the window at the reception when I discovered my potential future husband doesn’t fucking dance. Ladies, that’s a deal breaker.

Most romantic moment: The one extremely short text message exchange we’ve had since returning to the states, which went something like this:

Me: “I hope you had a good trip home!”

Future Husband: “Yeah, I did. But now I’m depressed that I’m home.”

Me: “Me too.”

This is the stuff romance novels are made of, yes?

Future Husband No. 4: The Mac Daddy

Upon reaching Seville, my romantic expectations were low and my need to sleep for 3 days straight to recover from the wedding was high. But somehow, Blonde Beyonce and I found ourselves at a sidewalk café near the Alcázar, downing sangria.

Despite reassurances that this was just a “snack,” we ate an entire pan of paella and a plate of French fries; additionally, we each consumed a whole pitcher of sangria. Needless to say, we were slammered. We were so drunk, in fact, that the building next door caught fire and neither of us noticed until a fire truck nearly ran over our table and 30 firefighters paraded by.

After the fire, upon returning to the hostel, we paid 15 € to consume unlimited alcohol as part of the hostel’s nightly pub crawl. This turned out to be a particularly terrible idea. At some point, Blonde Beyonce was puking in a pub bathroom, I was on my third caramel vodka shot, and some guy inexplicably nicknamed “Mac Daddy” had started courting me.

Sadly, while Mac Daddy did dance, he was only capable of performing the few moves needed to properly swing dance, à la seventh grade cotillion. When this became frustrating (around the tenth time he’d done it during a stream of electronica), I threw him off by dancing like Techno Viking. He then ran away very quickly.

For your viewing pleasure, Techno Viking:

[Fast forward to the 1:20 mark for instant techno viking.]

Most romantic moment: Waking up in the hostel room we were both staying in and realizing we had played tonsil hockey the night before. I managed to make it as awkward as possible by giving him a one-armed hug, saying “It was nice to meet you,” and then forgetting to ask his real name.

If You Are My Friend, I Promise to Shank Your Killer While Wearing My Pajamas and No Makeup if Necessary

2011-11-20T15:49:00.000-08:00

Let me set the scene: my travel companion and I have just returned to our hostel from watching a terrible tween flick with Spanish subtitles at a local theater. We´re pulling our suitcases out of a locker and preparing to move them to our new room, located at the top of a flight of stairs, when we are approached by two visibly intoxicated gentlemen.

¨You got an iPhone?¨ones slurs.

I´m not really inclined to lend my phone to this guy - who is inexplicably carrying a boom box - so I pretend I don´t.

¨Where you from?¨ he continues.

We politely answer. ¨Guess where I´m from!¨ he says, now situating himself between Blonde Beyonce and myself. ¨Croatia!¨

Well, that´s nice and all, but this guy is now saying, ¨Do you know where that is?!¨ over and over again. Yes, I have a vague idea where that is, but this dude is starting to get on my nerves.

We try to excuse ourselves and head upstairs, but he won´t get out of the way. ¨Which room are you in?! We are upstairs too!¨

This dude is now inches from Blonde Beyonce´s face and insisting that we invite him and his silent buddy over. Umm, fuck no. The more we try to leave, the pushier he gets. ¨C´mon ladies!¨ His silent buddy turns to me and says, ¨My friend is really drunk.¨ No shit, dude.

I´m now actually now trying to drag my suitcase up the stairs, and drunk dude still won´t get out of the way. Finally, I decide to stop being polite. ¨Hey, dude, back the hell off, okay?!¨

But no dice. And now my guide to not being a creepy motherfucker:

I don´t care how drunk you are, if a woman asks you to back the fuck off, you back the fuck off.
If you don´t back the fuck off, I am going to assume you are a rapist. This means anything goes, and I will not hesitate to A) scream very loudly, B) cause you bodily harm or C) destroy your chances with any other women by telling them all you are probably a rapist.

Now my guide to not being a douche if you are the friend of a potentially creepy motherfucker:

Saying ¨my friend is really drunk¨ does not excuse you from your responsibilities as a human being. You are still required to keep your friend from terrifying all the women in the immediate area.
If one of the women your friend is terrifying says, ¨Hey, please tell your friend to get the hell out of our way,¨ do not respond by offering her an alcoholic substance in a coke bottle. You think I´m a fucking moron? Your friend is probably a rapist and you think I´m going to drink unidentifiable liquor out of your plastic bottle?! I´d just be asking to get roofied.

So, anyway, we finally wrestle our way past these guys and head up to our room. We decide to retire for the night after a few rounds of, ¨Holy shit yo, I think that guy was an axe murderer!¨ After calming down, I quickly fall asleep.

Fast forward a few hours.

I wake up and discover that Blonde Beyonce is, for some reason, not in her bunk. I decide I must be dreaming this. I fall back asleep.

I wake up again, and no, Blonde Beyonce is definitely not in her bunk. I even get up and check, because I think maybe she´s hiding under a blanket. Nope.

This is probably a result of once watching the movie Hostel (which I don´t suggest you ever do), but I immediately jump to this conclusion: Blonde Beyonce went to go brush her teeth and was jumped in the hallway by the axe murderer and now her body is buried in a Madrid alley way.

I spring into action. I grab my keycard and leave the room in my pajama pants with no makeup on (evidence of my commitment to this Blonde-Beyonce´s-been-murdered theory). I check all the hallways. I run into a girl I had met the night before and ask, ¨Have you seen Blonde Beyonce?!¨

¨No...is she missing?¨ I consider explaining my theory, but that might cause unnecessary alarm, and I want to be able to sneak up on said rapist unannounced.

I creep down the stairs, through the kitchen and around the corner, knowing any minute I could run into Jack the Ripper, when suddenly...I see Blonde Beyonce sitting at the computer.

¨I THOUGHT YOU GOT MURDERED!¨

¨Nah dude, you fell asleep and I wasn´t tired.¨

Oh.

Well.

This was an excellent outcome, as I think it might have been difficult to stab a man in the jugular with a key card, which was, at the moment, my only weapon.

But just know…I totally would have tried.

A Procrastinator's Guide to Mildly Functional International Travel*

2011-11-14T12:13:00.000-08:00

*Disclaimer: This should not be considered a definitive guide for your next international vacation, as there is probably a lot of other crap you should be doing, like, I dunno, booking the appropriate tours and getting the necessary vaccinations.

To put it in perspective, assume this guide was written by a girl who thought that gauging the extent of a scorpion infestation by the light of her Blackberry in a Thai train car was a perfectly amusing experience.

Contact your bank before you depart. I have a pretty amazing track record of forgetting to notify my credit union that I will be attempting to charge things to my credit and debit cards outside of the U.S. Then they have the gall to get all pissed at me for trying to withdraw forty thousand riel (that's a lot less money than you think it is) from a shoddy ATM next to a fried bat stand in Phnom Penh. Seriously? You guys should know me by now. Even my estranged father assumed that our stock accounts hadn’t really been hacked, as his daughter had “probably been in Australia recently checking her earnings” or something.

Roll with it. Look, I spent $30 on a wicked awesome travel guide, but I’ll bet you another $30 I didn’t even open it (I'd win that bet). I have no idea where I’m going. I probably won’t even know how to pronounce the names of the cities I’m traveling in until I get to them (here’s looking at you, Xi’an). Somehow, this will work out.

If you forgot it at home, you can buy it where you’re going. The exception to that rule is tampons with applicators in Southeast Asia. Repeat: Buy all the Tampax at your local CVS before touching down in Laos. You will thank me.

Getting lost is half the fun. Okay, so, at some point, you’re probably going to have to get from point A to point B and something is going to go terribly wrong. Don’t panic! What’s the worst that could happen? So you could end up sleeping in a “love hotel” (re: place where horny teens hang out) or “DVD Bang” (re: other place where horny teens hang out) in a far-flung Korean province because your friend (ahem, you know who you are) forgot to explain that the main subway route has two branches and now you’re trapped in a dark neighborhood and the metro has stopped running for the night and you don’t have a working cell phone. Channel your anger at your friend into bribing/charming a taxi driver. I mean, it’s not your friend’s fault anyway. You’re the idiot who didn’t properly read the subway map.

Pepto Bismol is your best friend. This wonder-drug has conquered the following foods: water buffalo soup, crispy fried tarantula legs, dog on a stick, dog in a soup, fish sauce, random leaves I wasn’t supposed to be eating, soju dumped in beer, spicy chicken anus, street food that most likely contained stray cat, a burger topped with ham and refried beans, green beans topped with tiny whole fish, pickled mango, crickets on a stick, Vietnamese iced coffee and copious amounts of chili oil. Wow, just thinking about all these things together is making me queasy.

Pack light. Dude, the only people who will know you wore the same pair of pants two weeks in a row are the people you’re traveling with. They’re probably doing the same (unless they showed up with a suitcase the size of a wild boar and now you want to murder them because it takes your whole group to wrangle their suitcase between hostels). If your thoroughly-used jeans are smelly because you went clubbing in them, don’t worry. There’s a bathroom sink and a store that carries detergent somewhere. Hint: Be sure to scrub like mad, because when detergent dries on clothes, it gives them the consistency of cardboard. Also, bleach and detergent bottles can look extremely similar if their labels aren’t in English, and I know you’re not going to want to party in ‘90s acid wash-style jeans.

Carry some crisp American bills. You never know when you have to bribe some guys with machine guns to cross the border into a semi-dangerous nation to avoid being trapped in another country on an expired Visa. (Also, don’t mention this adventure to your mother, okay?)

Fuck traveler’s checks. Basically, these are the most pointless thing ever, and you’re never going to use them.

Is your passport expired? Check that, like, 30 times. This helpful hint is in honor of my poor friend Kirin, who had to venture to Norway without her three siblings due to an expired passport debacle and then was nearly killed in an ill-fated fjord road trip from hell on the day of a bombing and mass shooting (unrelated to the road trip, but I sent her lots of obnoxious “are you okay?!” messages only to discover she was in the hospital due to a completely different catastrophe). I’m sorry Kirin. You win the worst-trip-ever contest.

You live in the United States of America. No matter how tired, dirty, or dehydrated you are, the dudes at customs are still going to make fun of you when you write that you’re from “America” on your customs form. “America” is not a country. Get your shit together.

Purchase a phone card when you arrive at your destination. Phone cards are the best thing ever, and much cheaper and usable if you don’t try to buy one in the U.S. And dude, I know your smart phone gets service, but five dollars a minute is not a reasonable price to pay for convenience. Seriously. I know from experience. (Although, picking up an ex’s phone call to say “I can't talk right now, I’m on a bus in rural Cambodia” was almost worth the five dollars.)

Book your accommodations beforehand. This sounds like common sense, but I'm going to be in Madrid on Saturday, and have booked no accommodations. To save face, whenever someone inquires as to where I'm staying, I shrug and tell them I forgot the name of the hostel. This trip is going to be awesome.**

Don't fall madly in love with a local, marry him/her, and become an ex-pat. I only include this because my mother has been repeating it to me like a broken record for two weeks. I find it troubling that this is the kind of mistake she thinks I'd make (if it, indeed, is a mistake. I think I'd quite like a sexy Spaniard for a spouse). However, mother dearest, I'm much more likely to A) get punched in the face by a lacrosse player, B) take up smoking banana leaf cigarettes, C) be offered services at the brothel I thought was a bar, D) teach prostitutes how to do the Macarena, or E) end up in Vietnamese hospital with an infected foot. (True story.)

**Luckily, the accommodation problem has been remedied by my much more organized travel companion. We are currently at the Way Hostel in Madrid, which is pretty freaking awesome, yo.

My Halloween Party Awesomeness Litmus Test

2011-11-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

[This is basically all you need to accomplish an acceptable Halloween costume. Sad, but so, so true.]

Over the weekend, I spent 12 hours in my car just so I could party in Northern California for one night. You bet your ass it was epic.

Hence, a magazine-style quiz based on my one night in NorCal:

1. When you regain consciousness the morning after the party, you are A) still wearing false eyelashes and B) everything within a 30-foot radius is covered in glitter. Add 2 points.

2. You would get out of bed, but you have no sensation in your right foot. Rather than panic, you decide to “sleep this off.” Add 1 point.

3. You finally get up, and still can’t feel your right foot. Your toenails are all still intact (somewhat) but your right knee doesn’t work. No points awarded.

4. You take a shower lying down with a cup of coffee in your hand. Add 5 points if you don’t get shampoo in the coffee.

5. There is a trail of clothes leading from the front door, up the staircase, and to the bedroom, but you don’t remember how you got into your pajamas. They are on backwards. Add 3 points.

6. You discuss the evening’s events with your cohorts and discover that, collectively, y’all may have made out with a total of seven people, but nobody is certain if that count is accurate. Minus 3 points, because, well, ew.

7. You also realize you got a free ride back to your place with a foreigner wearing a gladiator outfit. Minus 5 points, because you are all idiots who are asking to be murdered. However, you refused to let him come into the house to “hang out,” and yelled “Access denied!” as you locked the front door, so add 4 points.

8. You and your best friend had a super clichéd chick moment at the club, and locked yourselves in the handicapped bathroom stall so you could talk about how “all men are assholes.” Minus 3 points.

9. You recall that your knee injury is the fault of a guy dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow, who fell backwards off the stage you were dancing on (how delightfully skanky of you) and took you down with him. Add 2 points.

10. You acquired a stalker dressed as Will Ferrell’s character in “Semi-Pro” who tried to abduct you by dragging you out of the club to his car. You ran in the opposite direction like a track star in stilettos while screaming insults. Add 10 points.

11. You and your friends lose each other 15 minutes into the evening and don’t regroup until the lights in the club come on at 3 a.m. No points awarded.

12. You called 10 cab companies. You tried to leave angry voicemails. Add 1 point.

13. Wait. Did you do tequila shots at the expense of your rejected stalker? Add 3 points.

14. Within 20 minutes of entering the club, the bartender knows you by name and takes your order by giving you a thumbs up and winking. Add 5 points.

15. You walked up to a random guy with massive biceps and told him he was hot (you really couldn’t tell, with the lighting and all) and ran away before you could gauge his reaction. Minus 1 point.

16. You’re so drunk, you forget to make that promised drunk dial to your friend in Hawaii. Minus 2 points.

17. You wore a white bra under a low-cut black shirt (oh heavens) and because of the black light, it was your most notable attribute. Minus 3 points because your lame packing skills turned you into a hussy.

18. Your shirt was longer than everyone else’s dresses. Plus 3 points.

19. You eat leftover sushi at 4 a.m. while prostrate on the couch. Add 1 point.

20. You have to drive back to Southern California – a six hour journey – with a legendary hangover. You stay in the right lane so you will have easy access to the side of the road in case of vomiting. Minus 10 points.

It Appears I Am Partially Responsible If My Father Murders Anyone in the Near Future

2011-10-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

[Very old photo taken back in the day when I might have been sneaking boyfriends over fences and nearly getting everyone shot by undercover police.]

My father and I have a semi-estranged relationship which makes our every meeting equal parts awkward and exciting. It’s like having a friend who already knows all the important players in your life, but hasn’t heard about all your recent debaucherous exploits and you can’t wait to share them. But then there’s the added weirdness of that person being your father, and him being slightly pissed off because you’ve forgotten his middle name and phone number (slight exaggeration).

So, in honor of Cancer Dad’s 68^th year of life, I met him at “The Club” for too much wine and appetizers I can’t pronounce (feuilletés? Eh?) so we could catch up.

About halfway into a house bottle of chardonnay, my father launches into a story that makes absolutely no sense in the context of his sweater-vest-wearing, very-dry-martini-drinking life.

It started off like this: “We were in the bowels of Gardena, searching for a Glock at a local pawn shop when the Porsche’s engine light came on.”

Wait. One, my dear father detests Porsches, but two, the real mystery here is how he ended up in a pawn shop looking for semi-automatic pistol.

“I’ve taken up shooting,” he explains, as if this is the most natural thing for an aging cancer patient/occasional university professor to do.

But … why?

“If someone breaks into my house, I want to be fucking sure I can take them out,” he says. “Right now, I can only kill them if they are standing still and are roughly the size of a barrel.”

That really doesn’t make me feel better.

Also, I smell something seriously fishy in this story (or is that just the aroma of my gently seared ahi?), as break-ins are virtually non-existent in my father’s upper-crust neighborhood. In fact, where he lives, my father has a better chance of being trampled to death by a prized Arabian stallion or run down by a Mercedes-Benz SL600 Twin Turbo (the neighbor has one, and I suspect he doesn’t always look both ways before exiting his driveway) than experiencing a home invasion.

I decide to pry further.

“One night, I heard a commotion in the backyard, and when I went upstairs to investigate, there was a squad of plainclothes police officers with their weapons drawn,” Cancer Dad explains. “Someone had scaled our back fence!”

At that moment, if could have turned any paler, I would have. Unfortunately, I already have such an astoundingly white complexion that I might be better suited to living in close proximity with Ozark cavefish.

“I’m taking [Wife Number Four (or Five)] to the shooting range too,” he continues. “That way, she’ll know what to do if she has to gun down a robber!”

At this point, I have two options:

Point out that this “attempted” home invasion occurred about seven years ago, and then quell Cancer Dad’s fears by admitting the following: The alleged burglar was actually in the upstairs bathroom cupboard hiding from the police, because he was my then-boyfriend and I had surreptitiously snuck him into the house and then panicked when the SWAT team showed up in my bedroom.
Feign complete ignorance of said incident.

I choose the latter.

Needless to say, I will not be breaking into Cancer Dad’s house to stock up on ravioli and dish washing detergent anytime soon.

In Spain, Michael Scott is Available to Assist You

2011-10-11T14:43:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you're noticed this, but there is quite a lot of advertising on the Internet ─ and not all of it is up to snuff.

You know those ads, the ones that use stock photos that don't even make sense? Like, there's a blonde woman covered in tattoos with some copy that reads: "Refinance your mortgage now!" And you're sitting there scratching your head, like, I don't want to be judgmental, but I'm pretty sure the woman in that picture doesn't even know what a mortgage is?

Yeah, like that.

I bring this up because I was taking a few minutes before my lunch break to google things to do in Spain, as I will be there in mid-November. (Yes, I am rewarding myself for hording all my vacation days by hitting up España with Blonde Beyoncé, whom you might remember from my days as an extremely poor homeless shelter employee.)

I found a website called Discover Sevilla, which seemed promising. That is, until I spotted the most amazing advertising fail in the history of the Internet:

[Oh goody, Michael Scott is available for Live Chat!]

Wait.

WHAT?!

After I stopped laughing hysterically in my cubicle, I came up with a theory. Some poor slob in a basement office in Girona, Spain, was probably given the task of finding an image to convey "professional office staffer" to any baffled users who needed live assistance (for what, I don't know, the ad didn't really say).

Like any underling worth his salt, he decided to google the word "office" and steal any relevant copyrighted images.

Sadly, our poor Spanish friend isn't really up on popular culture. So instead of conveying professionalism and experience, he let all Discover Sevilla users know to expect this:

I fucking love the Internet.

P.S. I decided to share this awesomeness with The Boyfriend prior to posting. Somehow, I'm not really sure if he got it and was trying to fuck with me, or if he really just tunes out all my insanity and tries to respond appropriately without actually listening to what I'm saying:

Me: You know those ads on websites that have horrible stock photos that don't make sense?

The Boyfriend: Yes, all the time. [Wait, what?]

Me: Well, I'm about to email you the BEST ONE EVER.

The Boyfriend: Okay.

[Conversation pauses while he waits for the email.]

The Boyfriend: Hehe. You're saying that Steve Carell does answer the phone?

Me: ....What?!

You guys, I really have no idea.

That Time I Answered a 'For Rent' Ad for a Haunted Bungalow in a Cult Compound

2011-09-08T13:03:00.000-07:00

[Wanted: A renter for a bungalow on a century-old estate. Must be cult and ghost hunter friendly.]

The Boyfriend has a weird sense of what constitutes entertainment.

I say this because a month ago, he decided I should pose as an interested party in the rental of a bungalow on a dilapidated estate in the hills of our hometown. Before I remembered that The Boyfriend takes open houses very seriously, I thought he was joking.

He then informed me that he had contacted the real estate agent and set up a viewing.

It got worse, because the heiress - who, in a Grey Gardens-like twist, still lives in the salmon-pink manor at the center of the property - wanted to show us the bungalow herself.

I can't even afford this bungalow, I complained. This is really disingenuous!

Shut up, The Boyfriend said. This is going to epic!

And so we went.

As it turns out, the estate is located smack dab at the zenith of The Land That Time Fucking Forgot (capitalized for super extra emphasis). I'm pretty sure we drove The Boyfriend's sports car through a rift in the space-time continuum and into the lair of a voodoo priestess (or maybe I've just been watching too much True Blood), because suddenly there were houses on stilts and pottery hanging from trees and peacock feathers tied to gateposts.

Apparently, the entire neighborhood is exempt from the architectural approval procedures and housing standards administered to the rest of the community. And we all know what happens when there are no laws: everyone abandons broken-down fuel trucks in fields and installs mailboxes on abandoned lots, right?

[Apparently, time also forgot this truck.]

So, why is this gated neighborhood a lawless parcel of insanity, you ask? Well, because the neighborhood is on a giant landslide and is therefore gliding into the ocean at a rate of several feet per year. So everyone that could move to a house that wasn't on a giant slip-'n-slide did so; the rest became ungovernable hermits.

Hence, I was now trapped in a car with The Boyfriend, navigating a 20-mile-long driveway in the middle of a forest of pepper trees and 12-foot-tall desert agave plants. And I'm not really happy about it.

After driving for what seemed to be an hour, we reach a huge peacock-blue gate topped with barbed wire and security cameras.

Wait, I say. I'm supposed to pretend to want to rent a bungalow...in there?!

The Boyfriend excitedly confirms this as the gate rolls open and then falls off its track.

I figure this is probably a good thing, because it will be harder for the crazy people that live here to lock us inside if the gate is malfunctioning.

The heiress comes to greet us, and The Boyfriend quickly launches into a discussion about the history of the estate. I'm peering through a vine-covered gate at a contorted Greek statue when I hear the heiress respond to one of The Boyfriend's ten thousand questions.

Oh the barbed wire and cameras? We have those because the house is haunted.

Excuse me, what?! I whirl around. This is just too fucking awesome.

Well, everybody just says it's haunted, she clarifies. We have the security system in place because people try to get in to see the ghosts.

Of course. You live in a gated estate in the middle of an already-gated community to keep out ghost hunters. Why am I not surprised?

She leads us around the outskirts of the estate's inner-sanctum - the main house, which, ridiculously, is also gated. Now I'm certain this heiress is hiding something - probably pirate gold or the preserved head of Joaquin Carrillo Murrieta in a jar of gin.

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised.

She leads us to one of the property's 11 bungalows, which were built in the decades following the construction of the main house nearly a century ago.

Everything is a cheery pink and covered in vines. There are lemon trees, an abandoned chicken coop, benches constructed from scalloped tile and gardens in every nook and cranny. And wedged in every enclave is a Greek goddess, crumbling ceramic bird bath or a screeching live peacock.

[Ghosts need seating too, yo.]

I'm beginning to think we somehow ended up in the ruins at Delphi instead of modern-day California.

My assumption is proved correct a few minutes later when a tattooed Canadian artist - who is in the process of moving out of bungalow I am supposedly considering - asks us, offhandedly, if we've been up to the temple yet.

The...temple? I ask.

Yes, he says. It's at the very top of the estate.

Well, color me intrigued. The heiress leads The Boyfriend and I to the base of giant stairway and points. It's up there, she says.

We are left to stumble up 200 crumbling steps. Sure enough, at the top of the hill, there is a smattering of Ionic columns (of course) and some sort of alter, which looks ripe for goat sacrifices.

[My potential neighbors are probably planning on sacrificing goats up here on the full moon.]

Oh, fantastic.

None of this is helped by the fact that all the bungalows on the estate are occupied solely by artists and hippies.

Wouldn't you love to live here?! The Boyfriend exclaims. It's amazing!

I turn to look at him. You know what? I'm pretty sure this compound is home to a cult.

He doesn't seem convinced.

No really, I continue. The cult of Aphrodite or something. They probably run around naked on the full moon.

[Ye ole goat sacrifice alter?]

He is glaring angrily at me now.

Hey, if moved here, I would not accept any Kool-aid from my neighbors.

The Boyfriend throws up his hands in defeat and starts walking down the stairs.

As it turned out, however, the haunted bungalow in the cult compound was a sweet deal. We were halfway out of The Land That Time Fucking Forgot when we spotted an overgrown road that made up for its lack of pavement in a whole lot of creeptastic ambiance.

Want to walk around? The Boyfriend asks.

Umm, no? I say. But somehow I end up following him.

We turn the corner and find this:

[I'm no architect, but I'm fairly certain houses are not supposed to be balanced on a pile of 2 x 4s.]

As we're trying to figure out why someone would take the time to dig their own house out of the ground, The Boyfriend and I continue down the road.

Maybe they're making a moat, I say. That's probably an effective method of keeping the cult members out.

We both stop dead.

What. The. Fuck. Is. That? The Boyfriend asks.

[Is that a wall...made out of ceramic heads?]

You know what? I think I prefer the haunted bungalow.

P.S. If I mysteriously disappear from the Internet, assume the voodoo priestess who lives in the house full of clay sculptures turned me into a zombie. Because that happens, you know.

My Top Secret Half-Uncle Likes the Smell of Burning Villages

2011-03-06T14:00:00.000-08:00

[The astounding accuracy of my fortune cookies really freaks me out sometimes.]

(Yeah, I totally suck. This is one of many posts I wrote months ago but never posted because, as I mentioned, I suck.)

If there were a terrorist alert-type system for likelihood of accidental incest, my family would now be hovering somewhere around orange, or “high risk”. I say this because my family tree is pretty prone to sprouting branches when I’m not looking. Basically – as recently pointed out by my good friend Kirin – whenever things start getting quiet around my household, some long-lost and semi-insane relative pops out of the woodwork.

I’m becoming increasingly concerned that I might be related to a very large number of people running around Middle America. It appears that every male member of my family has at least four mysterious ex-wives that I never heard of. And they’ve all had children. And then mysteriously died in terrible ways. True story.

[My apologies for the insanely ugly family tree diagram. I have become much too lazy to draw properly. But I think it gets the point across.]

And now, because of the internet, none of these secrets are safe.

On a Friday night a few months ago, my unsuspecting brother made the mistake of Googling our great-grandfather, once advisor to the Bank of China and economic guru under the Roosevelt administration. Instead of finding a few tidbits about great grandpappy’s friendship with Chiang Kai-Shek, Topher discovered the social network profile of a man who claimed to be our great grandfather’s eldest grandson.

After doing the math, Topher realized this simply did not fit into his current understanding of our family tree. He began to furiously text our mother.

At this exact moment, I was sitting next to our mother, trying to tolerant a particularly cheesy episode of a BBC mystery miniseries. I had been hurling insults at the television screen for some time – but I quickly realized that my mother wasn’t listening. I had turned to her to make sure that my witty comments were being properly appreciated when I noticed she was in a deep text message conversation with someone on her iPhone.

That was unusual.

What are you doing? I asked.

Oh nothing, she said. Topher just found my brother online.

See, my mother had a plan. She thought that if she acted like nothing was amiss I would turn around and continue yelling at the stuffy British detectives on television. Unfortunately for her, I can smell a family catastrophe from a mile away.

He found Uncle Porn ‘Stache online?

[I recently nicknamed my batshit crazy, estranged uncle ‘Uncle Porn ‘Stache’ when I realized he had the mustache of a 1970s porn star. My mother was instantly overcome with grief because it had never occurred to her that I would even know what a porn star looked like.]

Oh. Umm, no. My brother Trucker*, my mother replied.

She said this so casually, I almost thought that I had, through out the entire course of my life, simply misunderstood the number of brothers my mom had. But wait. That doesn’t make sense.

WHO?

My brother. Trucker. From your grandfather’s first marriage.

My grandfather’s WHAT?!

This is how it always happens. Somebody says, Oh yeah Brittany, that dude in that photo is your brother! And I’m like, Huh?! And they’re like, Yeah, from your Dad’s second – or maybe third – marriage! And I’m like, HIS WHAT?!

Except this time it was my grandfather. And now I have an uncle.

Oh, my mom adds, and McWittle.

What?

My other brother.

STOP. THIS. RIGHT. NOW. MOM.

Well, put simply, I have two half uncles that in my 23 years on this planet I have never heard of. My mom’s excuse? She forgot. But now, Pandora’s box has been opened. I need to know more.

So here is an open letter to my Uncle Trucker, which I am considering sending to him, via a social network (perhaps with some minor alterations).

Dear Uncle Trucker,

Hi. I was checking out your profile on some social networking site that I’ve never heard of, and it’s pretty obvious we’re related because you seem completely nuts. Your “About Me” section was a bitter rant about how our mutual relation left the entire family fortune to a liberal arts college (the one I attended, in fact). Yeah, I complain about that a lot too. See, we already have something in common!

Your self portraits remind me of a cross between the happy, bumbling British neighbor that turns out to be a murderer in every BBC miniseries and Michael Moore of Bowling for Columbine fame. With perhaps some Santa Claus thrown in. I don’t know what that really says about you. Actually you kind of look like Mr. Finney from Boy Meets World.

Your profile says you’re a member of Islam and you use your blog to write sci fi fantasy about moon colony revolts and other futuristic space problems (in 30+ installments, no less!). I’m impressed. That’s not normal behavior for a 60 year old.

Through some quick Facebook stalking, I’ve discovered you enjoy a Farmville-like game called Kingdom of Camelot, you don’t trust the government, and you were recently assaulted in a public library.

But I have to say, my favorite thing about you are your indescribable Facebook status updates. A selection of my favorites:

“Oh the humanity! The lamentations of the women. The smell of burning villages just makes the day!”**

“I just lost most of my army attacking a fortified barbarian camp. Great.”

“I am loyal to my friends but I make a dangerous enemy.”

Clearly, dear uncle, we are going to get along famously.

XOXO

Your niece,

Brittany

*The names in this post have been changed to protect my unsuspecting blood relations.

**These are all real quotes. For reals. My uncle is potentially awesome.

And Then Apple Destroyed My New Years Resolution

2010-12-29T13:04:00.000-08:00

It was the year I went on a road trip with a potential serial killer. It was the year I ate dog soup. It was the year I became the editor of a magazine. It was the year I fought a woman with terminal cancer. It was the year I lived with a paranoid schizophrenic. It was the year I illegally disposed of human remains. It was the year I learned I was Rambo.

Basically, I rocked this year so hard it died of an intracranial injury.

Now, 2010 in review:

I survived Americorps. Barely. One of the various inane requirements at my alma mater was a career aptitude test. Our high school guidance counselors supposedly used this test as a means of pointing wayward students in the direction of a viable career. Unfortunately for my counselor, I very quickly realized that this test was a sham – surely, no one could fall for questions like, “Do you want to rescue infants from burning buildings?” No, I didn’t want to rescue infants from burning buildings. It would be nice if someone rescued infants from burning buildings, but it would not be me. Were they trying to be sneaky? Clearly, this question really meant, “Do you want to be a firefighter?” Why wasn’t the test a piece of paper with a box that said, “Write your desired career here”?

I deemed that the test had no intrinsic value and answered the questions accordingly. When it came time for my parents to meet with my counselor regarding the results, the appointment was a somber one.

“Well,” said my counselor, “Brittany seems to be equally disinterested in everything.” This was not what my parents had been expecting of the daughter who was on the high honor roll and a member of the California Scholarship Federation.

“Although,” – we waited with baited breath for the good news – “She really, really doesn’t want to help people.”

As it turns out, I should have heeded the results. After college, I had one of those typical what-the-hell-am-I-doing-with-my-life panic attacks and signed up for the Americorps VISTA program – as suggested by my mother, who, as it turns out, is in complete denial about the type of person I am.

While everyone’s Americorps experience varies, the general consensus seems to be that the VISTA program in particular is a soul-sucking hell hole. In the end I learned a very important lesson: organizations only value what they pay for. Also? I am terrible at working with wealthy housewives. In conclusion: my year in Americorps helped me come to terms with the fact that there are many jobs I would immediately be fired from. Most of them include ill-behaved homeless children and fundraising events.

[Sometimes, you can only afford Mexican goat milk caramel spread.]

I lived in a two bedroom apartment with three other people. My measly Americorps stipend was meant to force me to live in poverty, and that I did. My roommates and I quickly learned that some things were worth splurging on – bleached toilet paper and quality cuts of beef, for instance – while other things could be purchased at the local Mexican market. Most of our income was reserved for alcohol.

My roommates were so awesome that they made up for the fact that we were collectively starving to death. That is, with the exception of one roommate who taped a piece of paper over her laptop’s webcam “to keep the Feds from spying on her.”

Cancer Dad was cancer free. In a surprising twist, my father didn’t get cancer in 2010. He had spent the past few years being diagnosed with cancer on three different occasions and then subsequently declaring that his death was imminent (usually in public places). In 2009, he very nearly became the Bionic Man when a surgeon decided that the best course of action would be to replace Cancer Dad’s entire sternum with a titanium plate. That didn’t happen, and the doctors never did figure out what kind of cancer he had. Yet, he’s still here.

Grandma only made it to 99 years of age. While Cancer Dad surprised us all by not getting cancer, Grandma surprised us by passing away. We thought she would live for eternity, so it was all really quite shocking. She didn’t go silently though – rumor has it that some hospital employees might be filing lawsuits. You see, she didn’t kick the bucket. She kicked an orderly. In the face.

I illegally disposed of my grandparents' bodies. Because Grandma passed on, we finally carried out Grandpa’s wishes to have their ashes mingled together and spread over a horse corral. As it turned out, this was the worst plan of all time. However, I am determined to make this a tradition. Yes, that’s right. I intend to dump human remains behind the same house in the future. Although Cancer Dad disappointed us by not keeping his word and dying, I intend to forge his Will so that he, too, can be mixed with horse manure when he finally does pass on. And then I will make my children do the same to me.

[I really think that is supposed to read, "God Forsook Texas."]

I went to Texas and it was every bit as awful as I suspected. I still cannot comprehend that there is an entire state comprised of strip malls, vacant lots and herds of cattle.

I took The Boyfriend to South Korea and we survived. Barely. The Boyfriend is the worst traveler of all time. But he decided to take our relationship to the next level by inviting himself on my second Korean excursion, possibly as a romantic gesture. He packed for our journey while downing Four Lokos and the next thing I knew, we were in Bucheon and he had only one pair of clean pants.

I got a job as a writer. Though my mother constantly bemoans my "Que Sera, Sera" attitude, it tends to work for me. Despite the economy, I was only unemployed for a week and a half after the end of my Americorps service. I threw a bunch of resumes out in cyberspace, and now I'm a full time assistant editor for two trader magazines (and I have fun benefits like health insurance and a 401k plan). The whole thing is really surreal. You work for some newspapers, maintain a terrible blog, and then people are all, You should be a writer! And I’m like, That’s kind of hard to get into, yo. And then I get this job and people are like, What’s a trade magazine? And I’m like, It means I’m the reigning expert on bus chassis and mass notification systems (well, maybe not)! And they’re all, Wait, you don’t get paid to write about zombie cows?!

I got my own apartment. One of the huge upsides to being paid a living wage is that you can afford to live on your own. I now reside in a kick ass apartment walking distance from the beach. And although I’m too much of a bum to ever actually go to the beach, I do reap the other benefits of single living. Those include watching Netflix in my underwear and drinking wine in my bathtub. Judge away.

I discovered that I have two secret half uncles. Turns out, all the men in my family have been married multiple times to women who mysteriously died. Subsequently, the offspring resulting from these unions were abandoned. Said uncles were discovered by my brother Topher, via Google.

I found a 200-year-old book in the trunk of my car. I’m on the verge of being signed up for the television show Hoarders, but my pack rat ways have led me to several exciting genealogical discoveries. Turns out I’m the descendant of the commander of the IX Corps of the Union Army (Civil War, yo!), Brigham Young, and the founders of Parkesburg, Pennsylvania. I am also a descendant of Peter Gunnarsson Rambo, a Swedish immigrant who came to the New World in 1640. Turns out Sylvester Stallone's Rambo character is Peter's namesake. Basically? I'm awesome.

[Cat? Or space mutant?]

I was deemed responsible enough to adopt a furry creature. Three weeks ago, I adopted an Ewok from a rescue agency. Okay, so maybe it was a Himalayan cat. Either way, she looks like a space alien, performs complicated aerial assaults, and has the uncanny ability to look exactly like Jabba the Hutt when necessary.

In summary: I have no idea how it happened – but I started 2010 as a confused, poverty-stricken recent college grad and left it a self-sufficient professional writer with a pet Ewok and a roof over my head. It’s astounding how quickly things can change.

I conquered 2010, bitches.

And then, with astounding speed, 2011 conquered me.

That's right. I already failed to uphold my one new year's resolution - to eat breakfast. But I'm going to have to blame Apple for this one.

On Monday, January 3rd, all 15 of the alarms I had set for myself failed to go off. Apparently, Apple experienced a massive failure in which iPhone alarms malfunctioned in the new year (how is this shit even possible, yo?). It was like Y2K all over again. Except it really happened this time.

In summary: I was late to my first day of work in 2011, and subsequently I did not eat breakfast.

That's got to be a world record in resolution breaking.

A Starving Dog, a Sharp Stick, and a Thought on Family at Christmas

2010-12-21T11:50:00.000-08:00

While I was abusing my stomach and ears this morning with a gingerbread latte and some seasonal music, I caught the tail end of a conversation in the next cubicle:

“…Like my dad always says, ‘it beats a sharp stick in the eye’!”

I can’t help but think that our families have way more to do with who we are than we would like. But this season – while I watch my sexist, alcoholic grandfather hit on waitresses, and tune out my Paraguayan aunt’s lecture on the herbal remedies she sells out of her compound in Pahrump, Nevada – I will be thankful.

I will be thankful for my cousin who was arrested in Columbia with thousands of dollars in her shoes; for my (secret) half uncle who posts science fiction about moon colonies on his blog; for my 6’7” great uncle who robbed an ice cream parlor at gunpoint; for my grandmother that was committed to an institution after she hallucinated that there was a flock of ducks in her living room.

All these people make me who I am. (Which – in the case of my mental health – is probably not a good thing.)

I am also thankful for all the relatively useless advice they have provided over the years. (As my late paternal grandfather used to say, “Never hire an architect who wears a cape.”)

Despite their best efforts to the contrary, my family makes me proud. Their endless antics, absurd secret lives, and collective arrest record are not to be dismissed. Thank you guys for everything.

But, as my dad always says, “Brittany, you need that like a starving dog needs two assholes!”*

Well, merry Christmas and a happy new year!

*Clearly, I win the “as my father always says” contest.

Someone Owes Me a Million Dollars (and it Might Be Sylvester Stallone)

2010-12-02T21:58:00.000-08:00

First of all, apologies to the blogosphere for my overwhelming lameness as of late. I have become very busy and important, and therefore unable to blog with pathological frequency. I will try my best to get back on the bandwagon.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I am wildly unhelpful if you have real life problems. This is mostly because my family taught me that if you are experiencing serious issues, you should probably just shut up about it and quietly plot your revenge. Which means, really, that I am never going to give you sympathetic or useful advice during the terrible, dark periods of your life.

Take today for example. The Graphic Designer, a former squeeze of mine, has been experiencing some unemployment-related issues since the economy up and died. I could offer some nice, supportive banter. Or I could offer something semi-logical that is based on my actual life experiences:

Me: Don’t worry. It's impossible that you won't get a job for the rest of forever - unless, of course, you're one of my insane relations. In that case, you’ve blown millions of dollars on a koi pond, an assortment of rare cacti, and a home theater system and now you live in someone's basement in Chicago. But that's totally different.

The Graphic Designer: Oi vey, how is it I know that YOU KNOW somebody exotic like that?!

Me: Dude, you have no idea. Last week I traced my family back to a guy who came to the New World in 1640. He has an apple named after him.

And so forth.

Now, it may surprise you, but everything I said in this excerpt from my ill-fated gchat with The Graphic Designer is quite true. I am related to an eccentric former millionaire who spent all his money hand-building a koi grotto next to his swimming pool and installing a custom recliner in his living room that doubled as a huge remote for his theater screen. (He very kindly offered to let me “party at his place” whenever. Shortly thereafter, he filed for bankruptcy. Oh the devastation.)

I am also the descendant of a Swedish immigrant who ventured to New Sweden (now known as Delaware) in 1640 and consequently witnessed William Penn’s treaty with the Lenape Indians for the acreage that now constitutes the city of Philadelphia.

Peter Gunnarsson Rambo traveled across the seas onboard the Kalmar Nyckel, quite inexplicably, with a sack of apple seeds. He subsequently planted them all over New England, and the resulting variety of apples was dubbed “The Rambo Apple.”

Now here’s the important part.

If you’re thinking The fuck, the dude’s name was Rambo?!, you might be onto something.

Back in the day (circa 1970), a writer named David Morrell was trying to come up with a name for the protagonist of his latest novel. His wife came home with a bag of apples that she claimed were particularly delicious; he asked what they were called.

If you guessed “Rambo apples,” you are now displaying signs of average intelligence. Congratulations!

Morrell’s book was called First Blood and it inspired the infamous Rambo film franchise starring Sylvester Stallone.

So.

Yeah.

Bitch, where are my royalties?!

I mean, hell, Sylvester Stallone’s character was indirectly named after my ancestor. Are there no benefits in that?! You mean my poor great great grandfather Ezekiel Rambo Young (I couldn’t even make this shit up) had to live his whole life with that ludicrous moniker and it means nothing?! (Unfortunately, Peter’s descendants were really into naming their sons Ezekiel. And my poor great great grandfather was named way before they knew our family name was going to become an 80s cinematic sensation.)

(Thousands of angels are playing their tiny violins as we speak.)

So, basically?

The estate of David Morrell can send me a check (or money order!) for a million bucks and we’ll call it even.

Aunt Fanny, A Brass Bed, and My Potentially Dangerous Bathtub Problem

2010-08-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, I thought I was normal. That is, until my mother started a llama farm in an abandoned neighborhood. More on that later.

Anyway, as I've gotten older, I've also grown increasingly eccentric. I thought this was a common occurrence - until I figured out that other people weren't obsessed with Mexican water salamanders, phallic Bhutanese wall paintings, and giant squid. But, in the tradition of basic human nature, I'm going to blame all of this on something besides myself. Yes, that's right, I'm blaming it on genetics.

It all started a few weeks ago when I woke up at four in the morning freezing my ass off. This wasn't very surprising, since I was submerged in a tub of frigid water.

But wait, I thought. Why am I in a tub of cold water?!

See, I couldn't really remember at the time - due to a developing hangover - that I had drunk perhaps a bottle and a half of red wine earlier that evening. It was all part of my participation in a party I shouldn't have even been at, considering I had work the next day. But none of this really explains how I got to be in the bathtub.

At some point during the evening, I had decided that I was going to be responsible and go to bed. The party was at The Boyfriend's house, so this wasn't a major inconvenience - I just crawled under his covers and prepared to block out the noise coming from the living room. Unfortunately, I had not been responsible enough. I was already so drunk that the very act of lying down made me feel like I was on the deck of the fishing boat in that George Clooney disaster, The Perfect Storm.

I got up just in time to relieve myself of the contents of my stomach in the proper receptacle.

Immediately afterward, my eyes fell upon the bathtub.

Let me explain my drunken logic. Everyone in the known universe understands that to avoid hangovers, you must take the proper precautions by drinking a lot of water. I considered my science lessons from eighth grade, and the word "osmosis" seemed particularly appropriate (and amusing). Why yes, I thought, I will absorb water through my skin! Like in osmosis! It didn't occur to me that no one ever talks about taking bubble baths to cure hangovers. I didn't care. Osmosis is a natural scientific process, and therefore it was sure to work!

Shortly after drunkenly clambering into the tub, I was interrupted by The Boyfriend who had noticed I was missing from the party.

"You're in the bathtub?!" he asked incredulously.

"Yes I am!" I replied.

He saw there was no getting me out, so he returned to his other, non-bathing party guests.

Now this is where The Boyfriend fails as a boyfriend, and I fail as a human being with at least an average amount of intelligence, because - no joke here, kiddies - I completely fell asleep.

For three hours.

Yes.

THREE HOURS.

When I awoke at four in the morning, I had been sawing logs in the bathtub for 180 minutes. I somehow dried off and put on something resembling pajamas, dragged myself to the bed, and promptly passed out again.

When the sun rose and work beckoned, I wanted to die. I pulled on my clothes and drove to the office, and then spent the remainder of my morning trying very hard not to puke on my keyboard. Clearly, osmosis does not apply to drunk people.

Suddenly, The Boyfriend appears on gchat. The following conversation ensued:

Now, the worst part about all of this is not that my boyfriend left me drunk in a tub to die, it's that I had done this sort of thing before. Only the other time, I was alone in a hotel room. During a conference.

But anyway, my bathtub obsession is well documented. Ask anyone that knew me in high school. Or middle school. I was very prone to taking phone calls in the bathtub. Death was not a concern then either - clearly I wasn't worried about electrocution. My bathing habits had gotten to the point that my dad would knock on the bathroom door and ask if I "wanted to take a call." Lately I've even gotten in the habit of taking a glass of wine and my ebook reader into the tub with me - a deadly combination that has not resulted in my electrocution or drowning - yet.

But anyway, back to genetics.

Yes, I blame this on genetics. After the unfortunate "my-boyfriend-left-me-in-the-tub-to-drown" incident, I recalled a story about some relatives that I had heard a very long time ago. I have since verified this story with my grandfather, so what you are about to hear is all true. Beware. You might not want to be friends with me after this, because I'm probably going to turn into a crazy drunken hermit with 800 pet llamas and a half ton of gold bricks under my floorboards. (You might want to stick around for the gold bricks though.)

So. Here it goes.

Oh yeah, I haven’t changed the names. Because they are awesome.

Once upon a time, circa the late 1800s, my great-great-great aunts, Fanny and Emma, were taking the word “spinster” to a whole new level.

Neither sister had ever been married, so they did the logical thing and lived under the same roof for their entire lives. This was the same roof that their mother, Grandma Lurch (once again, these are real names) lived under.

Anyway, to make matters worse, Aunt Fanny and Aunt Emma also shared a bed. Not in a sexy way. In an it’s-the-1800s-and-my-sister-and-I-share-a-bed sort of way. Like in all those period drama mini series on the BBC.

The bed shared by Aunt Fanny and Aunt Emma was a big old brass bed with metal posts and decorative knobs and all that crap. But the bed wasn’t always big enough for the two of them – sometimes the sisters would get into terrible fights.

Fanny and Emma’s battles have become legendary. Over a hundred years later, my family is still talking about them.

Why?

Well, because, when Aunt Fanny and Aunt Emma would get into their dramatic screaming matches, the altercation was apparently never resolved by bedtime. And since the sisters shared a bed, well, something had to give.

What gave was Fanny.

Aunt Fanny – according to numerous sources – would get so hopping mad that she would gather up her blankets and pillows, march down the hall, and…

…make herself a bed in the bathtub.

Now, surely, you must understand where I’m going with this. See? It’s genetic, people! I can’t help that I have DNA-based bathtub problem! This can undoubtedly be proved through science!

Now stop making fun of me.

And stop leaving me in the bathtub to drown!

But back to the story - luckily, this story has a happy ending.

Fanny and Emma, the extraordinary stay-at-home spinster duo, were entirely supported by my great-great grandfather, as he had married a close relative of theirs. (Why, I cannot imagine. Would you marry a girl if you knew she was related to a pair of crazy broads that shared a bed and occasionally slept in a bathtub? Oh wait. Shit. No, come on now, I’m only distantly related. Sexy male readers, fear not!)

Well, after the pair passed away (probably from whooping cough or the plague or something) my great-great grandfather went to their former home to clean out their belongings. Halfway through cleaning up the mess, a workman disassembling the big brass bed calls out to him, “Sir! You should come look at this!”

So, my befuddled relation makes his way to Fanny and Emma’s bedroom, where the workmen have pulled the knobs off of the bed posts. Stuffed inside the frame are wads upon crumpled wads of cash!

They pull the bed apart and discover that Fanny and Emma have hidden seven thousand dollars in the frame of their big brass bed!

Keep in mind this is still the 1800s, and seven grand could probably pay a laborer’s salary for a year, or buy you a huge piece of property. So like, CHA-CHING.

Like I said. You should probably stick around for the gold bars I will be hiding in my crawl space in 50 years.

Really.

It’s genetic.

P.S. This post is dedicated to Matlicious on Twitter, who got my lazy butt to stop neglecting my blog. And he did it using the phrase "awesome sauce". Clearly, this guy is fan-fucking-tastic!

P.S.S. I swear I had good reasons for my blatant blog neglect. I moved. I got a new job. Shit be crazy up in here!

P.S.S.S. I promise I will explain the llamas. Soon. I swear.

My Friend Turco is Looking for Groupies to Have Sex with His Band

2010-07-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

Remember my friend Turco? The one who doesn’t have herpes? Well, apparently, the post I wrote to get him laid was so successful that I am now being bribed to pimp his band.

And when I say successful, I mean that a handful of teenyboppers replied to it on Facebook with gems like, “Wait, did you really crash your bike?”

I was certain the dead fish and pink deer would tip people off that I cannot be taken seriously.

Which is why I was confused when I got a Facebook message from Christoff – self-appointed manager of the band Tangent – with the subject line that read: “Blog Skillz?”. The message asked me to pimp the band in exchange for mind-altering substances and a subsidized cover charge.

Well, here I am again, throwing my integrity out the window, because what Christoff lacks in managerial skillz, he make up for in rad faux-velvet rock star wear. And bribery.

[If you are looking for yuppie pirates, fake basketball players, and preteens, then Tangent is the band for you!]

Chrisoff has offered me (and my nonexistent friends) free admission to Electric Haze: DJ & Rock Band Event at The Waterfront Concert Theatre in Marina del Rey. He has done this so I will take photos of Tangent free of charge. To sweeten the deal (and get shittier photographs?) he has offered me “a few drinks”. A.k.a one drink. If he’s not too busy dedicating songs to his girlfriend.

These bribes, as it turns out, are much more tangible than the pizza and $30 check that I was promised by Turco if I got him laid.

So cheers to Christoff’s terrible business decisions. (Which include, but are not limited to, asking me to write this blog post in hopes it will attract attendees; changing his name to Christoff to “increase business” which apparently it did – according to Christoff. Since, you know, he’s an economist. Apparently we live in an age where you can be an economist without an Econ degree. By the way, I’m a neurosurgeon.)

But if you’re someone who can tolerate trance music and dudes that spell the name Christoph/Christof/Kristoff wrong, this might be the show for you!

If you’re still not sure, let me give you a few reasons to attend even though you will not be receiving free alcohol and admission like myself:

1. Turco’s orgasm face. If you were at all tempted to sleep with Turco after that other post, this is definitely the show for you! Turco plays the drums like he’s having sex with them. His face is contorted by spasms of pleasure at being able to beat his drums like he beats other things. After watching several Tangent shows, I have become convinced that this is what Turco looks like in bed:

However, you are going to have to verify that for me.

2. T-shirts. Tangent sells shirts at their shows, and I know you’ve always wanted a shirt that will make people ask you if you’re really into geometry.

[Neither of these groupies managed to properly display their band shirts. FAIL.]

3. Drug taking opportunities. The show has two stages, which means that one is purely manned by DJs. The DJs at this show are named DJ Tyler Larkin and DJ INF3CTION, and they will probably be spinning some serious trance music. This can be effectively coupled with ecstasy, so I hear. I don’t know who these DJs are. The first one obviously forgot that DJs can pick cool names. And the second one wanted people to associated him with preteen text messaging and/or terrible graphic designers.

4. Fartbarf. THERE IS A BAND NAMED FARTBARF. Need I say more?

5. Me. If you’re a fan of this blog, I will totally autograph a body part of your choosing. Also, if you promise to buy me booze, I will claim that you are one of my close personal acquaintances and I will demand that Christoff let you in for free.

6. Vice Versa. The Boyfriend is the lead singer of Vice Versa, and he sometimes performs in his socks. This can be amusing. Blake also plays in this band, and he makes cheesy grits, which taste delicious. Also, he is recently single, and will probably go on a date with you despite your halitosis and obvious drug problem. Turco plays drums for Vice Versa as well as Tangent, which means reason number one (orgasm face) also applies. Matt, the bass player, wears a woman’s jacket with fuzzy cheetah print sleeves to every show – mention to him that you know this, and I will buy you a soda.

Now that you've been totally convinced of this show's worth, you can click here for details.

P.S. In all likelihood, Christoff will immediately realize that asking me to promote this event was a catastrophic idea.

In that case, you will probably not get not get free admission in exchange for booze, my autograph, or a soda in exchange for mentioning the cheetah coat because I will be banned from the facility. If I am correct, that means half of the awesome reasons to attend are now void, and you should immediately commence a boycott.

UPDATE: The Boyfriend has informed me that Matt wears a cow print jacket, not a cheetah print jacket. I tried to argue, but apparently The Boyfriend gave the jacket to Matt and should know. In hindsight, I should have realized that this jacket was The Boyfriend's, since A) it is a piece of women's clothing, and B) it is horrifying, and C) he was quite upset that I didn't get the animal right. My apologies.

Apologies to the Person Who’s House We Illegally Dumped My Grandparents’ Remains Behind Yesterday

2010-06-07T12:49:00.001-07:00

Several years ago, I was traumatized to discover that my grandmother was keeping her late husband’s remains in the closet next to her handbags. My much younger self had been under the impression that my grandpa’s ashes had been thrown into the ocean like most people; instead, he was gathering extra dust, waiting for the day my grandmother passed on so the two of them could have their ashes mingled together.

Well, he waited a very long time, because my grandmother passed away only just this year, several months shy of her 100th birthday. Oh, and how poetic it would be – I mistakenly thought – when we finally took grandpa out of the closet and laid them both to rest.

Unfortunately, my grandfather’s wishes were that he and my grandmother should be spread over the horse corral where he once kept his horses. This seemed like a nice idea until yesterday, when my family actually met up to do the deed.

You guys, now I know, there is a reason why people choose to throw ashes into the ocean.

Also, I can now add “illegal dumping of human remains” to the list of things I’ve accomplished in 2010. That wasn’t even on my To Do List to begin with!

You see, you can’t exactly just go throw your family members’ burned bodies all over public property. But my family has very little regard for the law, and we showed up after hours at the local horse corral like a bunch of bandits armed with urns.

When we had all gathered – Cancer Dad, Wife Number Four (or Five), my uncle, aunt, brother, two cousins, and a random girlfriend of a cousin – I asked loudly with my typical lack of tack, “So, what’s the plan? Are we dumping the ash and running for it?”

Cancer Dad gave me a quizzical look, to which I replied, “Um, Dad, you know this is illegal, right?”

You’d think after 66 years or so of life, Cancer Dad would have this kind of basic knowledge. However, he looks at me and says, rather condescendingly I might add, “No it’s not!” At which point Wife Number Four (or Five), in a rare moment of clarity, yells, “Of course it’s illegal! Why do you think we’re all here after hours WHEN NO ONE ELSE IS AROUND?!”

Now that it has been firmly established that we are all possibly going to be thrown in jail for unlawful disposal of not one, but two dead bodies, we begin the rather difficult task of finding an appropriate place in which to empty out the urns.

In hindsight, what we really should have done was tied the bags of ash to some horses, poked holes in said bags, and let the horses run for it. Because what really happened is not in the least bit poetic.

First of all, do you know how much ash one human body can produce when you burn it?

LIKE, A SANDBAG FULL.

WE HAD TWO SANDBAGS FULL OF CREMATED PEOPLE.

And while ash is soluble in, say, ocean water, IT IS NOT SOLUBLE IN DIRT.

This is more basic stuff my family should know, really.

Anyway, we all start marching towards the horse corrals, hoping that someone – anyone, really – will find a decent spot in which to perform our little ceremony before we run out of space.

Cancer Dad decides the best course of action is to dump his parents behind their old house, which backs up to the horse corral.

Okay, seriously, with all the picturesque cliffs, vast beaches, beautiful hills, and open land in my hometown, someone please explain to me why we are dumping my grandparents’ remains BEHIND SOME POOR UNSUSPECTING PERSON’S HOUSE?!

OH DEAR GOD PLEASE LET THEM NOT BE HOME.

Cancer Dad picks a sad looking tree and then we all look at each other expectantly.

There is no way in hell I am doing this. Right now, it is still possible for me to run in the opposite direction if the police show up. If I pick up an urn, I’m totally going to jail.

Finally, my aunt settles it. She instructs Cancer Dad to pick up one urn, and my uncle to pick up the other.

I smile as the universe proves, once again, that some things transcend life and death – Cancer Dad, with all his crippling mommy issues, picks up his father’s urn. His brother – the one with daddy issues – picks up his mother’s urn. My brother, Topher, turns to me and snickers, “I didn’t see that one coming!”

And this is where it gets funny.

No really.

I am expecting a cinematic experience here, people. The sun is supposed to start setting. The sad music should swell; our eyes should be filling with tears. The wind should carry the tiny particles of ash away, and my grandparents should disappear into nothingness.

This is clearly not what occurs.

No – when you dump a sandbag-sized container of ash onto the ground, it stays there.

Like, really, really stays there.

My grandmother’s remains hit the ground first, as they are much fresher. Sadly, my poor grandfather has spent over a decade in a damp closet, and he’s a little – errr – chunkier?

Cancer Dad shakes the urn in frustration.

“Hit the urn! Hit the urn!” cheers my aunt.

I have now basically doubled over and am frantically trying to smother my laughter with my hand. Topher shoots me a death glare.

My aunt continues cheering my father on.

Someone suggests that we remove the bag of ash from the urn to speed up the process. My cousin says he believes the bag is stuck in the urn. Cancer Dad whacks the urn harder.

Finally, grandpa is on the ground too. Ash is slowly billowing upwards and coating Cancer Dad’s and my uncle's jeans. My aunt instructs my uncle to stamp his feet to get rid of some of the ash. Great, my family is covered in, well, my other – dead – family.

We are now standing around what is most definitely, without a doubt, a massive sand dune of human remains.

Under a tree.

In the dirt.

Behind some poor person’s house.

“Umm, Amen?” says someone.

“Amen!”

I can’t say it. I’m laughing too hard because we’ve TOTALLY JUST DESECRATED MY GRANDPARENTS IN THE LAMEST AND MOST ILLEGAL ASH SPREADING CEREMONY THAT HAS EVER BEEN CONDUCTED.

And then we all stand there.

I know I’ve got to say what everyone is thinking.

“We can’t just leave it like that!”

I’m starting to fear that Cancer Dad’s space plague cancer has killed off some of his common sense or something, because he promptly states, “Yes we can.”

I turn to Topher. “But what if a child falls in it?! Or a puppy?!”

Everyone murmurs, and then comes to the conclusion that no, we can’t just leave a giant pile of dead people behind a house and somewhat on a horse trail. It would be wrong.

So, my uncle goes to get the rake he uses to clean up his horse stable.

WE ARE ABOUT TO FUCKING ZEN GARDEN MY GRANDPARENTS WITH A HORSE RAKE. OH. MY. GOD.

Luckily, my brother and cousin get to it first – they both grab branches of the sickly-looking tree we’ve just deposed of my grandparents under, and begin spreading the ash around on the ground.

And then they try covering it with dirt and leaves.

By the time they’re done, they’ve basically stirred my grandparents into a soup of dead foliage, horse poop, and other organic matter.

Great. My grandparents are fertilizer.

My cousin – who, oddly enough, had his first wedding – which was pimp and ho themed, mind you - in this very horse corral, turns to his girlfriend (who, for some reason, decided to attend this catastrophe) and says, “Hey! We can get married while we’re at it!”

Cancer Dad chimes in, “Yeah! You can stand on top of your dead grandparents and say your vows!”

So now, a brief letter, from me to my dead and decimated grandfather.

That One Time I Was Scarier Than North Korea Because The Boyfriend Wanted a Pair of Shoes

2010-06-04T23:18:00.000-07:00

[Here I am at the DMZ on the clearest day in Korea in 13 years, during the worst relations between the two nations in 20 years. I am standing within sniper range. You think this is dangerous? Don't worry - you're about to find out that I am much more dangerous than any North Korean sniper. Guaranteed.]

The is the epic tale of how The Boyfriend and I managed to get back to the United States despite his best efforts to miss our plane over a pair of shoes. Upon hearing this story earlier today, one of my coworkers asked in confusion, “Wait, who is this about again?!” “My boyfriend,” I replied. “Are you quite certain he isn’t gay?” my concerned coworker prodded.

Well, yes, I am very, very certain The Boyfriend isn’t gay. However, he is very, very odd.

So now begins our story.

Once upon a week or so ago, The Boyfriend and I were happily vacationing in South Korea – much to my surprise, since The Boyfriend never wants to go anywhere. We had ventured to a popular outdoor market in Seoul called Namdaemun, and were happily admiring booths of live octopus, decorative socks, and faux Louis Vuitton paraphernalia with my good friend Kirin. All was pleasant until The Boyfriend happened upon a stall filled with shoes.

[Why buy shoes when you can buy fun things like $900 bottles of ginseng, live octopi, or gutted fish?!]

The Boyfriend is very peculiar when it comes to wardrobe. He wants what he wants, but he always asks my opinion a thousand times – or at least until my opinion becomes what he wants it to be. This happens often because there are only so many times I can hear “Are you suuuure?” before I give up and yell, “Nevermind, that’s totally fabulous! I agree! You should buy it!” (In fact, I have decided to give up entirely, because on the day I insulted his outfit – he was wearing plaid shorts, knee-high socks, an orange dress tie, a burgundy short sleeve dress shirt, and loafers – he was spotted by some Korean fashion bloggers and photographed for a post. So I give up. I obviously don’t understand fashion.)

The Boyfriend fell in love with a pair of ridiculous faux Gucci loafers. And, as fate would have it, these loafers belonged to the only Korean salesman in the whole market who would not negotiate price; even better, his prices were double everyone else’s.

Both Kirin and I protested, because this was obviously highway robbery. With so many shoes to choose from, why pay double for this pair? I reasoned. The Boyfriend sighed in defeat. He knew our logic was infallible. He left the shoes on the shelf.

As it turned out, my obsession with logic would prove to be my downfall. I should know by now that the only way to be happy with The Boyfriend is to let him do whatever he pleases and feign tremendous excitement over him doing it.

The day before we had to leave, The Boyfriend starts muttering about the shoes he failed to acquire.

For our last full day in Korea, we have purchased tickets to the show Nanta – an extremely popular stage comedy that fuses cooking and traditional Korean drumming. I am excited to go – but I agree that we can venture to Sinchon in the hours before the performance. The Boyfriend discovers another outdoor market in the side streets of Sinchon, and frantically shops for shoes.

I glance at the time.

I tell him we have 20 minutes.

And then 15.

And 10.

He argues with my timetable, while sprinting from stall to stall, trying on everything he can find.

We are in negative time now. I’m becoming more and more aggravated. It is all I can do not to grab him by the ear and drag him to a taxicab. I begin seething. He finally gives in and helps me hail a cab. By this time, the traffic in Seoul is at a standstill and I note with a sinking feeling that we are definitely going to be late.

FuckityfuckfuckFUCK.

Now, The Boyfriend may lack time management skills, but he still doesn’t like to see me upset. He makes pathetic noises from the back seat of the cab and attempts to give me a back-rub. I threaten him with violence, as is my way. He whines some more. I’ve almost forgiven him when he decides that the REAL reason we’re going to be late isn’t his obsessive shopping, but my inability to direct our non-English speaking cab driver directly to the theater. He whips out a map of the Myeong-dong shopping area and begins wildly stabbing at the theater (which is on a walking street, inaccessible to motor vehicles). Our driver looks confused and starts babbling in Korean and pointing in the direction of our original drop off location. I panic. I tell him to stop it. I let the cab driver drop us off at the subway station walking distance from the theater, and we sprint all the way there.

We don’t make it, as predicted. The Boyfriend starts bemoaning my lack of skills in directing our driver again, and I lose it.

BOY, I wail, I DON’T SPEAK KOREAN, GODFUCKINGDAMMIT! ALL I CAN SAY IS HELLO, THANK YOU, BEER, AND FUCK. NONE OF THOSE ARE HELPFUL IN THIS SITUATION!

We are finally admitted to the theater by the usher at a convenient point in the show.

I try to remain infuriated, but really, we’ve only missed the first seven minutes and Nanta is so hilarious I can’t be angry. Especially when I get dragged up on stage to pull a trash can off an actor’s ass.

[Koreans really, really like to pull foreigners up on stage during live comedy shows. And believe me, there is nothing quite like being laughed at by hundreds of Koreans in an auditorium and knowing it's partially because you are trying to pull a trash can off some guy's butt and failing, and partially because you are an American trying to pull a trash can off some guy's butt and failing.]

I mean, really, how can you be mad after that?!

We meet up with The Korean Boyfriend and Kirin afterwards for dinner. The Boyfriend suggests we follow up dinner with a trip to Namdaemun so he can buy the now infamous loafers.

We are all quick to point out that it is now the middle of the night and there is no possible way the outdoor market is still open. But we can check! exclaims The Boyfriend. But it’s shut down for the night! I argue. But The Boyfriend wins, because he declares that he will just go tomorrow (yes, the day we are supposed to leave) if we do not go now.

My dear friends, it is my last night in Korea and I am spending it in a pitch dark, abandoned market.

I kid you not.

The Korean Boyfriend, Kirin, and I break down into some kind of group hysteria as we watch The Boyfriend literally sprint around the abandoned marketplace as if he can start spinning the globe in the opposite direction by running fast enough, thereby turning back time and opening the market back up for business.

A delirious photo shoot ensues.

[The Korean Boyfriend saves Kirin from a runaway mini van. Kirin is overtaken by emotion in response to his heroic deeds.]

[This market is obviously claiming to be multicultural.]

The Boyfriend returns, defeated – something which we could have already alerted him to, as we have been standing in front of the very stall his shoes are at, and it is clearly locked up for the night.

[Alas, The Boyfriend cannot turn back time. The market remains closed.]

He mutters under his breath about coming back in the morning. I shoot him a warning glance, and then we drag him to a bar where I thoroughly humiliate him by winning a drinking game and forcing him to make out with a poster in the middle of the bar.

Believe me when I say I do these things out of love.

Kissing The Soju Girl Poster from Brittany Swanson on Vimeo.

I mistakenly believe I have taken the ultimate revenge. I have no idea what awaits me in the morning.

I am awakened by the dull thumping of The Boyfriend walking around Kirin’s apartment. I groan, turn over, and mutter, “What time is it?”
“Errr, six in the morning,” he says.

“WHAT?! WHY?” I nearly sob from beneath the covers.

His next statement makes my blood run cold. “I’m going to get my shoes,” he says.

For the first few seconds, I am in shock. I think that he must be joking. Our plane back to the United States leaves today; we need to be on a bus by 1 PM. We have yet to begin packing. The market is an hour and a half subway ride, and he has not taken the subway by himself nor paid the slightest bit of attention to the stations when we have taken it together. He is notoriously late to everything. He thinks the best way to communicate with people who only speak Korean is to yell very loudly in English.

Oh my god, he is going to get lost in Seoul and never return. I will have to explain to his father that I lost him in a foreign country; that I have no hope of finding him again because he doesn’t have a Korean cell phone.

It becomes my life mission to prevent this travesty.

I am simultaneously furious and terrified. I transform into a raging gargoyle.

The Boyfriend is clearly shocked when I launch out of bed and begin beating him senseless with a pillow. I yell incoherent woman phrases like, “WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!” and “WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?!” and not so woman-like phrases such as, “THEY ARE JUST FUCKING SHOES, YOU FUCKER!” I am totally more threatening to the safety of South Korea than North Korea is at this point.

But it obvious that my antics are just making him more determined.

There is only one thing to do; I must go with him.

He resists at first, because without a doubt I have morphed into a homicidal banshee who will probably stab him before he gets to the subway. But he waits while I wash my face and throw on acceptable outdoor-wear.

He tries to win me over with his super cuteness, but I am not so easily persuaded this time. He has stolen not only my sanity, but also my sleep – the latter being much more important.

I basically growl at him for both the bus and subway rides, despite his ridiculous semi-marriage proposal/hint which went something like, “Babe, I’m not going to marry you if you make scary faces like you did this morning!” To which I replied in some horribly unromantic fashion, like, “YOU AREN’T GOING TO MARRY ME ANYWAY. BESIDES, I CAN’T MARRY YOU, YOU ARE FUCKING CRAZY!”

[Obviously sane, right?]

We reach Namdaemun, and I am forced to laugh. It is so early, the shops have not yet opened. The Boyfriend has failed yet again.

He drags me to a Dunkin’ Donuts (inexplicably popular in South Korea) to shut me up with food, and we discover that it is so fucking early that they haven’t even begun to make bagels yet.

I start to cheer up, because his obvious lack of success is making me feel much better.

We sit in the Dunkin’ Donuts until they make the bagels; I order a cheese bagel (which I have to wait longer for) and he orders a raisin bagel because he can get it sooner. It becomes obvious that I have the vastly superior bagel, and I get great pleasure out of denying him bites of it while he whines like a puppy dog. My mood improves so much, I write him this lovely letter to forgive him for his shoe-buying antics and present it to him while I chew the remainder of my delicious bagel:

[This note fell out of my bag when I got home, prompting my mother to ask, "Umm, so, did everything go okay?"]

We return to the market, and I expect him to go directly to the stall and purchase the almighty pair of loafers.

He goes there, but does not purchase them.

I am baffled.

Instead, he takes approximately 30 laps around the market and tries on every pair of shoes in sight. The time is rapidly wasting away; I start getting concerned. I ask if he intends to get his shoes. He says he is still looking.

I’m starting to get peeved again. We came all the way back here to buy THE shoes, not ANY shoes. Why is he doing this?!!

We have 15 minutes before my ultimate deadline. I point this out. He goes back to the stall containing THE shoes and tries them on again. And again he tries to negotiate with the stubborn Korean salesman. The man refuses. Literally, Korean men are walking out of the stall and shaking their heads at me to indicate the outrageousness of this man’s prices. I turn to the boyfriend and state the obvious. He will either have to pay full price, or give up on these shoes.

Instead, The Boyfriend selects TWO pairs of outrageously priced shoes and tries to work a deal with the salesman again. The salesman refuses, and demands 130,000 won. The Boyfriend opens his wallet, counts his cash, and confesses to the man that he only has 111,000 won.

The most ridiculous event ensues. This terribly greedy bastard literally goes through The Boyfriend’s wallet to verify that he has no more cash. Then he turns to me and points.

OH NO YOU DIDN’T, FUCKER.

LET ME TELL YOU HOW WILLING I AM TO PAY FOR THE SHOES THAT HAVE COST ME MY SANITY, SLEEP, AND POSSIBLY MY PLANE FLIGHT BACK TO THE USA.

I’M. NOT. FUCKING. WILLING. AT. ALL.

[This dude probably tries to sell dead goldfish to tourists as a delicacy. I'm serious.]

We are victorious; the bastard accepts the 111,000 won for the shoes. And we are only 30 minutes behind schedule! YAY!

I practically drag The Boyfriend to the subway. Then we run to the bus stop. Then we run back to Kirin’s apartment. I tell The Boyfriend to hop in the shower while I pack; then we reverse and I get in the shower.

But, while I’m shampooing, I hear something. Something that sounds nothing like packing.

I yell out, “What are you doing?”

He yells back, “I’m packing!”

I finish my shower, throw on a towel, and walk in on him skyping Turco, no suitcase in sight.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

We are definitely supposed to be on a bus at this point.

I’m completely convinced that we are staying in Korea forever now, which I wouldn’t particularly mind, but lord knows he would mind in a few days. And then he would want to buy another airline ticket. And that would be expensive.

I start aggressively imploring him to pack.

Kirin stops by to wish us farewell; it has become obvious that we will not be ready in time for her to walk us to the bus stop, which is like, three fucking miles away.

We finally pack.

And jesus, we have way more shit than I thought.

Carrying all our luggage to the far away bus stop in time seems impossible. We decide to take a cab, which we can catch outside the apartment.

One problem.

The Boyfriend has spent ALL his Korean cash on those damn shoes.

And I don’t have enough to get us to the airport, which is an hour away.

I leave him with the luggage and sprint five blocks to the nearest ATM, which, as it turns out, DOESN’T WORK.

I am dying inside.

I come back to find that The Boyfriend has already put all our belongings in the trunk of a cab, and the driver speaks zero English. I try to indicate to him that I want to use a credit card. He starts chattering incomprehensibly and yelling about the “dole” which I absolutely do not understand.

Twenty minutes later, at which point I am on the verge of screaming because we are obviously never going to home due to The Boyfriend’s fucking shoes, the cabbie calls an interpreter.

The interpreter tells us we can pay with a card.

Umm, what?

Apparently the cabbie was trying to tell us there was a “toll” – but really, that doesn’t matter at all, because he just adds that to our fare which we can PAY WITH A CARD.

OH MY GOD, WHAT THE FUCK KOREAN CAB DRIVER. YOU JUST HAD TO NOD YOUR STUPID FAT HEAD AND ALL OF THIS WOULD HAVE WORKED OUT.

So, yes, that’s right dear readers; we got to the airport.

And that concludes the story of how I almost didn’t get back to the United States because of a pair of shoes.

Dear God, If You Get The Boyfriend On The Plane Tomorrow, I Will Stop Telling People You Don’t Exist

2010-05-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

[My first trip to Korea in July of 2007. No, I don't know why I choose to share photos of creepy seafood and a shot of me riding a huge leather lion. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And now that it is uploaded, there is no going back.]

I know, I know, asking God to prove His existence to me so that I will believe in Him flies in the face of faith as we know it, but you guys, I’m getting a little desperate here.

I adore The Boyfriend, but he’s sort of like a space alien – basic historical knowledge, current pop culture references, and the concept of time all seem to elude him. Usually I think his oddities are kind of cute. But when we are suppose to be on a plane headed towards South Korea in less than 24 hours, I think it’s kind of COMPLETELY TERRIFYING. At this point, all our mutual friends have laughed at me and then wished me good luck because I’ll “need it.”

I knew when The Boyfriend randomly decided he wanted to venture across the world with me that I was in for it. Our only other trip together was a road trip to Northern California, and when I showed up at his house to pick him up and hit the road, he confessed to me that he had no clean clothes. Because it was already close to nightfall, I threw him, and his dirty laundry, into the car and took off anyway. This time, it’s not that easy.

The Boyfriend’s time management philosophy involves constantly omitting important information and promising to get things done by a certain deadline, and then not even blinking as said deadline whooshes past.

Usually, I shrug these antics off. But yesterday I almost lost it completely. I call this incident The Air Mattress Debacle.

Our story begins several weeks ago when I realized the both of us could not fit on Kirin’s couch in her apartment in Seoul. This seemed to be a solvable problem – The Boyfriend’s father owns an air mattress. I asked again and again if The Boyfriend could look at the air mattress and figure out if it would fulfill our needs.

As was expected, this was continually forgotten.

On multiple occasions, I inquired about our air mattress status. “Well,” said The Boyfriend, “My dad says it’s big.”

You guys, I don’t know what that means. You take the air out of the mattress, fold it up, and then how big could it really be? If it fits into the overhead compartment on a plane, I really don’t care. Yet, every time I asked The Boyfriend if he had looked at the mattress, he told me he had not, but that his dad said it was big.

On Sunday night at 10 PM I finally dragged The Boyfriend to his dad’s house for the sole purpose of looking at the mattress.

All the way out to the shed, his dad keeps saying, “It’s a big mattress!” And this point, I am picturing an epic monster mattress. Possible one that can be used as a boat to sail to Korea.

Well, he pulls it out, and I find myself face to face with a perfectly normal sized air mattress that is folded up into a manageable square. I start looking it over. One thing is wrong. THERE IS NO PUMP.

Me: “Do you have the pump?”

The Boyfriend’s Dad: “Nope.”

The Boyfriend: “You need a pump? We can’t just blow it up?”

I stare at my musically gifted boyfriend and his (true story) rocket scientist father. What. The. Hell. I don’t understand. Wait. Wouldn’t the fact that this air mattress is lacking a pump be something THAT YOU SHOULD TELL SOMEONE WHO WANTED TO BORROW IT? INSTEAD OF REPEATING “IT’S BIG” OVER AND OVER?

[This is the point where my mother interrupts my story and says, “You know Brittany, your great grandfather was a very famous and brilliant economist. But he couldn't even tell you the price of toothpaste!” Touché, mother.]

I sigh, turn to The Boyfriend, and ask if he can run to the Big 5 ten minutes from his house the next day and pick up an air mattress with a pump. He says yes.

Fast forward to 1 PM the next day.

Me: “Have you picked up the air mattress?”

The Boyfriend: “No. I don’t have time.”

Me: “What? But you said you could!”

The Boyfriend: “I’ve got stuff to do.”

I hang up the phone and call Big 5 to verify their hours and prices. I call The Boyfriend back.

Me: “The Big 5 is open until 9 PM.”

The Boyfriend: “Oh, okay, I can make it before then.”

Me: “Are you sure? I mean, really sure? Because if you can’t, I’d rather know now!”

The Boyfriend: “Oh yeah, I can make it there before 9.”

Around 8 PM, I call The Boyfriend again to check our air mattress status.

Me: “Did you get the air mattress?”

The Boyfriend: “No, I can’t today, I’m busy. I will get it tomorrow.”

Me: “There is still an hour before it closes!”

The Boyfriend: “The neighbor is over, he needs me to take some pictures of him for something….”

WHATTHEHELLYOUPSYCHOWHACKJOB!

I’m dying inside at this point. I’m a rational, collected human being who always nods my head and lets things go, but this time my brain is about to explode.

Over an air mattress.

But it’s really not about the air mattress. It’s about the fact that “tomorrow” is the day before we have to leave. And I don’t trust his abilities to even be packed by the time the plane takes off, so putting important things off for even one more day is setting off warning bells in my head. Abort! Abort!

I say fine. I hang up the phone.

Psycho ninja axe murderer Brittany suddenly takes over. The girl that hides in the shadows of my normally calm exterior and plots homicide while I pretend to like people.

I am not even joking. I mean, what other logical explanation exists for me texting to him: “You’re in trouble. And I think I might have to kill you.”? THAT IS THE EXACT TEXT MESSAGE.

And he’s all like, Whaaaa? Brittany doesn’t say things like that!

And then we get to the part where he goes all crazy and confesses to being absolutely terrified of going on this trip, plus in constant fear that all the plants are going to die and that his business is going to spontaneously explode because he is out of the country for 15 days.

Oh boy, was this a bad idea. I never should have let The Boyfriend try to leave his natural habitat. It’s just not right.

I take over the air mattress purchasing duties, even though I work full time in an office that I am not supposed to leave between the hours of 8:30 AM and 5:30 PM – and he continues with his list of mysterious last minute tasks which he has all day to accomplish since he owns his own business and works from home.

Well, I thought everything was solved. Until today, when I told him I would come over tonight, help him pack, and then we would spend the night at my mom’s condo and leave for the airport in the morning.

WHOOPS. APPARENTLY THIS PLAN IS ALSO UNACCEPTABLE.

Homeboy needs to take his Corvette to the shop the morning we are supposed to be leaving to have it color sanded. Ummm, WHAAAAAAAAAT??!

And he’s planning to pack at 5 AM, because, dammit, his mysterious list of things he has to do – which he still hasn’t fully disclosed to me – will not be done until the wee hours of the morning.

I don’t know you guys. I don’t see this ending well.

Hence, if The Boyfriend gets to the plane tomorrow, I’m going to attribute it to a miracle of God.

And, I will immediately start filming with my HD camera, because by the end of this trip I will have made a mini documentary entitled, “The Boyfriend Versus Korea: A Tale of Cultural Misadventures and Really Huge Cell Phone Bills”. Coming soon to a video website near you.

P.S. I still adore The Boyfriend. Take this as a loving portrayal of my slightly deranged significant other. No really.

P.S.S. I'm actually in a good mood. I just got a call from the agency I interviewed at last week - the executive director wants me to come back and do a second interview with her! That's a good sign, right?

It’s Like, I Was Practically Notorious B.I.G.’s Best Friend

2010-05-11T10:51:00.000-07:00

[I promise you, by the end of this post, the title and this picture will totally make sense. Original photo (before I bastardized it) can be found here.]

Oh, Mother’s Day – every year, it gives my mom an excuse to scream “STOP IT! IT’S MOTHER’S DAY!” at me for acting in exactly the way I always do. Which is understandable, considering my mother is a very upstanding member of society who never speaks ill of people and always looks put together, and I’m a sloppy hot mess who can’t stop insulting random people on the street.

It’s terrible, really. I feel bad for her. All she wanted was a blonde, smiley, social butterfly of a daughter, and what she got was evil demon spawn. My inability to take anything seriously makes her want to pull her hair out. I laugh about how the elevator almost killed me, she screams at me because my aunt’s boyfriend back in the 80s got his head smashed by an elevator and he became a vegetable. And it was even worse because he was a successful doctor! How could I even joke about that?!

Then I joke that we should throw open our car doors and clothesline the cyclists. And she screams at me because an acquaintance in college got killed when someone opened their car door in front of his motorcycle.

I really can’t win with her.

But never once have I doubted our relation. This is because my mom’s parents are EVEN WORSE THAN ME.

My grandparents are like my second set of parents.

My grandmother, by all outward appearances, is sweet and loving. She takes her mentally challenged neighbor to the grocery store every week. She gets up at five in the morning and walks the dogs of her ill friends. She grew up in Paraguay the daughter of a missionary, and later taught English as a second language to underprivileged kids.

But if my grandmother walks up to you on the street to tell you how beautiful your baby is, do not mistake her intentions – you’ve just been Evil G’mad!

The second you turn the corner, a smile on your face – remnants of the pleasure you got from hearing from a complete stranger that your child is gorgeous – my grandma has turned to me and said, WHAT AN UGLY BABY!

Seriously. Every time.

It’s like my grandmother gets some kind of thrill out of purposely going up to parents of unfortunate-looking infants and lying to their faces. It’s awesome. And it makes me feel better about my insatiable need to call everyone I see fat and ugly.

Oh top of this, my grandfather is a Class A psycho. We tend to picture 80-year-old dudes as sweet, innocent old men. In the case of my grandpa, this is not even remotely true. Gramps is a bonafide Dirty Old Man – a recovered alcoholic, former undercover narcotics officer, truck driver, and musical prodigy who was expelled from college for selling term papers to his fellow students and charging by the grade. Now in his eighties, my grandpa likes to tell stories about that one time he flipped his car six times and hit a tree but walked away without a scratch because he was drunk, and that other time when he and his brother were in elementary school and decided to steal their dad’s gun to hold up an ice cream parlor.

[A few months back, my grandfather was in the hospital. I asked him if he needed anything. This was his actual response. Like I said, I knew I got that "not being able to take anything seriously" gene from somewhere!]

It is important to note that my grandfather is from an extremely wealthy and powerful family. The wacky ones always are.

Anyway, no one gets my mom’s blood boiling like her dad, even on Mother’s Day. We were driving out to have lunch with my brother near his college, because my grandfather had been yowling about never getting to drive on the freeway anymore. Halfway there, the real fun begins.

Mom: I would not go to Mexico right now, it’s so dangerous because of the drug cartels!

Grandpa: We just need to legalize dope.

Mom: IT’S NOT JUST DOPE! They are bringing meth over the border!

Grandpa: Meth is good for you.

Mom: HOW DO YOU FIGURE THAT, DAD?!

Grandpa: It makes fat people skinny. [At this point, I am snickering uncontrollably, because I know this isn’t going to end well]

Mom: AND THEN IT MAKES THEIR TEETH FALL OUT! It’s highly addictive, Dad!

Grandpa: Is it as addictive AS SEX?!! [insert two straight minutes of my grandfather’s famous evil chuckling]

My mother is now seething. And yelling at Gramps for being wildly inappropriate.

We arrive at the restaurant, which means things are about to get a lot worse. My grandfather is absolutely notorious for being a disruptive asshole at eateries.

We’re at the Olive Garden (because we’re damn classy like that), and the waitress approaches to ask if we would like to try some wine. My grandfather starts off with a bang:

Grandpa: DO YOU SELL IT BY THE GALLON?! [Remember, my grandfather is a recovered alcoholic who hasn’t taken a drink in 20 years.]

Waitress: Ummm….no? [Sometimes we get a waitress that can roll with the punches. Other times we get one that is absolutely terrified of my grandpa’s antics. This one was the latter. She was damn lucky he didn’t try to order opium – he does that quite frequently.]

My mother tries to avert disaster by asking my grandmother if she’d like some wine. My grandfather shrieks, “LIPS THAT HAVE TOUCHED WINE WILL NEVER TOUCH MINE!”

Sigh.

Later, when our food arrives, the waitress offers my mother some Parmesan cheese. My grandfather had gotten his plate before her, and he immediately becomes terrified that he will not be offered any cheese.

Grandpa: Hey, hey, am I getting cheese? I want cheese. Can you get me some cheese?! Hey, CHEESE. DO I GET CHEESE?!!

Waitress: Yes sir, I, hold on…I’m…

Poor girl can’t get a word in edgewise. At this point, we are all yelling, “GRANDPA! HOLD ON A SECOND! SHE WILL GIVE YOU SOME CHEESE!”

Grandpa: CHEESE! I WANT SOME CHEESE ON MY PASTA!

My mother – as always – tries to change the subject. And somehow, the first thing she thinks of is that the lawsuit against the LAPD filed by the family of Notorious B.I.G. was finally dismissed last month.

My grandmother smiles. She says, Oh yes, we were there - so much caution tape!

Wait, what? You were WHERE?

The museum! We didn’t know what the caution tape was for! continues my grandmother, as if this is the most normal conversation in the world.

YOU WERE WHERE, GRANDMA??!!

YES, THAT’S RIGHT, MY FREAKING GRANDPARENTS SHOWED UP TO THE PETERSON AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUM IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES THE MORNING AFTER BIGGIE WAS MURDERED. Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me.

They had absolutely no idea what was going on, so they merrily skirted around the caution tape and had a fabulous day looking at classic cars.

Point One: I have the most badass grandparents on the planet. I mean, they’re evil, disruptive, AND THEY SHOW UP AT THE MURDER SCENE OF A FAMOUS RAPPER AND THEY DON’T EVEN BAT AN EYE.

Point Two: Screw this whole six degrees of separation crap. You guys, I AM SEPARATED FROM BIGGIE SMALLS BY ONLY ONE DEGREE. (And death, of course). ONE DEGREE!!! I practically knew him! THIS IS THE BEST NEWS I’VE HAD ALL YEAR!

[Sorry, my best friend Biggie. I can only look so gangsta.]

Best. Mother’s Day. EVER.

The Oracle at the San Pedro Courthouse Says I’m a Danger to Society

2010-05-06T17:51:00.000-07:00

So yesterday, Cancer Dad calls me up (never a good sign) to tell me that my bail is set at $531 and my driver’s license is on hold and soon to be suspended.

That was even worse than I was expecting, quite frankly. Can’t he ever call me to tell me he loves me and wants to shower me with puppies and rainbows? Why does it have to be all, I have cancer! There’s a warrant out for your arrest because you missed jury duty! (Which I hadn’t – it was a mistake) You’re going to jail for not paying your traffic tickets!

But I digress.

Upon hearing this voicemail, my immediate reaction was something along the lines of What the fuck is he even talking about?!! at which point I suddenly remembered that fix-it ticket I got a few months back concerning my lack of front license plate. I’ve never forgotten to pay a ticket in my life, and suddenly I am completely terrified. Am I going to jail?! This isn’t even my fault! I think front license plates are a perfectly reasonable requirement!

No, really, it’s not my fault. Back in the day, circa 1992, my parents bought the car I now drive, and my father actually got down on his hands and knees and removed the front license plate and threw it in the trunk.

Why?

Well, according to my parents, front license plates are tacky.

So, as I’m hyperventilating about how my parents’ demented obsession with disobeying the law for the sake of style is going to get me raped by a four hundred pound lesbian in prison, I remember the kind words of the officer who gave me the ticket.

Don’t worry, he said. Just go show them the plate and everything will be fine. I wouldn’t even give you this dumb ticket if these other cops weren’t here.

Whew, okay, it’s not a big deal. Even the police think this law is stupid. I’m going to be fine.

I drive over to my dad’s house to pick up the letter just to verify that he isn’t trying to fuck with me or something. And, in the tragic tradition of being a young blonde female, I am told that I should really let my boyfriend put my front license plate on for me, as to avoid further infractions. I refrain from punching him in the face, as I am capable of using a screwdriver – the problem here is not that I can’t put on my front license plate, it’s that I haven’t. I mean, really Dad?

Anyway, the letter went a little something like this:

WHAT THE HELL. THIS SEEMS A LITTLE BIT EXTREME.

(Okay, it didn’t really say that. But it did imply that I would be charged $531 and/or be arrested if I didn’t address the situation within 10 days after April 30. Fan-fucking-tastic.)

Because I wanted very badly to avoid jail and/or huge fines, I used my lunch hour today to wander over to the courthouse to settle the manner (a.k.a, avoid prison) and found myself looking into the eyes of pure apathy – the eyes of a traffic violations department employee. She has eyes the color of Nutella mixed with broken dreams and sub par moral standards – I hand her my letter with some serious reservations.

She says, Five hundred and thirty one dollars, puleeeease.

Whoa, whoa, missy. It is May 6th. I do not owe you five hundred and thirty one dollars!

My cow-faced traffic violations friend looks me dead in the eye and chews her gum like cud. I put on my brightest, most innocent smile. She rolls her eyes, sighs, and says cryptically, Let me gooooo cheeeeeeeck.

So I’m pretty sure she had to go visit the Courthouse Oracle.

I say this because law does not govern the San Pedro Courthouse. The letter I have handed her clearly states that I owe $231 because I am paying within my ten-day grace period. But, apparently, that means nothing. She has to go make an animal sacrifice and get that shit verified.

I feel a tiny glitter of hope in my chest. Perhaps this is all a mistake. Perhaps I owe nothing. I mean, if they can’t trust the official letters they send out to people, then, well, everything must be up for negotiation, right?

Tragically, the Oracle was pissed off today. He probably found out one of his vestal virgins was really a hooker with herpes. Or maybe my traffic violations friend got lazy and sacrificed a dead skunk she found in the dumpster out back instead of a champion white stallion. Because what happened next was clearly not reasonable.

So, yah, starts my intelligent new buddy. This is a mistake...

OH THANK YOU JE….

You actually owe eight hundred and thirty one dollars, she says. With. Gusto. Oh, and this is a misdemeanor, not an infraction.

…SUS FUCKING SHIT.

My jaw dropped so hard, I’m pretty sure everyone in line heard it.

Wait. WAIT. I didn’t have a front license plate. I missed the date on the ticket by a few weeks. I DID NOT MURDER A CHILD AND TIE SAID CHILD’S DEAD BODY TO THE FRONT OF A HUMMER AND RIDE AROUND TOWN WHILE CHUGGING A BOTTLE OF JAGERMEISTER AND SINGING “MEMORIES” FROM CATS. Although I guess that would be a felony.

I just stare at her.

The only sounds that can be heard are my gasping breaths. And angels crying.

Nutella Eyes starts speaking again.

...buuuuuuut we’ll honor the letter. So I guess you owe $231.

I pay – because at this point, $231 sounds like a goddamn miracle – and leave.

As I am furiously telling this tragic tale of metaphorical rape and highway robbery to my mother, she interrupts and says, “Brittany, have [The Boyfriend] put your license plate on your car!”

Point One: You are supposed to be gasping and yelling about the villainy of the court system right now, not referring to whether or not I have a front license plate on my car. That is not the point anymore. THE POINT IS THIS GREVIOUS INJUSTICE TO MY PERSON.

Point Two: How is it that you think the very second I thought I was going to get molested in prison for not having a front license plate I did not go put on my front license plate? Woman, I immediately dropped to my knees on the oil-covered roadside and screwed that damn thing on then and there AND UNDID WHAT YOU AND DAD DID 18 YEARS AGO.

Obviously, I’ve really got to stop expecting my mom to respond to my craziness in a desired manner.

I mean, I was totally just kidding when I texted her today…

…and I’m pretty sure if God strikes people dead for that kind of stuff, I would have been hit by lightening a long time ago.

P.S. Seriously, I don’t think anyone should die from cancer for treating me like crap.

P.S.S It was a joke.

P.S.S. Really.

P.S.S.S. You don’t even deserve that if you tell me I look ugly and sickly and desperately in need of lipstick in front of a whole room of people (true story). I’m that forgiving.

Our Volunteer Buddy Isn’t an Axe Murderer, But She Does Slaughter Wild Pigs and Eat Them

2010-05-03T15:09:00.000-07:00

[FrankenFish goes camping: A heart-warming tale of breakfast booze, zombie cows, and drunken axe murderers.]

When we last left off, I was about to travel into the wilderness with Culture, Blonde Beyonce, and an older woman we barely knew who could potentially want to chop our bodies into little pieces and bury them on a remote ranch north of Santa Barbara.

Well, that didn’t happen, even though all the conditions were just right for that sort of thing.

There were definitely a few moments when fireworks started going off in my skull, like, Warning, warning, you are about TO GET YOUR ASS MURDERED, but surprisingly, nothing ever came of it. And it wasn’t like we had any means of escape. Despite how great my amazingly well thought out plan about using my car as a sailboat was, that shit never would have worked.

See, this is what I thought our situation was:

But this is what it really was:

Before we left on this little adventure, our Volunteer Buddy was all like, Do you have a four-wheel drive car? and we were like, Ummm, no? She cackled and said, This should be interesting!

You guys, no lie, I am writing a fucking letter to the Mercedes-Benz Corporation expressing my everlasting gratitude and newfound brand loyalty that will last for the rest of my sad little life. MY CAR IS IMMORTAL. I have put it to the ultimate test, and it has survived. I should get paid for providing Mercedes with their next car commercial.

It is important to note that my Mercedes-Benz 190E Sport Line is 18 years old and has more than 200,000 miles on it. Yet, for some reason, it seemed like a really good idea to drive it up a mountain with NO ROADS. I have never screamed so loud while driving. I prayed for the duration of every fifty foot, forty-five degree angle dirt climb of that journey. And when I thought I had made it to the top, our Volunteer Buddy points at a terrifying grassy knoll that is basically vertical, and tells us to back up and take a good run at it.

Spoiler alert: We didn’t make it.

[It is necessary to watch this video with the sound on because the important part is listening to us scream - and hearing me say, "Guys, let's never show this video to my mother." This video is proof that you should always listen to your mother.]

When it became obvious that we would never make it up the hill, we were forced to abandon my loyal vehicle in the middle of a field and climb into the car of our potential murderer. As I waved goodbye to my only means of escape, I discovered that the “road” we would have driven down – had I made it over the grassy knoll – would have been impossible to navigate. I would have had to leave my car in the valley, never to be seen again!

Once we were a million miles away from cell phone service and society with a woman who had apparently adopted an injured wild pig, raised it, and then shot it in the head and eaten it (this is a true story, people), we pitched our tent. There seemed to be an awfully large amount of cow poop scattered around (in fact, as we discovered later, we pitched our tent right on top of a huge cow pie). This should have been a warning sign. Sadly, at the time, we were too busy suppressing our intuition to notice that huge amounts of cow shit usually signify a large amount of cows.

We left our sad little camp and took a hair-raising, four-wheel drive journey to the beach to explore and eventually cook dinner. However, a full on sandstorm was underway and everybody (even the ladybugs) were hiding.

[I swallowed about a pound of sand while this photo was being taken.]

[In a survival-of-the-fittest situation, the ladybug on the left will survive due to its amazing shelter-seeking abilities. The one on the right? Well, it's about to be killed by a wind storm. I think this post demonstrates that I am more like the bug that is going to die.]

Cooking dinner in those wind conditions was completely impossible – we realized very quickly that we would have to drive to a small town called Buellton a few miles up the road to eat.

The worse part was that we were all covered in sand and dressed like hobos when we walked into what appeared to be a cheesy steakhouse off the freeway. Sadly, The Hitching Post (yes, that is the name of the restaurant) was completely full of swanky rich bitches from Santa Barbara who were busy vacationing in their mansions on Hollister Ranch. Our Volunteer Buddy took one look and ordered herself two huge margaritas. It was suddenly as if Culture, Blonde Beyonce and I had acquired a crazy alcoholic aunt. The kind that harass all the waitresses and hit on all the cowboys. And order way more food than we could ever possibly eat.

A plate of mussels, a huge stuffed chile, soup, salad, a baked potato and a steak later, our Volunteer Buddy is drunk as hell and ready to go back to camp.

And because I’m the loser with all the large vehicle driving experience (I blame this on The Boyfriend and his sixteen-passenger van) I get behind the wheel of our Volunteer Buddy’s blue SUV and take off towards the pitch-black roads of the ranch.

At this juncture in the narrative we begin to realize we are in way over our heads.

After we get deep inside the ranch (after much panicked steering around sharp corners and cliff-edges) I turn over the car to our drunken Volunteer Buddy. Why? Well, I calculated our survival rate. And, after thinking about it, it was much more likely that we would survive the descent down the mountain into the valley if a drunken – yet experienced – driver was behind the wheel instead of me.

Bad plan.

Volunteer Buddy interpreted our screams as she swerved merrily around corners as an invitation to tell us stories about how the authorities were going to find the car empty at the bottom of a ravine with no trace of our bodies.

I couldn’t even make this shit up.

Blonde Beyonce grabbed my shoulder from the back seat in fear and whispered my name repeatedly in a panicked What-The-Fuck sort of tone. We were laughing hysterically - only Volunteer Buddy didn’t know it was because we were in a hysteria brought on by the absurd way in which our lives were destined to end.

We were basically shitting our pants when we reached the peak of the mountain. How would she kill us? Would we even make it down this valley without crashing? WAS THIS THE WORST JOINT DECISION WE HAD EVER MADE?!

The SUV lurched down the slopes of the valley as we yelled, and shrieked, and laughed. About halfway down, Volunteer Buddy changes subjects abruptly from death and murder to cows. She wonders aloud, What if the cows are in our camp?

OH MY HOLY SHIT STOP THE CAR WE ARE ABOUT TO BE MURDERED BY ZOMBIE COWS.

The headlights wash over at least a hundred cows only feet away from our car. They have completely obliterated our camp. Our tent is nowhere to be seen. The only thing visible on this completely ink-black night is a mass of swarming cattle, their eyes glowing evilly in the glare of our headlights.

We abandon the last remnants of our self-control.

The whole car explodes into sobbing, wet, blubbery laughter. Tears are running down my face and I can no longer breathe. This is it, I think, They will find my body two months from now, crushed instead the shell of a SUV trampled by cattle.

Our Volunteer Buddy takes in our reaction and smiles. She wails triumphantly, “You guys are THE BEST!”

She then proceeds to save our lives by driving into the massive herd of cattle with her car and frightening them away from our camp.

It’s like a war zone. Our tent is flattened, and the ground has become a minefield of cow pies.

We re-pitch our tent to the best of our abilities and crawl inside, still shocked and shaken by the night’s events. We pass out immediately, and I am plagued by nightmares of cows sticking their heads into our tent.

The sun rises, and we face the day knowing we are not going to be murdered.

We celebrate by busting open bottles of alcoholic cider at 10 AM and driving with gusto down the mountain, open containers in hand (yes, in my poor Mercedes). We visit the wind caves and the horses and cows (which are not nearly as scary in daylight) and frolic in the fields like jack rabbits on meth.

As for our Volunteer Buddy, well, the jury is still out on whether or not she is a serial killer...

...but if the fortune cookie I ate today has anything to say about it, our Volunteer Buddy is probably not a cold blooded murderer.

But fortune cookies aren't really the most reliable source of information. Hence, my next vehicle will be equipped with four-wheel drive.

You can never be too careful.

“What Meat Do You Want?!”: Free Food, Electrocution, Camping, and Other Things That Don’t Normally Happen But Are Occurring This Week

2010-04-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

I was having some kind of out of body experience yesterday morning.

It all began at 5 a.m., when Soldier Boy texted me because he was sitting in Maine on a lay over on the way back from his latest stint in Afghanistan. At the time, I was all sorts of disoriented – I could comprehend that the text was from him, but for the life of me, I couldn’t read what it said. I groaned, rolled over, and started dreaming of Werebears and unmitigated violence against cubicles.

Then my alarm rang, because it was two hours later and time to get up.

In the shower, I was so distracted I couldn’t remember if I had shampooed my hair. There was something off. Someone had tried to contact me, and I suspected it was Soldier Boy, but I was kind of creeped out because dreaming about your exs is just not kosher. Finally, soaking wet and frustrated, I picked up my iPhone and discovered this:

Soldier Boy: “I know its early and I foot expect a response but boo!”

Umm. Well, I certainly felt better about not being able to read the damn thing. It didn’t make any fucking sense. Homeboy was either drunk, or more tired than I was.

I texted him back.

We ended up launching into a text message conversation that lasted the entire length of my before-work routine, and nearly caused my unfortunate demise.

See, while holding the iPhone in one damp hand, and the blow dryer in the other, I tried to plug in the blow dryer and somehow ended up with my wet fingers on the prongs when they made contact with the socket. I have never made this mistake before, no matter how disoriented.

OH MY HOLY HAIR STYLING.

I don’t think I’ve ever been electrocuted. Except for that one time on purpose in high school science class for a lab project. I had zero idea of what was going on, except that my right hand had acquired some kind of spontaneous disease in which it fell asleep and was stabbed a million times with a million invisible needles.

3.7527 seconds later, I was like, Oh holy fucking hell, I am a retard, I JUST ELECTROCUTED MYSELF.

Quite the Monday-morning shocker, if I do say so myself. (Haha, I just realized I made a pun. Go me.)

If Monday sets the tone for the rest of the week, than me electrocuting myself makes quite a lot of sense.

See, this Friday, I, Blonde Beyonce, and Culture are hitting the road to potentially be murdered on a vacant lot two hours away from Los Angeles. We know this totally awesome volunteer from work and she invited us to go camping on the property she and her husband own north of Santa Barbara.

We were all like, Hell yeah, we’ll go camping with you awesome volunteer lady whom we all adore!

And then, last night, The Source is like, Wait, who the fuck are you going camping with?!

And we’re like, it’s cool, she’s really bad ass! And she’s going to set up the tents beforehand during the day, so we don’t have to set up in the dark on Friday night!

Which means, of course, that we have to drive up there ourselves in my ancient Mercedes which hit an astounding 200,000 miles last night.

Why in my old car? Well, because Culture’s car is less powerful than my once-top-of-the-line Mercedes and more likely to get stuck when we DRIVE ON A DIRT ROAD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT TO RENDEZVOUS WITH OUR VOLUNTEER BUDDY!

Plus, apparently, when we get there, the only cell reception we will have will be in the ocean.

So, in summary: We are taking an old high mileage car onto an isolated dirt road after dark to meet a woman we barely know, and the only way we can contact the outside world is by running into the ocean with our cell phones.

This is turning into another one of those serial killer posts.

It’s all okay though, I’ve got a plan. In the case our buddy turns out to be a murderer who has lured us unsuspectingly onto several acres of vacant property to stab us and throw us into the Pacific Ocean, one of us will grab the tent stakes, while I get the car – we will fight her off while we get into the Mercedes, lock the doors, and then floor it into the ocean, where we will call 911 and turn my car into a boat by using the tent as a sail – because her large four wheel drive vehicle will surely destroy us and beat us to the highway if we try to make a run for it.

[Obviously, I will be the first to die, since I am inside the halfway submerged vehicle. If your car is sinking, you have to wait until the pressure is equalized (aka, your car is full of water) before you can open the door to escape. Not my best plan.]

Brittany and Crew, 1. Serial Killer, 0.

Please, don’t doubt my ability to stay calm in the face of danger or take on serious missions. I have the determination of a college kid on Adderall the night before a final exam. In fact, today, I was so determined to eat breakfast that Culture and I sprinted out of the office while yelling, “We’re on a secret mission! Be back later!” and rushed to Subway because they were giving out free breakfast sandwiches and coffee before 11 a.m.

And, if there’s any fact you should know about my town of residence, it’s that the homeless population is larger than the population of people with homes. This means, when Subway announces free food, the place is instantaneously transformed into a mental health ward that smells of toilet-bowl moonshine and sweat.

Culture and I didn’t care. We stood 6 inches behind Smelly Toothless McGee and got our free breakfast sandwiches. When the Subway lady yelled, “WHAT MEAT DO YOU WANT?” to Smelly, he replied, “Ghhhharrrrg, myyantabal jusrter nuts!” and we nodded our heads like, “Yeah, get that dude some jusrter nuts! I’ll have sausage!”

[This is the part where you're like, wait, doesn't this blogger work in a homeless shelter and shouldn't she be nicer in her portrayals of homeless people? Okay, look, if you worked with homeless dudes, you would understand that I am being very fair and accurate. Plus, I have a true fondness for these smelly nut jobs because I've kept their shopping carts from getting stolen. That's more than you can say.]

And that, my friends, is why I’m not going to get murdered this weekend.

P.S. Thanks to Soldier Boy's cousin for telling me that "What Meat Do You Want?" would be a good blog title. Because, truly, it is.