Touche Mommy

Ok, so they have to get back at me too sometimes I guess. Two days ago I was having a really long day. I was going on 35 minutes of sleep in 36 hours and had worked all night and was rather cranky. My youngest wanted to play spiderman on the game cube up in his older brother's room and continually told me this most of the morning into the afternoon. I kept sending him up to play and he just kept coming back. Finally I call Nick downstairs and ask him just what in the hell is going on, and he tells me that he was letting James play but James was being impatient while he was trying to set up the game. So I ask Nick if he explained to James that he just needs to wait a minute, and Nick tells me yes, but that James decided to pitch a fit and keep coming back downstairs. So I very crankily tell Nick that he should take his brother upstairs give him the game cube and MAKE him stay there. I didn't care if he had to tie him to a damn chair to make him stay there, just get him away from me so I don't have to hear it anymore. (The other option was taking a hammer to the game cube, so he chose to make his brother stay in his room.) Right after this it gets relatively quiet in my house and I'm thinking wow that's nice, they finally got him to stay there. My older three were playing nicely (and hell didn't even freeze over) and in the background I hear whining from upstairs. So I ask Nick what's wrong with his brother that he's upstairs whimpering and he says "Well, I guess he wants to get up now". I stop dead in my tracks and say, ok Nick, WHY wouldn't your brother be able to get up? Nick very innocently replies "Well Mom, you TOLD me to tie him to a chair". Out of the 256 things I tell my children to do throughout the day, the ONE they decided to listen to was I don't care if you tie your baby brother to a chair. Nick held him down while Manda tied the knot. They were very proud of themselves too. It's all about payback in this house I think LOL. I'm pretty sure James was not as amused with this as the two oldest were.

Getting evener with the kids

Today I thought of an even better way to get back at my youngest child for being irritating. For some reason all of my children have gone through a stage where they feel the need to poke me when calling my name. Since most of them are not much littler than me, they always seem to poke me either in the stomach or dircectly in between my ribs. I find almost nothing more irritating than this. I've spent 10 years saying stop poking me. So today when my youngest decided he would repeatedly poke me and go momomomomomomom, I decided I'd had it and sang "The song that never ends". This is a song from a show called lamb chop with sharry lewis that was on pbs for a very long time that nicholas and I used to watch when he was younger. It's a very simple song... This is the song that doesn't end, yes it goes on and on my friend, some people started singing it not knowing what it was and they'll continue singing it forever just because... this is the song.... ok so you get the hint. My husband actually joined me in about 20 verses of this song until said youngest child slapped himself in the forehead, shook it in shame then screamed STOP PLEASE STOP PLEASE STOP MOMMMMM STOP. I was at that point satisfied and in tears from laughing so hard. We've decided the next time they're all bickering we should just go ahead and burst into a few hundred verses of this and see if they get the hint. Being a parent can be so rewarding.

Little Girl....

I admit, I am little. I hate when other people point this out because they always say it the same way you'd say aww what a cute little puppy. Every day of my life someone picks me up and either throws me over their shoulder or swings me around or just plain moves me out of their way. It's a fact of my life that someone will pat me on the top of the head and tell me how cute I am or tell me I look like a little girl or pull my pony tail. Yes, the men at work have asked the little girl if she'd like some candy. I don't feel little. I feel like a normal sized person. I don't think I'm anywhere close to cute. I avoid mirrors, on purpose. The way people act you'd think they'd never seen anyone built like me before. I take most of this with a grain of salt, I joke about it all the time. I get pissed when someone says I can't do something because of my size, and I never back down from anyone and am not easily intimidated. I guess that makes me weird in some way, since lots of people like to comment about that too. I am not complaining that people think I'm cute and cuddly. I get lots of hugs every day and I give them out as well. I enjoy every single one of them too.

The other day I was at work and a creepy looking older guy (about 10 to 15 years older than me) was looking at baseball cards. He was there for quite a few minutes when finally he turned to me and said "come here little girl, I need some help". I knew he was talking to me even though there were other people standing there, one actually a 20 year old girl, who is very young looking, but YEP he was talking to me. (Gee I only have 14 years on her) I walk over and he says "well, your a cute little one, aren't you, can you help me with this" and I say "sure, what's the problem". I said that because it's my job to say that. I really wanted to say you creepy bastard stop staring at me like that, and don't refer to me as little girl, please. He holds up two boxes of cards and says "what's the difference between the red one and the green one". I take the boxes and point out that one of them are BASEBALLl players and the other are FOOTBALL players. (um, duhhhhhhhhhh). He then leers over with what I can only assume was his hot and sexy smile (gag me) and says "you sure are smart for such a cute little girl". So I say, "well I'm not exactly a little girl". He says, "you sure look like a little girl to me, I sure would love to pull your pony tail, but it's not even as long as mine". What the hell one has to do with the other, I dunno. So I say "I'm really not a little girl". (a little snottier this time) He then tells me he would like me to help him find more of the kind that he's now holding in his hand. I check and find one more on a lower shelf and tell him that's all I can see. He then says, "come on little girl, get on your knees again and check". So I say, ok, that's enough, look for the damn cards yourself. I stood up, walked away and told my coworker (and closest friend here) Debbie that if the creepy dude called me little girl one more time I was going to smack him in the mouth. Of course, she laughed. Big surprise there lmao.

Here's what I'm wondering. I am around people for half of my life. At work, on a night where 8 buses of campers or counselors has come in, with a slew of city people, we're talking a good 2000 people a night. In the past two years I have had more encounters like this than you could imagine. But NO ONE else gets the creepy bastards. I have a creepy bastard magnet imbedded somewhere in my body. How the hell does that happen. Do they sniff me out? And I'd really like to know what it is about me that makes a perfect stranger feel comfortable enough to just say whatever in the sam hell they feel like it to me. Just last night a man was walking past and I distincly heard him mumble wow you've got a nice ass. Me, being me, I stopped the man and said, did you just say I have a nice ass. And he said, yes actually I did. So what do you do in that situation. I said, why thank you. He looked shocked for a second and said, you're not going to curse me out or call me a nasty name. And I smiled and said, why the hell would I curse you out for complimenting me? What kind of sense would that make. Thank you, and have a nice day. What gave the nerdly guy the nerve to even say that? This stuff does NOT happen to the other women I work with. Not even the exceptionally pretty ones. What the hell is that all about?

Getting even with the kids

I enjoy thinking of strange and unusual punishments for my kids. Things that will leave an impression that will make them (maybe) think twice next time. So today the two oldest, Amanda and Nick, have been arguing on and on all day long. I spoke to them at least two thousand times and broke up several disagreements. Mostly I wanted to let them go till one strangled the other, just so they'd shut up, but I broke it up instead LOL. Finally they got me to my wits end as I was laying on the couch trying to get some sleep before work. I had the remote in my hand and was scrolling through the tv guide when it hit me. Game show network. There were bad 70's game shows on. They have now been sitting for 45 minutes being tortured by these game shows and have been informed that it will stay on until they learn to either get along or stop speaking to each other. So far it's working.

I almost slapped the shit out of a camp counselor two weeks ago. Helen, one of my cashiers, was smart enough to remove him from my presence when I finally reached my limit and snapped at him so I was fortunate enough not to slap him. My boss told me she'd have laughed but probably would have had to explain it to her boss and well... you know. Back to my story. I live way out in the country in PA. In my area there are about a zillion and a half summer camps. The sleep away kind that bring in people from all over the entire world to be camp counselors. They come from Australia, Great Brittain, Ireland, every damn place in the United States, and anywhere else too. I think some of them are from a different planet personally, but that's another story. So this guy comes in last week and starts yelling about his 20 dollar money gram. Customer service was closed and when they close, Money Gram closes as well. Even if I could, there's no way for me to access Money Gram because their main computer shuts down. I have no control from my end. This kid is yelling and carrying on that some blonde chick in customer service told him Money Gram was open all night long and he could get his money any time. Now the particular girl who was working customer service that day is someone who has been in the store for 8 years.. since the day the store opened. She would never have even mistakenly told someone that. She could probably recite the rules in her head. So now I know the guy is full of shit. Then he tells me he was in the store earlier and came back specifically for his money gram and he needed his 20 dollars. How was he going to get his 20 dollars. He only gets one day off a week and he can't get his 20 dollars (yes he said 20 dollars this many times) till next saturday and we suck, blah blah blah. I suggested he call money gram to find out if his 20 dollars would stay in the system for that long and he said he didn't know how. (he didn't know how to make a phone call to an 800 number and ask a question) Then he tried to impress me with the fact that he was from LA. I give a crap. Really I do. All the while his voice was getting louder and bitchier. Then he gives me the whopper with... I travel light and I was depending on this 20 dollars for personal hygiene items. Ok, now my brain is realing because I'm thinking, you stupid bastard if you leave the house without a toothbrush you should have BROUGHT 20 dollars WITH YOU. Instead I asked him if he would like me to give him the 20 dollars in my pocket. He got snottier and louder so I had to tell him that I understood that he was upset but the yelling at me bullshit was going to stop NOW and he might want to take it down a notch or turn his ass around and take the hell out of my store. Apparently Helen thought I was going to slap the shit out of him. She grabbed him by the arm and called money gram for him. And kept him far away from me. I honestly don't care where someone is from acting like a spoiled rotten baby over 20 dollars reminds me more of a crack head than someone who needs a toothbrush and some deodorant. He is at summer camp. I bet the infirmary has some extra toothbrushes and soap and if he's bunking with another man that is using spray deodorant wtf is the problem? He had also mentioned that he waited a week to come get the 20 dollars. What had he been doing since then? Ewwwwwww.