Corona Shopping Problems

During this pandemic with Coronavirus, people have had some real problems. I am, thankfully, not one of those people with real problems, but I've felt a bit unsettled as our lives have been turned upside down in semi-isolation. To soothe that, well, I've done a bit of shoppy-shop.  Just a tiny bit. Ok, that's a damn lie. I've shopped so much in the last eight weeks, I don't even know what's coming, who's it for, and when I ordered it.  I don't want to perjure myself, but I've purchased an epic load of stuff that I didn't really need, BUT I JUST HAD TO HAVE.  I think I spent over 10 mindless hours, one day, looking up THE PERFECT outdoor pillow cushions.  I admit, it's dumb--but also numbing because when I was shopping, I wasn't itching. I do kind of blame Marshall's and TJ Maxx for this for being closed up.  That's usually where the things that needed me would find me.  Now, I just happen to stumble across nonsense online, and have to have it.

However,

this post isn't really about the crap I've bought.  I'd much rather let my husband discover most of our new treasures on his own without reading about them first (ohhhh heyyyyy new rugs for the porch, wooden spoons, A FOOD PROCESSOR, those heels were really only $5, and I swear that dress has been in my closet for awhile.  Yes, I know I rarely wear dresses. Yes, I know it's sleeveless and I always wear sleeves..... Look, there's a new "that guy makes knifes in real fire with real metal" show on...dontcha want to watch it? *slides out of room, stealthily*)

This is about what I *cannot* find in my *materialistic* shopping endeavors:

--I cannot find a pair of leggings or pants that is not high waisted. 
For the love of all that is holy, CAN WE STEP AWAY FROM MOM JEANS-MOM LEGGINGS-PANTS-TO-BOOBS? That is a look I cannot get behind. Yes, the extra height of the pants does a great job of holding in momloaf.  Yes. You can get compression that smoooshes your belly fat up to hold your tots or smooooosh your potatopooch around to make your flat-ass look full.  Yes. Both of those things are great. I guess....

however...

One rogue stitch can have you looking like your lady pieces are part of a camel's foot on a Wednesday.  Also, I'm sorry to say, if you push any of your muffinloaf up, you're getting backfat and you might not even have backfat.  Jeeeeeeeeez, you're just teaching your back by saying "hey back, meet upper hips. You two should spoon. Forever." And in my opinion, that's just insane. There is no need for premature backfatting. That shiz comes on it's own timeline and you don't want it there early.

--I cannot find a cute sweatshirt that is a normal length and size. Who's idea was it to crop sweatshirts and make them 52 times too big in the shoulders?? I know--the same person that thinks that YOU SHOULD wear pants that have waists that compete with your bra band. Some day, like today, we are going to say things like "when I was a kid, sweatshirts were something that we wore when we wanted to cover our midriff with something warm and cozy." and "Sweatshirts used to be a great garment to wear with regular rise jeans on a casual day, yet we didn't look homeless, fat, and homeless. Did I mention homeless?!" Yes. those were the days.

--I cannot find a swimsuit for my 10 year old daughter that will have enough fabric across her butt to keep her from needing to excavate unwanted fabric from nether crevice!  #1--She's 10. #2 Crack digging isn't a good look on anyone. Also, again, the high waisted cheeky cuts are killing me here--- Let's cover the stomach with AS MUCH FABRIC AS POSSIBLE, but let the junk in the trunk roam free---shoot,  these suits just leave the trunk OPEN and let all the groceries fly out.  I'm so confused. Also, Karens, this post isn't a bit about body positivity. She can wear whatever the hell she wants to wear that is comfortable for her.  But I can't imagine a 10 year old saying "oooh. I'd really love this suit if only more of it was in my asscanyon"

and lastly...
--I cannot find Anise Seed Extract, Clorox Wipes, more than single ply toilet paper, and rubbing alcohol.
Can't an isolated Italian make pizzelles, sanitize her door knobs, clean herself up without toilet paper shreds, and dry out her poison ivy? Ugh. The supply chain on that extract better right itself soon.... This pizzelle iron is getting dusty!

Baby Alive's Real Name Should Be "Baby Stab Me In the Eye"

If you are my Facebook friend, you may have noticed that we started a casualty list with my daughter's toys.  On Christmas Eve, she ripped the arm off a lifesize doll and proceeded to laugh hysterically about it.  Perhaps I was the one laughing.  Not sure on that one, but regardless, it was funny.  That was casualty #1.  Honestly, that ugly doll had it coming.  I'm not sure whattttt Santa was on when he slated that poor gal' for our house.  She didn't stand a chance....

I knew enough to number these "casualties" because my daughter is, ahem, a little rough.  She's not exactly the type of delicate flower that you'd expect in a four year old girl, unless that delicate flower can be mistaken for a nuclear missile.  Her smile can easily light up a room.  Her hands can easily tear down a nation, or the internet in a nation (I'm talking to you North Korea).

In addition to the ugly a$$ doll (Lefty, I like to call her) that Santa stained Christmas with, my little miss was gifted a lot of art supplies.  My husband and I, even against our better judgement, SOBERLY, purchased her a rubber stamp kit.  Casualty #2 was my window sill which was stamped with beautiful purple and pink fairies. For the record, a magic eraser will remove rubber stamps from painted window sills....

This post is actually about Casualty #3 though.

ME.

I AM CASUALTY NUMBER 3. I made a major error in judgement and told a family member to purchase <drum roll, or trumpet Taps> BABY ALIVE.

For those of you that don't know, Baby Alive is a doll that eats, drinks, and sh*tzzz her pants. You feed her, give her water *SO SHE DOESN'T GET CLOGGED, according to the directions*, and then wait for the digestive magic to happen. So I tried to get her on Black Friday at a reduced rate because who the eff pays full price for a doll that makes poo and requires so much damn attention? 

I ordered it on Walmart's website at a discounted price, only to receive an email 12 hours later (after I'd already been to Walmart and walked past her Black Friday display, saying "hey girl, I ordered you online already so I don't even need to pick you up right now because you're in a box with my address on in a FedEx terminal somewhere) that says "Your item is unavailable, but we've credited your account.  Sorry about the inconvenience."

How wonderful of you to credit me for the item that I could have purchased in the store that day for the discounted price but didn't because I ordered it online earlier that you've now deemed unavailable.

And that, my literary friends, was some foreshadowing.  I should have taken this as the universe's message: "Lady, you don't want Baby Alive, so take this as your hint and buy an Easy Bake Oven." But I didn't. 

Shortly after, a family member asked what they could get my little darling for Christmas.  I remembered that I was unsuccessful with Baby Alive and offered that as a suggestion.  The family member even questioned my sanity when I make the suggestion.  I said "she really wants it.  It'll be fine!" #dumbdumbdumb

Fast Forward to yesterday, while celebrating with said family member.  The rest of this post will be a bulleted itinerary of events:

* daughter opens Baby Alive and nearly sh*tzzz her own pants out of excitement.

* daughter feeds and "waters" Baby Alive until that doll sh*tzzz her pants so many times that we run out of the provided diapers "in the value pack". Don't worry.  The directions say you can order additional ones (more on this in a minute).

* family member reminds me that I made this suggestion so I cannot be upset.

* I pour myself a large drink and eat a handful of chocolate.

* daughter cries 14 times after I say "we cannot feed this little sh*tter baby until we buy her more diapers" the 19 times she asks. Yes.  I ignored her the other 5 times.

* daughter sneaks into her bathroom, rips open a pack of Baby Alive "peas" and sprinkles some of that mess all over the bathroom floor, then cleans up her spillage with water, creating something I can only describe as a pistachio puddling exfoliation treatment for my bathroom vanity, counter, and floor.  She may have fed small amounts to Baby Alive, as well. I clean said spillage up and reprimand daughter for ATTEMPTING to do exactly what I asked her not to do. 

*Baby Alive proceeds to succumb to the call of nature. I cannot write "sh*tzzz her pants" however, because we had run out.  I place her in the bathroom sink as my daughter cries, horrified, that I would even consider making her sleep in there.

At this point, one would have thought I would have questioned the whereabouts of Baby Alive's spoon and dish and the "non spillage" of peas.  I did not...

*I get both of my kids cleaned up for bed, and happen to trip walking into darling daughter's room. I catch myself on the door, throwing it backwards against the door stopper, and hear darling daughter exclaim "Oh NO!!!!"

*I look down and see that she has hoarded the "non-spillage" Baby Alive "Peas" behind her door, which have now sloshed all over her white-ish Berber carpet.  She was totally planning on sneaking that non-diapered baby into her room for a late night snack!!!

*I freaked out, cleaned up pistachio-exfoilating-suppposedtolooklikePeas-mess on her carpet, threatened taking Baby Alive back all while Baby Alive chimed "Where are you mommy? It is time to play?  Did I make a stinky?" from her comfortable spot-relieving herself in my bathroom sink.

*After getting a hyperventilating preschooler to bed "BUT NOW SHE DOESN'T HAVE FOOD OR DIAPERS!!!", I start searching #amazon for the replacement food and diapers for this PITA toy (which my daughter loves more than pink starburst and more than I love dry red wine).  Oh HELL no. $13 dollars will only score you 10 diapers and 2 more packages of food.  whatanEFFINGdeal.

*I google "Baby Alive DIY" and find a plethora of ideas (newborn diapers, don't feel like you have to get Pampers, DIY cloth diapers, baking soda and food coloring "peas" and "peaches" food, etc.)

Fast Forward 16 hours and through Daughter's 31 questions of "When is it time to get "mibebe"(yes, she's french-mexican now) her diapers?"

*I go into #walmart and purchase some cheap newborn diapers.  A lady walks up to me and asks me if I'm expecting.  My response?  "No, but I have recently lost 15 pounds. Thanks so much." She walked away quickly.

At this point, I must say, I waved the white flag.  You win #babyalive.  I'd like to think I was a nobel competitor.  #casualtynumber3isme

Black Friday Just Ate Thanksgiving

Black Friday has now turned into "Eat Turkey And Pie And Leave So I Can Shop" Thursday, ETAPALSICS Thursday for short.

Oh yes.  And more commonly known, PRE-2010, as #THANKSGIVING.

What the hell, big box stores!? You are opening at 6pm? That's so @&*%ing ridiculous that I cannot even gather my thoughts to compose this post. Someone is reading this saying 1.) "no one forces anyone to go shopping."  Someone else is reading this saying 2.)"who cares what time they open? It's allowing me more time to plan my evening."

Here is my rebuttal:
1.) I like Thanksgiving.  It's one of my favorite holidays.  I don't want to cut it short to go stand in line for the crap that I think someone in my family needs.  I want to have the holiday, AND THEN go stand in line and drop sharp elbows to people getting pushy around the crap I think I need after JUST being thankful for all the stuff that I have (that I don't use...that I just store and organize). That's what I want to do.  Furthermore, I live in New effing York.  It's expensive to live here.  For the love of Pilgrims, have you seen our gas prices? They're lower than they've been in a half of a decade and they're still like 40 cents higher per gallon than anywhere else. We get taxed for everything.  I sneeze and get a tax bill in the mail saying I owe something for it.  I can't afford NOT to shop on Black Friday.

Which brings up someone else's thought: You need to realign your priorities so that your family members don't want for so much and they see the value in simplicity.

Frickin' good point.  I'll get right on that.  I'm sure my entire family will love a scarf which I will painstakingly make from dryer lint and bathroom drain hair. I'll surely wrap that b**ch up in recycled paper bags that I dug out of the recycling bin at the grocery store. Don't worry, it will have a burlap bow too, making it extra fancy.  I'm sure I'll find a pattern on the homemade christmas board on Pinterest....

Oh, and to the person who was thinking "who cares what time they open? It allows me to spread my evening out..." Let me ask you a question. What's special about standing in line at a store at 6pm on a Thursday night? My friend Shari and I had this conversation and we determined there is NOT A DAMN THING special about that.  You can shop on Thursday nights at 6pm.  You can shop at most stores at 9pm.  But you are not supposed to be shopping at 2am in a store unless it's the most magical grocery store on Earth, #Wegmans, and you are drunk.  So, by starting at 6pm, you will get the crap you think you need but you don't and you will go home at a reasonable hour, and will not be craving lunch at 8am like in previous years. #lame.  

Economic materialism has impacted these stores to open earlier and earlier and release their ads months ahead of Black Friday, I mean ETAPALSICS Thursday (Let's brand that.  It has a really nice roll off the tongue. E-Tap-Al-Sics).  There will be NO MORE enjoying a day with family and friends, being thankful, watching football, leaving the table and getting the most comfortable seat to pass out in before Uncle Johnny starts snoreweezing in that spot so loudly you can't hear the TV (Fun Fact: I do not have an Uncle Johnny).  You will not be tearing through the ads in the paper, because you will have developed a ETAPALSICS Thursday plan which is color coded and organized for efficiency.

So, to recap, Thanksgiving is now to be cut ridiculously short, and shopping on Black Friday doesn't even matter because all the good deals will already be over, and all the stores will look like Fallujah, post-invasion. I mean, what are people supposed to do on Friday?

Perhaps I'm just bitter over this, but in my opinion, the deals kind of suck this year, anyway. I'll be busy though, because I have some dryer lint and hair to knit into a scarf. I wonder what I washed that was red?

Socializing at Walmart

What is it about Walmart that makes every person I know cringe at the thought of having to venture there?

Is it the less than stellar produce? The roll back (then up) prices? Is it the shopping carts that you are pretty sure you'll need a tetanus shot after using? Perhaps it's the customer that you're bound to run into going the opposite way in EVERY. DAMN. AISLE..

For me, it's running into at least fifteen people that I have to talk to, which is kind of funny because those fifteen people are equally annoyed that they have to talk to me. It should be a rule that if you run into someone in Walmart, the standard procedure is that you stay the eff away from them. A smile and a nod, or even a "hey there!" is ENOUGH so that everyone in that Godforsaken place can just get the crap they need and get the hell out of there.

And sweet Jesus, someone show my dad this post. That man knows everyone, and if he doesn't know someone, he is introducing himself to them. Walmart is not the Catalina Wine Mixer, Dad (whoa...I didn't think I'd ever need to reference the movie Stepbrothers). It's the place produce goes to die...