BLEH

So, I became quite upset this morning when I could not find my cereal. It is an "oat flakes with blueberry clusters" cereal. Sounds pretty amazing, right?





Right.


So, as I scoured the kitchen, screaming and swearing at my empty house, I realized that, oh, yeah, I have a cabinet just for my cereal. (This whole 'organization' thing is a pretty new concept to me. I'm one of those people who lose things in an empty room only to realize that I've been holding it in my hand the entire time.) I opened this cabinet in glowing slow motion with an angelic chior singing in the background and found my cereal. 

This allowed me to float over to my chair and pour my cereal with such reverance that one gives a lover. I raised my spoon, hand trembling ever-so-slightly, to my mouth and sampled that first, sure-to-be-glorious bite....

And then I spit it out.

Now, I have nothing against eating healthy. I really try to, I do. The reason it's hard for me to eat healthy is I LIKE FLAVOR. Now, if any of you have ever tried this cereal, you know what I mean. I might as well have shredded the box and poured milk over it for all the more flavor I got.



Cardboard box... in a box.

 So, in my version of a rebellion, I nearly sent myself into a sugar coma.

Children and Vibrators

So, you know what's fun? The sudden, horrifically painful onset of multiple infections! YAY!

I am stuck at home, bored out of my mind and in horrible pain due to an infection in both of my kidneys, and so I'm going to try to entertain you with my boring lack of a life. HOORAY!

Though what the hell I'm going to write about is completely beyond me.

I KNOW. I'll talk about some of my babysitting excursions. Here's my favorite.

So, the boy I babysit, J, has his own Xbox upstairs in his room. Normally, he keeps himself pretty well entertained with Halo and COD, but every now and then, he gets sick of killing mindless soldiers and wants to cap some bitches in GTA. When I'm at their house, I usually plop myself down in front of their giant flat screen in the living room and entertain myself with hot particle physicists like Brian Cox in high def.

Yeeessss.

Now, because I thought he was playing Halo, I had pretty much tuned him out.

That was my mistake.

Because I tuned him out, I didn't hear him go into his mother's room. I didn't hear him rummage through her things. What I did hear was him at the top of the stairs saying, "Hey Emily, what's this?" I turned my head in dramatic slow motion to see my ten year old charge holding a vibrator.

Now, as you can imagine, I handled the situation very well.

Me: *falls off couch* OMIFUuUuU---- WHERE IN GOD'S NAME DID YOU GET THAT?!!

J: I found it.

Me: FOUND IT? You don't just FIND things like that!!

J: I did. I found it in mommy's underwear drawer.

Me: (At this point I had to restrain myself from doubling over in hysterics) J... *holding back laughter* You shouldn't go.... *cough to conceal giggle* PUT IT BACK. NOW. And.... Um... WASH YOUR HANDS.

While he looked very confused, he nonetheless did what I told him and washed his hands. While he was doing so, I allowed myself to give in to the laughter which at that point was almost strangling me.

When he came back downstairs, I sat him on the bottom step and gave him a very stern lecture about going through his mother's things. Turns out, she had taken away Grand Theft Auto, and damn it, he didn't think it was fair. So, he assumed I was either a.) Easy enough to let him get away with it, or b.) Too stupid to notice. He was wrong.

Thankfully, in the end, I was saved by his own innocence. He asked me, "Emily, that wiener thingy takes batteries. Is it a weird flashlight?"

To which I replyed, "Yes child, yes it is."

Suure. Flashlight. Riiight.....

That was a fun conversation with his mother the next day.

Rant #1: Drawing expectations.

Okay. I draw. A lot. In doing so, I have gotten pretty darn good at it, if I do say so myself (and I do.). Sometimes, (today, cough) I find myself wishing I did not have talent, or that it was geared toward something else. Like, I don't know, cleaning. I suck at cleaning. I hate cleaning. But today, I would prefer it to drawing.
Now, as to why.

I babysit. That's my job. I can't say that keeping a hyperactive ten year old boy (we'll call him J) from drinking his parents' special water(vodka), trying to explain without ruining his innocene what a 'weiner thing'(vibrator) was doing in his mother's room, or keeping him from looking through his brother's porn is a particularly fun job, but, hell, I get paid. To keep myself sane, I will often draw. One day, I got bored and drew a quick sketch of a photograph his parents had sitting in the living room. Now, here was where I made the mistake. I left it there.

The next day, when I arrived at seven in the morning, cold and out of breath from my half-mile run there, his mother met me at the door, clutching the drawing in her hands as if her life depended on it.
Me: Oh. Hi.

Boss: OMIGOD Emily, J showed me the picture you drew of us, and I loooove it!

Me: Thanks. *tries and fails to shoulder way inside*

Boss: So, Mike and I talked about it, and we want you to do one for us. We want a picture of a fox with a butterfly, preferably one of those tiger ones, perched oh-so-delicately on it's nose.
Me: Oh, well, I really don't do--

Boss: When do you think you can have it done?

Me: *opens mouth to protest*

Boss: Never mind, it doesn't matter! By the way, why are you still standing out in the cold? Though I guess you could be one of those weird people who likes the cold. Not me, I hate it. Brrr!

Me: Look, drawing animals really isn't--

Boss: Ooo! Jenny's here to pick me up! I'll see you tomorrow!

Me: But-- *get's door in face*... I hate drawing animals.

Now, I have tried, to no avail, to pound it into their skulls that I don't draw animals. I draw people. I draw all kinds of people. Skinny people, fat people, naked people, clothed, black, purple, blue, and spotty people, but I have never in my life drawn a fox and I have no desire to. Today, as I was packing up to go home, Mike walks in and asks why they don't have it yet. I tried, AGAIN, to explain to him that I fucking despise drawing animals and that I have better things to do.

Mike: C'mon. Surely you can't be that busy.

Me:... ALRIGHT, LOOK. Do you have any goddamned idea how much I hate drawing animals?! I. Draw. People. Ask me to do a family portrait. I'll do that. But I am so sick and tired of everyone expecting me to put THEIR request first. Do you know how many people ask me to draw them things? You're not even going to pay me for it and you expect me to drop everything and put you first?! I am backlogged on drawings that I don't want to do all the way from freaking summer. Then you people come and don't even ask me to draw this for you, you just expect it! I WILL FINISH IT WHEN I GODDAMN WELL PLEASE. Until that point, you will just have to live without it.

At this point I stormed out of the house, only to realize it was pitch dark, and I had a half mile walk home. After a small personal battle, I was forced to slink back inside, and with as much dignity as I could muster, ask if I could please be driven home. Why? Because I hate the dark more than I hate drawing animals.