Monday, April 30, 2012

Timing

Timing is everything. Yes, that is a cliche, but it's true. If you took your entire day and shifted it off by a minute, things would be surprisingly different. Today timing has been messing with me. It woke up this morning and said, "I haven't messed with anyone for awhile. Who's a good candidate? Hmm... I've got it!"

This morning I was woken up at 4:00 am. I woke up  to the sound of someone screaming, crying and begging for mercy (there is nothing more disturbing than that when you're half awake). The voice sounded a scary amount like my younger sister's. I wasn't quite awake enough to come up with a legit idea as to what was going on, so I quietly got out of bed and crept toward my bedroom door. Upon stepping into the hallway I realized the sound was coming from downstairs. My dad was watching a horror movie or something. The volume was up so loud it woke me up. (This is not an easy task people! I can and have slept through canon fire.) I have two words for my dad, "HEARING AID!" (said loud enough that he can hear it or quietly enough that he can't hear it and won't yell at me for saying so.) I shut the door at the top of the stairs and my bedroom door, yet could still here the TV. I turned on some music and spent about twenty minutes trying to sleep. 

Between Drama and Government (about 11:30 am), I decided to go to the restroom. Boy did I choose the wrong moment to pee! As soon as I sat down, the intercom burst out yelling, "LOCK DOWN! LOCK DOWN! LOCK DOWN!" Honestly, of all the times to call a lock down. This right here is proof that some mysterious force was enjoying themselves. I had to scramble around, then go find a class room that I could join. It's good thing that students in my school are about as organized as a kindergarten classroom. If they had any sense of efficiency, I'd have been stuck sitting in the lou for a good ten minutes.

At lunch (about 12:30 pm), I chose a table in the sun to sit at while I ate my lunch. I group of dumb-asses were goofing around and squirting water at each other. They were actually a fair distance away so I wasn't worried about it. As I was just about to finish my lunch, I stream of water flew across the distance of about thirty feet and covered me in water. I was a total of ten seconds away from standing up to throw away some garbage.

After I was squirted, timing decided that it had had it's fun and left me alone. In fact, it timed it so that when I went to bother my friend, I got a free cookie. As much as everyone hates Mondays, I enjoyed today; even though I was half asleep for most of it (seriously dad, HEARING AID!)

Monday, April 23, 2012

Shoe Shopping

On Saturday, I had an epiphany. The one thing my family never fights while doing is shoe shopping.

I seriously can't remember a single time that my family has argued while shoe shopping (and I remember almost everything.) While someone's trying on shoes, we'll all sit and wait. We make fun of each other and no one gets offended. My dad doesn't even get grumpy if you steal his hat. (Seriously, don't steal his hat!)

My sister tried on half a million pairs of shoes in order to find the perfect pair to go with her prom dress. We mock complained that it was taking forever, but no one actually got grumpy about it. It's absolutely amazing. Who knew the one thing a family who can't go to the grocery store, go see a movie, get haircuts, or occupy the same room for more than an hour, could go shoe shopping for a good two or three hours without having an argument.

Note, that when we stopped to get my hair cut earlier that day my mom and sister were in a yelling match and when we first left the house one of my smart ass comments pissed off my dad. Either we got it all out before we got to the shoes or there is a magical energy about shoe shopping that keeps my family from wanting to stab each other.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Smart Asses

I am a smart ass and proud of it. At almost any given moment, I have a smart ass comment running through my head. That being said, I don't always say these comments. I have a habit of keeping my mouth shut when it's going to get me in trouble. (Seriously people, it save a lot of time yelling.) If I know someone will appreciate it I will say it loud and proud. When I'm not sure, I'll mutter it loud enough that it could be heard, but not loud enough that it will direct attention. And when I know I'll get it trouble, whisper it to the person next to me who will appreciate it or I will keep it in my head and amuse myself. All that being said, I love people who are smart asses. Life's to short not to make fun of it. (Just like you do to your friends who are shorter than you.)

Yesterday, I had a job interview. After school, my dad picked me up and drove me to the interview. I was wearing a black dress shirt with black tie, corduroy pants, and of course, my signature  wallet and chain. I was also carrying my pink Winnie the Pooh umbrella because it was raining earlier. After the interview, my dad was late to pick me up (and no one is surprised.) I was waiting around outside for about fifty minutes waiting for him. The weather decided to be sunny for a little bit. I was wandering around the sidewalk waiting, holding my rolled up pink umbrella, and overall, just looking bored.

While chilling on the sidewalk, this older lady was walking. She stopped right before she got to me and said, "Oh, this must be serious, with your gold chains and pink umbrella!" It was wonderfully sarcastic. Totally made my day. I hope that when I'm an old lady, I say stuff like that to bored looking teenagers.

As soon as she said it, I realized it must be an odd sight. A teenager wearing mostly black, standing on a sidewalk near a senior center and performing arts studio, wearing a chain, and twirling pink Winnie the Pooh umbrella. If I'd seen it, I don't know if I could have not said something about it. I probably looked like I was trying to be all cool with my outfit, then totally forgot about it when it started to rain.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Saturday Night Adventure

On Saturday, me, my younger sister, and our friend, planned to go see a movie. We went to the theater and went up to buy the tickets, but couldn't get in because my sister forgot her ID and my friend didn't even have one. The lady at the ticket booth told us that if we didn't have IDs we'd need to bring a school ID and a birth certificate. To me, that sounds just a bit crazy. Seriously, who cares enough to do that.

Well, needless to say, we didn't end up going to go see the movie. We left the theater and began discussing plans for going to see the movie. Quite a few ideas were thrown out. Buy a ticket for a movie we could go to without IDs and sneak into the theater playing the movie we wanted to see? Try a different theater that might have lower security? We went with the second plan.

While driving toward another theater, we discussed other things we could go do. Laser tag? "I always suck at that, plus I'm wearing white." "My hair glows in the black light." Then out of the mouth of my friends mother burst, "Roller Skating." As soon as it was said, it was official. That's what we were going to do. Screw the movie.

We then spent about half an hour driving around looking for a roller rink. We stopped twice and eventually found our way to one. Once again another problem occurred. My friend wasn't wearing socks. It took all of ten seconds for us to find a couple of mismatched socks floating around the interior of their car. Now to rent skates. Of course they don't have them in women's sizes so you have to convert your shoes size and hope that it works. Also they don't have half sizes so if your in between like that you get stuck with too big or too small skates.

Alright, Now we're all ready to skate. It's definitely not as easy as I remembered from the numerous times my Girl Scout troop went skating. We slowly scrambled around the rink a couple times. After about five minutes of attempting to skate, a guy came over and offered my friend help. The best skater at the rink tried to help my friend and in no way shape or form did it help. While that was going on, a guy named Donovan asked me if I want some advise. "Keep your knees bent and lean forward." It was amazing how much easier it became. (Even though, I still pretty much sucked.) He forgot the most important key to skating. "Don't think about it." As soon as you do, you are likely to biff it.

My friend's mom, was insanely good at it. (I suppose that that's what happens when you hang out with someone who grew up in the '80s.) Not counting her, I was the quickest to pick up on it, but after being there for an hour or so, my younger sister became freakishly good at it. My friend on the other hand, didn't even start to do good until about an hour in when she switched to roller blades.

Of the three hours we were there, I spent a good deal of it talking to Donovan. While an incredibly nice guy he was very pompous. Despite a couple conversations about bright colors and music he spent the entire time telling me random things about himself. Especially repeating the "fact" that he had an IQ of 150. But, once again, despite the pompous attitude, he was a nice guy. Everyone at the rink was super nice. Later it was determined, that it was because everyone who goes roller skating is a dork.

It was decided, that the most challenging thing about roller skating was using the restroom. You didn't take of you skates to do so and the stalls didn't lock. (When you're a noob at skating, it is incredibly hard to stay in one place long enough to pull up your pants.) Another challenge is dodging and stopping. I had a kid cut right in front of me and I didn't have enough room to swerve or enough time to stop. As a result, I plowed him right over. Yet, he still asked me if I was okay.

There was a little girl that got hurt while skating, so my friend who is just as clumsy (if not more so) as I am, decided to help her back to the rink's exit. When I passed them, she told me this. It wasn't 'till I was on the other side of the rink, that I realized it probably wasn't a good idea to leave an injured girl to the help of a clumsy person on wheels. (Not that I would've been much more help.)

Three hours of skating, falling, and injury later, we determined that it was a good idea to leave. We returned our skates and walked back to the car with a minor knowledge of how injured we actually were. It wasn't until we got to my friends house and exited the car that we realized how incredibly sore we were. I discover a bruise on my hip, two more scrapes than I previously discovered (bringing the total to four), a lump on my head (seriously my head's two steps away from a pachycephalosaurus'), and sore muscles everywhere. I expected that I'd have sore leg muscles and butt muscles, but I didn't expect that my back muscles, ab muscles, arm muscles, shoulder muscles, and neck muscle would hurt as well. Seriously, nearly every muscle in my body is sore and stiff.

While the most brilliant spur of the moment idea we've ever had, it is also the worst idea. It was determined while we were eating dinner, that while the most masochistic thing we've ever done, we definitely needed to do it again. Though next time we will bring elbow pads, knee pads, wrist guards, and a pillow to tie to our asses (possibly a helmet for me).

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Hearing Aid...Pleeeeaaaaassse!

Today during drama class I stumbled upon a brilliant idea of how to work on projection. It was a surprisingly simple solution. All I have to do is pretend that the person I'm talking to onstage is my dad.

My father, after years of gun fire without ear protection is in serious need of a hearing aid. That being said, on Easter he went target shooting with a friend of his. Now after their ears are already damaged they decided to wear earmuffs to protect them. (That's great planning if I ever saw it)

My dad's inability to hear can range from horribly amusing to horribly annoying.

It's amusing at times when my dad can't figure out someone's name.
"What's his name?"
"Leland."
"Hey Eland"
"It's Leland."
"Ian?"
"Leland."
"Oh, Leland."
The above conversation was had at least once a day on a week and a half trip to Wyoming with a couple friends of mine.

It's annoying when you move your mouth and he just assumes you said something mean. I get yelled at a lot for being rude when all I do is move my mouth a bit.

Another time it's annoying is when you say something that wasn't important or even interesting, but you have to repeat it several times before he hears it.

The most ridiculous one of all is when he hears someone say something and assumes they were cussing.
Me and my younger sister were chilling in the living room watching TV. A commercial comes on for a hamburger. We sit there for a moment making fun of it and end up saying "hamburger" a ridiculous amount of times.
My dad storms in the room and yells, "Watch your language!!"
The only response to that was, "What?!"
My dad then left while muttering, "never mind."

Now for the number one reason my dad needs a hearing aid. He can't hear when the phone rings. It's too high pitched for his ears to pick up on. When he and my grandma are the only ones home you can call an incredible amount of times in a row and always get the answering machine. (My record is 20 times. I gave up after that.)

Proud To Be a Darn Optimist

I am an incurable optimism. I can't help, but look on the bright side, even when I don't want to. I have on occasion annoyed myself with my optimism. That being said, it amazes me how many friends and relatives I have that are complete and utter pessimists. Contrary to what they say they are not realists.

When you assume that the party is going to suck you are not being realistic. Same goes for anything else. The world isn't as bad of a place as you "realists" like to think. Good things do happen, and far more often then you like to think.

I consider myself to be incredibly lucky. My friends on the other hand don't see it. I consider it lucky that I wasn't overly injured when I rolled my car. They consider it bad luck that the accident happened at all. The way you look at things seriously impacts how awesome the world is. The episode of The Brady Bunch (yes I do know what it is and at one point watched it often) where they find the unlucky tiki doll thing. The middle boy said that it was lucky that the oldest boy didn't drown when he wiped out on his surf board. If you think that you are lucky you are (even if you are carrying a cursed tiki necklace doll thing).

On days when I should be having a horrible day by other peoples standards, I'm in a good mood. It's incredibly hard to get me in a bad mood. That does not however mean that it's impossible. If you actually manage to piss me off, you better run as fast as your obnoxious little legs will take you.

A note of irony: Apparently when I am on my own and just walking around, I look like I'm going to beat the crap out of someone if they come close to me. I have several friends who can confirm this.

My dad often calls me a darn optimist. Usually when, it comes to doing something different from how he'd do it. "Why do you have to be so darn optimistic about it?!" I'm not entirely sure he knows what the word means because last time he said that to me, I was refusing to work the gear shift while he drove. I told him I wanted to learn how to work the clutch and stick shift at the same time and with the proper hands. That's when he yelled the above statement at me. I'm thinking he might believe that it means stubborn.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Who Are You and What Have You Done With My Family

Today has been surprisingly mellow. We went to church and no one complained about having to go or got grumpy because of what someone else said. We had people come over  for dinner and there were no panic attacks about getting things ready. My mom even forgot to make the squash yet she still didn't freak out. I didn't even get scolded for ignoring the church service and making a ninja star out of my bulletin. I'm completely baffled.

Usually on any holiday ever (or really just any day in general) I get yelled at for at least something. Come to think of it I didn't even get yelled at to get out of bed this morning. My dad willingly helped with all the chores. No one got frazzled or angry about anything. At least not when I happened to be there to witness it. I'm seriously starting to think that my family's been replaced by plant like aliens. (Yes, an Invasion of the Body Snatchers reference was necessary.) To quote my sister, "I'm so confused!"

While eating dessert, we had a thoughtful conversation about drug use and no one got angry. If we attempted that at any other time, my family would be yelling at each other, someone would flip a chair over, and inevitably someone would end up grounded. We discussed the various types and uses without anyone even cringing. This is something that is not done in my family. (see Problem Solving)

I don't know if it's because it's Easter. Or if there was something in the candy they gave us at church. Or even if my family has been replaced by cooperative robots. All I know is that it usually doesn't make a difference what day it is. Someone yells at someone. It's even more likely to happen on days when we are going to have company (pretty much all holidays).

I probably shouldn't be wasting my time trying to figure out and should just be enjoying it, but my mind is so blown, I can't fathom what might have happened.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Inedible Foods

Everyone who has ever eaten a school lunch has without a doubt complained about it. It's some sort of unwritten American law. For some reason when we get food that is cafeteria style we feel the need to complain about it. Sometimes it's a legitimate statement, but a lot of the time I think people are just complaining because they can. There have only been a few occasions when I couldn't stand food and the worst weren't the school's fault.

1. In middle school no one actually bought the pizza to eat. It was purchased so we  could wad the cheese up and use it as a bouncing ball.

2. In eighth grade, my friend claimed that he could eat anything that was edible without any issue. This led to another friend of mine making him a sandwich containing a little bit of everything from his fridge. To this day, I half expect a mutant life form to burst out of my friends gut and take over the planet. (Seriously, I that sandwich was two steps away from being able to eat a person.)

3. Once again in middle school, the school decided to get creative with milk. Typically, you get to choose from normal milk or chocolate. They decided to add strawberry milk. Still not that strange. Well then what about orange milk or root beer milk?

4. The school decided to make a mystery meat pizza. Not a single person ate pizza that day.

5. Now for the most disgusting. Last year, I traveled down to Texas to visit my grandpa and Aunt. They live in a trailer. For some reason this trailer smells entirely of cat food. They have no pets. (Still not the worst part.) The first morning we were there my sister decided to brave a bowl of cereal. (I personally couldn't get over the cat food smell enough to actually eat.) My sister filled her bowl. Upon adding the milk to the bowl, the cereal started leaping up the sides of the bowl.(I am dead serious!) It literally ran away!  Or at least attempted to. It couldn't actually make it out of the bowl. To this day this is the most disgusting thing I have ever experienced.

Cafeteria food still sounding horrible?

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Problem Solving

In my family we don't solve problems. Which is odd considering we have a detailed process in which we handle them. Every time there is one, we do basically the same thing. On occasion, there are variations.

First we find something that looks like it could possibly be a problem or might turn into one. (Depending on how much my dad actually hears, this could be anything from saying the word hamburger to threatening to rip off someone's face.) Once we have identified a possible problem, it is transformed into a horse using one of the many horse related metaphors that my dad has stored in his brain (honestly I have begun to think it consists of no information past the 1940's). Once  the problem has become a horse, we flog that horse until it is dead. Once it is dead, we continue to beat it until it is nicely ground up into what looks like hamburger meat. Once it can easily be formed into a horseburger, we package it up, put it in the deep freeze, and forget about it. Months later when one of our crazy relatives pull it out, they'll throw it onto the pile of horse were currently flogging. And once again everything gets thrown into the freezer and forgotten about.

An argument starts as a polite conversation. It will then, morph into a heated agreement. Then before you know it, someone will say something that my parents don't agree with. In an instant we've dove head first in to a pool of yelling (usually in confined spaces). The arguments start out sort of legitimate, move to ridiculous, head into What the..., and finally loop back around to ludicrous (which usually involves my mom actually using the word ludicrous in a sentence). There's a pause. Then we repeat.

An actual two hour argument that occurred on a road trip went like this:
How one of my friends was doing. (Polite Conversation)
Submission to one's husband (Heated Agreement)
Argument about marijuana (Sort of Legitimate)
Argument about hard drugs
Argument about prescription drugs
Red meat (Ridiculous)
Breast Milk (What the...)
Anarchy
Methane gas
Who's trying to change who's opinion
Alcohol
Whether school system is projecting these ideas (Ludicrous)
*Pause*
Difference in opinions (Polite Conversation)
Parental examples (Heated Agreement)
*We stopped for gas thus breaking the loop*

My Snow Day

It is currently snowing like Zeus is pissed. Two days ago it was super warm and sunny. Now there is snow everywhere. Enough that school was canceled. Even though school was canceled it didn't really affect me that much. I still had to get up early, feed the animal and get a wisdom tooth yanked out.

For starters getting to the dentist was in itself interesting. Since, (as I've mentioned a couple time previously) it is blizzarding we had to leave twice as early as we normally would. On the way, I spotted a sign for extreme fire danger (with a red flag flapping and everything). I personally find this entertaining. I would love to see someone start a fire out there. (Please don't actually accept this challenge.)

When we actually go to the dentists office. I stepped out of the car onto a parking lot that was completely covered in black ice. I stepped out and did the whole cartoon character on ice, scrambling in place thing until I got hold of the car door and stabled myself.

At the office, they injected my gums with numbing stuff and after a minute of pressing on my face, the sucker popped right out. It actually was basically what I expected. I just figured it would take longer. The only problem I have with this whole tooth removal business, is the numbing crap. The left side of my face is numb and honestly I'd kind of prefer the pain to having my face numb. It is my opinion that pain is far less annoying than numbness. It should be noted that this is coming from a frequently injured person, so my pain tolerance is quite high. Although, if my tooth was ripped out without numbing stuff, I'd likely be eating my words after they'd been pureed, so I could actually do so.

After this whole excursion to the dentist, we got home and my sister informed my parents that we needed to go check on a friends dog. We'd been checking up on the dogs while the family was gone to Arizona. Well thanks to this lovely thing called weather they can't get back, so they asked if we could check on them again. As previously stated it is nasty out there, my mom was by no means thrilled that she had to get back in the car and drive basically back to the same area as where I got my teeth ripped out. But, there is a simple solution to keep this from happening again. It's called cell phones. If my parents had cell phones my sister could have easily called them and informed them of this before we returned to our house in the middle of nowhere.