Happy Birthday to Me

So, I turned 26. Closer to 30 than 20. "The perfect time for a quarter-life crisis!" a mental health professional said to me recently.

Apparently, my former employer got the news.

The fact that they layed me off in April hasn't stopped them from sending me frequent fundraising appeals, which I find rather annoying.

So, I gave them 4 years of my blood, sweat, and tears, and now... they want me to join their "Heritage Club," and "remember them" in my "estate planning." The brochure helpfully gives me step by step instructions on how to do so!

AWESOME.

One of you needs to have a baby immediately...

...so that I can buy you this.

Um, excuse me?

Why does amazon.com include this book in the list of books they think I would enjoy?

WHOA.

So I'm sitting in my living room, watching "Reality Bites" on Oxygen.

And it's the scene where they are sitting in the living room, and they are high, and starving, and want to order pizza, and talk about ordering Domino's. And Winona Ryder says something like, "No, no Domino's, the owner supports Operation Rescue."

AND THEY CENSORED HER COMMENT! They made an awkward cut, and then you see Ethan Hawke responding, but it's silent, his mouth is moving, but you can't hear what he's saying.

WTF?? It's a fairly innocuous comment, I think, considering it's glossed over pretty quickly, and no one explains what Operation Rescue is, or whatever. But apparently they found it so outrageous that it was censored. It's slightly inaccurate TODAY, b/c the previous owner that DID support Operation Rescue, is no longer involved with the company (too busy building his own super-Catholic town, where pharmacies won't be able to sell contraceptives, etc.) but I cannot imagine that they would cut out all outdated references.

So all irritated by the censorship, but easily distracted all the same, I just started googling "Domino's Pizza" "Operation Rescue", and found wikipedia article, which for some reason is proving difficult to link to. Here's my favorite part, a piece of Domino's trivia that I didn't know:

In the 1980s, Domino's Pizza was well known for its advertisements featuring The Noid . Customers were implored to order from Domino's in order to "avoid the Noid." In 1989, a man, Kenneth Lamar Noid, who thought the ads were a personal attack on him, held two employees of an Atlanta, Georgia , Domino's restaurant hostage for over five hours. After forcing them to make him a pizza, Noid surrendered to police. Noid was charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault, extortion, and possession of a firearm during a crime. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Sigh. I need to get a life. I guess it's a damn good thing that I just got a job. (!!!)

Not quite

So I just saw this commercial. Here's what I saw. Two guys in some sort of public bathroom, like a college dorm communal bathroom. They look at each other and smile. One guy has horrific, brown, crazy teeth. The other guy then writes his name on a toothbrush, and puts it on the counter, kind of sliding it toward bad-teeth-guy. I swear, I saw this, and thought, what? WHAT? He wants to pick him up by writing his name on a toothbrush? He's really into bad teeth? What is this, one of those "hip," "edgy," anti-smoking commercials, like that one where the girl walked around licking garbage cans? And just to be "hipper" and "edgier," they made the couple gay?

Then I rewound it (I heart the TiFaux). It was a commercial for mini-sharpie pens. He was writing his name on the toothbrush so bad teeth guy doesn't use it. I would never make it in advertising.

Blah blah blah. BLAH.

I have been unemployed for almost exactly three months. Three months ago tomorrow was my last day. I officially filed for unemployment insurance this past Monday.

It's really embarssing how little I've done with this (somewhat) unexpected summer vacation. I've done some temping. I've done some freelancing. I've done some yoga. I've made some jam. I've discovered the beauty of free time during traditional working hours. (Seriously, the difference between grocery shopping at 1 pm on a Tuesday and 6:30 pm on a Thursday? At least 45 minutes saved.) I've also watched an alarming amount of television.

(I had a job interview yesterday, a second interview, actually, and spend last night and much of today working on a "writing test" for the job. And I just have a bad feeling about it, today. I don't know why, exactly, nothing I can pinpoint, nothing went wrong, per se, though the writing assignment was effing HARD, but I just have this feeling in my stomach that it's not going to happen. It's the same feeling that I had the week before I lost my job, when I knew layoffs were coming, and I knew it was going to be me. Ah, who knows. Maybe if I can accurately predict bad news, I can make a career out of that!)

Oooh, I just discovered a good cheesey movie on tv, the kind of movie I love, but haven't seen in years. Guess which one. I will give the closest guess... a prize. of some sort. It's kind of embarssing to divulge the fact that I like this movie, but... oh well. Going to go pour myself a glass of wine, I think.

Two Conversations WIth the Same Person that Made Me Laugh

Me: Yeah, so we try to save all of our change, we keep it in this big bank.
Her (deadpan): I keep my change at the bottom of my purse, mixed in with loose tobacco and gum.

---

Me: So why don't you like this girl anymore? You used to be best friends. Is it because she loves Jesus now?
Her (hushed, mildly disgusted voice): And animals.

Conundrum

(Have been meaning to post for about a million years, about the night of 1000 spills (with pictures!), the snowy weekend at the beach (with more pictures!), and a few other recollections. But I'm lazy. So... later.)

Now, this is kind of gross. But I'm sharing anyway! Let's say you are at a bar. And you have to pee. And you go into the bathroom, which has only one stall. And the toilet isn't... um, dirty, but there's some toilet paper in it. So, for whatever reason, you decide to flush it, just to make sure it's not clogged. And it doesn't flush (but doesn't overflow). So it is clogged.

Now. You REALLY have to pee. Here are your options:

1) Pee in the clogged toilet, leave it without flushing, to avoid... overflow all over your feet.
2) Plunge the toilet with the plunger that is sitting right next to the toilet.
3) Go back into the crowded bar, find an employee, and tell them the toilet is clogged, thus implying that you clogged it.

What would you do? What do you think I did?

Would your answer change if you knew that you were in the hottest, smallest bathroom of all time?

Is this too gross to put on the internet?