I'm a wiener. Uh, I mean Winner.

MEGOWW:  The word that was once said while inflicting pain during a 'Karate Chop'.

 This word eventually fell out of favor and has been replaced with the catchy  "Hiiiiii-Yaaaaaah!" " in recent times.

I don't want to brag, but I am going to anyway. Out of like, 16,000 people [or 30.Whatever. killjoy.] that submitted definitions{mine is above} for Captcha Balderdash over at Kelley's Breakroom, MINE was chosen as the winner. I know. I KNOW! 


Not only does winning expand my already inflated ego, but Kelley also mentioned something about a LARGE check..or maybe I dreamed that up. You can't be too sure with me. I have my team of lawyers working around the clock on that one for me. If I suddenly start posting from Tahiti, you'll know how that story ended.

If you have never been to Kelley's Breakroom, I suggest that you head right on over there. Kelley is hysterical.
Not like, "I do say, Buffy, that Kelley and her Breakroom gave me a bit of a chuckle today."
 but more of a,
"I do say, Buffy, thanks to that Kelley and her Breakroom, I do believe I need to change my undergarments post haste!"
Ya know what I mean?
No?
Neither do I.
Suffice it to say, Kelley is a hoot-and-a-half,extremely talented and amazingly creative. Go on and hang out in the breakroom for a bit and see for yourself. Old Aunt Katie wouldn't steer you wrong.

Now I am off to wait by the mailbox for that incredibly LARGE check.

A day in the life...

Alternative title:  Guess who found the collage maker on Photobucket?!

My days look a lot like this:



Dear Summer, come back soon.
 Please? Pretty please?


























What about Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? More of the same. All pictures are interchangeable.
Also, I spend a lot of time in my minivan by the looks of things. Jealous much?

Thankfully, this guy knows just how to cheer me up.

We've certainly had some funny conversations.

Like the one we had about my MOMSTACHE  or this one about Gray hair or this one, about How horses communicate.

As if that weren't enough, look at that face:

 I wonder where he gets it?

Then there are these moments.

The shirt fits him fine. He was just bored and wanted his picture taken.

Done.

Then there's this little fur ball.

I love her every single moment of every day and can't imagine not having a dog.



Except when she poos on the floor.
Then I'd like to sell her to the Gypsy's.


For real. Are there still Gypsy's? Where can I find them? Are they on Twitter?





I Was a Teenage Bra-Fitter

I was updating my profile today and realized that I have a wealth* of stories to tell.

Yeah fine, most of them are not fit for human consumption due to their lack of interesting details and/or valid point, but have no fear, I will share them anyway.
 I know you have important things to do like pay bills, feed your children and watch kittens on YouTube but I appreciate those of you who are still reading.

For example...

 

In 1998 I got a part-time job at JCPenney. I got this job because I was in college, my graduation money had all but run out, and I was hungry. You can only live on Ramen Noodles for so long before you actually TURN INTO Ramen Noodles.

Anyway, you know how some people have a God given talent to sing, or paint or do long division in their head? Well, I didn't get any of those cool talents. As it turns out, I am awesome at RETAIL.
Yep. You heard me. I am a retail savant. Me and retail, we just clicked. Which is disappointing because I really wanted to find that winning the Lottery was my forte but NO SUCH LUCK.

Now, any of you who are human work in retail are probably scratching your heads and saying, "Gee, Katie.  Retail is pretty easy stuff. They hire college kids for that kind of job. A potty trained orangutan would be good at it!"

To that I say: I agree. It does not take a lot of talent, a college degree, or business sense to work in the women's department of a clothing store.  And yes, an orangutan COULD probably do it, but they would have trouble using the sticker guns and the ink tag removers so NER.

What I DO have that an orangutan doesn't is an uncanny ability to take an irate customer and turn them into a not irate customer** just by talking to them. I also have the talent to help a customer find exactly what they need even if they don't KNOW what they need.

Because I possessed these rare abilities, I was hired then promoted quickly.

How was I shown appreciation for my efforts and skills in the women's department?

I was eventually promoted to:

PROFESSIONAL BRA FITTER

 I'll give you a moment to take that in.

Every.Girls.Dream. = NOT.

Becoming a Professional Bra Fitter (PBF) or a "Titter Fitter" as we called ourselves in the break room -was not an easy task.
One had to pass BRA FITTING UNIVERSITY (BFU)*** which consisted of watching six 10 minute videos of staged (and quite poorly acted) BRA FITTINGS.

BFU graduation was only achieved by correctly measuring someone else in the class under the watchful eye of whatever manager happened to be on duty at the time  and culminated with being handed a framed certificate that contained your name, picture, and the words BRA FITTING PROFESSIONAL. Unfortunately, these were not ours to keep. Eventually they would be posted in the women's fitting room, so that if a customer found herself in a bra fitting quandary, she had only to track us down in the store based on our pictures.

After I graduated from BFU, I was an equal mixture of proud of myself and embarrassed for myself.

Weeks later, after pounding the pavement like a breast obsessed super hero in an exhausting effort to help the 70% of women wearing the wrong bra size, I told a friend (a guy) about my newest job responsibilities.

His reaction was,

 "ARE YOU KIDDING?...How can I apply for that job??!! I could measure women's boobs day and night. I bet I wouldn't even have to use a measuring tape. I bet I could just eyeball 'em or do some hand cuppage**** to figure sizes!"

In his horny college boy mind, he imagined tall, blond, perky college girls coming to me and asking for help finding their correct size which quickly led to hot girl on girl action in the fitting room.

What he failed to realize is- that if college girls know one thing, It's how to find a bra in the correct size. Not only that, college girls know exactly the right kind of bra to best enhance their assets. College girls excel at this.

Do you know what kind of person needs help with bra sizing?

The kind that:

• Burned her bra in the 60's and hadn't worn one since. (read:30 years of gravity saggage)
• Doesn't really need help finding the correct size, just likes to show people her boobs and incidentally DOESN'T like to SHOWER and/or SHAVE her armpits
• Just needs someone to talk to/is lonely and knows they will have a captive audience during bra fitting
• Wants to STUMP the bra fitter with breasts so gigantic/oddly shaped/differently sized/ that a  correct size for them hasn't been invented yet.

After I explained this to my friend, he was no longer interested. Quite frankly neither was I.

Being a PBF was a difficult, thankless, sometimes dirty job. I like to think that somewhere out there,  a woman is pulling on her (correctly sized) bra this morning and thinking fondly of the perfect stranger who was just trying to make money to eat found her a  perfectly fitting bra, size 48FFF, all those years ago.

Which, on second though seems creepy.






*approximately 8 stories
** a dangerous and highly difficult situation
***can't remember the real name of the program but it was something equally silly
****a gross phrase to this day

Silent night. Lousy morning.

Last night, I was coughing and coughing and coughing and could not stop. Shortly after the coughing attack ended, I lost my voice (seemingly, a Christmas miracle to my husband) Try as I might, I could not get my vocal cords to form sounds. And boy did I try.

This morning, on my way to drop my son off at school, I decided to treat myself to a coffee from McDonald's (any size is $1. Great marketing.)
 
Now, separately these two occurrences would make for a pretty lame blog post, but put them together and POOF! Instant blog fodder.

So, we pull up in the drive through and I have my son give my order at the little microphone thingy,

"ONELARGEcoffeeFORmymompleaseshelost

hervoiceandthatswhyIgettoorderFORHERisn't
THATcool?!"

My order was processed we were directed to the next window to pay and pick up the coffee.

At the window, I hand the lady my $1.06 and as I am doing so, I see through the window to the front counter. I am a little surprised that at 7am McDonald's is so busy. There are about 15 people standing at the counter.

The lady hands me my coffee, I mouth the words thank you and I pull the coffee through my window. As I pull the cup in, I hit the steering wheel with it, knocking the cup out of my hands and into my lap. Miraculously the lid stays on, but scalding hot coffee is leaking through the tiny hole in the lid directly into my lap.
So I scream "BALLLLLSAAAACK!!!" (as you do) and my voice is carried- as if on angels wings- through the open window, directly into the ears of the people standing at the counter who all turn and look at the crazy lady screaming private parts at the drive through window.

I wish that I would have chosen a cooler expletive, and I would have, if I'd only known that my voice would choose that exact moment to make its triumphant return.

Ahh Monday. That'll be enough out of you.


ps. My son was SUPER excited to find out that you could use words for body parts as a swear (an early Christmas gift for him).

We did it...

...and by we, I mean you.

You wonderful, crazy, beautiful, mustachioed people did it.

You put me over 100 followers. You lot never fail to exceed my expectations.

Thank You!
ThankyouthankyouthankyouthankYOU!

As promised, I will be posting a vlog here very soon. I am waiting on a couple of things.
First and foremost, Grandmas moh-neh. She's good for it I ran a credit check  but now that I know it's coming, I'm getting impatient waiting on my Cap'n Crunch.

Now, I am going to ask you for your help once again.  In case my idea for this vlog turns out to be not nearly as awesome as I think it will be, (for example, like me through most of the early and mid- nineties. See photo)

 I thought this was the look to attract boys. Me 1992.

It's a good thing this picture is blurry. Viewing it at full strength would burn your retinas.

I need a back up plan. This plan consists of answering questions that you have sent me. This will help in two ways.

• 1. You will  have contributed to my fail-safe back up plan, and that will make you feel good about yourself.*
• 2.  I get to pretend that I am a famous celebrity answering questions on a special episode of  Barbara Walters, which has been a dream of mine since I thought of it ten seconds ago forever.                                                                                              *It will. I swear.
  
  Sound good? Good.                                                       

Questions are acceptable from any topic. Though I would not ask me for any kind of investment advice (I am so confused by the stock market.), because I know when it comes time to decide what to do with your hard earned cash, you automatically think of me. It happens.

So...send me money questions. M'kay?

If I don't answer them in my first vlog(see above), I will put them in my 2nd.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find all physical copies of this picture and burn them.

Trying not to be persnickety...

So my mother accused me of being

"Amazingly judgemental"

 and

 "highly nit-picky"

and

"HYPER Critical." 

All in relation to my last few blog posts.

To this I say, "You're damn right!"
 This is, after all my blog. Is it not?
"Give it a rest," she says, "blog about something else."
Fine.
Always ruining my fun.
Soooo... I have decided that what I would do today is give you, dear reader, insight into my super fantastic-completely fabulous life.

  Please take a look at exhibit 1. Or, as I like to call it- My totally awesome plans for the  past weekend.

I managed to complete those super exciting weekend chores.

  -Laundry.

-Return Library books.

-Grocery Shopping.

I know. You didn't know you were reading the blog of a world famous jet-setter huh?

How did I do it all?

By avoiding doing the tasks not crossed off.

-Rent 'Just Friends' @ Family Video. &Return A's Movies.

Walk INTO the video store? Ugh. No thanks. And returning Hubby's movies? Nope. Late fee-Schmate fee.

-Call about getting the oven fixed.

Considering that it has probably been broken for 6 months and I JUST found out it was not working a couple of days ago leads me to believe that I don't have to be any big hurry to get the thing fixed.  Now, if the local pizza shop was broken, my family might notice. The oven? Not so much.

-Price laptops.

Ack. Pushing...all...those...buttons... 

-Go through toys to be donated.

No!  How about pick out the 2 toys we will be keeping and then call Goodwill to come get the rest. If I step on Lego Indiana Jones one more time...well...I don't know. I'll probably melt him down with a lighter to make an example out of him to all the other Lego people residing on my carpet.

-Ask Mom for the correct spelling of my 'dads' name.
I was going to bribe my mother with taco's in the hopes of getting some better info about this guy.
She didn't want any tacos.

 Talk to Julie about Frickin' stupid iPod.
Forgot. Even though it was RIGHT there. On the list.

As you can see though, it turns out that it is not possible for me to post a blog entry without judging people.
The very artistic stick person at the bottom of the page is a drawing I made of a woman I saw coming out of WALMART.
She was SUPER skinny and was wearing those big, ugly, furry boots that people who are not me can't seem to resist.
TO EACH HIS OWN.
I know. How non-judgemental, right?

Actually, that list was a fake. Here is my REAL list.

You can see why I wanted to keep this quiet.

It's only a matter of time before the media is all over this story.

George Clooney has fallen in love with the way that I rollerskate to the song

 Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.

You can read more about our amazing  whirlwind love story in a upcoming issue of PEOPLE magazine. The working title for that piece is "Meet the Amazing REGULAR gal that tamed George Clooney."

My Victoria's Secret model body has nothing to do with it.

Now to find that fishing boat for my current husband.

He will be TOTALLY fine with the trade, by the way.

Is being a Nasty Submarine a good thing? Probably. If you're 15.

If it weren't for my nieces and nephews, I wouldn't be able to bring you this newly uncovered gem about myself: 

   I am UNCOOL

If any of you have been thinking that I am a very trendy, super rad 31 year old, you would be wrong.

There I was, skipping through life completely unaware that I am completely square.

It's amazing how I am just into my 30's and these horrible little aliens fascinating children make me feel like I have one foot in a retirement home and the other in a nice white velcro orthopaedic shoe.

 In 1997 I was the bomb diggity. (Ok, they may have a point)

It all started with a trip to the mall with previously mentioned nieces (ages 16 and 15) and nephew (age 14).

 To be fair to myself, they are only my nieces and nephews through marriage so they are predisposed to think of me as some sort of circus freak like their grandparents (my in-laws) do..

.

Anyway, they didn't come right out and tell me that I'm not cool (and I use the word cool here but there is probably some other word for cool now like 'Nasty' or 'Submarine' but how would I know what the current equivalent is?)

Here are snippets of actual conversations I had with these teenagers.

ON MUSIC

Me: So- what kind of music do you guys listen to now?

Them: (in unison) Lady Gaga!

Me: For real?  Does anyone listen to Pearl Jam anymore?

15 year old: I've never heard of her. What does she sing?

      ***************

ON SLANG

14 yr. old nephew: When we get to the mall, I need to look for a new lid.

Me: A lid for what? ( A box? A bottle? Don't things that need lids automatically come with them?)

14 yr. old:  For my head. You know....a  L..I..D?!?

(as if saying it louder and slower would crystalize the idea for me.)

Me: Oh, do you mean a hat?

14 yr. old:  Yeah. A lid.

(apparently the word hat has been completely erased from his vocabulary)

*************

ON FASHION/THE ECONOMY

Me: Why does this shirt cost $61 ?

Them: Because it's Hollister

Me: You can get a shirt that looks exactly like this at Target for like, $15!

Them: But it wouldn't say Hollister on it.

Me: But you could save yourself $46 at Target.

Them: Would you stop saying (mouths the word )TARGET? If we got our clothes at (in a whisper) Target- we wouldn't have a LIFE Aunt Katie!

Me: But just think of all the Red Bulls you could buy with the extra money!

Them: We don't drink Red Bull

Me: Well good. That stuff is terrible for you.

Them: We drink Rockstar

*************

ON THE OPPOSITE SEX

15 year old girl: Aunt Katie-look at that cute guy over there.

Me: Where?

15 yr old: Right there by the McDonald's sign...

Me: I see a homeless girl with bangs in her face and  ripped up skinny jeans by the McDonald's sign.

15 yr old :  That's not a GIRL!!  And he's cute.

Me: Boys wear skinny jeans?

15 yr old: UH YAH....(as if I am the dumbest person she has ever spoken to)

Me: No one beats them up?

15 yr old: Why would they? Skinny jeans are cool. You don't think that guy is hot? Should I go talk to him?

Me: Yes. And while you are over there tell him to get a hair cut and buy some carpenter jeans.

15 yr old : He's not a carpenter. He's probably a skater.

Me: I need a nap

I could go on and on here with more examples but you get the point and I need to go drink my Ensure and take a load off these bunions. Damn Orthopaedic shoes...