It is What it Is

To Hell and Back

Yesterday, I had the extreme misfortune of wasting a large chunk of what is left of my youth in that terrible, terrible place known as the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Now, I know that waiting in line at the DMV is a cliche for a reason, but I still don't think that I've ever spent more than an hour there - and that was back when I was 16 and had to take an actual road test to prove that I deserved a license. I even thought that I had planned my visit for an off-peak hour, and, when I arrived, I was incredibly pleased to look around the waiting area at the DMV and see only a handful of people in line.

Unfortunately, what I didn't realize is that the people working at the DMV operate at about the speed of molasses.

After two hours (two hours!?!?), they called my number, and I took my eye test and paid. Another hour later (one whole hour!?!?), after the computer had crashed not once, but twice, they finally took my photo. All in all, I arrived at the DMV at 1: 25 p.m. (after getting lost because the directions on the web site were wrong), and I walked out at 4:40 p.m.

I was at the DMV for three entire hours. THREE HOURS. I don't know what I did to deserve this punishment (unless, of course, those right wing Christians really are right about the evils of alcohol and voting for Democrats), but hopefully, this will be the closest I ever come to understanding Stockholm Syndrome or how wild animals feel in captivity.

Towards the end of hour one, I still felt pretty OK. In fact, I was even hopeful. I'd found a Sudoku and an old Dilbert cartoon to pass the time. I knew things were bad, but I had faith that my situation would improve.

At the end of hour two, I was torn between outright rage and exhaustion. Half of me was angry at the world and everyone working at the DMV. I did a lot of looking around the room in wide-eyed frustration hoping I could make eye contact with someone willing to listen to me rant about the wait. The other part of me just wanted to give in and curl up in a fetal position right there with my eyes shut tight against anything and everyone.

And, by the end of hour three, I had resigned myself to a life lived entirely within the confines of the DMV. I started looking around the building for potential life mates (and you know that if you're thinking about picking a spouse at the DMV, it's bad). I figured that maybe we could settle down, start a family, build a home from plastic chairs and outdated driver's manuals, and be happy. The guy who looked like he didn't have tattoos so much as a friend he let doodle all over his body in permanent, needle-embedded ink seemed nice enough. After all, if I was never going to be able to leave the building, I might as well make the most of it.

Luckily, just when I had accepted a future that involved washing my hair with hand soap and bartering for Tic Tacs to survive, I got my license.

Then, as if the hours of idle waiting weren't bad enough, I saw my driver's license photo.

Now, you would think that after all those hours of waiting, I would be so happy to have my license in hand (I probably would have walked out with nothing if I hadn't remembered that my license was necessary to purchase red wine) that I wouldn't care at all about the photo. Even I thought that for a few minutes.

But, that was when I was naive and completely ignoring the strength of my own vanity. Even after all that waiting, I would have risked yet another computer crash not to have the license photo that I have now.

I know this picture is blurry, but I think you get the idea. I can't decide if it looks like I'm about to laugh or vomit. (Let's not even start with the fact that my chin and my neck tried to become one right as the flash went off ...)

Oh well, at least I don't have to go through all this again for another seven years - unless that photo really starts to bug me.

Incomprehensible

On the subject of my apartment, I think that it's finally time to share a dirty little secret with the world.

As you're looking at the picture to the right, you're probably thinking, "What on earth could that abhorrent image be? Is it spoiled food? Dirt? Maybe even human waste?"

And, unfortunately, none of those guesses would be right. What you're actually seeing here is a photo of one of my bathroom walls.
That's right. At some point, in what I can only imagine was either a drug-induced haze or rage-filled attempt at revenge, my bathroom walls were painted dark brown. And then, as if painting bathroom walls brown wasn't bad enough, the painter with poor, poor taste chose to texturize them.

I'm not sure whether or not you can pick this up from the photo, but there are actually irregular swoops through the brown paint that give the walls a kind of 3-D effect. Some might even, or have, said that the walls look like they were decorated with actual poop.

While such a decorating technique is horrible anywhere, as one rarely wants to look at one's surroundings and think of feces, the fact that these are my bathroom walls really does make this all the more coincidental and terrible. (I say "coincidental" because I have to hope that no one could acknowledge that said paint looks just like poop and still choose to put it on the walls.)

In short, my bathroom is a horrible, horrible place, and my feelings towards it might be why some of my normally excellent personal hygiene habits have fallen by the wayside lately.

Might be.

Responsibility

I try to have low expectations for my living conditions. (At least, I've tried to have low expectations for my living conditions since moving to Nashville. The nicest name I can come up with for my new place is "the hovel," and I can only hope this tale serves as a cautionary tale to the kids out there about not renting an apartment from Craig's List unseen. The internet can be a deceptive, deceptive place.)

Then, a few weeks ago, I learned that I had not let my standards sink low enough when my landlord called to deliver the news no tenant wants to hear: rodent infestation.

Yep, the girl who thinks that gummy bears are gross as soon as they see heat above room temperature was living in the midst of the small, burrowing creatures who inspired the mind-numbing "Tom & Jerry" cartoons and created minor global inconveniences like the Black Plague.

Now, when my landlord called to let me know about the mice (she discovered the problem when a mouse ran across her foot while she was checking on something in my apartment, and, let's just say, that if there's anything I like less than rodents, it's bold rodents), she wanted to know if I had seen anything before to make me suspect this problem.

Of course, this was a pretty nonsensical question because if I had seen anything to indicate that I was living with mice, she would have been the first person that I called. It's not like living in a mice infested apartment has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl. Rodent-filled living quarters weren't exactly up there with my hopes of being both U.S. President and Princess and finding a real, live unicorn.

Then, my landlord told me that she would have checked under my sink to see if the mice got in that way, but I had too much stuff there, and she just left. So, when I got home from work, I moved my multiple Swiffers and cleaning products from under the sink to look around.

That's when all my doubts about a mice problem vanished. You see, I didn't just have a hole under my sink - I had the kind of dome-shaped mouse hole I thought only existed in those pesky "Tom & Jerry" cartoons.

I just hope this can serve as another lesson for the kids - usually, it pays to pay attention. If it looks like a duck/hole-for-mice and talks like a duck/hole-for-mice, it's probably a duck/hole-for-mice.

Thank goodness for prompt and thorough exterminators.

Everlasting Love

When I was little, there was no celebrity I adored more than Michael J. Fox.

I was absolutely enamored with Alex P. Keaton, and I never missed "Family Ties." (I'm pretty sure that the only time I voted for a Republican was in the 1988 mock presidential election held at our elementary school when I cast a vote for George Bush, Sr in our cardboard voting booth. Since I don't come from a family of Republicans, I can only assume that this decision was heavily influenced by the conservative viewpoint of one Alex P. Keaton.)

I have seen "Back to the Future" and its sequels more times than I can count (although I still prefer to think that "Back to the Future: Part II" wasn't part of the franchise), and I scoff at the very notion of Jason Bateman as a basketball-playing teenage werewolf when Michael J. Fox so obviously played the original and the best "Teen Wolf." (I also must unfortunately admit that I wished I too could hear dog whistles for a long time after that movie came out.)

My Barbies married Michaels, not Kens.

I even watched "The Frighteners" - and I liked it. I dare another fan of the Fox to make that claim.

So, you can only imagine my absolute joy on a cold day in 1989 when my mother dragged me to the denim haven that was County Seat and Courtney Cox walked in.

At the time, Courtney Cox was playing a psychology student on "Family Ties." And, this psychology student also happened to be Alex P. Keaton's girlfriend. As far as I was concerned, there could be no luckier lady.

With my mom's encouragement, I worked up the nerve to ask Courtney for her autograph, and since we had no paper, I ended up with Courtney's signature on some County Seat stationary. (I can only imagine how ridiculous this autograph would look if I still had it today. For those of you who can't believe I would lose such an important bit of memorabilia, I blame my uncharacteristic nonchalance on how often I move - it certainly wasn't for a lack of caring.)

And, while this was my first real "brush with fame," I think it might be better than all the rest. (I know, it's shocking considering the thrills that were Little Richard, Richard Townsend and Juliette Lewis.)

What can I say? That's just how much I love Michael J. Fox - even to this day. I shudder to think what would be the level of embarrassment, stammering and possible confessing to him some of these very details should I ever meet Michael J. Fox in person and not just someone who played his girlfriend on television about two decades ago.

(P.S. If some of this sounds familiar, I might have mentioned some of this before whenever Michael J. Fox was mentioned in my presence or when Rush Limbaugh attacked my first love, but I thought now was a good time to expand on the true depth of my very first celebrity encounter. Plus, I always have more to say about Michael J. Fox.)

On the Road

As I've said before, I love the South. And yet, it continues to amaze me how many I times I see people in my beloved home state of Alabama who seem intent on proving everyone else right in their stereotypes of our region.

This past weekend, I drove back through Alabama after a week at the beach with my family. When we stopped for gas, I went into the station to use the bathroom and saw one of these aforementioned people.

It was 2:00 in the afternoon, and there was a shirtless guy wandering through the store with a gallon of sweet tea in one hand and a case of Natty Light in the other. (Natty Light is the nickname for Natural Light discount beer for those of you who might exercise standards when you drink, entertain and/or bake chicken.)

Plus, because he wasn't wearing a shirt, I could see the very prominent bulldog tattoo on his bicep that I can only assume was a memorial to a favorite pet since "Sarge" was tattooed beneath it.

Maybe it's silly, but I really don't understand why men don't wear shirts. (I make exceptions for men at the pool or exercising, but even when they're exercising, I feel that if other people are around, men should be clothed.) Truth be told, I just prefer the world clothed. I'm not really one for total honesty, and being able to see all that exposed stuff/skin on a person whose name I don't even know just seems like too much. What could have been so important about sweet tea and Natty Light (and I do understand how pressing these purchases can be to Southerners) that the guy couldn't put on a shirt before running to the Exxon? Seriously?

And, before you say it, the heat is no excuse.

It's Alabama - it's always hot. In fact, it's hot and humid for half the year. It can be freakishly hot in the middle of December. In the middle of August, it's going to be disgustingly hot. But, that certainly isn't a reason not to wear a shirt. It's not like that thin layer of cotton jersey really makes a difference to your body temperature, and if you really think about it, the heat provides even more of a reason to wear a shirt. In the heat, you're going to sweat more, and, if nothing else, I feel that I, as a tax-paying, voting, decent citizen, deserve that thin layer of cotton jersey between me and your sticky flesh when I am in public.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Labels: pet peeves

Saturday Night Fever

When people ask about my writing, they usually seem pretty surprised that I don't write fiction. (Although, that's unless, of course, you talk to my mother who would claim that I do indeed write fiction, but bygones.) That's usually when I explain that I'd much rather write non-fiction because life is so full of stuff that you just can't make up, or stuff that if you did make up stories along the same lines, people would balk at your cheesiness or call you ridiculous. (For further proof that "truth really is stranger than fiction," please see my brief encounter with Ivanka Trump.)

Anyway, one of my weekend adventures is another great example of this tenet. A few weeks ago, I visited a bar in downtown Nashville with my friend Lindsay. After hanging out for a bit, we were ready to head home and left the bar to head to the parking lot. When we got to the car, we realized that we didn't have Lindsay's keys, so we headed back inside to make sure that they hadn't fallen out under the table where we were seated. Inside the bar, our table had already been taken by a couple of guys. It was a busy bar after midnight, so Lindsay explained the situation to the new patrons, and we proceeded to climb under the table in search of the missing key. Luckily, we found the keys and climbed back out quickly. But, as we were preparing to leave the bar for the second time, a girl walked out of the bathroom and made a beeline towards me.

Before I could really comprehend her scowl and determination, she yanked me by the elbow (hard, I might add) and screamed, "What the f*** are you doing with my boyfriend?"

For the next few seconds, I was completely stunned, mainly because a) no one has ever grabbed me and accosted me like that in public before and b) her boyfriend wasn't much to write home about, and therefore not what I would imagine as a prime target for "man-stealing." (Not that I know too much about "man-stealing," but I did watch a lot of "Beverly Hills, 90210" in my adolescence, and a young Luke Perry would have been a different story. But, this guy? No.)

As I was still standing there — in shock — the boyfriend stood up to intervene, and I imagine explain that we were just trying to retrieve some keys, when she turned on him and proceeded to take his head off.

Thankfully, Lindsay and I know the bartender where we were, so we were able to exit quickly after this and avoid any further commotion. (And, not that I would have, but for the record, I could have made her sorry for such an inappropriate accusation. I don't like to be touched -- especially by strangers leaving dirty bar bathrooms.)

Anyway, the point to my story is this: The name of the bar where this near chick-fight occurred? The Trailer Park. I leave it at that.