2015: A Year

Today I reflect back on the last 365 days and wonder "How did I end up in this tiny, cold, mold-infested apartment?" Then I remember, "Oh yeah I moved here."

For your reading pleasure, I give you my 2015 in review. Because you really care.

The year kicked off with a work party designed exclusively to dog on Wal-Mart. It was a mandatory meeting that started at 6:00 in the morning in which big company executives (i.e. the Vice President pictured speaking here) flew into town to speak to us for the sole purpose of rallying us against Wal-Mart. Basically we got paid to hear crap we already knew. And there was free donuts and coffee!

Check out this lady playing on her phone not paying attention. Who are you sexting at 6:00 in the morning? Wal-Mart?? Go work there then!

Not pictured: my exhausted ass who got 1.3 minutes of sleep the night before. Who do you think cleared out all those fixtures and set up the chairs??

Segue into the next most thrilling piece of my year: watching the Super Bowl. Who was I to root for? The overrated cheating Patriots who win every damn year? Or the shining Seahawks who are the closest thing to an NFL team Idaho will ever have?

I picked the Patriots because fuck the Seahawks.

Also if I hadn't picked the Patriots I would've joined the masses of disappointed, enraged, suicidal fans who were subjected to the heart-wrenching final minute of the game.

But instead, I was the one laughing. Good game, Hawks! I guess the bright side is your bandwagon is a little lighter now.

Then I created an Instagram account. Don't look for it.

Then in March, the day came where I officially completed my coursework for an online certificate from a community college. I received the degree through text message and graduated while sitting on the couch watching The People's Court. Just like in the commercials. Except I didn't have three kids hanging off me asking when dinner was while projectile pooping. 

Later in March, my company thanked me for seriously pursuing higher education to better understand and benefit the corporation by not promoting me and instead shipping me off to the shit hole Nampa store, telling me it was "temporary" and then leaving me there for my soul to die.

There I met many charming characters including crack heads, meth heads, heroine heads, gang bangers, gang banger heads, McDonalds employees (aka recovering crack heads) ass heads, shit heads, illegal immigrant heads, and that one guy. There we launched into a remodel that tested the patience and mental stability of all the heads.

Here's a brief photo album of my Nampa excursion.

Here is a tampon I found in the shoe department.

Nampa: Where the Nikes are free and the EAS tags don't matter

Coping with incompetency through snarky notes

A few regulars

I Saw the Light So You Don't Have To

Tom Hiddleston.

Otherwise known as the guy who plays that gender-fluid villain who wears antlers in The Avengers.

...You know, this guy.

Most recently this British actor has starred in the film I Saw the Light about that yodeling country singer from the 50's who drank too much and croaked in the back of his car.

...You know, this guy.

Better known as Hank Williams. Not Hank Williams Jr. Although I think they may be distantly related.

I Saw the Light traces Hank's career from the moment he married his freshly-divorced, manipulative attention whore of a wife (played by the lesser-known, lesser-of-a-train wreck Olsen triplet, Elizabeth Olsen) in an Alabama gas station to his rise to fame by yodeling sad songs on the radio, then at the Grand Ole Opry and then ruining it all by boozing it up and swallowing a few dozen pharmacies' supply worth of pain pills and dying on his way to a concert. Indeed, his tale is a tragic one, and incidentally so is the film.

It's a shameful trope these famous musicians create for these biopics. A humble aspiring young fella/gal who just wants to sing innocent songs is discovered, rises to fame, is exposed to the horrible corrupting world of sex and drugs and rock and roll, spirals out of control, hits rock bottom, then with some help from loved ones and ~*~true fans~*~ rehabilitates, gets back on the wagon and becomes and older, wiser, more haggard, less attractive role model for fans who have mostly already moved on to worship the next up-and-coming act. ...Or just dies. Like in this movie. Yeah, spoiler alert. Hank dies. If you didn't already know that, then you clearly didn't read anything I wrote above, and you also need to brush up on your dead celebrity trivia.

Being a Brit, Tom actually did a pretty spot-on impression of Hank. And Elizabeth Olsen did a great job not mimicking her sisters' career by landing a role in a movie that wasn't a straight-to-video release. And also she must have paid attention in her acting classes because she did a good job with that aspect too. That being said, the acting was just about the only saving grace of this film. The rest of it felt like someone got lazy in the editing room and shortened all the important parts but kept intact the fifteen minute scenes of boring nonsense.

Also the film did the thing that Frost/Nixon did where it will randomly cut to an "interview" of another character talking about the scene you just saw. Like the audience is supposed to think that these are real interviews instead of actors they just saw a minute ago.

Even though the film is based on people's real lives and actual events, it didn't seem very believable. The most unbelievable part in the whole movie was the final scene. And if you don't like spoilers and you really have any iota of interest in seeing this film in its entirety...don't skip this paragraph, because you deserve to hear the truth. READ IT! DON'T LOOK AWAY!! In the final scene there's an audience anxiously waiting at a Hank concert. Someone in charge approaches the microphone and announces that Hank had died on the way to the concert. (The death scene isn't even shown. This is how we hear about it.) After the announcement, the audience remains unsettlingly calm, then after a moment breaks out into the eponymous song in what's supposed to be a very moving moment. It took me completely out of the movie! I'm sorry, but if I paid money to see a concert and someone just announced that the guy I paid to see died on the way here, I'd be screaming for a refund. But there was none of that! Plus there was no dramatic death scene, no funeral scene, no slow mo shots of people weeping, no freeze frame of Hank's smiling face...just credits. Such a disappointing and abrupt end. But maybe that's the point. Maybe the film maker wanted to disappoint the audience as much as the fans were disappointed in Hank's sudden and untimely, yet highly predictable death. Maybe the filmmaker wanted movie-goers to be outraged and feel robbed and angry at the world and at God who took away such a talented man from the earth and instead gave us his offspring who asks us if we're ready for some football.

Well, filmmaker, you succeeded. Pat yourself on the back. I was only -35 years old at the time of Hank's death, but I felt like you really underscored the agony and torment the world experienced by agonizing and torturing me. Well done, sir. Well done.

But I won't end this little blurb on a sour note. Instead I'll provide you a picture of Hank Williams' house that I took from a tour bus in Nashville. If you look closely at the middle window, you can see Hank's ex-wife giving the finger.

Hahahaha you totally looked, don't lie.

And here's a picture of me and some hot guy at the Grand Ole Opry. Also in Nashville and also Willie Nelson is giving the finger.

Why My New Store is Awful

Okay I know I kept promising y'all an update, but the new job has been slowly destroying my soul and my will to live and frankly I haven't been able to muster up any energy to think about it let alone write a blog about it.

Until today!

I know a lot of you have been wondering "How's Forkie doing? Has she become a latte-sipping hipster fulfilling her endless aspirations?" for like the first week and then you immediately forgot about me as soon as you decided to resume your lives. I know it. I'm not offended. Just disappointed that you don't spend every waking second thinking about me. But fear not, I'm here to tell you all about it. Or at least my job. Which sucks.

So here I am at a place I'm going to refer to as "OOG." Here at OOG we have nothing short of interesting things going on: crack heads, blood in the parking lot, tiny stockrooms, crack heads, bad checks, 1,000 boards of freight every week, crack heads, meth heads, heroine heads, dick heads, douchebags, angry old women, crack heads, angry old men who call employees communists, crack heads, religious solicitors, crack solicitors, and finally, the worst thing of all: Ducks fans. *shudder*

OOG is located in probably the seediest part of the United States. On the train ride from my apartment, I look out the window to see the beautiful landscape of grand buildings and gorgeous trees slowly start to decay into graffiti-covered rail cars and derelict strip malls. Finally arriving at my work, you're surrounded by the city's finest establishments of adult video shops, liquor stores, Planned Parenthood (complete with protesters), dive bars and Popeye's Chicken.

Claustrophobes beware! This store is tiny and full of STUFF! You'll constantly feel like you're getting crushed by the massive amounts of STUFF and when you try to escape from feeling trapped by all the STUFF you'll just run into more STUFF and start hyperventilating until you finally succumb to the ridiculous amount of STUFF that does actually fall on you and crush you because there's also no safety culture here. (3 accident-free days and counting!)

As you walk through the apparel department, you'll notice nothing out of the ordinary at first...until you hear a strange beeping not unlike a chime you hear upon entering a small department store. (We can all hear it: beee-boooom!) You look around and think "wtf is that?" and then you see YOURSELF on TV! This store has so much theft it has little monitors that record your thieving ass as you "just look" at the cosmetics or "just try one shirt on" in the fitting room. So watch out. Or next time one of our three LPs will be here and they'll...probably do nothing because they'll be busy arresting a crack head.

Now that you've gotten thoroughly intimidated with the sales floor, come back to the apparel stockroom. Where are you going? Oh, you think our stockroom is in the apparel department. Silly. Follow me and I'll take you there. Yes, I know we're going into the home department. Yes, this is the employee hallway (Hi, everybody!) and right here is the stockroom! Let me just get my key out and...unlock this door and...OH MY GOD A WALL OF FREIGHT! Suck it in, we're going inside!

...No we're not. I'm not sure what I was thinking. I don't even think light can penetrate this stockroom.

For your visual pleasure, I'll provide a map of the store.

Now that you have this image, here's where our stockroom is!

That's right. Right down the employee hallway...in the middle of the home department...smaller than the break room. Oh and no upstairs either.

No. Upstairs.

So how do we get all that freight in there?

How does one pack a suitcase? How does a squirrel pack nuts in his mouth? How does a woman give birth to a baby...but in reverse?

We find a way to fit all that shit in there. And if that means blocking every walkway and stacking in front of all the things you need to do daily tasks...then so be it! Ad boxes? You don't need to get to those. I need these blue toes of Under Armour that will get worked two months later and then immediately stolen to go right there. Hangers? You can manage without those because these men's coats need this space more than you do. Fire extinguisher? Nah. Ever heard of stop-drop-and-roll?

Yeah I'm not kidding.

So now you're thinking...if there's no room for normal freight, what happens when new freight shows up?

The fine folks in Home have no choice but to do this.

Yes, it usually is about 12 boards. And YES, they do this during store hours! Fantastic.

And that's as close as those boards get to entering the stockroom. We have to break down the freight on the sales floor and carry each piece into the stockroom where it is then shoved, stacked, thrown, pretty much anything to get it in there.

There you have it! The nightmare that is my life every day. Next time you complain that your store is awful and there's no room in your stockroom and you can't get anything done...just pause for a moment and think of the starving children in Africa who would love to have your job.

And also think of me. And STOP BEING SO DRAMATIC!!

Working Retail Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

Have you ever been in a hospital watching someone wearing medical scrubs perform open-heart surgery on a patient and asked yourself, "I wonder if that guy is a doctor. I'll ask him."

Neither have I!

You know why? Because that's a stupid-ass question that you shouldn't even ask! Especially during an open-heart surgery. Like...what are you even DOING in that operating room? Who let you in?

This is an example of how dumb people are the moment they cross the threshold from the outside world into my place of work. It's like there's an invisible force field that doesn't permit brains to enter the premises and customers bodies pass through with all internal organs intact (except sometimes their bladders) while their brains fall plap on the concrete outside.

Don't believe me? Hear these tales of woe that I'm sure any human who has worked more than 72 hours in retail can attest to:

1. When a customer looks at you as you're dressed in full uniform, company gadgets attached to your person as you're doing something that only employees have any business doing (stocking shelves, running a cash register, etc.) and the customer asks, "Do you work here?" Probably the most dumbfounding, yet the most common of all derpy-headed idiotic utterances. Because of its commonality, however, I am convinced that there must be little imposter employees that lurk around the store dressed like they work there, tricking customers by leading them to the wrong product and scrambling signs. This must be the case, because nobody is that dumb.

2. When a customer approaches you with an item off of a rack and says, "This is just so confusing and it's really hurting my brain to try to figure this out so I was hoping you could help me with this before I just kill myself out of frustration and lack of understanding...how much is this item?" At this point, you must use your finger to point to the sign on the rack where the item was pulled off from. Often times you have to read the numbers and words really slow so you don't overwhelm them with too much information. Sometimes if they can repeat it back to me without making any mistakes, I reward them with a graham cracker.

3. When it's time for a customer to pay for their purchases and they approach the cashier who is standing at their register with the light on and a red carpet rolled out for the customer to approach, and they ask, "Are you open?" Bonus points awarded if the customer follows up with, "Do you work here?"

4. When a customer does this shit

Really now, do these people insert food into their asses and try to shit out their mouths? If you know anyone who does this, please murder them and any offspring they may have immediately.

5. When a customer who is in fact NOT legally blind or even illegally blind asks you where something is when they're standing right. In front. Of it.

The list could literally, not figuratively, go on and on. Moral of the story? Be a fireman.

Here's something to end on a positive note and to restore your faith in the human race:

The Perfect Road Trip?

In honor of this great country's birthday (happy 2,015th, America!) I thought it would be appropriate to share with you a fantastic way to visit it all in one asphalt-covered trip! According to scientists and people with way more time on their hands than myself, there is such thing as the "perfect" road trip. One that takes you across each contiguous state without leaving the country or making you drive through Idaho for more than 500 miles. It looks a little something like this:

Although if I had my way, I would include poor Hawaii and Alaska. We didn't fight the British Crown just to have 48 states!

Hope you don't have anything planned for the next 2-3 months!

You're probably wondering what all those little destination pins represent. Well, wonder no longer! I have for you the list!

1. Grand Canyon, AZ
2. Bryce Canyon National Park, UT
3. Craters of the Moon National Monument, ID (Bring sunscreen and something else to do.)
4. Yellowstone National Park, WY  (Warning: Do not goad the bison.)
5. Pikes Peak, CO
6. Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM
7. The Alamo, TX
8. The Platt Historic District, OK
9. Toltec Mounds, AR
10. Elvis Presley’s Graceland, TN 
11. Vicksburg National Military Park, MS
12. French Quarter, New Orleans, LA
13. USS Alabama, AL  (Weird name.)
14. Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL
15. Okefenokee Swamp Park, GA  (Completely normal name. "Ned Flanders, let's go to Georgia!" "Okefenokee, neighboreeno!")
16. Fort Sumter National Monument, SC
17. Lost World Caverns, WV
18. Wright Brothers National Memorial Visitor Center, NC
19. Mount Vernon, VA
20. White House, Washington, DC  (Shut up, Washington, DC. You're not a state!)
21. Colonial Annapolis Historic District, MD
22. New Castle Historic District, Delaware
23. Cape May Historic District, NJ
24. Liberty Bell, PA
25. Statue of Liberty, NY
26. The Mark Twain House & Museum, CT
27. The Breakers, RI
28. USS Constitution, MA
29. Acadia National Park, ME
30. Mount Washington Hotel, NH
31. Shelburne Farms, VT
32. Fox Theater, Detroit, MI
33. Spring Grove Cemetery, OH
34. Mammoth Cave National Park, KY
35. West Baden Springs Hotel, IN (But just the hotel.)
36. Abraham Lincoln’s Home, IL
37. Gateway Arch, MO
38. C. W. Parker Carousel Museum, KS
39. Terrace Hill Governor’s Mansion, IA
40. Taliesin, WI
41. Fort Snelling, MN
42. Ashfall Fossil Bed, NE
43. Mount Rushmore, SD  (Take lots of pictures and don't expose the film while driving through the Badlands! Hah...you're welcome for that glimpse into my idiotic, blunder-filled childhood.)
44. Fort Union Trading Post, ND
45. Glacier National Park, MT (See warning for YNP)
46. Hanford Site, WA
47. Columbia River Highway, OR (If it's not raining.)
48. San Francisco Cable Cars, CA (Really? Cable Cars? These scientists ARE aware that there's also a Golden Gate Bridge in this city, right? Well, I guess they are smarter than me...)
49. San Andreas Fault, CA  (That earthquake was all San Andrea's fault!)
50. Hoover Dam, NV

How many of these national treasures have YOU seen? If your number is between 0 and 9, hop in that car of yours and go see that beautiful country of ours! If your number is between 10 and 29, not bad, not bad, but I think you can do better. If your number is between 30 and 49, you're almost there! Call in to work tomorrow and explore this fantastic land of the free and home of the brave! If your number is 50...well la-dee-frickin-da! You want a medal or something?!

 

In Which I Talk About The Cobbler...and Not the Peach Kind!

Oh man, it's been a while, hasn't it? I'd like to apologize...but I'm not going to.

I suppose I haven't really pinpointed the purpose of this blog. Is it to ramble? Is it an outlet for my frustrating observations of this crazy thing we call life? Is it a cry for attention? Is it a place where I can safely criticize the crap out of everything I deem unworthy of this world? How about...all the above?

...Or how about it's a thing I do because I want to and I don't need to explain myself to ANYBODY!


Today I'll be criticizing -- I mean, reviewing...okay fine, criticizing the movie The Cobbler. Why did I italicize the title? Because I am one grammar savvy beeyotch.

Not unlike most Americans, I saw the cover of this film and immediately assumed, "Yes, another Adam Sandler piece of horse shit that is ridden with awkward crassness and painfully unfunny poop humor. ...I LOVE IT ALREADY!!!" When I started watching the film, however, I was met with an unfamiliar tone of sincerity and heartbreaking truth of humanity. I was very disappointed.

Honestly, though, I was excited to see a film with Adam Sandler that actually drew me in emotionally rather than with the promise of 1,000 fart jokes. Sandler plays a Jewish cobbler, which apparently still exist in Manhattan...cobblers, not Jews...who is begrudgingly upholding his family shop and taking care of his senile mother. His shop neighbor, Steve Buscemi, is a barber who acts suspiciously fatherly to him throughout the film. Sandler is approached one day by a perky activist chick, who is conveniently single but would be waaaay too young for him in the real world, and encourages him to sign some petitions to keep his shop from being gentrified. He goes against his wishes of taking this out from his pathetic life to sign the petition because he hopes this will get him laid.

Days later, Method Man enters Adam Sandler's shop to get his alligator shoes resoled. We don't know much about Method Man yet, but the film strongly hints that he's a bad motherfucker and he wants his shoes fixed TONIGHT! Adam Sandler works after hours to fix Method Man's shoes for fear of getting murdered when his machine explodes. When he can't get anyone to come fix it in time, he resorts to the ancient relic he keeps in the cellar from his great, great, great grandfather. But this machine is MaGiCaL!!! When he stitches the shoes and tries them on for shiggles, he immediately BECOMES Method Man!

After much confusion and heavy breathing and cheap camera tricks, Adam Sandler discovers that any pair of shoes he stitches with his ancestor's machine will allow him access to their bodies. (!!!) For a solid eight minutes of film, he tries on dozens of shoes and becomes dozens of people including a transgender and a corpse. Amazingly all these shoes are his exact size. At no point through this whole experiment does he stop and question why he has so many pairs of unclaimed shoes.

Armed with this special ability, Adam Sandler decides he can be "anybody I want!" Which of course isn't entirely true. He can be anybody he wants from the small selection he has...which it turns out aren't very interesting. If I had the ability to become the likeness of any of my customers, I'd look in the mirror for a long time and think "This is creepy." and immediately go back to my life. Adam Sandler, however, takes utmost joy in wandering around Manhattan in someone else's body. He doesn't do anything he wouldn't normally do otherwise. He does, however, use the ability to stalk Perky Activist Girl by staring at her through a window as he occupies a 13 year old's body.

At home, he talks with his mom who laments that she only wants to have dinner with his father one last time before she kicks off. Adam Sandler gets the crazy idea of putting on his father's shoes and becoming Dad (Dustin Hoffman) for one mind-bending night with his mom. I was totally betting on the evening ending, or at least going in the direction, with Mom trying to get frisky with her long-lost husband and Sandler being unable to deny his mom's wish, thus resulting in an awfully grotesque, yet classic Sandleresque attempt at humor. However, I was one again deeply disappointed.

The next morning, Mom is dead, but most likely died happy after having gotten to see her fake husband one last time. Adam Sandler is devastated. He can't afford a decent casket for Mom because he spent the last week of work dicking around in other people's bodies, dining and dashing and fapping off to Perky Activist Girl. When he finally returns to work, Method Man is waiting for him demanding his gators. Sandler dickishly asks for Method Man's ticket and upon not having it refuses to return his shoes. Method Man threatens Adam Sandler and leaves without putting up much of a fight. This launches the second leg of an already drawn-out story!

Sandler packs about ten pairs of shoes with him and follows MM around Manhattan. Upon observing him through several different bodies, and apparently finding time change into them without being seen transforming, he discovers MM is quite the douchebag. He gets in random fights with convenient store workers, he beats his girlfriend, he orchestrates the gentrification project that's threatening the city block that Perky Activist Girl is fighting to protect...Wait WHAT!! This guy is very busy! And what a coincidence that he gets his shoes fixed at Adam Sandler's shop and wears the exact same shoe size as him!

Sandler, in Method Man's body, manages to enter MM's apartment in search of his expensive watches to hock for his Mom's well-deserved, diamond-encrusted casket. But when Method Man unexpectedly walks in to the apartment and sees..Method Man! things get dicey!

Eventually Real Method Man is defeated by Adam Sandler Method Man and is left tied to a chair and gagged. Out of his vast selection of shoes to wear for the intimidating captor role, Sandler chooses the transvestite's stilettos and transforms into probably the least intimidating person to demand where the watches are hidden. Personally I would've picked the corpse. If I didn't look scary enough, I would've at least stood quietly and waited for the stench of rotting flesh to break Method Man's will. But whatever.

As his interrogation goes fruitless, Method Man's homies show up. Oh no! Now Adam Sandler Method Man emerges and travels all over on a mission to "get his money." After stopping by a few sketchy warehouses, they make their final stop at a nice upstate mansion where Evil Gentrification Mastermind Lady is cooking crab ragu and hands Adam Sandler Method Man a giant brick of money. At this point in the film, I disabled my suspension of disbelief and tuned out the nonsense of the logistics of why this lady would want to bulldoze a city block in Manhattan and why she would have any business paying off a thug like Method Man to do anything that the government should be doing in the first place. It was all supposed to make sense, but it wasn't!

Like I'm supposed to make sense out of a film in which the protagonist can transform into someone else's body just by wearing their shoes.

Back at the apartment, Adam Sandler, still in Method Man's body, opens the door...to Method Man in Method Man's body! Instead of just shooting him dead like a true thug would've done, Method Man in Method Man's body launches into the long-winded speech about how "you're dead, you're SO dead!" that only truly good writers would engage in. A struggle ensues, transvestite body takes over, a kick in the jugular with the stiletto ends MM's life. Because stiletto heels are sharp objects.

Adam Sandler panics and turns himself into he police but when they go to retrieve the body, it's GONE! What a craaaazy movie!

Perky Activist Girl and Adam Sandler then team up to fight the new enemy, Evil Gentrification Mastermind Lady, and together they take her down in a very confusing, probably unnecessarily complicated way that I refuse to recall. But it involves putting on the shoes of every henchman involved and transforming into several different bodies. In the end, EGML is defeated and everybody wins.

One final kidnapping attempt later, Adam Sandler wakes up to find himself in Steve Buscemi's barber shop. At this point I jokingly exclaim: Steve Buscemi is Adam Sandler's father! Because at the rate this movie was spiraling and twisting, it was very possible.

Lo and behold, Steve Buscemi takes off his shoes and becomes Dustin Hoffman. "I'm your father the whole time!" Adam Sandler is pissed. I would be too if my father chose to hide from me for decades in Steve Buscemi's body. Turns out Dustin Hoffman had to hide from the world because of all the horrible situations he found himself in and chose that particular moment to reveal himself because...by God it was TIME.

The film ends with father and son driving off in Dustin Hoffman's fancy shiny car that was hidden underground, driven by personal driver named Webb...I can't even finish this thought because I am so done talking about this movie!!


EDIT: For being "one grammar savvy beeyotch" I sure had to fix a lot of typos.

Childfree is For Me or: How About You Stop Telling Me How to Live My Life!

As I've tried not to use this blog as an outlet for my frustrations and dirty laundry that I can't air out on Facebook or in my therapy sessions without getting harshly judged and shunned and banned from the Morrison Center, I just need to throw this particular rant out into the world to relieve some pent-up annoyances.

I don't want kids.

Shut up. Let me finish.

I don't want kids. I don't care for kids. I can't see myself having kids. I am pretty sure if I become pregnant I'll promptly and swiftly end my life. I have a very strong opinion about kids and why I don't want them. As such, I get very passionate when other people try to tell me that I'm wrong and I actually don't know what I want out of my life and that I have no idea what I'm talking about. So maybe instead of reading this as a rant, maybe take it as a list of very detailed, passionate instructions for those of you who don't already know about my decision.

I'll make this simple and structured. Here's a list of things you shouldn't say to me.

1. "Well, that's very selfish of you."

Why? Since when is making a life decision being selfish? That's like telling someone who is applying for a higher paying job that they're being selfish.Also I think not having a desire to make a mini clone of yourself so you can prime it to be the best thing this world ever saw is the opposite of selfish.

2. "I didn't think I wanted kids when I was your age either."

 Yeah, I'm not you. And don't say "either" like you know me. In fact, don't even say any of this. We are all different. Whatever worked for you won't necessarily work for me. Maybe you were scared of having kids and you didn't think you could live up to society's expectations of being a good parent. Then you overcame your fear. Me? I just don't want them. The end.

3. "You'll change your mind."

Oh, I wasn't aware I was talking to a being from the future! Tell me what else I'm going to do five years from now! Also fuck you.

...Okay, that was a little harsh. Please go fuck yourself. Better?

And perhaps a nicer way to say this is instead saying "Maybe you'll change your mind" rather than being so definite about it. Yes, I will concede that. Maybe I will change my mind about reproducing. Just like I may change my mind about liking Bruce Springsteen music or what gender I want to be for the rest of my life. It's a possibility, albeit highly unlikely. Thanks.

4. "Don't your parents want grandchildren?"

I'm pretty sure my parents had a hard enough time raising three hellions of their own, so why would they possibly want to put themselves through it for another 18 years?  I guess I can see the appeal in watching me try (and probably fail) to raise a child. Witnessing the struggle, the frustration, the agony. The regret. The poop. "Mom, Dad, help me!" I'd scream from the abyss of vomit and toys, reaching desperately for their hand as they laugh, eating popcorn...laughing...

No.

5.  "Who will take care of you when you're old and senile?"

The same people who would probably take care of me if I chose to have kids: the good ol' government!

6. "You'll regret it when you're 40."

Yes, I'll definitely regret my early retirement and tight vagina. What have I done??!

7. "Well, that's not fair to your husband."

Wow, okay if you think he married me knowing full well what I didn't want and he's just waiting for me to change my mind for him, then he deserves to be disappointed. In other words, NEITHER OF US WANT KIDS!

8. "But Disneyland..."

Is open to adults too.

9. "Just watch. You'll get pregnant someday and you'll fall in love with your baby and you'll want more and then I'll say I told you so!"

Yeah, funny. Watch out for that bear next to you.

 

The Day of Hating Love That We Love to Hate

Well it's that God-awful time of year again. The one day of the year when everybody spends a large fraction of their annual income on items that will wind up in the garbage and/or the toilet in the form of bodily waste just to appease the societal pressures of a holiday that was invented by greeting card companies. 

Don't get me wrong; I am happily married to the most wonderful doofus I've ever met, yet I abhor this holiday more than a fat kid hates treadmills. Maybe it's the near decade of working in retail that has given me this hostile attitude towards pretty much all holidays, but seeing the desperation and stress and unnecessary anger in everybody in the days leading up to the 14th has really put a bad taste in my mouth for this holiday. It's just another day, people! This isn't the one day of the year you're supposed to express your affections and do nice things. 

Okay tirade over.

The whole point of this blog is to make you feel a about today. So here's a sweet video that will boost your self-esteem and make you happy about being single/that your own marriage proposal wasn't as successful as you'd hoped.

Wasn't that nice?

Okay here's something to end this post on a relatively good note without making me seem like a completely callous, hateful bitch.

Happy VD.

Why You Gotta Be So Obnoxious? My Review of "Rude"

I'm reviewing a song now. Because it's my blog and I do what I want!

Last summer radios exploded with a reggae sensation Magic! That's Magic! with an exclamation point. Like they're screaming at you. Also when you speak the band name, you're supposed to yell as the exclamation point instructs. Even if it's a question.

For example:
"Jeff, have you heard the new song by Magic!?"
"Why are you yelling at me, Greg?"
"I'm just excited about the pop music scene's evolution into a more eclectic sphere thanks to Magic!"
"Please stop."

Magic!'s song "Rude" tells the tale of a fellow's struggle to get his girlfriend's father's permission to marry her.

The song attempts to lead the listener into thinking the singer is going to see his girlfriend to "ask you a question" but then it turns out that he's talking to "an old-fashioned man." By now the confuzzled listeners don't know what the hell is going on until the singer bops into "Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life/until someone younger and hotter comes along." And shockingly the father tells him no, after which the singer launches into that oh-so-catchy chorus of lamenting on how "rude" he's being and how he's hurting his feelers and then decides "Meh, I'm going to marry her anyway."

...You're going to "marry her anyway"?? Then what was the point of asking for permission? "I don't care what you say; I'm undermining your ass!"  Now who's being rude?

By the way, his first mistake was saying "Can I" instead of "May I." There's a huge difference between "Will you allow me the opportunity to marry your daughter (may I)?" and "Do you think I'm physically capable of partaking in a matrimonial ceremony with your daughter (can I)?"  Maybe the father was just being bluntly honest with him by answering no. "No, you can't marry her because you're one of those guys who just talks about it for the first two months of the relationship before you fizzle out and focus more on groupies and fantasy football. Then she'll just dump you."

The whole premise of this song is just asinine. If he's really that hellbent on marrying this girl, why is he letting some guy stop him? Unless he has some serious morality issues and needs to validate them.

"Sir, can I marry your daughter?"
"She's three years old."
"WHY U SO MEAN!!"

But despite him making the effort of respectfully involving her father, the singer still vows to go behind his back and do the deed anyway and even threatens to "run away to another galaxy." Now there's a guy who clearly has his shit together. Dad, you're being a dick!

 By the end of the song, Magic! has everybody rallied on their side fighting for justice and equal rights for deadbeats everywhere. They've even taken Twitter by storm with their hashtag #nomeansyes

The song ends as it began. Crappily. And with no successful persuasion. The lesson? When dad says no, ask mom. If they both say no, write a pouty song about it and make millions of dollars.

Well, thank you, Magic!, for teaching Americans that you don't need permission for anything if you want it badly enough.

Also, congratulations on your one hit wonder. I'll be seeing you at the Boise Music Festival in about eight years.

Movie Knockoffs You Love to Hate

So anyone who's ever been to a Redbox kiosk or has browsed through Netflix's library has probably stumbled across one of these gems.

Some of you may have seen one of these and thought "Wow, I thought that movie was still in theaters, but I can get it today! And it's actually in stock! This must be my lucky day!" And after the fateful credit card transaction and confusing, frustrating 10-45 minutes of "...What IS this??" filled with fast-forwarding and double- maybe triple-checking your disc, you realize then that you've been  robbed and deceived and the evil copycatters on that second-floor office in Denver are laughing all the way to the bank.

If you have fallen victim to this atrocity, do not be ashamed. You are not alone.

...I mean, I never have. I'm too smart for them. Bwahaha!

But millions of Americans have been victims of movie duping.  And surprisingly enough it's not a new thing! The first case of movie duping dates back to 1939. Studio execs saw the booming success of a blockbuster and wanted a piece of the pie. They came up with the idea of releasing a sub-par film under a near-identical name and movie poster, thus avoiding pesky copyright laws and banking on the naive, unobservant consumer stumbling in and spending money on a film that they weren't meaning to see. Genius!

Here's one of the actual posters from 1939. 

I probably would've fallen for it myself.

So as you can see, movie duping has been confusing movie-goers way before the birth of Netflix and Redbox. In fact, I can personally tell you of one from my own childhood. 

The year was 1994 (Yes, I'm OLD!!) and I had an unhealthy obsession with The Lion King. I loved this movie so much, I was willing to undergo breakthrough, perhaps borderline illegal surgery to become a lion. But I had posters, bed sheets, dolls, watches...pretty sure I was single handedly bankrolling Disney's Christmas parties with my consumption. But the one piece of Lion King memorabilia I didn't have yet was the most quintessential of them all: the movie itself!

Being a young, stupid child, I didn't understand the concept of scheduled film releases. All I knew was the movie was no longer being shown in the theater and the next step was for it to come out on VHS (...I told you I'm old!) so I bothered my parents to check every day at the video stores to see if The Lion King was on video. Every day I was disappointed. "Not yet, Jamie," they would say. 

"But WHEN??!! Maybe you just didn't see it! Go check again! Go! GO! HURRY BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE BUYS IT!"

Yeah, I was pretty dense.

So one day my father, bless his soul, came home one day from his daily trip to the video store with a parcel in tow. "I got you something you  might liiike!" he sang to me.

I remember promptly abandoning my Lion King cereal and bolting to him, arms extended to the VHS in his hand. "YOU GOT IT!!" I screeched to the world.

When I grabbed the video out of his hands, I feasted my eyes upon it and beheld my coveted--

...

The fuck?

Is this a joke?

Is this some sort of

SICK

FUCKING

JOOOOOKE????!!!

I immediately thrust the atrocity back at my dad like the spoiled brat I was and told him he got the wrong movie. 

"But you might like it better than The Lion King!" he insisted. "You'll never know unless you give it a try!"

Better than The Lion King?

BETTER than The Lion King????

Even with a tiny child brain I could tell from the first glance at the cover that it paled in the shadow of its superior Disney counterpart. The duration of  the film was 45 minutes. The cover animation was lousy.  Siskel and Ebert didn't even give it any thumbs...probably because they knew better not to waste their time! This movie was obviously trying to pass itself off as the loveable blockbuster...or at least trying to sucker in kids like me to watch it! But I knew better. I wasn't going to fall for their shit, and I was going to tell my dad such.

"But Daaaaaad..." was my respectable retort.

"Just give it a chance," he said before leaving me alone with the pathetic excuse for a cartoon.

I grumbled as I shoved the cassette into the VCR thinking "Maybe he's right."

This thought lasted for a grand total of 2.5 seconds. 

The movie was exactly what the cover promised: inferior garbage.

I was so enraged that I left the room several times while the TV played to an empty couch. I think even my VCR was mad. 

45 agonizing minutes later, I rewound the tape (not only am I old, but I'm also courteous to other suckers) and threw it back at my dad proclaiming my rage and disappointment and that I'd never trust any of his decisions again. 

But being as young and idiotic as I was, the rage I was channeling to my father should've been directed to the film executives who spent time making a piece of garbage to market to unsuspecting children as myself and banking on our excitement for a film about anthropomorphic lions. Shame on them! They are the real enemies!

So anyway as you can see, movie duping has been pissing off people of all ages and generations. Don't be a victim! Fight the power! Buy only licensed products! Eat eggs!

Noah...as in "Should I watch this film?" "No-ah!"

Do you guys like my clever title?

What do you mean "what clever title?"!

...I thought it was clever.

Well anyway this is my first film review ever so bear with me as I do it wrong and then you can complain about it to me later and I'll ignore you at first and then be defensive and I may insult you just as a knee-jerk reaction, but then I'll apologize later through a heartfelt text message because I'm too chicken to face you like a man and then we'll make up and go out for pancakes but I'll  be too self-conscious to ever share any more of my writing with you again.

So let's get started!

 Today's review is for the 2014 film Noah! Starring Russell "Can't Sing Javert" Crowe, Emma "Hermione from Harry Potter" Watson and Jennifer "She Doesn't Have A Nickname" Connelly. Directed by Darren Aronofsky best known for directing Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream and one of my favorites The Fountain.

Look at this epic movie poster! Blaaah! You know this film is going to be full of intense action sequences and protrusive bottom jaws!


























The film begins explaining the story we all (well most of us non-heathens) know about the Garden of Eden and Cain and Abel and such. Each brother had his line of descendants and God decided that the descendants of Cain were no good since they somehow got lumped in with Cain's evil nonsense simply by virtue of the fact that they were related to him. Never mind the fact that according to this logic, everybody in the world is related to each other and therefore everyone is related to Cain. So...whatever.

Enter mini Noah and his father out making flowers grow and other magical things. Then this fellow comes along by the name of Tubal-Cain (no, he was not a cylindrical version of Cain if you're wondering) and kills Noah's father claiming that he thus ended the line of Seth, not knowing Noah is hiding behind a rock like a ninja.

Fast forward a couple of decades. Noah has a wife and three sons. ...I don't know, if it were me and I was the last of my family line, I would make a shit ton more babies than three. Just sayin'. So anyway, Noah's family is heading across the land to see his grandfather, Methusela, played by Hannibal Lecter himself - Anthony Hopkins. But he doesn't show up until later. In the meantime, Noah's family stumbles across a village of people who were just slaughtered by the Cain army. Ew, awkward. But there's one survivor, a girl named Ila (Hermione) and Noah thinks "Yay I can take in this female companion so my sons can reproduce and carry on the family line!" until Ila reveals that during the attack on her village, she was stabbed in the baby maker and was rendered useless. This puts Noah in an awkward situation but decides to take the less rude route and take her in regardless.

By the way, what are the chances that during an attack from a guy with a sword that you only get stabbed in the ovaries? It's like

The extended family continues on their journey to see Methusela in his giant mountain cave home.

Now I'm not much of a Bible expert, but I do know that as I was watching the film some things just didn't seem very Bibley. Like I'm pretty sure these rock creatures

aren't anywhere in any translation of the Bible anywhere ever. I mean Aronofsky probably wanted to spiff up the story. I get that. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who was immediately thrown out of the movie thinking "Well when should I expect The Thing to show up?"

I guess I'll fast-forward to the part everybody knows and that's when shit starts to get real. Noah gets a vision from God to build an ark so two of each animal and his family can survive and everybody else can fuck off and die. The rock people help Noah after he makes a forest sprout out of the ground and the family starts building the giant ark.

Part-way through construction, word gets out that God's going to kill everything so millions of animal couples start flocking to the ark. When the wave of bug and creepy-crawly couples show up, Noah's kids' immediate reaction (as mine would) was to swat at them, but Noah sagely replies, "Everything that creeps, crawls and slithers." Easy to say for someone who has never gotten Malaria or West Nile. Thanks a bunch, Noah.

Noah's wife comes up with the idea to put the creatures into a deep sleep by burning incense. Apparently this knocks the animals out cold for the entire duration of the film.

Meanwhile Noah's oldest son, Shem, has grown pretty fond of his barren adoptive sister but is pretty bummed out that his sexual desires won't produce anything useful. His brother, Ham, is super jealous that his brother got dibs on their sister and sets out to find his own baby-maker. Ham wanders into the Cain people village and spots the first young girl within sight and decides that she'll do.

Upset that she'll never bear children and carry on the family line, Ila stumbles upon her adoptive great-grandfather, Anthony Hopkins, who apparently has God-like powers and with one touch suddenly heals Ila of her useless ovaries. Instead of thanking him, she runs back to the ark and collides into Shem where they promptly have sex right then and there. I mean, why waste time, right?

Cain's village has also gotten word of Noah's ark and has schemed to attack him and take over the vessel so they could all have a big party during the end of the world. When it starts to rain, everybody loses their shit and stampedes towards the ark. Ham and his new baby-maker meanwhile are on their way back to the ark as well when the herd of crazy people come barreling towards them. They panic and run, but baby-maker loses her balance and falls. Ham freaks out and tries to go back for her but Noah drags him back to the ark. Baby-maker, apparently completely helpless, just screams for Ham to come back and help her up before promptly getting trampled by the mob and crushed to death. This upsets Ham very much. Way to kill off our species, DAD!

Noah and his family clamor into the ark and the rock people hold off the mob while the rain turns into a flood. As the mob beats on the rock people, one apparently gets beaten too hard and explodes into a beam of light. Slowly one by one each rock person falls and beams back up to heaven in a blaze of glory.

Tubal-Cain isn't really fazed by this and finds way to sneak onto the ark before the waters rise.

Noah's family huddles in the ark while they ignore the distant screams of people drowning and dramatic lamenting about how they're missing out on the ark party. Ila and Shem think this is a good opportunity to inform Noah and his wife that they're going to be grandparents, because apparently one can tell if they're pregnant within 24 hours of sex (??)  Noah and his wife ask how (the hell) that's even possible and when Ila says Noah's grandfather, Methusela, gave her uterus magic healing powers, Noah gets super pissed and vows to murder the baby if it's a girl. If it's a boy, he'll let it grow up a weird, awkward, sexless life and die a lonely old virgin lacking any social skills. Neither of these options make any sense to me! Why would Noah care whether it's a boy or a girl? I'm no biologist, but I'm pretty sure no matter what gender you are born, you need another human of the opposite gender to reproduce, right? So...whatever. Anyway, Noah tells Ila that as soon as that baby pops out, he better see a penis on it or he's making baby soup for dinner. Ila and Shem aren't super happy with how Noah took the news and there's a little bit of family drama that ensues...also, pretty sure none of which made it into the Bible.

Meanwhile Tubal-Cain is somewhere in the ark licking his wounds and feasting off of a unicorn when Ham stumbles upon him. Firstly, Ham scolds Tubal-Cain for devouring the beast his father is working so hard to save, to which T-C replies, "Well, your dad didn't exactly give a crap about you and your..." --His eyes drift to Ham's throbbing package-- "...needs." This gets Ham all fired up as he remembers that his dad ruined Ham's chances of ever getting laid and carrying on the species so he and T-C plot a sinister plot to murder Noah as soon as the ark finds land.

And apparently he's able to hide in the ark for the entire duration of Ila's pregnancy, which again, I'm no doctor, but I've heard that's a nine-month period. During this time, everybody else manages to stay alive on a boat full of angry animals and not go crazy and make friends with volleyballs. Ila's getting pretty preggo when Shem tells his mom that they're escaping on a raft. Noah's wife bids them good-bye as they are about to set sail when Noah trolls up behind them and sets the skiff on fire.

Shem finally decides he's had enough of Noah's shit, never mind that he'd probably be dead if it wasn't for Noah, but he's not really considering that at the moment and attempts to fight Noah and fails miserably as Noah knocks him out with one punch. Like twelve seconds later, Ila goes into labor. I guess it's a good thing Noah set their raft on fire or else Ila would have to have a middle-of-the-endless-ocean birth. Not sure how well that would've gone over. Anyway, Noah's wife, having been well-versed on birthing babies, takes Ila to a spot in the ark to push the kid out.

Meanwhile, Tubal-Cain and Ham decide now's a pretty good time to launch their attack on Noah. Ham comes at Noah and Noah lays him out with one punch. Either Noah never taught his boys how to fight or he's just that badass.

T-C puts up a little more of a struggle and actually knocks Noah down. But then instead of doing Noah in, T-C does the thing where he makes a long-winded speech as most bad guys tend to do, and Ham overcomes his teenage angst and chooses to kill Tubal-Cain instead of his dad. As father and son stand over Tubal-Cain's body, they share a bonding moment.

Meanwhile upstairs, Ila gives birth to a bebeh. Noah's wife says, "But wait there's more!" and Ila turns out to give birth to not one, but TWO bebehs! She looks between the babies' legs and groans. What shit luck!

Upon hearing the groan of double disappointment, Noah abandons his father-son bonding moment with Ham and runs up to murder the bebehs. When he busts into the delivery room, Noah's wife says, "Gee, I don't know where she went. She was just here a second ago..." Noah looks around. "Huh. Weird."

Babies cry from upstairs.

"Dammit," Noah's wife mutters as Noah bolts to the sound wielding his baby-killing knife.

Noah reaches the upper deck where Ila is doing a horrible job hiding and she begs Noah not to kill them. He ignores her and just as he raises his blade to cut up some bebeh, he is suddenly overwhelmed with bebeh and upon seeing bebehs he realizes he shouldn't kill bebehs because bebehs! He drops his knife and gives them each a kiss, which still upsets Ila because now she's super confused and completely untrusting of him now.

In the wake of his peace and love epiphany, the ark hits shore and he tells the family to disembark for family pictures.

On their new home, which is horribly lonely, Noah says a prayer for the family thanking God for the second chance. He also prays that with time, love and tenderness his infant granddaughters and future grandchildren inbreed with each other to start the human race anew the way God wanted.

Ew.

And with that, I conclude my review of Noah as a weird, disturbing and often times confusing cinematic attempt at being profound. I rate it 2 out of 5 Bibles. Take my advice and do what I usually do when I attend church and the collection plate comes my way: Just pass.

The Friend Who Wouldn't Die

Over the weekend I went on a backpacking trip into the mountains. Little did I know I’d be bringing somebody home with me!

And no, you sickos, this story is not about me getting pregnant on this trip and then going through several failed abortions. Wow. You guys disgust me.

So anyway, I went on this camping trip because I’m rugged and outdoorsy and I enjoy a little bit of nature every now and then. On the last day I remember placing a plastic bag of toiletries on the dirt as I packed up my tent. Once I was all packed up, I threw the bag into my backpack and departed the campsite.

After the long weekend of hiking and rugged outdoorsyness coupled with the tiresome drive home, the last thing my tired body wanted to do was unpack everything properly. However I did pull out my bag of toiletries to fish out my deodorant as I was in desperate need of a shower and to smell like something other than dusty socks that have been bathing in an armpit all summer. Forty-five glorious minutes later, I emerged squeaky clean and fresh from the shower rejuvenated and motivated to properly unpack my camping effects. 

The first thing I reached for was my plastic bag of toiletries.

That’s when I met my friend!

My friend is pictured below.

And this isn’t your normal creepy crawly earwig. This was a Sawtooth Wilderness earwig. It eats normal earwigs for “I’m in a munchy mood, but I don’t really feel like eating a full meal” snacks. I mean this was a

giant

fucking

earwig

An earwig that, I deduced, crawled onto my bag of toiletries during the time it was in the dirt and hitched a ride home with me. My initial reaction to meeting my friend the earwig was screeching like a banshee’s pissed-off cat and fleeing to the adjacent room. My husband heard my cat screech and proceeded to ignore me mostly because he had just gotten in the shower after me and wanted to passive-aggressively punish me for taking up all the precious hot water.

I peeked around the corner to see Mr. Earwiggins rapidly crawling around his plastic bag home deciding the best route to take towards my pillow where he could lay his earwig eggs. 

NOPE.

I quickly snatched up the bag, Mr. Earwiggins in tow, and threw the whole thing into the sink. 

Unfazed by his sudden flight and crash landing, the earwig crawled ferociously towards the mouth of the sink. Before he could get to the lip, I turned on my tap water and flushed a huge wave at the fucker and down he washed towards the drain hole. 

And just as quickly as he slid, he regained his gross earwig footing and resumed his crawl towards me. I panicked and flushed more water his way. I tried and tried but no amount of water could sweep this earwig down far enough. I filled a cup as he crawled back up the porcelain and dumped a powerful gush directly on him. This caused him to swirl down the drain hole and I blasted the tap down after him in hopes to flush him down to the depths of the sewer. After running enough water to put out a relatively small forest fire, I shut the tap off and sighed with relief at the riddance of my friend the earwig.

The en….DOOOH MYYY GOOOODDDDD!!!!

The fucker actually crawled OUT OF THE SINK!!! What kind of demonic spawn of Satan was this thing?? I couldn’t think of what else to do except try to flush him down again.

“I’m finally getting some hot water,” husband droned at me.

“Hot water! Good idea!” I said and immediately turned the knob from lukewarm to BOIL. If this earwig wouldn’t drown, I could certainly scald him to death!

On take two I flushed Mr. Earwiggins down the drain and blasted the hot water down on him until steam fogged up the mirror. (“God dammit!!” husband lamented.) As soon the skin on my own face started to blister from the steam, I figured I’d done the job and shut off the tap.

“I think he’s gone,” I reported to husband who had basically endured a five minute ALS ice bucket challenge.

“Great. I hope he was worth it.”

“Indeed,” I nodded and turned back to the sink.

A;woigha;oigaw’oighaw’oeighaw’oegvns’dg THERE HE WAS AGAIN OMG ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOWAAAAHHALGKHASLDGHASLDKGHSADHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHWEHGAWLEGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111

At this point I just started throwing random objects at him, hoping that any one of these projectiles would end this demon’s life or at least suspend his immortal soul so that I could dispose of his flesh vessel.

One of the objects I threw was a Kleenex box. Although the sharp corner of the box didn’t end Mr. Earwiggins’ life like I had planned, it did give me a relatively good idea.

I grabbed out a tissue from the box and used it to pinch Mr. Earwiggins into a suffocating trap of soft whiteness. Then in one sweeping motion, I threw the toilet seat open and tossed the Kleenex into the bowl with Mr. Earwiggins sailing with it. “Plip” went the Kleenex and Mr. Earwiggins’ earwiggy body wiggled beneath the damp tissue as it floated on the surface of the toilet water. 

“And now you meet your end!” I announced as I pushed down on the lever to flush him to his doom.

The water slurped down through the hole and I watched as the two ply Kleenex separated in the flushing process. One half got sucked down into the depths but the other half…

“Are you frickin’ KIDDING me!!” I screamed as Mr. Earwiggins, still underneath his wet Kleenex shroud, clung to the side of the bowl as the flushing water flowed over him.

“Maybe he’s just not meant to die,” husband suggested, rather impressed with the earwig’s tenacious will to live.

“NO!” I insisted, frantically flushing the toilet again. “He MUST DIE!!”

Finally the second flush swept Mr. Earwiggins and his Kleenex down into the hole and through the pipes. I watched for several moments with my hand ready at the lever for a third time, fourth time, as many times as I needed to drown him and rid him from my life forever.

He never crawled back out.

It has been five days, 28 flushes and 13 hefty bowel movements since this incident and I’m happy to report that no Sawtooth Wilderness earwigs have been spotted crawling out of my bathroom to reap revenge and lay earwig eggs.

Thus ends the horrific tale of Mr. Earwiggins, the friend who wouldn’t die.