come on anthro

Really? You mean I don't get complimentary standard shipping on orders of $150 or more at Best Buy too?

I hate Reno.

My two least favorite cities in all of our great country are as follows:

El Paso, TX
Reno, NV

I'll fill you in on El Paso later, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about how I hate Reno so much, and how if you ever go there, I'll think markedly less of you.

Here's a little story: I visited Reno on my Fall Travel No Shopping Challenge of 2009--some of you (ok, only Melinda) will remember that that's why I started this blog in the first place...to document what I purchased. Now that I'm back to wildly and recklessly spending again, I am able to relive some of my worst times with a sense of accomplishment--sort of an "I can't believe I did that" thing. But I did. And it led to me viewing Reno through ash-colored glasses. Or ass-covered glasses. Either, really, because I hated whatever I saw through the glasses.

And most of what I saw was Reno.

I believe that these photos speak for themselves, but not totally, which is why I'm also going to caption them. You know me...so much to say all the tiiimmeee!!!!


Come on, Reno. Come on.



I hate this joke, and hate even more that they sacrificed actual business to make it. No one is going to pull into a gas station with no idea how much the gas costs.



I'm pretty sure this isn't in the Proverbs.



I hate you, Reno.



And I hate that the bathroom I was in had a backdoor.

But I will say that I had three meals of buffalo wings while in Reno, and they were good, but I'm more happy about the chicken than I am about the city, and I would never go back there, even for a MILLION CHICKEN WINGS!

celebration and uncelebration

I was informed, by Blogger, that my last post was my 100th. Celebration ensue...I just put on some grape chapstick and licked it off. Delicious! I'm gonna leave it to you to decide if I'm serious or not.



And, although I feel like this is all I write about these days, I would like to highlight another annoying mother conversation. I don't know what it is about this year, but these moms are CRAZY. Here is, with no exaggeration, how it went down:

The mom: Your application asks if we have visited the campus...
Me: Yes...
Mom: ...and then it asks for a specific date?
Me: Yes...
Mom: Well we don't remember when we visited.
Me: It's no worries--we can always look it up over here.
Mom: Well she hasn't applied, so she wouldn't be in your system yet.
Me: Actually, we just look up our visitors on the calendar, so if you visited, she'd be on the calendar.
Mom: Ok. So she should check "no" on the questions that asks if we've visited?
Me: No...if you've visited, she should definitely check "yes."
Mom: But we don't remember the date.
Me: It's no problem. Just fill in as much as you remember.
Mom: Well all I remember is that it was before June.
Me: Then you can just put the year.
Mom: I don't remember if it was 2009 or 2010.
Me: Just leave it blank.
Mom: Ok, good.

My actual thoughts:
--the actual date of your visit doesn't make even a tiny bit of difference. We just ask it in case we can't find your kid's interview, so we can look it up by date.
--are you high?
--were you high when you visited the campus?
--did you even visit?

Sigh. This is me every day.

Moms of the world...leave your kids' college applications the hell alone!

This is reality of your daughter in college:


This is, apparently, what 90% of the moms I speak with think is reality of their daughters in college:


Listen, as a non-mom, I admit that I do NOT understand the mom and kid bond, but I also know that many, many, many great moms let their kids apply to college without being overwhelmingly involved. This has been my week.

--About 10 phone calls and 20 emails from moms (only moms, no dads) trying to be stealth in explaining that they are actually the ones filling out their kids' college applications. They say things like "Now, we have been looking over this..." and "Jessica and I accidentally submitted her application too early..." and "When Paul and I talked about submitting his application..."

--At least five calls and more emails from moms trying to make excuses for why they're doing the application process instead of their kid. They say things like "Billy would call you himself, but you know, he leaves at 7 in the morning and isn't back until 7, so he certainly can't call..." and "Well Jennifer wanted to call you herself, but I said I would help her out..."

--Two calls from moms who just openly admitted that they did their kid's application. The first was more ridiculous. It went a little something like this:

The mom: So I had been going over and over the application, and you know, I'm embarrassed to say I cannot remember what Gina's log in info is. I mean, she's gotten so many of these...I just misplaced it.
Me: Well, if Gina wants to give me a call, I'd be happy to reset the password.
Mom: Oh, you can't just look it up? Ok, let me really look.

Hangs up, calls back later.

Mom: So I found the log-in info.
Me: Great.
Mom: I do have another question--I am filling in Gina's involvements, and there just aren't enough lines for me to really show you who she is.
Me: --nothing, because I'm just really surprised that she's so ballsy--
Mom: So how can I submit more information to really fill out her application?
Me: Well, GINA is certainly able to submit an additional resume with her application, if she feels that that better describes her involvements.
Mom: Ok great, so I can just send that into you?

Seriously. That wasn't even exaggerated. She just owned it. It's ALMOST worst that she wasn't trying to cover it up...seriously...it's not something you think twice about??

The second mom was much more rude.

Mom: Hello. We accidentally submitted my son's application before he was finished with his entire essay. I was told to email the second half to his admissions counselor and that the counselor would add it to my son's application. I emailed it, but your counselor did not add it.
Me: Well, your student actually did the right thing by emailing the counselor, and he likely added the second portion of the essay right here in our database, which would mean it is updated, but you wouldn't be able to see it on your end.
Mom: No, I emailed him, and haven't heard a word.
Me: Well, the counselors are out on the road for most of this month, so even if you haven't heard from him, I'm sure he did it. However
Mom: --tries to interrupt me but I just keep on talking a little louder--
Me: just in case something happened in the delivery of the email, how can I get a hold of your student to ensure that we receive all of his essay?
Mom: Well you should probably just call me.
Me: Great. Great. What's your number?

Needless to say (but I'm still going to), of COURSE our counselor had taken care of it. Stop telling me about my job, lady, and please...let your kid do his own application!!

Today, I'm mad about people who try to make you feel guilty via Facebook

I miss the days when Facebook was about telling me about how your day is going, or that you just got tickets to see Pearl Jam.

I'm not even a mom (that I know of), much less a stay at home one (that I know of), so this is more of an "I'm mad FOR you cool stay at home moms, whether you're mad or not" things.

So a friend on Facebook today posted something to the effect of...:

"No one came to my mommy walk today. Oh well, I didn't really want to walk anyway."

As a non-mom-or-stay-at-home-mom, I say the following things:

1--Stop using Facebook to make other people feel guilty. If you want people to come, maybe put "No one came to my mommy walk today...I missed you all...hope you can come next week!" Done. Now I want to go instead of just feeling guilty that I didn't (not really--I don't have a baby).

2--Stop lying to make other people feel guilty. Just say you're pissed if you are. No "Oh well..." statement necessary.

3--Stop assuming that everyone can even GO to your damn walks, and don't make the moms who can't stay at home feel bad. One comment on this post was "Sorry...I was at work." I'm sorry you couldn't come either. Don't feel bad about going to work! Your baby will have adorable clothes because of that.

Another friend on Facebook posted one of those amazing...:

"JESUS IS THE BEST EVER, AND IF YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT, YOU WILL REPOST THIS TO YOUR STATUS!!!"

1--Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. I will automatically not post anything to my status that tells me I HAVE to. I know it's a childish matter of wills, but damn it, don't tell me what to do!

2--Jesus doesn't care about your Facebook. I think he actually hid all of your status updates. Sorry.

I could go on, but you get it. Let's bring it back to these updates:

"My brother is the bomb!"
"I just went to a movie that was so hilarious!"
"Let's all eat Chinese tonight!!"
"OMG...I just got tickets to Pearl Jam!!!"

Thank you.

I am soooo down with other people's babies!

So I spent the last 20 minutes with about 60 fifth graders, introducing them to private college. They were hilarious. They each fill out an information card when they get in to show that they visited, and after looking over all of the info cards, here are my favorites:



--Mariah Stevens wrote out her name in cursive, then crossed out to print it, and her majors of interest are cooking and tennis.

--Jared Otto’s full address is 11083 SD CA, and his ethnic background is male

--Emily Spitzer’s phone number is 858-0470-245, and her email address is sugahgirl179@

--Brendan Walden’s email address is JeanMarieWalden@

--Peter chose to end his card after writing “Peter”

--Mack Frost filled out a card. I can’t decide if there could possibly be a kid with a name that awesome, or if there could possibly be a kid that is funny enough to put that fake name at this young age.

--Kyle Blakeley lives in the city of Pasao Jenhiz, CA, and chose to decorate his card with the Chanel C’s

--Karina’s ethnic background is softball, volleyball, piano and sports

--Mina Hernandez’s high school grad year is 1.945

--Kendall Cole’s email is soccerlove.mango835@, and he crossed out high school grad year. High hopes.



They also had SO MANY questions. And I just kept answering them, because they were awesome. Some highlights:

--Can you have a dog at this college?

--What if you want to be a cop? Can you have a police dog?

--What if you're blind? Then can you have a dog?

--What's an ethic background?

--How old do you have to be to go here?

--Can you have gum in your classroom?

--If you don't do your homework, what are the consequences?

--Do you have classes for BMX biking?



When I told them that in college, you get to pick your own schedule...

--What if I only want to go to school until 12?

--Can I only go to school on Mondays?

--What if I only want classes for one hour every day?

--What if I want to go to class on Monday, but not on Tuesday, but again on Wednesday?

--What if I want to leave class early?



And when I asked them to guess how many students attended, they said guessed "more than 20," 200, 300, 350, and when I said "guess way more," they guessed 300,000.



Then someone asked if they could get a Master's here, and how long it took, so I explained that we offer Bachelor's degrees, which take four years, then Master's, which take two, and one kid in the front said "Two years? Sweet! I'm getting a Master's!"



I love.

Today, I'm mad about high school secretaries.

Dear High School Front Desk Ladies,

Not to be stereotypical or anything, but I have yet to see a dude work at a high school front desk.

The following things are completely inappropriate to discuss in public, much less when people are walking in and out of your "office:"

--someone defecating in his/her pants
--the process of you cleaning up said defecation
--calling that defecation "crapping his drawers"

As I've said already today, in a completely different context: Those are things that you can only say to your spouse on the phone, and you have to expect him/her to hang up on you.

Also, not that I'm THAT important, but when someone walks into the office and just stands there, someone who's paid to sit at the front desk needs to address that person. THREE TIMES in the last two days, I've walked into an office, stood there and literally had to interrupt your conversations (about crapping drawers) to ask where I need to sign in. I'm FINE with not signing in, but since you make me, acknowledge my presence.

Finally, it's not completely absurd that I don't know where your College Center is. I haven't been to your school before, because your school isn't that important to me. If you came into my office, I wouldn't assume you know where the bookstore is, because I'm not a huge asshole.

I was going to make a comment here about snacking, but I remembered by skirt issue just in time.

With Christ's love,

Shannon

lap salad

I'm eating salad (gearing up for the Big Push to Not Rip My Skirts with Only My Ass of 2010) at a REAL cute coffee shop in Danville, CA, in between interviewing two girls and my Info Night, and I dropped a piece of lettuce on my lap, picked it up and ate it.

Then I looked at the guy sitting across from me, who was looking at me with absolute horror. He got up soon after, and I think it might be to vomit, because of me.

Is that THAT horrible? I mean, it wasn't like I sucked split soup out of my dress. I just get enthusiastic about food, and didn't even think about it. I'm no waster.

Who knew?

per yesterday's post

...the asstermath (it doesn't really work...I just thought it was funny)...