LaughAtlantis

So, I got notice a week ago that my medical insurance - Medical Claims Services/Health Care Value Management - decided to reject a claim for a doctor's appointment I had in July of 2001. They suck. They refused to respond to the claim for a year and three months and finally rejected it based on the fact that I have a prior condition that they were uncertain that I was previously covered for. But get this - they didn't cover that initial appointment with my neurologist because of my history of epilepsy, but they covered my subsequent appointments with her. So, what gives??? Why some, but not the first? Why are they such huge colossal assholes???

So now I had to contact my old employer because my previous health insurance company has since gone out of business, and of course my old employer has updated their computer systems since I left so I am now nowhere to be found. Ultimately they did find me in the payroll system but not in the HR system and told me that I have to get my new medical insurance to write them a letter requesting the coverage verification. Well, of course they aren't going to do that. Hell, they waited over a year to address this in the first place. So I had to make a special request to the powers that be for them to accept a letter from my company's HR department which will then be forwarded on to the insurance people. This is endless and annoying and I just want to hurt somebody.

Argh.

Assholes.

This morning I was riding the Green Line T into Boston and I listened to the driver announce over the loudspeaker, "You know, if you would all move to the back of the cah, we could expedite this trip a little quickah, so move to the back of the cah! They's plenty a space they-uh."

Where to begin?

First off, Mr. T Driver, I know you're from Massachusetts, but let me introduce you to the 18th letter of the alphabet. I like to call it R. It belongs not just in consonant blends, but also at the ends of some words. Try it.

Secondly, the word expedite means "to make faster" Thus, when you say "expedite a little quicker," you're being redundant. And despite the fact that you've used a really big word, you've still wound up sounding dim.

Finally, how the heck can you tell that there's room at the back of the car? Do you have a little built-in camera back there that tells you that the T passengers are basking in open spaces and wondrous comfort? No? Did you take a class in T passenger psychology that says that T riders like to cluster in the front car unless you take a cattle prod to them and force them to the back? No? Then how do you KNOW???

Let me tell you this: you don't know. In fact, you're dead wrong in thinking this. How do I know? Because I am actually sitting at the back of the car, and there is a guy with a backpack stuck right in my face and a woman whose bag is actually resting on my shoulder. Believe me, it's crammed full back here.

You might now be saying, "Gee Joy, aren't you getting awfully upset about this? I mean, worse things happen on the T than just bad grammar and pronunciation and lack of passenger knowledge on the part of the T drivers, right?"

You're absolutely right.

So let me tell you about one of those things.

In fact, today I was also on the Red Line riding from Park Street and South Station. This is just two stops and realistically, it's the place and time when the Red Line is the most crowded on your average weekday morning because people are all heading for the financial district. Today, however, I lucked out and got a relatively uncrowded train. I mean, I was standing, but there was room to breathe and space to move.

So this elderly Asian man comes and stands right in front of me. I found this slightly odd because there was a great deal of room behind him and he was standing RIGHT by me, sort of sideways, and was holding a plastic shopping back next to him that was bumping into my knees. Had he moved over a step or two, he would have had considerably more space for himself.

Well, we stopped at Dowtown Crossing and a few folks got off, creating more room which this man did not take advantage of. About two seconds later I figured out why, when his hand snaked under my coat and STROKED MY CROTCH.

I whipped my knee up at him and sidestepped into the woman standing next to me. He looked completely startled, as if he never expected me to be offended by his action. At this point, the T was pulling into South Station and I just stared at him. The doors opened and I pushed by him roughly, just saying "Creep." I couldn't even muster up an adequate insult or make any sort of steps to stop the guy from future T molestations - he stayed on the T and I don't know where he was planning on getting off it. And frankly, it was clear that he was getting off ON it, so maybe he wasn't actually planning on ever leaving the train. But in any case, there wasn't really anyone I could run and tell about this lovely start to my day, so I just got off the train and came to work.

Hows that for a fucking spectacular commute?

Okay, so I quit writing the novel yesterday and started something new.

Why, Joy? Why would you do that? You were doing so well!!

Well, yes, I sort of was, but it was like pulling teeth and it was making me crazy. The problem I had was that I was attempting to combine the plots and characters of two novels that I had already started and abandoned in the hopes of coming up with one cohesive tale. But the whole point of this NaNoWriMo challenge is that you are aiming for quantity and not quality. I felt lke I was doing a rewrite, so the words weren't coming and the ideas weren't crystallized enough for me and I just wound up getting more and more frustrated, until finally I looked at my computer screen and just said, "Fuck it." I don't have to be writing this story at this time. I can start something new and fresh and then I won't feel like I'm under any pressure to make it perfect becaus I will know that editing will come later.

And so, I'm off and running. 1271 words in about 45 minutes of writing thus far, so I am much closer to being on track than with the other story.

So again, I say, YAY ME!

Sitting on a wet toilet seat is among the most unpleasant sensations in the world. I get very agitated when it happens. Generally speaking, I'm mindful of checking the seat before I sit. But sometimes, when I've got to go badly, it slips my mind. And inevitably I'm in a movie theater or a bus station or some such godawful place where sitting on a wet seat makes you fear for your life. Which begs the question, is it better to sit in the pee of a stranger or the pee of someone you know?

Now, I am not an advocate of standing above the seat to pee. It's a toilet, for god's sakes, you're supposed to put your butt on it. But if you have a huge problem with germs or cooties or whatever you think you're going to catch, put some paper around the edges and then sit. When you stand above the seat, you inevitably wind up peeing all over it, and it's likely that you wind up pissing on your leg as well.

Recently I went to the bathroon at ImprovBoston, a theater that I go to on a regular basis. I went into the bathroom immediately after somebody I know - not well, mind you, she's the girlfriend of a sorta-friend of mine. And when I went in, there was pee on the seat. On both sides of the seat. It was like she had sprayed the whole place with pee. That's just nasty. Now, on one occasion in my past I admonished a woman coming out of a pee-covered bathroom stall. But how do you accuse someone you sort of know of peeing on the seat? How do you act knowing that you had to clean up someone else's uirne... someone you then have to go chat with out of common courtesy??

I just don't know. And personally, I'd just feel awkward writing to Miss Manners about this sort of thing.

Every year, I promise myself that I am NOT going to go overboard in buying stuff for the holidays. And every year, I go overboard in buying stuff for the holidays. I have a very young niece and nephew, which necessitates buying toys - and frankly, that part is always fun. I relish that part. I have an older niece and nephew, and that necessitates giving money, in that I don't see them that often, which makes choosing appropriate gifts tougher. And then there's friends - I have a lot of them and they're gift-y people and my brother and his wife, my sister and her husband, my grandmothers (shit, I haven't even sent cards to them yet. I am a very bad person) and my parents. And Rod, obviously.

My biggest problem right now - and it's a stupid, stupid problem - is that I feel this insane need to make everybody "even." For some ungodly reason, I feel like I have to spend the same amount on my mother as on my dad as on my brother, etc., etc. I got my mother a gift when I was in Alaska... and that has sort of set the price precedent. It's a nice gift. She'll like it... I hope. And I got my dad a good gift and I love some of the stuff that I got for Zachary and Julia (my nephew and niece).

And then there's the problem child. My brother. I type this in knowing full well that he's the only person in my family who is likely to read this. Matt has always been incredibly tough to buy for, and this year he has pretty much refused to answer the question of what he wants. I have asked repeatedly. I have threatened to buy him a Chia pet. To no avail.

So I ask... why? Why don't people just keep updated wish lists all the time so people know what they want? Wouldn't that just make it so cool when somebody randomly wanted to buy you a gift... they'd always have a place to go to find out what you'd want!

And why would somebody flat out refuse to tell you what they want??? What's that about? Contrary to popular belief, I can't read minds - I can beat my brother at Mastermind but that's just because I'm smarter than him (look at me, trying to get him riled up - heehee!) - but that doesn't mean I'm psychic. I'm going to buy him The Clapper. Or a lava lamp. Or polka-dotted purple kitchen towels. And I'm going to stick out my tongue when he opens them. Nyah.

It was a shitty Christmas.
Literally.

On Monday night, Rod got what I affectionately refer to as "The Dystentery" and what my brother likes to call "The Carletti Ebola." This basically caused him to simultaneously have diarrhea and vomiting for 24 hours. Thankfully, I did not get The Dysentery myself - I had it in the spring, so maybe I'm immune or something - but I got a nasty cold and was absolutely freezing. I just couldn't get warm - I had two blankets over me, the heat jacked up, and I could feel that there was warnth around me but I still had goosebumps. Just awful.

So we didn't get to go to Jen's for Christmas Eve, which sucked. And we didn't get to go home for Christmas, which also sucked. But we were together - ill, but together, and so it sucked a little less than just being alone and sick would have.

On Christmas Eve Day, I made a trip to the supermarket to attempt to buy Kaopectate. I wound up wandering through the aisles, confused and feverish, trying to find Kaopectate and foods that were "bland but Christmasy." THat was my mantra as I trudged through the store - "bland but Christmasy, bland but Christmasy, bland but Christmasy" - have you any idea how hard it is to mesh those two concepts?? Have you any concept of how tough it is to do when you're sick?

By the time I got home I had no idea what I'd bought. Hell, I hardly had any idea when I got to the checkout. There was rice and brie and chicken and raspberry turnovers. Don't ask.

So now I get to have Christmas tomorrow - and then again on Sunday. Yippee. Yahoo even. It's the 27th and already it seems like Christmas was some distant memory that I now have to relive - or live - tomorrow. Can't I just nap instead?

I work on the thirtieth floor of an office building in Boston. In the morning, the sun beats in and it's nice and toasty, if you're sitting directly in the path of the sun.

But I'm not. I have a cubicle with a view, yes, but the view is behind me. I have to turn around to look out the window, and even then I have to lean backwards a little bit, because my cube wall is immediately to the left of me when I'm sitting at my computer and the windows are on the other side of said wall.

The thing is, though, that by late morning the sun has reached the top of the building and there is no longer toasty warmness happening. In fact, it's quite chilly. And to complicate things, somebody complained back in August or July about the incredible heat over here, and as such, they turned the air conditioning on. Great for August, but now it's January and it's still on. That's right, we're in the midst of the coldest spell Boston has had since meteorology was invented and my office is still air-conditioned.

I complained. I was told that it had been changed in July due to complaints and now this was just a lot to ask. (As you can perhaps imagine, the complaint in July was because we were still getting heat.) But no changes have been made this time around and it's ridiculously cold. Who do I have to kill to get some heat around here???

I apologize for any typos that might exist in this entry. My fingers have frostbite.

The letter of the day was E. One of the words given on the AlphaBytes list was etcetera.

PET PEEVE ALERT!

Et cetera is two separate words. They are two Latin words that we have simply borrowed in their original form to use in English. We abbreviate them into etc., because we're a lazy people who can't be bothered to write out the words "and so forth" and thus resort to a three letter abbreviation. But if you're writing out the whole darn thing, it's 'et cetera,' damn it!

Another thing. If you look it up in the dictionary, you will see that the word is defined as, "and others of the like kind; and the rest; and so on." Thus, if you write (or say) "and etc.," you are a nincompoop.

And don't get me started about people who abbreviate et cetera as "&c." Because that's just plain dumb.

I don't like any of the F words listed. None of 'em. Feh.

Here they are: Fable, Face, Fault, Fearsome, Flight, Forbidden, Foreign, Fragmented, Fuck, Fuzz. How do I do a whole entry on any of those... I'm blocked. Watch me try to come up with an entry...

On Tuesday I promised myself I would do a blog entry every day until the end of the month so that I wouldn't have to do two letters in one day. Yesterday I was busy. Grrrrrr.

So, last night I was walking down the street, coming back from the supermarket, and I see this guy lying on the sidewalk. He was about a block away when I first noticed him, and from my angle I wasn't sure if he was a person or just a pile of clothing. THere was a guy walking by him at the time, so I figured, hey, if it's a person, he'd stop, right?

WRONG.

This guy just walked by a man lying FACE DOWN on the sidewalk. Didn't stop to check and see if he was breathing or anything. Just kept walking, because hey, he probably had to be somewhere, right? Or, you know, maybe common human decency was just beyond him.

Sometimes, people suck.

So I stopped, a couple cars drove by, and finally one stopped, and we tried to get the guy up. He was homeless and drunk and just a mess. We got a cop, and he called a shelter, and all was good.

Sadly, I was too busy trying to make sure that the guy didn't freeze to death lying on a Cambridge sidewalk, so I couldn't go beat up the jackass who ignored him.

Today I am having a shit day. (Yes, I know I didn't say shitty, I said shit. It's a grammatical thing that for some reason makes me happy on my truly bad days. For some reason, making it into two nouns instead of an adjective and a noun makes it a worse day. Shut up, that does not make me weird.)

Anyway, so I'm just in a bad mood today and there's no real reason for it. Nothing has gone terribly wrong today (outside of, you know, war with Iraq), it's just your basic not-great-day. But I'm just in a mood, I can't pinpoint why, but I just want to go home and curl up and sleep. I haven't had a day off in forever - on weekends I either have shows or my improv proctice group or whatever - and I just want to take a day to lie on the coach and eat popcorn and read.

But what irks me is this... every once in a while I will be in a bad mood and someone will say to me, "You're not living up to your name today, Joy." This bugs the CRAP out of me. I don't get to go up to folks and say, "Boy, Charles... your name means manly but you're kind of a wuss, aren't you?" or "Mary, that means bitter, and you certainly DO live up to your name!" Why do people who crack on someone's name think they're funny? Or appreciated? Or human?

During my first year in college, people constantly sang "JOY (pump it up pump it up) and PAIN! SUNSHINE and RAIN (give it to me Rob Base)" at me. Throughout the Christmas season, I get "Joy to the world!" At various times I get "Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea," "We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun," "I got the joy (joy) joy (joy) down in my heart," and the list goes on ad infinitum.

I also get, "It's a JOY to meet you (chuckle snort)." This does not endear a new acquaintance to me, but rather makes me stare daggers while maintaining a fixed smile. If that's how you're going to interact with me, just... don't.

Sorry. I'm just having a shit day.

On Saturday, I went to Newbury Street to get my hair cut, then wandered through the Public Gardens and Boston Common heading toward the financial district. I nearly decided to walk to Cambridge, which was my end destiantion, but thought, "Na, it's too hot, just browse a bit and then take the T."

So I went into Borders and - because I am who I am - browsing of course turned to buying. I've been on a weird reading cycle lately, going from chick lit to sci-fi to Harry Potter to mystery to whatever. I'm always on the lookout for good books. I found a variety of books that I wanted to get - Dennis Lehane's Mystic River (my friend Zabeth is in the movie, coming out soon!), two Jodi Picoults, a book on wedding ceremonies. One of the Jodi Picoults was part of a Buy Two, Get One Free deal off the various books on one rack, so Icouldn't pass that up and I piled on two more.

Anyway, I was looking at the books that I'd piled up and noticed a trend. (This is actually a trend that has long-since begun, but I'm only getting around to being pissed about it now.) I got seven books, of which six were fiction. Of those six, only one was a mass market paperback sized book; the others were all trade paperback.

When did that happen?

When I was a kid, everything was mass market; you didn't have the trade paperback size. And mass market paperbacks cost $4.99, maybe 5.99 if it was really thick. Now you're lucky if you can find one for under 7.99. And the trade paperbacks are worse, they're at least twelve bucks a pop. I just want to READ. I don't want to have to sell my soul to be able to buy books.

But more than the money thing, I just sorta miss mass market paperbacks. It used to be that everything I read was that size - and maybe it still would be, if my tastes hadn't changed a bit as I've grown older. Now, you can really only get sci-fi, mystery, and romance novels in mass market size, everything else is bigger. And that kind of stinks, because there's just a different feel to mass market paperbacks. It fits right in your hand, the print is tighter together, and the binding is tight. There's usually some weird emboss-y thing on the cover, so you can feel the letters of the title and the author's name rising under your hand. And there's crappy coming attraction-type ads for other books by the same publisher in the back, books that have little similarity to the book in your hand, but they're there nonetheless.

I miss that. In a trade paperback the only thing at the back of the book is the occasional reader's guide. It's just not the same.

On the bright side though, it means that someday all my mass market paperbacks will be collectors' items.

I was in Toronto this weekend for Blackout 2003 - well, actually, I was there for the Toronto Improv Festival 2003, but close enough. They had to cancel two nights of shows - lost a lot of money as a result, no doubt - but the festival was fabulous anyway. I saw twelve shows, took six workshops, and went to two kick-ass parties.

(Looooooong ranting vent ahead)
That being said, there was some stress too. Our bus there got canceled so our options were somewhat limited - book a flight for a $1088 apiece or rent a car for $42 a day. Not surprisingly, we picked the car. But that meant Rod had to drive. Rod hasn't driven in four years and, more importantly, has never driven in this COUNTRY. So I spent the whole ten hour trip making sure he was traveling at a reasonable speed limit and sticking to the right side of the road.

Renting a car also meant we had to extend our hotel stay an extra night. When we attempted to book it at the hotel front desk, we were quoted $199 Canadian, which is about $40 American over what we had paid for the first two nights. We booked those on the internet and figured, rather than pay through the nose, why not go to a cyber-cafe and book another night there? We did exactly that, but went by the front desk on Saturday night to make sure that our reservation had been extended. We were informed that thereservation office was closed for the night, but that the information was probably in there and we should come by the next morning. At 8:30 on Sunday morning they didn't have the info yet, and told us to come back at ten. We had to leave for our improv stuff before then, so we arranged to call at noon. We were told, however, not to worry about the situation, that it shouldn't be a problem. When Rod called at noon, the reservation office had yet to figure out the inner workings of our reservation. Still no info. Called at 2, still nothing. Called at 3, and finally, absolutely everything was A-OK!

Of course, that turned out to be bullshit.

Rod & I had an afternoon workshop, dinner, SIX shows that evening, and a HUGE party, and didn't get back to the hotel until 2:30 in the morning. We went to our room and our key cards didn't work. Okay, we thought, maybe they were only coded to give us entry for those two days and we have to recharge them. So off we went to the front desk where we were met by one Richard Cringle, incompetent hotel desk clerk, who will henceforth be known as Dick, as it suits him.

Dick informed us that whoever had told us that we were all set had been mistaken. Because the reservation was made via the internet, the hotel apparently had no knowledge of it or some such thing. The conversation that followed went something like this:
Dick: "This certainly is strange."
Rod: "Yes… but it should be fine, right? I mean, our luggage in still in our room, yes?"
Dick: "I certainly hope not, as we have another guest in there now."
Rod: "Excuse me?? Well, where is our stuff?"
Dick: "It's probably in Lost & Found."
Rod: "So we can get another room and our things can just be retrieved from there?"
Dick: "Oh no, I don't have access to Lost & Found."
Rod: "WHAT??"
Dick: "Well, I would during normal hotel hours, but it is very late, sir."
Rod: "So what are we supposed to do?"
Dick: "Well, is there anything you really need in there tonight? Because I am sure we could solve it all in the morning."
Rod: (starting to laugh at this point) "Oh, this is just ridiculous."
Dick: "Yes, it certainly is strange."
Rod: (still laughing a little bit) "I don't believe this."
Joy: (PISSED) "Okay, you may find this funny but that's probably because..."
Rod: "...because I've been drinking for the last five hours..."
Joy: "Yes, whereas I have been drinking water and am perfectly sober. This is just insane. We called here three times; we were assured before we left this morning that there wouldn't be a problem, and as of three this afternoon there wasn't. And we come in here now and you tell us that you've given away our room and can't give us our luggage and you stand there and DON'T EVEN APOLOGIZE for the situation. I evaluate customer service for a living, sir, and this is REPREHENSIBLE. Just AWFUL."

Apparently, when it counts, I'm kind of a bitch, huh?

Dick apologized (too little and too late, as far as I was concerned), gave us a room and told us he'd call up with fifteen minutes to let us know what he could do. As a parting shot, I mentioned my need to get my epilepsy medication. In reality, I had one type of medication in my purse, but the other was in my suitcase. The one in my purse was the more important of the two, but still... I wasn't too thrilled about skipping a dose of anything in that I'd had a seizure the week before.

They brought the chief of security in and still couldn't find our luggage. They suggested that "maybe the people in your room didn't notice it was there." Yeah, right. Unless they were guests that needed to have a guide dog with them, it was going to be pretty evident that there were open suitcases on the suitcase rack and in the chair. They then determined that the person who had checked in had a very similar last name to Rod, and that's why they'd been given the room. The security guy checked Lost & Found. He called up to our room and asked us to describe our luggage. That didn't bode well - and our luggage wasn't there. He then checked the chambermaid's closets - again, no luggage. AGAIN they asked if there was anything we really needed in our belongings. They informed me that there was a hotel doctor on staff who could probably get me my prescription if need be. Finally they asked, "Do you want us to go knock on the door of the room to wake the other guests up, just to see if your luggage is still there?" Rod looked at me and it was as if a light dawned in his eyes that said we were screwed. "I'm in America on a work visa. If I don't have my passport, I can't get back into the country. And... and... our car keys are in there, so we couldn't leave anyway. And your epilepsy medication... I don't want to be a dick, but yeah, I do want to knock on the door. I just feel like we need to know."

So Dick and Mr. Security Man went and opened up the door. And lo and behold, there was no other guest. Our luggage was sitting there, just as we left it. It was 4:30 in the morning by the time we got back into our original room. We'd spent two very tired and frustrating hours pursuing our phantom luggage, and I was so pissed by the end of it that I just couldn't wait to get out of there in the morning. The security came to our room to offer us a complimentary breakfast for our troubles. Dick then came back to our room to apologize for not apologizing earlier. Whatever.

When we checked out the next morning, we walked up to the front desk and told them we were checking out. The woman asked for our room number. We said 1503. She said, "1503?" and then visibly blanched. "1503, yes. We want to apologize again for the inconvenience from last night." Apparently my reputation as a she-devil preceded me. We did not partake of our complimentary breakfast, but instead just left to trek back to Boston, secure in the knowledge that ten hours of highway were preferable to twenty more minutes of time in that hotel, even if those minutes did include bacon.

So, let me just say to all the folks out there who might be vacationing in Toronto, steer clear of the Metropolitan Hotel. They're unprofessional, impolite, and incompetent. Idiots.

Why is 51% of America SO. FUCKING. STUPID.

I've been conducting an informal survey among the women that I know, asking the simple question, "What's the most you've ever paid for a pair of shoes?" I was somewhat appalled by the answers.

The reason I started this little quest to find shoe answers is that I read a lot of chick lit. Inevitably, there always seems to be something in there about shoes - particularly about shoe shopping. I don't understand women's obsession with shoes. Shoes are just straps of leather and canvas and rubber that prevent your feet from hitting the ground. What's so fabulous about that?

In my eyes, the most important parts of shoes are comfort and function. Super high stiletto heels scare the crap out of me and shoes with no back are bizarre. The combination of those two elements makes me cringe. Why wear shoes that cause you an incredible amount of pain, or point your toes in ways that are clearly unnatural, or produce that nasty squidgy sound when your sweaty foot hits flip-floppy moist leather. Blech. I just don't get it.

So I asked around. I think I asked about twenty women. The answers that I got blew me away. $200 was the average . The average - meaning a number of people had much higher numbers than that. One woman that I work with cited "$400 - but they were on sale, so they would have been $550 normally. I got a real bargain there." I'm sorry, but four hundred dollars for a pair of shoes is not a bargain. Go to Payless. A bargain there is $7.99. Granted, they're crap, but they'll last you a couple months. Or try DSW, where you can get some really nice shoes for far less than a hundred dollars.

I looked around online to find some really freakin' expensive shoes. I found a pair of Louis Vuitton mules that were $1080. Who in their right mind pays over a thousand dollars for buckles, leather, and a piece of cork??

The most money I have ever spent on a pair of shoes was ninety dollars. I was in high school at the time and that was a huge amount of money for me, but they were Doc Martens that I wore pretty much every day for the next six years. I loved those shoes. I wish I still had them, but I wore those things into the ground. SInce then, the most I've paid for a pair of shoes was $55 - a pair of work shoes that I wore often enough to (probably) get my full money's worth out of them.

But $1000? Even if I won the lottery, I wouldn't pay that kind of money for shoes. Hell, if I won the lottery, I'd quit my job and go to cobbling school, become a shoemaker, and charge people astounding sums for my wares.

It seems like some women would actually pay for them.

There are two living things in this world that I find incredibly, horribly, noxiously repulsive. Those first of these is mice.

It is widely acknowledged that mice are evil. They make scritchy scratchy noises and they scurry rather than run. They crawl under your bed or into your trash or into the kitchen at work and they wait for you to look in the opposite direction and then run. So your eye pops in their direction, you see them, and you have no choice but to shriek. It's a natural physical response to such a horror.

When I lived with my friend Tracey, we would shriek and flee, or shriek and try to corner, depending on the situation. We would then put out mousetraps spread with peanut butter or cheese. My bedroom was closest to both the kitchen and the living room, so I was normally the one to hear the snap. And so we would go into the Dead Mouse Room, use a piece of cardboard to nudge the trap (along with its resident dead mouse) into a box. We would then wrap the box firmly with packaging tape and put it outside on the fire escape until the next trash day.

Why? Because you never know what a dead mouse would do if you just put him a trashcan. It could become a killer zombie mouse. We just couldn't take that chance.

Even nastier than mice are silverfish. Silverfish aren't fish at all, they are nasty horrifying grotesue bugs that have no wings but lots of hairy feet and these long antenna coming out of their heads. They sort of defy description. All I can say is that they are vile nasty creatures that occasionally crawl out of the drain and try to kill you.

Literally.

Last week there a bunch of dishes in the sink that I needed to put in the dishwasher. I picked up a dish and then grabbed the sponge. A silverfish leaped up over the edge of the the sponge in a clear attempt to suck the soul out of my body. And I thought mice made me shriek... I dropped that sponge and dish and ran screaming from the room. Seriously. Rod had to go in, take all the dishes out of the sink, find the silverfish, and kill him in the disposal before I would enter the kitchen again. No boxes on the fire escape for the silverfish - just painful death inflicted at the hands of someone willing to be in the same room as such filth.

Even writing about silverfish is creeping me out. My next post will be about something more pleasant.