A few years back, I worked a free call-in medical advice line. People would call in with a medical problem or question and ask what they should do. Us nurses would give advice based on nationwide treatment guidelines and evidence-based medicine. Then the people calling in would ignore the advice, because they only called because they wanted a free miracle cure for their heart attack or head injury, and they wanted that cure to be administered instantly over the phone.

One day, I get this call from this guy (in his 30’s) who wanted to know how he could keep his girlfriend from getting pregnant without using birth control. So I spend like 20 minutes talking to him about natural family planning. I kept telling him it’s not a matter of math, and that you have to keep several months of calendars on the woman’s menstrual cycle, the woman has to take her basal body temperature every day for several months and chart it, and keep several months of charting of her cervical mucus (ewwwww!). I said that most women ovulate AROUND day 14 of their cycle, and explained to him that if she ovulated on day 14, then it wouldn’t be safe to sleep with her up to 7-8 days before, and 2 days after the day she ovulates. Of course the moron focuses on that, and thinks that if he knows the first day of her last period, he can practice natural family planning just by doing the math.

I must have told him five times he can’t do that; that women can ovulate even the day after their period stops. He was still trying to “shortcut” it and finally I got a bit exasperated. I said, “Listen, I’m telling you that if you are just going to do the math based on her last period without doing the rest of the stuff, then you WILL be a dad. That’s a fact. It’s not birth control that way. Even doing everything right the way I described it, and using early withdrawl on top of it, the method is only 80% effective.”

Naturally he ignores what I said and talks about how he’s already a dad, he’s been married before and he’s “Roman Catholic” (who says “Roman” any more?) and barrier forms of birth control are “not an option” because him and his GIRLFRIEND are both Catholic blah blah, and something clicked. Suddenly I recognized his name, and blurted out, “I know you!” Oops! He was a guy I dated a few times when I first moved here that I met off Match.com.

I had stopped seeing him about three years before, because he would tell grandiose stories about himself that I knew were lies, and eventually in the stories EVERY TIME he’d almost wind up fighting someone (I roll my eyes), so I knew I had a guy with honesty and anger issues. One night over the phone I heard him yell at his then 3-year old son and I realized I never wanted to see him again. I wouldn’t talk to my worst enemy that way, let alone a 3 year old. Parenting is none of my business, but being emotionally abusive to kids, well I just can’t stand it.

He remembered me right away and even remembered my last name (which is more than I could remember about him) and said that his now 6 year old son has behavior issues (SURPRISE!) blah blah.

I was like, “Well, congratulations on…. um…. needing natural family planning, I guess.”

I love the fact that he’s not Catholic enough to stay married, and not Catholic enough to abstain from premarital sex, but he is SUCH a good Catholic that he can’t use birth control. HA!

What were the odds that I would answer that call? Only me. I’m just lucky that way I guess.

That call was at least two years ago. So if I’m doing the math correctly, that guy and his girlfriend’s “natural family planning” aftermath is probably about a year and a half old now!

This week Moose ate a whole roll of toilet paper.  So I can relate to this story.

Written by some guy on the internet.  Slightly edited.  Original post here:  http://littera-abactor.livejournal.com/7748.html?view=480068

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I Has a Sweet Potato
You know, a lot of times I write up random posts and then don’t post them. But *girlfriend* just called me, and I could not really explain why I was inarticulate about sweet potatoes, so I said I’d go ahead and post this. That way, she can read it at work and know just what kind of day it has been. (Short version, for those who do not feel like reading the whole post: ARRRRRRG. Fucking sweet potatoes.)

The longer version, summarized in conversation form:

Dog: I am starving.
Me: Actually, no. You aren’t starving. You get two very good meals a day. And treats. And *girlfriend* fed you extra food while I was gone.
Dog: STARVING.
Me: I saw you get fed not four hours ago! You are not starving.
Dog: Pity me, a sad and tragic creature, for I can barely walk, I am so starving. WOE.
Me: I am now ignoring you.
Dog: STARVING.
Dog: Did you hear me? I am starving.
Dog: Are you seriously ignoring me? Fine.

[There is a pause, during which the dog exits the room in a pointed manner.]

[From the kitchen, there comes a noise like someone is eating a baseball bat.]

Me, yelling: What the hell are you doing?
Me: *makes haste for the kitchen and finds dog there*
Dog: *picks up entire raw sweet potato, which is what was causing the baseball bat noise, and flees for the bedroom*
Me: *chases dog, retrieves most of sweet potato, less the portion which has disappeared into dog’s gullet*
Dog: See? STARVING.
Me: …That can’t be good for you. It’s a RAW SWEET POTATO.
Dog: I had to do it. I haven’t been fed. Ever.
Me: You realize you aren’t normal. Normal dogs don’t steal raw sweet potatoes.
Dog, sadly: I was badly brought up.
Me: Yes. Yes, you were.
Dog: By people who starved me.
Me: Oh, no. I am not doing this again.
Me: *exits the room, bearing sweet potato*

[There is a pause.]

[There is a noise like someone is trying to eat a baseball bat very very quietly.]

Me: Oh, for the love of GOD.
Me: *heads off to the kitchen*
Dog: I am not eating a raw sweet potato.
Me: You have sweet potato parts all over your snout.
Dog: But you don’t actually SEE a raw sweet potato, do you? So maybe that’s just - um. A birthmark.
Me: Did you seriously eat a whole sweet potato?
Dog: You don’t listen. I told you, I wasn’t eating a sweet potato.
Me, searching around fruitlessly: Look. NO MORE SWEET POTATOES.
Me: Oh, what am I saying? This is you we’re talking about, here. *goes to hide all the sweet potatoes that are left - which isn’t many - in the fridge, because some people cannot be trusted*
Dog: *attempts to look thwarted*
Dog: *does not succeed, because her tail is wagging so hard small cyclones are forming in the kitchen*
Me: *has a very bad feeling about this*

[There is a pause, during which I do not even bother trying to return to what I was doing. I just stand in the computer room, waiting.]

[There is, as I wholly expected, a baseball-bat-eating noise.]

Me, stomping back to the kitchen: OKAY. GIVE ME THE DAMMNED SWEET POTATO.
Dog, looking up guiltily: What sweet potato?
Me: THE ONE IN YOUR MOUTH.
Dog: Oh, did you want this? I just, um. Found it. Lying here.
Me: *confiscates the sweet potato and deposits it in the locking trashcan*
Me: Let us say no more about this.
Dog: …Nooooo! They be stealin’ my sweet potato!

[I attempt to remember what I was doing before the sweet potato episode.]

[Some ten minutes later, I succeed, and return to it.]

[NOT ONE MINUTE LATER, I hear a noise with which I have become all too familiar.]

Me, bonking head on desk: Arg.
Me, arriving in kitchen: How did you even get another sweet potato?
Dog, smugly: I have my ways.
Me: Are you punishing me for being away for several days? I was at a FUNERAL, you know. It wasn’t FUN.
Dog: How would I know? You didn’t take me. You left me here with only one human to look after my needs. One human is NOT ENOUGH.
Me: *shuts dog in bedroom, conducts a sweep of the kitchen to track down all remaining sweet potatoes, wipes up random sweet potato particles from floor, eradicates all traces of sweet potato from house*
Me: *lets dog out*
Dog, sulkily: Oh, so you think you’ve won.

[I watch her go about her business with the same sense of overwhelming doom that heroines of Victorian novels get when they meet Count Sinistrus Grimblack for the first time.]

[Half an hour later, there is a wetter, juicier eating noise, as though someone was eating a very moist baseball bat.]

Me, wearily: What NOW?
Dog, hunched over the remains of a butternut squash: *says something garbled because her mouth is full*
Me: Okay. Fine.
Me: *stomps over, empties entire vegetable bowl into trash*
Me: WE JUST WON’T HAVE ANY ROOT VEGETABLES ANYMORE. THERE. ARE YOU HAPPY?
Dog: I’m not even remotely sorry. I told you I was hungry. And you went to a funeral without me.
Me: ARRRRRRRRG.

[A half-hour later, there is another baseball-bat-eating noise from the kitchen. The dog, who apparently does not know how to win gracefully, has found another sweet potato, or possibly caused one to materialize from the Rift.]

Me, hauling chewed sweet potato parts from the mouth of a dog very reluctant to part with them: Oh my god how is this my life?
Dog: Don’t you think it would just be easier to feed me?
Me: EVERYONE GO TO THE BEDROOM AND STAY THERE. EAT NOTHING.
Dog: Actually, I feel…um…not so good.
Dog: *throws up* *vomit is very bright orange*

[Unfortunate details ensue.]

Some time later:
Me, attempting to rescue something from the wreckage: So. What have we learned from this?
Dog: Sweet potatoes are yummy!
Other Dog, looking thoughtful: I should pay more attention to crunching noises. Sweet potatoes are probably yummy.
Me: I need a lobotomy.

FUCKING SWEET POTATOES. ARG.

His AARP card would be the source of his magnificent and super-human, world-saving powers.

Here’s Moose with Sparky, my parent’s puppy, over Christmas.

I had a horrible dream. My best friend was helping plan a party for me and my ex-boyfriend (we were still together in the dream), when he tells me that he’s been dating my best friend and was leaving me for her. I confronted her, and she was all smug and cocky about it. So I tell her husband that she cheated on him, and it all culminates in a big screaming fight in a parking lot, with her kids watching us and crying.

The worst thing is that in the dream, I was actually feeling the emotions that I would feel if this had happened in the waking world. I can still remember how things felt during the dream too.

I actually woke up hyperventilating! I woke up because my dog was crying and woke me up; he could tell something was wrong.

I’m still upset and have this really negative mood about me.

Is 7 a.m. too early to start drinking?

Note to God: Dude, come on! It’s OK if you can’t give me miracles in real life, but good dreams are free. Throw me a bone here.

Afterthought: I’ve only hyperventilated one other time in life. When I found out that another boyfriend (who I almost married) was having a relationship behind my back.

So I guess bad things can happen to me in life, but romantic betrayal is the only thing I find hyperventilation-worthy. That’s good to know.

Confession: When I go to blogs and they have an entry about a dream they had, I never EVER read it. “Who cares about your stupid dream?” I ask myself, closing the browser window. Therefore, by posting this, I am a big fat hypocrite.

Every Monday I will find 4-5 random pieces of crap on my hard drive and post them here for your amusement. If you choose to participate in RCFMHD Monday, please leave a link in the comments so everyone can see your crap too!

I don’t know WHY I turned Moose into Peter Pan. I must have had a very compelling reason.

Only a fool would taunt the Dynamite Monkey! (Probably found at Something Awful)

So many key elements of coolness encased in this picture, I don’t know where to begin.

Some dude ordered this costume for his dog, persuaded by the happy puppy picture on the packaging. Advertising does not equal reality (”!=” means “does not equal” in some sort of techie geeky computer language, so I’m told).

My artist’s rendition of where I thought babies came from when I was a child. I was in first grade when I overheard my mom talking in scandalized tones to my dad because the 16 year old daughter of a friend of hers was pregnant (this is in about 1974). I got very angry at my mom for saying bad things about the 16 year old, so I busted into the room and said, “It’s not her fault that the Virgin Mary came down and put a seed in her bellybutton to start a baby!”

So about once every 8-16 months I go into nostalgia mode and get curious as to what happened to past important people who used to be in my life. Sometimes I’ll do a google search/Myspace search and get happily reunited with some old friends like the dear Fred who was my statistics professor in college and also a great an inspiring friend as well, to the forever adorable and lovable Steve, happily married and living in New York.

Some reunions are brief, where casual curiousity about each other is fulfilled within an email or two, and correspondence ends.

Some reunions are regrettable. Last spring I replied to an email that an old work acquaintance sent out to everyone in his address book. I submitted a smartass reply to him, and an in-depth email friendship ensued. Over the summer, he needed some favors so we saw each other again, which led to the sickest and most unhealthy five-month romantic relationship I’ve ever had the misfortune of having to endure. It was the first time I’ve been truly in love with someone in six years, and although I did get some good sex out of it, most of what I got for my trouble was disappointment, being used, being taken for granted, being dismissed, and being insulted.

Did this bad experience cure me of my urge to be nostalgic? Fuck no. I’m a Cancer; in my heart, I make lifelong attachments.

So last week I was on Myspace (which I am far, far too old for anyway), and I was searching on names of friends and loves from my past. I decide to search on the name of my first love. I about fell out of my seat when he was on there!

Me, around 1985

I met him when I was 16, working my first “real” job at Hardees (shut up!) He broke my young heart when he left me for the woman he was really in love with, and eventually married. As far as I know, they are still married some 20+ years later. It worked out for the best; I was never good enough for him and I never understood what he saw in me. But he did see something in me. Only a few other people in my life have ever, before or since, looked at me the way he did. How can you forget something like that? It was truly a gift that sustained me through many bad times for years to come.

I would never want to mess up or interfere in his life, but I couldn’t resist sending him a message through Myspace. I’m not surprised that he didn’t reply; first of all, he might not have gotten the message (most people in my age group don’t understand this newfangled email computer intraweb stuff). Second, he might not think it’s appropriate to answer my email, which I can respect (even though I have no “bad” motives in contacting him). Third, he might think I’m batshit insane. I attempted to be humorous in my message, and for those who aren’t used to my humor, it is kind of batshit insane.

So tell me, would you have answered this?

Dear X,

Once I had a very glamorous career at Hardees. But I threw it all away, instead wasting my life chasing dreams of being an Origami master. Sure, the fame was great, the millions of dollars, the world tour as I made crane after paper crane for sold-out auditoriums. But I couldn’t handle the fame and turned to drugs and alcohol and lost my fortune… well, you probably saw my story on “VH1-Behind the Origami!”

Anyway, before I was corrupted by all of that, I had a boss that looked a lot like you, once upon a time.