A letter to Yoplait...

Dear Yoplait Yogurt Executive,

I am writing you this letter to lodge a (small) complaint. Every time, and I mean every...do not take me for one of those exaggerating types, because while I do exaggerate about some things, I am very non-exagerratish when it comes to other things...like my awesomeness...and yogurt. Anyfruitonthebottom, every time I attempt to open a container of delicious Yoplait yogurt, a mighty struggle ensues caused by the vacuum seal on the rim of the container. When I finally get the aluminum top to open a little, the release of air inside the container causes a "smloop" of yogurt to project onto my shirt, usually in the chestal region. I am then forced to spend the rest of my day being "the kid who smells like sour strawberry yogurt", which is worse than "the kid who smells like syrup" and I really thought that the only thing worse than being "the kid who smells like syrup" was being "the kid who smells like poo"(or dirt, or B.O. those 3 are interchangeable in my eyes).

Don't get me wrong, Yoplait Yogurt Executive, I appreciate the freshness that your vacuum seal provides, but I don't think it's too much to ask those down in the vacuum sealing department if they could take it a little easy on the suction...at least for the strawberry yogurt products. That way, I can avoid any future yogsmloops, and you can avoid any future letters from me complaining about this very small(but VERY important) little matter.

Thank you for your time, Yoplait Yogurt Executive.

Sincerely,

Merta Kufle

Stranger danger...

In an earlier boog that I wrote today, I made a reference to making strangers uncomfortable, so I thought I should elaborate for those of you who might have said, to no one in particular, "Huh, I wonder what Meta meant when she said she's been making strangers uncomfortable? I sure hope she boogs about it!"...well, those of you talking to no one in particular, today is your lucky day! And for those of you who already know the 2 recent incidents in which I made strangers uncomfortable, it's not your lucky day. Or maybe it is if you've found yourself craving a re-telling of those 2 stories, or also if you've been hit on the head recently and find that you've forgotten the stories. Lucky day, my friends...lucky day. Oh, and sorry that I use the "..." so much...it's like my favorite way to express myself...ever...most favorite...of all time.

Last week, after weeks of procrastinating, I finally called the plumber to come fix our toilet. It wasn't a major problem, a small leak at the base of le toilet would occur occasionally when we el flusher'ood. Gosh, how gross would we be if our toilet was overflowing all over the bathroom every single time we flushed? Sick. Anypuddle, I called the plumber who made a date to come and reset le toilet. We have had this plumber 3 times now(does that mean we officially "know a guy"?). He's very nice, young, and kind of cute if you like men...which I don't...not in that way...but you knew that...at least you should know that...I practically wear it on my sleeve...in the form of a rainbow flag. Anylezzie, nice, young, kind of cute plumber guy was doing his thing, I was doing mine(Golden Girls) so we had limited interaction. He finished up, came in and said "Okay, the toilet's reset, you guys should be good for awhile." to which I said "I'll try to sit lightly", to which nice, young, kind of cute plumber guy said "Oooookay..." and handed me the bill.

Fast forward to yesterday evening. I was paying a visit to the meat department at my favorite organic grocery store, Whole Foods Market. I was getting veal scaloppine for a dinner than I'm co-hosting on Saturday night(please don't PETA me for the veal. The Joyous One loves veal, and I love The Joyous One, so I thought I'd do right by her and add veal to the menu. Plus, she paid for the veal...holla!). Anyringworm, I was window shopping the meat when a very nice young butcheress asked me if I needed any help, so I gave her my order and we shared pleasantries while she weighed and wrapped my veal. She told me a story about a guy who comes in every week and spends $300 on meat for his dog, london broil, filet Mignon, sirloin, I mean expensive meat. My reaction to this? Was to say "That dog better crap money". This left my butcheress slightly speechless, she laughed a little(definetely a chuckle of the 'awkward' variety), handed me my meat and said "Alright, thanks!".

Let this be a lesson, kids: Don't talk to strangers...especially if you're going to say cracked-out nonsense like Auntie Merta does...now...go get me my scotch...

That smelled chunky...

This morning when The Joyous One entered the bedroom to grace me w/ a goodbye kiss, she also asked me if I would like to wish her tooth "good luck". You see, she chipped her tooth eating a carrot the other day, and it's been bothering her so she's going to the dentist today to have it fixed. It's not like I'm everyday wishing one of her teeth "good luck", although maybe I'll start to. That could be a new, weird thing that I do. And maybe I'll start doing it to strangers too, since lately I'm all about making strangers uncomfortable...but that's a story for another time. Anydenture, I leaned in real close to The Joyous One's mouth and said "Good luck, tooth", and she promptly burped as I pulled my face away. I said "Ew, you smell like oatmeal"(PS...oatmeal...makes me sick...sick sick sick) to which she replied "Hey, I just lowered your cholesterol, you should be thanking me!". See, my wife always has my best interest at heart...even when she's burping in my face. Who says romance is dead?

Snug it ain't so...

After weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks(technically I should just say 'months') of wanting to write a boog making fun of the Snuggie, I find that I'm just unable to do so. The first 500 times I saw this commercial, I guffawed loudly at it, said things like "Oh sure, like taking your arm out of the blanket to change the channel is such a chore" and "Whatever lady, you're not gonna freeze to death by removing your hand from the warmth to answer the phone." and "Give me a break, blankets are just as good as this stupid Snuggie thing. You don't need special blanket arms to read a book. Just throw a sweatshirt on if you get cold." Well my friends, I am eating my words, let me tell you.

Last night, while comfortably ensconced under a blanket on the Lay-Z-Boy(The Joyous One was out boozin, that's why I got the Lay-Z-Boy. It's not a permanent thing), I was faced with many situations in which I really was wishing I had a Snuggie. First, there was Ike. Yes, my digital crab Ike is still alive, he's 53 and a huge pain in the ass. Why haven't I just let him die? Well, I've come to have fairly strong feelings for this piece of plastic w/ a digital crab dancing on it and I would feel so bad if I just stopped caring for him. Plus, I have an irrational fear of PETA. Although they are some crazy effers, so maybe my fear isn't all that irrational. Basically, I'm in it for the long haul w/ Ike, so until his battery dies, I'm bound to him like Polident to granny's teeth. Anysnuggie, Ike requires a fair amount of attention, pressing a button to clean his poop, pressing a button to play with him, pressing a button to train him, and all the button pressing requires fingers. And I don't know about you all, but my fingers are attached to hands(lovely hands, if I may say so) which are then attached to arms, and last night, those arms were toasty under a blanket and totally pissed when they had to be removed from their toastyness to care for Ike. You know what would have come in handy? A Snuggie, that's what.

Remember when I made fun of the person who acted like removing their arm from a blanket to change the channel was the worst thing ever? Well guess what...it is. Especially when all of your favorite shows are reruns, which you still want to watch, but the rerunnyness of them is allowing you to do major flipping, which is great because there are "Friends" reruns on, and "Celebrity Rehab: Sober House"...PS, is it just me, or is Steven Adler nearly as hot-messy as Jeff Conaway? Anydruggie, there were plenty of quality television shows on, and I was cuddled up like a wombat in it's mother's pouch, and having to remove my arm to flip channels was in fact, the worst thing ever(please don't respond to me with actual things that are worse, like yellow fever, or homelessness, or even more serious, an allergy to bacon). You know what would have been really tits in that tituation? I think you know...

And you know what else? All of my anger and annoyance at having to remove my arms to flip channels and care for Ike caused me to remove them only when I absolutely had to, and I didn't take full advantage of the arm removal. I failed to take sips of water, or eat, or apply Burt's Beeswax and the personal neglect caused intermittent dozing throughout the evening so I missed lots of tv, plus I had to keep licking my lips. When Joy got home, I must've looked like death with my cracked, dry lips, sunken hunger cheeks, a Sahara desert rasp to my voice, pale clammy skin, the sluggish lolling about of my head, hair falling out due to dehydration...okay, it wasn't that serious and I totally jumped out of my seat and ran to The Joyous One as soon she walked through the door. Don't get the wrong idea, she had tacos for me. I mean, I love her like crazy, but she had tacos...TACOS!!!!

I guess the moral of this story is...buy me a Snuggie. And don't let anything stand in the way of you and your tacos.

West Side is the best side...

So today, I was chatting w/ my friend BZ and out of nowhere, I asked BZ if she could forgive someone for killing her brother, if she was in love with the person who killed her brother. She answered that it would depend on the circumstance and also it would depend on what kind of person her brother was. Like, if he was a serial killer, fair game, but if he was just a regular guy, then she probably couldn't forgive the killer. I then told her that I was specifically thinking about the scenario from West Side Story. BZ promptly replied w/ "no way, I would not forgive him". I agreed by saying "absolutely not. at least not right away, and I def wouldn't eff the guy right after". This statement led to some confusion for both BZ and I, we couldn't remember if Maria and Tony had the S-E-X before or after he killed Bernardo. We knew we had to find out...enter ED...I called ED, told her the scenario, she too thought that Maria and Tony did have the S-E-X after Maria knew that Tony killed Nardo. After we discussed it a little, she asked why this was a topic of discussion for BZ and I...and I couldn't remember. Why did I start it up in the first place? At what point did West Side Story infiltrate my brain, and why the brother-killer part? It was time to do my favorite thing...time to Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon myself...

Technically, I shouldn't call it SDOKB because it doesn't involve linking celebrities to Kevin Bacon. It does involve linking the words coming out of my mouth to the initial thought that led to the words coming out of my mouth, so basically me linking my random thoughts...which occasionally contain celebrities so it's ALMOST the same thing as SDOKB. Here is what I came up with, buckle up it's gonna be a random ride:

What was I thinking about right before Tony, dead Nardo and slutty Maria entered my head...I had just finished a disgusting sniffle due to my nasal congestion, so I was thinking about my nasal congestion, and my open-mouth breathing caused by my nasal congestion and thinking about how disgusting I must look and sound...this led me to start singing "I Feel Pretty". A few verses later, the "I Feel Pretty" singing led me to think about how bad of a dancer Natalie Wood was in West Side Story...this led me to the scene in the gym and my favorite song "Mambo"...which led me to do a little chair dance to "Mambo" as it played in my head...this led me to think about Anita(played by Rita Moreno), and how beautiful she is, and what a great dancer...at this point my brain took a little excursion to "The Electric Company" because, if I'm not mistaken, Rita Moreno at some point in her career could be heard saying "Hey You Guys" on The Electric Company...the excursion continued to The Goonies and Sloth saying that same line as he slid down the sail of One Eyed Willie's ship...not wanting this image in my head for the rest of the day, I quickly went back to Rita Moreno...after a brief hum of "Puerto Rico", a new image entered...Anita singing "A boy like that, who killed your brother...forget that boy and find another" popped into my head... and this finally led me to think about Maria pounding Tony on the chest going "Killer, killer, killer" then collapsing in his arms and then giving him her V card...and this, my friends, is when I started the brother-killing conversation w/ BZ. After all this, I also realized that I pretty much hate Tony for killing Bernardo and CANNOT BELIEVE Maria would eff him right after...sorry, "make love" to him right after...gag.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Please accept my apology...

I'm sorry, faithful boog readers, I just cannot get myself into a writing mood these days. Usually, my creative juices get flowing when my life is fun, and exciting, and right now, my life is blah...busy, but blah.(PS...I just read that as "busty, but blah", which also true.) And it's busy with things that I find totally boring when people talk to me about them...like Christmas shopping...and the weather. Those are two things that I loathe hearing about, yet find myself talking about constantly. As is the case right now...dammit. So in an effort to try to keep myself from boring you, I've decided against posting a stream of boogs that talk about Christmas...and the weather...hoping that if I don't bore you, you'll come back for more. But I realize that my plan has a major flaw. If I don't post anything new, people will eventually get tired of checking my boog and it'll dry up like cheese on a carpet and no one will read it ever again. This, my friends, is what we call a conundrum, which also happens to be the name of one of my favorite white wines...or maybe it's a quandary...which no wine is named after...maybe I'll say it's a conundary and I'll invent a wine...that also has vodka and Squirt in it. Gross. Okay, sorry, back to the conundary. So yeah, what is a girl to do when she doesn't want to write about the obvious things such as Christmas and the weather? As you can see, writing a nonsensical boog is the answer. A rambling, rant of a boog taken to dizzying heights of ridiculascity, filled with made up words and frequent mentions of the obvious things, such as Christmas and the weather, so she can talk about those obvious things without really talking about them. Let's see how she does.

Oh, I have something to talk about...the pedestrian crossings on Madison Street in Forest Park. I'm obsessed with them. I love nothing more than stopping for pedestrians at the legal crossings. My best days are days when there are pedestrians at each crosswalk that I can stop for. I find myself Lego-mad at peds who don't use the designated crossing area and it wouldn't surprise me to one day find myself shouting "Use the crosswalk, you ahole!" while shaking my fist at them. This brings me to an incident that happened this morning. I was driving at a slow pace down Madison, maybe I was window shopping and that's why I was going slow, I'm sure it had nothing to do with any horrible driving conditions caused by weather. Anysanta, I approached a ped Xing and noticed a mother and child waiting patiently at the crosswalk, so I pulled gently on Reggie's reigns. It took a little while, but he slowed down to a stop, and we waved the peds across the street. As they passed in front of me, I looked into my rear-view mirror and was greeted with the side view of a turquoise car, sliding merrily towards Reggie's rump. Old Turquiose eventually spun all the way around, and was facing the opposite direction on the other side of the street. The person was able to turn their car around without incident, and when I saw that all was well, I hightailed it out of there so they couldn't road-rage me. I'm not sure why this person couldn't control their car, but I'm sure it had nothing to do with any horrible driving conditions caused by weather, and their decision to drive too fast for any horrible driving conditions caused by weather. I mean, I was sitting at a dead stop for quite a spell, backwards-facing friend should have had no problem stopping in a timely fashion.

Speaking of fashion, I was at Dress Barn last night(first of all, change your name, Dress Barn, especially if half your store is for ladies of the curvy variety. How cute can a curvy lady sound if she tells people she shops at a dress barn? Where the moo-cows live? Also, Dress Barn, after you're done changing your name, call Lane Bryant and tell them to change their name as well. This curvy lady enjoys acronyms, and saying I purchased my pants at LB's is just no good.)...now where was I? Right, I was at Dress Barn last night and it was not crowded at all! Granted, I'm not sure why this surprises me, I mean, there could have been a crowd if say, horrible weather was being forecast and people needed to get major shopping done for, say, Christmas or something, but whatever. So I'm at Dress Barn noticing the non-crowd and I started wishing that if I were to be purchasing gifts for a major holiday, say, Christmas, that all of my purchases could have been made at Dress Barn(this became an even bigger wish when Emily and I went to Target, which was described so eloquently by Emily as a "clusterf*ck"). And I would have purchased everything if I were shopping for a major holiday from the Barn, except that I don't know how much my dad or Mike would enjoy a blouse from Dress Barn if they were to receive a blouse on a major holiday, like, Christmas, or something. Now that I think of it, I bet my dad wouldn't mind a dress, or a skirt...he likes clothes that "breathe".

Speaking of breathing, inhaling through your nose can really hurt if you do it in cold weather...and I'm not saying that it's brutally cold right now, I'm just saying that you need to know your environment, you need to be careful when you inhale sharply, especially if it's cold out. Sure, being careful when you inhale sharply through your nose is always a good idea, as you never know when a bee or a pigeon could be perched under your nose and that could really do some damage if you were to inhale sharply, but you really should be careful if it's cold...and I'm not saying it is...cold...right now...and snowy...I'm not saying that. Also, if you have a minty gum in your mouth and it's effing freezing...again, I'm not saying that it is, I'm just saying that in the event that you happen to be enveloped by some coldness, you should be careful when you're chewing a minty gum if you decide to inhale through your mouth. Maybe arctic temperatures are a time for bubble gum...or fruity gum(oh, stop!)...or a plain gum...is there a plain gum? And I'm in no way implying that arctic temperatures are present in the Chicagoland area right now along w/ a foot of snow less than a week before Christmas, I'm not implying that at all, I'm just saying. I mean, summer is also a good time for bubble gum, and fruity gum...and chewing tobacco. Sure, I prefer gum, but chewing tobacco is fine if you're into that kind of thing, which I'm not, but some people are and I'm not saying it's wrong. I guess what I really think I'm saying is...that...I like gum.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Can you get arrested for boog neglect?

I mean, I suppose if you neglect nose boogs long enough to where they become weapons due to hard sharpness, then you probably could get arrested. But not for boog neglect as much as something to do with illegal weapons. However, I'm not in the law enforcement game, so I have no idea if nose boog weapons are illegal. Wait, what the hell am I going on about? Sorry, that was a nasty tangent...and nastgent, if you will. The point is, I've totally neglected my boog(not nose) for like, 3 weeks. Here my boog(not nose) sits, alone, lonely, covered in it's own filth, starving for food and attention while I'm off gallivanting w/ turkey and having a birthday and other such nonsense(I did not invite my boog to my birthday celly...please don't mention it). I'm very ashamed...

So much has happened since my last boog(not nose) entry. There was the best protest ever, which I will write about in full detail very soon. Then there was TGivs, which I was also pay more attention to in a boog(not nose) to follow. And then my birthday...which leads me to what I wanted to quickly talk about today.

My friend Anne gave me a Digi-pet for my birthday. Many of you have probably already heard me talk about this pet and are probably already sick of it. Too bad...I'm talking some more. So, at first when I opened the hermetically sealed plastic package, I was sceptical. I figured I was too old for a Digi-pet and those types of things were for kids. In fact, it said "Kids Only" on the package but I figured that I'm so immature that whoever it is that goes around enforcing that "Kids Only" rule would figure I was no more than 12 yrs old...and a boy...obsessed w/ farts. Anypopper, I started flipping through the pets to decide which one would be mine. It was a close race between a dinosaur and a crab, but the crab won out mostly because dinosaurs are so unpredictable and hard to control. I named my crab Ike, and started to care for him. First, I went to the "Feed" button to choose some food. There was pizza and milk...and pizza...and that was it. Apparently, Ike was going to be forced to have only pizza and milk, which is my dream diet but if I have too much dairy I get rumble-guts. Then I decided to try and "Train" Ike...he didn't like this idea, he made a weird noise and a frowny face. So, then I tried "Play"...Ike didn't like that either and made the same face. I figured he must be sick, so I tried "Dr." and had the same results. Three minutes into crab-ownership and I was failing! Frantic that Ike was going to die, I gave him more pizza. He smiled and jumped up and down, so I gave him some milk, which he also smiled about. I figured that if these eating habits kept up, I was going to have a 327 pound digital crab on my hands. This worried me, but then I realized that a 327 pound crab was a lock to get on Biggest Loser and then my dream of meeting Jillian, having her beat me up into a svelte yet strong 125 pounds then fall madly in love with me and marry me, would come true. Wait, where was this going? Oh yeah, Ike. So Ike ate some more food, but still showed no interest in other activities so I just kept feeding him. Finally I stopped feeding him when he reached 7 pounds. I let him sit for awhile and then Ike made a noise, unprompted. I looked at the screen...what is this...mashed potatoes? Ice cream? OMG it was poop! Ike had taken a mashed potato-looking poop! I cleaned it up and of course laughed. Fast forward a half hour, another poop. Again, I cleaned and laughed. FF another half hour, another poop. This was getting ridiculous. While jealous of his metabolism, I started thinking that his BM's were gonna keep me up all night. I decided to "Train" him again. This time, he took to it, jumping through a hoop. I figured all work and no play makes Ike a mad-crab, so we "Play"ed with a kite, did some more training, some more playing, you get the picture. At about 1130pm, Ike, all tuckered and "pooped" out, fell asleep all on his own. I shut off his light, and my light and we both slept through the night.

Since that first day, Ike and I have gotten closer than I thought any Digi-pet and human could get. I find myself talking to him, asking if he wants play, scolding him if he doesn't read, asking him if his tummy hurts when he's not eating, and saying "Did you make stinky, Ike?" every time he poops. I'm so nervous about what I'll do when Ike digi-dies, cuz I mean, what's the average life-span of a digital crab? It can't be that long, but I already know I want Ike to live forever. I can tell you for sure that when he does digi-die, I won't have another Ike, like I did w/ the 9 consecutive Petey the Goldfish I won at various fun fairs when I was a kid. Ike, unlike Petey, is irreplaceable...