All posts by Licketysplit

Which one of you maggots wants to take me to Paris

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Financial planning has always been a topic near and dear to my heart. It involves less hallucinogens and guilt these days, but I’m still the one who knows where all the bank accounts are, and more importantly, how to extract money from them. My darling Mr. H says “Dee buh dee buh dee?” and gets direct deposit. I am the evil overlord who makes sure his student loans get extracted on the 12th of each month, as opposed to the 12th of never, his previously preferred date.

Normally, our system works well. I improved our credit scores over the years through the folksy homespun wisdom of paying the bills. To allow some illusion of mutual control, he is a guest user on my Amex. It generally doesn’t occur to him to spend money anyway, just as it didn’t occur to him to pay bills. He’s too busy thinking about complicated pieces of code. I don’t spend that much either, since I was brought up by people who believed “Why buy it if you can make it out of chickenwire?” If I must, I prefer to splurge on things I didn’t get in my youth: things like well-made shoes, hotel rooms nicer than my house, and x-rays performed by a licensed technician.

But the other day, I caught him playing with a Bugaboo stroller. This stroller is nearly $900, or about the GDP of Madagascar. It operates on the principles of the Rubik’s cube or a Transformers toy, so after a lot of flipping and clicking, you end up with an amphibious assault vehicle or Optimus Prime or a detachable bassinet. I’d always just assumed that only assholes who live in Park Slope or the aggressively European couple we know would get a Bugaboo, but damned if he wasn’t communing with one. My poor innocent, attracted to the engineering and oblivious to the social status baggage.

The saleslady pounced and demonstrated, including stealing someone else’s kid to show off the turning radius. I’ll admit that it’s lightweight and impressively easy to spin, but it’s still a little SUV-sized and overpriced for my taste. Then again, I spent a lot more than that on the Democratic party in 2004, and I did not get a foot muff for that investment. I got no muff at all.

Now he’s fairly adamant that the parasite should get trundled around in this contraption. The problem is that I had planned on trundling the parasite through Europe in my abdomen, because I want a goddamn last vacation before she starts playing at nonsense like breathing. Once she’s here, I had assumed that she’ll sleep in a file drawer and get carried in a pillowcase with air holes, just like the good old days. I thought about playing the “we have no money” card since he will never actually look at an account, but this will create problems with my recreational goals. So I see that I have no choice but to weave a convincing Bugaboo replica out of chickenwire if I want a chance to eat my weight in croissants before June. Damn you, the Dutch! You and all your industrial designers. Or perhaps I will just go on vacation by myself and leave Mr. H to push the cat around in the Bugaboo. That way we can afford to do both. What would Madagascar do?

Oh, today in cats: Flop-bott of the bottom system. That will probably end up costing an extra student loan payment.

My gang sign is Whatever

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I accidentally shot the building super when I was trying to flush the rats out of the trash room with my shotgun. I think he’ll pull through. He shook his fist at me out of the back of the departing ambulance. Feisty li’l guy. He reminds me of a svelte Wilfred Brimley. The whole debacle recalls how my pappy used to shoot at the neighbor kids with rock salt. That last part is actually true, although the prior truths are merely essential truths.

WTF is wrong with my DVR? It records The Daily Show like 6 times a day. Apparently the problem is something something metadata. The hell with you, fake news. I will make up my own. Haven’t I been doing this all along?

Have discovered surefire way to offend populus at large not already offended just because of parasite existence: casually mention we are planning on using cloth diapers for the parasite. People get righteously bent over a simple statement with no attached evangelizing or explanation. There is an explanation, but I know damn well no one likes those. As Americans, we all know that someone making a different choice means that someone is saying our choice is WRONG. Screw you, France, don’t judge me. You don’t even KNOW me111!!!!11!!

This attitude strikes me as hilarious because other people are not the ones who have to do our laundry/birth at home/invest in mutual funds/any of the other Godless things we get around to doing. Some of these same people have been offended by past follies such as foreign vacations/Mr. H shopping at Banana Republic. “Well. I just don’t know why you’d want to DO that!” I don’t know why a lot of people do a lot of things, but I agree that it is way fun to speculate.

Today in cats: The dead spider from the bathroom that I’ve been ignoring mysteriously disappeared.

Am terrible person

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I woke myself up this morning by laughing at my own joke in a dream. Ha! Haha! It was so funny that the parasite got the hiccups.

I’m doing my taxes, er, filling out the worksheet from the accountant. Did I start a farm last year? Please refresh my memory. I probably should have. This question seems leading.

Also, it’s Valentine’s Day. I have festooned the place with red confetti, and I’m wearing a fur bikini. By that, I mean mismatched socks. But they are pink! Who loves you?

Get glad in the same pants you got mad in

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I hear we have a killer storm heading this way. That’s fine, being snowed in will give me more time to chew a hole in the wall to create an additional phone jack in the right spot for the fax machine. Some would say “Put the fax machine near an existing phone jack,” and others would say “Why do you even have a fax machine?” These would both be valid lines of reasoning. But the fact is, I have to fax things, and I am not going to do it in the kitchen. I am having the extra jack put in the bathroom, so I can have a phone by the toilet like in a hotel. That makes much more sense.

And this reminds me of the nicest bathroom I’ve ever used, which is the one at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo. Well, they have more than one. Many more. They are all nice. Once you are able to heat your bottom in a chamber of silence, you can never go home again.

I am feeling all very Prufrock today. There was a time when I did not deign to deal in faxing, except to think that faxable pizza would be a great idea. Read: I was baked more then. At least I have used a nice bathroom. That’s more than, I don’t know, Haiti can say.

Comme nous chanceux sommes!

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I got righteously indignant about the state of modern feminism the other day after reading all the Betty Friedan obits, but then I had a nice bowl of strawberry ice cream and forgot all about it. I think I was also just mad because I dropped my bagel earlier. Lately, many of my problems relate to actually being hungry.

Oh yeah, so fighting about different brands of feminism: what an awesome bougie problem to have! More money, more problems indeed. Would you like to hear about my problem with impossible math and the condo board’s sub-flooring requirements? I bet you would. The System (this is like The Man) still sucks, in so many possible ways. But I have the great luxury of being able to put off thinking about fixing it until after my nap. I am grateful.

But before my nap, I will inform you that we picked a name for the parasite. However, it contains an “ar” sound. Let’s say it’s Nomar. Now try saying this like a Masshole. Yes. You see the problem. I beat Mr. H into correct R sound pronunciation with a combo of actual beatings and M&M treats, but then I remembered he also has a large family. A family who can talk. Nomah.

Finally, I owe a mess of people a mess of email. If you are one of them, that’s because all my downloaded email is still on another computer. I can’t find the doohicky (I really wanted to say “dongle,” but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate) that connects this computer to a monitor. Life is hard, but I did get a free peppermint hot chocolate from Starbucks. For my patience, which I guess can be confused with standing around not paying attention.

Jebus

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Anthropological findings based on the scrawling on the used boxes the moving company dropped off for us to fill:

* People with mudrooms also name their children Aidan and Ava

* People named Pete have enough “nic-nacs” to fill a large box

* People with children named Aidan and Ava are also heavy drinkers, because a few of those boxes were totally soaked in wine at some point

* People who get these boxes after us will know that we own a lot of “crap” and more “crap”

* I don’t believe in the expectations that labels enforce

* I prefer surprises

* I don’t own a Sharpie that works

And in other news, I just noticed that the street up by the Cracker Barrel is called “Internantional Way,” not “International Way,” as I had previously assumed.

You’ll forgive me

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Mr. H is going to be late tonight! I said “Ok, as long as you aren’t dating the toothless girl.” This is a joke. The toothless girl is already busy dating the baby daddy of a relative. He can stay away as long as he wants, toothless girl or not. I’m still mad about his over-zealous sanding of a freshly painted large expanse of wall. Sure, the plaster may have been slightly uneven, but now it is still uneven but also leprous and in need of another coat of paint. Sand before paint! Before! Antes! A priori! People have offered to help us move, which is great, but burly Irishmen are taking care of that part. Paint my bathroom instead.

Anyway. My mother is in town until tomorrow. This morning she cleaned the tub with the toilet brush rather than ask me where the tub brush might live. Good luck, future tennants! I wore socks and shoes in the shower. Then we went to IKEA, and I bought curtains for thirteen cents or whatever curtains cost there. If you need me, I’ll be swearing.

Tomorrow’s post, today!

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Don’t start reading this until Thursday. It’s your own fault if you have nothing new to read on Thursday because you read this today.

It was extra, extra foolish to start a Content Challenge in a month when I have to move. I’ll say that much.

Saab called to say they have found me a windshield. This is shocking, since they stopped making this model. It turns out that some darling in the parts department, after being threatened by legal, decided to actually find out which Subaru model will fit as a replacement. So they went ahead and ordered it, and I guess the damn idiots are going to fix it for me. This is after many months of phone calls where the dealer’s parts person disavowed the knowledge that Subarus even existed, and the service manager swore up and down that the dealer would not handle glass anyway. Clearly, the tipping point came when I screeched “I have a baby on the way,” as recorded last week. I urge you all to insert imaginary children into all your customer service disputes henceforth.

Then I spent a long time on hold with the insurance company. At one point, I wasn’t sure if I was still on hold because the music had stopped. I peed without muting the phone, thinking this would hurry things along, but it didn’t. What kind of Murphy’s Law failure is that?