“I’m Right On Top of That, Rose!”

“Sometimes in life, you gotta eat a lotta shit.” No wait, this one’s better: “Life is just one all-you-can-eat shit show.” I’m on a Marvelous Mrs. Maisel kick and I couldn’t have started watching this show at a better time.

Being an adult right now is terrible. Nothing at all like what I imagined, which was me rich and famous living in a mansion but still 12-years-old for some reason. Instead, I’m about to be 37, diving face-first into my plate of shit like it’s a pie-eating contest.

I’ve quit working for myself; I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m not a bad boss but I am bad at doing stuff I don’t want to do (like any good employee) so every day at “work” was like the eternal struggle between good and evil at my own desk. It’s a real bummer because working from home/for myself has been a dream of mine since I was 17. It all started when I worked at the movie theater and had to work on Easter, which meant I couldn’t hang out with my one friend. That was bullshit. I vowed to one day not work a real job.

Back then it was because I wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. Now, well, it’s still because I want to do whatever I want to do but the thing I want to do most is to write things I want to write as well as write for all 13 of you. Unfortunately, that isn’t what happened. I got too busy writing content for three clients, each in different fields. One I know a ton about but the other two I know dick-all.

One is a pest control guy. The few things I know about insects are 1) NO ONE will EVER be able to get rid of all the mosquitos, 2) I discovered I wasn’t allergic to wasps when I got stung by one last summer, and, 3) thanks to my parents, I’m terrified of spiders because they made me watch Arachnophobia when I was 9 and to this day I can’t eat popcorn in handfuls because I’m convinced there’s one hiding in my bowl, just waiting for me to let my guard down.

The other client is a water treatment company. I know we need water to survive but I also know there’s a crap ton of places to get it, which isn’t a good PR campaign when you’re trying to push home reverse osmosis systems.

I’m sure I could make this work but it would be at the expense of my writing, and I’ve already wasted enough time writing about things that are about as funny as the office job I’ve since taken:

I’m doing marketing and admin work for a company that helps elderly people file for Medicaid. So far my favorite conversation with a potential client has been “I’m calling about the Medicaid eligibility form you filled out” and their response was “I did?” My plan was to find an office job (temporarily until I can get paid bill money to entertain you full time) that I could transform into the job I had a few years ago where I really only did actual work 2 days a week and read and wrote the rest of the time. As I write this, my boss is in a training so it’s working out so far.

But this is where I’m at. Back to square one. Doing what I have until I can do what I want to. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

First, I’ve completely forgotten how to be an employee (for a real business) and work in an office. You know they want me to help clean? Like I have to throw my own trash out. Does anyone else have to do this? Additionally, my “boss” tried to change my start time to 8:30AM. Originally we agreed on 9AM and then on my first day he tried pulling the ol’ switcharoo. I told him no, explaining I would not cut into my CrossFit time. He gave me a shaky “ok”. Who does he think he is?

It gets worse.

The diva attitude I developed while “running my own business” appears to be permanent. When he showed me to my desk I took one look at the computer and said “that’s not a Mac.” He set me up with an HP. I didn’t even know those still existed. He doubled-down on the subpar electronics by throwing in a laptop. Not a MacBook. A laptop. It’s an ASUS VivoBook, whatever the fuck that is. And by now you should know that my brain doesn’t see ASUS, it sees another word – one that adequately depicts the picture that I’ve painted for myself.

The other thing I’ve learned is nothing is supposed to be like anything. Failure is totally an option; there’s even a book about it. It’s called Failure Is An Option by H. Jon Benjamin, the voice of Archer and Bob from Bob’s Burgers. Everyone should read it, mainly because it’s hilarious. Anyway, failure is fine. I thought leaving my job where I had an abundance of time to read and write for a content writing position would be the answer for me, but it wasn’t.

I thought taking that experience and turning it into freelance marketing/content writing gigs would be the answer, but it wasn’t. For me, I need a job where I only have to think about one thing so that my brain is free to come up with anus jokes and figure out ways to write about the things I want to (like books and movies and things that make people forget about the shit for a minute). Does working a real job suck? Yeah, kind of. I have to get dressed every day. I can’t wear flip flops. I have to drive somewhere. I only get an hour for lunch like I’m in prison. But I’m writing this from the office so it’s not a total let down.

The point is, it doesn’t matter how you reach your goal. What matters is, if you want it bad enough, you keep figuring it out. Sometimes things come easier for some than they do for others. Since I was a kid I’ve learned things the hard way. Fortunately, that makes for better stories.

Next week I’ll go into detail about how I royally fucked everything up. For now, I need to finish writing about the time I stalked the white Power Ranger so I can post that story on Friday, AKA National Power Rangers Day. I’m supposed to be working on my boss’s website but that can wait. He’s only been in business a year, I was in business for a year and a half. I think I know what I’m doing.

Adventures in Senior-Sitting: The Inheritance

Other than my niece, I don’t like kids. I’m genuinely mystified when I hear someone say “I love kids!” I just don’t get it. Kids scream. They want to touch your stuff. They have cooler toys today than I ever did and yet they still want to play with an iPhone. Wait until it turns into the thing they need for work, THEN let’s hear how much they love it. Unless their job is to hawk things on TikTok – another reason to hate kids.

They’re just not my cup of tea. And don’t try the “they’re worth it” argument with me. Every time someone says that to me their facial expressions never match up with their words. Either that’s a frown or you’ve been cursed with a face that melts when you lie.

I’ve never been a fan of kids; I hardly liked them when I was one. So it would only be fitting that a couple of years ago I inherited one. He doesn’t help around the house. I pay his bills. He doesn’t clean up after himself. He bad mouths me to anyone who will listen. He throws tantrums about his girlfriend not being a part of the family. I’ve never had to potty train a kid but I would imagine it’s equivalent to trying to get this one to do any type of work. I’m not sure if this experience is what parents think of when they say “it’s worth it” but whatever – I’m still not sold.

But that doesn’t matter. Because I have a child on my hands and for the time being there’s not a lot I can do about it.

Oh yeah, one more thing.

He’s 65 years old.

My mother-in-law passed away unexpectedly so the natural reaction of everyone was to worry about my father-in-law. No one was more concerned than my husband, which is why he decided his dad should move in with us. Unfortunately, his dad agreed.

I was not OK with this. Call me selfish but I knew my FIL before I even met my husband and if there’s one thing he’s good at it’s figuring out how to manage. He’s a talker, that one. And you know kids: they be talking their way in and out of bullshit.

So, we bought a house big enough for the 3 of us and our combined total of 5 dogs. A couple of weeks after we moved in, my FIL announced he had a girlfriend and would not be moving out of his old house. Did I mention this was just 2 months after my mother-in-law had passed away?

You see? He was managing just fine.

So here we were, in this big house that we could not afford on our own. Meanwhile, my FIL was living it up like he’d just gone off to college. Other than he and my husband working together, we never saw him. I do remember hearing from him one time: he asked me if I could watch his dogs while he and his girlfriend went out of town.

Then, at the end of the year, a shift happened. He was ready to move in. He even seemed excited about it. Which of course he was because he’d gotten evicted from his previous residence and he had no other place to go.

With him came the girlfriend. Her name is Janie but I call her Janie Dumb Fuck (JDF, for short). My FIL moving on so quickly was obviously a problem for my husband so JDF’s welcome into our home wasn’t an easy one. However, we managed. She was welcomed at our holiday parties. She was welcomed to spend time with us on our patio. One time she hung out with us and told me a story about seeing a UFO but made sure to emphasize that it didn’t beam her up to which I replied, “that sounds like something an alien would say.” Even though she’d just outed herself as extraterrestrial, she was still welcome.

We were not.

For her daughter’s 21st birthday, my FIL took JDF, her daughter, and a daughter’s friend to Vegas. For my birthday, he got me a gift card to a local restaurant. Also, we were not invited to Vegas, or anywhere else they went for that matter. No dinners at her house. No holiday parties. Nothing.

Things were going great for my FIL. He had not a care in the world. That was until JDF told him it was time for them to move in together. Well, like the sentiment of every child, nobody tells my FIL what to do. So they broke up.

Side note: the day before they broke up she celebrated her 60th birthday. For her birthday he gave her 2 stone tablets with the 10 commandments etched on them. She’s not a religious person by any means. I even suggested that they might burst into flames in her mere presence. But he gave them to her anyway. The day they broke up she dropped them off on the porch and when he called her to ask why she did that, she replied “who gives someone the 10 commandments as a 60th birthday present?” As much as I hate to admit, she was not wrong. Also, the answer to that question is ‘kids’. Kids are fucking horrible gift-givers.

Anyway, they stayed broken up for a month and during that time, he entertained himself by going on dates. I entertained myself by constantly recalling the episode of Parks and Rec where the towns’ old people kept getting STDs.

Eventually, though, they got back together. Except this time, like any sane parent, I told him she was not welcome at our house (our side of the house – he has his own side). Well, that didn’t sit well with him, so he rebelled. Not for long though, because he started getting sick with kidney infections about once a month and needed our help to take care of him. For a while, I kept telling him he should go get his shit checked because who knows where JDF has been.

It’s called parenting, look it up.

But after a couple of surgeries and a recovery, he’s better and picked up where his rebellion left off. Now we really never see him. My FIL and my husband fight CONSTANTLY at work. And just yesterday, in one of his rare outings from his side of the house (or bedroom, for all you parents dealing with this kind of shit) he said “I’m going to do even less around here”, which I found funny because the only way that would be possible is if he were dead. He followed that up with “I’m moving out!” (or “running away” in parent lingo).

JDF appears to be the cool parent so I’m sure that’s where he’ll end up. Although, I’m not sure how long she’ll enjoy it considering he has not saved nor is he in a position to retire. But maybe it’ll work out. She was sad that her daughter moved out; maybe this new child will fill the void.

So, here we are, facing the possibility of having to sell our home that I love. The business that my FIL and my husband share is facing the possibility of going under. Yesterday, I was mad. This morning, I was depressed. Right now, I do not care, because it felt really good to let it out. Is this what moms do at their book club meetings or when they’re at “pilates”? I don’t blame them, it feels great.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. What I do know is I’ve put myself in charge of decision-making from now until eternity. So I really hope this kid likes his new parent because, should he want to reenter my queendom, my first decision as Empress will be to put him in a home – the Dateline kind.

You know what? Being a parent isn’t so bad after all.

This Week on Typical Jenn

Hi hello! How was your week? Awesome, here’s what happened to me.

So, according to my husband, our roof is rapidly deteriorating. To me, that sounds like a colossal exaggeration. I don’t ever look at our roof when I drive up to the house but if shingles aren’t flying at my windshield then how bad can it be? Well, he says bad so we submitted a claim to our insurance company and a few days ago, we received our insurance check. As soon as I saw it I had a brilliant idea: find a cheaper way to fix it because we could really use the potential leftover money.

What do you mean “that sounds like insurance fraud”? It’s MY money. It doesn’t matter anyway; I didn’t even get to do it. I made the mistake of telling my husband my plan, to which he responded by calling the insurance company to ask if my plan was something we could do. Well, not anymore it’s not. THANKS. In his defense, ideas like that usually sound better in my head. When I have to actually follow through, I tend to lose interest. But still, he took away the possibility of committing insurance fraud.

Next up, a spying story. A client of mine is in a lawsuit with a former employee and needs help collecting evidence so he asked me and an employee of his to spy on the former employee. Yup. This was a for-real request. After my initial what-the-fuck-is-this-a-joke reaction I thought, maybe hilarity will ensue. Ok yeah I’ll do it.

Here’s how that went down: it didn’t. I couldn’t do it. I’m not stealth enough. I panic when I’m internet spying and my thumb accidentally brushes over the heart button. My anxiety can’t handle real-life spying. Anyway, I told my client I didn’t see anything which is technically true. I didn’t. Unfortunately for me, the other person he asked to spy did do it. And at the same time I was supposed to have done it. And she did see something. And sent the evidence to my client. Typical.

My takeaway from this week is: I’m bad at executing crimes. Just one more thing I suck at.

See you next Sunday for another exciting edition of This Week on Typical Jenn.

Review: Ready Player One | Ernest Cline

Other than books, video games have been a much-needed escape for me, particularly the ones where I’m killing zombies and saving humanity. Video games get a bad rap, often being referred to as “time-wasting” and “mindless”. Obviously, I would hardly call them “time-wasting”. This is 2020; if you’re not prepared for anything – and I mean ANYTHING – then I’d argue that you’re the one wasting time (this argument sounds better in my head). Also, anyone who calls them “mindless” has clearly never played any of the Resident Evil games. Give one a try without Googling the walkthrough. That’s not a dare, it’s a challenge. Sure, you can learn dances from Fortnite and post your version (or whatever it is you think you’re doing) on TikTok, but let’s see you solve some of the puzzles in these games without using hints. I think you’ll find it a bit harder than flailing around like an idiot for your iPhone camera.

Anyhoo, video games: they’re the best. When Ready Player One hit theaters I could not wait to watch it, and here’s where it’s my turn to look like an idiot – I didn’t know it was a book. In fact, I didn’t find out it was a book until about a year later. And I didn’t read it until a little over a year after that. Consider this revelation my TikTok dance.

I love this book but before I explain why, allow me to begin with this: it’s almost nothing like the movie. The few things the book and the movie have in common are the characters, the 80s (best decade EVER) references, and a couple of scenarios. That’s about it, and the book is still incredible.

The protagonist, Wade Watts is a teenager in the year 2044 who is living with relatives in a run-down mobile park that is described to look like something a 6-year-old would build with those large legos (probably something we’re headed for, at this rate). Like the majority of the nation, Wade is an active participant in the hunt for video game designer James Halliday’s Easter egg that’s hidden in his creation, the OASIS. What’s the OASIS, you ask? It’s a virtual world that sounds about 98 times more fun than ours. In the OASIS you can be anyone you want. There, Wade is known as Parzival and early on, becomes even more known for becoming the first player to figure out and complete James Halliday’s first challenge.

Throughout the book, Wade/Parzival moves through challenge after 80s challenge – one being an entire walkthrough of the movie WarGames where he has to recite Matthew Broderick’s lines word for word and I’m sorry but that sounds like the greatest. All the while he’s trying to stay alive in the real world as a company known as IOI is trying to track him down and stop him from finding the egg (and winning billions of dollars) before they can find it.

Beyond gaming and being surrounded by everything 80s, there’s plenty of depth to the story as well. Along the way, Wade/Parzival makes friends, falls in love, and discovers that the most important things in life don’t necessarily involve money.

This book is a real page-turner; if you haven’t read it, I highly suggest you give it a chance. It’s a fun and temporary escape, even if that escape only lasts until 2044.

The only thing worse than Vanderpump Rules

With the exception of McDonald’s hamburgers and possibly the year 2020, nothing lasts forever. I know that. You know that. The former couples from 90 Day Fiance know that. But there’s one group of people that haven’t received the memo, and that would be BravoTV (and possibly the Mayans).

A couple of years ago, I landed my first paying freelance writing gig – it was for the website Tasteofreality.com and my gig was writing comedic recaps of BravoTV reality shows, with my main show being Vanderpump Rules. I loved that show until, I spent a year writing about it.

When Vanderpump Rules debuted, it was a breath of fresh reality TV air. It wasn’t a talent show and nobody had to eat bugs or feces for money. It wasn’t a show about rich people who had everything and fought about nothing. None of that. Just a bunch of 20-somethings (and Jax) trying to make it in Hollywood while working as servers and bartenders in one of the busiest, most trendy restaurants in town. Who couldn’t relate? And the cast brought the drama from the beginning with the first season kicking off with Scheana Shay apologizing to Brandy Glanville for sleeping with her husband for two years and ending with Jax admitting to Stassi that he cheated on her in Vegas. OK, so the drama was just people being salacious but that was enough for me.

That was in 2013 and while the show returned season after season, the cast was kept in some reality TV timewarp where the only thing that changed was their faces. Season 8 Scheana looks so different from season 1 Scheana that if it weren’t for her obsession with boys and herself you’d be forgiven for believing she’d been replaced. Other than the introduction of new people and face transplants, every season was the same thing: vacations that God knows my income from my waitress days couldn’t have paid for, fights about them sleeping with each other, Jax lying and ruining lives, Scheana and her boy problems and auto-tuned songs, Kristen crying, Stassi and Katie getting wasted and losing their minds. Every so often one of them would deal with an actual real-life problem but those situations don’t bring in ratings so, at best, their airtime was kept at a minimum. But that didn’t matter because we, as the kids say, were here for it.

Then, in season five, it appeared to take a turn. They started doing adult-like things: getting married, dabbling in new business ventures, they quit sleeping with each other unless their name was Kristen. And you know what – who wants to see that? Not very many of their fans, apparently. So, BravoTV did what any network does when a top-rated show is starting to flounder: they added MORE people. And not just one or two like they’d done in the past. They added FIVE. Five new stories to tell. This is where it all went to hell because honestly, nobody cared. The show was still the same same-y show it had been except there were new people filling in where the OGs semi-left off. Naturally, this didn’t sit well with a few of the old school castmates so how did they react? They turned it up to 11 to get that airtime which was an even bigger turn off than the notches on Max’s bedpost. This past season was a huge waste of time, partly because the only thing new was the new people and they were pretty boring, but also because of terrible editing. By the way, ‘terrible’ is me putting it nicely. Whatever below ‘shameful’ is, that’s what the editing was this season.

And then…

Then they started getting in real-world trouble and there’s no editor that can fix it. I can’t speak for everyone but when it comes to reality TV, I like to believe that on some level, these people are just showing off for the camera (with the exception of Jax who I’m pretty sure is 100% horrible 100% of the time). However, after Stassi, Kristen, Brett, and Max were fired from the show last week for racial remarks and actions, it’s pretty clear that the show has created some entitled assholes – that’s a hard vision and realization to come back from. Not only did they break the fourth wall, they pretty much tore every wall down. The “reality” that we enjoyed watching is too real now, it’s no longer entertaining. They ruined the magic trick; they’re just shitty all the time.

So now what? Every article I’ve read has mentioned a season 9, one article going as far as to say the new cast was going to “bring it”. Bring what, exactly, I’m not sure because there’s really nowhere else for this show to go. I would argue that the show should make like a 90s boy band and split. It would be great if the show were like the band Menudo where they could just keep replacing members for decades and continue to attract a new fan base. Unfortunately, this season they’ve proven to be more like 98 Degrees where the head of the group (in this case now Tom and Tom) will go on to make a bunch of money thanks to their significant other (Lisa Vanderpump) and will probably branch off and find solo success, possibly in the form of a spin-off. The rest will do podcasts and knit, I guess.

The point is, regardless of (but not discounting) the situation that they’re currently in, the show has been over for some time. The majority of them own million-dollar houses in Beverly Hills for Christ’s sake, a far stretch from when they were in apartments that only allowed for one appliance to be plugged in at a time. And the new people are a little too been-there-done-that. We’ve seen it all, including a Scheana clone that manifested towards the end of season 8. I cannot take two Scheana’s. No. FUCKING. Way. 2020 has been bad enough, let’s not carry it over into 2021 – especially not with two Scheana’s but more importantly, not with one single Jax. The only thing worse than the show is him.

Photo by: RealityTea.com

Oh my god oh my god oh my god the girl who stole my sunglasses 20 years ago is out of prison

I’ve mentioned this incident before but for the people in the back, here we go. So when I was 16, my friend Ileen and I were heading to the lake when she announced that we would be giving another girl, Kelly, a ride. Why? I don’t know but I begrudgingly picked Kelly up and brought her with us. Sometime during the car ride, I asked Kelly, who was sitting in the back seat with my purse if she could grab something out of it for me. I’m pretty sure it was my Carmex but I don’t remember. What I do remember is when we got to the lake, the blue lens sunglasses that I had in my purse were gone. GONE. Nowhere to be found.

I was pissed. It wasn’t like I had tons of money to just be buying shitty early 2000s fashion whenever I wanted. Kelly went off to be with her other kleptomaniac friends while I stayed mad about my sunglasses.

The next day, I called Kelly and asked her if she’d seen my sunglasses to which she replied, “no, but I have a bunch that you can come look at.” What the hell kind of an answer is that? If someone accused me of stealing their tumbler I wouldn’t be like “I haven’t seen it but I have seen a bunch that I have if you want to come look at them.”

You bet your ass I went to her house, and Ileen came with me for back up. I get there and Kelly had laid out about 6 or 7 pairs of sunglasses on her bed. Each pair had blue lenses, each probably stolen from someone else. None of which were mine. She offered to give me a pair of the ones on her bed but I was positive those belonged to not Kelly so I declined because I think if I’d taken them it would’ve been like I was covering up her crimes.

Skip to 10 years later.

I get a call from my dad asking if I went to school with Kelly (which is actually a shortened version of her name but I won’t give her real name because SHE JUST GOT OUT OF PRISON). I said yes, why? And he said, well she’s going to federal prison for some drug crimes. I said, “you know what? that’s what she gets for stealing my sunglasses when we were in high school.” Oh, BTW, she also stole a pair of my friend’s boots and had the balls to wear them IN FRONT OF HER.

Anyway, my dad was like “I guess” and that was the end of that. Until now.

She was released 5 years early.

And she’s on Facebook.

And I found her.

And I really want to message her and say “look, I don’t think you can go back for this but seriously, did you steal my sunglasses?”

Oh shut up I’m not going to. She’s served her time, I suppose. But let that be a lesson: don’t steal because you’ll go to federal prison for unrelated crimes 10 years down the road. I know she took my sunglasses.

Drunk Things: Vol. 1

I’m not sure if you can tell by my previous posts, but I like to drink. I tried to not drink, but it didn’t work so instead, I decided to not drink as much. It works great during the week but when it comes to the weekend? It’s. ON.

My drink of choice is Miller Lite. As I type this, I’m drinking one. I’ve already drank a lot more than this one. But I haven’t drank enough to make any purchases.. at least not yet. And that’s what this post is about, kind of.

First, a backstory. Fridays are my favorite. I’m pretty sure they’re everyone’s favorite but they’re particularly mine and me is who we’re talking about. Friday kicks off the weekend and the weekend is when I get a few hours to myself at night. The weekend is when I drink my Miller Lites and watch my favorite shows by myself. And I go on kicks. For a while my favorite thing to do was get drunk and watch To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything. Julie Newmar. A few weeks ago I was on a Bridezillas kick but only season 6 (THE BEST SEASON). Right now my kick is the movie Real Women Have Curves. If you haven’t seen it, you hate movies because this is a fantastic movie. That’s not the Miller Lite talking, that’s just facts.

Anyway, I like to drink Miller Lite and watch my favorite movies or shows. I’m doing that now and I’m pretty buzzed. Before I get too far gone, I thought I would talk about the things I do when I get drunk. Those things include buying stuff from Amazon, and/or iTunes, except I don’t know that I bought them until way after my drunkenness has passed.

A couple of weeks ago I was drunk watching Bridezillas but also scrolling on Twitter. So I’m scrolling and then I see a super cool video featuring the making of the Mortal Combat game.

Cool, right?!

So I’m watching this and thinking “Mortal Kombat is the best!”

A few days later, I’m getting ready to get on my elliptical to get in an extra workout. I don’t feel like listening to music so I’m like, let’s watch the Jennifer Lopez documentary I have on iTunes. Hell yeah! I click on the app.

What the fuck?

Then I remembered: watching how the Mortal Kombat game was made prompted me to buy BOTH Mortal Kombat movies. Yup, I own Mortal Kombat part 1 AND 2. Thank you, drunk Jenn. The first one isn’t so terrible but the second one.. Jesus. Unnecessary.

The point is: drunk Jenn is very influential. The shit that I buy is ridiculous and I discovered I’m not alone. The other day I found out that my friend drunk bought a game of Prosecco pong. I didn’t even know that was a thing.

So I decided that I will now document my drunk purchases and happenings as well as those of my friends. Please enjoy my drunkenness. Now if you’ll excuse me, IT art 2 is on for the 137th time and I need to watch it because you never know.

Reading Jogs My Memory So Here’s My Pants Stain Story

So right now I’m reading Weird But Normal by Mia Mercado and in it, she tells a story about being on vacation at Disney with her family when she was 12 and there’s an Aladdin Ride/Poop story it reminded me of a vacation I took when I was 14 that I still can’t believe my parents let me go on.

In 9th grade, I had a boyfriend named Anthony that I somehow managed to date for an entire year. Our one commonality was that he played baseball and I was super into baseball players, so we were just slightly more compatible than the couples you see on 90 Day Fiancé. Anyway, the summer after our freshman year, his team earned a trip to regionals to play for a spot in the Little League World Series and his family invited me to go with them.

I. Was. Down.

My Parents. Were. Not.

So I did what any pubescent, maturing teen would do: I lost my shit. Well, as much as I could around my strict-as-shit Spanish mom. For the most part, I just lost my shit in my room. I couldn’t understand why my parents would not allow me to travel ALL the way to Mississippi to hang out with some parents (that they barely knew) and a bunch of boys (that they didn’t know) and my boyfriend (that they really knew) and all in a time when we didn’t have cell phones (I mean they were invented but we couldn’t afford one because at that time I believe it cost about $100/minute to talk on one). What the hell?

The morning that my boyfriend’s parents were scheduled to leave, my parents gave me permission to go. I think they thought that if they waited till the last minute to give me the OK that I wouldn’t have enough time to get ready. I packed my shit in about 5 minutes and was gone about 20 after that.

So we get there and spend the first couple of days at the baseball field because, duh, it’s a baseball tournament. The third day was an off-day for the team so we went to the beach. I honestly can’t remember if Anthony was with us but his older brother was and he’s partially the reason I have a story in the first place. The other reason being my shit packing skills.

In my haste to evacuate my parents’ house before they could change their mind, I failed to pack maxi pads for the trip. I’d been cramping but thought that surely my period would know I was going on vacation and would give me a break for a week.

It didn’t.

Also, yeah, I wore maxi pads. Tampons scared me. They still do but I’m on birth control so it’s not an issue, in case you were wondering.

Back to my period. That fucker came in with a vengeance, and I had nothing. I was way too embarrassed to tell my boyfriend’s mom so instead, I kept buying those shitty .25 cent pads that you used to be able to get in any public restroom. Luckily, our hotel had them. I say ‘luckily’ because it was just one step above ‘nothing’. It was awful. I was used to my normal thin pads and now, I had no choice but to wear this thing that felt like a pillow in my underwear. Fuck.

I managed to play it off until it was beach time. I told everyone I forgot my bathing suit but was fine just hanging out in the sand. Well, Anthony’s brother found this unacceptable and carried me into the water. Me. My pillow pad. And my khaki shorts.

At first, I thought, “OK, no big deal, the pad probably absorbed the water.” Then we got back to the hotel. I went straight into the bathroom to check myself and there it was: a HUGE red stain on the back of my shorts.

And not one person said a word to me about it.

To this day, I don’t know if they were being kind or didn’t notice it. Probably the former. Either way, I’ve had PTSD about it ever since. Because of this incident, I still check my butt in the mirror from time to time because you never know. Additionally, I can’t tell people when they have a booger in their nose. I don’t know where period stains and boogers intersect but for some reason, I just can’t do it. In my head, I’m being kind by ignoring it but I’m also doing people a disservice by letting them walk around with snot hanging out of their nose. I’ve got to work on that.

Anyway, that’s what I get for being a shit about going on this trip. By the way, this is how I learn all of my lessons.

So there’s my story. Back to my reading.

How to Turn $120 into $10,020

In no particular order, here is a list of things that don’t come naturally to me: fashion, being nice, sports of any kind, teaching things. There are more but those are the main ones. I was horrendous at these things before but quarantine has made me practically allergic to them.

In regards to fashion, I’m currently rotating between four shirts. I use ‘rotating’ loosely because what’s really happening is I change my shirt only when absolutely necessary. And it’s only getting worse. This morning I went to put on shirt number three (my favorite) and discovered it had holes in it. I wore it anyway. In my defense, I had already taken it off the hanger.

My already non-existent fashion sense isn’t the only thing in decline: my patience is now in the negative. I didn’t even know that could happen. I can predict when I’m going to be annoyed. It’s easy because it’s all the time.

So it’s never been a better time for me to have to teach something.

I take back what I said about my things being in no particular order. Teaching things is actually 1 through 4. A few weeks ago I had an appointment to teach someone how to use their Facebook business page. The lesson is still ongoing. The questions haven’t stopped and at this point, the only way I know how to make them stop is to just delete their page and tell them Facebook went out of business.

I’ve known I could never be a teacher since I was in grade school. During a math lesson, my 3rd-grade teacher, Miss Guerra, requested that I work with a fellow peer named April on our assignment. It made zero sense. Nobody else was teaming up and on top of that, April wasn’t even a friend of mine because she didn’t know who the Power Rangers were. I didn’t get it but I, begrudgingly, grabbed my shit and sat next to her.

4 seconds later, I got it.

April couldn’t understand why the number 23 wasn’t written 203 because 20 and 3. Miss Guerra thought she would get it if another 8-year-old explained it to her. I couldn’t even teach myself how to properly brush my hair but I was somehow qualified to teach math. (I’m not kidding on the hair thing. That same year my parents had to cut a knot out of my hair that was the size of a golf ball. I’ve only slightly improved since then.)

The situation made me want to drop out of school. My explanation of “that’s how it is just write it” wasn’t working and it was the only thing I had in my arsenal. Eventually, I gave up and told her to keep writing it the way she thought was correct. In my defense, I wasn’t the teacher. My teacher wasn’t even the teacher. To this day I think about that time and wonder if April ever figured out how numbers work. In case she hasn’t, I would like to formally apologize to every bank teller she’s ever dealt with. She doesn’t want to withdraw $10,020. She wants $120. I know.

Believe it or not, this story has a point. In the time of the corona (we’re on a first-name basis now), we all have an opportunity to figure out what we really want to do. I’ve always thought that one of the dumbest questions kids get asked is “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I know people in their 30s that are still trying to figure that out, how is a 6-year-old supposed to know? The answer is: they don’t. That’s why they come back with stupid shit like mermaid, or Nemo, or robot (which, I guess if you really think about it, isn’t a bad response considering robots will eventually replace us all).

Instead of asking “what do you want to be?” to a bunch of know-nothing first-graders, let’s start asking “what do you like to do?” when they get to be a bunch of know-it-all pre-teens. I’ve loved and have written since I was a kid but no one ever talked to me about what I loved doing. So when asked the career question, my answer was always something that sounded like a grown-up job (my 8-year-old answer was “Judge” so I could throw everyone in jail, and the reason for that is coming up in another post).

Now’s the time to ask yourself: “what do I like to do?” “What makes me happy?” If you don’t know the answer then go backward and ask yourself what do you hate doing. I have nothing but respect for teachers (although I’m still on the fence about Miss Guerra) and parents who are temporarily filling that role right now. I could never do it, fuck that.

Things suck right now. Things are tough and they’re shitty. But if you felt this way before the pandemic, and you’re in a position to change it, then go for it. You might as well. If April can make $10,020 out of $120, then you can do anything too.

Side note: Sometime during my freshman year of high school, I was at a barbecue with my parents and my dad’s friend showed up with his new girlfriend: Miss Guerra. She looked at me and said, “Hiiii, I remember you”, and I said, “I remember when you made me try to teach April math”. She giggled and then walked away to go say hi to other people that she hadn’t tried to make do her job. I haven’t seen her since. The End.

Did I Dream That or Did I Do That?

Happy day after Easter everyone! I’m hurting. Nothing emotional, just pride-wise. Here’s the thing: I’m sure I’ve mentioned this a time or two but… I’m Mexican. And do you know what my people do on Easter? We drink, A LOT. Too much and now I’m here, playing my favorite hangover game “did I dream that or did I do that?”

Here’s how it works: you get really wasted, pass out on the couch then, wake up and try to piece together the events of the previous evening all while riddled with anxiety and nausea. It’s a barrel of laughs.

Did I really do the Chingo Bling dance to his song “Bolis on My Wrist”? Oh God, did I send a drunk Marco Polo video to all of my workout buddies? What happened to my leftover wings?

This game allows for calling a life line, which I did. My sister (a woman I grew up with who exceeds best friend status) came over last night so this morning I called her to get a recap of the evening. It turns out that yes, I did do the Chingo Bling dance. And not just once. Multiple times, each time looking dumber than the time before. And yet I kept going. Watch me dance! Why was I not in the music video?! I’m AMAZING! I was not. I was Elaine from Seinfeld: arms and legs everywhere.

Miraculously, it’s not on TikTok or YouTube, I think.

I, fortunately, did not send a drunk Marco Polo video to my workout friends. I did, however, watch the “Happy Easter” video I sent earlier in the day repeatedly. I could not get enough of myself but can you blame me after I nailed that dance routine?

And what happened to my wings? What happened was I ate them. I guess. I remember wanting to eat them and that’s about it. But they’re gone and no one else touched them. The important thing is, I didn’t choke on the wings I have no recollection of eating and I didn’t burn anything down.

All-in-all it was a fun night, probably.

Anyway, that’s how you play “Did I dream that or did I do that?” It’s loads of fun, if your idea of fun is wondering if you still have a job, friends, or life the next day. Enjoy!