I Still Watch Cartoons

You'd think that by the time you're an adult, or at least past age 10 you'd no longer watch cartoons, other than classics like Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry.  Not me. Nope.  I'm still camping out on my sofa early Saturday morning lamenting that the new Pokemon cartoons suck.

This is me. Every weekend, just a bit bigger.

The biggest indicator of your Google searches are the ads that pop up.  What are my ads?

Disney Cruise! Disney Land! Sea World! 

This shows what I do in my spare time. My top youtube videos: clips from Disney movies, clips from Jackie Chan Adventures, Pokemon.

My custom categories on Netflix are cartoons.  Right now, it's been popping up X-Men, Curious George, Thumbelina, The Care Bears, and Babar.  Every time I watch one of those movies, Little Me comes out.  This is me, pretty much all the time. 

I'm very excited.  Every time.

Right now, what am I doing, watching My Little Pony.  What should I be doing? Studying or working on my research project.  What am I doing? 

I LOVE The Quest of the Princess Ponies. Tiffany is the best.

What are the repercussions of this? Nothing right? You sit at home by yourself watching cartoons from your childhood and no one will ever know. Right? Wrong!! It shows up everywhere.

For example, today, on a road trip that went wrong, I asked the driver if she wanted to listen to Disney songs while in the car.  I think she said yes to be nice.

I sang along with EVERY song.  

She didn't....

What's my solution? Rather than accepting that most adults don't know the Disney movie associated with each song, No! I decided that we were going to watch Disney movies, so she would learn all of the songs!

These are the things that happen when you still watch cartoons as an adult.  Your Google ads are all for things you should have done when you were 8 and sing along to songs that you shouldn't have memorized still.

You know what else happens when you watch cartoons too much??? You end up like the Frank Sinatra song, "Young at Heart" and you become the best babysitter ever!!! At least I think I am, I haven't heard any complaints.

I Will Never Be A Good Parent

As most of you know, I'm basically a small child on the inside.  If I still had the opportunity to steal my brothers' micro-machines, I would set those up to have an all out epic war.  Just like this.

Because Hoth is AWESOME!

If I lived in a HUGE house and had all my old toys at my disposal, the play mobile and then managed to sneak a few of my brother's toys, they would all be in battle against each other!  Meanwhile, my doll house would have the girly play mobile all set up having parties and having a great time.


These toys are mine.  They will always be mine, and I don't think I will ever grow the heart to share them... yes, I was that child that thought everyone else's toys were cooler than mine, so I "borrowed" them and played with them when they weren't looking.


But playing with micro-machines isn't the only reason why I would fail as a parent. No, I would probably take my child's micro-machines and play with them myself.

Mine! Don't take the toys!

Meanwhile, mini-me is upset that she can't play with the toys too.

PLEEEEEEAAAAAAASSSSEEE!!!! I be goods... promises.

Yes, little me will talk like Gollum.

On and on will this battle of wills go on with the toys up until someone tells me to gives over the toys and reminds me that I'm a grown up.  And grown ups don't play with micro machines.

Stupid social norms.

Not only would I hog the toys, I would also take over the tv.  What if my child wanted to watch a horrible movie, like Land Before Time 2,587??? Nope. Not happening.

Yep. Don't care. Seen this one, then he gets processed and the West consumes him to run its cars.

Little me would be so happy. Learning about oil drilling and all of that.  

Meanwhile, I would be sitting there half tempted to take the remote and turn that crap off.  Fighting this horrible battle inside me, half tempted to turn off the dumbest Land Before Time movie and give my child a good nerd education and put on Star Wars instead or pick some other awesome movie, like Indiana Jones or something.  


There I would be pouting on the couch until the next 90 minutes were over.

Little me should be excited to watch Star Wars. Star Wars should have this effect on little me.

But what if it didn't??? 


Like the horrible parent I would be, I would force my child to watch Star Wars. She's going to sit there and watch Star Wars and she'll like it.

It would just be way too confusing for my brain.  Pretty sure my brain would explode from that much confusion.


Poor little me.  Little me would have to deal with watching only nerd movies and have to fight a battle of wills anytime she would want to play with toys. 


Do I have to be an adult? And do things like, pay bills and get a job???


NEVER!!!! 


I will be like Peter Pan forever!!!

Warning Labels

Let me start by saying I fully understand that people do stupid things, but sometimes I have to question what goes on in people's minds.  Case in point, warning labels.  The only reason why warning labels exist is because people do really stupid things. 


For example, I whipped out the directions packet for my hair dryers just for kicks. Here is one of the many warnings "Do not use while taking a shower."

But there are plenty of other really dumb warning labels floating around the world. There are lots on your basic cleaning supplies, like Windex.  The warning is "Do not spray in eyes." 


My question is who thought spraying themselves in the face with Windex was a good idea???


This is how I imagine that happening.

Upon closer inspection....

Because we all know that spraying Windex in your face will not only lead to severe eye pain, but also will permanently color your skin blue.

It gets even better.  On Liquid Plummer, the warning is, "Do not reuse the bottle to store beverages."


Because obviously the first thing people think is to use a bottle that once held chemicals that break down nasty gross sink clogging icky things is the perfect container for the Kool aid you just made. 

This is the obvious truth.

Despite the ridiculousness that happens when warning labels tell you to avoid the obvious, what happens when they make absolutely zero sense?


For example, I got my boyfriend a remote control helicopter for his birthday.  The warning label read as follows, "If blade damage, don't be fly.  Otherwise it will create the human body or blane damage."


For starters what the hell is "blane damage"? The only blane I know of is in Pokemon and it's spelled completely different. But if the broken blade of the rc helicopter managed to somehow damage Blaine in my Pokemon game, that would be AWESOME!

And I don't understand "don't be fly.  Otherwise it will create the human body..." This is what I'm thinking would happen if I ignored this warning.

Sad face.... helicopter blades are broken.

Whatever! I be fly!

I don't understand.  Also if it created the human body, would the newly spawned person be able to move around?? Would it actually be conscious and walk and talk and all that?  The label just says the human body, so I don't know if consciousness is included in that, but I'm going to assume not.  


So there you have it.  You break the blades on an rc helicopter and decide to be fly, a human body will spawn in your house.  Once people find out you have a random body at your house, you will be labeled as a psycho and be ostracized.


What have I learned today?


1. Warning labels are hilarious.
2. People do really stupid things.
3. Never break the blades on an rc helicopter and then decide to be fly.  It would have disastrous social repercussions.

Waiting is the Worst

There are days like today.  I have only one thing happening, and only one thing.  So what should I do with the rest of my time? I wait for that one thing to happen.  I could be productive and find something to do: go on a walk, do homework, or go to the gym. No. These will not do.  

I sat on my butt and stared at the wall until that hour rolls around when I could finally do what I set out to do.  Unsure of what to do until that time, I spend several minutes, ok more like a half hour, looking around the room.

Nope. Still Nothing

Shower? Cleanliness is always a good thing.  Maybe...  Yes! Relaxing, and then I can think of something to do while I'm relaxing. Good plan. 

No. Showers are evil.

It starts out OK.

Something happened.  

What? 

Please. No! 

It can't be this! Anything but this!!!

The shampoo started slipping from my hair.

The result: pain, and me screaming like a little girl.

I got out of the shower looking I was back in kindergarten and had pink eye. 

And there it stayed for the next few hours. I couldn't go anywhere.  People would think I  was contagious.  Or the following happens:

So I remained indoors. Waiting for the horrible faux-pink eye to wear off. 

Finally, once the temporary pink eye has gone away.  And I've regained some amount of self confidence, boredom sets in again.  What to do?

Games! Yes. I like games. Games are fun.

No. Games are evil.

I threw on your favorite game, Spyro.  I've beaten that game like 50 times, and know it like the back of my hand. There I was thinking I'd be as happy as a clam biding my time until the moment arrives when my day could begin.

And for some stupid reason the most simple of tasks become too difficult to complete.  The worlds were taking 50 times longer than they should.  I was needlessly wasting precious lives. I couldn't glide.  I kept falling into water, watching Spyro drown as I was helpless to save him.

The game knew I was getting frustrated and did everything in its power to make me more and more angry.  Like that terrible, horrible, mean dog from duck hunt.

Enraged by the games lack of respect for my patience and efforts, I threw the controller on the floor, turned off the game, and remained in your seat. 

Wishing I could get rid of that terrible, horrible, mean dog.  Then duck hunt wouldn't be as near as frustrating.

Stupid game.  I didn't want to play it anyways.  

Perhaps the TV.  

No. TV is evil.

There's nothing on but Cops and some other horrible reality show that rots the brain.  Even if I left it on, my brain would be screaming so loud from the pain of its quick decay that I'd switch it off anyways.

Screaming brains hurt.  That's the cause of headaches you know.

So I was back to where I started, starting at things.  And the clock won't move.  What else is there to do??

Nothing.  After 3 attempts at things, all options were exhausted.  My creative juices weren't flowing so I couldn't think of anything else to blog about.  So, here was me a few hours ago.  

At least, on the inside.  Desperately grasping for other things to do or even something to write. But after several half completed posts and then several more deleted ones and many more random topics.  I have completed a post and filled up a few hours more before my one thing for today.  I still have a few more hours to go.  But I log off different.  


I am victorious!! Like that satisfied feeling in duck hunt, when the dog finally shows that you have gotten some of the birds.

The Different Types of Shoppers

Despite having my BA in both French and Philosophy and being almost finished getting my paralegal certificate (I was hoping a 2 year program would give me more time to find a real job… wrong.), I’m still working retail.

Very quickly I figured out that there are only 3 types of shoppers.

1. The "Go Fetch Me Everything" Shopper
2. The "Leave Me Alone" shopper
3. The "I Know What I Want.  This is What it is. Where is it?" Shopper

Shopper #1: The “Go Fetch Me Everything” shopper. 

They are the kind of shopper that wants the sales person to do pamper them.  They don’t come in for anything in particular, but they want you to do everything for them.  Go find things for them to try, tell them how they look (and of course it can only be good things), and basically be their personal tour guide in the store.  This is the relationship.

These people clearly have not moved past the 18^th Century and very clearly the French revolution didn’t happen and there is still a highly stratified class system, and you, the worker, are at the bottom.  Even though they ask nicely, what they basically say is, “Go fetch me my slippers.”

Here is what I do to them

Smile. What else can you do? All I have to say, is if I’m waiting on you hand and foot, you better buy a ton of stuff so I can make my sales quota.  Also, I get paid to sell things, not pamper you.  If you want to get pampered and have someone focused entirely on you, go to a spa or a hair salon. I don’t get paid to wait on you.

This is the worst scenario that arises from this type of shopper.  After you invest tons of time and energy into trying to find them the exact item they want, the following scene follows:

After dealing with these shoppers, I often make this face. Just because they seem to suck all the energy out of you and leave you with nothing.

Shopper #2: The “Leave Me Alone” Shopper

This shopper is either highly independent or in a herd.  These shoppers are either the Rambo of shoppers or like Cher from Clueless.  The Rambo-type are direct, don’t say much, and never loiter.  I like these shoppers.  Every time one walks in, this is the image in my mind.

Don’t mess with these shoppers. They don’t want your help.  They can brave the wild mall by themselves.

The Cher-type of these shoppers is just like what they sound.  Often appearing in herds, these are the most common types of shoppers. They don’t want your opinion, just those of their friends.  You, the employee, are invisible to them.

These shoppers somehow have magnets attached to them, but not normal magnets because they only attract only shoppers of the same kind.  So instead of a normal magnet that does this:

They do this.

For some reason, the laws of physics (or magnetism if you want to get specific) don’t apply to these shoppers.

I don’t make any faces at these customers. Ask them once or twice how they’re doing, and leave them alone.  If they want help, they’ll find you.  Generally, their only question is, “What do you think?” if they speak to you at all.

Shopper #3 The “I Know What I Want.  This is What it is. Where is it?” Shopper

These shoppers are similar to the previous shopper, however unlike the Rambo shoppers, these shoppers are more like the Matt Damon of shoppers.  Friendly, but don’t want anything they aren’t interested in.  These people are on a mission.  When I see them, the mental image of Jason Bourne pops in my mind.

These are the BEST shoppers in the world! I love these shoppers! Our interactions are short and to the point.  They are in and out of the store as quick as possible. I cannot express enough how much I wish every shopper was like this shopper.

While the other types of shoppers either ignore your presence or abuse your presence, this shopper is cordial and has the employee do exactly what the job entails, thus leaving the employee basking in the glory of a job well done.