Friday, November 19, 2010

Evil Cosmetics and the Condiments that Vanquish Them

   Being the well-prepared individual that I am, I recently purchased a new tube of mascara because my old one was running low and I wanted to be prepared for the day I needed a new one.  I ventured out the 44.8 miles to Alexandria where the holy Wal-Mart lies.  I have been a loyal Target shopper for as long as I can remember, but I'll admit I have been unfaithful to my beloved Target and have been frequenting Wal-Mart lately due to the slightly lower prices (however I do sacrifice competent employees and hygienic clientele for my quest to save a few pennies).  Nonetheless.  I found myself at Wal-Mart, amidst the cretins, trying to find the things on my list, purchase them, and remove myself from the store as soon as humanly possible.

   There I was in the cosmetics aisle, looking for the familiar orange tube of eyelash goop that I apply to my lashes every morning in order to look lovely, like this:

   Way creepy picture, right?  Well never mind, I'm illustrating a point here.  Anyway, I was perusing the makeup section in order to find my eyelash goop so that I could get the rest of the things on my list and get out of there as expeditiously as possible before I ended up on peopleofwalmart.com or something...  I found the familiar orange tube, grabbed one off the peg, placed it in my basket, and moved on feeling satisfied that my mission for eyelash goo had been completed.  Oh how I was terribly wrong.  This is a picture of the lovely product that I use every morning to become beautified:


Here is a picture of the evil impostor product that I accidentally grabbed instead:

  
   Well played, Cover-girl.  Well played.  You managed to trick me, a poor unsuspecting consumer, into purchasing WATERPROOF eyelash goop, rather than the lovely normal eyelash goop.  I did not discover this deceitful marketing ploy until after I had had the offensive product in my cupboard for several weeks, had opened the package, and had applied it to my lashes.

   Admittedly, I am a bit of a messy eyelash goop applicator.  It is virtually impossible for me to get through a morning without black smudges everywhere.  This is where the beauty of NORMAL eyelash goop truly shines.  I can simply use a Q-tip and a drop of water to erase any smudginess that occurs and create the flawless and perfect lashes you see above*.

* Of course by "flawless" and "perfect" I mean "mediocre and not frightening".

  
   So on the fateful morning in question, I go to erase my errors with the tried and true Q-tip/water method and IT DIDN'T WORK.  What folly was this?  Why were my methods failing me at 7:32 a.m.?  I grabbed the tube and looked closely at its deceitful camouflage.  And then I saw it.  The most evil words in the cosmetic language.  WATERPROOF.  Sigh.  I had been foiled.  Waterproof mascara should be reserved for, and sold only to, Olympic synchronized swimmers and particularly misty eyed brides.  That is it.  It should not be placed near the regular stuff where it quite certainly will confuse and irritate regular consumers.

   In an attempt to see the proverbial "silver lining", I figured I would persevere and use up the loathsome product in order to save another $8.99 (and my dignity).  I wore the hydrophobic cosmetic all day and had nearly forgotten about its presence on my eyelids... that is until it came time to wash my face that evening.

   Again, let me remind you of yet another reason why normal mascara is superior to waterproof mascara.  BECAUSE IT COMES OFF WITH WATER.  As I was scrubbing my face that night, I suddenly got the sinking feeling that this crap was not coming off.  Not at all.  It was like someone had rubbed sooty candle wax and chewing gum together then wiped it on my eyelashes.  This is not OK.  I continued to scrub, but to no avail.  Worried that I might scrub my eyelashes right off, I consulted Google, the oracle of all of life's answers, searching for a solution to my problem.

   Google informed me that a person such as myself, with no makeup remover in her home, and only water and face wash to arm myself with, must consult the kitchen for a more effective weapon to vanquish the vile waterproof cosmetic product.  My salvation lay in olive oil.  OLIVE OIL.

   I will give you a moment to digest the ramifications of this.

...
...
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  Yeah.  Exactly what I thought.  However, desperate as I was to remove the stubborn goo from my eyes, I was willing to try anything.  Google instructed me to soak a cotton ball in the olive oil and place it on my eyelid for at least 30 seconds in order to begin dissolving the mascara.  As I was doing this, I couldn't help but imagine the scene from the Wizard of Oz where the witch was melting because Dorothy threw a pail of water on her (incidentally my favorite movie of all time).  It occurred to me that waterproof mascara must be even more evil than the Wicked Witch of the West because water could destroy her, but it proved no match for the mascara.  Innnnteresting...
  
   Eventually the olive oil persevered and the evil mascara finally came off.  I will be giving the offensive product to a friend of mine who (for whatever reason) is fond of it's hydrophobic ways.  I, on the other hand, will be purchasing a new tube of regular, normal, water-soluble eyelash goo.  So much for saving $8.99, but there are just some things in this world that cannot be tolerated.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Moosing Season is Upon Us.

   For those of you that know me, you may have heard talk about the "Moose" around Christmas time.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with this, let me give you a visual.  This is Mr. Moose:
   Mr. Moose has a long and illustrious history with my mother and I.  He first came into our lives as a useless piece of dollar store garbage my Mom had gotten from likely a Secret Santa game or some other similar nonsense.  At this point, I was probably in middle school.  Clearly, this silly Christmas trinket was not of any value to my mother, which led to him being placed in my room.  You see, my Mom had a strange habit of putting things in my room that she didn't want.  Socks, playbills, crafty gifts, etc.  The Moose was no exception. 
   Being the defiant adolescent that I was (OK, I was never defiant, but I was willing to fight back), I put the Moose back in her room.  Unknown to me at the time, this was the fateful action that set the years long Moose war into action -- a war that still rages on today with no discernible end in sight.  Not to be outdone, my mother then HID the Moose in my room.  Naturally, I had to retaliate, so I hid the Moose in HER room.  A vicious cycle had begun and neither of us were willing to concede defeat.  The war must continue. 
   Fast forward to Christmas Eve.  My Mom, Dad and I always opened our gifts to each other on Christmas Eve (and the gifts from "Santa" because my Mother, to this day, has not admitted that St. Nick is a figment of our imagination, and she still signs gifts "from Santa" and from all the reindeer).  There was a small package under the tree with my name on it.  I tore into it with gusto, only to discover... THE MOOSE.  All nicely wrapped up and apparently sent just for me from the North Pole from "Santa".  Yeah.  Like Santa would have the audacity to ally himself with my mother.  This was getting out of hand.
   From that moment on, I vowed to do all in my power to one-up my scheming mother the following year... and every year after that.  Over the years, there have been some pretty elaborate pranks involving her boss, the safe at my job, my college professors, her co-workers, wait-staff, my roommates, ransom notes, breaking and entering, misuse of judicial power, misuse of dating web-sites, and countless other moose-related shenanigans.  What is funny though is that Christmas will never be complete again without the stupid dollar store moose.  Because he has become so precious to us, we have established some rules that MUST always be followed.

1.  The Moose cannot travel via the U.S. Postal Service, lest he get lost or broken.  This rule has, however, been BROKEN by my mother, which I believe should entitle me to initial custody this year.

2.  The Moose may only be used for harassment, vilifying, embarrassment, or other activities between the dates of Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.  This is a mere 8 days away.  *Insert evil laughter here*  Plotting and scheming has already commenced.

3.  Other than rules 1 and 2, there are no other rules.  And no, this is not like Fight Club.  We can talk about Moosing.


   As such, Moosing season is nearly upon us and I must prepare.  Never again will I be surprised with the Moose on the judge's bench in the courtroom, or on my professor's podium in a lecture hall, or WANTED posters littering my college campus.  This year I shall reign triumphant in the Moose war!  I will prevail in the Moose prank-ery and wear the title of "Superior Moose-er" for the whole of 2011!  Look out, Mother!!  The Moose is coming for you!

Here is a look at my (awesome) mother and I  :)    Love you!

Ketchup bombs.

   It occurred to me that reading blogs is most certainly one of my major self-indulgences during the day.  I generally gravitate to those that are either amusing or are written by someone I know, or both.  So I figured hey, I could try my hand at this.  So here we go! 
   I'm pretty sure that my musings on life and the things that go on around me aren't going to change the world by being posted on the Internet, but at least it'll entertain me for a while and perhaps those who read this.  Being a self-proclaimed "city-girl" who just happened to wind up in rural Minnesota by chance (and because of the right job) has turned me into a bit of the proverbial square peg, but I do my best.  My adventures out here never cease to amuse those I tell them to, so now I am going to share them with the world as well. 
   For today's topic, I will focus on ketchup.  Yes, ketchup.  I did a very unusual thing today and went to McDonald's for lunch.  I did this for several reasons.  First, I was bored with the chicken and dumplings leftovers I had in my fridge, second, I had a hankering for chicken tenders, and third, I was being just plain lazy.  I ordered "chicken selects" and fries, with a side of ranch dressing for dipping (my adorable god-daughter has re-introduced me to the joys of "dip").  Chicken nuggets just wouldn't do because of the awful and frightening recent news photos of what chicken nuggets are actually made of...
   I admit, the selects are probably not much better, but that image has been haunting me and I couldn't order them.  The selects at least do a better job of masquerading as CHICKEN, so I made my choice accordingly.  Moving on.  The very nice McDonald's order-taker/college student very thoughtfully asked if I would like them to provide me with some ketchup for my fries.  A request that I have never gotten before, but was very pleased to have been given, so naturally I told the speaker-box that yes, indeed I would like some ketchup!  Unbeknownst to me, the request would literally blow up in my face less than 15 minutes later.  You see, I am convinced the tiny packets of ketchup provided to poor, unsuspecting consumers are made with the sole intention of causing massive havoc in the lives of the user.  These are not "user-friendly" inventions and should be shunned until a more acceptable form of drive-thru window condiment dispensary can be created.
   I brought my chicken tenders and fries home to eat while watching Rachael Ray and Ina Garten on Food Network (a lunch hour ritual of mine).  I was generally enjoying my lunch of unhealthy greasy "chicken" and fries with my ranch dressing.  Ranch is by far a superior condiment to ketchup.  It just is.  Take my word for it.  As such, I was using the precious ranch dressing, hoping it would last through all three chicken tenders and all of my fries.  Sadly, it didn't.  I made it through the chicken and about half of the fries with the ranch and then had to switch to the ketchup I so conveniently had thanks to the McDonald's drive-thru gentleman.  PERFECT!  2 tiny packets of ketchup will surely be sufficient for me to enjoy the remainder of my french fries with lovely "dipping" pleasure.  The first packet opened just fine and the contents were easily dispensed into the empty ranch cup (because "remainder ranch" and ketchup sounded like a fabulous combination).  But one packet just would not suffice.  I required both to ensure a proper french fry to ketchup ratio.  So I opened the second fateful packet. 
   Apparently my skills were used up on the first packet because this one opened with only the tiniest gap through which the ketchup had to travel in order to get to the outside.  Being an impatient consumer of french-fries, rather than tear the evil packet again to provide a sufficient orifice through which the ketchup could travel, I instead just squeezed the packet harder to make the ketchup come out faster.  Now, hindsight is 20/20, and looking back now I realize that this was probably not the best course of action, but alas, here is what ensued.  The ketchup bomb ticked it's last tock and proceeded to EXPLODE.  Thank goodness ketchup bombs are not very big because I only got ketchup shrapnel on my hands... or so I thought.  I washed my hands, finished my lunch, and went back to work.
   Nearly two hours later, after having been to the coffee shop, talking to co-workers and walking through a slew of construction people in the hallway, I discovered the cruelest trick of the ketchup bomb: the-sneaky-flying-shrapnel-that-lands-on-your-left-cheek-and-under-your-chin-but-doesn't-alert-you-of-its-evil-presence.  I had been walking around all afternoon with ketchup on my face??  What am I?  A third-grader who got over-zealous with the tater tots? 
   So lesson learned.  When the McDonald's people attempt to do you a favor by offering ketchup packets (now known as ketchup bombs), JUST SAY NO.  Ketchup terrorism cannot be tolerated in modern society.  Consider yourself warned.