Adventures in Being Complicated in Wal-Mart

My life can be particularly complicated, like when I am trying to give birth in Wal-Mart or in a barn with no medical or adult supervision and either a small child or a large baby monkey keeps throwing bananas at me.

My water broke in Wal-Mart. Yes, the birthing water stuff, not the bottled water stuff.  I have popped a water bottle in Wal-Mart.  Two different spills.


It began in the back of the store, in Sporting Goods.  I knew that I was having a boy, so I was just a little eager to buy him a football.  When my water broke, I didn't know what was happening, so I nonchalantly walked from department to department hiding in the aisles.  I had "wet pants syndrome."  


I singlehandedly turned the entire store into a lake.  Ducks and everything.

The store employees actually would not let me leave. I think they were afraid I would flood my town and cause mass chaos.  I was held hostage.  I think they also wanted my baby because he was going to be awesome.  You know what it feels like after you have been wading around in the swamp all day and you just want dry, warm clothing while not standing around in Wal-Mart? Yeah, I felt like that.

Facebook wasn't around then or I would have gotten ALL of the "likes" that day.   Yep, they were as good as mine.  I feel old now just thinking that Mark Zuckerberg was probably in Kindergarden at the time.  He was busy drawing thumbs.

Now, he is old enough to go to Wal-Mart himself.

I worked as a radio personality at a radio station before I had my son.  I had to be funny on air whether I was funny or not.  There was no time to think.  Being funny is an art, like dancing, except there is no music (ever), no choreography and no combination of me ever shall be a comedian.  My handle was "Foxy T."


Besides the fact that my last name was "Fox" at the time, I was very foxy, but mostly my last name was "Fox." When I am nervous, my comedy skills come out, like skunks and possums do at night, only with my comedy the mange and rabies are usually not involved. 


I always thought that comedy would be my ticket out of the flophouse.  It wasn't.  

So, there I stood trapped in Wal-Mart...battered, wet and million-dollarless hiding in the women's bathroom because the people greeter was blocking the door.  I had only one prayer.

I actually had a different vision about where my baby's birth was to take place.

I don't always hit a homerun with comedy and I am OK with that.  There have even been times where I have walked into a room, tried to be funny and the room became completely bereft of laughter.  


I had sucked any and all life sources even remotely related to happiness or laughter out of the room.  


Crickets didn't even bother chirping.  I can't swear by it, but I think a mouse shot me the finger once.  Not a good finger.  The bad one. 


At least I try and if I fail, I try again.  I know people who won't even post on Facebook because they are afraid that their "friends" will laugh at them.  Well, either they aren't really your "friends" or you are afraid to try.  Maybe both.


If I had lived in medieval France they would probably have had one of those people reading a scroll to me. A scroll reader person.

I can't say that my shopping trip that day rekindled my lifelong love affair of laying on a wet bathroom floor, though. 

It's not nearly as fun as you think it would be.  I did have the capacity to be like a normal person and get to the hospital when my water broke instead of being in a Mexican Standoff in the bathroom of Wal-Mart with the Wal-Mart employees.  


As I lay on the floor and no one around me was laughing, I knew then, that this was serious. 


Even the spiders crawling around on the floor were unusually well-behaved.

I metaphorically began to make a "deal with the devil."  By "devil," I mean the manager and by "metaphorically" I mean I sat there and cried like a baby and begged and pleaded for them to let me go.  Finally, they got a hold of someone who would come and pick me up.  I had to leave my car there.


Life doesn't always seem to go into the direction I would like it to go into, but I had my beautiful baby boy.  I know that he is here just to replace me.  Out with the old and in with the new.  


And I'm OK with that, too.  Things do get better. 


I am in this continual state of remote disbelief that the supply of well-behaved parents was exhausted and Someone made a bet on me that I would do a good job as a parent.  

I admit that my comedy skills and my parenting skills can always be called into question, but the fact that my son is an amazing person and I am the luckiest person on the face of this Earth never will be.


My son never did play football.
  

GPS

I have this distinct tendency to occasionally get lost in life.  Sometimes I feel like fate brought me there.  Fate can be much like a football field in which you are sitting on the wrong side next to strange, unpopular people cheering for the wrong team and wondering how you got there.


I invested in a GPS.


There are many different settings.  You can set them to male or female voices and they can scream or speak softly to you.  I have my own variations.

My driving skills are very advanced and I am usually on my way to a Mensa meeting or to a secret meeting of the Underground Extraordinary Women's Club somewhere when I need to use my GPS.

I notice at times during my Mensa or Club travels that there are people who are very distracted while driving.

It is really difficult to put my citizen involvement into action at this point.  I can only become very disgruntled at seeing this.  Watching someone else's car veer into three different lanes while that person texts makes me often wonder where the cops are. 


Texting only reminds me of several things that never made it as a sport in the Olympics.

At times I drive too fast and have some wicked sweet car passing skills that may or may not put me in the category of amateur stuntwoman.

Getting lost is a lot like changing a diaper.  You don't always know what you are going to find and usually it is the unexpected.  

One time, during my lostness, I pulled my car over to the side of the road and got out.  I strained to see if I could hear those beautiful words in the distance that were not only my first words, but could possibly guide me home or at least near a high-class civilization. 

We once loaded our buggy with about fifty 300-page trivia books that were on clearance really cheap.  They were all the same book, but we had fifty of them in case a hurricane came along and blew forty-nine of them away.  We were set on trivia knowledge for years.

You would be very surprised at the amount of useless knowledge that takes up space in my head.

Our car was so old and loud at the time, though, that it gave our competitor clearance shoppers notice that we were on our way with our clearance money.  They could hear our car from a few miles away, so that gave them about a five minute jump on the good clearance. 

My job was to just grab as much as I could as fast as I could.  It was cheap enough that it didn't matter what it was.  

I don't always make the right decisions in life.  Sometimes I wish that I could just plug that GPS up to my brain and let it guide the way.  I know that I have a brain because I was in a serious accident when I was 22 and everyone told me how relieved they were when the doctor did a brain scan and said I had a brain.  I knew I did.   How else would I know important information?

I have gotten a few speeding tickets (ahhh...that's where the cops are--watching me) because I don't know how to use my cruise control and because I speed.  Take this as a word of advice:

Whatever you do, don't tell them you are friends with the A-Team.  That just doesn't go in the direction you think it would.  They also don't like it when you ask them, "What is the option where I don't get a ticket?" I have found out the hard way that a cop's "happy face," his "I'm gonna give you a ticket face" and his "I'm about to throw you into my squad car face" are eerily similar.  

But whatever you do, don't abandon humor altogether.  Humor is your friend.  Mostly not in the back of a squad car.

I do pay a hefty price for my actions.  I need a Global Positioning System to guide me and to help me make the right decisions.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not out there robbing banks, lately. 

But I'm also not perfect.  

At the end of the day, if I take a wrong turn somewhere, I would like for people to be there to say it is OK and realize that just because I accidentally rerouted myself that I am worth reprogramming and guiding in the right direction.  I know where I am going.

Getting there is the hard part. 

Everything we do has a consequence, just like me and my collection of traffic tickets that may be actual collectibles one day.  I hope to never justify my wrongs and maybe slow down a bit (a lot) in my wrongness of things. Most importantly, I hope the fact that people give up on me doesn't affect my ability to believe or never give up on them.  I don't want their weaknesses to lead me down the same road.  Give up on me, I still won't give up on you.  

If I did, I would just be lost, again. 

Note to self:

    Stop at cookie factory...num, num, num!

 

Crack is Back!

I suppose some of you have noticed that I have been "AWOL."   Let me give you a sample of what is going on in my life and when I am done I will give you a "high five" for putting up with me.


First, I have been trying really hard getting into inventing. 

Actually, it looks more round like a pancake and is made of flour.  I am still working out some bumps in the road because it tastes more like a pancake and not as much like bacon.  Minor details.


There is a project on my board that I am very excited about and has nothing to do with bacon (I just threw bacon in here because I will get one billion hits from it).  Thank you Google.


Inventing is my stupid human trick that I do when my life is not as much high definition as I want it to be.  Yes, my TV is one of those high definition plasmas that can hang on the wall, but my life is usually way more high definitioner!


When I present my new invention to the public, you are all going to hit yourself on your own head and say

Also, Hurricane Debby missed my area so I have been busy eating the 25 cans of spinach I had stockpiled for the event.  The 5-day forecast put it hitting us dead on with torrential rain. 

I really believe that it should be called a fivecast instead of a forecast, but what do I know, I live in a swamp.


Torrential? I looked  up the definition of torrential on dictionary.com.

Then I took it upon myself to look up "impassioned."  I didn't look up vehement.  It just sounds gross and violent, much like Lindsay Lohan on a Friday night or a Saturday through Thursday night. 

Yes, that is exactly how I like my rain.  Filled with intense feelings and passionate.  Why can't men be raindrops? Six BILLION people on this planet and I can't find one man.  I don't need more than one.  How many men does it take to change a lightbulb, cut my grass, paint my walls or pressure wash my house? Just one.


Lately, I have been focusing on getting more beauty sleep.  I used to only get about 5 hours a night...maybe. Now, I get about 8 hours, 9 if I am feeling extra ugly.  


I haven't had Nutella in a while (and have lost 10 lbs.) but found myself in a (withdrawal) bind a few days ago and out of sheer desperation called the Nutella Hotline. 

For a while there I was starting to feel like a parade balloon.  It required six or more people to navigate me to my couch.   I would have to spray myself with a can of Pam to make it easier to pry myself up from any chair.   


I joined a gym, but I am saving that one for an entire post!  Let's just say the "working out" stuff is working!  I don't lick the screen anymore when a Hershey commercial comes on, well, not as much.  I am even thinking about signing up for Karate (at the age of 41).  

Seriously, between internet not working in the middle of this lovely swamp I call home and me being a famous inventor AND working out I have neglected my blog and I apologize.  I hope that you guys will continue to put up with me.  I miss reading your blogs and love reading your lovely comments! Also, to those of you who have given me awards, please do not think that I have forgotten you.  I get about 10 awards a month, so it is difficult for me to post them since I only get to do a few posts a month, but I do appreciate the recognition and remember who they are from!

Nutella--even the word tastes good!

How to Be Professionally Rejected

Most of you may have read my post about how I was born allergic to myself.  If you didn't, you may want to read this first.   My blood supply came from this guy:

This was in the early '70's .  Blood didn't go through a hundred types of testing back then, nor did they care who it came from.  All they knew is that it came.


Because of my exposure to every disease known to mankind, I cannot donate blood.

I am a walking, talking epitome of rejection. Rejection's poster child.  

I actually have tried to donate, but received my rejection letter in the mail that my services would no longer be needed under any circumstances.

I was really bummed because I was counting on having a lifetime supply of free t-shirts as my wardrobe.  Also, it hurts just a bit to know that the United Blood Services hasn't completely dismissed me as a threat.  


The year 1971 was an eventful year for me.  I expected birth and I got it.  After a lifetime of feeling inadequate in my shared cave of hope (someone was in there with me cramping my space, but that is another story) I expected party balloons or some type of reception like a fancy dress gala upon my grand entrance into the world.    Instead, I received the Constitutional right to bear weapons of mass destruction.

I had these mad "being born" skills that seemed to be such a waste.  I only got to use them once.  I may have done a bit better being born in the monkey world.   I was on a gazillion year waiting list for being birthed and thought I would be totally professional about it. 

Over the years, I have perfected the art of rejection.  It doesn't take much.  My secret is simple.

Being different severely reduced my pay-all award of having an easy life.  I was never in the "easy life" line, though I know a few people who swear by it.


Besides a few bathroom bloopers and my fevered dreams of being the world's greatest superhero not coming to pass, overall I am very satisfied.  People tell me that I can be a "kick in the teeth" sometimes.  I'm thinking that is a good thing.


Most of you know  me well enough by now to know that I am a full die-hard fan of doing good in the world.  I'm not really notorious...or are I?


My gut tells me to keep going.  

It is OK to be different.  My problem is I want to improve on everything I look at, whether it is a pair of shoes, a cheesecake or a person.

I always see things better.  Some people see things in a negative light.  I don't.  Some people don't understand that.  I don't understand why people are negative.  It blows my mind.  But, once again, that would make them "different" so I try not to judge.  


I'm not great with advice, but I have a million sarcastic comments to offer.   This is my own personal advice that I offer to myself and for the first time ever I am making available to the public.  

Being like everyone else is as cheap as a gang tattoo.  


Be amazing.


Oh, and while you are busy being amazing donate blood on my behalf.

Craigslist: Concussion Man Wanted

Some people are just surpassingly wrong.

My greatest wish is for people to stop doing wrong.  I've often thought about being a superhero.  Of course, you know, I'm still gonna fight crime in my pajama pants.  My superheroism will be just like "The Avengers" movie--minus Robert Downey, jr, the other stars (I don't know their names but that doesn't matter as Robert Downey, jr. was the only one that mattered), special effects and safety regulations.


I will need a sidekick.

I realize that in order to curb my truly impressive powers that I will have to have some type of flaw or weakness that is small, hidden and rarely encountered, much like Kryptonite is to Superman.

I have thought about being a Substitute Teacher instead of a Superhero.

My superpowers tend to come out when I walk into a spiderweb.  Every kind of ninja known to mankind surfaces from me in those moments.  A spiderweb grabbed me once like I owed it a hundred bucks.   What I hate about spiderwebs is that other people can't see them because they are virtually invisible, so to any people watching me, it looks like I "just snapped."  

Snakes and spiders are my other kryptonites.  I fainted once in front of a spider.  People rushed to my rescue and at first I felt good about that, but I am pretty sure I heard someone saying this:

Ironically, that was one of my closest friends who said that to me.  Whether she was joking or not, it hurt at the time, plus, I still remember it.  


Even though over the years I have built fame (hmmm...) and fortune, my best bowls still say Kool-Whip on the side and I haven't forgotten where I have come from or where I am going.  Where I came from, I will never go back.  Where I am going is in a positive direction.  I hope to never hurt my friends so I tend to say only uplifting things.  


Also for wedding gifts, they get a really nice set of matching Kool-Whip bowls from me.


I've often thought of playing the game "Let's See How Crazy I Am Now," but I am a bit afraid of what the answer may be for me.

In the budget category of "free," I would like to be the best superhero I can be.  I hope to one day have my "Concussion Man" at my side fighting crime with me, but for right now I feel that the best that I can do (once again "free") is to build up those around me and hope to make their day just a bit brighter. 


Did I mention free? My said skills don't seem to pay the bills.


I promise to you, as my beloved reader, to make your day just a bit better and that is my greatest superhero power.  

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!


P.S. I need to brag on a GREAT friend of mine who was just featured in a magazine for a book that she wrote.  PLEASE PLEASE check her blog out and show her some Crack You Whip love! The book is one of the funniest I have ever read and wouldn't recommend it if it weren't.  CLICK HERE to check out her site.  And thanks for all of the amazing comments week after week, you guys mean the world to me!