Remember the good old days when military housing was actually on a military base? And you had to jump through 3 different hoops while balancing a ball on your nose just to get past the men with guns? Ah yes….those days are gone. I’ve been forced to post the following sign on my front door. I’ll probably still get the occasional idiot, though. You know, because no one can read anymore.

NO SOLICITING!

(Unless you are someone under the age of 12 selling something sweet, like cookies or candy, at a price not to exceed $2.00, for your scout troop or sports team. I’m sympathetic to child slave labor, I like kids, and I like chocolate even better.)

If you do not fall into that category, I don’t want your magazine because I already have a subscription. I don’t want your newspaper because I already get it. I do not want to pay you to run, walk, swim, jog, jog-walk, swim-jog, or walk-run. I do not want to pay you to cure AIDS. I don’t want to fund your fraternity’s trip to Mexico. I genuinely hope that together we can help stop female breast cancer, and while I’ll be more than happy to give you a free exam, I do not want to pay you to examine others. I do not want a “trial” anything. I do not want to pay you to leave me alone, that’s what this sign is for. I do not want you to keep standing in front of my door, reading this sign in the hopes that I might have posted an exception for your particular breed of leech. If you want my money, feel free to try robbing me. My 100 pound guard dog is very hungry and loves fresh meat. If you leave any kind of paper solicitation on my door, car, house or lawn, I will return each one to you at your place of business reiterating this notice until you are forced to file a restraining order against me.

Thank you, and the best of luck screwing over my neighbors.

You are the mysterious night and all its sounds. No
one knows much about you or what and how you
think, unless they’re really close. You prefer
the peace and solitude. You are quiet and don’t
express many of your feelings. If you had the
ability to be invisible, you would love it, and
take advantage. You are more of a nocturnal
person and don’t really like going out much,
but the thing about you is that you may know
how to have a good time. Hmm. Anyway, have a
Happy Halloween, Shadowy One.

What the hell is up with this San Diego weather??? What about “It Never Rains In Southern California?” At least in Hemet the weather was predictable without having to watch the Weather Channel every morning. You already knew it was going to be sucky hot.

Actually, I’m loving the weather. I just had to find *something* to bitch about. There’s not a lot for me to complain about right now, which is pretty odd. Normally it would be bugging me that all of my lotions and creams and sprays are still sitting in a box in the bedroom, it’s contentents spilling over the side. But right now my only concern is researching unit studies, baking bread, knitting, playing with my kids and generally loving life. Oh well. At least the soap is unpacked.

I can’t find my shoes. I took them off when I came in last night and put them in the coat closet in the hallway. The doors for the closet don’t have a regular knob, just a latch at the top that catches and sometimes it doesn’t. I think my Lab has hijacked them. They are nowhere to be found in the whole house at this moment in time. And I can’t go buy new sneakers because I don’t have any to wear to the store to go buy more. In Hawaii it wouldn’t have been a problem. You go to the local ABC barefoot and pick up some flippy things for a dollar and no one knows the difference. Here people would look at you like you’re an uncivilized, or extremely poor, idiot. Oh well. They’ll turn up. If that’s the only problem I’m facing then life is good. You know what they say…..something about bitching about having no shoes until you meet someone who has no feet….

That would suck. To have no feet. I couldn’t kick anyone if I didn’t have any feet. And I would fall over. Like a Weeble Wobble, except I wouldn’t roll back upright.

My night began as any other normal weekday night. Come home fixed dinner, played with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours: Maybe I should pull the wax out of the medicine cabinet. So I headed to the site of my demise; the bathroom. It was one of those cold wax kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand and then they get warm and you peel them apart, press it to your leg (or wherever else) and hair comes right off. No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be? I mean I’m no girly, girl and I am mechanically inclined enough I can figure it out.

YA THINK!!!

So I pull one of the thin strips out. Its two strips facing each other stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees.

Cold wax my ass (Oh how this phrase haunts me!)

I lay the strip across my thigh. Hold the skin around it tight and pull.

OK, so it wasn’t the best feeling, but it wasn’t too bad. I can do this!

Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am Xena, fighter of all wayward body hair and smooth skin extraordinaire.

With my next wax strip I move north.

After checking on the kids I sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet. Using the same procedure I apply the wax strip across the right side of bikini line, covering the right half of my vagina and stretching down to the inside of my ass cheek (Yes, it was a long strip)

I inhale deeply and brace myself.

RRRRIIIPPP!!!!

I’m blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!!….Vision returning, I notice that I’ve only managed to pull off half of the strip. SHIT!!! Another deep breath and….

RRIIPP!!!!!

Everything is swirly and spotted. Do I hear crashing drums???

OK, back to normal. I want to see my trophy - my wax covered pelt that has caused me so much pain. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold up the strip but there is no hair on it.

Where is the wax???

Slowly I eased my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair…the hair that should be on the strip. I touch…. I am touching wax.

SHIT!

I peel my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body that is now covered in cold wax and matted hair and then make the next big
mistake…remember my foot is still propped up on the toilet.

I know I need to move to do something. So I put my foot down and then I hear the slamming of the cell door. Vagina? Sealed shut! Ass?? Sealed shut!

I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself “I hope I don’t get the urge to shit. My head may pop off”

Hot water!!

Hot water melts wax!!

I’ll run the hottest water I can stand, the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it off right???

WRONG!

I get in the tub - the water is slightly hotter than then that used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment - I sit.

Now the only thing worse that having your business glued together is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub.

In scalding hot water. Which, by the way, doesn’t melt the cold wax.

So now I’m stuck to the bottom of the tub!!

I call my friend thinking surely she’s waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone. It’s a very good conversation starter

” So, my ass and cooch are stuck to the bottom of the tub!”

She doesn’t have a secret trick but does try to hide the laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where is the wax on the ass “Are we talking cheeks or hole or what?”

She’s laughing out loud by now…I can hear her.

I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box.

YEAH Right!! I could be the joke of someone else’s night.

While we go through various solutions, I result in scraping the wax off with a razor. Nothing feels better then to have your girlie goodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry shaving the sticky wax off!!

I then find the most beautiful saving grace…. that is the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax. I rub some on and scream…..

IT works!!

It works!!

I get a hearty “congratulations” from my friend and she hangs up.

I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my dismay…The hair is still there..all of it. So I shaved the shit off.

Hell, I’m numb at this point anyway. Then I put the wax back in the medicine cabinet, I may have a mustache that needs work someday.

Next week I’m going to try hair color…….

My mother was a fanatic about public toilets. As a little girl, she’d bring me in the stall, teach me to wad up toilet paper and wipe the seat. Then, she’d carefully lay strips of toilet paper to cover the seat. Finally, she’d instruct, “Never, never sit on a public toilet seat.”

And she’d demonstrate “The Stance,” which consisted of balancing over the toilet in a sitting position without actually letting any of your flesh make contact with the toilet seat. But by this time, I’d have wet down my leg. And we’d go home.

That was a long time ago. Even now in our more mature years, The Stance is excruciatingly difficult to maintain when one’s bladder is especially full. When you have to “go” in a public bathroom, you find a line of women that makes you think there’s a half-price sale on Mel Gibson’s underwear in there. So, you wait and smile politely at all the other ladies, also crossing their legs and smiling politely. And you finally get closer.

You check for feet under the stall doors. Every one is occupied.

Finally, a stall door opens and you dash, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the door won’t latch. It doesn’t matter. You hang your purse on the door hook, yank down your pants and assume “The Stance.” Relief. More relief.

Then your thighs begin to shake. You’d love to sit down but you certainly hadn’t taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold The Stance as your thighs experience a quake that would register an eight on the Richter scale.

To take your mind off it, you reach for the toilet paper. The toilet paper dispenser is empty. Your thighs shake more. You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on that’s in your purse. It would have to do. You crumble it in the puffiest way possible. It is still smaller than your thumbnail.

Someone pushes open your stall door because the latch doesn’t work and your purse whams you in the head. “Occupied!” you scream as you reach out for the door, dropping your tissue in a puddle and falling backward, directly onto the toilet seat.

You get up quickly, but it’s too late.

Your bare bottom has made contact with all the germs and life forms on the bare seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper, not that there was any, even if you had enough time to. And your mother would be utterly ashamed of you if she knew, because her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, “You don’t know what kind of diseases you could get.”

And by this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, sending up a stream of water akin to a fountain and then it suddenly sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged to China. At that point, you give up. You’re soaked by the splashing water. You’re exhausted. You try to wipe with a Chicklet wrapper you found in your pocket, then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.

You can’t figure out how to operate the sinks with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past a line of women, still waiting, cross-legged and unable to smile politely at this point. One kind soul at the very end of the line points out that you are trailing a piece of toilet paper on your shoe as long as the Mississippi River!
You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman’s hand and say warmly, “Here. You might need this.”

At this time, you see your spouse, who has entered, used and exited his bathroom and read a copy of War and Peace while waiting for you. “What took you so long?” he asks, annoyed. This is when you kick him sharply in the shin and go home.

This is dedicated to all women everywhere who have ever had to deal with a public toilet. And it finally explains to all you men what takes us so long.

Little KEN returns home from school and says he got an F in arithmetic.
“Why?” asks the father.”
“The teacher asked, ‘How much is 2×3?’ I said 6,” replied KEN.
“But, that’s right!” says his dad.
“Yeah, but then she asked me, ‘How much is 3×2?’”
“What’s the fucking difference?” asks the father?
“That’s what I said!”

There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer’s research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

I don’t recall having ever been to the superiffic, just about everything free plus some genuine good-deal-specials-having store opening. Now I know why.

Today Petco had the grand opening of their store here in Hell. One of the deals was a free 20 lb. bag of premium dog or cat food for the first 250 people. When you’re feeding a 90 lb. dog, that’s a pretty big draw. Especially when you’re feeding decent food like Iams. So, 20 lbs. of food is something like $20 and free is always good. The store has actually been open already for about a week so I figured it wouldn’t be too bad. After all, it isn’t like the absolute first time opening the doors and people out here are generally too impatient to really wait for a sale. But not the crazy ladies with their badly behaved Cocker Spaniels. They’ll come out for anything.

We had to wait outside in a huge line for about 20 minutes. Okay, not too bad. Whatever. We were able to get the free food and had to get some other things, too. We go in, fight our way around, check out fish, birds, lizards, snakes, hamsters and all kinds of other critters. Get in line to check out. Wouldn’t you know that up behind me comes the neighborhood crazy lady with a big bag of Science diet dog food for her precious Cocker Spaniel named Baby. All of the crazy ladies had Cocker Spaniels, by the way. Anyhoo….She sees my bag of Iams. “Are you getting that bag with the free coupon???” “Yes.” “You know, you really should be getting Science Diet.” “I prefer Iams.” “All of the vets recommend Science Diet.” “I know.” “Well then, why aren’t you feeding them Science Diet?” “I’ve done my research and I prefer Iams.” “You could change them over with no problem, you know.” “I know that.” “Well, why don’t you? Science Diet is the best dog food on the market. You wouldn’t feed your kids inferior food, would you?” “This is dog food? I’ve been feeding it to my kids for years!”

Six-figure job: Spouse seeker

Increasingly popular, professional matchmakers can collect handsome fees to find clients ‘the one.’

I know this guy whose neighbor, a young man, was home recovering from having been served a rat in his bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. So anyway, one day he went to sleep and when he awoke he was in his bathtub and it was full of ice and he was sore all over. When he got out of the tub he realized that HIS KIDNEY HAD BEEN STOLEN and he saw a note on his mirror that said “Call 911!” but he was afraid to use his phone because it was connected to his computer, and there was a virus on his computer that would destroy his hard drive if he opened an email entitled “Join the crew!”

He knew it wasn’t a hoax because he himself was a computer programmer who was working on software to save us from Armageddon when the year 2000 rolls around. His program will prevent a global disaster in which all the computers get together and distribute the $600 Nieman-Marcus cookie recipe under the leadership of Bill Gates (It’s true–I read it all last week in a mass email from BILL GATES HIMSELF, who was also promising me a free Disneyworld Vacation and $5,000 if I would forward the email to everyone I know).

The poor man then tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidney, but reaching into the coin-return slot he got jabbed with an HIV-infected needle around which was wrapped a note that said “Welcome to the world of AIDS.”

Luckily he was only a few blocks from the hospital–the very one where that little boy who is dying of cancer is, the one whose last wish is for everyone in the world to send him an email and the American Cancer Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for every email he receives. I sent him two emails and one of them was a bunch of X’s and O’s in the shape of an angel (if you get it and forward it to twenty people you will have good luck but ten people will only give you OK luck and if you send it to less than ten people you will have bad luck FOR SEVEN YEARS!)

So anyway the poor guy tried to drive himself to the hospital, but on the way he noticed another car driving along without its lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his lights and was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation.

And it’s a little-known fact that the Y1K problem caused the Dark Ages.

(author unknown)