Things That Get On My Damn Nerves - Chapter 2

This chapter will deal with things from reality TV that get on my damn nerves. Most of these are abundantly overused catchphrases and questions that just make me wanna scream!

I absolutely LOVE some genres of reality TV, but there are others…ehhh, not so much. Take Survivor, for instance; I’ve tried watching it, but I just can’t get into it. I’ve heard that Jimmy Johnson (former Dallas Cowboys coach) will be on the upcoming season of Survivor, so I might just have a change of heart. If we could just get Jerry Jones on there, I think it would be quite a violent season and totally worth watching!

Enough rambling….here we go:

1. “What does this mean to you?” This is asked on many reality shows like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance, but it’s become a staple question on every single episode of America’s Got Talent (AGT) this year. OMG, I am so freakin’ tired of hearing Nick Cannon ask this question of every contestant!!! And the answer EVERY SINGLE TIME is, “Oh, it means everything to me!” Just once I would like someone to say, “Well, it doesn’t really mean that much. I just came on the show to meet chicks.” Please, for the love of God, stop asking this question!

2. “I want to know if he’s really here for me.” Ok, this one is from The Bachelorette. Yes, I’m embarrassed to say that I watch this crazy show. I’ve always thought The Bachelor and The Bachelorette were just plain stupid…until one Monday night when I watched it out of sheer boredom. Then I was hooked, dammit! Anyway, our lovely Bachelorette, Ali, says this phrase (or a variation: “Is he really here for the right reasons?”) every week! I have to admit that it’s better than the catchphrase from past seasons: “He really put himself out there.” I swear, every time a girl said that, I pictured the dude walking around with his weiner hanging out. Now THAT, my friends, would be putting himself out there and much more worthy of discussing.

3. “What have you sacrificed to be here?” Good Lord! Does this really matter? Does it make you more talented if you’ve quit your job to be on a TV show? If you’ve left your wife and child to seek fame and fortune in Hollywood, are we really supposed to think you’re all of a sudden the most talented singer, dancer, harmonica player, or whatever in the whole wide world? AGT is one of the worst at this because the judges perpetuate this myth. This year they have had contestants that have lost homes to Hurricane Katrina, have lost everything to the earthquake in Haiti, grew up in the ghetto, have cystic fibrosis, sing in subways, and live in a barn, just to name a few. It’s like the main part of the competition is to see who has the saddest story. The barn dwelling dude had to quit his job and move his wife into a barn to go on the show. WHAT? Then you’ve got the ones who leave their kids for months at a time, and everyone just thinks that’s soooooo awesome! Well, everybody except the poor kid! I think I’m going to go on AGT with this story: “I have 5 children who all suffer with diphtheria, Epstein-Barr virus, and scabies. I had to leave them in an orphanage just to come here and follow my dream of being the first SpongeBob Squarepants impersonator to win America’s Got Talent. {sniff, sniff} Can I have a moment to compose myself? Ok, that’s better. Oh, the reason I had to leave them in the orphanage is because their father died in a tragic volcano accident and my mother is unable to care for them due to the fact that she’s been in the hospital with recurrent syphilis. She only has 2 weeks to live, but when I left her bedside for the last time, she told me to follow my dreams. {sniff, sniff} My father can’t keep my kids because he’s schizophrenic. And diabetic. Did I mention that I was abused as a child? And that is why I am here sharing my talent with America. For my children. This means everything to me, errrr, them.”

4. “You really know who you are.” And “You just don’t know who you are as an artist.” These are from American Idol, the show that has mastered the art of inane catchphrases. What the hell does this even mean? It makes me want to go check my driver’s license just to make sure I know who I am! I did notice a trend associated with this phrase last season: If you have weird hair, lots of piercings, and excessive tattoos, then “you know who you are.” Otherwise, “you DON’T know who you are.” It doesn’t really matter whether or not you’re pitchy, dawg. Maybe if American Idol stopped making teenagers sing songs of the Beatles, they could figure out what direction they want to take their singing career and would truly know who they are!

Well, I guess I’ll go practice my SpongeBob impressions now. Thanks for listening to me rant! It really, really means EVERYTHING to me to have you guys follow my blog. After all, I’ve sacrificed EVERYTHING just to be here for you!

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Monday Madness

Link up at: http://thedailydribbles.blogspot.com/

1. Who is your "what-if" person?
Hmmmmmm. I would have to say that it's my husband. He's always been my "what if" guy! I know, that's just sweet as saccharine! Most of the others have been in prison, so I certainly don't want to think "what if" about them. {shivers} They are more like "as if."

2. What is your nickname?
My daddy has always called me SheliaGirl, though I've also been known as Shaquilla.

3. If you could choose how you died, how would you like to die?
Very, very quickly! I'm totally not into the whole long-illness-where-you-suffer-for-years-and-then-die thing. Maybe it would be cool to die on a dance floor while grooving to some awesome tunes...as long as someone removes my body before I get trampled. I wanna look good at my funeral!

4. If you could have named yourself, which name would you have picked?
As a kid I wanted to be named Jamie. I just loved that name, and all of my dolls were named Jamie. However, now that I'm older, I think I would like something with a little more meaning. Perhaps Crescendo would be nice. It seems to have a good ring to it, and it means to get louder and more powerful as you go on. But then I would have to change my nicknames.....

5. Who were you named after or for what reason did your parents choose your name?
Ummmm, I was supposed to be named Stephanie, but my mom, in a birthing stupor, decided that she wanted to name me after her childhood dance teacher. So I am Shelia Kaye. There's no accounting for what women in labor are thinking...don't even try!

Snakes - YIKES!!!

This may seem totally random, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I absolutely HATE snakes! I got an e-mail this week, and it included pictures of some beautiful wildflowers. I was thinking how beautiful they were and how fortunate we were to have such wonderful things in nature to appreciate and enjoy. Then I scrolled down the to last picture, and….SONOFABITCH! There were an assload of freakin’ snakes nestled in all of those beautiful flowers!

Oh, good Lord! Now I was going to have slithery, slimy dreams for at least a week! Shit, shit, shit! Why wasn’t there a warning that there was more to these pics than pretty foo foo flowers? I think warning people about these sorts of things should be a law, seriously.

I sincerely think that snakes are evil. As Waterboy Bobby Bouche might say, “Snakes are the debil.” Perhaps I’m some sort of saint, and that’s why I can feel the evil emanating from these reptilian creatures. Or…ummmm…maybe not.

I’ve never liked snakes at all, but during the past couple of years, it’s actually turned into some sort of phobia. I tried to look up the name of the snake phobia online, but as soon as I pulled up the page, guess what kind of picture was on there? Yep, you got it…an effin’ snake! Back button, back button! Where the hell is the f*cking back button????

What kind of people make these websites? Are they sadists? Apparently so, because they put a picture of a damn snake on a freakin’ website about snake phobias!!! What the hell? Why would they do this? Was the picture really necessary to describe the phobia? Are there people out there who don’t know what snakes are? Putting that pic on there has got to be one of the most dumbass moves I’ve ever seen, and trust me, I’ve seen a lot of dumbass moves.

When I finally drank enough rum to recover from that damn picture, I had a friend look up the info for me. The name of my particular phobia is “ophidophobia.” Well, don’t I feel special now? I’m no longer that chicken shit, crazy, snake-fearing woman….I am officially (self-diagnosed, of course) an ophidophobiac.

My dear web-surfing friend also threw in this little tidbit: Medication and psychotherapy will play an important role in the healing of the snake phobia. Hmmmph. I think she was trying to tell me something, that bitch!

I think what turned my extreme dislike of snakes into a full-blown phobia was several events last summer. We had 3 snakes on our front porch! One night, I was walking out to my car in the carport, and there was one of the little sonofabitches right by my tire! I took off running and actually ran right out of my tennis shoe. Did I go back for my shoe? Nope! Am I big fat chicken? Errr, nope! I’m an ophidophobiac, remember?

Another time last summer, I pulled into the carport, got out of the car, and there was a big fat, nasty snake right on my front porch. I hauled ass back into the car and called the police. Yes, they laughed at me and told me it was just as scared of me as I was of it. BULLSHIT! I didn’t see that little bastard peeing in his pants. Not that I peed in my pants…well, not much. Stop laughing at me! I have a disease!

During the third instance that sealed my fate as an ophidophobiac, I didn’t actually see the snake. My daughter saw it and told me, so I sent my husband out there to handle it. Screw women’s liberation! This was definitely a man’s job!

Several people told me that snakes hate the smell of mothballs. (Ummm, who doesn’t hate that smell?) So anyway, I got 8 boxes of mothballs and surrounded the front area of my house with these little white spheres. It looked like a severe hailstorm had struck the area. My husband said it was overkill for such a small area, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I was also told that snakes hate the smell of sulphur, so I got 2 big bags and sprinkled sulphur all over the front yard. Now let me tell you, the combined smell of mothballs and sulphur was absolutely awful! I swear to Gawd, it smelled like old ladies and Satan when you walked up to my house. However, we didn’t see another snake all summer! We also noticed a marked decrease in the number of Jehovah’s Witnesses that came knocking on our front door. Guess they don’t like the smell of mothballs and sulphur either!

So it was a win-win situation all the way around. My dear hubby bitched about the smell, but my little protection efforts made me feel better, so he just dealt with it.

Now I start my anti-snake preparations in May and continue it through the summer. So far, so good this summer! I still crack the door open and peek out onto the porch everytime I need to walk outside, but I do feel much more secure than I did prior to this little ritual. And you thought I needed drugs and psychotherapy! Ha!

Things That Get on My Damn Nerves - Chapter 1

I would like to start a new weekly segment about things that get on my damn nerves. I struggled for days trying to think of a good name for this little column. I finally decided on, “Things That Get On My Damn Nerves.” So, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I present to you the first installment of my gratuitous weekly rant. Here we go!

1. Rude Wal-Mart poopers – Now this isn’t referring to all public poopers. I mean, sometimes you’ve just gotta go, right? I’m talking about going into the bathroom at Wal-Mart and finding that someone neglected to flush their poop. Is it really so hard to push that little handle down? Were you so proud of your bowel production that you had to leave it in there like a little prize for the next person? It’s not a museum piece; it’s human waste, for Pete’s sake! Flush it down! Maybe it’s a man-spy infiltrating the women’s bathrooms. That sounds like a guy thing. Anyway, I think I’ll start shopping at Target.

2. “We Needed the Rain” – This is mainly an “old people” phenomenon. We can experience torrential rain every day for 10 days straight with destruction and devastation to homes, property, humans, and pets. If you complain to anyone over 60 about the rain on the 11th day, the inevitable response will be, “Well, we needed the rain.” WHY? Why do we need the rain when my skin has been pruney for a week and I have Roseanne Roseannadanna hair? Just stop already with the whole needing-the-rain bit!

3. Heavy duty toy packages – Anyone who has a child knows exactly what I’m talking about here. Apparently, there is some sort of conspiracy among toy makers to drive parents and children insane with their toy packaging. I could break into Fort Knox with less effort than I spend getting a toy out of a package. Maybe the toy companies are in cahoots with tool makers, because every Christmas morning I find myself surrounded by screwdrivers, wrenches, wire cutters, drills, saws, and blow torches just to get all of the stinkin’ toys out of the packages. And there’s generally some type of injury from this process: scrapes, cuts, gouges, hair on fire, accidental amputation. (Perhaps the emergency rooms are in on the conspiracy too, hmmmm…) My husband or I usually end up bleeding on the carpet while our daughter is jumping up and down and salivating to get to that new toy that is taking 8 hours to get out of the package. ATTENTION TOY MAKERS: It’s not like you’re protecting a national treasure…..it’s just a Barbie doll!

4. Public cussers – I swear, some people are so uncouth! There’s nothing I hate worse than being in the store with my kid and having the lady next to us (who is, consequently, dressed in pajama pants and stained tee shirt with no bra) say, “Eighty-nine f*ckin’ cents for macaroni and cheese? That’s f*cking ridiculous!” Why can’t she just say, “Oh phooey! These darn prices certainly displease me!” This public cussing can commonly be experienced at any Wal-Mart in America, yet another reason why I plan to shop at Target from now on. Before you call me a hypocrite for calling out public cussers (because I do use a cuss word in the title of this blog), please note that I do not swear out in public, and especially not in front of children. I only swear on this blog…which is private…on the internet…accessible to anyone with a computer…uhhhh, never mind.

5. Over-indulgent parents – These are the parents that think their kids do no wrong. I do believe that we are supposed to be our kids’ biggest fans, but that doesn’t mean that we are supposed to think they are totally perfect at all times. You often hear the moms of serial killers claiming that he’s “really quite a good boy and never gave me problems when he lived in my basement.” The most recent example of this is the mother of the Barefoot Bandit. The Barefoot Bandit is the teenager who allegedly committed around 70 burglaries and thefts, including stealing an airplane and flying it to the Bahamas, where he crashed the plane. In an interview, the mother said, “If he stoled [yes, she said ‘stoled’] the airplane and can fly, I’m proud of him flying.” WHAT??? My mother was embarrassed to death one time when I wore white shoes after Labor Day. I can only imagine her horror if I stole (or stoled) and crashed a freakin’ plane! What the hell is wrong with people these days? Yes, be proud of your children, but if they are international felons, then perhaps you should temper that pride with a little bit of discipline. This sounds like one kid who needs a good old-fashioned ass whoopin’.

And that is what has gotten on my damn nerves this week. Let me know what you think!

Imaginary friends

Who wants to talk about imaginary friends? No one? Well, this is my blog, so that’s what we’re talking about today. Trust me, it will be fun! (Famous last words….)

I had what my parents called an “imaginary friend” when I was a kid. They loved to tell people how cute it was that I was so imaginative and had an imaginary frog named Frog Dorgan. For those that don’t know, that was my maiden name. Well, Dorgan was my maiden name, not Frog. But I digress.

So my parents thought it was just precious that I carried Frog Dorgan around in a little wooden box. What I TRIED to tell them, but they couldn’t comprehend was that I had actually caught a little tiny frog and kept him in that box. Of course, the little dude died shortly after, so I buried him in the back yard. But when my parents looked in the box it was empty, so of course they assumed I was creative and using my imagination. Well, they were wrong. But it made them so proud, so I carried on with the whole “imaginary” Frog Dorgan charade.

Fast forward about 27 years, and now I have a daughter (Miss Smarty Pants, aka MSP for those of you who are regular readers here). When she was about 2 MSP decided that she had an imaginary friend named Jerry. Now Jerry, as it turned out, was a mouse. (What is it with my family and the tiny, gross animals?)

Jerry got blamed for all manner of problems and accidents at our house. “Someone” threw a roll of toilet paper in the toilet. Guess who MSP blamed……you got it! It was Jerry! Then “someone” dumped an entire bag of Cheeze Puffs on the carpet and stomped on them. Yeah, that was Jerry as well. And you’ll never believe who dumped an entire bottle of shampoo (the expensive kind!) out in the bathtub. It was that damn Jerry again!!!

Apparently, I am very glad that MSP has outgrown the whole Jerry phase, but there are some things I miss about the little imaginary guy. For one thing, my daughter knew Jerry’s birthday (October 10th, for those of you who are curious). The week before the fictional birthday, my daughter reminded me that Jerry’s birthday was next week. Then she reminded me when it was only 3 days away, and then when it was the next day. Man, she was really keeping up with this! So I decided to play along.

I went down to the bakery and picked out a little round cake, and had them write “Happy Birthday Jerry” on it. Well, as I’m leaving the store, I see a gentleman that I know from a radio program that I was a part of. He sees the cake, and says, “Oh, is it your husband’s birthday?” I realize that he’s mistakenly assumed that my husband was Jerry, and I was getting a cake for his birthday. So I replied, “Uhhhhh, sure.” He told me to tell my husband “Happy Birthday,” and I again replied, “Uhhhhh, sure.” I’m a whiz at dialogue, in case you haven’t noticed. I guess that was easier than explaining about the whole imaginary mouse scenario. Perhaps I was a tiny bit embarrassed to be having a party for my daughter’s fictional vermin. But to this day, the gentleman from the bakery still thinks my husband’s name is Jerry.

The party went very well. Of course, we also served little blocks of cheese with the cake for the guest of honor. You may think that I am some sort of awesome parent for taking the time to encourage my daughter’s creative behavior. However, the truth is, I was really just craving cake that day. Sorry to disappoint you again, fine readers!

Now I did a little research to make sure this whole imaginary friend thing was normal, and that my kid wasn’t going to grow up to be a serial killer or something. Turns out that children that do this are thought to be superior in intelligence, language skills, and knowledge retention. Makes me wish Frog Dorgan had been a "real" imaginary friend. But for my daughter's sake, I was totally bursting with pride when I read that….and then I had to go clean Cheeze Puffs out of the carpet.

Viagra and friends

Ok, boys and girls! It’s time to discuss all of those Viagra and Cialis commercials that we have to endure anytime we turn on our televisions. When you hear that soft music and the words, “It can happen at any moment….” you know what’s next. Buckle up....it's gonna be a long one! (Pun intended)

Let’s talk about the music first. Couldn’t they come up with something a little better than that generic instrumental crap? I think a more appropriate choice would be “Let’s Get It On,” by the great Marvin Gaye. Or how about, “Let’s Get Physical,” by Olivia Newton John? If you’re going for subtlety, then perhaps Akon’s “Smack That” would be a good option. The Pointer Sister’s “Slow Hand” might work, but don’t be too slow, mister; ya don’t want that Viagra to run out before you finish your business! “(I’m Bringing) SexyBack” by Justin Timberlake seems especially descriptive, but I think my favorite may be “Sexual Healing,” by Marvin Gaye. I mean, isn’t that the whole purpose of Viagra and Cialis?

Ok, enough with the music selections already. Let’s get to the meat of the issue (another pun – I said “meat” – hee hee). The voiceovers in these commercials are just way too bland. Can’t they get someone with a voice like Barry White to do the voiceover? I personally think it would be ultra sexy with Sean Connery doing the voice. “Take this medicine and get your damn pecker working again, lad!” Oh yeah! That’s hot right there!

Anyway, here is a partial transcript of one of the commercials (we’ll call it Stiffomycin, for the purposes of this blog) – interspersed with my expert comments, of course:

How do you know when the moment is right?
Ummmm, here's a hint: it's called half-time.

It can happen at any time.
Well, apparently “it” can’t or you wouldn’t need this medication. I'm just saying….

There are two dosing options: 36 hour Stiffomycin or Stiffomycin for daily use.
Daily? You go, boy!!!

Don’t drink alcohol while taking Stiffomycin.
Isn’t that when you need it most?

Side effects may include headache, upset stomach, backache, and muscle aches.
Wow! Nothing puts a woman in the mood more than her man puking and whining about his back.

Seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than 4 hours.
Four hours? Really? What man is going to complain about a 4 hour erection? Or for that matter, what woman would complain about it?

If you have any sudden decrease in vision or hearing, stop taking Stiffomycin and call your doctor right away.
Maybe this is actually how the medication is supposed to work. It blinds the man so he doesn’t have to see his wife’s wrinkles and/or fat rolls. Then it deafens him so he can’t hear her nagging. And VIOLA!!! Instant erection!

My other beef (there I go with the puns again!) with these commercials is the behavior of the men/actors. Are we really supposed to believe that having our man take a little pill will totally alter his behavior? Now seriously, how often does your man dance with you in the kitchen or take a bath with you in a big claw-foot tub beside a river? Most of us are lucky just to get him to put down the remote during sex. Maybe we have some gentlemen out there who have taken Stiffomycin or one of its derivatives that can shed some light on this situation. Any brave dudes out there want to help us out? We would LOVE to hear from you!