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I meant to clip my fingernails before I made this, but then I forgot.

Texts out of Context: Episode X

Brief explanation and archives here. Also, I always sorta hope people will catch on and do this on their own blogs, or maybe post their good ones in the comments here, but no one ever does :(

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This phone only does the boring half of the English language for predictive text.

Brushed my teeth, gagged from brushing my tongue too far back, spit, AND THERE WAS A GNAT IN THE SINK. AND IT CAME FROM MY MOUTH.

I am what I like to call ‘very lol.’

Just saw an effing dementor and forgot my effing patronus #wizardfail

Tarp

[15 seconds later] I meant yarp

Sighted: middle aged man in a red Mercedes convertible, pink Abercrombie shirt tucked into white cargo shorts, metallic Oakleys, running his hand through his grey-dyed-blonde mullet

Wonder if Penny dropping her toy on the tile for three hours is bugging the neighbors

I never have but I sort of have a “don’t eff with me” face

Draper, Utah. Glorious Draper, Utah.

Made some brownies and Penny had dog food

I know a lot about horses like always check your tack and stuff

Does it have balls

This has reached new heights of terrible.

A bear had been there recently but we only saw its scat.

Can I have some of your raisin bran?

I was thinking of sending Penny to get you with a little saddle

Hope your neck meat is okay

I asked [my 2 year old daughter] what your dog’s name is and she said “the orange one?”

Yeah it means there are two eggs and no sperm or one egg and an empty sperm, etc. It looks like a cluster of terrible grapes.

In an empty movie theater and some kid just sat down right next to me. I moved.

Gabababaac. That’s what my phone automatically types when I try to write “haaaaaaaaa.”

Tell me you are not discussing the Nuva ring

Oh no! Stupid Relief Society.

I’m stuck in a car for the next four hours listening to country music full blast.

[four minutes later] I had to listen to “I got friends in low places” just now.

Michigan. And did you see that one chick’s areola??

Yup. The chicken salad was selfish.

[My husband] saw her cover pic and said “the church can’t be true.”

Can you believe the dancing tonight? Nommy eminated.

I’m living in a condo in Provo with 3 other girls and have I got some doozies of stories for you about one of them! I cried one night after she threatened to shave my eyebrows in my sleep! Get excited!

[three minutes later] Well we’re friends, but I’m legitimately terrified of her several times a month. Wait…does that mean we’re not friends?

[three weeks later] My flailing arms while hugging someone hello caused my roommate to throw her piece of pumpkin pie across the room and onto no less than 3 people last night and she has never hated me more.

A conversation, circa 2011

[Another draft post that got buried]

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Me: LOOK AT THE WALMART EMPLOYEE IN THIS COMMERCIAL!!!! Pretty, perfectly curled long blonde hair...no roots....
Jon: The lady that scanned my groceries today at Walmart had a bandaid across the end of her nose.

A conversation, circa 2010

(I unearthed this gem lurking in my drafts. Hopefully there's some other good stuff in there, too! This happened about two years ago, when we were on Statia.)

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Someone at a birthday party: Okay, we're going to pick teams! Everyone line up! Naomi, you pick first.

Me: A schoolyard pick??? NOOO!!! Those are the WORST, let's just assign teams. [Everyone begins lining up] No seriously, you guys! This makes me so sad! What about the person picked last?? So, so sad. Let's just assign -

Naomi: I choose Jessie.

Me: Really????? First picked, IN YOUR FACE!!!!!!!!!!

The Good Old Days, Episode III

See also:
Episode I
Episode II
Episode IV

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This installment is in mostly chronological order and it involves a lot of screaming. If you’d known my family back in the day, you’d nod pensively and say, “Yes, of course it does. That makes sense.”


That time 3 year old Corinne began one of her famous public disturbances after my mom refused to buy her nail polish by stamping her foot and shouting, “Ya so mean! You NEVAH buy me any powish!!” (I really, really hate it when people try to spell out kidspeak, btw, and I am so sorry, but this had to be included as is because it’s one of my favorite things in the history of ever.)

How my dad would always hide one of our Easter baskets impossibly hard so that the other kids would be chowing down on candy while the last one was wandering around in circles, screaming.

How my mom purposefully created an irrational fear in her little girls. When we lived in Rexburg, our backyard fence ran parallel to a wide, fast-flowing, child-drowning canal. She would tell us stories about Boogedy, how he lived in the canal and stole children and I don’t know what else. I’m not sure if Corinne was too old to believe it, but Annie and I had no doubt. We were terrified. (I totally agree with my mom’s decision and would do the same, by the way. Kept us alive.)

That time Annie's first bird died when us girls were home alone. Just keeled right over in its cage. My dad walked inside twenty minutes later and "thought Freddie Kruger had been in the house" for all the wailing.

That time there was a tornado. I was at a friend’s 6th birthday party and when the sirens went off, HER MOM DIDN’T EVEN CARE. We just kept playing for several minutes until a concerned neighbor gave a Hagrid-like knock at the door to make sure we’d taken shelter. He was flabbergasted to see the party still in full force (“There’s a tornado coming!!!”) and the birthday kid’s mom was all, “Ooh, is that what the sirens are for?” Now would be a good time to mention that this all took place in KANSAS. He yelled at her to get us kids into the under-stairs shelter, but when she opened the door she really outed herself as an idiot. The entire thing was full of boxes and crafts. We all piled into that guy’s van instead and he drove us to City Hall where we played musical chairs in some dank basement with thinning red carpet. (The tornado completely missed us. Maybe it never even touched down. I can’t remember everything, I was only six.)

How Family Home Evening at our house, the few times my parents ever attempted, always ended up in tears, screaming, and near scripture throwing.

That time my sisters and I were discussing our cousin, who we'd heard was sick, and I suggested, “Maybe he’s having his period.” IN MY DEFENSE, I was like seven, and my mom didn’t tell me about periods until I was like, married. I learned lots of incomplete information from slumber parties.

How we never said “Bless you” when others sneezed (still don’t). As a kid, I assumed it was against our religion. One of my dad’s Army friends came over for dinner when I was about 8 and blessed me when I sneezed. I froze in sheer terror, thinking he’d just done something evil in our home. My dad had to coax me to say, "Thank you,” and I gave that guy the side-eye the rest of the night.

How, when we were living in Alaska, Annie and I behaved like over-tired zombies during the summer despite the fact that my mom was putting us to bed at a reasonable hour. One night she poked her head into the room in the wee hours of the morning and discovered we had pulled back the dark-out curtains and were reading by the light of the sun.

How my sisters used to play mercilessly into my intense fear of bees by routinely screaming, “There’s a bee on you!! It’s crawling into your hair!!! THE BEE IS LAYING EGGS IN YOUR HAIR!!!!!!!!!!! Egg-head, Egg-head!!!!!!!” The ONE TIME I didn’t reward them with the typical, immediate panicked flailing and yelping was the only time that there ACTUALLY was a behemoth bumble bee clinging to the front of my shirt. The panicked reaction times a thousand followed when I finally gave in and glanced down.

How, happily, the Jessie-Bee-Teasing Era ended abruptly when Corinne came tearing out of the house in her nightgown one morning, shrieking that there was a bee in her hair. She must have been partially dreaming. Annie and I searched her permed, unruly tresses and after a few minutes of dutiful probing discovered a long-forgotten bobby pin amongst the mats. No one ever called me Egg-head again.

That time our puppy, Cricket, wandered into the laundry room alone then came out wearing a training bra.

How Annie's third bird quickly learned how to piercingly shriek, "BE QUIET!!"and my personal favorite of its repertoire, "CORINNE!!!!!!!!"

That time my parents had an uncontrollable laughing fit during Sacrament meeting. The speaker was reading “The Night Before Jesus Came,” a terribly written spin off the Christmas poem. When she got to the part about flying to the window, tearing open the shutters, and throwing up the sash, my dad leaned over to my mom and whispered, “That's why I don't eat sash anymore.” I’ve never seen my parents lose control like that before, AND IN CHURCH!! My crying mother hunched over and started furiously reading her scriptures to vainly try to counteract it. The speaker even paused and looked at them bewilderedly.

That time I accidentally hit a stranger with a rock on a beach, went like this :0, then scampered away. I’m not very good at skipping rocks.

That time my mom killed a spider without realizing it was carrying its two million babies on its back. I’ve never heard more bloodcurdling screams from a family member (aside from maybe the hamster haircut incident…and also the next paragraph).

That time I was home alone at night, the phone rang, I answered to two people screaming as though they were being brutally murdered, then the line went dead. Turns out Corinne had called me while on the road with her friend two seconds before they annihilated a raccoon.

How the guy that built our barn in Nevada was this 80-something year old man named Brownie. My mom made him rice krispy treats once, and Annie tried to attack them after school.
Mom: [shooing her away] “No, those are Brownie’s.”
Annie: [confused, suspicious] “………………….No they’re not………………they’re rice krispies.”

That time Corinne pegged our mentally disabled cat right between the eyes with a conversation heart and it didn't even blink.

That time the aforementioned mentally disabled cat pounced on Annie with intent to maim and I caught it in mid-air.

How my dad considers himself to be on a nickname basis with the prophet. My grandma’s brother died a few years ago, and my dad sat next to Thomas S. Monson (pre-prophethood) during the after-funeral luncheon. He has called him Tommy Monson ever since.

3-Day Weekend

My best friend for two years of middle school was Jessie Ward. We eventually slowly drifted apart and by high school barely acknowledged each other in the hallways anymore, but holy crap I loved that girl. One of the cleverest, liveliest people I’ve ever known. During our closest summer, I slept over at her house about five nights a week; the sleepovers were always at her house, because she was a serious swimmer dedicated to early morning workouts. Her dad would drive us to the pool at 6 AM and, for the first few days at least, Jessie would swim laps while I played around in an unused lane. Her swim coach, a hairy 60 something year old man who I could swear was named ‘Skip,’ soon took a liking to me and offered to coach me for free. This is how I ended up unknowingly being coached by a pedophile for an entire summer! Right before school started again, one of Skip’s (was his name Skip?? Or am I generalizing?) concerned previous swimmers tipped me off that he’d been accused of multiple counts of child molestation a few years before. Horrified, I immediately reported what I’d learned to Jessie Ward, fully expecting her to share my same reaction. Instead, she replied defensively, “He was never convicted.”

Thus ended my short career as a swimmer.

I’ve always loved swimming though, and last week when Jon accidentally exploited my minor heart condition to get me a free gym pass, I immediately went and bought a new swimsuit. I’d been OBSESSING during the Olympics over Mexican diver Paola Espinosa’s cobalt blue swimsuit and when I found something on sale ($29!) in the same color, I snatched it up. It wasn’t until a couple of days later that I realized it’s not just similar, IT IS THE EXACT SAME SUIT!! Yay.

Anyway, on to the purpose of this post.

Stuff I did this (long) weekend:

• Paid rent
• Went to IKEA. Listened to Jon sing ABBA on the way to IKEA.
• Bought curtains!!!!!!!!!! Our very first curtains!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We’ve been married over 7 years.
• Made nine cups of Puppy Chow in preparation for a movie night with cousins. They had to cancel :(
• Ate a lot of Puppy Chow
• Ate my first Smashburger
• Went to the outlets. Bought some cheap stuff. Ate an Auntie Anne’s cinnamon and sugar pretzel. Ate frozen yogurt. Ate at Smashburger again.
• SWAM THREE (3) TIMES
• Got water in my ear
• Physically injured my neck in flailing around trying to get the water out of my ear

And a happy belated Labor Day to you.