It Starts With a Shimmey and a Shake

**this picture has nothing to do with my story, I just thought the world might need this today.

A few weeks ago I went to get coffee from Dazbog (yeah, I'm name dropping, because if you aren't drinking Dazbog you need to remedy that stat) for myself and two co-workers. I parked right in front of the store because the parking angels were in my favor, got my coffee in it's little carrier tray, and came back out to quite the predicament.
 
A booze delivery truck has parked right next to my car, so close that the driver, who is standing with a clipboard at the sliding door, has his butt on my car and his legs touching the running board step thing on the van.

First thought - GET YOUR BUTT OFF BEATRICE.

Second thought - there is no possible way I can get in my car with him parked there. It's a good thing I excel at confrontation.

"Um. Excuse me?" No response. "Uhhhhh. Sir. Um. Excuse me?" Nothing. "I.... I... Need to get in my car... sir." Nada. "EXCUSE ME I NEED TO GET IN MY CAR SIR!"

I don't think I have ever seen such a dramatic slow turn, eye-roll, deep sigh move in life. He looks at me for what feels like thirty seconds, releases another gut-wrenching deep sigh - "fine." He walks past me, motions with his clipboard to my car, and then folds his arms, waiting.

First thought - what is happening right now? You were the one with your stupid butt on my car and I can't possibly get in her with your stupid van right there.

Second thought - challenge accepted.

And then for good measure I say out loud, "challenge accepted." This is met with another eye-roll.

I wiggle between the two vehicles (the driver is deceptively skinny), put my coffee carrier on the roof of my car, and open the door.

The only way I can start to get in is by wiggling sideways with my arms in the air over the door. Luckily, once my butt is in the car, I have more room to maneuver.

So there I am wedged into my car, with my armpits over the door, a very irritated delivery truck driver watching with his foot tapping, and four Dazbog employees and two patrons standing behind him looking on with equal parts amusement and concern.

I look at all of them, daring them to say something about the sweaty, trapped girl in the mini cooper, completely loss my head and give them all a thumbs up and yell, "this is awesome!"

Awkward silence.

I try to pivot and grab the coffee, but it won't fit in the crack in the door in front of me, so I decide I have to  bring it over my head and bring it in sideways from the back end of the car where the door is open wider.

I'm standing in my wedge with my arms over my head, holding the coffee carrier, when finally one of the observers runs forward yelling, "OH MY GOSH, THAT'S IT, LET ME HELP YOU."

"Yeah, this got away from me."

"Why didn't you just put the coffee in your car from the passenger door and then finagle yourself in?"

"I... I... I have no answer for that."

I get in, he hands me the coffee (from the passenger side, which is wide open), give the driver another thumbs up, and drive off in a cloud of shame and triumph.

How To Keep Your Marriage Hot, Hot, Hot.

Having been married for 4.5 years I am an expert in marriage, obviously. I mean, how else would I know the peaceful effectiveness of screaming like a banshee in the middle of the night when your spouse is snoring or know about the joy I bring to John when I put my freezing cold hands on his back when he is slow to wake-up in the morning? Like I said, an expert. I've decided it is only right to share my knowledge, so that the internets can benefit.

Welcome to my first installment of profound marital advice!

One thing I have mastered is the act of wooing with my feminine wiles. It involves a delicate balance of beauty and grace. Additionally, John matches me in the ability to woo, with his stoic masculinity. We are just a pair of wooers. Just such wooey individuals (hah! used it as a verb, noun, and adjective. BAM.)

Instead of just bragging on us, I am going to share a text message exchange that was comprised mostly of pictures that illustrates our abilities because, as we all know, a picture is worth a thousand words. This way, everyone can see firsthand the importance of wooing in a marriage

The context of this conversation was that my husband was going out of town camping with some friends.

::various, unimportant back and forth about what he was up to::

John:

 

Me: Have fun

 

John: Nice face

 

Me: I try

 

John: With that face no need to try :)

 

Me: Hah

 

John:

 

Me: I win

 

John:

 

Me: hm. better.

 

 

After that one John ended the conversation, obviously because he was overwhelmed with how attractive his wife is. Can't blame the poor guy. It's a lot to take in. 



 

 



My Failed Life of Crime

Consequential thinking is not always my strong point.

For most people problem solving is like so:  see a problem, think of answers, pick the best one, implement.

I, on the other hand, problem solve like so: see a problem, panic, blindly and with enthusiasm try to fix it, make things worse, increase panic, someone has to intervene with the appropriate answer, implement. It can be exhausting.  

One prime example of this is when I almost became an international jewel thief. Now, I know this is a confusing statement because I obviously do not possess the capacities to pull of any kind of heist, but you’d be surprised how far gusto will get you.

I was fourteen and in London with my family on vacation. We went to the Tower of London and went to see the Crown Jewels (this was before they spiffed things up for the Diamond Jubilee so the scene of the crime no longer exists as it did when this story took place). When you go to see the Crown Jewels you walk through many small rooms that are playing videos of coronations and historical reenactments, then you stand on a moving sidewalk, slide past the super fancy jewels, oh and ah, walk through some more rooms, and then ta-da you walk out more cultured and slightly blinded.

Typically, there is a line of people winding their way through this process and you just follow the herd like cattle, as you do at any good tourist attraction. On this day, however, there was no herd. I was walking ahead of my family because I was surly teenager who had no time for appreciation of life experiences or learning about culture.

I walked into a room with a video playing and could not for the life of my figure out where I was supposed to go. All I could see was an exit door on the opposite wall that was closed. I thought to myself – well, that looks like an emergency exit door, but I’m a gauche American what do I know about fancy doors.  So I opened it. Low and behold, it was an emergency exit door. That was fully alarmed. The door that everyone who is sane goes through was in the same wall I had just walked through, apparently peripheral vision is also not my strong point.  

::WEOOOHHHH WEEOOHHHHH WEEEEOOOOOHHHH WEEEEOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH:::

AUGHHHHH!!!! Danger! Danger! That is a REALLY loud alarm. MUST FIX THIS HUGE PROBLEM. I’ve got it! If I just close the door no one will know what happened. Brilliant!

Fun fact #1: once a fire door is open, it locks open so that the herds of frantic people pouring out (which would obviously be the only reason the door clearly marked with a glowing “ALARM WILL SOUND” sign would be opened) don’t get slowed down by a door that keeps closing.

I then proceeded to have an epic struggle with said locked door in a valiant, if not misguided, attempt to close it. The more it stuck the more determined I became that if I could just wrench it closed, all would be fixed.

Luckily, my father showed up at this opportune moment. I’m sure he was filled with a glowing pride as he realized it was his frantic, chaotic daughter that had set off the alarm. On the plus side, my inability to make good choices under pressure is not genetic. He grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the door and into the next room where the moving sidewalk was. As we shuffled along, a group of what can only be described as a SWAT team went running behind the moving sidewalk, all black clothes and big guns and yelling on their walkie talkies (don’t be fooled, the fluffy hat guys are NOT the only police force at the Tower of London).

Fun fact #2: at that point, there were no cameras in the rooms that don’t hold jewels, as we learned as they all yelled about not seeing anything.

We continued on the moving sidewalk, finished looking at the crown jewels, and walked out. We were going to see the culture we paid to see come hell or high water or attempted larceny, darn it!

Fun fact #3: blaring alarms do not stop operations at the Tower of London -  the British are efficient AND practical. Which makes total sense, since I don’t have a smidge of British blood in me.  

Needless to say, the rest of the trip my family was super entertained by pointing out emergency exit doors and asking me if I’d like to walk through those too. I declined.

Life Lessons That Make You Say YOWZA.

I worked at an OB/GYN for awhile and no matter what kind of admin/desk/call center job you've had, it does not compare to the things you hear and see while working at the ladybits' doctor. I've decided to share some valuable life lessons I learned.

- If you are dropping off any kind of bodily fluid at your doctor's office the following containers are never okay - ziplock bag, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter container, and/or Tropicana bottle.

Yeeeessshhhh. Some things you can't unsee and boy howdy is it hard to keep a straight face and not say - "what the heck is wrong with you?? I can believe it's not butter, what I can't believe is that this was your only viable option for collection."

- While there is very little ramification to treating employees of your doctor's office like garbage, you can bet your bottom dollar they will call you by a mean nickname. And possibly blog about said mean nickname because they can't get over what a jerk you are, YOU BIG MEANIE. ::cough:: Sorry.  

"Who are you guys talking about?"

"Buttface."

"Oh ew, I hate her."

- When you call your doctor's office, it is NOT a medical professional who answers.

Me: "Thank you for calling women's service, this is Anna, how can I help you?

Random, Angry Woman: "It's red, it burns, and it hurts like a son of a -"

Me: "Auugh! LET ME TRANSFER YOU."

- When someone at your doctor's office says, "Oh no, not a problem, this happens all the time." They are lying. The level of shrillness in a person's voice is a good indicator of how much they are lying.

Lady hands me her 24 hour urine sample (which is a jar full of a day's worth of pee - pregnancy is so much more complicated than I ever guessed) and it explodes everywhere.

Lady starts apologizing frantically.

Me: "oh no, not a problem, this happens all the time" so high pitched that only dogs can hear me as I back away rapidly to find reinforcements before I completely spaz out.

- And finally, based on my favorite story from my time at the lady doctor, don't answer the phone when your doctor's office calls, you may not get sound information.

When nurses call with test results, they can't leave them a voicemail. Instead they have a schpeil they leave about calling them back.

One day, sitting by a nurse who was getting ready to leave a voicemail, the patient answers the phone on the last ring effectively frazzling the poor nurse, I hear the following:

Nurse: "Oh hi, yes, I'm calling from blah blah's office and I just wanted to let you know that you have just a little bit of herpes."

She gets off the phone.

Me: "Um, I'm sorry, did you just tell someone they have just a little bit of herpes?"

Nurse: "I was flustered! I thought I was going to leave a message!"

So, the moral of the story... I don't have a moral. I'm just easily entertained.

That time I fell down a Himalaya.

At the tender age of twenty I spent the summer in India. It was a trip that was so full of awesomeness and awfulness, that I could probably write a book about it. There is one story in particular that needs to be told, and I feel like today is the day.

In the middle of the trip we went to a part of the Himalayas and went backpacking up a herding path to visit with a nomadic, water buffalo herding people group for a few days. It was truly incredible. The people were amazing, the scenery was unbelievably gorgeous, everything was just spectacular.

Towards the end of the camping trip, three of us had to leave early to return back to the city to go through a training program. In addition, a fourth person had Giardia and needed to come back with us to get medication.

So, three clumsy people, one guide, and a vomiting girl strapped to a donkey set off in the pouring rain to climb down a buffalo herding path. Recipe for success.

Now, a key part of this visual is that the rain had turned all of the centuries of dried, hardened buffalo poop back into it's similar to original, mushy state. Not only was it disgusting, it made things wildly slippery.

When you are walking down a poop covered path, in the pouring rain, and you are not part mountain goat, you fall. A lot. The first few times you fight it and bust out the ninja-gymnast moves to try and break your fall and save your clothes. After about the tenth fall, you experience a grudging acceptance that you are going to get some poop on you and try to refine your technique to the fastest way of getting up so you can just get to the end.

Around fall number 25 you start to laugh. Once you top 50, and you are so soaked in poop that you don't recognize the people you are with, you are laughing and crying so hard that you pee your pants. How do I know this is a universal experience? Because I was not the only person in that group that peed my pants.

All of this slipping and sliding was punctured by our guide, leading the donkey, yelling, "step where I step. Step where I step! Why you fall down? STEP WHERE I STEP!!" as he frolicked down the mountain without getting a speck on him.

"Mmhmm. Yes. I hear you, but every time I try to step where you step I get more buffalo dung up my nose when I land on my face."

Needless to say, by the time we got to the village at the bottom of the trail we looked like creatures emerging from the crap lagoon. Here is photographic proof of how horrifying this all was: me after I have tried to clean up and stood in the rain, in a river, for half an hour.

How I wish I had pictures of the villagers' faces as we walked down the middle of the main road. A resoundingly, stunned silence surrounded us as we dragged our weary, disgusting selves down the lane looking for the car that was suppose to pick up us up and take us back to the city.

"We have problem, but I fix!" Not comforting words to hear from your guide. Our transportation was MIA.

He bounded back after finding said missing car, and quickly stated "we have problem, but I fix!" The car, while now located, was broken down on the outskirts. Our guide quickly found us alternative transportation.

Why there was a neon orange, Indian party bus in a village hundreds of miles from the nearest city I may never know, but we would have ridden alligators down the mountain at this point in the story so we clamored on to the bus.

Moments later, our guide popped on to the bus. "We have problem, but I fix!" Of course we do. We needed to take the broken down car with us, but the party bus, while heavy on flashing lights was lacking in tow chains.

The car ended up being tied to the party bus with a piece of rope. After securing the car, our guide bid us good bye and four drivers loaded on to the bus on the front bench seat and we were off.

Music a blaring, lights a flaring, poor sick girl a vomiting, hope of survival a dying, we careened down the Himalaya. Suddenly, the car was rolling past us. Turns out, rope, not a great tow chain. We stopped. All four drivers got out, retied the car, got back in, and off we went again. This happened multiple times, and each time we had a different driver when we started moving again.

Finally, all of the drivers decided that rope was not working. Thus commenced an impromptu scavenger hunt on the side of the mountain. The result? Barbwire. Let me repeat. BARBWIRE.

Seriously. This picture: the party bus, the broken down car, the multitude of drivers, the barbwire:

 Fun fact: when barbwire is used to lash a car to a bus every few moments there is a bone jolting jump as the car slips down a notch on the barbwire. It was a really nice addition to the ride.

Eventually, we made it down the mountain. At the "auto shop" fifteen people came out of a tent all carrying a different tool to work on the car. Shockingly, it actually started and we made it back to where we were staying and we all survived.



  

America's Most Wanted

Last night I got pulled over while driving home from school, which is on the top ten list of worst feelings ever. This is exceptionally true for me because I, a) have weird authority issues and instacry when I'm in trouble, and b) I have an incredibly on edge nervous system that makes it hard for me to think rationally in stressful situations...

I'm waiting at a red light when I notice that a policeman has pulled up behind me. Instant thought process, even though the lights are not even on yet - oh man, cops make me nervous. I need to drive super carefully now. I hope I haven't already done something wrong. I hope I don't have some unknown arrest warrant out for me for some unknown crime I don't remember committing. Oh man. I don't want to go to jail, I don't look good in orange. Oh man. Oh man. The light turns green, and I turn left. Now, most times this is when the policeman will drive around you and go about his merry way protecting society from evil doers. He stayed behind me.

I changed lanes.

He changed lanes.

Oh crap. Oh crap. He is going to pull me over. I don't even know what I did. Why? Why me? WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?!

His lights come on.

BEATRICE WE ARE GETTING PULLED OVER. PULLED OVER. BY THE POLICE. WE'RE TOO PRETTY TO DIE!! (this part may have been said out loud...)

At this point, the afore mentioned hyper sensitive nervous system has careened to 100% instantaneously. I start shaking so bad that my seatbelt locks up and I start flailing about because I am stuck. This also goes hand in hand with my brain short circuiting, as I imagine how my family will go on without me while I rot away in prison.

The incredibly nice cop walks over and I just stare at him shaking like a Chihuahua.

"I'm Officer so and so with the blah blah police department and I pulled you over tonight because you ran the stop sign back at the seminary."

Blink. Blink. "Oh. Okay. Yes." Stare some more.

"Well, I need your license, insurance, and registration."

Blink. Shake. Twitch. Blink. Panicky, rapid fire voice. "I, um, don't have, um my driver's license. It's in my trunk. She's a very small car, it can be hard to find places to put things like purses. But obviously I should have put it on my seat. But I didn't. It's in my trunk. I don't have it."

"How about your insurance and registration?"

I frantically fling myself to my glove compartment and start throwing things out of it. "I have no idea where anything is. She's a new car to me and I don't know my way around, but I do have insurance and I promise she's registered to me. I promise. Hold on. Promise." I'm shaking so bad at this point that all of the papers in my little folder holder thing are rattling. I end up handing him the whole folder. "I'm sorry, I'm just too nervous and I don't know where anything is, but you do this all the time so I'm sure you know what papers you are looking for, so I'm just going to hand you this whole folder."

"Uh huh. Alright. Well. I'll be right back"

So then I sit. And sit. And sit. Yup. Yup. I'm going to jail. No way around it.  He probably things I'm a criminal. Maybe I am a criminal. Well, it's been a good run cruel world.  And then the tears I've been fighting explode every where. By the time he walks back, I have make-up and snot all over my face, and I am doing that shuttering, lip quivering, try-to-pull myself together move.

"Uh. Are you ok?" Sniveling nod, while I wipe my eyes.  "I am just going to give you a warning, next time pay attention to all stop signs."
 
"Oh. Thank goodness. I'm so sorry. It's really Beatrice's fault, she's just so zippy."

He just stares at me. Hands me my folder. Walks away.

I feel 95% sure I didn't get a ticket because he was worried about my sanity. And also why I usually get out of tickets, with gems like so:

"I hate the DMV. That's why I still have a Colorado license. Don't you hate the DMV? DON'T YOU? DON'T YOU?!? I CAN'T GO BACK TO THAT PLACE." - Didn't get a ticket.

After a cop pulled me over for honking my horn for like 2 minutes at another driver and asked me if it had been totally necessary: "How do you define necessary? I don't think it would have killed me not to honk my horn so intensely, but I was really, really mad and sometimes I have bad coping mechanisms. Kind of like when I get pulled over and I start crying. See? Here comes the crying." - Didn't get a ticket.

"IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT CLASS I AM GOING TO BECAUSE YOU'VE JUST RUINED MY LIFE FOREVER. LIFE RUINER!!!!" - Didn't get a ticket (all though I was forced to walk around until I calmed down)

"Oh, I am so sorry" and other calm, polite replies. Got a ticket.

Smile Like You Mean It

I have a co-worker who would not have the word "tact" used to describe her on any planet, ever. Well, maybe on Pluto, since I hear he's a little angry anyway, and probably thinks highly of people who say things like, "oh my, what are you wearing little miss?" and "oh my, did you color your hair that shade on purpose?"

Today the statement was, "oh my, you smile like Goldie Hawn!" Now, on the surface that might seem like a compliment if you think of Goldie circa "Overboard." But. I know better. Anytime I hear those two hateful words, "oh my," there is not a compliment involved. And how do I know that we aren't talking about Goldie in her golden days of yesteryear? Because this was her on the Oscar's last night, as another co-worker so lovingly pointed out via e-mail when I told her about the Goldie-smile-comment:

Oh my, indeed.

No offense to Goldie! I don't even know her! My point is not to make fun of her, but myself, so hang in there with me to the end of this post.

That picture prompted me to send this picture back to my co-worker with the caption "I didn't know I had so many celebrity look a likes:"

And much cackling ensued, until I realized that last night this picture was taken of me:

Goldie Hawn - 1, Toothless - 1, Snarky Co-worker -1, Anna - 0.