Dear Pesty Pets,

My cats keep getting injured. About every other week one of my two cats has a new wound. I am getting very tired of this as it has been happening since i moved into my new house 6 months ago. The problem is two of the neighborhood cats keep thinking that my porch would be a fun place to nap as there is this lovely couch on it. Unfortunately for Evil Cat 1 and Evil Cat 2, my cats do not feel like sharing this comfy couch.  I also believe these two evil cats enjoy lounging in my yard as it is very soft and green. My cats do not believe the yard is big enough for four cats to lounge around comfortably.

I have already spent over $300 in vet bills for my cats and cannot afford any more. I have narrowed down my options for solutions to these:

1. Keep my cats indoors. 

• Problem with option 1: My oldest cat gets very angry when not allowed outside. He will retaliate by peeing on things like the couch or my shoes.

2. Shoot the trespassing cats

• Problem with option 2:
  • I live in town and thus this would be illegal. Luckily it is not illegal for me to fantasize about it.
  • Also I don’t think I could do it – I love my cats and would be mildly guilty about it as their owners probably feel the same wy about their cats (even though they are evil) as I do about mine.

3. Catch the trespassing cats and duck tape my vet bills to their tails.

• Problem with option 3:
  • When this first started happening i did rent a live trap in hopes of catching the evil cat villans and then taking them to the cat jail so the owners would have to bail them out. Unfortunately, the evil cats did not fall for this therefore catching them will be quite tricky.
  • May be considered animal cruelty and end up with police on my door instead of a nice neighbor paying me back for their animals damage

 4. keep cleaning out cat wounds

• Problem with option 4:
  • Infected cat wounds smell quite foul. But this is the most likely choice as it has fewer legal consequences.

Dear Barbie (The Wrinkle Movement),

As I am playing out my usual morning internet routine, I see this add: Tricks your dermatologist doesn’t want you to know – a $5 wrinkle solution. And then this idea hits me. I realize that I don’t want to avoid developing wrinkles. Now, I am actually looking forward to them.

My reasoning:

So many people have this fear of getting older.  Our young bodies go out the window, a few more pounds that deep down inside we know we will never lose. For men receding hairlines, women get saggy breasts. Our hair turns grey, our skins looks more like raisins than flesh. And of course the ultimate down falls, senility, diseases / illnesses brought on by our bad habits and genetics and finally the one way ticket out of this world, death. We strive so hard to avoid these things and are willing to spend the money to avoid looking old. Why? I think it is this unrealized logic in our brains – if we don’t look old then we really aren’t old.

And my grand idea:

Say to hell with it. We are going to get older no matter what. I can either spend (or rather waste) my money on all of the new fangled ways to make my skin look and feel younger. Or I can start the wrinkle movement.

The wrinkle movement is easy to join. All one needs to do is take pride in their aging appearances. Instead of wasting my life trying to avoid the inevitable I am going to live my life to make those wrinkles. In short each grey hair and wrinkle will be like a scar. As every scar has a story as to how it was obtained so will my age markers. I want to be able to say and this wrinkle here, well I got this one from when Dan made me laugh so hard I peed. Or this grey hair here was earned when I got my picture taken with a tiger. (Though my mother always attributed her grey hair to the things my siblings and I put her through when we were growing up. I did give her a lot of them.)

So, join the wrinkle movement! all you have to do is go out there and live your life to the fullest. Laugh, cry, smile, enjoy being outside – make them wrinkles and then start bragging to everyone you know about how you earned those wrinkles and grey hairs!

Dear Men (In General),

I have come to realize that some men out there need a few pointers on ladies. (This is more for you men out there looking for a relationsip.) Here a few things that may help you out – and keep you from getting back handed (hopefully.)

Don’t Talk Yourself Up

      First off, be yourself. Don’t try to impress women with talk of how much money you make or how tough you are. Though the tactic of talking yourself up not only boosts your ego of yourself, most women see through this. Most of us  have come to realize that either a – your exagerating or b – making a lot of money doesn’t atomatically make you a good guy. (Side note – men do beware the women who are impressed soley by your money. If you ever have financial trouble she will be out the door fast.) The other trouble with talking yourself up is that it makes one seem self absorbed.  Don’t let us women think that all you can talk about is yourself – unless, that is all you can talk about. Then you should tell us flat out so we don’t waste anymore time listening to your not so interesting stories. Just remember to be yourself, because sooner or later your true self will come out.

Expect to Get To Know a Woman

     One mistake I see many guys make is that they expect to much too fast. If your going on a first date, (I mean date as in the first time you hang out with a girl be it a real date or going out for a drink with friends) don’t expect the date to end up in a bedroom. If the woman thinks that all your interested in is getting her into bed, then your chances of getting her there have greatly decreased. When you go out with a woman try to be her friend first. Women like the idea of having a guy they can talk with about anything. If your her friend the chances of a relationship evolving increase.

 Don’t Check Out Other Women

     If you do hope to end up in a relationship with the women you’re out with, please don’t obviously check out other women. We will notice. Women will take this as you really are not that intersted in them and will probably think that your just out to get some.

Don’t Ramble About Past Relationships

     If all a man talks about is his ex or various previous relationships then the woman will think that you are still interested in those women instead of her. Good rule of thumb is to not even mention previouse relationships unless asked.

Don’t Be Desperate

     If you haven’t been with someone for awhile, don’t lower your standards just so you can be in a relationship. If the woman isn’t someone you are that into to, then don’t lead her to beleive that you are. It will be a lot easier for both of you.

These are just a few mistake that I have seen men make, and i am sure there are many more that I have forgotten. Just remember to be yourself and to only try to have a good time without any preconceptions or expectaions.

P.S. This advice goes for women, too.

Ribbit

Ribbit

Looking around this

dark and gloomy land,

it isn’t all that it seems;

but then again it’s home.

 

Creaking and cracking

fill the clear night air.

Loud croaks tell the

serene story of this place.

 

The soggy ground

mushes beneath my

webbed feet.  The warm

summer night engulfs me.

 

Rotting logs in the

murky waters make

common odors of

death and decaying.

 

Despite the horrid

appearance and stench

my tongue tingles at the

squirming of the juicy

horse fly in my mouth!

Fire Of Life

Fire of Life

 The reddish-orange flames dance ever so

gracefully across the black blanketed night.

Its fiery glow mesmerizing me.

My mind locked in the lithium light.

My spirit dancing with the scorching flames.

The warmth of the raging bonfire

engulfs my sensitive body.

 

I danced with the wild flames of Autumn sunsets,

 playing it’s game, flowing with it like a free river.

 

My loose hair drifts gently around my face as if in

slow motion. My body overwhelmed

with the pleasure of being wild and free.

The searing heat scouring my

soft skin,  making me crazier.

 

I am one with the fire.

 

From dusk till dawn, my magnificent, raging fire and I do our barbaric dance of pleasure..

 

The sorrowful, dull-gray ashes are all that remain of my night of indulgence. Remnants in dust,

memories in stone.

 

I shall wait for you, my fire of blazing lust.

 

For when you come again, I shall dance wild with the flames of Autumn sunsets, playing your passionate games, flowing with you

like a free river of emotion.

   

Dear Facebook / Twitter app creators

I have been trying to link my facebook and twitter accounts for the past three days. I am fed up. I can get my Facebook posts to link to twitter but not my tweets to Facebook. I have tried all of the different apps and still no go. All of the various apps seem to not be working.  So, Dear FB / Twitter app developers, get it working! Grrr.  I will update you when one of them starts working.

Dear Underground Sprinkler System,

Earlier this year, once the weather was warm enough, my boyfriend, Dan, goes to turn on the sprinkler system to have it sputter at him and do nothing. He had forgotten to have the lines drained before winter. Oops. So, for three months, we have been pondering where the break in the line would be. Pondering is much easier than digging up the whole yard.

 Anywho, today is the day he decided to do something about the broken line. (I think the dead splotchy grass was really starting to bother him.) So, he is outside for a while messing with the system, turns the water on and then gets called off to help at is grandmothers house. When he returns I go outside to smoke (I know, I, know, I can hear the lectures in your head) and decide that maybe the ground is mushy where the line is broken since the water had been on awhile. I was kind of right.

We were flooded.   Luckily, it was easy to find the leak – water was bubbling up through the dirt in a flower bed. My dog was very excited to find a pond in her back yard where water had drained in under the fence. After about an hour and a half of digging, we now have a trench running the length of the house (about 25 feet long and a foot deep.) 

War Trench

Unfortunately, it will have to stay there till we can find a vehicle to haul the plastic pipe in, as my car won’t fit a 20 foot pipe in it. Yep, about 20 feet of plastic pipeline was cracked and broken. Which is wierd because there as a pipe running parallel to the broken one, literally touching in spots, that is completely fine – no cracks, nothing.  Maybe not airing out the lines wasn’t the cause? I guess I will blame it on the garden gnomes or lack thereof.

Dear Customer,

Dear Customer,

These are a few things that most cashiers and other employees don’t want to hear:

• I am not your honey, babe or sweetheart. No, I am not beautiful or gorgeous either – I’d be a model if I was.
• Me: “Would you like a bag?” Customer: “No, I got one at home.” Cute but not original. We hear this one at least once a day.
• Would you like to go out? (No, I wouldn’t. I am here to earn a paycheck, not expand my love life. There are bars for that.)
• I don’t know how much fuel it will take to fill it up. (Well, me either. Guess as best you can. We will give you your change if you don’t use it all.)
• Do you have diet milk?
• Your cigarettes are expensive. (Yeah, they are everywhere.)
• Threaten that you will never come here again. (Thank god, because we play Run Away when you walk in! Run Away = last cashier at their till will have to wait on you.)

Tips for a happy shopping experience:

• Bathe
• Smile
• Manners are a plus
• Just because someone is working a shit job doesn’t make them stupid or uneducated. Especially in these hard economic times people take any job they can find or a second job to help pay bills. They could be a teacher, professor or who knows what.
• Be patient
• Bathe
• Don’t piss off the clerk. They can and will dish it right back. (Plus most places reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason )
• Your kid messes up, deal with it. (They break a toy? Don’t yell at me for it!)
• If you are over 30, don’t be upset that you weren’t carded.
• Walk up to the register. don’t try to come behind the till to give me your fuel money. I am likely to hit a panic button.
• Brush your teeth
• Be nice to the people making your food.
• Eat all your food at the tables then bring up either empty packages for me to throw away, or throw the packages away and expect me to know how much to charge you for items like potato salad (sold by the pound each package is different)
• When asked if that is everything, don’t say yes when you know you still need other things. (One customer would have me ring him out (pay and everything) then would want lottery tickets. And pay cash for both transactions. Annoying when I am busy)
• Don’t cut in line.
• Look what pump your on. Because there are a lot of “that pump over theres”
• Consider the possibility that the cashier is new
• Don’t complain about the store policies. Trust me if we had it our way we wouldn’t go through the trouble. (Pre-pay, carding everyone for alcohol, etc.) Most of the policies are there because too many idiots messed it up for everyone else.
• If your short change don’t rob 30 pennies out of the Give a Penny – Take a Penny jar. Ask first. It’s only polite (and we may have a quarter behind the till that would be much easier for us to count then all those pennies.)
• Bathe
• Your broke, it happens. So, wait while we count out your 10 dollars of change (even better maybe help us) If your short a dollar guess who gets to fork over the rest of your cigarette money?
• Be nice

 

As a final note, I would like to add that I really do enjoy the majority of my customers. This is for the rare few that need pointers not only on being a fun and great customer but on being a good person as well. I realize we all do have our bad days. I just wish others would try to realize that the people they encounter on a day-to-day basis are people too.

Dear Reader,

I realized that some of my blogs-in progress may require readers to know a bit more about me. So, here I am:

I am 26 and was born and raised in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana. I am the youngest of three children by many years. I work in a small convienience store for excellent bosses. ( No, really they’re great people. They don’t know about my blog and will probably never read it if they do find out about it.)  I have worked there two different times this past time I have been working there for a little over a year. I love people (most of the time.) I get to meet all sorts of people and enjoy some of the regular customers.

I am seeing a wonderful man who treats me like a queen. He is the only one who knows about my little blog project.  We have been together for a little over a year and have just moved in together.  Yo may get to hear more about him in various blogs since he is always doing some funny note-worthy thing.

My lifelong dream is to finish a novel – and get it published. My only problem so far is keeping in the habit of writing on a daily basis. Life takes small detours and the day to day life isn’t always conducive for writing. Hopefully, this blog will help keep me in the habit of writing daily even if it’s only for five minutes.

My current writing project is a paranormal murder mystery.  I hope to have it finished by the end of this year… hahaha! But, I am going to try my hardest. I have many other side projects and story ideas that are in the works as well.

For now i think that is about it. I’ll let you know if anything else comes to mind. For instance, i have a horrible tendency to not capitalize my “i’s” when writing. so please, judge not.

Dear Childhood,

I remember my mother telling me that she never truly felt like an adult until after her parents passed away. Now, in my mid-twenties, I totally understand what she meant. I know I am an adult by law - I can vote, smoke and drink if I choose, but I still feel like a child in many ways.

Mainly my attitude, I still act like a kid at times, playing pranks on people, joking around maybe it’s just that I feel young?  The biggest event that brings these feelings out is family gatherings. I am the youngest by many years so when the family is all together, there is a tendency for me to feel like the little kid in the room – the annoying little sister. They mainly encourage these feelings through the way they speak to me. Think of how you speak to your younger siblings or if you’re the youngest to a child. You may not notice but you will use different words and the tone of your voice will be different than when speaking to an adult.

Also, at work I still feel very young at times. During the summer many college kids come back, and i feel as though I relate better to them then some of my other coworkers. Is it because I don’t have children whereas my colleagues do have children? Is that one of the main events down the road to finally being viewing yourself as an adult?

My question to you is: where in life do we as people make the mental change where we quit thinking of ourselves as children and start considering ourselves adults? 

In parting, these two more thoughts:

One: I do believe it’s true that some people never grow up. Does this mean they never made the mental transition of how they view themselves?

and two: Though I don’t feel completely grown up, I am thankful that I certainly don’t feel like a teenager anymore!