Tales of the absurd, part deux.

I thought every Wal-Mart sold fish. How could I have been so horribly wrong? Apparently they don't, and despite the fact there already 3 living creatures in my 1100 sq ft. apartment, I desperately want a fish.

My roommate, of course, does not. I told her I wanted one and she went on a ten minute diatribe about how she doesn't particularly want a fish, because she thinks fish should be swimming freely, and when she sees fish in home aquariums it stresses her out, and then said something about Darwin, but I'd kinda tuned her out by that point, but she seemed very impassioned about whatever she was saying.

"So could we maybe just go look at a fish?" I asked an hour later at dinner.

She paused. "Um, perhaps I wasn't clear earlier..."

But she took one for the team and agreed to go with me, and although the pet stores were closed, I was convinced Wal-Mart would have them because I've actually bought several fish at Wal-Mart over the years.

They didn't have fish, but they did have a dual package of Sister Acts 1 & 2 on DVD, which I'm somewhat mortified to admit has provided an evening of entertainment in the form of a sing-a-long of our favorite scenes in both movies.

Tales of the absurd.

An actual conversation my roommate and I had this evening en route to an unsuccessful trip to Wal-Mart to buy a goldfish:

Alexandra: "So you see that Goodwill over there? I was at the gas station next to it and noticed they have a sign that actually warned you that if you left things there after hours, your donations would likely be stolen."

Me: "Well, because naturally you'd be upset if things you didn't want anyway were stolen."

"Exactly. Not only that, but you're giving things to people in need. If someone steals a pair of my high heels, clearly they need them. Or at least want to wear them for awhile. Either way, I don't care what they do with them. If they'd like to steal my Hello Kitty alarm clock? Fine with me."

"WHAT? You Goodwill'ed the Hello Kitty alarm clock?"

"Yes."

"And the reason I wasn't conferenced into this decision was...?"

"Well, because I didn't think you'd care. You didn't even notice it was gone. But you could probably buy it back, if you'd like."

"Oh, because I'm gonna just go to the Goodwill and say, 'Hi, I'd like to purchase my roommate's old Hello Kitty alarm clock.'??"

"Yes, and they'll probably say, 'I'm sorry, ma'am. That was stolen.'"

When life hands you lemons...or wood rosin.

I noticed recently at a local soda machine that Minute Maid ® Lemonade now has 0% juice. ZERO PERCENT. I had always thought "Contains 10% juice" was a horrifying admission. But to not contain any juice? I mean, at that point, I think it's false advertising to still include the name of a fruit in your product.

So I used the power of the interweb and looked up the ingredients of Minute Maid® Lemonade. There was a laundry list of very scientific sounding chemicals, including something called “esters of wood rosins”. Huh? Naturally, I then looked that up. According to Wikipedia it is “a food additive used as an emulsifier and stabiliser, to keep oils in suspension in water”.

At this point, I was completely grossed out. Oily “lemonade”? Needless to say, I never plan on drinking this again. If I'm going to ingest something that unnatural, I'd rather eat nacho cheese. This is all very sad because I’ve always loved lemonade. What I don’t love, however, is the idea Minute Maid® Nasty Concoction of Chemical Shit*.

*inspired by lemons

A tree by any other name.

Here's a basic truth about me: I love contests. More specifically, I love winning contests. So I was beyond thrilled when three weeks ago, I came home to a note on my apartment door. It explained that two of the six oldest oak trees in Austin were on our apartment complex property, and the local arbor foundation wanted to commemorate them with plaques. Therefore, the management at our complex was holding a naming contest and asking residents to submit entries.

I. was. STOKED. I spent a week or so coming up with the perfect entry. I googled synonyms for strength. Looked up Latin and Greek words that might be fitting. But in the end, the perfect names weren't anything high-brow. And with my entry ready to go, I headed to the front office.

"Hi, I'd like to submit names for the tree-naming contest."

"Ohhh!" our manager said, laughing and seemingly surprised that anyone was actually bothering to enter, "Great! What are they?"

"Pancho and Lefty," I said while beaming with pride at my own brilliance.
She erupted into laughter. "Lefty? That's so funny!" She continued to laugh, then started to look confused. "I don't understand the Pancho part, though?"

Instantly, I was annoyed. I had come up with the perfect entry, and she didn't get it?

"Well, it's like the famous country song. You know, 'Pancho and Lefty'. It was a big hit for Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard."

She stared at me blankly, smiling.

"And it was actually written by Townes Van Zandt."

More blank looks.

"The famous singer-songwriter? One of Texas' greatest troubadours?"

...

"Which is why I think it's perfect. I mean, given Austin is the 'Live Music Capital of the World'," I continued in defense of my entry.

"Okay," she said, still clearly confused, "I'll write down 'Willie Nelson song'."

I was completely deflated. As I returned to my apartment though, I began to feel better. Surely, when it was time for residents to vote, they would appreciate my idea. And, surely I was the only resident nerdy enough to enter the contest to begin with. So by the time I arrived on my doorstep, I was convinced I'd win.

You can imagine my excitement when I found another note on my door several days later. The first line explained the office had received some great entries for the tree-naming contest. (Hooray! Victory was about to be mine!) It went on to say there had been three rounds of voting. (What? Voting? I didn't remember voting. Had other residents voted? Suddenly my title didn't seem so secure.)

"And although it was tough," the letter continued, "the winning names selected are: Treeana and Treeanon. Thanks to everyone that participated!"

WHAT?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Treeana and Treeanon???????????? Was this a joke? How in the HELL did that beat "Pancho and Lefty"? "Pancho and Lefty" was the perfect entry! And it was beat out by some Klingon-tastic bullshit like Treeana and Treeanon?

My roommate was out of town, and although it was quite late, this was an emergency.

"Treeana! and Treeanon!!! They named the trees, TREEANA AND TREEANON" I roared.

"Wow. That's definitely bad," she said, clearly sound asleep. "Did we even vote?"

"No! Because if we had, I can tell you what WOULDN'T have won!" I was completely irate.

"I mean, Treeana isn't horrible but Treeanon just sucks. Maybe if they had submitted 'Treeana and Acorn-nana' it would have been better," she said sleepily.

"Um, I'm sorry, Treeana and Acorn-nana? THAT'S your better alternative? I submitted 'Pancho and Lefty'! It was the PERFECT. ENTRY!"

"Yeah, that's much better. Definitely. I'm just saying if these names are going on plaques, I think Acorn-nana would be preferable to Treeanon."

I gave up, hung up, and went to bed trying to think of something...anything...that would rescue my ego from the crushing blow of losing the lamest contest I've ever entered.

The next day I received the following photo in an e-mail from my roommate.

Subject line: "Treeana, Treeanon, and little Acorn-nana"

People are lazy.

I guess at this point in my life, I shouldn't be shocked by the laziness of Americans. But I feel that in the past few weeks, I've seen things that have astounded me.

For starters, I ordered new checks from Washington Mutual. I have ordered checks for thirteen of my 29 years on this planet. They arrive in a box that looks like it contains four pads of checks, and a register. However, this was not the case last week. The package I received was flat and contained a box that I had to build myself, and was surprisingly difficult to assemble. The thought occurred to me that perhaps they did this to thwart identity theft. But my package still looked like it contained everything it did, so I'm not sure they're fooling anyone with their new packaging. So I'm chalking that up to WaMu not wanting to waste time and money on check box development.

I also saw a commercial for a pair of scissors that cut things electrically. You just hold them, and there's absolutely no moving of your hands whatsoever. Seriously? They're SCISSORS, people. "But I'm arthritic," you say. And I say, use an exacto. The thing that killed me was that the demonstration in the commercial showcased the brilliance of wonder-scissors, by showing how quickly they cut...wrapping paper. Last time I checked, there's not really any cutting involved with wrapping paper. You just put it in the crux of your scissors and slide them along, right?

Then I went to Linens & Things, and there was a girl wandering around without any pants on, and a shirt that just BARELY covered her ass. I should mention it was quite cold outside, which probably explains her leg warmers.

And we all know leg warmers are just a lazy excuse for pants.

Who knew.

Apparently Walgreen's sells telescopes. They're on the shelf above the face creams, naturally.

Hallmark holidaze.

I've been buried under a mound of work (or, more accurately, a pile of greeting cards) and am finally resurfacing. And now looking around, I realize it's almost Christmas.

Here's what I can't stand: Christmas.

Actually, I shouldn't discriminate here because as a general rule, I hate most holidays. I'm probably the least festive person I know. So it's beyond ironic that I spend 70+ hours a week working to drive the sales of a company that arguably invented most holidays. Even better, I'm almost counting on my workload from this greeting card giant to serve as an excuse for getting out of Christmas festivities altogether this year.

It's not that I hate spending time with my family. For the most part, I quite enjoy seeing them. And stuffing my face with holiday treats is always enjoyable, even if staring at my ever-expanding ass isn't. When you get to the core of my distaste for holiday observances, really, I'm just lazy, cheap, and increasingly cantankerous. As such, I'm pretty much a massive pain in the ass from October to February.

Which is where living with an extremely festive person gets tricky. This past Halloween, I came home to find 12 tiny pumpkins strewn across the bench in front of our apartment.

"Soooo, what's the deal with the pumpkins?" I asked my roommate.

"OH! Well, you see, it's almost HALLOWEEN! And they're like little mini pumpkin children sitting on the bench!"

I tried very hard to keep my eyes focused, as they were all set to roll right up into my head.

"Ah. Yes, of course," I said, glancing down at a nasty, rain-warped case of Pabst Blue Ribbon that had been sitting on our front doorstep since our last party several weeks before. "I guess this case of PBR will be my contribution to the decorations."

Typically on Halloween, so as not to contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic, I make sure my lights are all out and hide out in my bedroom all night, cursing anyone that dares ignore the obvious "leave me alone" cues. But as fate would have it, this year I had a meeting at my client's headquarters on Halloween, and left that morning inadvertently dressed...

exactly like a jack-o-lantern. Because I'm not a festive person, and because my flight left very early that morning, I can only claim I wasn't fully awake when I pulled my new orange sweater over a black skirt, tall black boots, and green earrings as the finishing touch which I thought contributed nicely to my autumnal palette.

However, when I arrived at my meeting, I was met with my client cheerfully exclaiming, "Liz!!! You look just like a PUMPKIN!" I went totally red, glanced down and realized that I was the corporate equivalent of Mrs. Harris, my sixth grade math teacher who had a closet full of appliqued seasonal sweaters. "Oh..." I said awkwardly while faking enthusiasm through a clenched smile, "yeah, I figured if anyone would appreciate it, you guys would!" Despite winning points with the client, I couldn't have been more annoyed with myself.

Needless to say, my roommate laughed hysterically when I told her of my oversight - thrilled the universe had forced a celebration upon me. And because I knew she wouldn't count on the holiday gods to work their magic on me again for Christmas, I wasn't surprised when I came home two weeks ago to find a pack of ornament hooks on the coffee table. (Please note the genius of my roommate and her subtle preparation for what was to come.)

Four nights later:

"Guess what tonight is?!?"

"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I think both the dad AND a kid have cancer in this episode. It's nuts."

"Hmmm. Well, yes, that's on tonight. BUUUUUUUT," she squealed, "it's also time to DECORATE!!!"

The time had come. While she scurried off to her bedroom to put on Christmas music and begin pulling out ornaments, I went to the trunk of my car to get the only two holiday decorations I own: a Christmas tree and reindeer. Both are cut out of sheet metal, which is quite fitting for me, but also causes them to be quite heavy. And as I store them in my car trunk, I figured I'd give my gas mileage a break this month so I brought them upstairs and put them by the front door.

My roommate came shuffling in with her box of ornaments, and began hanging them pretty much any place she could...except on a tree.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, well I don't have a tree, so I figured I'd just hang them wherever."

By the end of the night, ornaments were hanging off most everything in our living room. Each branch of our fake plant had one. Our "octopus lamp" that has lights at the end of five metal "tentacles" each had an ornament. She hung her stocking off the box that contains our doorbell, and then put three porcelain reindeer on top of the television as well as some colored lights on our bookshelf.

I have a cat that's beyond neurotic, and shiny things dangling from every surface of our home casting dancing lights on the walls sent him on what could only be described as a full-on trip. He was racing around everywhere, eyes wild and fully dilated, batting and eating ornaments, only to then try to scale the walls in an attempt to catch the lights being cast on them. As our neighbor later observed, it was as though someone had hung bags of heroin in Pete Doherty's apartment.

"You should know," I told my roommate as I watched my tripped out cat run around the room, "that I'm not going to apologize if something happens to these ornaments. You've lived with Gus long enough to know he's insane and that this is a recipe for disaster."

"Oh, he'll be fine," she said as she looked at Gus gnawing on a sparkly snowflake, his eyes darting around the room nervously.

I have to admit I was skeptical, but he has since come off his ornamental high and now ignores the decorations. Admittedly, the fact he doesn't have opposable thumbs (or really, even fingers if you consider he's declawed) and yet he, too, is already over Christmas, is a tremendous source of pride for me. And I'd devote more time to admiring his statement of solidarity, except I have work to do.