He had one job. One. Before we entered the event, I made him promise that if my bright red lipstick went askew at any point, he had to tell me immediately. I’m not one to wear lipstick. Like ever. Any time I was insane enough to attempt lipstick, I always had a hard time not looking like I applied it in the dark, with my left hand, on drugs. I loved coloring as a child. I was an expert at staying in the lines. I don’t know what happened between childhood and adulthood, because applying lipstick is basically adult coloring, yet, I have a learning disability in this area of (woman) adulting. So, I use the shit out of nude lipgloss, instead.
Since becoming a loyal member of the Best-Day-of-the-Month-Makeup and Beauty product company, Ipsy, I have a pretty substantial collection of delicious lipsticks. They all terrify me with their bright, staining hues. I want to have a relationship with them, but I am too scared of getting hurt. I recently decided that enough was enough and it was time to become a real woman. I committed to adding lipstick to my Steampunk makeup look for an event at our local art museum.
I made the terrible mistake to go with a lipstick gloss. This one to be exact.
She’s a real beauty, but I will never, ever trust her again.
This was before the incident.
Let me try to paint the picture, lay the scene. We are working the crowd, strutting our stuff, showing off our hard work. Everyone is looking at us as we pass, it’s like I’m the Steampunk queen. I nod, every so often, humoring my lowly subjects. As I glide up the stairs, looking out over the entire room, I’m smiling my biggest smile at all of the gawking faces (that in hindsight, weren’t in awe of my costume, but my awesome makeup job).
Then…I go to the ladies room.
Fuck.
I want to throttle him. He had one fucking job.
I stand there, numb, astounded. How long have I looked this this? How long?
I don’t even know what to do. How do you remove blood-red lip stain? How do you go back in time so you can smack the lipstick out of your hand? How come the floor never opens up and swallows me whole?
Why the fuck me? Why me, every damn time?
My bright-red, look-at-me lipstick is now dying a slow painful death as it creeps down from the corners of my mouth, down the sides of my chin. I looked like a sad, demented clown. On meth.
How many people had I smiled at?! Like every damn person in the building is how fucking many.
This is the kind of shit that happens when I try to be sexy. Note to self: just give up. Oh, and NEVER trust a man to tell you when you look crazy. They don’t see food in teeth, boogers, or melting lipstick, but one stray hair on your chin and they’re human microscopes. I can’t even.
Here’s a video of the can-can dancers from that night, because I hope their frilly bottoms are all people remember, not the demented fool with IDGAF lipstick.
Tag: funny
He's Made of Ceramic, Guys
My students have really taken to our class “pet”, Messy. So much so, that I’m wondering now if they even know he’s not a real dog. I sincerely hope they aren’t waiting for him to finally “wake” up and start kissing their faces.
One of my top achieving students came up to me, quietly, and asked, “Ms. P., does Messy just sleep all day?”
I didn’t want to kill the magic so, I said, “Maybe he is the first ever nocturnal Bull Dog? No, not really. Also, puppies are like babies, they need a lot of sleep.” She has a baby sister, so she seemed satisfied with the answer.
Then, then, I overheard one of my students lament to another student, “Messy is way lazier than my dog at home. I wonder when he will want to play?”
WHAT THE?
One more…one of the teacher’s students next door came up to her yesterday, and said, “Ms. S., did you know Ms. P has a dog in her room?! Do you think I should go remind her to feed it?”
Someone please tell me my students know that an immobile-stuck-in-the-same-position-CERAMIC dog is fake.
Please tell me they are just consciously participating in the make believe that innocent children’s lives revolve around, because if I have to have the tough conversation that Messy is not alive, it will be the first of its kind.
They absolutely adore him. They race each other to get to the carpet first, so they can sit by him. They sit with him in their laps, happily stroking his “fur”. They asked me what he was going to be for Halloween.
I am confident that my students are playing make believe. This makes me so happy, because in a world where children grow up too fast, where 1st graders are dropping the “F” bomb, and where 8 year-olds have cellphones, Messy makes me believe there is hope. For now, my students are still children, with innocent imaginations, and that makes me so happy.
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Why You Gotta Be Like That, Carbs?
Do you ever wish you had a gluten intolerance, or some crazy food allergy that restricts your diet to chicken broth and carrot sticks? Like, legit all your stomach can tolerate is steamed spinach?
Maybe I’m being insensitive to people who really suffer from food intolerances, but…YA’LL ARE LUCKY BISHES.
“Would you like some of this delicious homemade bacon beer macaroni and cheese?” I used craft beer, the good bacon, and every single type of cheese on Earth.”
“Wow. I would, but white pasta gives me fiery explosive surprise diarrhea. Cheese makes me so constipated I have to be hospitalized for potentially fatal blockage. Bacon makes me break out in painful hives and my head blows up like the Elephant Man. Thanks for offering, though.”
How easy and wonderful would it be if there were a legit reason to not eat fattening, delicious food? Forget the fact that you would be healthier and svelte, I need a painful agonizing reason to say no. Otherwise, this would be my response to the above question:
“Hargphumth”
And I’m gone. I’m either knocking people over to get to said food and/or I’m running down the street with the whole pan of mac and cheese (I’ll return your Le Creuset. Chill.)
Did you know that there is actually a recipe for beer bacon mac and cheese? Good ol’ Pinterest. It even has garlic (too bad it makes me gassy).
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Children are Amusing
I thought I would get in a quick blog post, and I knew I had some pretty good material courtesy of my hilarious 3rd graders. The beauty of children is that they are funny, without having to try to be funny. They are at their most amusing when they are not even trying to be funny or cute, usually when they are being innocently, adorably, dead serious. These are actual lines said/written by very serious 3rd graders who mean business:
Teacher, my hair smells like mustard.
I am late because I had to poop.
It wasn’t me, I take farts outside.
I can’t move right now, I am like a turtle on it’s back.
Maybe he wrote different perspectives because the narrator wanted to, so the author said ‘yes’?
God is #1, you are #2.
You will achieve all your dreams and eat s’mores.
Just a few Wednesday funnies for my readers. Enjoy.
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Took a Fart
It’s time to tell it like it is. If you’re a teacher, or you were once a student (this should include everyone. If not, um…) then you know that expelling gas is a huge part of the learning experience, almost more than actual learning. We all remember that embarrassing time we just couldn’t hold it in anymore and we farted in the middle of silent reading time. Or, the time we let go of a silent, but deadly bastard, and our red face gave us away. We all fart. We also have spent a huge chunk of our lives in a classroom, so it’s only natural that tooting happens at school. It happens a lot.
Today, immediately following a serious chat about why it’s important to pay attention, and why whistling during a lesson doesn’t lead to success, one of my students let out a fart that was likely heard in the next room. They were all on the carpet, sitting tall and proud like 3rd graders who are responsible for their own learning. They all (even the culprit) had expectant, eager-to-please, and innocent expressions painted on their little faces. The fart was a mistake. It was not intended to derail learning. And it was just what my stressed-out, exhausted, and wound-up psyche needed.
Basically, I lost it.
Teaching 101 says you never, never respond or react to a fart. Ever. Two very simple reasons why:
- They (your students) will take your laughter as license to act like wild hyenas, and your lesson is as good as over.
- The poor tooter will feel humiliated, and you try to avoid that as an educator and role model.
So, despite my knowledge of these possible outcomes, I lost all composure, and had a very serious, ugly-laughing fit. I was crying. I couldn’t regain my composure. It was awful. At first, I tried to hide my laughter behind my math teacher manual, but eventually someone said, “Um, teacher, are you OK?” I don’t usually sit with a book directly over my face, in front of my whole class, for an extended period of time. They likely thought I had gone crackers. When it could no longer be kept a secret that I was laughing like a fool, I kept saying, “OK, that’s enough. OK. That’s it.” Except I was the only one laughing.
You know those laughing fits you’ve had with a really good friend? The kind where you start making some ungodly repetitive noise and you almost gag yourself? Yeah.
I could not stop.
Eventually, my kids decided it was safe for them to laugh as well. Amidst the laughing and fake farts, someone accused Fred* of farting, and he proclaimed, quite seriously, “It wasn’t me! I take farts outside!” More laughing. Basically, math was over for the day. Thank God we were at the end of the lesson. Also, the teacher gods were watching over me today, for sure, because how awesome would it have looked had my principal walked in, mid-gagging laughing fit? I can’t even.
Some days I rock the shit out of teaching, and some days I’m the reason a single toot derails learning.
At least we had a nice chat about how everyone makes mistakes, farting is only natural, and we weren’t laughing at anyone, but with them.
In honor of my idiotic lack of self-composure and well, because farts, here is a list of truths about gas in the classroom:
- It doesn’t matter the kid, the age, the time of day, or whether it’s before or after lunch, ALL kid farts smell.the.same.
- We (teachers) have announced, at least once in our careers, after a barrage of fart smells, “I think someone maybe needs to go to the bathroom!”
- Students whose first language is Spanish say, “Took a fart”, because that’s the literal translation for ‘farting’.
- The phrase, “Took a fart” never gets old. Ever.
- Every teacher, in the history of teaching, has been guilty of intentional crop dusting, at least once. It’s only fair.
- Physical Education has a higher incidence of farting when compared to other classes, double the rate of incidences after lunch.
***Side note: My own boyfriend once earned an award for maintaining correct sit up form, even whilst farting. Fart pro.
And that’s all I have to say about farting (in a Forrest Gump voice).
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Ranch Day- A Repost
I’ve been thinking about good ol’ Elko a lot recently. The memories I have of my years spent in BFE are of a simpler, back-to-basics time. I’m surprised no one ever caught me churning butter and/or mending socks. Whenever I feel exhausted and overwhelmed from running the rat race that is life, I think back to when I fell into a cattle guard, or the time jack rabbits chewed through important wires in my engine, and then sat atop my poor vehicle in triumph (those bastards knew exactly what they were doing). I am simultaneously homesick and relieved by my memories of E-Town.
As a city girl trying to make it in a cow town, I obviously had to make massive adjustments to my lifestyle. I also had some pretty good-make that hilarious-country experiences. One of my favorite stories of my ineptness, when it came to anything outside, involved a cow giving birth. To those of you who grew up on farms or ranches (or just anyone with a general knowledge of the world), you likely know what that’s like. I had no clue, and feeling shocked is putting it mildly.
Without further ado, Ranch Day…
Good Lord. Why did no one feel the need to tell me that a calf comes out of its mother’s bottom, in a disgusting bloody bubble? Oh, maybe because who talks about cows giving birth? Who has actually seen a cow give birth? Well, apparently everyone in Elko; with the exception of me.
I recently went to a local ranch as part of Agriculture in the Classroom. I bundled myself up nice and good-looking very much like Paul Bunyan’s sister, and boarded the school bus, eager to see my first ranch. The hat I wore was…well, I looked ranch chic, let’s just put it that way. Of course, the day our outdoor field trip was scheduled for was bloody cold, wet, and horribly muddy. FYI: not.fond.of.mud.
We were welcomed by the nicest, coolest, toughest broads I have ever met in my life. These women can wrangle an ornery bull to the ground, to castrate it, and then cook their men a full course meal. They welcomed us, a group of strangers, into their home. I was blown away by their kindness, toughness, and spunk. They were a real class act.
To get back to the beginning here…we were all sitting, eating, and from outside we hear a horrible wail. The Ranch Women excitedly tell us that one of the cows is about to give birth. They point out the window, and sure enough, there, not 20 yards away, is a really pissed-off looking cow. She was going around in circles, backwards and frontwards. She would awkwardly sit and then stand and then sit again. THEN…out of nowhere, literally, like WHOA, a bloody bubble starts coming out of her ass. I was shocked and appalled! I said out loud, “Wait, what, WHOA!” Everyone laughed and one woman stroked my arm lovingly and said, “We have a newbie here!” I could barely get my bearings. Now, I do not profess to be an anatomy whiz, but I have always been confident that mammals have things called uteruses. From these, babies are born. Why then, was this cow pushing her newborn out of her backdoor? I asked this aloud of course, because I am missing a filter, and I because I was truly mystified (horrified?). One of the women in our group looked at me and said, “Honey, she is not giving birth out of her asshole; that is where her vajayjay is!” Doh! I darn sure will never make THAT mistake again.
Lesson learned here is: not all mammals give birth like sweating, grunting, swearing women on their backside, with legs in air. Some birth standing, out in the freezing cold mud, and from their asshole (“woman parts”). I think all women should count themselves lucky they are not cows. You should also count yourself lucky if you have never seen a cow give birth. I need to go hose myself off, shower twice and bleach my eyes…
Additional lesson learned: Basic biology is obviously not my strong suit. Upon asking non-ranch friends, I’ve discovered that I’m literally the only person who didn’t know that cows give birth from what appears to be their bum. That, or people are just messing with me. In that case, eff all of you.
Kidding aside, what a learning experience! “Ranch Day” is a day that I will never forget as long as I decide to recall one of the most horrifying events ever witnessed.
*”Ranch Day” has been reposted from my retired blog, www.bigcitybetty.wordpress.com. All work is mine. I did revise and update the original posted piece.
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Teacher Breath
Today I was reminded why I never wanted to be that teacher who nurses their coffee all day. COFFEE BREATH STANKS.
I distinctly remember every single teacher who would lean over me, praising my hard work, with their breath from burning garbage hell. I always wondered how they couldn’t tell their breath was peeling varnish off the desk tops, but I could? If I can smell your breath from a foot away, how can you not smell that God-awful air coming out directly under your nose? How??
Stank Breath Unawareness (SBU) is a very real phenomenon, and 99% of the cases involve teachers. It’s true.
Today, I was pulling students to the kidney table to assess their phonics knowledge. Every time they got a letter sound or vowel pattern wrong, I would say it correctly for them and then ask them to say the sound with me.
After overly emphasizing the ‘aw’ vowel pattern for *Sally, she had a very pained look on her face. My first thought when this look appears on my students’ faces is always, “Oh no! He/she is gonna blow chunks!”. Then my knee-jerk reaction is to recoil quickly while trying to play it cool, like, “I’m good-you’re good-it’s-all-good-I’m-not-at-all-terrified-of-bodily-fluids-not-at-all-I’m-just-gonna-stand-over-here”.
As I’m assessing the situation, I become distinctly aware that Sally is basically mirroring me. Exactly. She’s doing the exact same thing as me. She has a pained, grossed-out look on her face that’s she’s trying to disguise with a super-fake-it’s-all-good smile. What? Is it me??? What the hell…
Yeah. I have teacher breath.
Getting keys to your classroom, or welcoming your students on the first day of school is not when you first become a teacher. You become a teacher the day you disgust a student with your coffee breath. It’s only true.
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Frank
It’s funny how the littlest thing can trigger vivid, and super random memories. Obviously, this leads to the desire to write, because all writers must take advantage of inspiration wherever they can find it. We are resourceful like that.
Socks. Socks are what made me remember a really ridiculous incident in my past, involving my first boyfriend’s dad, a pair of knee high socks, and Frank.
We were sitting in a meeting, in a fellow teacher’s room, and I noticed she had old men’s socks on all the desks. What a super ingenious idea for white board erasers! I just hope they didn’t happen to be my dad’s old socks that found their way to the thrift stores. Now that he’s older, his feet have a certain funk about them. Subjecting children to his old socks would, quite possibly, be considered child abuse *shudders*.
I digress. Let me get back to my random story about socks, my ex’s dad, and Frank.
So, before I can even get into the interesting part, I have to let you know that my brother would steal all of our dad’s socks, because taking from Dad’s neat and tidy drawer was a lot easier than searching through the abyss that was my brother’s disgusting pit of a room.
Obviously, my dad grew very tired of never having socks to wear because his teenage son had decided that he’d help himself. So, my mom bought two big bags of socks, one for my dad and one for my brother. To eliminate the possibility of my brother stealing Dad’s socks, my mom wrote his name on them. All of them. In big, bold, capital letters. She got bored during the branding of my father’s socks, because she started writing random names, like, “Bob”, “Herb”, or…”Frank”.
She thought she was a genius, and quite hilarious too. My brother wouldn’t be caught dead at school with named socks, so all was calm in the world of Hanes for awhile (I’m not sure how my dad felt about wearing socks that said, “Herbert” on them, but it had to be better than having none at all!)
But, what they didn’t know, was that there was another sock thief in the house. I loved my dad’s socks, because it was all the rage to wear long white socks up to your knees. God knows why this was considered fashionable. At one time mullets had their day in the sun, so weird things do occur in the world of fashion.
The best part about this whole sock fiasco was that no one suspected me. No one. That was until I almost, single-handedly, caused the divorce of my boyfriend’s parents. Oops.
I spent a lot of time at my boyfriend’s house. His parents had a surprise, later in life, in the form of a bright-eyed baby girl, named Emma*. I loved her so much. I loved to feed her. Dress her. Smell her sweet curls. She was like the baby sister I never got. I’m fairly certain I didn’t date Joe Blow** for him, but so I could see his sister. I’m totally not sorry.
Well, because I practically lived at his house, I would frequently leave items or articles of clothing at his house. No, I wasn’t some ho bag, his sister loved to spit up on me. We were basically teen parents.
One afternoon, after hanging out in my boyfriend’s room, watching TV (really, we were), I decided to get some Pepsi. I bee bopped into the living room, and there was his big, scary dad sitting on the couch. I often did everything in my power to avoid this man. He looked almost exactly like Fred Flinstone, only he had the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his heyday. He was scary.
As I passed him, with my head down, eyes averted, I happened to notice, from the corner of my eye, his socks. They were long, white, and almost went over his knees. They also said, “Frank”.
OMFG. He was wearing my socks. I was in full-on panic mode. He obviously didn’t notice he was wearing socks that named another man. Well, not yet.
As I passed him again, to get back to the room, I did everything in my power to not look at the socks. But, like a trainwreck, I couldn’t not look. I was gawking, staring, mouth gaped, as I walked by. He took notice of me, looked at me like I was mentally challenged, and then turned back to the TV.
Once safely back in the bedroom, my heart was pounding, but something was rising from deep inside. The sight of that bull-moose-of-a-man wearing my dad’s socks, named, “Frank” was too much. Also, my immature sense of humor starting getting the best of me. He doesn’t know. He’s sitting there, like a tool, with “Frank” on his foot. What a noob.
I lost it. I could not stop laughing. Obviously, he heard me, and put together my gawking, like 2 + 2, and all I hear is, “Wilma!!!!!!”
How does one explain to an incredibly irate man how his socks came to have another man’s name on them? Obviously, I had to jump in and explain the whole ridiculous story. I think, after that, he considered me mentally deranged, and that’s why he never uttered another syllable to me, unless forced.
At least he wasn’t into wearing women’s underwear. It could always be worse. That would have been so much worse.
*Not really her name
**Obviously, not his name
15 year-old glamour model. These are the actual socks from the story. Well, maybe they are. They could be, and that’s what makes this picture so amazing. That, and my eyebrows on fleek #didntowntweezers
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Nervous Poos
3 more sleeps and I will be heading to visit my sister from another mama. This will be the first time I’ve traveled further than one state over since my trip to London in 2010! To say I’m nervous about the flight is like saying, “I’m just a little in love with baked goods.”
I adore travel. I want to see the world, yet flying is so, so fucking scary. I am a control freak to the nth degree. If I could sit in the cockpit, I would feel a little better. I would feel a little more at ease if I could be on the lookout for birds or other planes, or whatever else there is to watch out for in the sky. I would feel more in charge, and thus safer, if I could say, “A little to the left”, “Whoa, let’s ease up on that throttle”, and “Are you sure you checked the landing gear?”
I would be that person they want to tie up and store in the cargo hold.
This time around, I’ll be traveling with just me, myself, and Ivana (she’s my alter ego). I’ve never flown alone. I’ve always had someone to annoy with my constant questions and worries, “Are you really sure we aren’t going to die?”
I feel like a super, take the Bulls by the horn, independent woman. That is, until the morning of my flight. I’ll most likely be having to use the restroom every 10 minutes, and I’ll question whether or not to take my “huggy pillow” with me on the flight-to keep me safe, obviously.
I’m not a real chatty person when it comes to talking to strangers. When some random person says something like, “The weather has been crazy lately”, my response is usually something along the lines of, “I don’t like hot dogs”. And then I want to kick myself for not saying something easy, like, “Hasn’t it?”
So, I’m dreading the inevitable flight talk.
Basically, I’m dreading the flight, in its entirety.
Someone reassure me *sucking thumb in fetal position*
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Wayne's World
My boyfriend is one of those guys who could really care less about celebrities, thus he knows very little about them. This is the direct opposite of me. I know celebrity’s faces, names, first born’s full name, and everything they have ever been in, ever. I am that person who even knows those obscure actors, the ones who aren’t on the cover of People all the time, the one-hit wonders and the uber private ones. I get my kicks by attempting to identify celebrities simply by their voices. Have I made it clear yet, how proficient I am with knowing who’s who in Hollywood? Are you super proud, or what?
My boyfriend is the kind of person who says things like:
That black-haired chick is going to be singing at the Super Bowl.
Because that’s so very specific, I usually have to ask clarifying questions:
That’s really interesting, babe. Do you happen to know the name of this black-haired mystery singer?
Because he has no clue what her name is, he really has to reach to attempt to remember any kind of identifying details that will allow me to guess correctly.
Um, she’s that chick who wears food. You know, the firecracker chick? You know who I’m talking about… I know you do. Oh shit, I know! It’s Kary Patty! That’s it!
Me: Kary Patty?! Who the fuck…you mean, Katy Perry?!
Boyfriend: Yeah, her.
I’m literally dying laughing at this point. Now, forever and ever, if Katy Perry comes up in conversation, she’s Kary Patty. Because Kary Patty is soooo much better. This happened more than a year ago, yet when it comes up, I laugh till I cry. Every time.
Another one of my favorite celebrities a la Wayne is Olson Wilson. Not Owen Wilson, but Olson Wilson. Every single time he is mentioned, Wayne says, “What is up with that Olson Wilson’s nose?”
I adore my boyfriend’s ineptness when it comes to celebrities. I adore it because he’s so smart and precise when it comes to literally everything else. Whether it’s Jeopardy, Trivial Pursuit, or just discussions about current events, Wayne knows more than me, guaranteed. But when it comes to meaningless, trivial celebrity knowledge, I rock that shit, hard.
I don’t really mind the fact that my boyfriend is more knowledgable than I am, because Kary Patty.
I can’t even.
Also, he buys me pretty underwear from Virginia Secret, so, I guess he’s a keeper.