Quick Change Artists

Have you ever been deceived by a purchase, whereupon further examination the product was woefully misrepresented itself? For instance, you go into a store and the shirt that looks amazing in their mirror, at home makes you resemble the donut you had for breakfast. Or perhaps the sample at Costco that tasted divine at the sample table tastes like a school lunch on your own. It is always very confusing when these things happen. You can't help but wonder where the exchange took place and how you didn't see it coming.

The other morning as I got out of the shower I decided to use a lotion sample that had been removed from the Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas. When I first opened the bottle the scent that came forth was delicious. It smelled like India; the scent of foreign spices and exotic flowers mingled into a white lotion (at least thats what I imagine India would smell like if it were infused into a bottle). I sniffed it a few times to make sure that I wouldn't mind the smell for the rest of the day. I didn't imagine that the lotion would soon resemble a less enthusiastic scent.

Within moments of lathering my arms and legs entirely with the lotion, I soon discovered a different smell. Instead of smelling like Treasure Island lotion it smelled like Treasure Island Pirate. Yes pirate and not the glorified Jack Sparrow variety with fabulous eyeliner. The smell of salt and sweat wafted up from my arms to my nose making it wrinkle up in disgust.

"What smells like armpit?" I wondered, sniffing around. But it wasn't authentic armpit, instead it was the rank lotion that somehow went rancid within minutes of leaving the bottle. It was like the equivalently of smelling what someone had for dinner last night on their skin. I felt dirty and Piratey and I worried that for the rest of the day I would attract Pirate moments. It wouldn't have surprised me if promptly leaving my house a parrot alighted on my shoulder and said, "Ahoy thar matey!" Or if I somehow got into a bar fight when I stopped at 7-eleven for a diet Pepsi.

What most baffled me was how the lotion went from divine to disgusting in 2 minutes flat. Even more so was the strange inclination I had to don a patch and roll my R's when they fell into my sentence, how did a smell evoke such strong emotions. And I even thought of a pirate joke I'd recently head that this lotion reminded me of:

A pirate walks into a bar. Promptly the bartender notices that inside the pirates pants is a steering wheel. Concerned the bartender cautiously asks "Excuse me, but did you know that there is a steering wheel in your pants?" The pirate eyes the bartender, looks down and states, "Aye, and it's drivin' me nuts!"

So as a gesture of good will I warn you. BewarRRR the Treasure Island Lotion!

Unauthentic Baby Blues..

We have all seen commercials or movies where someone is unwittingly asked if they are pregnant when they are not. The initial responses from the audience are cries of disbelief or the covering of the mouth. "Oh no you didn't!" someone shouts. How can someone be so tactless, we ask ourselves? Certainly I would never do that, or no one I know has had that happen, we cry reassuringly. If the person is dressed in baggy clothes, or somewhat frumpy with a little extra junk in Le Old Trunk then we give allowances for the misunderstanding. However, what if you are dressed to the nines, wearing high heels, makeup, and a slimming black dress? Then what?

Saturday night Jarom and I decided we would attend the stake dinner/dance in honor of St. Valentines day. I dolled up. For once I shaved my legs, donned my favorite black dress from Banana Republic that screams "yes, I can look good once in a while!", I applied makeup in all the right places, and traded in my flip-flops for a pair of black sling back 4 inch heels. All at the same time.

And I was feelin' good.

That night Jarom and I learned a few waltz steps from an instructor and attempted to waltz around the cultural hall with stuffy affected looks on our faces until we broke down into giggles. After we got a little better, Jarom upped the pace and eventually I was being dragged around, literally, my feet sliding along the floor, my body limp from laughing, as a table of older couples laughed approvingly at us. It was perfect and all was right with the world. Until about 9:30 when we decided to drive to Walmart to buy a few things for sunday. All "good" things happen at Walmart it seems.

After 2 plus hours of dancing, standing and walking in my heels, naturally my feet hurt. I had followed Jarom around Walmart, gotten bored and decided to check out the food section to see what they had in their limited resources. It's really rather ironic that the most shocking moment of my life should happen there in the food aisle. And happen there it did.

"You look like your feet hurt." A woman said knowingly as she observed me holding onto a shelf for support.
"yeah." I answered, "I'm not used to wearing heels." I wondered what gave me away- the grimace of pain or the way my ankles bent every time I took a step. Ok, honestly not sexy, but the next line was unexpected.
"Oh, and you're pregn---" she stopped mid-sentence as she realized that I was not in fact pregnant, just fat in the stomach.

Her eyes shifted up to mine.

In that exact moment Walmart went completely silent, in the distance a cash register whirred. Passing customers dove behind carts of gatorade and rows of half priced Valentine's Candy, eyes peaking over in fear. Suddenly the loudspeaker blared the theme song from "The Good, the Bad and The Ugly." A faint breeze that smelled of gun powder ruffled my hair and my eyes squinted. I dared her to finish, to give me the chance to bunt kick the box of lucky charms I was holding at her head.
"Go ahead," I said menacingly, "Make my day..."

But instead it went like this:

"Oh, and you're preg-nevermind." She squirmed to a finish.
"Well what in the heck was preg-nevermind?" I wondered silently. I small village in Germany, a new word for fabulous, or flabulous?
"Have a good night." she said lamely and wandered away.

I, however, was left wondering what just happened. Did I really look pregnant? How come nobody told me that the spare tire I was sporting that evening was so passe? Next I suppose someone will tell me that love handles and cellulite are not exactly bragging rights at a party. I wanted to shout out at her, "I've had a hard year! I've been taking 18 credits a semester and not sleeping. Did you know stress and sleep deficiency lead to stomach fat??!"

Slowly I placed the lucky charms back on the shelf. And trudged over to Jarom in defeat.
"What's wrong?" He asked, instantly picking up on my bad vibe.
"We're having a baby." I mutter.
"What are you talking about?" He asks.
"Just ask that lady in the black." I answer bothered. "She can tell you everything."

I guess the baby blues can happen to non-mothers too.

Rolo-ver

(Side Note: I actually started writing this a few days before Valentine's Day, but I was forced into migrant working conditions which is a blog just waiting to be written to... Anyhow, it's a bit late, but this is my absolute FAVORITE Valentine's Day memory)

One of the simple joys of childhood was the one day a year that you could put 30 tiny cards into 30 tiny envelopes with a candy heart or two. At the store you would pick out the cards that represented you. Lisa Frank for the girls who wore make-up at 8, My Little Pony for the girls who would continue to play with dolls until they were 15 (or was that just me?), Barbie for the future fashion designers, stylists or gay boys, He-man for the tough guys, G. I. Joes for the chronic fighters and Tranformers for the future .com generation. But what a thrill it was when inside your construction paper mail box you found 30 notes from kids in your class, kids who didn't particularly like you/know you/sit by you during lunch but still spent the time to scrawl your name on a card that said something brilliantly akin to "You're the cutest," or some such fib. But imagine even more interesting to find your treat in the middle of the night and card in the morning in that order, as I did back in 1989...

It was the eve of Valentine's Day and Julie had decided to be a good older sister and give me a present to find when I awoke in the morning. Quietly she had laid a Valentine's card (probably a My Little Pony or Strawberry Shortcake) next to my pillow along with an unwrapped Rolo, you know, one of those delicious caramel chocolate sweets. During the night and being the fitful sleeper I am, I shook the bed until the Rolo made its way down under my covers and to the lowest heaviest area right around my bumm. Efficiently I rolled over it until it resembled a smooth flat disc that covered a sizable area (for a Rolo) right in the center of my bed. And there it rested until about 2 am when I awoke and somehow discovered that something was amiss under the sheets.

I'm not sure what alerted me to my new bed fellow but I quickly noticed that I was not alone. I guess if a princess could feel a pea under 7 or 8 mattresses than why shouldn't I feel a steamrollered rolo under a thin flannel nightgown? Anyhow, in the dark it resembled something else. Something very sinister that a 7 year old should have control over.

Shoot, I thought to myself, I really am too old for this. But the thought of going back to bed in that, or sleeping on the floor was not something I wanted to do, so instead I woke up my mom.

"Mom." I said in confusion, " I think I poopied in my bed. Except that it's only on the outside of my p.j.'s."
"It's on the outside of your p.j.'s?" She asked in a sleepy voice.
"Yes, I don't know how it happened..." I answered
By this point I'm sure the wheels were turning in her head. How in the world could a kid pooh outside her pajamas? It just didn't make sense. Even the allure of a warm bed couldn't stave her curiosity and a moment later she was following me to Julie (who was sleeping soundly) and my room.

In the dark she stood there bracing herself for what she knew she had to do. Slowly she poked it with the tiniest tip of her finger. "It doesn't feel like pooh." She said perplexed.
Even in the dark I could see her confusion. Then leaning ever so carefully over, she lowered her head and took a quick sniff.
"It doesn't even smell like pooh." she said, her head cocking to the side. "I don't know. Why don't you come sleep in my room for the rest of the night?"

Within a few minutes we had made a bed of blankets in her floor and while I stared at boxes of wrapping paper and other ominous objects to a 7 year old under a dark bed- I mused. What could possibly be that dark orb on my sheet? How did I manage to pull a stunt like that? Should I be proud of my unique capabilities or worried it would happen again, in public, where people would point their fingers and rank me with the bearded lady or the half-man-half-woman guy? It was all very baffling and I worried until morning.

However, when I awoke I discovered something else. Upon entering my room and staring into my covers I realized that my company had in fact been of the chocolate constitution, with tones of caramel. Where in the world did that come from I wondered...

Minutes later Julie came in and asked, "Did you find your card and treat?"
"What card and treat?" I asked her confused.
"I left you are card and a rolo." She answered.

Thankfully I found the card and realized that my special powers were not so special. I am happy to say I haven't had an accident sense.

My Sister

When I was a kid I idealized my sister. Wherever she went, I wanted to go. Whatever she wore, I wanted to wear. She was cool. She was always doing exciting things like moving the furniture in our room so it looked different. I remember coming home from school and her announcing that it was time for a change. We would run upstairs and move our beds and our dressers and laugh and listen to music. She was 14, I was 7, but I didn't really notice.

Over the years we had our spats. At 8 I was sure that she was trying to steal my best-friend Whitney when she spent the night. Julie had offered to do our hair and makeup and we were feeling pretty grown up in aqua eyeliner and mint green shadow. Julie had curled my bangs and was going to seal them into place with copious amounts of hair spray (remember the world was still reeling with the 80's influence) when instead she sprayed me directly in the eyes. I screamed, eyes watering while blue and green makeup streamed down my face, that she was trying to steal my best friend. Julie and I laugh now that I would have thought that, but at the time I wondered...

When I was 9 Julie would play Chicago songs while we laid in bed in the thick sweltering summer heat. The fan would hum softly in the background and the headlights of cars would shine through the blinds and onto our ceiling making lines that moved across the ceiling and down the walls. I remember thinking this was the life. Sometimes she would even tell me stories, or about boys she liked or we would tell jokes and laugh until she stopped answering me and I knew she was pretending to be asleep.

At ten (for me) Julie had gotten her own room and I moved across the hall. My room was scary, and I hated being alone. I wanted to share the room with her forever and sometimes I would sneak into the room and sleep on her floor. By this time Julie (I'm sure) was ready for her own room, but I wasn't. I would sneak slowly into the room and she would tell me "Holly, I can see you. Go back to bed." I would ignore her like a dog who thinks he is being sneaky, and nestle myself on the floor next to her just glad to be there again.

When I turned 11 Julie left for college. When we dropped her off I didn't know what to do with myself. My very best friend, the one who I could confide in, who let me tag along, who told me I was beautiful (even when I was VERY much not and looked more like Charlie Brown than little girl) and got mad at people for hurting my feelings, was moving on. And it killed me. I wrote in my school journal (very dramatically of course):

"words can't describe how I felt when my sister left for college. I felt as though I was trapped and all alone in a mall because malls are always crowded and when Julie left it seemed as though everybody left. This is a moment there are no words to comfort, it's a time when words run dry. "

14 years later I still love and miss my sister. It kills me that she lives so far away and that I have to hop a plane instead of into my car, or a fence to visit her. Since it's Valentines Day month, I just wanted to write this blog to tell her how much I love her and how glad I am she's my sister.

Jack Handy's daughter

So upon finding my 6th grade school journals (I was 11) I noticed that there was an underlying theme in many of my entries. Besides the comments about how if I was a certain way everyone would (finally) like me and I'd have some friends at school for once, is the fact that I write a strange entry and then sum it up with a final classic line. Like this:

On what makes me happy:
I'm the happiesed when I get comploments. It makes you feel really good. Also it makes me fell really good and specail. Aspecly when it is somebody you want to make friends with.

Or an animey.

An Enemy? What the heck? And I wonder why I played mostly by myself for those 3 years of middle school. Man, I was deep.

My ideal life...

In the mind of an 11 year old.



9/30/1993 (6th grade, unchanged in punctuation and spelling, minus the spellings "tips")

My ideal life would be if everybody had peace but I would love to live in an manshin (mansion) and have a swimming pool shing (shining) silvery in the night and be able to have balls and see the beutiful dresses swirl around and when they are don (done) all the girls would walk out to see me and my dress would sway in the wind. and I would dress in fine silks and eat fine dinners and desserts and when the day would end I would go to my hugh (huge) room and lay on my bed all covered with silked sheets then I would get up walk to my window and the breeze would blow in my face and my hair would sway and the white soft kertins (curtains) would fly around me in the wind I would walk back to my bed lay on my goose feather pillows and fall asleep.

This post is actually fairly sad (even though I laughed like crazy because I was SUCH a weird-o) since I really did feel this way. This journal entry smacks of a girl who read a bit too much and socialized a great deal too little. The entries get better and better (meaning stranger and more dramatic) in this journal and I'll add them here and there, I just can't believe I wrote this comment to be graded. My teacher probably worried, or read them to her spouse for a laugh... Notice, I add in the comment about peace in order to cover my bases so I don't seem selfish, but within the same sentence I get to what I really want; to be popular, pretty and surrounded by mysterious wind and silk? (= Poor kid, the braces, fatness (which I address more often as the journal progresses) and general oddness sure didn't help. And why in the heck am I eating and standing alone while the other girls are dancing? I guess some things will remain a mystery.