I was just signaling for some tp

I guess we’re back to the witchhunting tactics of the 15th and 16th centuries.  OOH BOOH!  A politican wiggles his finger under the wall of a bathroom stall and does a little peeky-poo in the door crack and suddenly he’s a sexual deviant.  I can’t count how many times a woman has done that to ME in the bathroom… and all they’re doing is looking for an empty stall and/or in need of a few squares of tp.

What I find interesting is that it took the media, what…. 2 months to break this story?  Even though I’ll never give up my political stance, sometimes a person’s just gotta twitch a little in order to let the stupid stuff float on by.

Anyway, I’m off for a sun-filled-not-so-hot day at a lake… I wanted to start this so later I wouldn’t forget what I wanted to write about.  I’ll continue this later…

Enjoy your pre-Labor Day day… *toodles*

-Monday, 9/3/07:

Yesterday, while picnicing/fishing at a PA state park, I had to use the bathroom.  This is my beef about using the ladies’ room…

Can someone explain to me WHY women need to hover over the toilet to pee??  Like many people, I put TOILET PAPER on the seat, or if available, the toilet seat cover.  I find that a good portion of the time, I have to CLEAN up after the person who was in there before me.  By the time I got to the bathroom (which we had to drive to, so that meant cleaning up everything, bringing it back to the car, getting INTO the car, and driving over to the bathrooms), I was desperate.  I was doing the pee-pee dance, I was rocking and bouncing, and even resorted to crossing my legs and bending forward as if that was a magical way to keep from peeing myself.  When I finally was able to get into one of the three stalls (not to mention that the bathroom smelled a lot like smoky pee… like someone was smoking IN the stall then peed on the cigarette), I was jumping up and down as I tried to get my shorts down.  And, just as I was putting the paper down on the seat, I see that the woman before me HOVERED.  Fucking hoverers, I yelled.  I hate goddamn hoverers.  It looked like this woman just aimed at the seat and not the bowl… it was SOAKING wet.  “AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!” I yelled.  But, yelling didn’t make things better.  I still had to pee.  So, I did the only thing I could do… I wadded up a big fat pile of tp and wiped the seat off while feigning off the urge to vomit.  Goddamn hoverers have NO respect for others.  FINALLY, after cleaning up after some inconsiderate individual, I was able to pee.  I don’t care what ANYONE says, a good pee is ALWAYS better than sex.

Needless to say, had I been desperate for toilet paper, like… to clean OFF the seat, I would’ve wiggled my finger under the stall wall and beckoned the woman next to me to spare a square or twenty.  I might’ve even left the stall to peek in the door crack (not blatantly obvious, though… that’s just plain creepy) before going in to try a different stall.  HELL, if by any chance I dropped something, like my cell, I would’ve done what I have before… try to pull it back towards me with my foot.  Man, now that I think about it… I wonder if the person in the stall next to me assumed I was proposing sex.  (Eek)  I think that women and their bathroom rules are different.  It’s not unusual to talk to the person in the next stall while doing your business.  I hear that men try to not talk to each other when they’re doing their business.  Somehow, holding a conversation while peeing equates homosexuality.  At least, that’s what guys tell me.  I say, nonsense.  Unless the guy next to you is asking if you like to bend over and hug your knees, it’s highly unlikely that every guy in the bathroom wants you in that SPECIAL sort of way.

Anyway…

The past two nights, we’ve had a campfire in the backyard.  About 8 or 9 years ago, we bought an outdoor fireplace thingy and have used it religiously since then.  Sometimes E uses it to burn leftover wood pieces from a job, or scrap wood from a project here, and even at Xmas time, he’s been known to burn the wrapping paper and boxes of various presents in order to lessen our garbage load (anything more than 2-32 lb garbage pails and we’re subjected to a fine or a fine).  It used to have metal-screened sides and wood handles to pull it with.  As of yesterday, the screening is gone, the wood handle has long been burnt away.  The only viable thing left to it is the bottom that keeps the fire from dropping to the ground AND the lid.  Saturday night, E and #2 and 3 sons and I were sitting out by the fire (about 20 feet from my deck so we fulfil the fire safety requirements) when E suggested we make s’mores.

I went inside, and this is what I found: OLD marshmallows, 1 Hershey bar from last summer, and NO grahams.

Hmm…. I went over to the Qwik-Check to get some s’more supplies.  (OR, s’more supplies…heh) This is what I found: no marshmallows, 4 Hershey bars (2/1.49), and miniboxes of grahams (1.99 for a box that had 6 pieces of graham, that can be split into two pieces, making 6 grahams with 2 pcs of cracker each).  I revived the old marshmallows by prying them apart into ultra sticky pieces. (Gag)  It was fine for Sat. night, but not last night when we had 4 more people wanting s’mores. 

Now, earlier I had been foodshopping (after we arrived home from our fun-in-da-sun day) and couldn’t find a single bag of marshmallows.  The minis were EVERYWHERE… but it’s kinda hard to skewer mini marshmallows.  You’d need 100 of those things to make a s’more.  But, I didn’t think we’d have another campfire.  So, I didn’t buy graham crackers (duh), nor Hershey bars (double duh).  I did buy stuff to make hobo stew on the fire.  (Tin foil, parboiled potato cut into pieces, sliced carrots, corn, onion, hamburger-size raw chopped meat, salt/pepper, a piece of bread and a 1/2 cup of water, tightly sealed except for a little vent-hole at the top.)  By the way, that stew was da bomb!  I haven’t had it on a camp fire since I was 14 and in Michigan for a 3-week camp.  YUM… oh the memories.

Anyway…. by 8:30, #1 son’s friend came over, our neighbors were huddling by the fire, and we finished cleaning up from dinner.  I pulled out my bag of s’mores ingredients and after doing the math (Yes, I am smarter than a 5th grader), I realized that a minibox of grahams, some stuck-together-marshmallows, and ONE hershey bar would not suffice, I jumped into my car and drove across town to a quickie mart, looking for marshmallows (at least).  The place is owned by this very nice Indian family.  I found marshmallows, but for the life of me, I felt like I was missing the graham crackers.  I asked the girl behind the counter if they had graham crackers.  She gave me TEDDY GRAHAMS.  I stifled a laugh.

You CAN’T make a s’more with a teddy graham.  She must’ve realized that from the snicker.  “What I’m looking for are graham cracker bars,” I said while pointing to the PICTURE of graham crackers on the MARSHMALLOW bag. 

“Oh, you Americans and you’re funny traditions,” this kid said to me, “Who would’ve thought to put a marshmallow in a graham cracker with chocolate??”
“OH MAN, S’MORES ARE GREAT!!” the voice came from across the store. It belonged to a man picking up soda.  “Who doesn’t know what a s’more is??”

Oh boy… this is going to be a LONG night.

“It’s ok, I’ll get the crackers elsewhere,” I said.
That’s when her mother said something to her in their native tongue.  “Oh wait, ” the girl said, “My mother says we have the crackers.”
If I thought it was funny that this 16-year old had no idea what a s’more was, THIS was the epitome of funny.  The girl handed me a box of SALTINES.  “Uh, I can’t make a s’more with a saltine cracker.  It doesn’t work that way,” I said trying again to not laugh.
“But, they’re crackers,” she said.

Oh boy.

I ended up prying myself away and went to the next store to get grahams.  Again, I didn’t find a large box, but dropped over $6 on the mini boxes, which when put all together, is SMALLER than a $3 box of grahams.  I could kick myself for not buying a box while at the store.  Damn me twice over.

When I returned home, my prizes in hand, I made 7 people extremely happy.  Except, when E said, “Uh, that chocolate you just bought is old.”
“What do YOU mean OLD??”  Listen, buster, I just drove back and forth across my town to FIND the damned ingredients.  Don’t go telling me they’re old!
“Well, look,” he said showing me the chocolate under the light of a camping lantern.  Chalky chocolate.  Dammit.  I checked the expiration date: 10/2008.  What the…

“Go take it back,” he said.

“NO, YOU go take it back!” I said.

“YOU bought it,” he said.

“Ya, because NO ONE else did,” I said back.

In the end, chalky chocolate tastes the same as non-chalky chocolate when paired with a fire-burnt marshmallow and 2 expensive grahams.  Deal with it.  The funny thing… no one seemed to care because 2 of the 3 boxes were finished (that’s 24 s’mores), 4 of the 7 chocolate bars eaten, and nearly an ENTIRE bag of new and almost all of the old marshmallows inhaled.  This proves to that EVERYTHING tastes good when cooked over a fire…

With an exception…

  BBQ’d skunk, cuz not even a campfire would make THAT taste good.