Jacking with Packing

by Tonia

"Home may be where the heart is but don’t ask me which box it’s in.” – me

I’m relocating to Santa Fe in a few weeks. Moving was such great idea ….. until I started packing. Holy Hoarder! For every one box I pack, 3 more boxes worth of crap appear. My moving date is approaching faster than a speeding bullet and there’s no Superman here to save me from this cardboard crisis. I guess I’m going to have to quickly make a LOT of new friends before my moving date (preferably really buff ones from a gym). Then I can have a packing party. I'll serve alcohol but it will have to be BYC (Bring Your Own Cups) because I can’t find mine.

I tried to get rid of some of this crap at a Yard Sale a few weeks ago but every time a friend dropped by to see how I was doing, I had to grab an item she had given me and hide it. I ended up with a huge pile of gifted crap in my shed. People can be so touchy, ya know?

A few years ago I had a house fire and lost most of my possessions. Frankly, that sounds pretty damn good about now. Maybe when I get just a little more tired of packing I’ll convince myself that I really don’t like the rest of my things and just leave them.

The other day I was packing up some of the crap and heard my cell phone ring from inside a box. It took me 30 minutes to figure out WHICH box because ….. of course ….. it quit ringing after a few seconds. And god only knows where I’ve packed the dog’s leash. I had to improvise with packing tape wrapped around his collar…..even made myself a cute little handle. 

I think I’m developing symptoms of Relocation Psychosis (RP – not RIP…..yet): auditory hallucinations of popping bubble wrap; nightmares of boxes climbing in the windows to entrap me; complete disorganization; difficulty staying on task. Is there medicine for this?

For your next girlfriends’ get-together……well, crap, I have no ideas. I’m too busy trying to stay away from the creepy boxes trying to get me........

The Selling of the Yard

by Tonia

I’m getting ready to move out of state so I needed to get rid of some crap and shit. And, since its Yard Sale season (when entire neighborhoods have the opportunity to judge you for your belongings), I decided to join the ranks of the Yard Sale entrepreneurs. Not that I’m any kind of sales person, mind you. Hell, I couldn’t sell a bra to cross dresser. Or sunscreen to a nudist. But I needed the cash…..

STEP 1 was the terrorizing task of actually going through all my crap and shit. Instead of DUCK, DUCK, GOOSE, it was separate piles of CHUCK, CHUCK, SELL – through every drawer and every closet. I even ventured into the attic….which requires a ladder….which got knocked over when I threw down some crap and shit. And, even though I was physically above it all, the expletives coming out of my mouth were definitely beneath even me. Motherf^*ker! So I sat and sat up there until my sister happened by. She laughed hysterically and threatened to leave me up there ….. until she saw the stuck-in-the-attic-crazy-eyed look on my face.

STEP 2 was pricing everything. Ugh. What dilemmas! I couldn’t decide whether to price things according to my emotional attachment to them or to get them the hell out of my sight. I mean, how do I price Japanese toothpicks decorated as Geisha?

STEP 3 (well, not really STEP 3 but it really happened) was my girlfriend coming over the night before the sale with food to cook on the grill. Since we might or might not have had too much to drink, we ended up with some of her singed bangs on the meat. Later, when she went into the bathroom and found a pair of scissors, I heard her yell to me, “I guess it’s not a great idea to cut my bangs when I’ve been drinking!” Step away from the scissors, my friend. Just slowly back away……  And THAT was a Bangs Rescue.

STEP 4 (or 3 or whatever) was getting up at 5:00 a.m. for an 8:00 a.m. Yard Sale - and that awkward first meeting of the neighbors when your best friend shoos them away for being too early. Anna and her boyfriend ducked out of that scene to hang signs, but they either took a Tour of Tulsa or went to breakfast. She’s not telling. We didn’t see them for hours.

As we set stuff out, I considered throwing a sex toy in the mix just to see people’s reactions, but decided that the 2 blow-up men and kinky board games were probably enough.

STEP ?? was the actual sale. Lots of interesting people came by, including my 90 year old neighbor who bought shelves and talked a total stranger (another Yard Sale shopper) into carrying it to her house for her. (I took notes on THAT pick-up!) She also told us that the best thing about being 90 was that no one asked her for a ride or babysitting any more.

As the day worn on, Anna got into the Spirit of Selling (otherwise known Poverty’s Desperation). She started selling homemade cupcakes and a Dollar Store12-pack of water for $1 each. She proposed that I advertise $20 lap dances, but one really can’t do a decent lap dance with a Yard Sale money apron on. 

What I REALLY wanted to sell were the bags under my eyes, the hairs on my chin, and the flaps under my arms, but I may have to PAY to get rid of those!

For your next girlfriends’ get together, try a Lavender & Ginger Vodka Spritzer: 
Put lots of ice in a highball glass. Add:

3 oz. vodka
5 oz. soda water
1 drop of lavender oil or 2 sprigs of fresh lavender
1 slice of fresh ginger

Stir and drink!

A Concrete Example of a Semi-Empowered Woman

By Tonia

“If at first you don't succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried. ”― David Brent 

I recently decided to renovate my garage and turn it into a studio apartment. Simple enough. Just add plumbing, electricity, walls and cupboards, right? Except that - There. Were. Problems. At. Every. Step. Of. The. Way. And those problems transmogrified into a mammoth vacuum that sucked my bank account dry.

By the time the floor was ready to be done, I was broke. Not one to shy away from a little challenge like pennilessness, I decided I could level the concrete floor and paint it myself. A DIY project! An I am Woman; Hear me Roar project! Never mind I had just learned that screw drivers weren’t really paint can openers ….. 

So, after 1,538,982 trips to Lowes and several YouTube videos, I was ready. I bought my concrete and 5 gallon bucket; I rented the recommended 800 RPM drill to mix it. I had no idea what 800 RPM meant but, hey, it had two handles and looked like a jack hammer. ROOOAAAARRR!

I went out to the garage apartment, poured the concrete into the bucket, added water (“Just like baking a cake,” I thought), stuck the drill bit into it (“Just like a mixer,” I thought) and turned it on. Holy hijacked high ten! That bastard lifted my arms into the air, whirled the bucket around like an Oklahoma tornado and attacked every wall in the room with concrete. Newly painted walls, I might add.

After I frantically grabbed every available item within my reach and cleaned up splatters of concrete E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E, I made two decisions: do this outside and hold that damn bucket down. Since I was by myself I straddled the bucket between my legs and grabbed that drill tight <insert naughty comments here>. I tried again. This time that motherfucker snatched the bucket out from between my legs and smashed it into my shin.

I looked around and decided that 800 RPMs might be stronger than me but it certainly wasn’t stronger than my fence post. So I wedged one handle of the drill against the post and went at it again. By God, THIS time the drill wouldn’t fling the bucket. But, as revenge, that #*^@ drill went straight through the bottom of the bucket and concrete oozed out all over the grass. I grabbed my patio ice bucket to save whatever concrete I could.

For most people this would have been enough but I had come too far on this apartment to stop now. So I ignored the directions on the concrete (ain’t nobody got time for dat!) and added more water to my mixture and simply mixed it with my bare hands. It poured beautifully. And, best of all, it dried!

After it was all over my sister made a list of all the items that gave their lives for my DIY project. A moment of silence please for…..

2 buckets

1 ice bucket

1 blanket

2 bath towels

10 rolls of paper towels

2 butter knives

1 steak knife

1 glass

1 Vitamin water

10 fingernails

1 section of grass

1 shin

1 bank account

1 mind

And my advice for your next girlfriends’ get-together? Hire a sexy construction guy……and watch him work while sipping margaritas!

Quik Trip for a Quick Shit

By Tonia

"Instead of John, I call my bathroom Jim. It sounds better when I say I went to the Jim first thing in the morning....."

In the midst of a huge turn-my-garage-into-an-apartment construction job AND a major roof repair from a recent tornado, my sewer line decided it was time to die. Yep. Croaked. Now my mind was on the literal gutter.

I’m told that nothing lasts forever – even sewer lines. Well, crap. No one tells you to ask the age of the sewer lines when you buy a home. Looked like mine were pre-historic.

Sooooo during the 5-day repair (the lines ended up being halfway to China), the toilet was out of commission. Peeing could easily be done in the bathtub but bowel movements needed an expedition to a public toilet somewhere nearby. No more walking into the bathroom and casually thinking, “I may as well poop while I’m in here.” No more Mexican food. No more granola!!

And let me just say – having to leave one’s home to shit makes one much more intestinally reflective. Do I really need to poop or is this just gas? Is this really exit time or are things just moving down in preparation? Is this something I can wait on or is this a rush job? “To poop or not to poop” – that became our question. If we waited too long there might be a line at the public restroom; if we left too soon we had to pretend to shop for awhile. Anna had an emergency one morning and ended up using a shower cap. TMI.

I personally made Quik Trip my place of intestinal relief. And, while I can attest to their clean restrooms, I did have a poop stand off with a woman in another stall. We were both waiting for the other to leave so we could go. I won. She had no idea who she was dealing with.

But the Day of Final Repair finally came. My yard looked like a war zone but I could flush. Such a glorious sound. Now to pay the bill…….

And for a girlfriends’ get together consider decorating your toilet like a real throne. Just for shits and giggles.