Monday, July 30, 2012

Random Crap That Bugs Me: Vanity Plates

So I've already told you that bumper stickers bug the crap out of me.  But lately, I've noticed a ton of vanity plates, and I'm pretty sure they bug me just as much, if not more, than bumper stickers. The name alone ("Vanity Plates") suggests that the person with such a plate is full of himself!  Here's proof, straight from Merriam-Webster (and that bitch don't lie):  van-i-ty: inflated pride in oneself or one's appearance.  Here is my list of the types of vanity plates that bug me the most:   


1. The Name Game


MELNIE.    OK, so your name is Melanie.  Why do you feel the need to put it on the license plate of your car?  Not for nothing, but you spelled it wrong.  What's that?  "M-E-L-A-N-I-E" was already taken?  So you'd rather have an incorrectly spelled version of your name be what people see as you come bombing down the street in your Chevy Corsica?  I could see if maybe you were driving a Corvette, but seriously, a Corsica?  What if Randy the Rapist is out on the town looking for his next target?  You drive by all "Melnie-like" and BINGO!  Now all Randy has to do is follow you to your destination, knowing you are a female (assuming Randy the Rapist is straight), and knowing you are alone before he makes you his next victim! 


Even better is the douche who does this: MYSTANG.  Yes.  It is your Mustang.  Except for the guy in the F-150 beside you who thought maybe it was your mother's car, everyone can now breathe a sigh of relief knowing that you are driving YOUR OWN MUSTANG.  Thank you for clearing up the confusion.  FYI:  The galloping horse and the word MUSTANG plastered across the hood, the trunk, and both sides of the car kinda already tipped me off. 


Other examples of the "Name Game" are:  JOESCAR, MEGSLEX, ALSTRUK, MOMSVN...I could literally go on all day.   


2.  Downtime


This is the type of plate where the owner feels the need to tell you, on their car, what they like to do in their spare time.  It could be their hobby:  ILVGOLF Good for you. I love walking my dog, going to the beach, and reading, but I'm not all up in your grill (no pun intended) telling  you about it!  Drive your damn car and go play some golf already!


HCKYMOM  So your kid plays hockey.  Thank GOD it says so on your license plate, because if it didn't, and I somehow missed the silver goalie outline decal on your bumper, the name "BILLY #4 Ice Devils" sticker on your back window, or the "Be Kind to Animals - Hug a Hockey Player" bumper sticker, I still would have been able to ascertain that your kid plays hockey.  [Disclaimer:  while I do not have a vanity plate, I am guilty of advertising my kids' sports on the back window of my car.  But hey, at least I can laugh at myself!]


Other examples of "Downtime" are:  RELAXXN (please don't relax while you are driving behind me, I'm not in the mood to have your vanity plate imprinted on the ass end of my car), FSHRMN, TNSLVR ....etc.  Basically,  I don't know you, I don't want to know you, and I don't give two shits how you spend your free time. 


3.  The Comedian

I saw this license plate on a Hummer: IMHUMMN Let me guess...  DCHEBAG was taken? 


GRRRR8 No offense, but there is nothing "great" about your 1998 Ford Festiva.  I'm surprised they even made you register that roller skate!


IFARTED  Really?  Are you twelve?


These drive me nuts! 


4.  Dirty Little Secrets


IPMS247 Hopefully you are married or have a boyfriend/girlfriend, otherwise, you just ruined any shot in hell at getting yourself a man (or woman, if that's your preference)!


ISWALOW I'm sure your parents are proud.  That explains the trail of souped-up pick up trucks following you. 


IMTOPLS See  ISWALOW above.


ILUVAG  I'm speechless.


I should say that I do find some vanity plates acceptable...maybe on a company car, advertising the company.  If you are a car enthusiast and you enter your car into car shows, then a vanity plate makes perfect sense.  Other than that, I just don't get it.  If you have a vanity plate, please do not be offended, learn to laugh at yourself - you mind as well join everyone else laughing at you!


Have you seen any funny vanity plates?  Share them by adding your comment below!





Sunday, July 29, 2012

Random Crap That Bugs Me: An Open Letter to Kourtney Kardashian

Dear Kourtney:

First of all, congratulations on the birth of your daughter, Penelope!  I'm sure she is a beautiful baby and I wish you all the luck in the world!  I've read a few magazine articles this weekend, and it seems as though you could really use some advice.  I'm sure the Kardashian Klan chimes in with their $.02, but I'm going to offer you my views on your situation from a totally different perspective.  I'm clearly not a celebrity, I live on the East Coast, I'm what you would consider pretty much broke, and I live in a house that is probably smaller than your master bath.  We are about as opposite as opposite can be in many regards.  What we have in common, however, is the fact that we are both mothers.  It's for that reason, and the fact that you have your own reality television show, that I feel like I know you well enough to know what you are going through.  I hope you don't mind.

What I find most troubling about your situation is that you are having panic attacks at 3 a.m., worrying about the fact that it is taking you longer this time around to lose the baby weight, and that you really want to be back in a bikini.   You gave birth 21 days ago.  Three weeks.  Less than one month.  It took you 9 months to gain the baby weight - three weeks is not a very long time at all to snap back to your pre-baby weight.  Hell, my "baby" is turning 13 next month, and I'm still a heffer!  Truth be told, I'm actually heavier now than I was when she was born, but I'm as happy as a pig in shit!  Ok, maybe I'm not helping.  My point is, odds are you will fit into a bikini again. Give yourself some time for crying out loud!  A bikini is small potatoes, kiddo.  You have many more important things about which to fret!  (I mean no disrespect, but if I just named my kid Penelope, I'd probably lose some sleep too.  Just sayin'. Major props for not going with a "K" name though.)  I read that you feel "unsexy."  You just popped a watermelon out of your vagina.  It really doesn't get more "unsexy" than that.

Also mentioned in the article is the fact that Scott has been jetting off to party in Miami until 4 a.m. with models and his posse, while you are holed up in your mansion, wallowing in self pity (all things considered, a mansion is not a bad place in which to be holed up).  I, too, suffered from post-partum depression.  That shit is not fun.  Get yourself some meds so you are thinking straight enough to make the decisions you need to make.  You will feel better, and your kids will thank you someday.  With a clear mind, you will realize that you and your kids deserve much better than Pretty Boy Scott.  He is obviously self-centered and I couldn't see him taking a bullet for you or the kids.  The thought that he may get blood on his loafers is probably too much for him to bear.  He's an assfuck, and he needs to go.  All truth. 

This is my cigar-smoking ensemble.  Not my baby feeding outfit. Duh.

According to what I read, you have to get up and do the 3 a.m. feedings by yourself, and you have to keep Mason occupied all day.  It's fucking tiring - I know that from my own experience in having two kids.  Going from 0 kids to 1 kid is hard.  Going  from 1 kid to 2 is way harder.  You need help...Do you really not have a live-in nanny?  Your family helps you - which is great!  You are never alone, regardless of how alone you feel...your family always has your back.  How long are you going to wait until Assfuck steps up to the plate?  He should be bonding with his baby girl.  He should be spending quality time with Mason, who's world has been turned upside fucking down by Penelope's arrival.  You've given him how many second chances?  You guys make beautiful babies together, I'll give you that, but honestly, what else does he contribute?  He acts like a douchebag on the show and out in public, you don't need his money (actually I think he probably needs yours more), he only cares about himself, and you guys aren't married and you don't even sleep in the same bed!!!  The fuck?  You have two children togther and he STILL hasn't put a ring on it.  C'mon, Kourt!  You're smarter than that!

Basically, what I'm telling you is that you have yourself a no-brainer here.  If I was in your situation, the major reason I might try to work shit out would be money.  We don't have enough married, so I know it would be tougher if we were divorced.  You are lucky in that regard.  Money is not an issue.  Your kids deserve a father, but it seems to me he would actually see them more if you were officially apart, and he had set days and times on which to visit with them!

The article mentioned that you didn't take a maternity leave and that you have been working on the new DASH LA store.  Kim's off in Miami with Kanye.  Khloe is "reconnecting" with Lamar in Vegas.  YOU HAD A FRIGGEN BABY! Surely squeezing a basketball out of a pea-sized hole trumps going on tour with the boyfriend or chilling out with the husband!!!  Where are those supportive sisters of yours?  It's a FAMILY BUSINESS!  Let someone else in the FAMILY take over while you recuperate for a friggen month!  You must have an assistant, hell you must have a whole staff of assistants!  There is NO ONE else who can deal with the new store for a few weeks?  For fuck's sake, I have 2 weeks vacation - if you need a hand, let me know - I'd be glad to help! 

Funny Breakup Ecard: Thank you for donating your sperm. Your usefulness has expired and I won't be needing you anymore!
Thought this may be a good way to break the ice with Assfuck!
Sincerely,

Cheryl
(a/k/a The "ME" In Crap that Bugs Me!)






Monday, July 23, 2012

Random Crap That Bugs Me: Texting Etiquette

So many of my conversations happen via text message.  Girl, 15 and Girl, 12 rarely answer their phones if they are "voice" calls. Oddly enough, if I call them, they don't answer, but will usually respond with a text message pretty quickly.  The fact that they couldn't answer the phone but can send a text instead really bugs me. Here is a list of the 5 text message faux pas that bug the crap outta me:


1.  Run-on Text Messages!

These are texts that have NO punctuation.  Here's an example:

hi mom can i walk to the store cuz you were supposed to go out and get milk last night but you spent three hours neglecting us while you wrote your blog (2/2) and i really want cereal for breakfast but i cant without milk kae lmk

I get that it's difficult to find the apostrophe. Even I'm guilty of not using them when texting.  But a period, comma or question mark?  There's just no excuse.  Capitalization would also be nice - at least it would make it easier to tell where the new sentence starts!   Don't be a lazy bag of dicks - just use the damn punctuation!

2.  The Convo Killer!

This happens more often than I care to admit.  Girl, 15 is famous for this.  Here's how the Convo  Killer goes:

Me:  Hey, what are you doing?

Girl, 15:  Sleeping.  Why?

Me:  Just wondering...will you do a few loads of laundry for me?

Girl, 15:  Ugh.

And then the convo friggen ends.  Does "ugh" mean "Ugh...Yes..." or "Ugh...fuck off..."  Since we are talking about laundry here, I'm guessing it means eff off.  Another version of the Convo killer is the one word response!  This one really bugs the crap out of me:

Me:  Morning, honey.  What are you doing today?

Girl, 12:  idk

Me:  Are you hanging out at so and so's house today?

Girl, 12:  maybe

Me:  All right, well let me know what your plans are.

Girl, 12:  k

I could have gotten more information out of the roadkill in the middle of the street.  Sometimes having a conversation is like pulling teeth!  Not only did she kill the conversation, I have no idea how to plan my schedule around her schedule for the damn day.  GOD FORBID I ask for her plans the night before!!!

3. Alphabet Soup

I touched on this a little bit above.  This is either a one letter response or a complete message made up of a bunch of friggen letters.  It's hard to follow and you need a decoder ring to figure out what the message actually says!  

smh Idk wht 2 do tmrw 4 mi bday lol lmk if u hav n e plans hmu if u wnt 2 prty    kk ttyl grl tx

Are you shitting me?  It may have saved you time to write this little gem, but it's taking me an hour to decipher! Couldn't you have just sent me a telegram, or even used morse code?  And what's with the kk?  Isn't it just as easy to type ok? Why type k twice? Girl, 12 also uses "kae," which I can't understand, because it would be so much easier to just type the letter "k" instead of making up a word that doesn't exist, and adding two letters!  Here's a little list for you old folks who haven't been schooled  in the language of texting:

smh: shaking my head
idk:  I don't know
jw:   just wondering
lol:   laugh out loud
lmk: let me know
hmu: hit me up
kk:  ok
ttyl:  talk to you later
tx:  thanks

And by the way, don't use these when texting your kids.  It won't make you a "cool parent."  (Although I must admit that I do use lol...but if I'm thinking about it, I try to use haha - it's only one more letter, but if I'm feeling old, I go with it!)

4. Sleepers

Imagine you are having a text conversation.  You're going back and forth at a pretty good pace, rarely waiting more than a minute or two between sending and receiving.  Then, all of a sudden, the conversation ends! 

Me:  What are you doing tonight?

Friend:  Nothing much, you around?

Me:  Sure am...drinks?

Friend:  Indeed!

Me:  Place and time?

Friend..............

And there's nothing.  No response. A minute goes by, then two, then three.  Before you know it, an  hour has passed and you are in your pajamas with a pint of Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, watching Steel Magnolias (my all time favorite chick flick).  Usually within the next few hours, Friend will answer with a "Sorry/had to help with homework/fell asleep/cleaned the bathroom, etc."  Admittedly, I have been both the sleeper and the one who is left hanging!

5.  Phonetically Speaking

Similar to alphabet soup, this is where the texter purposely spells words the way they sound, or in some cases, the texter can't spell for shit, so this is what you get:

Aye wut up wif yu?  Watchu doin 2nite?  Luk at my pics on FB, kae?  There are enuff of the boi u lyk to make u laff!

It is actually more difficult to spell things wrong than it is to spell them right! 

So, what texting faux pas bug you?


Friday, July 13, 2012

Day Twenty Five

What I say:  I'm so glad we have social networking to allow us to be a part of our "friends'" Vacations!  All the pictures make me feel like I'm right there with them!

What I mean:  Enough already, you narcissistic douche.  Updating your status 20 times a day and adding a photo of your current activity several times a day while you are on vacation is completely unnecessary, and I honestly hope you return from your trip to find that every window in your house is smashed and someone robbed you of all your possessions because you were stupid enough to broadcast the fact that you were away to all of Facebook.

I have unsubscribed to so many people lately because they are so friggen annoying!  If you are going on vacation, here's some friendly advice on how NOT to annoy the shit out of everyone on your friend list!


1.  A post or two a day is sufficient whether you are on vacation or not, but especially when you are on vacation!  A pic of the kids at the breakfast table, followed by the next tourist attraction you visit, followed by a pic of the kids at lunch, followed by a pic of the next tourist attraction, followed by a pic of the kids at dinner, then at the pool, then in their jammies in the hotel is COMPLETELY unfuckingnecessary.

How come no one posts pics of their kids misbehaving at the restaurant?


2.  Cut the shit with the Check-Ins.  If you are vacationing in California with your kids, it's a safe bet everyone will assume you are going to visit Disneyland.  No need to confirm it by Checking In.  If you are in Vegas, we will assume you will hit a casino or two.  If I cared about where you were every minute of every day, I would have gone on vacation with you. But then I would have seen your real vacation.  The one where the kids whine incessantly, everyone is overtired and sunburned and bitching at each other, one kid wants to swim and the other kid wants to go to the amusement park (I'm using Girl 15 and Girl 12 as a frame of reference here), husband wants to buy expensive souvenier, and wife doesn't want to spend the money (again, using Boy 45 as the example here)....not every minute of vacation is spent smiling for the camera, is it?  If you are having such a fabulous vacation, why the hell are you spending half of it on Facebook updating  your status, uploading your photos and commenting on them?  That's not really my idea of a good fucking time, but to each his own, I guess.  Go nuts!

I wish there was a button that said, "I Don't Give a Flying Fuck Where You Are!"

3.  Every post doesn't have to include the name(s) of the people with whom you are vacationing.  In case we missed that you were with your spouse and kids the first, second, third, eighth or fifteenth time, we saw it on the sixteenth post/pic.  If you were vacationing with your mistress/lover, I highly doubt you would document it on Facebook - so everyone can assume you are with your family.  Even worse is when the spouse like's the other spouses picture.  WTF?  Buttnuggets. 


4.  You eat breakfast when you are home, we know you are going to eat breakfast while you are on vacation.  No one wants to see your Vacation Omelet or your stack of Vacation Pancakes.  Same is true for lunch and dinner.  I don't care about your Vacation B.L.T. or your fucking Vacation Steak dinner.  The only picture I want to see is someone giving you the Heimlich Maneuver while you choke on your T-bone and your vacation gets cut short, sparing the rest of us from the torture of your Fakebook Vacation. 

Our vacation is so pissah we even have BREAKFAST! 
Eat that BITCHES!

5.  Here's something you can do.  Take plenty of pics.  It's vacation, after all!  Upload ONE each day, if you must (some habits are hard to break).  When you get home, look through your pics and choose a few that you want to share, and post them!  I'm talking four or five here, not thirty or forty!  I guarantee no one will be recommending that you make an appointment to be tested for narcissistic personality disorder!

If you watch Criminal Minds, they refer to the suspects (or unknown subjects) as "Unsubs."  I've decided that I'm going to refer to the people I have unsubscribed from updates on my newsfeed to "Fakebook Unsubs."    Off to do more unsubbing!

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Day Twenty Four


What I say:    I’m not the least bit worried that my kids would ever try alcohol before they are 21.

What I mean:   I'm scared as fuck that my kids will experiment with alcohol before they are of age, and that no matter how much I preach, it won't make a difference!

Two words:  Vodka.  Tampon.  While at a 4th of July cookout, a few friends and I had an enlightening chat about vodka tampons.  Not sure what a vodka tampon is?  It’s a tampon soaked in vodka, then inserted in a female’s vajayay, or up a male’s ass (a/k/a butt chugging), and then the vodka is absorbed into the bloodstream and the tampon wearer is promptly shitfaced, without the extra calories, the need to vomit, or the smell of booze on their breath.  Just one teensy little problem. It can cause alcohol poisoning, which can be deadly.

Doesn't jamming this up your ass or cuca look like fun?  NOT!

Let me make myself clear.  I DO NOT condone underage drinking.  What I want to know is: when the hell did teenagers become so friggen lazy?  They are resourceful, I’ll give them that, but would they really rather stick a wad of cotton up their hoo-ha (which happens to be full of alcohol, and I assume would feel like a lit match inside whichever orifice they happen to be using), rather than chug down a few beers the old-fashioned way?  

Once upon a time, a long, time ago, when I was not quiiiiteeee 21, I was heading to the Vineyard with my friend and her family on the ferry.  She and I brought an empty duffle bag, and actually had the elephant balls to approach older guys with coolers and ask them if we could have a beer for later.  In most cases, the guy was happy to oblige – what was the harm in one?  By the end of the ferry ride, my friend and I had a duffle bag full of 15 or so random beers:  cans and bottles of Bud, Corona (with no lime, since we didn’t know any better-yuck), Busch, Coors, Rolling Rock…you name it, we had one in the bag.  My friend was careful not to jiggle the bag too much for fear of tipping off her parents as to the contents – it was only about 10 minutes to the house, but it felt like hours.  We stashed our booty under a bush and then snuck out after dark to have our own little party!  Here’s the thing.  Warm beer tastes like ass.  But we drank it!  Never once did we try to come up with alternate means of ingesting the vile liquid.  I can honestly say that the words “Hey, lets soak some tampons in beer and then shove them up our pussies!” never crossed our minds. 

WHEN YOU TURN 21, getting drunk is a rite of passage.  You have to do it right in order to get the full experience!  Pounding down several beers, doing a few shots until you can no longer stand up, and then puking it all up while your best friend holds your hair is all part of the experience.  Shoving booze soaked cotton where the sun doesn’t shine just to get a quick buzz is ridiculous, and I’m guessing pretty painful!  Spending a few hours hugging the porcelain throne sounds a lot better to me than spending a few hours with what probably feels like a flaming wad of cotton up your vagina/ass.  


Funny Thanks Ecard: Thanks for always holding my hair back when I vomit.
Friends don't let friends try vodka tampons!


Parents, if you suspect your teen has been drinking, remember to check BOTH ends for the smell of booze!  And if you seem to be going through tampons at an alarming rate, or if you happen to find a box stashed under your son’s bed, now you know why!