A Note on Customer Service

April 30, 2008

Earlier this morning I received an email from Jeff, a very friendly customer service representative who works for Valspar Paint. Apparently, a concerned reader forwarded my post about Jared's purple office straight to the source and Valspar is itching to fix our contractor's color-matching faux-pas.

I'd like to thank the reader who forwarded my post to Valspar. They obviously read my blog quite regularly and know full-well that I'm too lazy, too dumb, and--I'll say it again--too lazy to email the company myself. Seriously, I am. We were just planning to airbrush a couple of unicorns on the purple wall and call it good. Now I guess we don't have to.

Valspar has offered to color-match the paint at company headquarters, ensure that it's exact, and send it to Jared's office free of charge. Well, they didn't mention the 'free of charge' part, but now that I wrote it for thousands of people to see, I'm hoping they'll catch my drift.

After living in Maine for the past few months, I'm simply not used to getting any customer service whatsoever. Generally, when you call a business in Maine and ask for their services the person on the phone will let out a long, disgruntled sigh and ask how you got their name. And usually they don't want to thank the person who referred you to their business, they want to kick their ass.

Yesterday, I kid you not, we called a wrecker to tow the Blazer sometime around, oh I don't know, 11am? And a few minutes before 7pm, the driver finally decided to show. His dog pooped in our yard, he left a cigar butt in our driveway, and kindly accepted our check for a-hundred-and-something dollars. Gotta love it.

And do you know what my husband is doing today? He's camped out by a state office, trying to get his hands on his chiropractic license. After six weeks of waiting he decided to take matters into his own hands. He called to give me an update:

Lady: What are you doing here?

Jared: I'd like to pick up my license.

Lady: You should call first.

Jared: I've called four times, no one ever calls me back.

Lady: Well it take two weeks to process a license.

Jared: It's been six.

Lady: Oh. Sit here for a few hours, I'll see what I can do.

So thank you Valspar, thank you for the outstanding customer service. From this point forward, I will use your paint in every room of my home. And if I ever get the urge to paint my body silver and pose for the cover of Vanity Fair, you can bet your ass I'll use your product for that purpose too.

Moment of Silence

April 29, 2008

Let us all bow our heads and observe a moment of silent prayer for the '89 Blazer, whose right front wheel suddenly fell off in the Target parking lot late yesterday afternoon.

Against all odds (and rational judgement), Jared was able to jerry-rig the wheel just well enough to drive ten miles home on the back roads.

The Blazer is resting comfortably in the driveway, and will be towed to Lou's garage just as soon as the wrecker driver sobers up enough to operate heavy machinery. Lou is convinced that she'll make a full recovery, and as her faithful owner I'm holding out hope.

I'll keep you posted on the outcome.

Curtain Shopping

April 28, 2008

"How's the house coming along," they all like to ask?

Well, let me tell you how the house is coming along...

We've moved beyond the painting stage, and we're not officially entrenched in the curtain-buying stage--a stage I like even less than the apply-hemorrhoidal-ointment-three-times-daily stage.

I'm well aware that it's babyish and immature to hate buying curtains--hell, I should be happy to have windows at all--but I don't care, I still hate to do it and there ain't nuthin' that'll sway my mind.

I think I hate buying curtains so much because let's be honest here, a set of curtains can make or break the decor. Couple that with the fact that they're ridiculously over-priced and I almost never find what I have in mind, and you have the recipe for one extra-large batch of female frustration--and we all know that tastes about as good as a kick in the jaw.

And seriously ladies, I still have no damn clue what "Jacquard" means. A little bit of help would go a long way with that one.

I need to find a variety of curtains ranging in size from 14 inches to 105 inches, so let's just say that I'm not a happy girl. Everywhere I turn, the curtains seem to be completely off the mark.

For example:








What in the hell? This billowy piece of crap costs almost a hundred bucks at Pottery Barn. I'm looking to dress a window here people, not place a canopy upon my ocean-front-back-yard sexcapade bench.


And then there's crap like this:







Three rods, a set of sheers, two drapes, one very huge window scarf, and $589 later, you've lost all signs that there was ever a window under there. You may as well slap this ensemble in front of your rusted-out Chevy Caprice and tell house guests that there's a bay window with water views behind the curtains. Honestly, they'd never know the difference.

Good heavens--I want some reasonably priced curtains that open and close, and happen to be classic yet stylish. During the day I'd like to be able to watch that clumsy neighborhood girl take the occasional spill on her roller blades, and in the evening I'd like to make-out with my husband in a semi-private setting. Come now, is that too much to ask?

I hate curtain shopping.

Mystery Solved--Kind Of

April 28, 2008

Topic of the day: Blog Trolls.

In the past, people have told me that the sign of making it big as a blogger is the involuntary adoption of a blog troll. In other words, the day some heckler starts leaving nasty anonymous comments on your blog, is the day you've become successful. I completely disagree--the day my blog troll came along was the day I developed a mild to moderate case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

If you're a long time post & comment reader of this blog, then you'll probably recall that I had quite a bit of trouble with an anonymous blog troll several months ago.

I would write about my child and he would say, "Get a life."

I would talk about visits with my parents and he would say, "You're a loser. You live with your mom and dad."

I would mention my marathon and he would comment, "No one cares about your stupid race. You suck."

And so on and so forth. Eventually--once I ran out of toilet paper and tears--I blocked anonymous comments and *voila* my heckler (and my stress-induced abdominal cramping) disappeared with a simple click of the mouse.

Last week I made a very short trip to Connecticut to attend my father's mid-week retirement party. I had Italian sausage, I had chicken wings, I had cake. I also had a shining moment of clarity when a portion of the blog troll mystery was unraveled. If you'd like to know the identity of one of my blog trolls, read on my friends, read on.

This guy was not the blog troll:





His name is Clark, he works with my Dad, and he's an avid reader. If I'm not mistaken, he also uses a blow-dryer on a day-to-day basis. His hair was flawless people. Flawless. How could I not post his picture, ya know?


This is my Uncle Roger (top and front view), and he was the infamous mystery troll:



Trust me people, I only love him because I have to--it's as simple as that. He claims that he was messing with my for the simple sake of fun. I think he was messing with me because I called him "Big Boy Fluffy" instead of Uncle Roger from 1985-1991. Really, I did.

Some of the trolling was far too sophisticated for his doing, so I know there's another craptastic commenter or two floating around in cyber-space. But for now, a significant piece of the mystery is solved.

Case closed...kind of.

And since we're on the topic of inappropriate blog commenting, I'm going to have to use word verification again--at least for the time being. I've had way too many spammers trying to sell my readers discount gold, vacations to Asia, and penis enlarging products. Don't fall for 'em guys, they're totally fake.

And on that note, I hope you all have a great day troops! Yes, even you Uncle Roger.

"Pinata" Footage

April 24, 2008

I'm very sorry to say that Jared laid eyes upon the purple walls yesterday and there were no tears, there was no pants-pooping, and there was no notable tantrum. He simply looked at the contractor, and in his nicest most patient voice said, "This is purple, I asked for blue. I can't have my office like this." The contractor agreed and the problem seems to be fixed. Where's the fun in that?

Since Jared's office has left me with absolutely no blog-worthy material, I will kindly offer a video for your viewing pleasure. It's about two minutes long, but if you can hang on until the middle I think it's worth it.

This is footage from the pinata event at James's birthday party last Saturday. You'll notice right off the bat that the "pinata" is actually a two-dollar gift bag. You can thank the recent birth of my sister's baby for that craptastic touch. My mom had purchased a perfectly lovely star-shaped pinata, but opted to forgo the party to babysit for my nephew while my sister brought a nine-pound baby into the world without the assistance of pain medication. That's pretty selfish if you ask me.

I called her at 8-centimeters and left the following message: DUDE! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE YOUR BABY RIGHT NOW? NOW I CAN'T HAVE MY PINATA!!!! Oh, I mean JAMES CAN'T HAVE HIS PINATA!!!

Thank goodness for Sue's Ghetto Pinata instructions, or I would have just let the kids whack Jared's mid-section with the broom handle until he couldn't take it any more. And he totally hates it when I volunteer him for stuff like that.

Anywho, keep an eye on my 6-year-old nephew, Nathan. I believe he's wearing a yellow fleece jacket. I also believe that he's still in my backyard swinging recklessly at that dang yellow bag, trying like hell to get the Jolly Ranchers out.

At Least it's a Soothing Color

April 23, 2008

In case you're not aware, my husband is in the process of opening his own chiropractic practice--that's the reason behind the past few months of his stay-at-home-dadness. In an indirect way, I suppose it's also the reason that my child prefers to pee on upholstered furniture rather than the potty.

Lately, a number of people have been asking about the practice--particularly wondering when Jared will be open for business. Well, his practice is tentatively schedule to open on the 14th of Doptember.

Wait...what's that you say? Doptember is not a month?...Oh silly me, I meant to say the 14th of Never. Doptember, Never--they're easily confused as neither of them ever really happen.

In case you didn't catch my drift, opening a practice is far more involved than either of us ever imagined, we're doing our best, and it'll be open eventually. I've actually thought about replacing the "Coming Soon" sign in Jared's front window with a banner that reads, "We'll be open when we're open. Now back off!"

So far we've rented some space, the old walls have been torn down, the new walls have been put up, they've been painted a fine shade of lavender, and the flooring will be installed next week.

I wish I could put sound effects on this blog, because right in this spot, I would insert the sound of a record scratching. Like this...

**scratching record sound** LAVENDER WALLS?!

Apparently color matching is more of an art than a science, and the clerk who mixed our contractor's paint should quit his day job and stick to other things--like field hockey. This guy managed to turn a chip of Benjamin Moore greyish-blue into a gallon of Valspar my-little-pony-purple.

When I walked into the office yesterday, I turned to the contractor with a hanging jaw and said, "Jim. This is lavender. What happened to the bluish gray?" He stomped out his cigarette, curiously scratched his stubbly chin with the side of index finger and replied, "I thought it looked purple, too. But then I held up the color chip, and it matched perfectly."

He held the Benjamin Moore paint chip to the Valspar wall and pointed back and forth between the two several times. I will admit that the two colors were in the same family, but claiming they match was like putting me next to a sixty-eight inch Asian girl and saying, "Wow. You two could be twins."

Jared hasn't seen it yet, but we're heading to the office around 10 o'clock this morning. I'm trying to convince him to wear some Depends because there are only two things that can happen when we walk into the space: Jared is either going to crap himself or linger in a shocked silence. If he manages not to poop his pants, at least the Depends will be a good conversation piece.

The Sunbeams

April 21, 2008

Jared and I have been assigned a new job at church--a new "calling" as the Mormons like to label it. In a moment of inspiration, our Branch President decided it would be a wise idea to ask the Lawsons to teach ten four-year-old children about Jesus for two hours every single Sunday. Now don't get me wrong here--children, and lessons about Jesus, and the Lawsons are all wonderful things, but when you put them all together--how can I put this lightly?--it's guaranteed to be worse than an egg fart in a stalled elevator.

When we walked into church on Sunday morning, I had a feeling that something major was going down, and sure enough my intuition was right. After the meeting, we were called into the Branch President's office, where we were ruthlessly dealt our fate--the Sunbeams class.

I've been a Sunbeams teacher in the past, and I won't mince words--those children pushed me half an inch from converting to Hinduism. And apparently--this is good--we were asked to teach the Sunbeams together because forty percent of the class has undiagnosed behavioral issues. I will teach, and my husband will work the floor as the bouncer. Awesome.

Before we had even walked out of the Branch President's office, I turned to Jared, raised my hands in a WHAT THE HECK?! position and announced, "Jared, I wish he had said, 'See that large pile of poop over there? We would like you to take this garden shovel and move it to the other side of the parking lot.' That would have been better."

When we got to the hallway, Jared was like, "Dude, you just said 'poop' in his office. What are you doing? Trying to get us fired?"

And I replied, "Yup."

And he was all, "I love you Amy."

Then I stepped outside for a breath of fresh air, bonked my head against the brick facade, launched James's backpack into a ditch, wedged myself under the wheels of someones minivan, and clearly instructed Jared to start the vehicle and reverse it over my midsection. The fool refused to do it, but my mother-in-law was like, "Oh my gosh?! The Sunbeams? I'll go find Sister Hawkins and I'll ask her for the keys."

This is the same woman who introduced me to the congregation by saying, "This is my son's wife. They have a three-year-old boy and they've been married for a week. He finally decided to make an honest woman out of her." She claims that she wanted to mix things up a bit. Welp, mission accomplished, Meredith...mission accomplished.

I managed to pull myself together during the last hour of church, and Jared and I worked together to develop a plan of attack. I will teach the lesson, and I will bribe the kids with non-church-approved movies and artificial treats. Jared on the other hand, will bounce the bad apples straight to their dads and operate the puppet. We're not exactly sure what role the puppet will play in the class--only that he's a golden retriever wearing a Santa hat, and speaks with the voice of an incontinent, disgruntled New Yorker (the only accent my husband can do).

My father-in-law says we need to repent, move forward, and be the best Sunbeams teachers we can possibly be. My mother-in-law says that we'll be fired after the first two weeks.

I'm not a betting woman, but if I were, my money would be on the Mrs.

I'll keep you posted.

Shaking Things Up

April 19, 2008

The first time we looked at this house with our agent, I noticed something strange. With the exception of two houses, every single family on this street had either a Buick, an Oldsmobile, or a Lincoln Town Car sitting in the driveway.

I quickly surmised that the overwhelming choice of senior-mobiles meant one of two things:

1) This street is packed with young families who each inherited a car when their Grandmas recently went home to live with Jesus.

or

2) I should teach James how to flag down the Meals-on-Wheels van when he's playing in the yard. What can I say? I have a "thing" for soft foods.

My second assumption was correct. These people are as sweet as they are old--so let's just say they're really, really, really, really sweet. There's Sue, our neighbor who was recently widowed after 65 years of marriage. There's Miles, who shuffles by our house every night around seven, cups his hands around his mouth, and shouts something that I can't even begin to understand. I usually smile, offer a wave, and yell something like, "Yes Miles, it's a beautiful night!" For all I know, he could have been warning me that my ass was on fire.

And then there's Jody. We run into Jody several times a day, and every single time she says the same thing, "Your house used to be beautiful," or "Your house used to be the nicest one on the block," or "Your house used to make me envious." Well Jody, if your idea of beauty involves a naked three-year-old whacking your car with a stick while his parents lovingly fist-fight over the correct way to plant a begonia, then I have news for you--This house is about to achieve a new level of gorgeous!

Life as our neighbors know it is seriously about to change. After all, this family owns an 8-piece drum set. We also own a remote controlled monster truck, a 100-foot hose, and the newest Black Eyed Peas CD. Yesterday, I kid you not, James hosed down the mail lady's boots while I hung out in the garage organizing tools to the tune of "My Hump."

They all tell me that they love young couples with children. Well, I think they'll love the retirement community in Boca Vista even more.

Fwee

April 16, 2008

We had a major milestone in our house last week--James turned three. It's hard to believe that it's been three years since I was sprawled on an operating table at Baylor Hospital while my surgeon worked to the tune of Sexual Healing, and my husband provided me with an overly detailed explanation of the inside of my uterus. For all of those inquiring minds out there, Jared says that the inside of my uterus is "totally red and really shiny!" I probably would have guessed that.

I can't believe it's been three years since I mustered up enough speech in my morphine-induced haze to tell every nurse, doctor, and orderly in the room that I was naming my baby Gerard after my French-Canadian father--after all, they had the very same hairline. Just as the nurse uncapped the Sharpie marker to scrawl the name "GERARD" across James's crib card, Jared announced that there would be no baby naming until all narcotics had cleared my system. And that my friends, is how we ended up with such a plain-jane name.

It's also hard to believe that I can no longer justify James's behavior in public by spouting my favorite phrase, "Sorry, he's two." Now I just say, "Sorry, that's the way he is." Call me crazy, but it just doesn't have the same ring to it.

And now, with no further delay, here are some pictures of the birthday extravaganza:






I found those watermelon candles in my mother's knick-knack drawer. Jared thought they were unacceptable, James thought they were amazing.









I don't know how well you can see it (hopefully not too well), but these gifts are wrapped using return address labels instead of tape. If you want to hang around at my co-worker's old PO box, zoom-in and Google map it.

And finally, here's my birthday boy, proudly displaying his Hostess cupcake. Is he my kid or what?!

We're supposed to have a legitimate party for James on Saturday, but Jared recently confessed that he "never really got around to mailing the invitations." That's funny, because I recently confessed that I "never really got around to packing his favorite fishing rod when we moved from Texas."

Anywho, if you live in Northern New England and feel like having a whale of a time, stop by our house this weekend--seriously. Trash day is on Saturday, so I'm going to try to convince the garbage collector to stick around for some cake, and hopefully our 89 year-old-neighbor to join in the festivities, too. I wonder if she likes a good old-fashined obstablce course. Now, if I could just get Sue to whip up one of her famous pinatas, Saturday's party would be complete.

Back in Biznitch!

April 15, 2008

Wow, this is strange. It's been just over four months since I've lounged on my blogging couch, ignored my begging child, logged onto Blogger, and written an hour's worth of senseless dribble. And to be terribly honest, I've missed that ritual deeply. For the past four months you see, I've been writing my posts in Microsoft Word, saving them to disc, bringing them to work, and emailing them to my sister to post. Trust me troops, that's a whole lot of steps for a lazy sack o'crap like Amy B. Lawson. In all seriousness, I almost abandoned blogging and took up smoking for the sake of simplicity--buy, smoke, die. That's one less step.

But today my friends, after a cross-country move that was more like a migration, I'm happy to announce that I'm finally back in business! I am totally, completely recommitted to my former lifestyle as a sweatpant-wearing, internet addicted, excusing-making housewife. Well, to be quite honest, I'll be working sixteen hours a week, but I'm very hopeful that it won't get in the way of my lifestyle too badly. I'm crossing my fingers that a career won't prompt me to suddenly want to clean the kitchen sink, because if it did, I may as well flush my identity right down the pooper, ya know?

I'm thrilled to let you all know that we're officially settled into our house, we officially have our very own internet connection, and I'm officially ignoring James's plea for fruit and water this very minute! On the down side, I've also officially lost some standing in the blogging world. Before my several-month hiatus, I was getting well over one-thousand unique views a day. Now I'm getting somewhere in the range of four. My BlogHer check has gone from covering my car payment to covering our monthly diaper supply (that's right...still not potty trained!), but starting now, I'm officially working my way back up.

I'll wrap up this post by extending a huge thank-you to all of my readers who have stuck through the past few months of light posting and little-to-no commenting. Also, thanks to my sister for taking a minute to post my garbage, and then taking forty minutes to correct formatting and typos according to my bossy requests.

Stay tuned, because tomorrow I'm posting pictures of James's third birthday. Let's just say that the highlight of the event was a package of Hostess Cupcakes purchased from our local Blue Canoe convenience store.

See?! I still have the same old questionable parenting skills...

A Message from Amy...

Hi There!

Amy asked me to let you all know that she is MIA for a good reason- this week, she is transitioning jobs and moving the rest of their stuff out into their new home.

She also said she has no internet access because it was Jared's job to hook it up, and, well, he didn't... yet. I have faith in my brother in law. :)

So, feel free to flood her inbox with happy email, because when she eventually logs on, she'll be glad to know she was missed.

Thanks for reading Amy's blog!
Katy (Amy's sister)

When Men Grocery Shop

April 8, 2008

Several days ago, Jared took it upon himself to do our family's "major grocery shopping." You know the type, we needed everything from flour to milk to peanut butter M&Ms--the "basics" if you will. If you're a regular reader, you're well aware that we recently moved into a new house. Until last week, we had been doing a whole lot of painting and not a whole lot of living, so it's needless to say that we didn't have a single crumb to speak of. Jared, bless his tender soul, was anxious to stock the shelves.

Jared's grocery shopping extravaganza lasted a total of three days and required three separate trips to three different grocery stores. What can I say? The man has lofty standards and he searched high and low to painstakingly locate every single item on his mother-lovin' list. I don't care how many sausage-like products were purchased on my credit card account, that level of determination is commendable--always.

Speaking of sausage-like products, I'd like to provide you with a brief list of items that are currently housed in my cupboards:

1 Package of Pre-Cooked Bratwurst--Always a lady's favorite.

1lb of Sliced Salami

2 Tubes of Maple Flavored Breakfast Sausage

8 Ball Park Hot Dogs

1 Extra-Long Kielbasa--Are you beginning to sense the theme here?

2 Cans of Black-Eyed Peas--Well slap me on the ass and call me Bo Jangles, I done didn't realize we wur from the South!

20 cans of Coke

1 Tub of Coconut Oil--?

1 Big Bag of Apples--Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

4lb Bag of Peas

1 Jar of Organic Garlic--Every little bit counts, I suppose.

and last but certainly not least,

2 brown bananas

Why wouldn't I be in love with this man? I can barely wait to start cooking!

Dear Uncle Sam...

April 7, 2008

People have been staring at me lately. Perhaps it's the cartoon caption that's been lazily floating over my head for the last few months. It says: SHE HASN'T DONE HER TAXES YET. I've gotten 1,001 email reminders from Turbo Tax, I've heard the H&R Block commercials on the radio, and honestly, I wish they'd all just put a lid on it. I'm well aware that I'm an unmotivated sack of procrastination, and I certainly don't need some voice-over rubbing lemonade in the wound over and over and over again.

Whenever the tax topic comes up in conversation, people tend to have the same reaction: "You haven't done your taxes yet? Wow, you must owe some money this year!"

Well, not exactly. Thanks to the fact that Jared and I were both graduate students, parents to an afro puff with legs, and ridiculously broke in 2007, we're actually getting a pretty sizable refund. Based on our situation, we're able to deduct our educational expenses, we qualify for some kind of Earned Income Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and I'm not totally sure on this, but I think we're also eligible for the '89 Blazer Credit and the Damn Girl! Get Yourself a New Pair of Jeans! Credit.

Just like 97.8% of my fellow countrymen, I could really use a four-digit check from Uncle Sam. After all, there are bills to pay, birthday presents to buy, and Ding-Dongs to purchase. But unlike 97.8% of my American brothers and sisters, I haven't carved out the ninety minutes that are necessary to claim my small fortune.

If you're super responsible and filed your return on January 2nd, then puh-lease spare me the comments that express ideas like: "You could have earned interest on that money!" or "You just made a short-term loan to the government!" Have you ever stopped to consider that fact that I prefer to have an anorexic balance in my checking account? Perhaps I'm a generous person and it fills me up with love when I let the feds have temporary access to my rightful cash. Chew on that, people. Chew on that.

Fortunately, our most recent credit card bill in combination with the looming April 15th deadline has lit one hell of a campfire under my tooter, and I'm ready to buckle down and claim some cash. Yahooters for doing taxes!

So my question of the day is this...Are there any other dilly-dallying tax slugs out there? If so, give me a shot of self-esteem and make yourselves known.

A Day in the Life

April 2, 2008

I know, I know. It’s been almost a week since my last post. That’s a record for me.

I hope you’ll forgive me for my recent lack of activity, because things have been straight-up crazies in this corner of the world. Not only have we moved into our new house, but Jared’s practice is so close to completion that I can almost taste the BioFreeze. On top of that I’m transitioning to a different job (fewer hours, better pay!), and I’m not really sure where my two-year-old is--but rest assured, he’s bound to turn up somewhere.

Other interesting tidbits in my life are as follows:

My childhood home is going on the market today. After 25 years of faithful service, my Mom and Dad have decided to hang a “For Sale” sign and move on to greener pastures. I’ll miss that place, and all of the happy memories--I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I snuck out that second story window and shimmied down the drainpipe in the dead of the night.

Good news on the Lawson front. My brother-in-law is now engaged to the girl of my dreams, and I couldn’t be happier! They’ve been dating for almost a year, which is ridiculously long for us Mormon folks. Seriously, if they had followed the Standard Mormon Timetable (SMT—it’s a real thing) their one-year anniversary would be just around the corner and they’d already have a carseat in the back of their Corolla. But who am I to speak? If I had followed the SMT, I’d have a baby in my bed and a fetus in my belly. All I've got is an almost-three-year-old who has an ongoing love affair with diapers.

My friend Vanilla over at Half-Fast recently wrote a blog post about those slick, slimy, target-on-their-arse people the world likes to call chiropractors. Let me tell you, it was so funny that I laughed for a couple of hundred of thousands of seconds--you know, a second for every dollar of student loan debt that Jared is in as a result of chiropractic school. My response to Vanilla's post is simple: I RUN FASTER THAN YOU. MUCH FASTER, IN FACT.

April Fools Day sucked. My friend walked into my office and slapped a florescent green parking ticket on the edge of my desk. “Twenty-five bucks,” he said. I shot him the classic ‘I’m a city-employee, and I’m not amused by you’ look and said, “Mmmmm hmmmm,” assuming it was an April Fools trick. Well, it wasn’t. Based on that experience, I’d like to extend the following message to Officer Friendly: I USED TO THINK YOU WERE SO HOT THAT YOUR UNIFORM WOULD FIZZLE OFF YOUR FRAME. NOW I THINK YOU’RE JUST A LITTLE BIT TOO PUDGY.

I was in a strange mood last night and had the irresistible urge to spend money on cheap crap, so I went to the best cheap crap store on the Eastern sea board--the Christmas Tree Shop. When I walked through the automatic doors, my eyes immediately fell upon a fake bird, in a fake cage, that chirped a fake song. Two associates, one ladder, and $1.99 later, I was the proud new owner of a creepy little styrofoam pigeon. I already threw him away--that bird sucked and I hated it.

And that's that troops--a day in the life of Amy. Have a good one!