All posts by Licketysplit

I’ve got your advice right here! Hot, steaming advice!

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Dear Vomitola,

how do I get bloodstains out of my carpet?

Signed, Newly Single

Dear NS,

It is really tacky that you have a bloody carpet. Consider bamboo flooring.

-V

Dear Vomitola,

don’t you have anything better to do?

Signed, Your Conscience

Dear YC,

actually, there are sixteen thousand things I’m supposed to be doing. Other Wife couldn’t handle even one day at my house, so she already left. She let the air out of my tires too! However, I can’t do these sixteen thousand things because I have a child attached to me at this moment. It is a miracle that I cleaned the shower and had a meal.

-V

OK, here’s a real one:

“Ethicist: my coworkers are constantly interrupting me.
If I grunt and look back at my screen, I’m a bitch.
But if I respond and chat, I don’t get anything done.
What shall I do?”

The Ethicist replies: You should wear headphones and sing along to whatever is playing. Smile and nod and make “I can’t hear you” motions. Smiling is cheerful, so you are not a bitch. May I suggest a little Manilow? Or Pitbull.

Will you plural marry me?

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It has come to my attention that Mr. H needs a second wife. He doesn’t know it yet, but I think that’s just the ticket. Other wife could watch a baby and do all the shopping and the cleaning. Other wife would pay the bills online and remember to buy and send cards for all festive days. Other wife would keep extra birthday presents for a variety of child age ranges in the closet for the occasions when Mr. H accepts an invitation to a friend’s child’s party and doesn’t tell any wives until it’s too late to shop. Because I would totally bring the kid a box of thumbtacks or whatever else I found lying around in the office. Other wife would preserve the balance of graciousness in our lives.

Other wife would use a toothbrush to scrub around the faucet in the kitchen. She’d fold underwear so crisply. God, other wife is a saint. She’s as beautiful as she is generous. She can speak three languages, and she taught a baby sign language. She’d fill out the customs forms at the post office since I hate doing that. She knows so many ways to prepare quinoa! Her handwriting is also impeccable.

Me, I’ll be on the lanai with a delicious smoothie! Other wife remembered the damn bananas at the store!

Everywhere you look

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Suddenly I find myself doing time in Conjunctivitis Junction. Or maybe there’s a rare flesh-eating bacteria gnawing on my optic nerve, waiting to get into my brain. I couldn’t really say. All I know is that my eye hurts like a mofo, and it’s spewing stuff. I am waiting for the “primary care physician” to call me back. I would like to get some ointment and maybe a poultice as well. Oh, and an eyepatch. A white one would be way more fetishy.

I’m also trying to figure out which kindergartener I should string up for giving this to me. Or is this some vile cross-contamination from the instruments at Kindermusik? As if trying to pretend Littles is interested in overly arranged childrens’ ditties isn’t bad enough.

Near blinded with pain, I find myself reflecting on karma. The last time I got conjunctivitis, it was my sixteenth birthday, and I called in to school sick. Only to actually find myself blighted by disease. Oh, the unfairness of it all. I still went to driver’s ed, because damned if I was going to be stopped from getting my license. The driver’s ed instructor liked to make students drive him around, periodically stopping for errands. Mail Boxes Etc., Subway, the dry cleaner, what have you. I made sure to wipe my hands all over the instructor’s wheel when he wasn’t looking.

If I don’t get a call back soon, I’m going to have to treat this the Little House on the Prairie way – a squirt of breastmilk (shaddup, it’s antibacterial) and some expired Vicodin.

Of all the gin joints in all the tubes in all the internets

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I’ve had a Gmail address for a long time now, since I am Early McAdopterson. I was able to get my first name, just for the hell of it. Great, right? I don’t even use it except for nefarious schemes and my Google Analytics account since I have plenty of other email addresses to wrangle. I receive password change requests at my main email address all the time I dragged myself over to check the box yesterday, and lo, at least four different citizens of the internet feel they are duly entitled to use my address. Just because they can’t log in and check their mail doesn’t mean they stop giving it out. Frequently, they even sign up for various accounts, allowing me access to their credit cards and home addresses.

A brief history:
August 2005 – Helen K___ of Wallingford, NJ opens a Blockbuster rentals account. She rented The Aviator. She has an American Express card. She also signed up for some “get paid to” sites, and I was able to get her standard password pretty easily (hellgirl, wish I’d thought of that one). I finally get Blockbuster to cancel the account under my email address after a confusing hour with several different reps on the phone.

January 2006 – present – Helene K___ of NY, NY is job hunting. Her resume gets lots of hits from Monster. Too bad she put the wrong damn email address on it. Helene also books a room at the Inn at Saratoga for a Valentine’s getaway. Her sister wants to make sure she knows about a $949,000 condo in Park Slope. In June, Helene has a job at a well-known ad agency. She makes sure I get a deck and brief on look and feel for a high profile cellular client. She also makes sure to give me the password to their extranet. Shockingly, she’s back to job hunting in October. When I emailed what I deduced was her real email, she wrote back and said “Oh, it happens, people just can’t grasp that I have an E in my name.” Neither can she, apparently, since she was forwarding all those work emails to herself.

March 2006 – Helen K___ of Athens, Greece signs up for web hosting. I can administer her account if I want. I don’t, luckily. She also joins Myspace. I reject all her friends now and then. I stuck a note in her profile to let her know she’s attached her account to an email address that doesn’t belong to her.

July 2006 – Helen N___ of Piscataway, NJ wants to sell a drum set and posts on Craigslist. I wonder if that ever sold?

Ongoing dead letter office:

Feb 16, from “David”
“Hey, haven’t heard from you in a while, but hope all is well with you and
your sis. NY’s a tough town for fragile souls . . . :)”

March 6, also from David

“H,

You got another package — a box this time, but I’m afraid the time has come.
Oslen told me he’s not going to accepti any more packages for you. As much
as I love to be your boy, I guess you’ll have to find some other use for me
🙂 I’m good at cooking, but not cleaning.

– D”

The answers usually do come in the mail, except when they don’t.

A post about nothing*

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[Recently, at the Ministry of Silly Hats]

I have Sunday evening quick-onset dysthymia. Shut up, it’s in the DSM-IV. Symptoms include having snippets of that “Always on Sunday” song that was used in an HBO promo severeal years ago stuck in one’s head. Ooooon Sunday. Ooooon Sunday, the prospect of a week alone all day wrangling a baby stretches before one**. It’s a delicate tightrope act performed while juggling a bear, er, the needs of a tiny human, housework, and work work all at the same time! I’ve totally caught ADD. Perhaps it is the fault of television? Fold laundry for three minutes, jiggle baby, check email, change diaper, back to laundry, empty dishwasher, dance with baby, prep file for press, bastardize Tears for Fears lyrics by using them in a humorous manner incorporating the actions of a baby, take call and explain that the background noises are an infant, not a kidnapped drifter, pee if I’m lucky…. You get the idea.

Mr. H and little H and I had a loverly three-day weekend, wherein we saw many friends and enjoyed a homecooked meal from his ancestral abode. Mr. H has a new job, and I am already scheming to get him to abuse working from home. Maybe that way we can both get nothing done! I was born to do nothing. I shouldn’t complain.

*Should I retitle this “Dumber than a Boston-area book report? Because that was just so hilarious on Family Guy.

**OK, mainly wrangling a baby between the witching hours of 5-6pm are the issue. She is soothed by speakerphone. Don’t be surprised if you get a call.

You must not know about me

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I heard a disturbing song on the radio the other day wherein Beyonce throws a dude’s stuff out. That’s fine. I’m all for throwing a dude’s stuff out. He was probably an insolent whelp. Beyonce doesn’t have time for trifling.

Then she tells the dude that “I could have another you in a minute,” cautioning her lover to always remember he can be easily replaced. Yes, but wouldn’t you want to replace the cad who “called up on that chick to see if she is home” with a non-cad? Another him would be an emotional disaster. Has Beyonce not seen Groundhog Day? Apparently not, because she’s on and on telling the dude “I will have another you by tomorrow.” Nooooo, Beyonce. Break the chains!

I made sure to use this teachable moment to remind a baby that the number one rule of a broken relationship is “always trade up.” Just think, I could still be dating a roustabout if I had played my cards right. He was in a very promising local band that, as promised, is still a local band ten years later.

Tomorrow: I bring a baby up to speed on taking stylish victim tribute photos.

Hail to the cheese sandwich

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How about all that politics and that guy who did that thing? Remember when I cared? The last election cycle sent me onto heavy antidepressants. Although I don’t take those anymore, I am still pleasantly dumb thanks to related short term memory loss and the brainfog that comes from all things to do with a baby. Hey! I like socks! Do you? My anti-drug is avoidance.

And WTF is with all you packy-loving sonsofbitches who don’t want to buy boxed wine at the same time you pick up your VeganHelper crumbled substance? I hate you! I bet you’ll still go to Starbucks, despite all your blah blah about preferring to support local businesses. Knobs. Do you all live in my condo association too*?

In other news, I am trying to craft the perfect bib for babies to wear to Thanksgiving. I’m thinking of “Don’t feed me. My mommy bites.” Or maybe “Don’t feed me. You had your chance to make your own kids fat.” A baby is still too young to eat food, pish.

*A baby and I compromised and signed the rudest neighbor up for casual encounters ads on Craigslist. You: must have own python.

I’m voting for this cheese sandwich

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No, I’m voting for the person who called my house with the least amount of recorded messages. No, that would be bad. I’m voting for the person with the funniest commercials. No, he’s pro death penalty and has his own smorgasboard of crackpot ideas to boot. I guess I will vote for Deval Patrick and close my eyes and pretend he’s Barack Obama. Or Bill Clinton. Voting for Bill Clinton was so fun! Politics = totes not fun now.

Or I will skip voting in the governor’s race at all and turn my attention to my own pet cause, Wine at Grocery Stores. I already live near a lawless New Hampshire border town, so I can go buy all the damn wine I want at a grocery store. And that would be a lot of wine. We switched to Wine Block to economize. The grocery store carries the yellow box, the pink box, and the red box. The rest of the state should enjoy similar privilege.

I still haven’t made up my mind on the ballot question that has something to do with childcare. I have a child, so that might one day affect me, if she didn’t incinerate babysitters with the power of her mind. John Kerry says I should vote for whatever the question is, but a friend’s home daycare provider who has a yard full of stray insulation rolls and auto parts says I should not vote for it. Dammit, I am going to have to read something to get to the bottom of this, aren’t I?

Naw, I’ll just let a baby vote. I knew there was some reason we keep her around. She’s getting good at typing, and she ate my grocery list the other day. I have to go lie down with my wine block and a curly straw.

Apparently

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Toting a baby around in a sack around my neck while in a store incites adults to make ridiculous faces. Do we know peek-a-boo? Do we? No, we care not for your antics. We care for 88% dark chocolate and being able to buy all the wine we want in grocery stores. A baby got me a sample of sushi. She would have been better served to get me a free eyebrow waxing, considering she has to look at me. She also got us invited to crash the express lane. I am like that awful boll weevil with the sense of entitlement. Except I don’t have one at all. I am as surprised as the next beetle. Honest.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have stop a baby from leaving rakes subtly angled next to the parking spots of neighbors.