an unexpected christmas

   I traveled back to my before-college home a couple times in August to visit my family, and during one of my visits we pulled an old memory out that I just had to write about.

   My little sister, and only sibling, went through a phase about five years back in which she really, really wanted a doll house. Not a Barbie Dreamhouse, but an actual wooden dollhouse with wooden dolls and wooden furniture. I thought that was really lame, to say the least, and asked Santa for a 2006 AmericanGirl stone-age-looking equivilant to today's touchscreen devices. So cool.

   Christmas Eve, my parents were setting up all the gifts that Santa had brought my sister and I when they made a discovery that will forever make me laugh.

   They had looked high and low on the internet to find the perfect wooden dollhouse and family. They ordered everything, getting excited about my sister's expected reaction to her dream present, and the package showed up shortly after at our little home. They didn't even bother to check inside the box, trusting that everything would be just how they had ordered.

   Well, the night before the big day, my mom was unwrapping all the parts and pieces when she gasped.

    "Uh, honey?" - my alarmed mother

    "Hmm?" - dad

    "This family is black."

    "Black?"

    "Yeah. And there's no dad. We got a black family with no dad."

   Inside of the bubble wrap sat a mother, two children, and an infant.

   I don’t in any way intend this post to sound racist. But seriously, a black family with no dad? How much more stereotypical could you get? I can just imagine the person whose job it is to wrap up mass manufactured little wooden families looking at my parents’ order form and thinking “Another perfect little white family, eh? Suck on this!”.

   My parents couldn’t exactly give my sister a dollhouse without any dolls, and not many stores in our little town stay open until the crack of dawn on Christmas Day, (or stay open the week of Christmas, period), so they had only one choice: act normal.

   The next morning, my sister was completely elated after seeing her new house and its inhabitants. She didn’t mention their color at all! It was actually really cool; look how far we’ve progressed, America! When my mom asked where the daddy was, she simply replied “the war”.

   I didn’t get the pleasure of hearing this story until a couple years ago, and it’s by far one of the funniest tales I’ve heard. Lesson learned: check to make sure the dolls you ordered are what you ordered. Or, better yet, raise your kids to not care! Acceptance is essential.

warning: bear spray

   In my mind, I pictured only one use for bear spray: spraying bears. You could throw it at an attacker, I guess, but I don’t think that was the intended strategy. You could also attach it to a sort of rope and swing it around, aiming to smack your aggressor in hopes of discouraging him/her/it, but that’s similar to the aforementioned plan. I feel comfortable saying that spraying the bear spray in the face of your assailant is the best bet, preferably in the eyes or other orifices.

   However, this weekend a new use of bear spray was revealed to me. It can also be used as a small bomb! How neat is that?

   This discovery was definitely not intended, to say the least. My boyfriend had been in the midst of the moving process and must have forgotten that his giant can of bear spray was laying on his dashboard. In the direct sunlight. In August.

   Needless to say, the can exploded. Luckily, he wasn’t in his truck at the time of the attack so no one was hurt. His truck, however, is a different story. Now he gets to look at this when he cruises around in his sexy spray-painted 1985 F150! 

   I should also mention that, yes, us Montanans do own giant cans of bear spray. My boyfriend got his from his mom as a generosity before a backpacking adventure. I presume we’ll be hitting up REI today to refuel.

the word “definitely”

   It is the bane of the English language’s existence. Yeah, I said it.

   For some completely unknown reason, we as English-speaking humans struggle with this simple word seemingly more than any other combination of letters known to man. Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration considering there are plenty of other complex words, such as exaggeration, that are much more difficult and which I would struggle to spell if it weren’t for some handy help. Thank you, auto spell corrector. But still, it really shouldn’t be that challenging.

   Let’s look into the word in a laidback manner:

   The base of the word “definitely” is “define”; that’s a pretty easy word, right? Spelled just how it sounds. We could even break it down further for all you dyslexics: “de” as in to undo something, and “fine” as in how I look.

   Alright, so now we have the simple “de” and we slide “fine” in right next to it. Now comes the tricky part. Somewhere along this process, we must move the E in DEFINE. We put the word “it” where the E would usually be if whoever created this god-awful language wasn’t so cruel. So now we’ve got DEFINITE. Hey looky there! That’s a word! Not quite sure how to use it, though…

   Moving on, we add the most integral part of our process: the end. Stick an “ly” to that sucker! We don’t, under any circumstances, add any other letters. Where people pull A’s and extra I’s and take E’s from, I do not know. But I do know that it thoroughly pisses me off.

Definately  = what??

Definetly = nope…

Definitiley = just stop.

Ending result: DEFINITELY! What is so complicated about that???

   I am a Facebook frequenter and there is nothing that I detest and resent more than watching someone repetitively misspell this common word. Ok, another exaggeration. I also resent animal abusers, but somehow that seems a little too deep for a blog post.  Each time I happen upon this gross error, it becomes a mental battle over whether I should correct the mistake and make the post-er feel stupid, or do nothing and allow it to be seen by others who will think “Oh so that’s how they spell it…huh. Welp, I’m gonna spell it that way now, too! ‘Cuz I’m dumb!” Yes, that was mean.

   Thus far, I have refrained from correcting the numerous pathetic attempts at spelling a simple word and I feel good about it. I would hate to really hurt someone’s feelings by saying something along the lines of “Who taught you how to spell? Helen Keller?” Because that would be just plain unkind.

pregnant no more!

   Pregnant Lady had her baby yesterday! I am happy for two reasons: 1) there's a new cute lil' girl in the world now! and 2) more importantly, I don't have to be creeped out at my work place any more!

   Yes, I like babies. Who doesn't? I guess I'd rather gaze upon one than have one in my possession, however. But from afar, they're awesome! Unless they're screaming in a restaurant, then they're not awesome.

   It's just the whole idea of pregnancy that makes me queasy. I watched her for three days, not because I was stalking her or something but because I had to fill in for our secretary, which meant I was a mere two doors down from Pregnant Lady's office.

   Sometimes I would hear Pregnant Lady sigh. This wasn't just a normal I'm-tired-of-sitting-here kind of sigh, either. This sigh spoke to me and I knew at once what was being expressed: Pregnant Lady was in pain. Upon hearing the sigh, I would immediately imagine what was going on and then my mind would get all graphic and I would try to stop picturing myself in her shoes with this thing dwelling inside my uterus and then my face would scrunch up and then I could taste my lunch again and it was just terrible! For three days I endured that suffering, you can only imagine my happiness upon hearing Pregnant Lady was not longer pregnant! I think she realized she should probably get it out for her coworkers' sakes, I couldn't have been the only one feeling so...violated.

   I used to think being pregnant and getting married (yes in that order, that's how they do it here in the big MT) would be all sorts of fun. I would just pop a little pink-cheeked cutie out and my Man and I would go skipping off into the distance, holding hands and pinching our kid's cheeks. I mean, if 1/3 of my graduating class could do it, why couldn't I? They just looked so darn cute on their 18th birthdays holding a newborn!

   Ok, now I'm just being sarcastic because I have realized that would SUCK! And not just a little, but a lot.

   Now I feel like I'm offending people. If you are a young mother and are raising your kid well, then you are amazing! I'm not trying to spin this toward premarital sex and young marriages, don't wanna go there!

   Basically, just the thought of spending nine months of your life as a giant child-growing appliance is pretty much the weirdest thing ever. Think about it, every day there is this little nugget inside of you and it's just chilling there, going wherever you go, doing whatever you do. You can't ever be alone! I can only imagine how those one sea creatures feel when those little pests latch onto them. Not that a baby is a pest.

   So now that you have that image cultivated so nicely, it gets better (or worse, depends if you're an optimist). Now you start to get fat. Suddenly you start craving the weirdest things and you tell yourself: "it's ok! I'm pregnant! This is natural!". But then you eat a box of Chicken-In-A-Biscuit's and some cottage cheese with ketchup. I don't find that natural. So not only are you fat, but you are gross. And your breath smells really bad from the previous combination.

   I could go on and on about the horrific images I conjure up and their colorful descriptions, but I have a feeling I should just keep those to myself. But in the end, I am happy for Ex-Pregnant Lady and her new addition! I hope everyone stays happy and healthy, the only two things worth wishing onto someone.

NOT being mormon vs. living in utah

   When I moved to Montana from Salt Lake City, Utah at the ripe age of ten, I had no idea what stereotypical middle school chitter-chatter awaited me. It seemed like all the little fifth graders had taken a class about Utah's populous of LDS Mormons; they knew statistics, ratios, even stuff about the Salt Lake City Temple that I didn't have a clue about. I grew accustomed to the typical conversation:

   "Where did you move from?" -- seemingly innocent and non-biased ten year old

   "Salt Lake City" -- innocent self

   "You Mormon?"

   It came to the point where I would answer the question about my forthcoming with: "Salt Lake City, and I'm NOT Mormon!!" My mom quickly put an end to that, however, explaining that it made me sound judgemental...wait a second...

   As the years progressed and my peers were no longer interested in my previous homeland, the rhythm of the conversation was lost somewhere in the back of my pre-teen brain, assumed never to be spoken again.

   It wasn't until attending college and moving away to a new town with new people that I realized the torturous concept of where-are-you-from's had slid back into the spotlight of conversation. Distraught, I desperately tried to remember how to explain to my fellow college-goers about moving from Utah to Montana when it hit me...these aren't ten year olds! These are eighteen and twenty and thirty-seven year olds! So I quit wracking my brain, knowing that mature people didn't ask such presumptuous and irritating questions.

   The day came to introduce myself to my first acquaintance of my college experience: my freshman orientation roommate. We chatted about the weather, about hair, about the off-colored sticky substance stuck to her bed's metal frame...and then came the moment of maturity: asking about each other's lives.

   "So, where are you from?" -- my awesome new friend/roommate I immediately called my mom to tell about

   "Well, I moved to ____ when I was ten" -- self, feeling mature

   "Where did you live before that?"

   "...Utah"

   "That's cool....you Mormon?"

   Unfortunately, I was very wrong. If this had been the only instance of the direction of such conversations, it wouldn't have been a big deal. However, I have discovered that nearly every person I meet and allow discussion to bend toward inferring about each other's hometowns ends up with that same damn question. Sometimes I'll reply "Utah" and they'll just kind of look at me with wide eyes and nod, as if they "understand" that I'm Mormon. That always gets me, though, because their reaction is similar to the time I told my mom I wanted to go on birth control...like it's some taboo subject, a word that should go unsaid or only muttered under your breath like he-who-must-not-be-named...(nerd alert!)

   Other times, the person I am conversing with won't even skip a beat. Something like this: "Where were you born?" "Utah" "So you're Mormon?"

   Really, people?

   The only good thing that has become of this seemingly endless cycle in my life is that I now know how to handle the situation when meeting someone else who also hails from Utah. Our conversations go something like so:

   "So where are you from?" -- experienced and wise self

   "...Utah" -- person from Utah

   Then I just open my eyes wide and nod, I totally understand.