Ode to the commode in 2014

A few pics and antidotes for your reading/viewing pleasure:


This happened in March:

Some chick is using the public rest area bathroom as her personal singing stage while she does her business ‪#‎concertididntwant‬ ‪#‎itsabathroomnotcarnegiehall‬


And here's some awesome bathroom pics for you!

 Crack so big you can see the whole faucet

 Crack so big I could have put my whole arm through - that's a full tile in view!

 Yes, I believe that Hubba Bubba will keep this lock safe and secure....

Let's think about this.  The latch is going to slide now how?????

 If I can't reach it, how are the handicapped supposed to????

Cruise ship bathrooms - not made for American sized bodies....



Here's a thought to ponder:  there should be toilets in changing rooms, cause once I pull down my pants to try on clothes my body is ready for the next step....



And lastly, NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART, an exchange with my college daughter:

And a year later.....

It's been A WHOLE YEAR since I posted anything!  How can that be?  My life is crammed full of stuff, never ending....

So looking through my texts and pictures, here was some of the amusing in my life in the last year 2014:


JANUARY

During the Snowmageddon:  Just got the automated message of no garbage pickup until next week. Don't they know we have 4 people trapped at home doing nothing but producing garbage!?!? Nooooooooooo



FEBRUARY

My kids have lived in the South too long - charades clue was "fake hair" and the kids yelled "Weave!"

My sweet daughter Jade Wagner just survived her first border patrol "la migra" search while driving in New Mexico. Apparently she doesn't appreciate my advise to tell them "Yo soy Americana" if they ask. Sheesh! We got papers!



MARCH

I told the cat to quit touching me with her paws..... ‪#‎likeachild‬ ‪#‎bully‬ ‪#‎wontstop‬

APRIL

Wedding prep:  So this happened yesterday - Me: I got ushers. Annie: you got Usher? For the music? Me: I got usherssss for the doors



AUGUST

Seen at the fair - news flash!  Mr. Clean has a husband.  I should have guessed his persuasion with the earring and house cleaning....

Also noticed at the fair - a valid question..... How many innocent goldfish must die at the hands of vicious fair-going children?  The murder and violence must end.....

Nothing tips like a cow

Me:  Do you think it's bad I didn't stand for the National Anthem cause I was in the bathroom taking a dump?  I covered my heart....
Cindy: The heart is the main thing :)
(Cindy is really my secret support group to make me believe I am normal....)
Grant:  Did you sing along? OH! Say can you see.....
(and that's how I know he's my son)

Another fair observation:  When you have a Monsters, Inc. backpack and Hello Kitty socks, you are definitely too young to have a newborn baby.  Just sayin" 


SEPTEMBER

I went to the doctor and have acute bronchitis and exhaustion and can't go to work until Friday but I literally slept all day.  I told my sister I was like the movie stars getting diagnosed with exhaustion, but she said that was a euphemism for drug use, so I guess I'm just an overworked self-employed girl.
 
My own personal meme:
What people think goes on at the fair at night:

What really goes on at the fair at night (actual photo I took):

How I know that my daughter isn't doing drugs:

 

OCTOBER


I went to Sams Club by the big chicken yesterday and I was following this tall white guy in to the entrance. Guess I was following too close cause he does the sly sideways who is following me looksie.  I said "I know you feel like you're being followed, and you are!  But we're both going to the same place!"  And he laughs and says "hey, a white dude in the sketch part of town can't be too careful!"  CAUSE THATS OUR REALITY NOW

Apparently the bugs are so big in Louisiana that they are tagging them like birds to follow their migration!

And then this happened....

NOVEMBER

Got a new watch on my cruise but forgot to set it forward from Texas time to Georgia time, but today is fall back so #WINNING


Me:  I'm trying to convince Lauralee to make a "I hate people" cross stitch as an enrichment activity.  It may work - she wants to decoupage a "people I want to punch in the face" journal
Annie:  Fun!  We cal also add "the offended jar" and "the people I offended jar".  Mike and I already get to add $2 for this weekend."

Delilah (5): can I have a drink?
Me: Sure! How about some milk?
Delilah: OK! (Sips) is this cow milk?
 Me: yeassssss (thinking what a weird thing for a 5 year old to ask)
 Delilah: (sips) I'm allergic to cows milk.
Me: awesome (snatching it away) here - have a Pibb. ‪#‎parentingfail‬ ‪#‎nolittlekidsleft‬ this is your child Carla Medina Hills

How I know my daughter is choosing good choices in college, when she quizzed me down about what Plan B was after a Bio class:

How I'm not sure she isn't starving:

and this....

Why I can't leave my house without my phone in my hand, even though my family make fun of me for always having my phone:

Feeling sick with a cold or something so thought I would use doTERRA oils to help me. Know what it did? Made me my cats' personal catnip. Yes I've become my cats girlfriend against my will. Sooo disturbing...



DECEMBER

Jade said she wanted to be a better cook, now that she is a college student out living in the dorms on her own.  I told her to just start experimenting and she would get better.  Yesterday she sent me this:  " I've been randomly putting brown sugar on things and I haven't been disappointed."
I was like "I meant with HERBS"..... parenting FAIL

Started off my morning by stepping in cat barf in my bare feet....ugghhhh



Hayley texted me that the truck wouldn't start.  She later texted back:  No problem with the truck.  It doesn't drive in neutral.....


Me:  Know what's awkward?  Buying lingerie for your future daughter-in-law.  "Hey, here's a little something you can sleep with my son in....later"
Melanie:  it's even worse when she opens it and someone says "What's the point?  It won't stay on for long!"


Cindy:  Are you enjoying your birthday?
Me:  Yes, Longhorn for lunch, and Movie Tavern for dinner.  And a box of Sees.  And I heard that I might even get lucky!
Cindy:  Lucky....Like the lottery?  I don't understand. :)


Christmas joke

.

It's not just SOCHI....

Knowing the issues I've had with restrooms (see Ode to the Commode and Ode to the Commode - Number Two), all the photos I saw coming out of the Olympics had me chuckling.  I mean seriously, I LIVE this experience ALL THE TIME, here in AMERICA.  Cause THAT happens.

Last year I had a flat tire, and spent TWO HOURS waiting for AAA.  There were four women in the vehicle.  Two of them were menstruating, and all of them had finished off large sodas from the last gas station.  We had to pee - bad.  We could see the exit about a mile up the road, but didn't want to venture on the busy freeway or leave the vehicle unattended.  So when we finally get to leave, we tear down the road to the first available bathroom, which looked like this...

And recently my daughter and I had this rest area bathroom awkwardness:

The year is early yet!  There WILL be more to come!

Why I love a serial killer...

We have never been cat people.  We've had dogs, fish, lots of kids, etc.  But NEVER a cat.  Then 12 years ago that changed.  A cat broke into our house.  A kitten really; not even 9 months old.  But we couldn't figure out how she got in. So we tossed her out.  And she got back in again.  And again.  We even moved and she stayed.  Finally, after being told by many that she wouldn't leave because she had adopted us, we kept her.  

The Serial Killer, now known by the benign name of Freckles, was grateful.  So she brought us "gifts". Lots of gifts.  Unwanted, completely disemboweled gifts.  Every. Day.  Rats, squirrels, chipmunks, snakes, lizards, birds, bunnies - the only profile was that if she could kill it, she did.  The line in the sand was finally drawn when she brought me a opossum.   There is no fear like having the dead opossum on the end of a shovel to take out of your house.  Is it dead? It is playing dead? How did she get it through the cat door?  At this point we took away her cat door, and boy was she angry.  Gone were the gifts. Nose in the air, she wouldn't even look at us, except to meow at the door to let her out - then let her back in five minutes later.  She trained everyone - us, friends, neighbors - we are all at her beck and call.  We are now her slaves.

Along the way, against our will, we fell in love with this cat.  Even though death lay in her wake (I mean, seriously killing over 300 things a year THAT WE FOUND), we find that we love her like one of the family.  Now she is an old lady cat - laying around sleeping almost all the time, except for those times when she "remembers" that she is a cat, and does some crazy cat thing like leap 10 feet onto a railing.  But - isn't she cute?

Things I can't unsee...

The 2013 Fair season happened and again, and let me say "Ow, my eyes!"  Here is a sampling of things I will never to able to unsee again:

• 300 pound-ish woman, wearing a bikini top, naval piercing, and booty shorts.  To the rodeo.
• Half a butt hanging from a pair of shorts, and my daughter leaning to me and whispering "Excuse me ma'am - you lost your cheeks"
• Tattoo on the arm of woman with Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman - why????
• If your tank top not only doesn't cover your bra straps, but is also not covering a significant portion of your bra cups, perhaps you might want to consider a bigger tank.  Or go bra-less.
• Tattoo of cute little bunnies.  Frolicking little bunnies.  In a cemetery littered with skulls...
• So, you don't have cancer but you shaved patches into your head on purpose?  Okayyyyyy
• Belt made from - bungee cord?
• That's one fancy cupcake tattoo on your leg there ma'am.  And the tendrils coming out from the bottom complete my lack of comprehension.
• Aw!  You have little paw prints on your boobs!  As if your little chihuahua walked through tattoo ink!  Precious....
• A grandma in tie-dye bootie shorts with half the bootie escaping.
•  Just when I considered going to the fair bra-less in a wife beater, hundreds beat me to it.
• Piercings that look like snot
• T-shirt on a woman proclaiming BIG BOOBED AND TATTOOED
• A grown man in Green Lantern underwear (don't ask how I know)
• Pants so tight I could tell that she was wearing a thong - ewwwww
• Remember Pamela Anderson from Baywatch?  The tight bootie shorts with rolled down waist and bikini top? Well, imagine those triple DDD's heavily tanned with mid-lip, navel and other various piercings, undetermined age of 34-49 with her 75+ year old boyfriend showing off the white bear skin rug they just purchased to "make love in front of the fireplace".   I can't close my eyes...
• Why am I wasting my time on cell phone carriers and wallets when I can just use my bra???
• Not one, but two (TWO!!!) different men peeing behind my tent... Police response - video them so we can apprehend and have proof...
• Two pierced Smurfs!  Wait, they are teenagers who look like Smurfs.  Must be the hair color
• Heavy girls should NOT rock the navel piercings - especially when the stone gets swallowed up in the cavernous belly button...
• Choices, choices - and she chose a Tiffany bracelet over - wait for it - teeth!
• Loving that full alien tattoo on your arm ma'am.  Your bound to find a man at the next SciFi convention
• Saw a 60+ year old man working his sexy -- shirt unbuttoned to his pot belly to show off his tats, his waxed chest, his nipple ring...
• Question asked (about my jewelry cleaner) Does this clean tattoos?  Answer:  No, that would be a painful process involving lasers and your tears
• Just saw Bo Derek!  Had to be - she still has the corn rows, and based on that leathery skin, she still runs on the beach.  And, she's picked up a few tattoos over the years too....
• Can't even properly describe the lady that was in front of me - long filthy blond dreads, tats, biker boots, black spandex everything EXCEPT the Wizard of Oz striped socks.  Then she turned and I saw the tattoo ACROSS HER ENTIRE FACE resembling stitching like Nightmare before Christmas.  It took a while before I noticed the wrench on a chain around her neck....
• Wife:  Can you fix my ring?  It got tarnished in a hot tub.  Husband:  When were you in a hot tub? *****silence***** Husband:  Seriously - when were you in a hot tub?  Cause I ain't been in no hot tub.... AWKWARD
• Drunken group dancing the YMCA?  Let me get right up from my chair and get my letters and dancing on, said no sober person ever
• Just saw a shopping cart in the fair- the kind that says KOHLS - the kind that are stole not sold
• Ever see an 18x30 tramp stamp.....
• Take your tongue - run it up the front of your teeth.  Did you hit the skin that hangs under your nose inside your mouth?  I saw a piercing RIGHT THERE
• Saw a guy walking holding his woman's crotch.  Not her hand, not her arm....
• Had a woman floss her teeth - top, bottom, and back - while I cleaned her ring.  NOT a buyer
• Heard someone ask the guy who sells electronic cigarettes if he has crack pipes...
• A dress with an open cut back is NOT sexy if it is just a window to your fat rolls
• Skin tight Abercrombie tee and ripped jeans do not make 60 look 20 - ever
• front butt - when your fat wraps around the scooter steering wheel rod and touches in the front
• This:

All. Day. Long.

To be continued at the 2014 Fair Season....

Ode to to Commode - Number Two

Another round of horrible / weird / unusual things that happen to me in bathrooms.  Such as this:

 What is that gaping white above the toilet paper, you ask?  At eye level to you, er, sitting?  Well let me show you:

Yes, that is a PERSON.  Sitting down and trying fervently to not make eye contact.  Which is why she didn't know I took her photo.  Cause, this happened.  And it happens a lot.

See what I mean?  I not only watched several people dry their hands, I made eye contact with two who were checking if the stall was occupied.

These things also happened recently:

• Houston, TX Saltgrass - went into bathroom, grabbed first empty stall, sat, then while doing my business, looked up.  Now there is always a gap between the door and wall.  But FOUR INCHES???  I wondered, "Can people see in as well as I can see out?"  Then I got waved at by a child.  The answer to that question is YES. (not photo above; sadly, this was another occasion).
• A young girl showed me her new panties while I was washing my hands.  I had to agree, that, yes, those are pretty butterflies, but oh, you shouldn't pull your dress over your head like that....
• Bathrooms at the fair differ from most public events - like LARGE HUGE SUPER SCARY BUGS that are on the ceiling!  Heard the following while in a stall:  "What's that?!?!?!  "I don't know!  Kill it!  Kill it!"   Followed by screaming and the sound of pounding on bathroom walls, shaking the entire system in the process. I didn't get a photo, but I did sit and tremble in fear that some huge bug would land on me.  Fear makes it harder to pee, FYI.

And there you have it. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Ode to the Commode

Does anyone else besides me have weird public bathroom experiences?  I seem to have something happen to me at least once a year in a public bathroom.  Now, I'm not talking about someone walking in on you while in a stall (although every time it reminds me of a comedian who, when walking in on a lady, says "Sorry!"  and the lady replies "Oh, it's ok!"  then the comedian opens the door wide and says "We can all come in guys!  She said it's ok!")  I'm not even talking about the more-than-occasional child that looks under my stall, crawls into my stall, or looks at a room full of people and comes to me to ask to reach the sink or hold their door.  I'm not even referring to that toilet that flushed repeatedly while you sit and gets your butt all wet, but won't flush after you stand.  No, I'm referring to things like this:

Atlanta - Trip to the bathroom that requires sitting - for a while, if ya know what I mean.  Was it necessary for the bathroom attendant to severely spray the stall next to me, then go to the stall on the other side and spray like her life depended on it?  I mean, I know what was going on in my stall - I can't change it!  I'm sitting here committed!  Now I have to hope she leaves (she didn't) so I can do the walk of shame to the sink, just cause I have (I hope) normal bodily functions.  No eye contact, just a quick wash and run, wondering why I can't just crap at home.

Tucson -  I'm sitting in a stall and use the tampon disposal container in the wall.  It falls out of the wall AND everything in it lands at the feet of the lady sitting in the next stall.  I lean forward quickly to apologize, and have now made eye contact with her sitting on her commode.  Sorry doesn't quite cover this situation.  There is no graceful recovery for scaring someone twice in 5 seconds.

Tucson again (same bathroom a year later) - I walk out the stall and a man walks out of the stall next to me.  I look at him, he looks at me, and we make our way to the sinks, in silence, to wash our hands. We walk out of the bathroom, and both of us look up at the wall for the name sign.  As I entered I saw a telephone booth and women sign.  From his direction, a telephone sign covering half of the women sign. The important part - Wo.

Buffalo - I'm in a stall (yes, I seem to do this a lot) and the handicap stall is next to me.  I see a wheelchair come up to the handicap stall and the driver (rider, passenger???) begins slamming the chair repeatedly into the door frame, perilously threatening the locking mechanism on my own stall while the entire system shudders.  Finally she loudly complains about not fitting and just forget about it, then a LARGE LARGE puddle of urine runs from that stall into my stall.  There is no place for me stand up and NOT step in urine. Even if I could acrobatically leap from the commode out of the stall, I still have to stand up and pull up my pants.  Got me a new pair of shoes that day.

Scottsdale - My son who  hates public bathrooms had to go terribly bad, but didn't want to use the public restroom.  In this case it was two trailers that were portable restrooms, so not too bad by the way of public toilets.  I finally convince him to go in.  After a while he comes out freaking out because there is no soap in any of the dispensers  (and not another man noticed this hmmmmmm) so he enters the second trailer.  Minutes later I see him coming out with his hands cupped holding soap.  This trailer had no water....  I lost my public restroom fight with him from that day forward.

Marietta - I am in a stall (I feel like saying and there I was...) and a little child who knows me looks under my stall, then crawls in, followed by three friends.  They won't leave and they are 3, so I can't exactly yell.  Or reach the latch and stay seated.  They offer to help me with toilet paper, wiping, opening the door.....  Another reason to hold it until I get home.

Houston - I entered a stall and noticed water all of the wall. I thought hmmmm, and before I sat down, decided to flush the toilet.  I watched the water violently go down the toilet, then like surfer waves at the beach, arch and come up so hard and fast it covered me and the wall.  Soooooo glad I didn't sit.

Buffalo - My friend was gone to the bathroom for a long, long time.  She finally returns and was trapped in the stall by a door that wouldn't open.  Someone finally had to kick the door in to get her out!  Three more people that I am aware of got trapped in that same stall over the next few days.

It is a strange thing for which I cannot account.  Maybe I go the to the bathroom too much!  Maybe I am a magnet for weird bathroom encounters.  All I know is, if I can, I hold it until I get home.