Trash Looting Etiquette.

Yesterday morning the boys and I were outside waiting for the school bus to arrive. Thursday is Trash/Recycling Day, and the recycling people come at about 6:30am, so the recycling bin was already empty, but the trash people hadn't come yet.

I asked Tito to please bring the recycling bin into the garage. He let out a heavy sigh and said, "Why do you always have to be such a MOM?"

Cuz that's my job. Duh. Why do YOU have to be such a six-year-old boy?

Anyway, I looked across the street and saw that our neighbors were throwing away what looked to be a dorm fridge. R and I are wanting to put a bar in our basement, and we've been looking for a fridge to put in it. Really, we'd like a bigger one than a dorm fridge, but I figured, Hey, for free? Why not?

So I looked both ways (more to make sure nobody was watching than to set the look-both-ways example for my kids), walked over and swiped the fridge from the neighbors' trash and brought it into my garage to check it out.




Notice what's missing? Certainly not the smell of stale beer.
A PLUG. The cord had been completely cut off.

(Ok, I realize this is probably fixable, but this was looking like it would be more trouble than it was worth.)

Crap. Now what? Put it back? No, that's tacky.

I thought that the nice thing to do was to put it with my own trash, so that's what I did. I even tried to obscure it a bit so if the neighbors looked out their window they wouldn't know that I was the loser who stole their trash and then realized it WAS trash and didn't want to put it back.

I left to run my errands for the morning. I put gas in the Odyssexy, took four bags of stuff to Goodwill, exchanged some stuff at Cacique and got some awesome new bra/panty combos (woo hoo!!), exchanged some other stuff at Target, and took the pantry organizer that we didn't need (since we threw 98% of Buffy's rancid moth-filled decaying crap away) back to Lowe's.

I returned home to find that the trash cans were empty, but the fridge was still sitting there by the curb. The trash people wouldn't take it.

Crap. Now what? Put it back?

Well, first I had to wait until my next-door neighbor finished mowing his lawn.

Look, I was fine with putting it with my trash, but once it becomes a bigger matter than just having the trash people pick it up from my front yard instead of theirs and I have to figure out a way to dispose of it? Yeah, I'm thinking that's more responsibility than I'm willing to take on in the name of proper Trash Looting Etiquette.

So I walked over and put the smelly fridge right back where it started, by their mailbox. No harm, no foul, the slate has been wiped clean, we're right back at square one, and hopefully nobody saw me do it. Would you guys please let me know if someone sends you a YouTube link entitled "Crazy Neighbor Steals Trash and Later Returns It"?

And a full 24 hours later, it's still there. Wouldn't it be funny if I reported them to the Homeowner's Association?



Nah, then they'd probably throw it through my kitchen window.

Thanks for nuthin, Buffy.

Ok, remember last time, when I had that huge pile of stuff from Buffy on my kitchen floor waiting for me to go through it? Well, R and I thought we should empty out the pantry to make space for all the stuff.

Full disclosure - When cleaning out my own pantry, I found this box of chocolate Viactiv calcium supplements from 2007. I'm not perfect. I know.















Now let me refresh your memory a bit. Here's the pic of most of the stuff Dummy gave us, minus the rancid Crisco (which I can still taste, by the way).





Here's what we kept.



Here's what we threw away.



If she just said "Hey, Sarah, throw this box of crap away for me," it would have been so much simpler.


Seriously, look at some of this shit. This is a huge bottle of Teriyaki sauce from 2006.



Here's a box of tea bags from 2000.





Did ya think I was kidding about Folgers Chunks? I WASN'T.





Ah, who doesn't have one of these cans in their pantry?
Buffy had two, both unopened.




One from 2003. . .




and one from the Clinton Administration.





Remember this stuff from the 1970's,
before we knew MSG was a bad thing?




WHY in God's name would you buy THIS much of ANYTHING???




If it's taken you four years to get halfway through this much pepper,




why the FUCK would you buy THIS much????





I'm just speechless.

I'm still taking Buffy's Shiitake.

So my non-friend Buffy called me last week while I was playing darts with my friends Rip and Speed Racer. Buffy's pregnant, her husband's unemployed, she just moved across the country to start this dream job which has turned out to be a nightmare (they didn't inform her that she'd have to cover her tattoos, for one thing), she's living in a shithole one bedroom apartment in a crap part of From Whence She Came, and in addition to her twelve-year-old son Princeton (who's an absolute doll), she has Perfect Baby who's 15 months and they can barely afford to pay for her child care. She can't figure out where her life went wrong.

She called me because she was hoping to make a deposit into The Great Bank of Karma, after having provided me countless opportunities to rack up a whopping nine-figure balance. In other words, she wanted to do something "nice" for me after having called on me to bail her out of shitty situation after shitty situation for the last year.

Her husband Dummy was packing up their house before he and Princeton and Buffy's sister hopped in the U-Haul and drove all the way back to From Whence. She wanted to know if I'd like to have the non-perishables and stuff from their pantry.

The more I thought about it, though, this wasn't exactly her doing a selfless, nice thing for me. This was, "Here, come over to the house and take this shit off my hands and save me a trip to the church Food Pantry. Make me feel like a good person for giving it away instead of chucking it all." Still, hey, I'll never turn down free food. Unless it's pickles. I fucking hate pickles. But I digress.

Dummy and Buffy's sister loaded up two big boxes and a bag of stuff. It was mostly baking stuff like spices, a huge bottle of olive oil, pasta... this isn't even all of it. This is just the stuff I haven't gone through yet.


In the interest of full disclosure, they did give me a bottle of Crown Royal with about two shots left in it (not pictured), but kids, trust me - if someone gives you a big bag of Shiitake, read IMPENDING DOOM.

I looked through the stuff and found a couple of things that stood out to me, including two-year-old macaroni, which didn't really phase me too much because I've been known to bury things in the back of the pantry and forget I have it, and then I'll buy more so it stays buried. That happens. No big deal.

I have a really awful habit of extending people the benefit of the doubt long after they've proven to me they don't deserve it.


I didn't feel too bad about pitching the 2007 macaroni. Or the Folgers Crystals that looked more like Folgers Chunks.


Or the Cream of Wheat from 2005, which no one in my family would have eaten anyway, even if it was new.

This stuff has been sitting on my kitchen floor for a few days because I don't even have room for all of it. I'll have to re-think the space where I keep my spices and baking stuff before I can put it away, and I haven't had the time or the energy to do it.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. We had plans to go out to Chez Inlaw for the Annual Community Luau, followed by a family celebration for FIL's birthday. So not only did I have to go out there and spend a day kissing FIL's ass (and if you're new to my blog, it might behoove you to check out at least some of the backstory on FIL), I had to do it while wearing a dipshit Hawaiian shirt, surrounded by other people wearing dipshit Hawaiian shirts. Fantastic.

Traditionally, I bake some desserty thing with a pound or more of butter in it to take out as our gift to FIL. He likes my peppermint fudge, my pumpkin muffins, my cheesecake, and particularly my cookies.



You may recall that the last time we went out there, my Snickerdoodles were a smash hit. They're quick, they're easy, I usually have all of the ingredients - Awesome, I thought, I'll make Snickerdoodles. I think I remember seeing some Crisco in the box of stuff from Buffy.

I measured out a cup of the Crisco from the Buffy box, gleefully recalling my long-term homicidal plan to fill my FIL full of as many artery-clogging substances as possible. I sifted the dry ingredients, did everything according to the recipe, and popped them in the oven.

My Facebook pals might recall the status update "It looked like frosting. It was Crisco. Need I say more?" I posted that right after I tasted the cookie dough. I thought I'd just tasted a bit that didn't get mixed in very well and had an abundance of Crisco in it. See what you're missing if you're not on Facebook?

Normally, I love the smell of cookies baking. Who doesn't? But these cookies didn't produce any sort of aroma at all. Weird.

The Snickerdoodles were just beautiful when I took them out of the oven. Lovely, perfect golden brown. FIL would be so impressed. The kids wanted to eat them right away, but I said No, guys, these are for Grandpa. And, of course, as soon as they left the room, I popped one into my mouth. Y'know, just to see if they tasted as heavenly as they looked.



NO. NO, THEY DIDN'T.

Oh, God. It was the WORST, most hideous, repulsive, putrid, foul... words fail me. The Crisco had spoiled, so it didn't just taste nasty like a spoonful of Crisco, it tasted like rancid Crisco. I can still taste it.

Yes, there was a tiny part of my brain that thought it might be amusing to serve them to FIL just to see what would happen. But the more pressing issue was that now I had to come up with something else to take out there. And we were leaving in about twenty minutes. FUCK. You guys know I stress out enough every time I go out there, and this shit, I did NOT need.

Just to recap, I'm about to leave the house to spend an entire day celebrating the birth of the man who has made the last twelve years of my life (and the last thrity-eight years of my husband's) absolute hell, I'm wearing a hideous dipshit Hawaiian shirt, I can't get the taste of rancid Crisco out of my mouth or out of my kitchen (or my garage, since I threw the cookies, the dough, and the tub of Crisco out), and now I have no yummy, cholesterol-laden treat to take out for our Sacrifice to lay before FIL in twenty minutes.

We ended up stopping by the grocery store and buying a forty-dollar chocolate pie. And you bet your ass I made sure to leave the price tag on it.

So, once again, kids, our old pal Buffy has screwed me, this time while allegedly trying to be nice. From a thousand miles away.

Check this out!

You can get a Motorola Karma...


FOR A PENNY!!!!!

I am soooooooo tempted.

Looks like The Patron Saint of Blogfodder has smiled upon you all.

Did I not call it??

Guess who's in Pie's class?
SWAMP. THING. JUNIOR.

I totally knew that the abrupt departure of Buffy would leave open the role of Evil Nemesis on my blog, and I figured it was only a matter of time before someone would emerge and claim the title. A certain other fat skanky twat showed some potential, but she's not worth the time it would take to give you the backstory. So we're pretty sure it'll be a Swamp Thing year. Brace yourselves.

I suppose there's something to be said about The Devil You Know. Before Meet The Teacher Night, I'm going to go back and read through old posts just to remind myself what I'm dealing with.

Oh, and guess who else is in his class? The little douchebag who totally wrecked Pie's birthday party last year and gave me a full-on anxiety attack. I wanted to punch that kid.

Oh sweet chocolate Jesus on a whole wheat cracker... Get this shit.

THIS JUST - And I mean JUST!!! - HAPPENED.
Literally just hung up the muthahfuggin phone.
UNBELIEVABLE.

Princeton's been at camp in Canada and Beeb hasn't seen him all summer. He and Buffy sister have spent the last four days on a train from From Whence Buffy Came to get here. So today Princeton calls because he's back in town to help Dummy pack up and get out of St. Louis and he wants to hang with Beeb.

We had planned to go to the Science Center today, so I told Beeb she could invite him to come along with us. We had it all worked out, sounded fun, whatever. I wasn't plananing on spending a goddamn dime today, but now I'm probably obligated for lunch. Fuck.

Anyway, suddenly Beeb hands me the phone and it's Dummy.

Somehow he read "Can Princeton come to the Science Center with us?" as "Sure, I'd be thrilled to pick up Princeton's luggage from the downtown Amtrak station!"

Oh, GREAT! Thank you so much, Sarah! That would really help us out!

Sure. Be glad to.

FUCK.

I will be SO glad when that woman and her sphere of influence are out of my life. And that Sphere of Influence includes my tonsils, which are slated to be removed on September 16th.

I believe the Patron Saint of Blogfodder is Saint Skroomey. And I know somebody's been praying to him, cuz he always seems to Screw Me. For your amusement.

Yes, kids, it's true. I've been cheating on you.

I'm not proud of myself.

I've been spending a lot more time on Facebook and Twitter than I have here. *

It's not you, it's me.


It's the fact that I find myself coming up with a couple of clever sentences at a time, not enough to create a whole paragraph. It's also a matter of convenience - I can update Facebook and Twitter from my phone, and writing a whole blog post via text... usually while driving ... well, I know you'd want me to be safe so I can keep writing, right?

It's also the fact that the Apes expect to be entertained every day of the summer, and part of their entertainment involves kicking me off the 'puter. And yes, I know they were gone for a full ten days and I didn't blog much then, but during that time I was very, VERY committed to the idea of cleaning the basement and the boys' room before they got back. As it turned out, however, that plan was almost totally derailed when we had to replace the garage door opener, and I was disappointed in myself for not meeting my own goal, which I'll admit was a lofty one, but still, I hate when I don't meet a goal I set for myself.

I don't report to anyone. I don't have a boss. I don't have an annual performance review. I'll never get a raise. I don't get any sort of formal recognition for the amazing job that I do, so my sense of job satisfaction comes from myself and how well *I* feel I do my job. I know the world probably wouldn't fall apart if I didn't get something done that I was hoping to get done, but I'll feel like I didn't do my job. And my job is more than a job to me - it's a big part of my identity, whether I like it or not. So it's important to me to feel like I'm good at it.

But I failed. I came close, but ultimately didn't achieve what I was hoping to achieve by the deadline. And I had a bit of a breakdown over it.

Then the kids came home. And they brought my parents with them.

Now, I love my parents like crazy, and we all have a great time when they're here. They tell me how awesome my kids are, and I feel like a fantastic parent - in stark contrast, of course, to FIL, who points out how poorly behaved my kids are (when they're behaving in a totally age-appropriate manner) and makes me feel like a douchebag.

Again, I love them, and they don't put pressure on me intentionally, but I still feel enormous pressure to be "on" when they're here, if that makes sense. Plus, when we all go somewhere, sometimes Dad takes the boys in one direction and Mom and I take Beebie in another direction, and getting us all to meet up in the same place at the same time is a lot like wrangling squirrels - exhausting and totally futile.

But before my parents left, I told my mom that I was a good mom because of her, I meant it. My kids are good kids because I'm not afraid to parent them, which sometimes includes saying NO to them or otherwise disappointing them. They know better than to ask me for stuff they know we can't afford. They know that there will always be other people who have more than we have.

The boys are still kinda too little to get it, but Beeb's friend Elle, for example, has EVERYTHING. But Beeb's cool about it and she's not ashamed of her family (yet) or the fact that we don't have a pool table or a pool in the backyard or the ability to purchase 3rd row tickets to the Jonas Brothers.

(Which was the FUCKING BEST TIME EVER, by the way. But I digress.)

Anyway, kids, that's where I've been. So now, let me catch you up on what you've missed.

Got a call from Buffy last week. Remember that dream job that was good enough to make her pack up and move across the country? She hates it. HATES. IT. Loves where she lives, so she's glad she moved, but she is absolutely miserable in her job. I've been trying to imagine a job she would be happy in, and I can't. I honestly think she's happiest when she's got something to complain about.


Hmmmm. . . what else? Oh, my Beebie turned twelve on the 23rd. TWELVE.



I know that when one becomes a parent, everyone tells you that the years go by really quickly and your kids will grow up before you know it, but it really is true. Even when some days it feels like they will never learn to pour their own milk or tie their own shoes or ride a bike without me running along side of it or finally drive THEMSELVES somewhere instead of treating me like their personal taxi.

Sigh...

So I went through a brief period when I felt like I was a hundred years old and lamented my own mortality, but I spared you guys that because it was boring and a total downer and I just wanted to push through it. And I did.


I love the show Rescue Me. Sometimes I lie awake at night worrying about Lou and wondering if I'm more of a Janet or a Sheila.


I'm anxiously awaiting the Season 3 premiere of Mad Men on August 16th. Seasons 1 and 2 are available on DVD and you have some time to get caught up and lust over The Hamm right along with me.


See? It's really kinda random thoughts. More a series of one-liners than the monologue you're used to reading from me. I will try to do better about blogging, though. I promise.

School starts on the 18th. Beeb has 7th Grade Orientation tomorrow. And I'm afraid Pie and Swamp Thing Junior are going to be in the same class this year. I just have a feeling. We'll know in about a week. Stay tuned.



* If you'd like to add me on either site, let me know.
EDIT: I'm not PK on Facebook. :)