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Seriously. What the haaaaack?

yaaaaaaaay

Yesterday I had to fight with our internet provider. Dealing with phone support is a special skill that I have. I'm good at it, but I don't like to do it. This is how I imagine the most talented barn-cleaner in the world feels. Phone support is painful because your first contact isn't even human. It is an aggressively friendly female robot, who cannot understand anything I say. I usually just keep pressing 0 until I can escape from this horrible invention. This brings you to the phone-underling: This person cannot help you, (they also might not want to help you because they are confined to a small corral in a sticky chair and they resent your freedom) but in all likelihood they are simply unable to help you because their overlords don't give them any real power. If you are giving money to the company this person is easy to deal with, but if you want money back they are pretty much impossible to deal with. It doesn't matter how reasonable your request is, the underli...

A friend of mine recently wrote this blog post about " body shaming ". This is something I have been thinking about for a few weeks now, and reading the article has kind of crystallized some thoughts for me. I started thinking about it when I saw an article praising Kate Middleton for showing herself and her fully-clothed post-baby-belly to the world, like a day after she had her baby. Genevieve's article talked about negative comments, but I have started to notice more subtle shaming. I was struck by the negative message that was conveyed in praising the duchess. Someone whose body is not shameful does not have to be brave to be seen in public. Making a big deal about her post-baby-body, even in a supposedly positive way, actually suggests that she has something to be ashamed of. I have also paid more attention to messages about women on TV: I have paid particular attention to how pregnant women are represented on TV:  Not to mention that women in labor are apparently ho...

To be clear, I do not hate every work that contains a love triangle; I just hate it when the love triangle is the main driving plot element, or when the author spends so much time on the triangle that it takes up the bulk of the narration. A lot of people are really passionate about love triangle stories, and cannot understand why I am not interested, so I feel like I need to explain. There are two reasons why I feel this way: #1. I don't find a love triangle to be realistic as a long-standing situation. Sure, I can see being conflicted about which option to pursue, for a short time, but when the confusion spans several hundred pages it makes both options seem unappealing. In books or movies it always seems like the main character must choose one of two people. In reality if you find yourself unable to commit to either one of your two admirers, you shouldn't just waffle back and forth until one of them gets sick of you, then settle for the more desperate of the two. No! You sh...

The Betrayal We've all been there, something horrible is on your hands. Maybe it is slimy, or drippy, or smells weird. Maybe it is all of those things. In this situation there is only one thought in every person's mind: Ah, the fluffy soft savior of all the folks who have ever found themselves in a messy situation. You run to the cabinet or drawer or closet where you will find solace from your mess. And then the worst thing possible happens: You turn into a gross soulless vampire! No! Worse than that even! The only thing in the haven of towels is a microfiber towel ! It's disgusting. It clings to everything that touches it, so it is covered in hair, weird lint, and unidentifiable miscellany. Your precious towel is not there to save you, so you prepare to leave in defeat. But that microfiber towel calls to you. Why surrender when it's there waiting to help? You think that perhaps it can help you after all. So you give it a try: NOOOOOOOOOOO! It doesn't absorb water! ...

Waiting Last month I was grocery shopping when a little old lady stopped to admire my angelic baby. She started telling me about when she was raising children and about how worthwhile it is. I thought to myself, "How nice to have a conversation with this lady!" but then she leaned in, with her eyes all a-quiver, and said: I have explained before, I cannot lie if someone asks me a direct question. If I try to lie it doesn't fool anyone, so I just don't bother with it. So I said: Things really started to go south now. I was trying not to sound smug but she still seemed affronted. So she got some revenge. She was in a Jazzy, so right at stomach level, and she leaned in: Touche old lady, touche. But who could have expected this? It seems like everyone wants to warn me about the horrors I am in for. I am sure it will not always be perfect, but who can complain with a face like this to cheer you up? Too bad Katie Wetherbee wasn't there to stick up for me. I really liked...

Happy Valentine's Day! I need to preface this Valentine's post with a Thanksgiving story: A few years back, Handsome Bryce and I were visiting my family for Thanksgiving. We were all getting ready to go to the movies. My mom wanted to see "Deck the Halls" (which by the way has a 6% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes JUST SO YOU KNOW) but I intervened, "No!" I said, "Let's see Happy Feet !" I foolishly cried. Alas, oh so foolishly. My mom wasn't sold, so I showed them this preview . Look at that, it looks adorable, anyone would want to see that, and everyone did. EVERY person in the family agreed that we should go see Happy Feet . So we did just that. We watched Happy Feet and it was a horrible thing. The cute penguins from the preview had only an incredibly minor part but other un-cute penguins having scandal time had a huge part. One even mentioned a "couch of perpetual indulgence". (I blushed, ashamed, in the dark of the theat...

In Jimmer's Clothing Today's regularly scheduled post about ugly words has been pushed to next week, in order to make room for my rant about BYU basketball. It is titled: If you are a fan of college sports you probably remember last year's Jimmermania. Jimmer was a special player and pretty much the greatest offensive threat on the BYU basketball team. He won a huge pile of awards for his performance, and then he went to the NBA and joined the Sacramento Kings, leaving the Jimmer obsessed fans at BYU behind. Now friends, I understand how you feel. The departure of Jimmer left us all yearning. When the last five minutes of the second half roll around and we are down by ten, I too feel the pangs of sadness. I too whisper, "If only Jimmer were here." But that doesn't mean I am going to jump on-board with the first pasty white guy with short brown hair. Let's get one thing straight. I am not saying Matt Carlino is the Antijimmer. I am saying Carlino is an unpr...

Reasons I Hate Halloween, Part 1 It's only Spetember 19th and there are already weird animatronic skeletons chattering at me in the grocery store, giant inflatable spiders encroaching on the garden section, and cheapy ugly Halloween costumes stinking up the candy section. It's no secret that I am an enemy to Halloween, but I realized I haven't really explained why. Be prepared friends, my reasons are plentiful. Today's reason is, skanky costumes. Pretty much, any character or profession you can think of has a Halloween costume. The problem is what the costumes are like: Seriously, what self respecting witch goes out in her undies? The police woman costumes are so rampant that if you Google image search "Police Woman" you won't even get one picture of a regular American police officer. What message is this horrible holiday sending? "Follow your dreams little girls! You can be whatever you want to be, as long as what you want to be doesn't wear clot...