The Easy Way to Produce Content -- Blog About Farting!

Apparently, it has happened again.

Conversation: (Which, incidentally, took place at 2 in the AM. On a SCHOOL NIGHT.)

Sean (half under his breath): Hee hee! Hee hee! Hee heee heee! Hee hee hee hee!

Redpanda (sleepily): Hmmph? Huh? Mmph? What's so funny?

Sean: Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to wake you up! Nothing! Hee hee hee! Hee hee!

Redpanda (grouchy): Mmph! Why are you laughing?

Sean: Nothing honey, I'm sorry! Go back to sleep. (Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee!)

Redpanda: WHAT IS SO FUNNY?

Sean: Hee hee hee! You farted again! In your sleep!

Redpanda: Wha?

Sean: You did! Hee hee hee hee hee! You farted in your sleep! It was really funny! Hee hee hee!

Redpanda: It is TWO A.M.!!!

Sean: I know. I'm really sorry. It was really funny. (Hee hee hee hee hee...)

Redpanda: Was it so loud it woke you up or something?

Sean: No. I'm just coming to bed. It went "poot-poot-poot"! HEE HEE HEEE HEEE.

Redpanda: Leave me alone. I'm trying to sleep. Why do you care?

Sean: It was really funny! I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to wake you up. I have proof! You have farted at least twice. HEE HEE HEEE.

Redpanda: SLEEP!!!

Sean: I'm sorry. Don't worry. It was a very feminine fart, honey. Hee HEE HEE HEEE HEEE HEEEEEEEEE......



World, I fart in my sleep. I hear that it occasionally is known to go "poot-poot-poot".

While the Merry Bells Keep Ringing...

This will be my LAST POST before Christmas. I think. We're leaving at ass-thirty (that's "early" in Redpanda-speak) tomorrow morning for the greener (literally--it's not nearly as cold there) pastures of rural Maryland. That's right, I'm going Home for the Holidaze. And I'm taking Sean with me! Ha-HA! I can't wait to force-feed him stuffed ham. And scrapple. I love scrapple. I'll bet I can lie and call it "perfectly rectangular country sausage" again and he'll have 4 helpings. Mmmm...scrapple.

Please have scrapple...and stuffed ham...and presents that weren't bought at the summer clearance sale at Target....

To say my mother is a bargain shopper is rather akin to saying "Gee, Robert Downey, Jr. might like a hit off my bong." I have no problem with this, I am a fan of the bargain myself. Witness the sapphire-blue suedelike shearling coat dangling from the back of my office chair. I picked that baby up from Lord & Taylor at 65% off, plus an additional 15%. BAR. GAIN. My issue is more to do with the emphasis being placed on "bargain" instead of "something the giftee will like". Don't get me crap I won't like. Please. I'd rather get no crap than crap I have to pretend to like. It's too much pressure. That floral-print button down? I'm never going to wear it. I'm going to exchange it for something black. You know this. Just buy me something black in the first place. And don't even get me started on the year that I was given several sets of long thermal underwear, size 3XL.

Really, I can't wait to have kids and put the pressure on them instead. And to play with their toys. And lactate. Lactating is the coolest.

But yeah. Weird gifts? They suck. Besides, I'm not a big fan of gifts. That's mostly why I prefer Thanksgiving to Christmas. I like the kitschy decor, the sappy tunes, the shopping. But I'm not a big fan of receiving.

So anyway, I'm off to partake of scrapple (hopefully!) and stuffed ham (definitely!). There will also be boxed wine. I'm giving my parents one of those Rabbit-style wine openers in the hopes that it will discourage such behavior. I can only hope.

Merry Christmas, one and all! And yes, I said "Merry Christmas". Not "Season's Greetings". Not "Happy Holidays". Know why? 'Cause the holiday we're getting ready to celebrate this week? That'd be Christmas. If I was preparing to celebrate Chanukah, or Kwanzaa, or Ramadan? I'd wish you a happy one of those. But I'm not. So, Merry Christmas, dammit!

(Hmm. That was a harsh way to end things.)

Cuddle a warm snuggy kitty. Drink some hot cocoa laced with booze. Tell someone you love that you love them. It's Christmas!

(Was that better?)

Peanut Butter and The Wrong Shoes

There was a peanut butter-related fiasco at our house last night. One of such magnitude that Sean proclaimed: "You had better blog this!" (Well, actually, he probably said "You better blog this!" and not "You had better blog this!", but what sounds grammatical in speech and what is grammatical in writing are two very seperate things, mais non?)

Anyway. I digress. It all began when I decided that I would make the peanut butter-loving Sean some No-Bake Peanut Butter cookie things. A co-worker had made them last week, and they were SO VERY FUCKING YUMMY. Like big giant Reeses Peanut Butter Trees (which we all know are vastly superior to plain old "Cups"). No problem--we had all the ingrediants, including a full jar of Better N' Peanut Butter waiting patiently in the cabinet. (Now, I fear I must digress once more. I just googled "Better N' Peanut Butter" so I could include a link, but all I found were pages where fatty boombalatties were complaining that it "wasn't good!" and including "recipes to make it better!" that included such things as FUCKING CREAM CHEESE. HELLLO! TRY COMPROMISING. ADDING CREAM CHEESE RATHER NULLIFIES THE FAT-SAVING QUALITY OF THIS PRODUCT, N'CEST PAS? Shit like that pisses me off. These are the same people who complain that lowfat mayonnaise isn't as good. Or lowfat cheese. Duh. That's because it's lowfat. Live with it. Ok, sorry about that, please carry on.)

SO. I mixed up the ingrediants, only to find that there is obviously some crucial ingrediant contained only within Genuine peanut butter that is missing from Fake, Defatted-Peanut Flour peanut butter. I was mixing a bowl of tan cement. There was no hardening. Just a neverending stickiness. Sean had to come and bail me out with a spatula and a second application of confectioner's sugar.

It was very sticky.

Now see, that wasn't that funny, was it? You really kind of had to be there. Sean has no sense of comic timing.

Speaking of Sean, I have a deep, cold fear in the pit of my stomach that he went to work today in the wrong shoes. We were running a bit late; and he burst into the bathroom, where I was peacefully putting in my contacts, wearing a pair of rusty-tan cordury pants with a sagey-green striped sweater.

In a word, NO.

I sent him to change the offending sweater, being the Designated Rescuer of Sean's Fashion Integrity. Unfortunately, my first suggestion was to replace it with a black turtleneck sweater. This would have been all well and good, but Sean was wearing brown shoes. I quickly changed my suggestion to "the cream fishermans' sweater". But alas, I fear it was too late.

Upon arriving in the bedroom, I found the sagey-green striped sweater discarded on the bed. Whew! Unfortunately, the fishermans' sweater was still in the dresser. And the brown shoes? Nowhere to be found.

We have a fashion emergancy! If anyone sees Sean, please know that the Designated Rescuer of Sean's Fashion Integrity did not, I repeat, NOT approve his sweater-and-shoe-combination choice. Don't fire me. Please. The ponytail is gone, is that not evidence enough of my success???

"The Blowtorch Isn't Working. Let's Go Get the Chainsaw!"

Any party in which those two sentences are uttered consecutively is, in fact, officially Off The Hook. I had thought that, at 29-and-three-quarters, I was effectively past my time of attending such soireés. Not so. Sean's illustrious co-worker Aaron proved otherwise with his smashing bash at the Asparagus Farm this past Saturday.

Replete with ice luge (for which the blowtorch and/or chainsaw were needed), this was one of those shindigs where you awaken the next day and say to yourself "Gee, I'd like to go to that party again and again.", if for no other reason than to hear Groove of the Day (who were stationed conveniently right next to the ice luge, until the cops came and shut them down).

Yes. The cops came. I am 29-and-three-quarters and I still go to parties where the cops come. How you like me now? That's right, I rule. I get carded to buy video games and I go to parties where the cops come.

After the live music was shut down, it was time to bake pizzas in the brick oven that was connected to the fireplace. That's right. There was a brick oven. I have no reason to lie.

Can you believe that shit?

Aaron, my party-throwing skillz are permanently humbled. I bow before thee. Thanks for the mean soireé!

The Armoire Story

On the day in which I was Carded! To Buy! A Video Game!, there was also an armoire. I call it "an armoire" and not "my armoire", because at that point, it was just an armoire like any other, and not one I held any sort of ownership over. Of course, things change.

We left Best Buy, me swollen with a smug pride at my very evident Youngness, and happened upon a store proclaiming: FURNITURE CLOSEOUT SALE!. What is one to do when faced with such a proclaimation? One really has only one choice: Walk Into the Store Immediately.

It just so happens that Sean and I have been loosely in the market for some sort of clothing-holding-furniture for some time now. And recently, I have been tightening that loose-marketed-ness up into more of a state of we really need to buy a dresser or a chest or a freaking armoire soon-itude. The digging through piles of clothing folded and placed on the foot of the bed because there is NOWHERE else to put them has grown rather old, really.

So, we walked into the store and began perusing dressers, chests, and freaking armoires. They tended to fall into the following categories:

1. Totally Fucked Up and Nearly Useless
2. A Wee Bit Fucked Up and Fixable
3. Only Slightly Fucked Up
4. So Incredibly Fucking Ugly That the State of Fucked Uppedness is Effectively Rendered Moot

There was an armoire that I was partial to, and it pretty well fell squarely between categories 2 and 3. That is to say, one door was not actually attached to the armoire, but was instead leaning neatly against it. Other than that, it seemed fairly pristine.

We fiddled with the armoire a bit, finally asking the Slimy Salesguy attendant upon said armoire what the deal was with it. He reported that it was solid oak (which, from what I could see, seemed accurate), that it retailed for $1300, and that he could let it go to us for $399.

We hemmed and hawed a bit, and finally left to "think about it" and "maybe come back".

Hours and hours later, we remembered that, in the midst of our holiday shopping, there had been an armoire. But we were far too tired to go back and retrieve it.

Cut to the next day. After some researching and thought, I decided that I could not, in fact, live without the armoire. Or at least that I really really liked it and thought we should go get it. Sean agreed emphatically, and we headed out to buy the (solid oak!) armoire for $399, all the while discussing where we would rent a Uhaul to go get it, and who might be able to help move it up to our third floor apartment. And do you think that he will take $350 for it? Because that would be, like, SO cool!

We slipped almost unnoticed into the store an hour before closing. "Hey!" Sean hissed in my ear, "It's a different guy! Walk around for awhile!"

Sean is just all smooth like that. All hissing in my ear and shit.

So, after a few requisite circles around the stores' periphery, feigning interest in furniture that fell into categories 1 through 4, we came back to the armoire. "Gee, the door isn't on it!" Sean exclaimed in mock horror.

"Golly, you are correct!" I agreed. "The door certainly is not attached to this armoire in any way, shape, or form."

"We would have to expend a degree of effort to right the wrongs done to this armoire!"

"I agree. Far too much effort would be expended!"

"The screw-holes could potentially even be stripped, rendering any effort expended to reattach said door practically moot."

"I concur. This is an armoire of the poorest quality."

Tiring of hearing us shovel armloads of crap at him through each other, the salesguy finally piped up: "I'll let you have that armoire for $199."

$199? As in, a hundred dollars? And then, another 99? Like, half what we came here to pay?

"And you can have it delivered for another $50."

Sold!

So, we will be expectantly waiting for our armoire on Saturday. We just have to, you know, expend some effort to move the furniture already in the bedroom. And then put the door back on.

The moral of the story? Salesmen are always full of crap when they say a price is their "best" one. But then, you already knew that, didn't you?

I Swear I'm Not Making This Up or Why Are My Pants Meowing, Mommy?

Conversation:

Redpanda: So, what did you get for your adopted Salvation Army kid?

Co-worker: Oh, I got him some dungarees! The guy at Marshall's helped me pick them out. A sweatshirt, too.

Redpanda: That's cool. Is that a G Unit shirt?

Co-worker: Yep! God, I gotta wrap these! *shuffling papers* Does anyone have any tape?

Redpanda: *Handing her some tape* Here you go. Nice boxes. They're not plain old clothes-shaped boxes.

Co-worker: Yeah! This one used to have some kind of candy dish in it. And this one *pause*.........Oh, this one used to have my cat's ashes in it.

Redpanda: ...What?

Co-worker: Yep. Garth. When he died, we had him cremated. My husband was just so upset. So, yeah. And this is the box his ashes came in. See? It says "Garth" right here.


Redpanda: You cannot give some kid pants in a box that used to have your dead cat in it. You just can't.

Co-worker: Why not? See, I'll even peel off the label that says "cat remains". He'll never know.

Redpanda: CANNOT.

Co-worker: This box is kind of dusty, though. *blowing*

Redpanda: Are you sure that it's dust?

Silence reigns.

Perhaps Because of the Titties

I was carded to buy a video game the other day! I was carded! To buy! A video game!

It was rated "M for mature", and thus was the perfect gift for my 20-year-old brother. Well, that and the 7 X-box games Sean snagged off Craigslist for $35 today. Thanks, Craig!

Now, just so you know. "M for mature" means that it is not really suitable for people under 18. I think. But anyway, I'm sure it does not mean "mature" in that "Now that I'm almost 30, it's time for me to start acting more mature" kind of way. I'm quite sure it was meant in more of a "You are not mature enough to see our gratuitously nude jumping chicks until you are 18!" kind of way. Which can only mean one thing: I look over ten years younger than I really am. Woohoo!!!

As someone who was recently carded to buy a video game, I can definitively state that it feels great to be young. So very young. So not old at all.

Also, we bought an armoire. But that's another story, and not nearly as interesting as the one in which I get carded to buy a video game.