Recently I had occasion to go shopping at Walmart, which is something I generally try to avoid. This can be challenging, though, since out of all the businesses in Logan, 75% are either motorsports or small engine shops, 5% are in the mall and the other 25% are Walmart stores. I realize that adds up to 105% but that's how we roll in Cache Valley.
Even though I do sometimes violate my own rule to not set foot in Walfart, it is rare that I am desperate enough to go within 40 feet of the bathrooms in that place. Unfortunately, I had a personal emergency that forced me into one recently. I won't go into details. Let's just say that since I had my baby, sneezing has never been quite the same for me.
Anyway. I was thinking how the state of grossness in Heckmart's bathrooms is virtually the same every single time I go in there. So, in case you get confused in a Walbarf store and wonder whether you are in the bathroom or have died and gone to The Other Place (I call it Heck), here are some helpful hints to remind you that you're in the bathroom:
(If you get grossed out easily then this post is not for you. And maybe this whole blog, because I talk about bodily functions a lot here)
1. The floor is somehow strewn with toilet paper and paper towels, even though you have just seen the janitor walk out as you were going in.
2. You spot more than one person walking from their stall to the exit without washing their hands.
3. Someone is barefoot.
4. Someone is changing into their prom dress or wedding gown.
5. There are at least 4 dirty diapers on the floor. One of them is probably unrolled.
6. Someone is either in labor or giving birth.
7. None of the toilets have been flushed.
8. All the toilet seats have some sort of liquid on them. One of the liquids is always unidentifiable.
9. There is poop somewhere other than the toilet bowl.
10. -Maybe the grossest of all- Someone's half eaten lunch on the floor of the handicap stall.
If you are in Logan and you really have to go to the bathroom, I suggest the following businesses whose bathrooms are usually bearable: Chick-fil-A, Olive Garden, Aggy's, ... and that's it.
Although any other bathroom would be better than Walwart's.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
What if this post is all a dream?
Today I had occasion to be a little bit nervous. I may share sometime soon what made me so nervous but for now suffice it to say that today I was nervous. By nature, I am a nervous person. I get nervous about a lot of things, but the major causes of anxiety for me is caused by one of the following reasons:
Hearing the phone ring
Speaking in public
Singing in public
Going to the doctor (where I am always convinced that I am about to be diagnosed with a terminal illness)
Going to the dentist (where I am always convinced that they are going to have to pull all my teeth)
Driving
Seeing a cop on patrol while driving
Strange men
Weapons
Strange men with weapons (We live in hunting territory where this is not uncommon)
Noises outside my tent while camping
The first night after I've heard a ghost story, no matter how un-scary, lame, or ridiculous
Going to the DMV
...I think that about sums it up. Yeah, I'm a nervous person.
My nerves present themselves in some very interesting ways. For example, every time I go to the dentist, my body starts to shake uncontrollably. A couple years ago when I had my driver's license renewed, I got so nervous that I had to make a sudden trip to the restroom and I was in there so long that my test timed out and they had to reset it. I won't say what was going on in the bathroom, except that it was a natural bodily function that happens to people all the time. I aced that driving test, by the way.
When I have an important meeting to go to, my mind makes up ridiculous scenarios that could prevent me from making it to the meeting--scenarios that could never, ever, in a million years ever happen. I had a meeting today. It was fairly close to home at a place I have driven by about a million times, and I left in plenty of time to get there and even was able to run a few errands first. My outfit was washed and crisp and my car had plenty of gas in it. And yet my mind kept thinking things like this:
"What if those headlights 3 miles behind me are actually the flashing lights of a cop who is trying to pull me over and just can't get to me fast enough?" (It wasn't)
"What I'm part of one of those 3-car traffic stops that cops make and I don't know it and I keep going and I don't notice the cops and I get arrested for fleeing?" (I didn't)
"The place of my meeting is coming up soon. I think it's right after this intersection. Oh, no! It's not! What if it got sucked up by an extra-dimensional energy field?" (It didn't)
"What if they moved since three days ago and didn't tell me? Oh, never mind, it's right there." (Yup.)
"I need to go to the bathroom really bad." (Hold it. No way I am asking to use their bathroom. This is due to another serious phobia I have of public restrooms. It all goes back to a very bad experience I had once in an outhouse in Ukraine.)
"What if I suddenly forget all knowledge of traffic laws and make an improper left turn?" (I have actually come close to doing this before.)
"What if I am mistaken for a criminal, pulled over, and arrested?" (Nope.)
"What if it switched to daylight savings and nobody told me and I'm an hour late?" (No.)
"What if this is all a dream?" (Sadly, no.)
"What if this whole day has been a dream and I'm just now waking up?" (Still no.)
Yeah. I have issues. But! My mystery meeting went great, I got the desired outcome that I went for, and I made my way home without even thinking about getting pulled over. Well, maybe I did have just one obsessive thought about law enforcement. I know, I have way too many cop issues, but that is because of a few very ill-advised strategies that I employed once to try to get out of a speeding ticket. Words of wisdom: When trying to get out of a ticket, do not tell a police officer that he is any of the following:
a) stupid
b) inexperienced
c) prejudiced
d) pulling people over for fun
e) lying
Yeah.
Please don't be like me.
Hearing the phone ring
Speaking in public
Singing in public
Going to the doctor (where I am always convinced that I am about to be diagnosed with a terminal illness)
Going to the dentist (where I am always convinced that they are going to have to pull all my teeth)
Driving
Seeing a cop on patrol while driving
Strange men
Weapons
Strange men with weapons (We live in hunting territory where this is not uncommon)
Noises outside my tent while camping
The first night after I've heard a ghost story, no matter how un-scary, lame, or ridiculous
Going to the DMV
...I think that about sums it up. Yeah, I'm a nervous person.
My nerves present themselves in some very interesting ways. For example, every time I go to the dentist, my body starts to shake uncontrollably. A couple years ago when I had my driver's license renewed, I got so nervous that I had to make a sudden trip to the restroom and I was in there so long that my test timed out and they had to reset it. I won't say what was going on in the bathroom, except that it was a natural bodily function that happens to people all the time. I aced that driving test, by the way.
When I have an important meeting to go to, my mind makes up ridiculous scenarios that could prevent me from making it to the meeting--scenarios that could never, ever, in a million years ever happen. I had a meeting today. It was fairly close to home at a place I have driven by about a million times, and I left in plenty of time to get there and even was able to run a few errands first. My outfit was washed and crisp and my car had plenty of gas in it. And yet my mind kept thinking things like this:
"What if those headlights 3 miles behind me are actually the flashing lights of a cop who is trying to pull me over and just can't get to me fast enough?" (It wasn't)
"What I'm part of one of those 3-car traffic stops that cops make and I don't know it and I keep going and I don't notice the cops and I get arrested for fleeing?" (I didn't)
"The place of my meeting is coming up soon. I think it's right after this intersection. Oh, no! It's not! What if it got sucked up by an extra-dimensional energy field?" (It didn't)
"What if they moved since three days ago and didn't tell me? Oh, never mind, it's right there." (Yup.)
"I need to go to the bathroom really bad." (Hold it. No way I am asking to use their bathroom. This is due to another serious phobia I have of public restrooms. It all goes back to a very bad experience I had once in an outhouse in Ukraine.)
"What if I suddenly forget all knowledge of traffic laws and make an improper left turn?" (I have actually come close to doing this before.)
"What if I am mistaken for a criminal, pulled over, and arrested?" (Nope.)
"What if it switched to daylight savings and nobody told me and I'm an hour late?" (No.)
"What if this is all a dream?" (Sadly, no.)
"What if this whole day has been a dream and I'm just now waking up?" (Still no.)
Yeah. I have issues. But! My mystery meeting went great, I got the desired outcome that I went for, and I made my way home without even thinking about getting pulled over. Well, maybe I did have just one obsessive thought about law enforcement. I know, I have way too many cop issues, but that is because of a few very ill-advised strategies that I employed once to try to get out of a speeding ticket. Words of wisdom: When trying to get out of a ticket, do not tell a police officer that he is any of the following:
a) stupid
b) inexperienced
c) prejudiced
d) pulling people over for fun
e) lying
Yeah.
Please don't be like me.
Monday, January 2, 2012
New Years Resolution
Every new year I make some sort of unofficial resolution and almost every year it involves working out more and eating healthier. Last year my resolution was to get my Etsy shop off the ground and it seems like that panned out pretty well. This year I want to try to focus on losing some of the 25+ pounds of baby weight that has been extremely stubborn and doesn't want to come off. I don't want to be skinny, I just want my waist back.
I decided that I should get up and do my exercises early in the morning so that it will be done and over with and I can get on with my day. Also, I was hoping to be able to get it done before my toddler wakes up, because working out with kids underfoot is about 1000 times harder.
It turned out to be an ill-fated attempt. Here's how it went this morning:
6:00-6:45 am: Woke up. Spent 45 minutes convincing myself to get out of bed.
6:45-6:50 am: Brush teeth, drink a glass of water in an attempt to get the morning breath taste out of my mouth. I cannot STAND panting and breathing hard and knowing that my breath smells like sheep guts that have been dead for a week. Am I the only one?
6:50-7:05 am: My todder wakes up. Usually he sleeps a little later. But, like a bear's instinct that tells it to come out of hibernation, my kid always knows when I'm about to work out. I get him out of bed, change his soggy diaper, get him milk, after which he is still not happy so I decide to fix him breakfast. I get him settled in to his breakfast and start my 45 minute Zumba game on the Xbox 360.
7:05-7:20 am: Things are going pretty well up to this point. I was doing my workout and JC was behaving relatively well. Mostly he stood in front of me and stared at me. I don't blame him. Imagine a retarded manatee performing sexy Latin dance moves and that's basically what I look like. I know that I am a horrible dancer, that I have no rhythm, and that I have no business trying to, but that problem is outweighed by the far worse problem that I just find exercise and sports to be horrendously boring. Zumba is basically the only thing that doesn't have me crying/almost falling asleep/quitting early/making up stupid poems in my head to pass the time.
7:20-7:25 am: JC wants me to pick him up and dance with him. I sense that things are about to go wrong if I don't do something quick, so I send him in to the bedroom to play with my husband, who is still in bed asleep. I know he won't mind being awoken from his blissful slumber by a screaming 2-year-old.
7:25-7:45 am: I hear my husband yell for me to come quick. I ignore it at first, hoping that he will be able to take care of whatever mini-emergency it is. Then he yells again and tells me to hurry and bring a wet washcloth. Maybe my husband is calling me for a good reason after all. I run into the bedroom and see my son sitting on the bed with my husband, blood drips all over the sheets. JC had cut a gouge in his foot somehow. We still can't figure out HOW in the world it happened but it looked pretty gross at first. I thought it might need stitches but in the end it turned out to be minor. I try to ask JC how he got his owie but he either can't or won't explain. He's more interested in ripping off his band-aid than telling me what he was doing when he hurt his foot. I go get him some socks and some more food to take his mind off the band-aid.
7:45-8:10 am: I go back to the workout but this time it is worse. Now that Josh is up I have an audience for my retarded manatee dance moves and so I try even harder to make my hips move to the beat which results in me mangling the choreography even more than usual. Basically for the next 20 minutes I just do a blend of random hip gyrations and elements of the macarena. JC really, really wants me to dance him and when I won't, he throws himself under my feet kicking and screaming. I ignore it and drag him out of the way. My husband tries to distract him while I finish my workout.
I was proud that I actually made it through but then I thought to all the times last year that I tried to work out and I remembered why I wasn't very consistent. Ever heard that saying, "Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree"? Yeah. That is what working out with a 2-year-old is like. Nailing Jell-O to a tree.
It will be a New Year's Miracle if I make it through this week doing a 45-minute workout every day, let alone the whole year.
So if anyone figures out a magic way to get a kid to be happy for 45 minutes without being entertained by me, needing food, medical care, or discipline, let me know.
I decided that I should get up and do my exercises early in the morning so that it will be done and over with and I can get on with my day. Also, I was hoping to be able to get it done before my toddler wakes up, because working out with kids underfoot is about 1000 times harder.
It turned out to be an ill-fated attempt. Here's how it went this morning:
6:00-6:45 am: Woke up. Spent 45 minutes convincing myself to get out of bed.
6:45-6:50 am: Brush teeth, drink a glass of water in an attempt to get the morning breath taste out of my mouth. I cannot STAND panting and breathing hard and knowing that my breath smells like sheep guts that have been dead for a week. Am I the only one?
6:50-7:05 am: My todder wakes up. Usually he sleeps a little later. But, like a bear's instinct that tells it to come out of hibernation, my kid always knows when I'm about to work out. I get him out of bed, change his soggy diaper, get him milk, after which he is still not happy so I decide to fix him breakfast. I get him settled in to his breakfast and start my 45 minute Zumba game on the Xbox 360.
7:05-7:20 am: Things are going pretty well up to this point. I was doing my workout and JC was behaving relatively well. Mostly he stood in front of me and stared at me. I don't blame him. Imagine a retarded manatee performing sexy Latin dance moves and that's basically what I look like. I know that I am a horrible dancer, that I have no rhythm, and that I have no business trying to, but that problem is outweighed by the far worse problem that I just find exercise and sports to be horrendously boring. Zumba is basically the only thing that doesn't have me crying/almost falling asleep/quitting early/making up stupid poems in my head to pass the time.
7:20-7:25 am: JC wants me to pick him up and dance with him. I sense that things are about to go wrong if I don't do something quick, so I send him in to the bedroom to play with my husband, who is still in bed asleep. I know he won't mind being awoken from his blissful slumber by a screaming 2-year-old.
7:25-7:45 am: I hear my husband yell for me to come quick. I ignore it at first, hoping that he will be able to take care of whatever mini-emergency it is. Then he yells again and tells me to hurry and bring a wet washcloth. Maybe my husband is calling me for a good reason after all. I run into the bedroom and see my son sitting on the bed with my husband, blood drips all over the sheets. JC had cut a gouge in his foot somehow. We still can't figure out HOW in the world it happened but it looked pretty gross at first. I thought it might need stitches but in the end it turned out to be minor. I try to ask JC how he got his owie but he either can't or won't explain. He's more interested in ripping off his band-aid than telling me what he was doing when he hurt his foot. I go get him some socks and some more food to take his mind off the band-aid.
7:45-8:10 am: I go back to the workout but this time it is worse. Now that Josh is up I have an audience for my retarded manatee dance moves and so I try even harder to make my hips move to the beat which results in me mangling the choreography even more than usual. Basically for the next 20 minutes I just do a blend of random hip gyrations and elements of the macarena. JC really, really wants me to dance him and when I won't, he throws himself under my feet kicking and screaming. I ignore it and drag him out of the way. My husband tries to distract him while I finish my workout.
I was proud that I actually made it through but then I thought to all the times last year that I tried to work out and I remembered why I wasn't very consistent. Ever heard that saying, "Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree"? Yeah. That is what working out with a 2-year-old is like. Nailing Jell-O to a tree.
It will be a New Year's Miracle if I make it through this week doing a 45-minute workout every day, let alone the whole year.
So if anyone figures out a magic way to get a kid to be happy for 45 minutes without being entertained by me, needing food, medical care, or discipline, let me know.
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