Home Alone

I can't say that my childhood wasn't full of encouragement and support.

At one point, a very specific thought in my head was, "I just want to be left alone!"

Which brings me to something I rarely, if ever, talk about.  I was in fostercare.

It was OK if you like moving from place to place with no stability or cablevision.

It's not something that I talk about because I don't answer questions about it and because of liability.

I have tiny scars that dot the landscape of my soul.  Events that have pummeled me with bull's-eye precision have tried to send me over the edge into a deep dark hole of despair I tend to call a bottomless pit.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Home Alone.  I love how "Kevin" declared war on the "Wet Bandits."  Their robbery attempt was thwarted by an eight-year old and it had a big comedy reveal, much like my dating life.

My last boyfriend hauled off some stuff off to the dump and came back with more than what he left with. 

He compartmentalized his food like a boss.  

It couldn't touch on his plate or in his mouth or he pushed the plate aside and refused to eat.  No, I'm not sure what grade he was in.

He panicked once because his house had a flat tire (it's not like it was going anywhere), yet his car had a doublewide tire on it.  He wasn't very good at doing the math.  Yes, I date winners, obviously.  

I had been living under the assumption that the "Wet Bandits" in my life would just go away on their own.

They didn't.

Then, one day, I declared WAR.

I was 40 years old and had had ENOUGH of all of this nonsense.  I picked up my Hefty bag full of tolerance and tossed it into the BP spill.    

I began to feel fairly confident that I could take out the Wet Bandits by doing a complete 180.  I emerged from my cocoon of despair even as I got eighty-sixed by Mr. Flat Tire Bandit.  

I have a hidden capacity to be highly intelligent and in those first few days, kept it hidden, but after tossing the Hefty bag, I tossed him, too.   

Just like Kevin left the light on in his house for the "Wet Bandits" so they would think his parents were home, I leave my light on, too.  No one is breaking in again without me at least putting up a fight.  Also, I need the light to find my slippers quickly, like a gangster does.

No, I don't have parents.  I don't have a boyfriend.  I don't even have a cat.

But, I do have a plan.  

I'm building a fortress of friends and preparing for the remainder of my life like some people prepare for a zombie attack or a bacon shortage.   Actually, I could eat my own foot if it was wrapped in bacon and sauteed in butter.  So, don't really want to even joke about a bacon shortage.

Each day, I am starting my day off right and ending it better.  Daily, I'm treating those around me golden and getting rid of all "Wet Bandits" who may bring me down.

Also, not to brag or anything, but I think I may have won the "Golden Duster" award in the Janitorial Olympics for my precision mopping skills.  

D E C L A R E  W A R  on the Wet Bandits in your life.   

Also,  have a great Christmas with your families and be very thankful for them...even the In-Laws!

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Tim Tebow is Single Again!

In unrelated news, my dog wants me to pour eggnog in the toilet for some reason.

He also wants to leave out for Santa a glass of warm milk and a dead cat.

Also, and most importantly the best worst news of the day (I am not happy about it, though it appears I am but I am not).

Tim Tebow is single again.

Repeat.  I am not happy about this.

So here is my pathetic open letter to Tim Tebow:

So, Tim Tebow, the ball is in your court.  To sweeten the deal, I do have connections to the Ragin' Cajuns if you want to play for them.  Can't make any promises, though...

Did I mention that I am NOT happy about this?

Also, here is an open letter to that homeless guy I saw staring at me and my burger (mostly me) outside Checker Burgers.

7 Day World Forecast by Crack You Whip Storm Team

I dated a guy once who broke up with me because I sprayed water guns, danced in the rain and tried to make every moment fun, even if I looked like a fool in the process.  

  

If you've ever watched Hee-Haw and checked the cornfield closely, I'm probably in there somewhere.

Seems like I pull all of my life changing decisions out of a Fruity Pebbles box.  

There was a time in my life when I ordered "Unhappy Meals" from McDonalds.  Life in general was very depressing. Yes, I had a black belt in sadness.  I was totally "Pro" at it...hence the black belt.

And then one day I woke up a butterfly

I found that when I wallowed in negativity, negative things happened. I made my own life turn around, though.  My entire brain just needed to learn a lesson.  Even the medula oblangata was in on it.

Armed with my razor sharp wit and my Backpack of Awesomeness, I set out to accomplish great things. My thought processing part of me said to be positive and be totally "Pro" about it.  I earned my black belt in positivity.  

While you are at it, spray someone with a water hose.  

Also, here is a picture of a black-eyed pea because well, I love ya'll.  You are welcome.  

How to Fail at Sitting

It's taking a bit longer than what I had originally planned.  Don't get me wrong.  I am not that picky and men have accomplished quite a bit more than me.

I haven't accomplished quite as much.

I'm starting to feel like I haven't accomplished very much in my life.  I'm cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.  It is all part of my trickery to graduate from adult school one day.

I went to a concert last night...Toby Mac. Well, I went because my son wanted to go, but I really wasn't expecting much.  It worked out perfectly with my schedule of having no social life.

I loved it.  It rekindled my lifelong love of rap music that I never loved. Ever.  There was no foul language or I wouldn't have gone.  So, I get there with my ticket and someone, a teenager, had taken my seat.  I didn't want to ask her to move so I wandered the Complex looking for a seat.  I became trapped in a neverending loop of looking for a seat.

I missed the entire first half of the concert.  When I tried sneak into a "non-designated" seating area, someone in security for the Complex yelled at me and I slowly came to the realization that I am forty-one years old and don't understand seating or in general, how to sit.  There is this relentless logic in my head that it should be a simple process for an adult.

I am handicapped by my own reluctance to disturb the lives of others.  I would rather throw a brick at myself than ask someone to get up out of my seat.  I like to think that I am really some sort of superhero when I do things like this.

If romantically challenged were a superpower, I would have saved the world by now, from something.

Yes, my thumbs are bendy.

I actually failed as a wanderer.  There is a whole range of ways for me to fail and I nail them all. 

The security guy who yelled at me saw me sitting in a corner bludgeoning myself in the face with Facebook.

He came over and apologized.  I was cool with that.  After all, I have lightning fast mood swings and switching over from one to another is my greatest power.  I do have a hard time achieving spontaneous combustion, but at this time, that was not necessary.

I'm thinking about checking myself into kindness rehab.  Surely there is help for me.

I am proud to say that I have a friend who is a superhero to me.  She gave up everything and moved her family to Costa Rica (not the part with beaches!) to help those less fortuante.  They moved to the jungle part.  I think monkeys steal their stuff.  Monkeys are tricky.

The economic situation there is pretty bad.  She has started an initiative called Mercy Covers that enables the local women to make quilts for orphans or trafficking survivors.  I hope that you check it out and possibly like and share the Facebook page.  There are no pirates or monkeys.

So, there was this battle of epic proportions going on inside of me.  I hate being a superhero and nobody knows about it.  Honestly, is that selfish or what? But, I think the best credit to me, is that they don't know.  I don't want to start doing things for credit, but just to store in my vault of goodness, which is running dangerously low.

My life is punctuated by unfortunate events.

My Dating Life--The Saga Continues

I know this may come as a deep shock, but I don't have a lot of friends.

Aunt Sally stopped talking to me when she passed away, so now my "Friends List" is very limited. I do try to have a social life beyond Facebook.

This may be why I don't have any friends, because I talk to myself on Twitter.  So, one day last week when this really cute guy I had briefly met years earlier "Facebooked" me out of the blue and asked if I would meet him at Starbucks "just to talk," I was elated.

I just knew that my life was finally turning around.  Life was going to be good.  I was finally going to get married.  Probably.

I was cautiously optimistic as I prepared for my big Starbucks date.  Of course,  I had already done the word math in my own head.

I don't charge people for going out with me, though I should offer some type of written guarantee.

Not having a boyfriend is the one part of life I have completely mastered.  My dating life has become nothing more than a desperate cry for help.  Not to brag or anything, but I could easily win a trophy for being a failure at dating.

I tend to give myself false hope and that is what I really love about me.  This time was no different. With lots and lots of makeup I tried desperately to look better than a moderately attractive zoo animal.

I've tried asking guys out myself, but they always look at me like I just asked them to donate a brain.  Then, they try to run away from me like I am the electric bill or a crying baby.

So, a date that was not imaginary was a pretty big deal to me. The sheer volume of hope that I had injected into myself began to consume the inside of my own head.  The pressure of the suffocation of my sanity and the reality of the situation became completely unbearable for me before I even made it to Starbucks.

As I pulled in, it glowed.  Not my head...Starbucks.

I parked beside an old, old, old 1960's beat up Ford truck that had not one, but two buckets underneath it catching whatever comes out of old Ford trucks.  My pathetic delusions of meeting Prince Charming tonight began to fade as I realized it was the only vehicle in the parking lot besides mine, which needed no buckets, just Prince Charming.

To make a short story long, I entered Starbucks with distinct uneasiness and spotted him right away.  It had been years, but he was still great looking and had an amazing smile.

I sat down, though a bit nervous, as Starbucks was not this amazing fortress of romance I had dreamt it was.    As he slurped on Green Tea (literally green) and talked incessantly about his recent ex-girlfriend, the conversation quickly began to hold a death-grip on me.  His beautiful white teeth slowly turned putrid green.

I stared out the window at the truck, at the green tea and then his phone that kept beeping.  He would stop mid-conversation and smile John Deere Green so he could return a text to whoever he was flirting with on the phone.   The text messages were the only pauses between him going on and on (and on) about his ex-girlfriend.

Normally, my brain has an infinite capacity to bring itself back to life on its own after being pummeled with someone else's problems.  I felt the conversational death-grip begin to kill it. Maybe I would need someone to donate a brain to me after all.

He finally stopped long enough to ask me about me.  Before I had five words out, somehow, those few words reminded him of his "horrible" ex-girlfriend who had misjudged him.  After all, he had tossed the woman's two year old daughter out of his recliner because that was HIS recliner so she should understand and stop being horrible.

I just sat there, my brain cells rapidly dying and hating me.  The supply of kindness I had was completely exhausted.  I wanted to make a break for it...and spill those buckets under the truck for HazMat to clean up.

My once friendly brain cells were screaming at me.

But, just as I was about to give up hope so I could go ahead and die by the condiments, he finished texting whoever he really wanted to go see and said he had to "go workout" at Planet Fitness.  It was 10:00 p.m.

As he stood up, he gave me a hug and said that he wasn't ready for a relationship and that I was a great friend for listening.  He said I deserved some special award for listening to all of his problems.  Yep, I'll just put it right along beside my other awards.

This was his status a few days later on Facebook:

Ok, so I need to add a few more trophies to my collection: