I Have Issues

When I first started this Blog I wanted to write funny posts.

The whole thing was going to be a witty little laughfest!

I wanted to amuse myself and if my friends were amused as well, that was a bonus.

Oh yes! Bug Soup, the funny blog!

The Sedaris of Buggy Blogs!

Well, it turns out that I have issues.

I sometimes have stuff I need to rant about ( who knew?)

It usually isn't major stuff, not worldly or important, but it's my stuff and I need to talk about it. Or maybe just question the why of it all.

So I'm sorry I'm not being funny, I really did have good intentions for this place.

I have several issues lately, please indulge me .

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Hillary Duff.

As teenbopper pop idols go, she isn't the worst ( not by a long shot) , and I am happy and thankful that my 13 yr old daughter doesn't see celebrities as role models.

My issues with Ms. Duff aren't even about her, it's about how she is being marketed.

The Disney Channel now has some decent sitcoms aimed at teen viewers, and a few witty cartoons ( shout out for Kim Possible!) that my daughter enjoys. The programing lately is more intelligent than the crap my kid was watching on Cartoon Network , this is all good.

Except for the Hillary Duff thing.

Disney Channel is obsessed with her.

Hillary Duff doesn't dress sleezy, she isn't half naked, her song lyrics aren't about sex.

My problem is that they play her video about 3 times an hour. All day. Everyday.

I have seen HDuff's video about 34 gabillion times in the last week!

Enough already!

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Co- workers

The new gal at my work.

She is nice, she is hardworking, she learns quick!

I really want to like her, and in some ways I do. We all want her to work out because we need a strong team and we worked short staffed for the last 2 months of the school year and it was awful. She would so be a perfect fit, if not for one, little , potentially huge, thing.

First day of training we noticed that she had a BIG pin on her shirt that said, " I LOVE JESUS"

Then there were the 12 or 16 "JESUS" keyrings, and the 20 or so stickers on her truck that declared her love for the Lord.

Okay, I have no problem with folks who have a strong faith, none at all. Most of the women I work with would call themselves Christian, and some even go to Church every week.

Within the first 3 hours she starts talking about being "Saved" and how she was an addict, she even showed us a picture of herself at 94 lbs, telling us how prayer saved her a year ago.

I want to like her, but am wondering if she is one of those people who traded one addiction for another ( granted "Jesus" is a healthier addiction than drugs) , fanatics of any sort make me nervous, especially those that think they know best for everyone.

A week later and she seems to be working out as far as the job goes, but over the last week I've noticed that I am the main one she has decided to SAVE.

I think it's because I am polite, because I really want to respect her views, because I don't tell her to shove it, and because I made the mistake of saying " GAWDAMMIT!" in front of her the other day. ( Which is a rather mild swear in the kitchen by the way, we don't swear in front of the kids, but the kitchen is a raunchy vocal place)

I don't want to be saved at work!

My relationship with God is personnal, it's none of her business.

She has no idea what my religious views are ( she has never bothered to ask , anyone).

For all she knows I am Jewish or Wiccan or Atheist or even a Born Again Christian; that doesn't seem to matter to her as she sweetly hands out her prayer cards, and witnesses about her recovery and HER faith in Jesus.

She had the nerve to lecture me the other day about how God doesn't want me to smoke cigarettes, she was telling me how bad they were for me, and how after 30 years of smoking, God saved her from cigarettes cold turkey. Good for her! Today she talked to me about swearing, and how bad it is, and how God doesn't like it.

She has no idea that I know how bad smoking is for me, more than she will ever know. How dare she think she knows anything about me, or my life experiences, or my beliefs.

My Faith, MY Truth, MY personnal relationship with MY higher power!

She is just quietly and sweetly trying to impose her beliefs on me, never asking what I believe, just asuming that I am somehow just waiting for someone to tell me about Jesus.

But Dammit! She is so nice about it, so sneaky.

I haven't had to oppurtunity to tell her off without looking like a big crazy bitch.

My Husband suggested I go way out and tell her I am a Pagan, ( whose beliefs I have some fondness for) or better yet ( in his opinion) a Satanist. Well that is all fine and good for the shock value, if it isn't someone you have to work with everyday.

But I don't lie, not ever about anything important, and ones Faith is important, at least mine is to me.

And the other thing is, I kinda want to like her, and it makes me mad that she is wrecking that.

She thinks she is "helping " people. So is that noble, or just plain rude?

I've only known her a week. I need to find a way to respect her faith, while making it clear that mine is none of her business, and I don't share hers.

Oh, and have I mentioned that I am really good at training in the kitchen? That new people always seem to seek me out because I really want them to do well, and I explain things better than most. I want her to come to me when she has questions, I want her to be good at her job, I want to help her, I want to like her.

I don't want to be saved.

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I had more to write about tonight, but the gawddamned fucking hamster decided to escape and we spent 2 motherfucking hours getting the vicious little asshole back in his stupid cage .

( Kate and I did pray while he was loose)

The trick seems to be that the little biter can't resist bananas, and so he won't be eaten by a dog today.

It's now 3 a.m. and he is chewing on the cage bars and plotting his next escape.

I miss the old hamster.

But like I said, my issues aren't all that deep.

School Shopping

I'll start by saying how lucky I am that my Mother in Law bought my child all new clothes when she was in California in June. New jeans, tops, underwear, bras, socks! The kid has clothes, and I am grateful.
My child is grateful too, because believe me, I'm not buying her bright blue 60 dollar Skeetchers, ever.

Payless

Went to Payless Shoes today for a new pair of Ugly Work Shoes!
My old pair of UWS were too small ( though they were my size) and hurt my back as well as my knees and feet. They were really bad on the knees and feet.
So bad that after I took them off each day , I hobbled around like I was walking on sharp stones.
Everything hurts my knees these days, walking, sitting, laying in bed, but last years pair of UWS were the worst.
So I bought a new pair in a different style ( 3 ugly styles to choose from!) and a half size larger than my regular size 9 1/2.
Yes, for those of you with Math Skills , that does mean that my new UWS are a size 10!
I'm 5 foot 4 inches tall, so I pretty much look like a hobbit, a clown , or a child wearing her Daddy's shoes.
My feet are freakin' HUGE!
( One day I will share the pain of being told my entire childhood that I would be tall, because my feet were so big, not that I'm still bitter about being lied to or anything)

Found the cutest pair of leather sandals for the KatieBug!
Really cushy soles, very cute, brown ( every year I try to talk her into neutral brown shoes, most times I fail, but really the child can't keep wearing blue shoes her whole life) very stylish, will look so cute with jeans. $18 shoes on sale for 4 bucks! FOUR DOLLARS!
Had to buy them. Had to talk her into them.

Because I liked them she suspected there must be something wrong with them. Afterall she is 13 and her mother is like , well , somewhere over 30 *mumble*41*mumble* and totally not cool ( or whatever the new word for cool is these days, what do I know ? I'm older than dirt)
I made her walk around the store in them , and asked other people if they thought the shoes were cute.
They are, and she needed them, and she needs something to tell a therapist someday.
She agreed! I love the little victories!
So I make the purchases and we go on to the next stop on our shopping day list ...

WalMart

Let's just start by saying I hate Walmart as much as the next person, but it's there, and in my small town it is almost all that's there.
So there! Hate me,I have to shop there! * hahaha*
We need to buy School supplies.
Hate this! I hate this every year.
First I would like to say that for those who don't know me well, I'm pretty easy, I'm a patient sort, I roll with the flow, but this mess is wrong!
Every year there is this list of supplies they have to have by the first day of school.
Okay, give me the list I'll buy it.
Noooooooooo, not that easy. And it should be easy.

There are 28 items on this list. Some years it has been a struggle finacially, ( it's a good 45 bucks worth of stuff) but this year, thankfully, it is just a matter of filling the list.
So we need 4, three ring , 1" binders. Not a problem you say? That's what I thought.
We need one red, one blue, one black and one gray. All fine, I understand the instructions.
The gray binders are only available in 3". There are NO gray 1" binders, they don't exist. I grab a white one, and my child begins to stress that she won't have the right binder. I tell her it's okay , everyone will have a white one.

2 red pens. This is no problem, usually they come in packs of 5 or 10 ( never 2) , but I'm okey dokey fine with it.
No red pens. There are NO red pens in the entire frickin WalMart! NONE!
( I looked! I asked! It's on the fucking list!)
For some reason they have lots and lots and lots of purple pens stocked this year, but purple pens aren't on the Damn list, and red pens don't exist.
I started to ask my child if maybe the purple..... NOPE, the list says red and she is a conformist on the subject of pens for school. She didn't even let me finish my sentence , she already knew what I was thinking. ( Luckily I found some red pens left over from last year when I was forced to buy 10 when I only needed 2)

The next item on the list is 3 spiral notebooks, 70 count paper , WIDE RULE ( in bold)!
Seriously, the list said WIDE RULE, the words " No College Rule" were underlined.
There was no spiral wide rule paper in 70 count to be found. There were no wide rule spiral binders at all.

Okay , so that isn't exactly true, because although they had college ruled spiral notebooks in all paper counts you can imagine, there was one tiny box , in the back of the shelf, of wide ruled paper. It was in 100 count ( I can deal with that) but it had a FEAR FACTOR theme!
No way am I going to make my child take a notebook that neither one of us can stand to look at,
to school ( even if it is the right ruled paper!) Pictures of people eating worms and calf eyeballs , and roaches, and bloody stuff.
I have my limits, even when it comes to school supplies.

We gather the other stuff, markers and colored pencils and rulers ( " Dont you have like, 5 rulers?") and binder dividers, and highlighters ( the list says 3, they only come in packs of 4) .
Packs of 10 blue ball point pens ( the list says 12, they come in 10 packs, FUCK THE LIST!)

We travel to the stationary section of the store with the other school supply list refuges, with no
luck on spirals or red pens there either. I look at the list a final time and see that we need tissue, Kleenex ( for those of you without kids, they need lots of it, and the allergy mom's are making out like bandits because I know my kid doesn't use that much)
They want me to buy 2 packages of 200 count tissue.
And that is when I remember that the person making the School Supply List, is fucking with me.
They do it every year.
It doesn't come in 200 count boxes.
Go look!
Tissue comes in 80 count, 180 count, and 220 count. Oh there is a special package marketed for school use, but that one has 3 boxes of 150 count.
So I bought a weird box of Puffs, 218 tissues.
182 tissues short of what the School Supply list requests .
FUCK THEM!!!
I told my child to blow her nose at home.
And we still have to find wide ruled spiral paper somewhere before next week. Blah!

So I'm writing my check at the WalMart, and I think how weird it is that I spent more at the Payless for 2 pair of shoes , when I realise that I wrote a check for $53 bucks for 2 pair of shoes!!
OMG! Payless overcharged me!
So I run to the car to check my Payless receipt, and sure enough they charged me twice for the UWS. Twice!
If you saw these shoes you would barf at the unfairness of this.
I don't even like shoes, and even I know how ugly they are.
So we go back to Payless, where they can't cancel the transaction and give me back my check, and let me write a new one for the actual amount of my actual purchase.
They refund me my money in cash, which I then spend on super weird tacos at the Jack in The Box.
I love those weird Monster Tacos!

So we still need to find some wide ruled spirals before next Tuesday, and I need a hair cut, but mostly, we're ready for School!

Kate starts the 17th, I start back the 12th.

I think it's gonna be a good year!