Rachel's blog: "Rants and ramblings"

Let me state this for the record: I AM A FEMALE. I have been since the day I was born. All of the parts of the female anatomy I currently possess have belonged to me since 1971. So why, why, WHY do people insist on referring to me as "he"? Or "sir"? And not just once but 2 to 3 times this week???? Yes, I am big. I am fairly tall for a woman (5'9")as well as being, shall we say, a hefty gal. And yes, my hair is short...not Demi Moore-in-G I Jane-short, or Susan Powter "Stop the Insanity" short, but just short. I'm at the deli counter on Sunday, and the person behind the counter asked who was next (which was me). Without really looking, the guy next to me points towards me and replies "I think he is". WTF?????? "HE"???? I'm sorry, I didn't have testicles when I walked in the door, do you know something I don't know? I will admit, since I wasn't working I had on an old Harley Davidson t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts, but c'mon....these aren't floppy man-titties swinging here; these go into a C-cup, thank you very much!!!! Am I missing something? Is there something I don't see that everyone else does? Or should I just stick to my original assumption the people are idiots????

Have you ever watched a monster movie that is so awful, you find yourself cheering for the monster? I was just watching a 90's version of the Japanese monster movies, this one featuring our old friend Gamera (the turtle creature) trying to save Japan from the Gaos, a flock of carnivorous pterodactyl thingies that are snacking on the residents of Tokyo. After about 45 minutes of this Mighty Morphin Power Rangers knock-off, I found myself wishing Gamera would flip Japan the bird (no pun intended) and let the Gaos just snack happy. That kinda leads into some of the really bad slasher flicks where you hope and pray that if there is a God (or Goddess, if you prefer), the killer will slit every single vocal cord in the whining, screaming throat of the "heroine", who's only skill is to run whining and screaming in her underwear...if she was even wearing any to begin with....you get my point. Some people actually find these scary, or thrilling...I usually watch them when I can't sleep and I need something to bore me to sleep. Really, I think they would serve a better purpose as a torture device in the Middle East: "Tell me where the weapons are!" "I tell you nothng, infidel!!" "Tell me, or I will make you watch 'Gamera: Guardian'!!" "No!!! Anything but that!! I tell you everything!!"

I love the way our company cannot come up with original names for our store brand products: they just take part of the name brand and throw a "wal-" in front of it. For example, our version of Claritin is "Wal-itin", ibuprofen is "wal-profen", naproxen sodium (generic Aleve)is "wal-proxen"...you get the picture. So I was pondering what other products we could come up with: Pantene=Wal-tene Head & Shoulders=Wal-& Shoulders Irish Spring=Wal-rish Spring Arrid X-tra Dry=Wal-rid... Tampax=Walpax (another thought: Walmart products are called Sam's choice...they could have Sampax!!) Wow, this could be a fun little game...how many stupid product names can we come up with?

Last night was kind of a reality check for me, as I strolled throught the cemetary where a lot of my family is buried. I was out there because yesterday was the anniversary of my dad's death. Every year I go out on June 30th to pay my respects to someone I have no memory of. I was 2 when he died, so the only memory I have, be it vague, is my mom holdng me over his casket. I guess I told her "That's not my daddy", so she took me to another part of the funeral home until she took me home.....anyhow, even though I really have no memories of him, I go every year. I'm saddened more by the fact that I can't remember anything about him than by the fact that my father is dead. My cousin Joey is buried nearby, and I still take his death hard. He and our cousin Cheryl died June 27, 1999, in a motorcycle accident near our grandmother's house. He lost control coming around a corner, hit a cement abbutment in the road, and he and Cheryl were thrown off the bike. I have trouble driving near that area to this day because all I remember is seeing where the police had marked each spot they hit as they bounced down the street, one of them off a tree...Cheryl was so badly messed up that she had to have a closed casket, and Joey just didn't look like himself. The funeral was so sad...funerals are hard enough, but when it's a double funeral, and then Joey had military honors on top of it--flag over the casket, the playing of Taps--to this day I can't watch anything resembling it on tv. Now that particular part of my family sees me as very aloof and hard to get to know...I'm not, it's just they've never tried. So when I broke down at the cemetary after the funeral that day, no one understood why. My mom knew why: A little over a month before the accident, Joey was home on a personal leave, so he stopped by the bar Mom manages and called me to come over for a drink. He was going through a bad time right then...about 3 months before as he was on a submarine near Kosovo, he got word that his stepson had been killed (he was about 9 years old, run over by an ice cream truck). The less than a month after that, his wife filed for divorce. He felt like he had no one at that time. He just wanted someone to rant to and get drunk with...then he asked me "If anything would happen to me, promise me you'll be at my funeral". I just looked at him in shock, told him not to talk like that, etc...etc...he just said "Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything stupid, but promise me you'll be there because I want to know someone that loves me will be there". I made that promise, but I never imagined that a month later I would be keeping it. No one really knows about that conversation, except my mom and my sister. They also don't know that about a week after the funeral he came to me in a dream. Yeah, I know you're probably thinking " OK, she's a head case", but this is the honest truth. I was dreaming that I was telling a friend of his about what happened, only to realize it wasn't a friend I was talking to, it was Joey. He let me know he was ok and told me "You kept your promise" and hugged me...and then that was it. I am a firm believer that our loved ones are always with us, but seeing the graves of all of them is just sad; it's the fact they won't be joking and laughing with us here in the physical plane anymore.

So it's come to my attention that y'all can read my blogs, but not comment on them. I'll be damned if I know why, because I've checked my settings several times and it says ANYONE can comment. So...CT is the fascist pig, not me. And if you can't comment yet, just add me. ~HUGS~

Yep, you've got it...it's the next installment of More Useless Products!!!! Butt Paste...yeah, all it's for is for diaper rash, just like Desitin, but...BUTT PASTE? With a cartoon baby just a-pickin' and a-grinnin' on the box??? If you're gonna call it that, then why don't you put a pic of a fat middle-aged man in a diaper and bonnet on the box.... This little number is a couple shelves away down from the Butt Paste: Hem-Swabs! Yep, little medicated sticks to stick up your ass...great, just great. Put them with some KY jelly and you've got a gay man's weekender package! The 12 Drug at home drug test. This tests for 7 illicit drugs and 5 prescription drugs. Illicit drugs? That sounds more like an extramarital affair...how about torrid drugs? Hot steamy drugs? Curl-your-toes drugs? Anyhow, I'm readng the package and the directions include: 1. Obtain sample---ok that's easy enough, little plastic cup is included---2. Place lid on cup and sit on legs--now I'm not stupid, but my first thought is "Why does it have to be on your legs? Can't you just set it on a table?" Then it's pointed out to me that the cup and lid have little clear plastic legs to set it on it's side...now if I am confused about that, what do you think your average crackhead do????? A personal massager...yeah, just a PC term for VIBRATOR!!! It comes with 3 different tips, depending on how much or little you want to get off...I think they're called The Moaner, The Screamer, and The Swing-From-The-Ceiling-Fan. Plus is has a convenient travel pouch...great for if you have nothing to do in a traffic jam.

Upon wandering through my place of employment the other day, I stumbled across some more useless items we sell. I don't know who comes up with this shit, let alone actually buys it... The Olivia Newton-John Self Breast Examination Kit. While I'm all for breast cancer awareness, who actually had the nerve to come up with this, and have ONJ endorse it???? It comes with a magnifiying glass that fits your finger, an examination pad, a velvet pouch for the magnifier, and a postcard. I was born with my own self breast examination kit...it's called HANDS. A portable alchol detector...great for parties! See who can blow the highest at your next kegger!! A perfect stocking stuffer for your favorite alcoholic!! If you blow in the Alcohol Detector, you won't end up blowing Bubba in the big house!!

So today one of our neighborhood junkies comes in for, *SURPRISE*, syringes...however she had some other purchases to get along with them, just to make it look good. I watch with amazement as I'm ringing up syringes, a twin pack of enemas, personal lubricant, and a pint of ice cream...WTF?!?!?!?! Just looking at this eclectic conglomeration of items had me shaking my head. All I could think was there was about to be one hell of a hootinannie in the hood today! At what kind of fucked up party is someone gonna be yelling, "WOO-HOO! Enemas and ice cream!" THEN she had to stop for beer and cigarettes on the way home...this was 11:30 in the morning!!!! Just needed to share that.