So old

You, You, You, Otter Know!!

| romcomdojo

Look, maaaybe I’m guilty of blocking children’s view of the otters at the marine conservation center.  What is that?  A CRIME?

(Please note in advance that this post is what is often referred to as “a joke”.  Your children are adorable, some of my favorite people are children, blah, blah, blah, etc.  Do not send a Mom Mob after me.  I’ve got enough problems trying to get the Beauty Battalion off my jock for insulting their lie-brows and suggesting that “contouring” is over.  They already wrote “You’re dead, bitch” in bronzer across my driveway and came back later with highlighting powder to really make it pop.)

I get way more enjoyment out of the otters than your kid ever will, and I can say this because your kid can’t be bothered to put down his Nintendo Switch long enough to notice the otters to begin with.  Ignoring otters?!  THAT should be a crime.

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Yeah, we’re all reeeally excited that you rescued the Fortnite princess from the Tetris castle or whatever, Bryson/Greyson/Flotsam.

My attention to otters can best be described as utter otter devotion, and should be rewarded as such by naming me “Honorary Otterkeeper” for the day, where I will get to wear a glittery badge and feed shrimp to the otters from a souvenir bucket that I get to take home with me that says, “That’s an-OTTER story!” on the side with a picture of two otters reading books and wearing glasses.

I would get a personal invitation to the birthing of all baby otters and unlike SOME PEOPLE who have “Little League practice”, I would actually show up every time.

I would give the baby otters interesting names, too, like “Ottermatic For The People”, “And Then There’s Maude-er”, and “Genesis But Before Peter Gabriel Left The Band”.  I wouldn’t give them some totally lame name a kid would give them, like a cat with white paws named “Socks” or the tiger-striped cat named “Tiger”. You’re really breaking the creativity bank there!  What are you, 8?

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Oh, so you actually are 8?  NO EXCUSE.  NEXT!

Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn at the otter tank, Bryson/Greyson/Flotsam – not that you even care!  Your parents are the only ones who are having a conniption over me blocking the tank, anyway.  You were probably here last week and you’ll be back again the next week because for some reason children get to do all the vacation things ALL THE TIME now.

Know where we went when I was a kid?  School.  If school was out?  Home.  You only got taken to an otter tank if your parents had some kind of hideous news to spring on you, like you were moving to Goober, Idaho (Shout out to my fellow Overboard fans!),  or had an incurable form of Leukemia.

Curable Leukemia would only warrant a trip to the McDonald’s drive-thru at best, and there would be no special orders.  You’re getting crushed peanuts on that hot fudge sundae even though you don’t want them, because THAT’S the way it comes.  Hell, you’re getting them even if you’re allergic to peanuts!  “Toughen up, Sally!” is what they’d say as you turned purple and lost consciousness.

If a kid had asked to go swimming with dolphins, any of our parents would have just pointed to the open ocean and said, “Go for it, asshole.”

If you ever, ever made the mistake of saying, “I’m bored!” it was immediately met with, “Then go clean your room.”  (This was a brilliant parental move, by the way.  We figured out pretty quickly to stop complaining that we were bored.)

I mean, for the love of Mike, people.  Otters don’t cut it with these kids?  If your kid is non-plussed by the glorious sight of frolicking otters, I have serious concerns for how they’re gonna feel someday down the road about doing their taxes.

Come to think of it, if I took a kid to an otter tank and they rolled their eyes like, “Whatevs!” I would make them actually do my taxes that year as punishment.  You think third grade is hard?  Wait until you see U.S. tax code.  And I better be getting a fat refund, kid, or your ass is grass.  Orphanage City, sonny boy!

Now, I have heard it’s good to provide children with “motivation”, so I would at least be kind enough to leave my to-do list next to the tax papers:

  1. Take ungrateful kid to that orphanage in the sewer with the scary clown in it
  2. Pick up dry cleaning
  3. Order cake for celebration now that ungrateful kid is living in that orphanage in the sewer with the scary clown
  4. Turn ungrateful kid’s room into otter habitat

(The foregoing are just several of the many reasons I am not permitted to have children.)

All right, hate-mailers, put down your weapons.  I’m sure your kid who can’t be bothered to fawn over otters is going to turn out just fine.  Everyone knows that bored, demanding children only become more pleasant to be around when they become teenagers.  Enjoy your time in Hell, is what I’m saying.

Fine.  So like all old, childless people, I think a lot of “kids today” are spoiled.  That’s a new one!

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room.” – THIS IS AN ACTUAL SOCRATES QUOTE FROM LIKE 450 B.C. SO GO BLAME HIM FOR STARTING THIS

If you want to get uppity about it, just know that for my punishment I will have to train an otter family to change my diapers for me when I’m old, I’ll die with no heirs and will be tossed into a shared hobo burial pit, and the only proof that I even existed will be a souvenir bucket with “That’s an-OTTER story!” on the side with two Winger cassettes inside, so relax.  I’ll get mine.

The 40-Something Ridiculous Crying Thing

| romcomdojo

It took me by surprise when I went to have a tire patched at Pep Boys last year and drove home from the experience in full, wailing, sobbing, freak-out mode.  Because as much as I have banned myself from ever crying with eye makeup on, it turns out my desire for mascara-free cheeks is no match for 40-something hormones.

I had a nail in my tire, and it was deflating quickly, so I needed to stop by Pep Boys.  When I got to the service desk, they told me it would be about an hour.  An hour later, they told me another hour.  An hour later, they told me another hour.

Meanwhile, everyone in the waiting room around me was watching videos on their phones of TruTV or something similar, where the shows consisted of people screaming and being chased by the police, and for some reason, all of them had the volume cranked to 10, on phones that were seemingly made entirely of broken speakers.  It sounded like a room full of robot parts being dragged across a floor made of chalkboard.  You know, in a bad way.

(Oh, hey, side note:  When watching a video on your phone in a public place, turn the volume down to a respectable level, you goddamned animals.  Literally NOBODY wants to hear it.  Also, don’t say, “Oh man, you gotta see this!” and then make someone watch a five minute long video on your phone when you’re just out to dinner.  NOBODY wants to have an unscheduled five minute long video thrust upon them when they’re sitting at a restaurant.)

I’m hypoglycemic and my blood sugar was starting to get really low, so I reached for my emergency snack in my purse only to find it wasn’t there, so I had to make do with eating sugar packets from the free coffee station in the waiting room.  As I tossed back the sugar packets like someone throwing handfuls of dead mullet at a sea lion’s gaping maw, I couldn’t help but feel it was a classy move by a classy lady.  /brag

When the service guy emerged from the bay three hours later, he handed me my keys and sent me on my way.  I pulled out onto the road and immediately made a wrong turn, which meant I would then have to make a U-turn.

That was it.

I immediately burst into tears and started sobbing like I was having a nervous breakdown.  This went on for the entire thirty minute drive home. I cried so hard that I had burst capillaries around my eyes the next day.  I cried so hard my neck muscles were sore.  Because making that wrong turn was just IT.  Five minutes after I got home, I was fine.

A few months ago, I got into my car after work and burst into tears for literally no reason.  Then I cried even harder because I couldn’t figure out why I was crying and sobbed and shouted at myself, “I don’t know what’s wrooooonng!!!!!”  Five minutes after I got home, I was fine.

More recently, my boss emailed me a couple follow up questions on a long project I had just turned in.  He asked nicely, as always, because my boss is actually a really fantastic boss.  So anyway, he asked nicely, and then the tears started welling up in my eyes, and I had to leave the office to go collect myself in the ladies room before I completely fell apart.  Because he asked me a couple follow up questions.  Nicely.  Five minutes later?  Fine.

One day I was watching a duck waddle across a street, and I burst into tears.  Totally fine five minutes later.

I have melted down in the past year because the dishwasher had clean dishes in it, because that meant I had to put them away, and I was not emotionally prepared to put the dishes away right at that moment.  Sure, theoretically I could just put them away later, but in the meantime I would sit on the couch and it would just gnaw and gnaw at me that I was lying around doing nothing when there was work to be done.  Basically, I cried over clean dishes because I have a really good work ethic.

To summarize, these are the situations that will make me cry in my 40s, along with a visual aid of Dawson from Dawson’s Creek to demonstrate the crying scale:

(1) Making a wrong turn:

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(2) No reason at all:

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(3) Being nicely asked a couple follow up questions:

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(4) Ducks:

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(5) My own work ethic:

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The only thing they have in common is that five minutes later, I’ll be fine.

40-something hormones?  You figure that shit out.  I have to go make sure that in the past five minutes I haven’t started growing a mustache and a dumpster ass like Mike Ditka.

Kickstart My Face

| romcomdojo

Have you ever had an old car that you’ve driven forever and then had this conversation with someone when they went to drive it for the first time?  

“Okay, so before you get in, you have to kind of toggle the door handle up and to the left, then pull, then push, then open the door.  When you put the key in the ignition, wiggle the steering wheel side to side while slowly kickstarting the gas pedal five times as you turn the key.  Then take this screwdriver from the center console and tap it on the crescent-shaped notch on the steering column, pump the brakes eleven times, then you’re good to go.  Oh my god, I forgot to mention – do NOT try to start the engine with the air conditioning on or the entire engine will melt onto the tops of your feet through the holes under the dashboard.”  

When did your car become so difficult, and why hadn’t you noticed?  Ten years ago, you didn’t used to have to do anything special to make it start.  Then after a couple years, you had to do one thing.  Then a few years later it was five things.  By the time you get to the ten year mark, you have to do the Electric Slide to get the damn door to even open, and give a voodoo handjob to a Michelin Man doll to keep the tires from exploding when you drive over speedbumps.  It just all happened so gradually that you didn’t notice it.  It takes so much work to make it work these days. 

This is an analogy.  I am old.

When I was 21, in order to get ready for work in the morning, I would oversleep, drag myself out of bed and touch-up the $3 eyeliner that I had slept in, brush my teeth, and go.  The men-folk swooned.

This morning:

I woke up two hours before I had to leave for work.

I took off the sticker that I wear on my forehead overnight so that I don’t get those unsightly “11” lines between my eyes (Frownies).

I showered, using three different kinds of soap (Ocean Breeze in toasted coconut, vanilla body wash, Noble Zinc face soap), the shampoo that I use specifically on Fridays (Redken Color Magnetics), the deep conditioner that I specifically use on Fridays (Everpure Hair Mask), and the hideously expensive but highly effective rechargeable sonic cleaner device-thingy that I use to wash my face (Foreo Luna in Normal/Sensitive), because nowadays I can assure you that when you see a electric device on my bathroom counter that is pink, made of silicone, and has raised, vibrating nubbins on it, it is a device that is used strictly on my face to reduce the amount of gunk in my pores.

Then I got out, dried off, sprayed canned French spring water on my face (La Roche Posay, Thermal Spring Water), and let it soak in while I use my special detangling brush for the first brushing of my hair, to be followed by the second brushing using the round brush.

Then on go the face serum (Ole Henriksen Truth Serum), first moisturizer (Ole Henriksen Transform), second moisturizer for redness relief (La Roche Posay Rosaliac because fucking hormonal rosacea), and eye cream (Avon, current free sample).

Then I use a refrigerated de-swelling iron on my under-eye area – the kind that they use on boxers when their faces are all swollen from being repeatedly punched in the face.  That is to say, I have to shop at specialty sporting goods stores in order to find products that will make me appear “awake” in the eye area, because I am so puffy that it appears I have been beaten up by Buster Douglas in the middle of the night.

Then flossing and toothbrushing.  Then, after the hair air-dries about ¾ of the way, I spray hair serum on it (It’s a 10 Miracle Styling Serum), brush it through, and blow-dry it using the round brush.  Then the pomade (Glossier The Balm.com, actually a skin and lip treatment, but works great on hair).  Then the hairspray (Old school L’oreal Ellnet).

Then the face gets concealer (Benefit Boing Moisturizing Concealer), eyeshadow primer (Urban Decay Primer Potion), foundation with SPF 50 (It Cosmetics CC Cream in Fair), four colors of eye shadow (miscellaneous brands), eye liner (Revlon Colorstay liquid in dark brown), eyebrow pencil and tinted brow gel (L’Oreal Brow Fantasy) , two coats of mascara (Maybelline Falsies in Black/Brown), contouring powder (Cargo), blush (Tarte), shimmery highlighter (Benefit Dandelion Twinkle), and a touch of pressed powder on the corners of the nose (Maybelline FIT). Then lip balm (Tony Moly Liptone), lipstick (miscellaneous brands and colors), and lip gloss (same).  JESUS CHRIST.

You have to go easy on the gloss, because it will seep upwards above your lip line, and you will frighten small children with your horror shitshow face.  The clown from “IT”, will be like, “Seriously, you need to tone that shit down.”

The foregoing routine does not include the non-daily items, like shaving, tweezing, dealing with foot callouses, nails, cuticle work, scrubs, acid masks, mud masks, and snail slime masks.  It also fails to include the olive oil that I drink every morning as a beauty supplement, and the black currant oil that I take at night so that my eyeballs don’t dry up and white-over like a dog turd that’s been left on a dewd’z carpet for a week.  It also does not include my fitness routine, where I have to work out TWICE a day in order to keep from looking like Rodney fucking Dangerfield.

This is the part where you tell me that I am high maintenance, that I have bought into the beauty industrial complex, and that I would probably look “just fine” if I didn’t engage in all this rigmorole.  If that is the case, then this is the part where I respond by giving you a glimpse of what I look like without all of this stuff:

Imagine that this emoji is a photo of the Crypt Keeper from HBO’s Tales From The Crypt ——————–> 😐

I assume that in another ten years, my beauty and grooming routine will take so much time that I never get to actually leave the house for the thing I’m getting ready for, which will be bittersweet, because it will also mean that I never have to put on pants again, which is clearly the ultimate life goal.

Happy Friday, you high-maintenance bitches!