momsaidwhat

It’s that magical time of year when Santa takes a discriminating look at his list of good girls and boys and grants Christmas wishes accordingly.  Dear Santa, you remember my twenties, clearly I’ve made SIGNIFICANT progress.  If you need someone to vouch for my growth, you can just give my mom, The Captain, a call.  I’m sure she’d be more than happy to detail my exploits for you and Mrs. Claus.

Anyway, I was just hoping you could find it in your ever-generous heart to indulge me this Christmas season.  Clearly I’m a changed woman.  I believe you’ll be able to find my name on the “GOOD” list this year.  Really, I’m all set with coal.  I’ve got PILES to burn from so many Christmases past.  (It’s blazing hotter than a couch on a front porch in West Virginia)

What do you say, Santa, can you give it a shot?  Here’s my Christmas wishlist:

1. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
2. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
3. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
4. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
5. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
6. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
7. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
8. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
9. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
10. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
11. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
12. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
13. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
14. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
15. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
16. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
17. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
18. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
19. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night
20. For Jeffrey to sleep through the night

C’mon, Santa.  Help a sister out.

shellysimagesblog.blogspot.com

Christmas Liar

I don’t know what could be worse;

You pulling out that

Unexpected gift bag,

I have nothing for you in return.

I just don’t know what’s worse;

The startling sight of

Red and green wrapping,

Or my boss barging in to my stall.

(How embarrassing.)

I cannot decide what is worse;

Your sickeningly thoughtful

One-sided gifting,

Or my skirt tucked into my hose.

I’m trying to decide which is worse:

You with a purchase,

I with nothing,

Or forgetting to wear pants to work.

(I’m a jackass.)

You see, my office friend,

We made no firm commitment

So I left you off of my list.

I struggle and squirm,

I open my gift thinking

What in the hell I’ll say next.

“I left your gift at home.

It’s right on the counter.”

I’m a shiftless, Christmas gift-less liar.

Please join me at “Mom Spelled Backwards” for online magazine, A Hopeful Sign.  My baby’s going to be the big 0-1 next week.  I guess I’m No Longer “New” Mom.

Since I’m a BIG fan of beating a dead horse for the sake of humor, I’ll pile on yesterday’s post with this Rhymes with Tuesday gem.

As always, please feel free to add a rhyme of your own in the “Comments” section.

photo credit funtastic.com

Christmas Made in China

Music makers raising hell,

Light up cell phones, chiming bells,

Make the kiddies scream and yell,

It’s a Christmas Made in China.

Rubber balls of red and blue,

Bratz dolls with their attitude,

Zhu Zhu pets and Barbie, too,

It’s a Christmas Made in China.

Yes, a Christmas Made in China.

Plastic EVERYTHING under the sun!

Yo-yos, Aqua dots, candy. YUM!

If your toys don’t kill you, they sure are FUN!

It’s a Christmas Made in China.

Polly Pocket’s full of lead,

Just like Mr. Potato’s head,

Dora’s sweet, but you’ll wind up dead,

It’s a Christmas Made in China.

Yes, a Christmas Made in China.

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=182737

I’m from Pittsburgh; I battle traffic like a backroads, shortcutting, alternate route-taking ninja.  The summer/fall/spring/eternal construction season in our fair city has been most ridiculous; truly lacking in sensibility of any kind.  Thank you, PennDot.

I mean it.  Thank you, PennDot for routing me past the Bad Mama Jama Crossing Guard on Arlington Avenue.

She doesn’t play.

Bad Mama Jama crossing guard steps onto the scene with a swagger that lies somewhere between a soldier and a prize fighter.  Today BMJCG flagged a 52-passenger school bus sideways across the street.  You don’t even have an opportunity to blow by the bus as the kids unload.

You can’t cross her people.

To Bad Mama Jama Crossing Guard, thank you and your bad ass for keeping my city and its children safe.  This “Rhymes with Tuesday’s” for you…

Bad Mama Jama Crossing Guard

“DO YOU SEE THAT STOP SIGN, SIR!!!?”  she asks with glare;

A “Don’t test me, fool,” turn of the shoulders and a hand in the air.

“Think I’m playing?” she struts with a street fighters stride.

“I wear the fluorescent yellow, son” and she wears it with pride.

“I will hunt you down.” There’s no doubt she means business.

“Arlington kids are MY kids.  They know who the boss is.”

Needless to say I stop well in advance;

Mess with Bad Mama Jama Crossing Guard?  HELL NO.

Not a snowball’s chance.

http://www.myfunnyanimals.com

I stepped in dog poop this morning.

Actually, I didn’t exactly step in it, I stepped kind of on it; realized halfway through what I was about to do; kicked it around; semi-slid in it; and then stepped firmly in one of the poop fragments I had kicked loose my first go-around.

I was running, of all things, a bit ahead of schedule and had hoped to land a quick pre-work errand at the post office.  Of course, the post office was closed, leaving me no less ahead of the game and with a tennis shoe–lots of tread—caked in fresh dog doo.

Great.

I know you’ve all done it, so I don’t have to explain the revulsion at the moment of impact.  I believe that all of humankind shares the same reaction to stepping in dog poop.  It’s the very definition of disgusting.  It forces “the stepper” through a chain of emotions:  disgust, shame, anger, resolve.

Personally, I tend to make a quick transition from disgust to shame, immediately looking around to see if I have an audience.  This time the shame was substantial, in direct proportion to the size of the dog pile in question.  If I didn’t know better, I’d think that a circus elephant was running amuck on the South Side of Pittsburgh.

It blows my mind that a person walking a beast capable of such large scale waste would so ignorantly leave it in the middle of a high traffic city sidewalk.  I’m thinking that policy needs to be changed here.  A dog that large should legally be required to:

a.)    Be fitted with one of those poop catching bags often used on Clydesdales and carriage horses

OR

b.)  Be chaperoned by a professional scooper like the guys with the shovels in the annual St. Patty’s parade. 

The thing about stepping in dog poop in the city is that it is extremely difficult to get your shoe clean.  It can be a real challenge to find a grassy spot and/or a stick to tidy things up.  In a pinch, I repeatedly and discreetly slid off the side of the curb, trying desperately to hide my predicament from the watchful eye of the public.

Shame turned to anger as I looked at the bottom of my shoe after about 30 slides off the curb, and found my efforts were in vain.  I had only succeeded in further lodging the mess in the treads of my tennis shoes.

Now I was running late in shitty shoes; shitty shoes that needed to get into my clean-ish car for the morning commute.  If, at that moment I had been licensed to carry a firearm such as a muzzleloader, I’d have been hunting circus elephants and their owners.

Because I hold no such permits and, by this point, would not likely pass a necessary mental competency evaluation to do so, I decided a shift in perspective was necessary.  I found my resolve.

I made a quick executive decision to walk across the bridge to my downtown office, giving myself ample opportunity to extract the poo from my shoes.  I dragged, spun, and slid myself free of poop, tread, and disgust, and carried about my day clean of shoe and mind.

Here’s to not being licensed to carry a weapon.  God save the elephants…and their ignorant owners.

Scoop the poop!

Adding a new wrinkle to my blog in with a little ditty I like to call, “Rhymes with Tuesdays.”  “RWT” will feature funny poetry, dirty limericks, and those wacky, three line, 5-7-5 syllabic gems we all know and love–the haiku.  Please add rhymes of your own in the comment box below.  You don’t have to rhyme, but you do have to be funny–well at least funny-ish.  I’ll start the show with this little pearl of wisdom for Jeffrey, my boy:

Jeffrey my sweet boy

Sleep through the night, little lamb

Before college, please.