Aiming to Please

Good help is hard to find.  And it is near impossible to coerce either one of the two people I live with to take a stinkin' picture! 

In fact, they seem to have sunk to new levels.   

Linda is acting like I’m asking her to take a picture of a decomposing corpse.   “I’m not getting anywhere near that disgusting thing.”

“My Go-Girl is not disgusting”, I declared, defensively.

“You used it already, didn’t you?”

“Yes I did,” I replied.   “And it works great!”  

Of course I used it!  A good photographer does her homework:  studies the surrounding,  checks the lighting,  and tests the equipment prior to beginning the photo shoot.   

And after I test drove my Go-Girl I washed it with soap and warm water, as per the directions.   I left it on the counter to air dry.

“Mom EUUUUUUU!  Get that off the counter.  It’s disgusting.”
 
OMG, is this the same teenager who had mold growing on a plate in her closet last week?
 
“Make Dad take the pictures,"  she said, racing out of the room with her fingers covering her nostrils.

But the only way Dave will take a picture for me is if he can take it while laying down on the couch in the family room.  Between innings on the baseball game he’s watching.  

I really didn’t want to pee in the family room.   Who pees in their family room?
 
But Dave told me I could pee in the family room if I used a bucket.   

COME ON!  He is seriously missing the point.  You don’t need a bucket if you have a Go-Girl.   You can pee anywhere you want to with a Go-Girl! 

I could pee in the bushes in my back yard if I wanted to.  Just like a man.

BTW- Barbie had her own ideas for the Go-Girl.  Apparently, she was still pouting about the Nerdling Makeover and decided that the Go-Girl made a good hat.  That coincidentally hid her new hairdo.

Very funny, Barbie.

I get no respect in this house.  Who needs them anyhow?   In addition to being a gifted writer, inventor and cosmetologist, I take outstanding photographs.  Plus, I’m ambidextrous.

So I went into the bathroom, lifted the lid, and with one hand on the camera and one hand on the Go-Girl I proceeded to pee like a man.

And I learned an important lesson.  

It’s very difficult to aim a Go-Girl and a camera at the same time.  My aim was a wee bit off. 

Which reminds me of a sign I saw in a restaurant bathroom once.

 
That's when I realized just how effective my Go-Girl is.  

 I peed just like a man.

Amber Alert from Hell

I woke up in a pool of sweat, my pulse racing.  Wow.  The dream seemed so real.  But it wasn't just a nightmare....   

It was a flashback to the mid-90's.

4-year old Kimmy was "lost" in a brightly colored hamster tube at Leaps 'N Bounds.  It had been 10 minutes since I'd last spotted her behind a steering wheel waving to me through a smudged-up window 2 stories above my head.  

I had motioned for her to come down, but she conveniently disappeared.   

I followed her trail from below, anticipating her moves.  A-ha!  I spotted her in the control room at the top of the twirly slide.

I stuck my head up the bottom of the brightly colored curley-cue, "GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW, KIMMY WALT!" I barely got the "OR ELSE" out before I was hit in the lips by a pair of brightly colored socks.

Not hers.

I growled as I climbed up a purple ladder and yelled, "KIMMY!  I KNOW YOU HEAR ME!  COME DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!"

I counted to 100.  She was still missing.  Damn!

I was going to have to go in after her. 

It's been over 20 years since I entered that hell hole and I recall it like it was yesterday. 

OMG!  The plastic was so hard.  My knees were killing me before I'd gone 10 feet.

And apparently I wasn't moving quite fast enough.  Terrorist todlers were tailgating me as I maneuvered through the tubes.  "Back off, Buster," I said to an unruly rugrat attempting an illegal pass on a curve.

It was so stinkin' hot.  And humid.  The aroma of sweaty children comingled with pizza and a hint of poopy diaper wafted around me.  And something else.  What was it?   

I rounded a corner and put my hand into the something else.  Puke.  It was all I could do to keep from adding to the collection.  I wanted to turn around, but the traffic jam of toddlers behind me prevented any change of course. 

I wiped my hand on the tube wall and did my best spider woman maneuver to get around the nastiness.

I was literally trapped like a rat in a maze.  I tottered down one tube after another, calling Kimmy's name.  The claustrophobia began to kick in as my panic intensified.

Then I saw the steering wheel.  She must be close!

I knimped (def: limp while crawling on hands and knees) my way to the smudged-up window to get my bearing.  I looked down only to see Kimmy looking up at me.

But she disappeared.  Was it a mirage? 

About 2 seconds later she was next to me.  My sweet, sweaty 4-year old Kimmy had come to my rescue.

I disembarked the curli-cue slide and considered kissing the ground, but decided against it considering the carpet's condition.  Then my day got even better.  The pimply-faced teen-aged bouncer told me that I was too big to go up in the tubes.

So I told him he smelled like farts.

Barbie's Makeover

Barbie’s been pouting for weeks.  Ever since that Ice Bucket Challenge.  Apparently, she thinks I messed up her hair.

Just because it had a few leaves in it.  And dirt.  And blades of grass.

For the record, there was absolutely no dog poop present.

I was so sick of all that whining that I decided to give Barbie a makeover at the Nerdling Hair Salon.  (That's how considerate I am.)

Don’t worry, Barbie.  I’m a gifted hair stylist.

I shampooed her hair, successfully removing all yard debris.  I then applied fabric softener to make her hair silky.

After combing and blow-drying Barbie's hair, I decided that it was just too stinkin’ long.  As Al Gore once said, "You should never be able to sit on your own hair."

  
So I got out my scissors and went to work.  I used all kinds of interesting angles and styling strategies.  I call this the "RPM" (Retro-Punk-Mullett):

.
And I think she looks beautiful. 

Except that blond is so unoriginal.  Barbie needed some highlights.  I went to Food Lion for some Kool-Aid.

It brings tears to my eyes.

For some reason Barbie was not at all happy with her new do.  And I’m getting sick of her attitude.   I feel very unappreciated. 

I think I’ll get started on my next project.