Oh, Fercryinoutloud! Top 8 Things That Annoy Me To No End

I rarely lose my temper. In fact, I can count the number of times I've been really enraged in my adult life on one hand. But there's a price to pay for keeping my temper--I get mildly annoyed A LOT.

1.) All these mothers who dress their 7 year-old girls like tiny strippers.

2.) Snow when it's supposed to be SPRING already!

3.) Restaurants that put onions in everything.

4.) Actors who give their children names like Audio Science, Pilot Inspektor, Apple, and Jermajesty, then act bewildered when everyone in the free world laughs at them.

5.) Those skimpy, drafty hospital gowns.

6.) Stupid, sexist commercials that teach us that men don't know how to do laundry, and that all it takes to make a woman happy is a big, sparkly diamond.

7.) Liberals blaming Conservatives for everything that has ever gone wrong in the history of the country.

8.) Conservatives blaming Liberals for everything that has ever gone wrong in the history of the country.

The Tack Room

I don't want to be filthy, stinking rich. I'm convinced that it would do me more harm than good in the long run--camels and eyes of needles and all that, you know.

I don't need to be wealthy, but I do hope that I'm one day well-off enough to fulfill my life-long dream. I want to be rich enough to buy a house that has a room that I don't need for anything. I want a house with a room that can be devoted to one unique, pointless purpose.

I want a Tacky Room.

I want a room I can wallpaper in red velvet and gold on one wall and pyschedellic 60s flowers on another. A room with two doors would be best, so one entry can have swinging saloon doors and one can have beads like Greg's attic room in the Brady Bunch. I need a room with rainbow shag carpet.

I want a room I can fill with the silliest, tackiest tchotchkes ever invented. A room where I can put the chaise lounge in the shape of a stilletto-heeled shoe, covered in leopard print faux fur (I've yearned for it since I saw it in a boutique window in Cannon Beach years ago). I'll have an entire orchestra full of those embalmbed frogs with wooden musical instruments you can buy in Mexico. I'll have a whole collection of figurines of animals engaged in improbable activities and wearing unusual outfits. I'll have a "Hang in There" kitten poster in an ostentatious gold frame. I'll have china cabinet full of "Number #1 ________" mugs. I'll have a shelf devoted to quilted toilet paper cozies. I'll have library of cookbooks devoted to Jell-o. A closet full of fuzzy cartoon character slippers. There will be a giant velvet painting of Elvis and Jesus playing poker with dogs in visors--I'll commission it if I must, but I'm sure someone is selling it out of the back of a van somewhere in Pennsyltucky.

It will be my very own Gallery of the Absurd. A Museum of Modern Tack. I bet I could charge admission!

There's just one problem: how do handle it when someone asks me why their very thoughtful Christmas gift is on a shelf in my Tacky Room? There's not a diplomat on earth who would be able to salvage that situation.

The Reason I Started This Blog

I wasn't going to jump on the blogging bandwagon. I have a history of abstaining from bandwagon-jumping. I was the target demographic for the Michael Jackson and New Kids on the Block juggernauts, but I resisted joining the tidal wave of fandom. I will probably never own an Ipod. I never got my ears pierced. When I name my hypothetical children, their names will have no extraneous "y"s or apostrophes. To me, "Everbody's doing it" is a punchline, not a convincing reason to do something. Having a blog was going to end up in the "I never _____" category, until one fateful night...

I was watching TV with my loving husband (Steve) and charmingly nerdy brother (Ty) one evening when a commercial for the NEW! IPEX! BRA! from Victoria's Secret came on the screen. My husband and brother were a bit discomfited to be watching an almost naked girl writhe around on our rather large TV screen while I was in the room. (I like to think they would have been discomfited had I been out of the room, but we mustn't ask questions if we can't handle the answers.) I made some comment about having a skinny stranger in her skivvies wiggling around in my living room uninvited, and Ty joined in the critique of the unexpected soft core adult entertainment. Expected amounts of snarkiness continued till my totally masculine and heterosexual brother made the statement that's going to haunt him till his dying day (if I have any say in it). It went a little something like this:

Gina: Yikes!
Ty: Clothes! Where are her clothes?
Gina: Why is she in my living room in her underwear?
Ty: I really didn't need to see that!
Gina: Geez, eat a cookie or something.
Ty: Well, it does look comfortable.

Yes, my brother decided to announce to his big ol' GI Joe brother-in-law and his big-mouthed big sister that he thought the IPEX bra looked pretty comfy.

I as soon as I could get enough air into my lungs to squeeze words out, I dragged myself off of the floor where I'd been rolling in paroxysms of laughter and said, "Okay, I'm going upstairs to start a blog."

The only reason this wasn't my inaugural blog entry was that I was afraid that having this story out in the ether would make it even MORE diificult for Ty to get a date (with a girl), so I buried it a few entries in to dull the effect. I have many, many embarrassing stories to tell on my beloved brother--but since he's nice enough to help whenever this blogging thing gets to complicated for techologically delayed little me, I won't tell them. At least not all at once.