Out with it. Which one of y'all had Candid Camera following me yesterday?

I had a weird morning yesterday. Let me tell y'all all about it.

I had an appointment with a dermatologist. I hadn't been to a dermatologist since I was in elementary school when I had the misfortune of experiencing a brief but awful, disgusting, incredibly gross problem with warts on my hands. Ick.

I made an appointment because I had a 'spot' on my upper thigh that was concerning to me since a couple of family members have had skin cancer. My primary care doctor had looked at it when I went for a physical last month and advised me to have a dermatologist tell me for sure what was going on. Turns out it is simply a funky kind of scar tissue that appears as an irregularly shaped spot with red in the center of it.

When the nurse took me back to the examining room, she instructed me to undress and put on the lovely paper gown we all know and love. She explained that since it was my first visit he was going to examine me from head to toe (I found out how literal her words were when the doc was looking at the bottoms of my feet and in between my toes). This would have been, while not enjoyable, at least acceptable had they offered me a paper gown large enough for a plus-sized body. I could barely make the paper reach all the way around me and it certainly was not going to stay closed. While I was in the room waiting, I went through every single cabinet and drawer in there looking for the paper drapes or blanket type things they often have. I didn't find one. Obviously.

The doctor walked in and reached his hand out to shake mine as he introduced himself. I tried to keep the gown closed with my left hand while I reached out my right one to shake his, and my very first words ever to this doctor were "Hi! I'm trying really hard not to flash you right now since we've just met." He cracked up, then his face turned bright red and he turned around and told his nurse to get me a blanket. Stat. He wouldn't even look at me until I was properly covered. I immediately liked him. I don't know why I was so worried about showing him my bidness since I also needed him to look at another spot.

And this particular spot was right between my boobs. Of course. I can't get spots on my shin or an arm. I have to get them between my boobs. He looked at it and said "let's go ahead and take this off. Lay back". And then he stuck me with a gigantic needle and then sliced me. It was over in less than 45 seconds. I now have to clean the wound twice a day, put an antibiotic cream on it, and keep a bandage on for two days. Do y'all have any idea how uncomfortable a bandaid is between your boobs? It's not very comfy at all. Try it sometime. Or not.

But the stupidest part of my day happened when I got back to the parking deck to get in my car. I went to open my door only to discover the car parked next to me was parked really close to the line and had pulled in just far enough that I could only open my door about 4 inches before my door was up against their side mirror. And this was a problem (SEE ABOVE: I can't fit a paper gown around me).

"No problem" I said to myself. "I'll just go to the passenger side and get in and crawl across the seat to the driver's side."

I walked around to the passenger side to find that the car on that side had parked all kinds of jacked up and there was no way to open that door more than about 3 inches. What I found myself in was a big pickle.

If there were security guards watching a camera and saw me, I'm sure they were howling with laughter. I was walking back and forth to each side of my car, waving my arms in the air above my head, rolling my eyes, and talking to myself out loud wondering how the heck I was going to make it to work.

Finally I decided my only option was to try getting in the back seat and crawling up to the front. I got in the back seat. I have an SUV and the console between my front seats is big, bulky, and high. It took me many attempts to hoist my right leg up over the console and over into the passenger seat in the front without cracking my head open on the roof of my car. I then sort of stood up on my right leg while bent over in half at the waist, quickly slung my left leg up and over the console and into my driver's seat and plopped down straddling the gear shift. Right on top of the water bottle that was in my cup holder. I would advise none of you to plop your right cheek down on top of a water bottle because it hurts. Bad.

I screamed, said a bad word, and then found myself with a really bad side cramp from all of that twisting and bending and plopping on water bottles. And because I started laughing so hard.

And the winner is......

Y'all cracked me up with your funny stories!

Bobbi and her run-away car.

Aunt Dahlia/CDP/(parenthetical) and her KISS concert with her 70 year old Great Aunt Ruth.

Liz and her loveable but quirky Nanny who vacuumed cats.

Grace (who does not want to be linked to) peeing in the bushes.

Karisma and her inability to keep a secret.

Being a cat owner, I'm not sure I was laughing at Seven's cat incident story, but I imagine some of y'all will laugh. Okay. I admit it. I chuckled a bit when I read it.

And I think it's hysterical and cute all at the same time that Dallas thought human babies were hatched from eggs.

Since y'all had such humorous stories, and since the book I'm giving away as the prize is a funny book, I figured I needed to come up with a way to pick the winner which was not boring. I didn't want to ask any of my co-workers, friends, or family members to draw a name because my blog is top secret among the people I know in real life. I couldn't think of any good reasons to tell them I needed them to draw a name for me.

So I let my cat choose. That's right....Bailey chose a winning name for me.

I wrote all of your names down on pieces of paper. Bailey was napping under my bed so I laid on the floor, lifted up the bed skirt and told her to stop dreaming about chasing squirrels and get to work. I lined up the pieces of paper on the floor in front of her and instructed her to put her paw on one of them. This worked, uhm, not very well. She stared at me as if I had two heads. I begged and pleaded and she continued staring. Finally, FINALLY she started looking a little interested. I pleaded with her to pick a name. She did. She reached over towards the pieces of paper and pulled one towards her. And while I was busy acting like a complete loon by laying in the floor looking under my bed and begging my cat to draw a name for a blog contest I discovered that I really need to move my bed and vacuum under there. My word.

The winner is: AUNT DAHLIA/CDP/(parenthetical)!!!!!! What name should I be calling you by the way? Send me an email to Creativemoxie AT gmail DOT com (or you can use Bevvyc AT comcast DOT net) with your snail mail info so I can get your prize in the mail soon.

And now a brief message from the prize picker:

Dear contestants,

I think Sauntering Soul has lost her mind, however, I guess that's been happening for a while now. Can you believe she expected me to get excited about being asked to pick a winner of her blog contest? I have so many other important things to do like plot the next place I'm going to nap, watch some birds and squirrels through the window, run a few laps through this tiny house of ours, pee on something I'm not supposed to, cough up a hairball or two so I can watch her gag when she cleans it up (that's my secret favorite), well...you get the picture. AND I cannot believe she wanted me to even consider choosing an entry involving hanging a cat. But she certainly did sneak that name in the pieces of paper she laid out in front of me. If she didn't feed me every day and provide me a soft bed to curl up with her on at night I might have to pee on her pillow for including that particular entry. Aunt Dahlia, I don't know if you're a "cat person" or not, but since I chose your name, I hope we can be buddies now. Oh I almost forgot....I'm a cat so I don't really care if you like me or not.

Bailey

Fun Monday - I have way too much stuff

Our hostess for this week's challenge is Mariposa and she wants to hear about our collections. She asked us to share photos if possible, write about what we collect, and why we started our particular collections.

First of all, I don't have photos to share because (1) my collections aren't really exciting enough to take photos of, or they are impossible to take photos of, and (2) I've been out of town visiting my grandmother because she was in the hospital this past week and so I haven't really had time to take photos, download them, etc. and I'm exhausted and ready to go to sleep at the moment.

I don't have any 'normal' collections such as teacups or dishes or a certain type of knick knack that one might display in their home on a shelf or in a curio cabinet.

Here are a few things I have collected over the years:

1. Ex-boyfriends. I certainly am not going to share photos of that collection. This collection consists of old ones, young ones, fat ones, skinny ones, boring ones, exciting ones, responsible ones, irresponsible ones, creative ones, and stodgy ones. I started this particular collection around the age of 16 and continued adding to it until age 25 when I took a second look at one of them which led to a marriage. Apparently, that second look consisted of ignoring the plethora of red flags flapping wildly in my face. After my divorce at age 35, I added a couple of additional ones but I seemed to have more trouble finding ones worth adding to my collection than I had in my younger years. In November 2006, I decided to throw them all away and keep only one: Hot Brazilian.

2. Pins. I would show you photos but, to be quite honest, I don't have a clue where the collection currently is. My guess is that it's in the closet in my art room but to find anything in that closet is dangerous. Y'all might have to send out a search party if I decided to go in there and look for anything at all. That is if I could even get through my art room and actually unblock the closet door to look. I really don't remember what age I was when I began collecting pins but I was fairly young and I'm not sure what caused me to begin collecting them. For instance, I have a pin for Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign much like this one:

(Remember, I'm from Georgia so it was kind of required of us to support him.) Since I was born in 1968 and he was President in 1977, you can see that my pin collection started when I was fairly young. Actually, I just remembered another one that I have in my collection which is even older. We have an incredible old theater here in Atlanta called the Fox Theater. It was built in the late 1920's, and in 1974 the phone company tried to buy the theater and wanted to tear it down and build their headquarters on the property. The people of Atlanta were really upset and a campaign began to "Save the Fox". I have a pin from that campaign. I probably have around 150 - 200 pins in my collection even though I haven't added anything to it since I was in middle school or high school which was almost 25 years ago.

3. Art Supplies. Oh my word do I have a huge collection of art supplies. But that's incredibly boring to show a photo of.

4. Unread Books and Magazines. This collection consists of so many stacks I would be completely mortified to share photos of it.

5. Uncool/Unhip CD's. I love, love, love, love music. But if you asked me what Ashlee Simpson's latest song is or whether or not I've heard Fergie's latest, I would have to tell you no. I never listen to the radio unless I'm in the car with my mom and she only listens to Christian radio stations. Last time I heard, they aren't playing Fergie or Ashlee Simpson. If anyone looks at my CD collection, they normally walk away scratching their head with a confused look on their face because they probably have only heard of 5 of the artists in my collection of probably 200 CD's. BUT, when I pick one out and play it, nine times out of ten, they will love what I play. I have dated a couple of musicians (see Collection #1 above) and have CD's from them. I have a pretty extensive collection of blues music and a lot of them are from seeing live bands which no one has heard of. I also have many CD's from Nashville songwriters that perform at a local barbecue place just outside of Atlanta (I'm not a huge country fan but these songwriters aren't super duper twangy, commercial sounding country singers). If I named any of them I would bet most of you have never heard of them. I also have an extensive collection of international music. I love Brazilian (and loved it way before I met Hot Brazilian), flamenco, Spanish, Cuban, etc. I have a couple of Yugoslavian artists, a Japanese drumming only band, etc. Many Saturday afternoons you may find me in the international music section at a book store listening to CD's I've never heard of and then you would see me purchase a couple to add to my collection. And I'm a dork and have them organized as follows: First, they are divided by type of music, and then they are in alphabetical order. It's the only way I can ever find what I'm looking for.

6. Watches. The crazier, bigger, and wilder the better. I think I have about 30 watches but oddly enough, I haven't worn a watch in about 4 years. Now, all of the batteries are dead in them and it would cost me a small fortune to get them all working again.

I think that's about all I collect unless you want to hear about how I still have all of my Brownie and Girl Scout badges and pins, I seem to have recently purchased a fourth set of dishes which I have no room for, and the fact that the reason I can't get to the closet in my art room is because there are approximately 5 boxes of Pampered Chef products that I've bought in the past year despite the fact that I have run out of any cabinet space to fit them in.

Be sure to visit Mariposa for a list of other collectors.

P.S. If you want to check it out, I have a contest which ends at midnight, Monday, May 19!

This may be a sign of some kind I should read instead of watching so much television

First a reminder: Don't forget to enter my contest before Monday at midnight!

Now, on to the normal boring post you are accustomed to when you come by here. I'm a HUGE fan of American Idol. That's why it pains me to say this. I may not watch the finale next week because this has to be one of the most boring seasons of AI to date. (Well, boring after Michael Johns was voted off entirely too early anyway.) I honestly do not care who wins because I'm not crazy about either of the finalists. I've Tivo'd almost every episode for the past month and a half and ended up fast-forwarding through huge portions of every episode. It's just been so awful this season.

Anyway, all of that makes it even stranger that I had an AI dream earlier this week. I'm chalking it up to complete exhaustion but I think it might be that I watch and talk about AI way too much. Even when I'm bored with this season.

I dreamed that next season they decided to do something to really make it exciting when they got down to 4 contestants. They had each contestant choose a family member to participate in a live show just so the public could realize how tough the contest is. You guessed it: I was related to a contestant and I was their chosen family member. This might be a good time to tell y'all that I'm terrified of public speaking (my voice shakes so bad that I sound like I'm 2 seconds away from bursting into tears). So you might imagine how, even in a dream, the thought of singing on live television made me want to wet my pants (for the record, I didn't).

For a few days, we had to go through wardrobe, tape a ridiculous Ford commercial, conduct interviews, go through hair and makeup, etc. You might notice that I left out a rather important part of Idol.....we didn't get to rehearse.

Two hours before the live show, we had to choose our song and we got to practice it ONE time with the band. Here's the kicker: the theme was "Songs by Collective Soul". Holy crap. Do you have any idea just how awful I sound when I sing along to the Collective Soul I have in my CD collection? It's bad y'all. Really bad. So I chose a song (and it was a made up dream song rather than one that actually exists in real life) and I practiced once with the band. Then I went out on stage.

You might think that since this was a dream, I did really well. You would be wrong. I sucked. And after we sang, we had to stand in front of the judges to be critiqued. Randy said "Dawg, that was really bad", Paula said "I'm sorry Beverly but that really wasn't very good" and Simon told me I was "absolutely atrocious" and he added that "it was one of the most painful songs I've ever had to sit through" and I began to bawl like a baby. It was my super ugly cry. And I did it right there on stage in front of a live audience and millions of people watching it on TV.

This dream made me feel a little bit more compassion for David Archuleta and all of his 'goshes' and the little nervous grin he always has on his face. He's only 17 years old. Now, let me be clear of one thing - it didn't make me think I'd ever be able to listen to an entire CD of him singing in a million years. But it did make me think about just how much pressure he has on his little 17 year old self right now.

But I'm still ticked off that this guy isn't going to be in the finale next week and that no one told me about him while he lived here in Atlanta and played at a club less than a mile from my office on a regular basis:

Oh my word. The things I do for you people.

An alternative title to this post might be: "A very impromptu way to spend an evening". Or "Crap. I'm exhausted."

But first, a little background to explain what a sacrifice I made for y'all because I do like to whine as much as possible on this blog. I guess you knew that already though.

Last night after work, I went to dinner with a group of friends. I got back home around 9:30. I then started watching Dancing With the Stars and I was going to follow it up by watching the season finale of The Bachelor (hello, I'm Sauntering Soul and I'm addicted to reality TV) because I knew all of my co-workers would have watched them both and be discussing them today. Just after I started watching DWTS, Hot Brazilian called me. He needed my assistance on a couple of things and I needed to have what turned into an extended discussion of a Spanish word (a not very nice word that someone called a relative of a co-worker and she had asked me to find out what it meant) so I was on the phone for a while with him. Then I decided that since I hosted Fun Monday yesterday I should probably actually visit all of the participants I had not yet had time to visit since they were nice enough to sign up and confess what jerks they are. I then went back to Dancing With the Stars and then stayed up and watched The Bachelor. I finally crawled into bed at about 2:00 which is at least 3 hours or more past my normal bedtime.

I have barely been able to keep my eyes open today.

I knew I needed to stop by Whole Foods on my way home for a couple of things and, most importantly of all, food for Bailey. Bailey only got half of her normal portion this morning because I'm a cruel cat owner who didn't stop on my way home from dinner last night to buy her food. And if she didn't get a little more to eat tonight, I would most likely be subject to some sort of punishment from her. The last time she punished me for something she peed all over my leather sofa AND my leather chair. I do not ever want a repeat of that. So a food stop was a must.

However, something else happened today and this is where my sacrifice for y'all comes in. Are any of you a fan of Jen Lancaster? If not, you should think about it. She has a blog that I read from time to time and her third book was just released last week. I know Bobbi is a big fan of hers because I won a contest on Bobbi's blog a while back and my prize package included a copy of Jen Lancaster's second book, Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why it Often Sucks in the City, or Who Are All These Idiots and Why Do They Live Next Door to Me?, which might be one of the most awesome book titles ever and reading it made me laugh really, really hard. And as far as I'm concerned, laughing really, really hard is a great thing to do.

I stopped over at Jen's blog around 5:20 this afternoon and discovered she was going to be doing a book reading and book signing tonight at 7:00 at a Barnes and Noble which just so happens to be located half-way between my office and my house. Despite my absolute exhaustion due to my shortened night of sleep last night, I immediately decided to sacrifice for y'all by stopping by the reading instead of going straight home and crashing in my bed. Trust me, my bed is super comfy so this is a big deal but I thought I might get some blog fodder out of going to the reading and the blog fodder has been sorely lacking in my life lately. There is some blog fodder which I will try to write about in more detail in the next day or so.

So, I left my office at 6:00, ran into Whole Foods, which happens to be located half-way between my office and the Barnes and Noble, for cat food, olive oil, bananas, and hemp protein powder for my morning fruit smoothies (the bananas and the protein powder go in my smoothies - not the cat food and olive oil because that would be gross), and then arrived at Barnes and Noble around 6:35 p.m.

Jen came out at 7:00, did a short intro, shared a reading from her new book, and then answered questions. The reading/discussion lasted approximately an hour and then I stood in line for another hour to get a copy of her new book signed. Since I had to stop for the all important cat food, I didn't arrive in time to get a seat for the reading. I stood up for the reading and then stood in line which means I was standing for a total of two and a half hours. For a chubby girl who sits at a desk all day long, this was what I call "not enjoyable". I was also sweating profusely because people were trying to squeeze in to the small area where the reading was being held and they were all up in my personal space and it made me hot. I do not like strangers being that close to me. All of that means that instead of getting home between 6:30 and 7:00 and going straight to bed tonight, I instead arrived home at almost 9:30 and then watched American Idol, talked to Hot Brazilian, and typed up this probably rather incoherent post.

If you are already a fan of Jen then I will tell you this about her: She is absolutely charming in person. She's beautiful. And she's just as hysterical in person as she is on her blog and in her books. Oh, and also, she really does wear pearls, she had on one of the cutest dresses I've ever seen in my life and she was carrying a fabulous new bag.

The truth is, I bought two copies of her book and had them both signed. One of them has my name in it so I'm going to keep that one. The other one is going to be a prize for one of y'all because I have some of the most awesome people on earth who come and read all of the nonsense I write here and leave behind some lovely comments. As an aside, I told Jen while she was signing them that I was going to throw a little contest on my blog and give one of them away as a prize. She smiled and thought that was great. She asked me what my blog was about. I told her I basically write about my day to day life which is entirely less exciting than hers. Then she asked me what the name of my blog is. I told her. She had never heard of it. Big freakin' surprise.

So here is the contest I've decided on: Jen said her next book is already in the works and it's going to be a memoir about her childhood. Leave me a comment and tell me one of the funniest stories you remember from your childhood (or, if you've blogged about it in the past, feel free to link to it). I'll leave the contest open until midnight next Monday night (May 19th). I will announce the winner on Tuesday, May 20th.

If you enter the contest, you have to be okay with e-mailing me your snail mail address. I can assure you that I do not have the money to pay for a plane ticket or for gas to drive to your town and stalk you. If you live here in Atlanta, I can assure you that I honestly have no desire to stalk anyone nor do I think I would know how to really. They don't teach stalking etiquette and techniques to us southern gals when we're being raised. But wouldn't that be hilarious if they did: "When stalking someone, make sure you always send the stalking victim a 'Thank You' note for letting you sit outside their house all night" or "Be sure you say 'Please' when begging your victim to not call the police" or "When taking secret photographs of your stalking victim, always try to photograph them at a flattering angle". I believe this last paragraph makes it clear that exhaustion has taken over my brain. I can't wait to hear your funny childhood stories! But right now, I'm going to bed.

Edited to add: I just re-read that last paragraph and it has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever written. But I can't tell y'all how sleepy I was when I was posting last night. Anyway, I thought it might be nice if I actually linked y'all to the book I'm offering as the prize. Here it is: Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest To Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, Or Why Pie is Not The Answer . I read the first chapter last night and I was already cracking up. But then I went to sleep. Because in case I haven't already mentioned it, I was exhausted.

Fun Monday - My Inner Jerk(s)

This week I am hosting Fun Monday (list of participants is over in the left side bar). It's not too late to sign up! See the post below this one if you still want to participate. This is the challenge I issued:

I know we all try to be sweet and kind to people the majority of the time. But let's face it....we also know that sometimes we can be a big jerk. It could be that you experience road rage from time to time. Perhaps you empty the coffee pot at work some mornings and don't feel like taking the time to start a new pot for the next person. Or maybe you don't return phone calls on a timely basis when you know someone needs a response from you. Have you ever "accidentally" ruined a favorite shirt of your spouse just because you didn't care for it? Come on - it's confession time! List the small things you do that make you a jerk and elaborate just a bit on each one. Please tell me I'm not the only jerk around here!

Most of the time I'm very nice to people. In fact, I was once very, very angry at an attorney who worked at my old firm. In my defense, she was one of the most difficult people I've ever met in my life and one assistant after another either quit or refused to work for her, clients demanded to have her taken off their cases time and time again, etc. - luckily she was not my boss. When I had to confront her one time to defend myself against something she said that wasn't true she later told several people I was "extremely diplomatic". And that was when I was super p---ed off. So no, I don't think I'm that big of a jerk usually. But I know I have my moments of total jerkiness.

I have several different 'jerk personalities' and they are as follows:

1. My Elevator Jerk: If I'm in a particular mood or I'm running late for work and I see someone coming to get on the elevator, I will punch the 'Door Close' button a thousand times and say a prayer that the doors will close before that complete stranger can get on the elevator with me. Other times when I'm not in that particular mood, I will go out of my way to hold the door for someone.

2. My Parking Deck Jerk: A lot of people in my parking deck like to take up two spaces sometimes and it sends me into crazed mad woman mode when they do so. We all pay for parking. As far as I know, we are all paying the same $55 monthly fee for the pleasure of parking unless you want a reserved spot and then you pay more. Why do some people think that $55 monthly fee entitles them to two spots every day? If we're all paying the same amount, why shouldn't everyone get to take up two spaces? Oh that's right.....because there are not enough spaces for that to happen! I keep paper and pens in my car. When my Parking Deck Jerk emerges from her shell, I will leave you a super nasty note under your windshield wiper. And guess what? I must have scared that Toyota Camry driver because they don't do it anymore.

3. My Neighbor Jerk: My upstairs neighbors drive me crazy y'all. It's not just the noise. It's not just the fact that they sound like they're dropping concrete blocks on the floor right above my head on an almost daily basis. It's not just the fact that they and their girlfriends take up all of the parking all the time. There are other things too. For instance, our trash pick up takes place on Wednesday mornings. For three out of the past four weeks, I've come home from work on Wednesday night to find that they have completely filled up the trash can right after the trash has picked up. So then we have to look at an overflowing trash can for a week and I can't fit one bag of trash in the trash can. Why can't they manage to put out all of their trash the night before? I have no idea. One of the guys has lived upstairs for two years and he's a grad student at Georgia Tech so you would think he could have figured out when trash pick up occurs on our street. But apparently not. So I get them back in the only small ways I can. When Fed Ex, UPS or DHL deliver packages to them, they always leave them at my front door. I normally leave them sitting on my front porch for several days. (My theory is they probably know when they are expecting a pkg and if they aren't smart enough to look around for it then that's their problem.) After several days of it sitting on my front porch, I walk around to the side of the house and dump it on the ground at the bottom of the stairs up to their apartment. What's that? It's starting to rain and their pkg is in a cardboard box? Oh well, that's just too bad. Because I'm a big jerk. And sometimes I might 'accidentally' not realize it's 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday when I turn my music up. Or maybe I do realize it and I'm just a big jerk.

4. My Family Jerk. I love my family but they can drive me batsh** crazy sometimes. It's Mother's Day as I'm writing this and I do love my mom but she's the worst one sometimes. She must think I'm living a super duper exciting life and have lots of exciting stuff to tell her EVERY SINGLE DAY. She calls me every single day and repeatedly asks "what's going on with you?" "Nothing." "Well, tell me. What's going on?" "Nothing." "There's got to be something going on." "Mom, nothing exciting is going on in my life." "Well, how's work? Have you been working on any more paintings? Have you and your friends gone to dinner lately?" "Mom, I have gone to work. I've watched Dancing With the Stars and American Idol. That's it. Nothing exciting is going on." And then I clam up for the remainder of the (very one-sided on her part) conversation. I mumble an 'uhmm' or an 'okay' every now and then but I make it clear that she is severely bothering me. And I know it hurts her feelings that I don't just talk and talk and talk, but seriously....I don't have stuff to talk about with her every single day. I know I should appreciate that she is showing an interest in my life and that I could have much worse problems to deal with, but it drives me insane some days. I talk to my dad once every few months and then I actually have stuff to talk about because the things I've done have built up to enough to have a semi-interesting conversation about them. I'm not saying my mom should only call me every few months but she also shouldn't feel like I have really interesting stuff to tell her every single day and she should not hound me to tell her every detail of my life. Because it turns me into a jerk who can't get off the phone fast enough. (This is my inner jerk I hate the most. I hate being this way towards her.)

5. My Traffic/Commuting Jerk: If you are ever driving around Atlanta and you see me....don't tick me off. You've been warned. Don't cut in front of me. Don't drive super slow and make me miss a green light when we could have easily both made it through before it turns red. Don't wait until the last minute on the expressway to get over in the right lane to exit just because you think your time is more valuable than mine and you shouldn't sit in that exiting lane for 30 minutes like everyone else. Don't decide to do a U-turn in the middle of Peachtree Street in the height of rush hour (seriously, a lady did this right in front of me one day - for those who don't know, Peachtree is one of the most major streets through the middle of the City of Atlanta). Don't go sightseeing and drive slowly down Peachtree during rush hour pointing out buildings to your passengers (this happens approximately 3 mornings every week). Because if you do any of these things? I will ride on your butt so close it will scare the bejeebus out of you. While I do this, I will be honking, screaming obscenities and making every hand gesture you can possibly imagine. And when the opportunity presents itself, I will change lanes, pull up beside you, roll down my window and scream my bloody head off. If you can't tell, my traffic/commuting jerk is the least passive one of all. I never yell at people except in traffic (I never even yelled at my ex-husband and there were many times I really couldn't stand him and he could infuriate me like nobody on this earth ever has or ever will). I VERY rarely curse in other situations in my life. But traffic and commuting in Atlanta is enough to make my head spin and is one of the most anger-producing things I have to deal with in my life. And that's on a normal/good day. When someone does something stupid, it makes me completely lose it. I have a 5 mile commute to work each way. A great commute takes me 30-35 minutes. It has taken me well over an hour on many occasions. To drive 5 miles. It makes me crazy mad sometimes. In my defense, Forbes magazine just ranked Atlanta as having the worst commute in the country. Here are a couple of samples of what it's like. Cars on the expressway at a complete stop:



I think that's enough confession for one post. I've said it......I'm a huge jerk. Now go visit the other big jerks, er, I mean participants in my side bar! And Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there!!!!

Fun Monday - Sign Up Here!

THIS SHOULD BE A STICKY POST. I HOPE. SCROLL DOWN FOR NEWER POSTS. Within the past few days, Blogger made it possible to schedule posts to be published at a later date and so when I tried earlier to post-date this to make it a sticky post it made it a scheduled post and wouldn't publish it. Megan told me to try it again and it seems to be working. Tomorrow? Who knows what Blogger might do with it. Thanks Megan!

This is my first attempt at hosting Fun Monday next Monday, May 12. And I'm sorry it has taken me this long to post the challenge but I've been doing fun things like: spending hours searching for files that people had in their office and now they are in MOSCOW on vacation (the people are in Moscow, not the files - the files have disappeared completely so they may be in Helsinki on vacation for all I know), dealing with family drama, sitting in extra-super crappy Atlanta traffic so that it has taken me an hour to drive 5 miles home the past two nights (and let the world give thanks I'm not a drinker after that), and trying really hard not to strangle my upstairs neighbors. It's been a stellar couple of days (stellar because I haven't actually strangled them yet).

Since I just started participating in Fun Monday in November, I went back and reviewed Robin's incredibly helpful list of all of the past themes and pretty much the first five things I thought of had already been done before I started. So I kept having to go back to the drawing board (not really because I cannot draw well at all) and that is also a reason it took me so long to come up with something. So if all of those other people had not thought of my ideas first and I wasn't chasing files all over the place at work which took up all of my thinking and Fun Monday theme pondering time, you'd have a much better challenge. Some of you are thinking I should have pondered it while sitting in traffic but I was busy pondering curse words instead. So this is what I came up with and we shall all blame it on my stress level at the moment:

I know we all try to be sweet and kind to people the majority of the time. But let's face it....we also know that sometimes we can be a big jerk. It could be that you experience road rage from time to time. Perhaps you empty the coffee pot at work some mornings and don't feel like taking the time to start a new pot for the next person. Or maybe you don't return phone calls on a timely basis when you know someone needs a response from you. Have you ever "accidentally" ruined a favorite shirt of your spouse just because you didn't care for it? Come on - it's confession time! List the small things you do that make you a jerk and elaborate just a bit on each one. Please tell me I'm not the only jerk around here!

Let me know if any of your links aren't correct in the side bar and I'll fix them.

Mariposa has volunteered to host for next week. Thanks Mariposa!

There are spies everywhere. Spies and hackers.

This has not been a fun week for me with the exception of going to a painting class last night. For instance, today I had the complete joy of putting together and sending out 85 packages via Fed Ex. Aren't I lucky?

I've really been struggling with having anything to write about on here. But then I stopped over at Pop Culture Librarian to see what she's had to say and her post from today instantly reminded me of something that happened last weekend. She was discussing how random strangers in her city have said bizarre things to her lately (for instance, someone called her 'Snickerdoodle'). It reminded me of my experience at the ATM last Saturday.

My mom and I were going to get a massage (okay, so I've done two fun things in the past week) and on the way, I needed to stop by my bank to make a deposit and run a couple of other errands. Since it was Saturday afternoon, the bank was closed so I knew I'd be making my deposit at the ATM. As we drove up, there was a guy at the ATM and there were 4 people in line behind him There are no other branches for my bank anywhere else close by so I jumped in line. The guy who was already at the machine was taking FOREVER. Seriously. Forever. I don't know how long he had already been there when I got in line but after I joined the others he was there for at least 4 or 5 minutes. That's a long time to spend making a transaction at an ATM.

Approximately 30 - 45 seconds after I got in line a lady walked up behind me. She leaned over and whispered in my ear the following:

"That guy at the machine is a spy. There's damn spies all over the place."

Wha--? I turned and looked at her with a puzzled look on my face. She continued:

"All of these people in line are spies. And they're going to take all of the money from the machine because they're out to get me. As soon as I get up there all the money will be missing and I won't be able to get any."

I quickly told her I was making a deposit and was not removing one dime from the ATM.

I should add that the man in front of me was Hispanic. She then said - rather loudly:

"These G-- damn foreigners are ruining our country. Look at all of them. They're everywhere. This country is going to hell. It's the f---ing spies and G-- damn foreigners."

I decided it was in my best interest to not share with her that my boyfriend is a foreigner.

Then she started whispering in my ear again which, quite frankly, was way too far into my personal space. I was a bit afraid if I told her to back off she might bite me or something crazier. She was whispering this:

"I get hacked all the time. I can be sitting at a row of computers and the people on all of the other computers around me are all hacking into my computer. I've seen 'em do it. They all want to know what I'm doing on the computer. And you know it's our government paying them to do it. They're not doing it for fun. The government is using our tax money to pay people to go to computer centers and hack people to see what they're doing. I think they're watching me right now. And the people in this line are hackers. They're going to hack into that ATM machine before I get up there so they can take my money."

And my brilliant response was "yeah, you might be right". WTF? Y'all, I really had no idea how to respond to this lady.

Then she said: "I made a deposit yesterday. Do you think my money is in there yet?"

How the heck would I know. I responded: "Uhm, I really have no idea. I guess it depends on what time you made the deposit and what the cut-off time is."

That got her started again: "Why the hell can't you get credit if you make a deposit at 11:59 p.m.? Can't the computers put your money in there that day? Why is the cut-off time so early?"

I said: "M'am, I really don't know. I have no clue how the bank's computer system is set up."

She then said: "Well, I don't guess it really matters anyway because all of the spies and hackers have already stolen all the money before I get up there."

And thankfully at that point it was my turn to get up to the machine.

In other news, I did a good deed last Friday. One of my really dear friends who works on another floor of my law firm sent out an e-mail asking if anyone had jumper cables. The one good thing I got out of my marriage was a good set of jumper cables so I told her I would help her out. She then informed me she didn't need them. Her boss did. Our parking deck is ten levels so she told me what level to look for him. I drove around and finally found him. Poor thing. He was trying to make it to a school performance for one of his kids and found himself with a dead battery. We jumped his car in a matter of seconds. And thankfully this good deed did not necessitate me getting super close to touching anyone's naughty bits.