How To Survive Reading This Blog

Days till Christmas: 27

So I've been reading a very interesting book, one that's chocked full of ways to triumph over evil, battle for the greater good, and make sure you get your ass out of danger with minimal damage. This book is "How to Survive a Horror Movie."

Trust me, it's essential to human survival. It lays out all of the different genres of horror movies, from vampires to slashers, to ghosts to possessed dolls, and everything in between. It has many valid points and impressive survival techniques, and I do believe that in reading this book, I am yet another step close to defeating some outbreak of evil that will eventually threaten to overwhelm me.

However.

I feel that more elaboration is needed. After all, each genre has a million sub-genres, and there are different ways for dealing with each of them. For instance, your run-of-the-mill Dracula can turn into a bat or wolf at will, while your Lost Boys vampires can apparently only fly while wearing leather jackets and lots of chains. Also, your typical Buffy vampire is a witty conversationalist with a fondness for pop culture - your 30 Days of Night vampire, not so much.

Wait, I don't get it. Why is Lindsay Lohan's lack of undwear so hilarious again?

I've decided to start including Your Survival Technique of the Day to my daily posts. Mostly because my life often teeters on ridiculously boring or frighteningly absurd, and it'd be nice to have... uh, something of interest to discuss every day. But don't fret, I'll make sure to include all kinds of horrifying monsters, like psychotic exes, backstabbing friends, the girl that always asks "does this make my ass look fat?", and random homeless men that try to hit on you on the Metro. Please, sir, take your hand out of your pants, I don't want whatever it is you're selling.

So, without further ado, I welcome you to:

Your Survival Technique of the Day
How to Survive the Beginning of Christmas Shopping

Step 1: Stock up on stupid things head of time. Your dad really wants that vintage toaster that sings Disney songs and toasts a Mickey Head onto each slice of bread? Try Amazon in July (that's what I did) - no one in their right minds wants something like that in July, but come December, it's only the greatest gift ever created, and if people don't get one immediately, some serious blood is going to be shed.

Step 2: Haggle with the EBayers. Since most sellers on EBay are either 12 year old girls or 40 year old obese men that live in their parents' basement and swap Dungeon & Dragon cards all day for fun, it's often times easy to haggle with them to get what you want. Put down a slightly higher bid, then email the seller and plead with them to end the auction ahead of time. If you're dealing with the 12 year old girl, say you know Zac Efron and can send her an autographed picture. If you're dealing with the 40 year old obese mama's boy, tell him you'll send him naked pictures that totally aren't your ex-best friend's head photoshopped onto some random naked body.

Step 3: Pump some serious iron and check your conscience at the door. If you do need to enter the death den known as "the mall," then you'll need to be prepared to fight to the death for the things you want. The best approach is to start getting in shape sometime around the Christmas the year before, so that for this upcoming season, you somewhat resemble Rocky. Yes, even if you're a girl. And you'll need to not feel guilt when you're punching small children and feeble grandmas, because if you give them even one inch of room, they'll be sinking their razor sharp teeth into your ankles, and shoving canes so far up your rectum that when you swallow food, it'll instantly fall out and into your pants.

Step 4: If all else fails, become Jewish. Latkes are really tasty, and Jews have all the money anyway. We're finished with our Hanukkah shopping by the February before, and then spend the rest of the year rolling around in our money, sipping Cristal from golden goblets, and playing drunken driedle. Oh, and making everyone feel guilty about our past. Awesome!

Ikea, Ihop, and The Guys From Supernatural are So Freaking Hot

Days till Halloween: 30

Before I start a massively long bitch fest about the horrific-ness that was yesterday, let me gleefully exclaim that it is October 1st! October is my most favoritest month in the whole wide world, because it is the only month in which it is publicly acceptable for me to talk excitedly about ghosts and hauntings and supernatural occurrences without too many people running away from me. And of course, it has the GREATEST holiday known to mankind - HALLOWEEN.

Mary Kate Olsen?!

It's better than Christmas, Hanukkah, and my birthday, because it has hoards of candy and hoards of horror movies, and what on earth could be better than that? Actually, adding in hoards of alcohol and hoards of drunken hookups in questionable costumes is a more realistic approach, but who in their right mind would argue against those thrilling, newer traditions?

Anyway, yesterday was supposed to be a fun yet relaxing day (although it was the last day of September, and not the first glorious day of October, so perhaps I should've expected it.) Erin and I were going up to College Park to go to Ikea, then heading down to Alexandria to indulge ourselves at Ihop, run a few errands at PetSmart and Target, and do some grocery shopping at Shoppers; afterwards, we were going to go back to the apartment, crack open a bottle of Coppola Merlot, and continue our Supernatural Marathon in an effort to wind down and enjoy the last bits of the weekend.

Unfortunately, this was not meant to be. Instead, I somehow set off Murphy's Law x1000, in which every possible thing that could go wrong, did indeed go wrong, and in a particularly painful and aggravating way.

We made good time getting out to Ikea, and for the most part managed to get through the maze that is the store without too many mishaps. We found my bed and I picked out tables and chairs and everything. Of course the table and chairs I picked out were out of stock (actually, I think they mysteriously vanished because nothing was actually in the right place in the massive storage warehouse area), and of course the bed was... well, a giant square which was in no way conducive to transporting or packing it, but we managed to drag everything out to the cashier area.

Now, I wanted to open up an Ikea credit card, because all of my cards are at home in Boston, and I wasn't able to get anything in time for my trip. This should have been a painless process in which the masses of Ikea workers came together, hoisted me in the air, and happily brought me to the right desk to open a card. However, everyone at Ikea is a filthy liar, and I spent about an hour running around the store, instructed to go to different places, and massively lacking a credit card. In the end, I screamed at some pompous twatty worker (honestly, you work at Ikea, buddy) and finally ended up finding a stupid kiosk on my own.

Let's tell her the kiosk is in the loading dock!

After finally procuring a credit card, yelling at a few more people, and refusing to let Erin eat (hey, I let her buy some cookies, okay?!), we made our way outside to load up the Scion I had to fork over $70 to rent. As we started loading, we realized we'd made one key error: the box with the bed in it was about an inch too big to fit in the car. We tried shoving it in every possible angle (not that way, har har), tried putting it in the trunk/back seat area, tried wedging it between the seats, tried shoving it across the tires, everything. Finally, we had to open the box, take out all the individual parts, and hope that the iron bed frame didn't tear the Scion to shreds.

(Not that that would've been an unfortunate occurrence in theory, as the car was a complete piece of crap with no shock absorbers, no alignment, and I'm pretty sure the only thing holding it together was some chewing gum and a piece of duct tape for good measure. I just didn't want to have to pay the damage fee; Zipcar is relatively affordable, but they put in little fine print like it may cost you $9 to rent the car for an hour, but if you return it at 1:01pm instead of 1:00pm, you have to actually pay with your soul. Oh, you didn't see that in the paperwork? Sucks to be you.)

After much blood, sweat and tears (literally all three in the process), we wedged everything into the car and sped off to Ihop. Oh, except that I accidentally took the NORTH exit instead of the SOUTH exit. Twice. Erin, to her credit, didn't jump out the car door and put an end to her misery, and luckily after about half an hour of confusion, we were on our way to Virginia and to Ihop!

My god! So many delicious possibilities!

We had a robot waiter set on Turbo Speed who cheered us up by bringing us our delicious food, including a strawberry crepe, which may have actually had orgasmic ingredients in it. It's always good to know that stuffing your face with Ihop will help turn your day around (until you get on the scale the next morning, but hey, that's what denial's for.)

We tried to go to PetSmart but it was closed, so instead we made our way to Target. Erin acted like an adult by purchasing a dust buster for the epic-ness that is Cleo's shedding, a broom and an indulgence in the Adam's Family Movies Pack; I, on the other hand, proved that I am still 10 years old, and bought a back-breaking amount of Halloween candy, Halloween paraphernalia, and basically tons of crap.

Then it was on to Shoppers. By the time we reached the store - about 6 hours after we'd set out for the day - we were too exhausted to do any substantial shopping, and instead picked up milk, Frosted Mini Wheats, and two bottles of Coppola Merlot. Which we proceeded to drink the entirety of, after realizing that (once we got back), the bed wouldn't fit in the elevator, and we had to have half the building come and help us get our crap inside.

The upside - besides two bottles of fabulously delicious wine, of course - is that we continued our Supernatural Marathon and finished watching another large chunk of Season 2. I always knew I'd like the show because 1) it's very X-Files-esque and god only knows how obsessed I still am with that show, and 2) Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles are the hottest men in the entire freaking world, and seeing the two of them together for that much time is enough to make my head explode. And by head explode, I mean I need to have sex with them. At the same time.

You take the front, I'll take the back

Seriously, I cannot even explain how attractive the two of them are. There really need to be more Jareds and Jensens just wandering around DC, looking for a slim, attractive, freckled 22 year old with a snarky exterior but a warm heart on the inside. Or at least someone mildly attractive with slutty tendencies. Whatever works.

Travels, Furniture, and Child Pornography

First of all, let me start by saying that she swore she was 18. She swore!! Unfortunately, it turns out that Vanessa Hudgens was maybe 15 when she took all those hysterically bad naked photos which were recently posted far and wide on the internet. At first it was funny, but now I feel like a total child pedophile for looking at them. And of course I looked, don't seem so shocked - do you have any idea how many celebrity va jay jays I've seen?

It's always the NSFW that gets me. Or, if they're particularly juicy (my god does that sound wrong), the NSFL tags, which mean Not Safe For Life. Those are generally reserved for Britney Spears' snatch, and while if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all, Britney doesn't fit into that category. It's like a giant gaping wind tunnel that's trying to suck you in, whether you like it or not - and let me assure you, no one goes in there willingly. Not even K-Fed, anymore.

In other news not pertaining to vaginas, I safely arrived in Boston after my trip, but that wasn't before being serenaded by an off tune cabbie who insisted on singing along with both Whitney Houston and Sarah McLaughlin. Imagine one of your worst fears, magnified by 100000x because you're at the mercy of a cabbie who drives on the left hand side of the road and sounds like a cat being repeatedly run over with an 18-wheeler.

I wanna dance with somebody!

In between belting out the Best of the Divas, my new friend helped beat some friendly sense into lost and confused women via the Delilah PM Show (who's theme song included a catchy verse about women of all ages ditching men and getting together with their gals for some much needed estrogen time.) He was particularly concerned about Joanne, a woman who had spent the past 8 years of her life talking online to the love of her life - a man that refused to meet her face-to-face. But he's been having problems! Joanne insisted tearfully. BFF Cabbie's advice:

Cabbie: Bitch please! He's using your ass! If he was into you, he would've met you by now!

How is it that even middle-aged male cab drivers can grasp this concept, and yet millions of women are agonizing and rationalizing and doing all sorts of crazy -izing things that we do in order to attempt to placate ourselves in the epic battle of Men Vs. Women?

Once my joint serenading and relationship counseling session was over, it was time for an extremely exciting and challenging 8 hour Amtrak ride to Boston. While I don't usually mind the train, this time I was in for a most unwanted surprise - I was on Survivor!Amtrak! In order to test their passengers' mettle and will to survive, the train conductors cranked the AC up from "Moderately Chilly" to "Siberian Winter" and watched eagerly. I spent 8 hours freezing solid, and suddenly gained a new sense of empathy for poor Mr. Torrence at the end of The Shining.

That's it, next time I'm flying

I slept fitfully, at best, but managed to thaw out once finally arriving in Boston and getting out of the meat freezer. My mother took pity on me and took me out for breakfast, and then we had a fun filled day of mowing down slow elderly shoppers with our cart at Ikea (only partially by accident, as the floors were very slippery) and driving Sleep Technicians out of their minds at Jordan's Furniture. In the end, I made out with a bed, a mattress and box spring set, and the vast majority of dishes and plates and other things I needed for the kitchen. Next weekend I'll go pick up the bed frame and the table I ordered, and I will be that much closer to being a real adult. Well, being a 'real' adult is debatable, but I'll definitely be one step closer away from being a homeless money-sponge, as my mother so fondly calls me.