Welcome To The Show! I Hope You Brought Your Melted Butter, Or, Come To Think Of It, A Mallet Might Be Kinder.

Welcome to Getting Real With Nance. Today's show will feature Nance Getting Real on a variety of topics, mainly because she's Crabby, Over It, and generally Irked. Let's jump right in and join her Already In Progress, while vacuuming.

Nance: I mean, it just does not matter! I brush them every single damn day, yet all they have to do is WALK INTO A ROOM, and it is covered in their hair. No. Lie. The carpet is covered. The tables are covered. *I* am covered. It is a Losing Battle, this war between me and cat hair. But I refuse to surrender. I will never stop wearing black, either. Never. Never!

Voiceover Announcer: Nance walks into the bathroom to put away towels, setting off a new, but related, monologue.

Nance: Holy crap! Look at the hair in here! It's my hair, it's Rick's hair, it's everywhere. I simply cannot escape the hair around here. If it's not cat hair, it's our hair. How do we even have any left on our heads?! I CANNOT TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Voiceover Announcer: Later, after a frantic and manic bathroom cleaning session left her exhausted, Nance rests in her chair. Unwisely, she browses the Interwebs.

Nance: How hard is it? How hard, everyone? The word is YEAH. The correct spelling is Y-E-A-H. Not Y-A, like you're speaking a foreign language and pronouncing it YAW. Not Y-A-H, like...holy hell, I don't even know why you would spell it like that, ever. And while I'm at it, the word is VOILA. It's French. It means "there you are" or "there it is." It is pronounced VWAH-LAH. It is not some bastardized funsy American word spelled WALA, WALLA, WALLAH, WAH LAH, or WA-LA. Every time I hear or see someone use it incorrectly I wish I could haul the offender up and smack her. Or him. And do NOT get me started on "low and behold" for "lo and behold." So, so painful.  And so symptomatic of What Is Wrong With America on so many levels.

Voiceover Announcer: Unable to rest, Nance is up again and shifting laundry in the basement.

Nance: I deserve nice clean sheets to sleep on. So what. I hate doing sheets. Hate it. It's exhausting. And the load goes off-balance in the washer. And I have to stay down here to make sure it finishes the cycle. And then I get to look at other stuff that needs to be done. Which reminds me, I need to clean litterboxes. And that means sweeping the floor because Marlowe is an aggressive litter scratcher. Because of course she is.

Voiceover Announcer: Back from shuffling laundry and taking the used litter outside to the trash, Nance makes a quick snack of yogurt and fruit so that she can take her bigass vitamins.

Nance: Oh, hell. I forgot that we ran the dishwasher last night. How sad is it that I'm ready to complain about unloading dishes that I didn't even have to stand at the sink and wash? Someone should smack me. But if that someone could sweep my kitchen floor first, that would be great. Or scrub out the tub--even better. Anything, really. Then smack me. Smack away.

Voiceover Announcer: Jared arrives. He needs to use Nance's iPad in order to participate in a West Coast podcast. It is 12:30; the podcast starts at 1:00. He has to search for and download software. He also announces that he will be taking a shower since he came straight from the gym. Lunch may also happen.

Nance: Jared...how...? And I'm warning you now--I'm really, really crabby. Almost violently so.

Jared: Mom. It's okay. And have you tried dancing? Here, watch this.

Voiceover Announcer: Jared dances. Nance is motionless and helpless. Jared spends twenty minutes trying to contact his people on the West Coast to figure out the software download; finally he is successful. He tells them he will jump in at 1:15, takes a shower, and mixes up a "blue drink" which he may or may not have drunk in the shower.

Jared: Mom, I'm surprised you don't have the air on. It's supposed to be hot today.

Nance: I think it's comfortable. I'm sick of air conditioning. If you get too warm in the office during your podcast, turn on the ceiling fan.

Voiceover Announcer: Nance goes down to do the final laundry shift. On her way she belches loudly and uncomfortably.

Nance: Ugh. These damned vitamins. Can't I just get some sort of timed-release implant or something, like that birth control thingy? Or a patch, like they do for people who want to quit smoking? Wow. Did I really just say that? I am so, so crabby. It would not surprise me one bit if I looked down and my hands literally became big, red, pinchy claws.

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Voiceover Announcer:  This has been Getting Real With Nance.  Nance urges you to Get Real in Comments. You know what she always says: Wallow A Little, Bitch A Lot. Or maybe it's Bitch A Little, Wallow A Lot; she can't ever remember. Either way, let loose your Real and feel no shame.



(original crab photo via Synapse Science Magazine)

Saturday: Thinking About Trucks, Television, And All The News That's Fit To Fabricate

So I'm watching Judge Judy, one of my guilty pleasures. (Don't start with me. I already know I watch entirely too much television as it is, and I cannot be tasked with watching only quality programming all the time. I've already cut out most Food Network shows, having broken up with almost everyone over there. But that's another post entirely.)

Anyway. Over the course of several months of watching Judge Judy, I've noticed something curious. There seems to be a growing trend of young single women who drive trucks. Not semis or eighteen-wheelers, like for their jobs; I'm talking personal vehicles. Like a pickup truck. I cannot begin to tell you how many times a young woman will begin her testimony--as a defendant or a plaintiff--by mentioning her truck. Either it was damaged or someone owes her money for one or it was supposed to be a gift or whatever. And let me tell you--this truck ownership crosses racial and socioeconomic lines as well. These young women are black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and mixed races. They are seemingly well-to-do as well as appearing down on their luck. The Judge Judy show is filmed in New York, but her cases are from all over the country.

I am honestly befuddled by this apparent movement of Young Woman Truck Ownership. Why is this occurring? Why is the pickup truck so attractive to these young ladies? Do they have things they need to haul? Do they have a lot of friends who move? Do they not want a back seat, thereby eliminating the need to provide rides for lots of people at once? Are they sending a certain message, and if so, what is it? Do young men find women who drive trucks "hot?"

I find it all very intriguing. Perhaps the common denominator is that young women who drive trucks are either very litigious or very unlucky; failing that, they are hooked up with people who go to court an awful lot.

On a related note--marginally, at best--there is a television commercial that I find highly irritating lately. It is for a new laundry product by Purex called the 3-in-1 laundry sheet. In the ad, a woman with terrible-looking red hair says that this product "makes her life ONE THOUSAND TIMES BETTER."

Holy crap. Seriously? How miserable is this chick's life? And how much of it revolves around laundry? You know what? When Jared told me about using Control + F, it made my life easier, but mainly when I'm trying to search through hundreds of entries in my resident archives of the Brian Williams Tie Report , and not 1000 times. And again, only when I'm writing silly little blurbs...about ties. Someone needs to get some perspective, Redhaired Laundry Slave, and it isn't me.

Finally, there's this, just for...well, just for. (Mainly, so you all feel good about your families being ONE THOUSAND TIMES more normal than mine.)

Scene opens with Nance in bathroom drying her hair. Jared enters casually.

Jared: Hey. This just in. Dad says he doesn't like you.

Nance: Yeah? So what?

Jared: Mom. Hey. I don't make the news. I just report it.

Jared saunters out. Nance continues drying hair. Rick is in living room feeding logs into fireplace, innocent to all which has taken place.

Finis.

I Call on the Power of the Internet!

I was putting my laundry away today and was again confronted with my single charcoal grey sock. I've been holding onto it now for four months, stubbornly and brightly hoping that its mate will turn up. After all, how far can it go? My house is a modest little Cape Cod-ish affair: a story-and-a-half little thing with the washer and dryer in the basement. I drag the clothing from my hamper down one flight of steps to the machine. The washer is snugged right up to the dryer! There is no vast, cavernous canyon anywhere in the route. EmilyCat and TravisCat are far too urbane, sophisticated, and lazy to interact with human clothing, be it dirty or clean. I must traverse the same route back as I took to the laundry area, so I would have seen it had I dropped it.

As soon as I noticed it was missing, I scoured the area, the hamper (in case I had inadvertently left it behind), and rechecked the appliances. When that proved fruitless, I interrogated the residents. No success. That was more than 120 days ago, and still I grieve.

I loved that pair of socks. They match my platinum wash Levis perfectly. They are comfortable and stretchy and are the exact right height. They require no cuffing, nor do they roll down on their own or leave horrid red bindy marks. They are tastefully wide-ribbed, but not noticeably so.

Finding this sock has become an obsession. Every once in a while, I re-interrogate the suspects here at The Dept. I stare them down. I say things like, "Have you looked in your drawers, just in case?" or "Hey! When you clean your room this week, be on the lookout for that grey sock of mine!" or "I'm coming upstairs and if I find that grey sock someone is in serious trouble!" or "Whoever finds Mommy's grey sock gets $20 from Daddy!"

In January my hope was renewed by news of the boy in St. Louis Missouri who was recovered after being missing for four years. Wow! I thought, that's a whole kid, and my sock has only been missing for three months!

So, I'm going to post the picture of my missing sock here, right here on The Internet, in case any of you can help track it down. Or, maybe one of you has a match and would be willing to give it up to make my pair complete. And, just as a "Hail Mary," I''m adding a picture of my missing khaki sock, too. It went missing a long time ago under equally mysterious circumstances. I don't miss it as much, but I figure what the heck? But that charcoal grey one...seriously, it's a major Wardrobe Player for me. A first-stringer. Oh, I've bought a new pair, but they're not ribbed. You know how much that little detail means.


(Rick did the scanning for me, and I didn't want to get too fussy with him about styling the socks to best show off their attributes.)

Now, let me clearly state for the record that I am not accusing any of you of harboring the Fugitive Socks. I am only seeking help in locating these wayward accessories, and, should they wish to find their way home, would be only too happy to welcome them with open...er...geeze, that would be awkward, to extend that metaphor...heart and no questions asked.