A few years ago, one of my friends–let’s call him Mr. Friend–had abruptly gone back home after he found out his brother was involved in a car accident. Thankfully, everything was okay and Mr. Friend was able to return much earlier than expected.

Having no social life whatsoever, I was the only person who could give Mr. Friend a ride home. And let me tell you, I have never been so glad to be a loserish homebody. Seriously. Because if I actually had a life, I would have missed out on a very valuable lesson on how to properly confront a friend who has heinously wronged you.

So I’d just dropped Mr. Friend off at his house…

The guy in the “69” T-shirt is Mr. Friend’s friend, Mr. 69. Mr. 69 had been housesitting while Mr. Friend was away, and obviously had not expected Mr. Friend to return home so early because the house looked raggedy when we arrived. To his credit, however, he appeared to have been trying to tidy the place up beforehand.

While Mr. 69 took out the trash, Mr. Friend decided to change out of his airplane-smelling clothes. A few minutes later, he called me into his room–but not because he wanted to bone me or anything…

No bow-chikah-bow-bow here: Mr. Friend called me in because he thought he smelled something funky. He wasn’t imagining things though: his room was stank. Even with the windows wide open, the whole place reeked of this foul odor that smelled a little like damp stinky moss, and a little like a can of asparagus juice. It was a distinct scent that is hard to describe, but very, very easy to identify.

Indeed, my friends, the stankness in Mr. Friend’s room was the stank of jizz. And anyone who has ever encountered that odor knows it’s one you will never forget.

Mr. Friend started pulling the bedding off his mattress in search of the source of the jizz smell–and can you blame him? His personal space had been invaded by someone else’s dong milk, but he had no idea where the security breach occurred. That’d drive anyone crazy.

While Mr. Friend was frantically checking his sheets, I starting wondering how he was going to approach Mr. 69 about this. If this were my room I’d definitely mention something to Mr. 69, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say, “Why the hell does my room smell like it’d just been the site of a bukkake party?” I’d probably instead do the passive-aggressive thing and go with, “My room stinks for some reason,” or, “Did you piss white stuff all over my room? Hahaha, just kidding.” You know, something that would let Mr. 69 know that I am on to him, but without actually saying so.

Seeing how upset Mr. Friend was becoming, I decided it would be wise to make sure Mr. 69 was the culprit. The last thing you’d want to do is blame someone who doesn’t deserve it, especially when it’s about personal fluid like jizz. One wrongful accusation is enough to kill a friendship. So before Mr. Friend said anything to Mr. 69, I wanted ensure there was evidence supporting a confrontation…and I knew exactly where to look.

How come I can come up with solutions for stupid problems, but can’t do the same on an exam?!

Anyway, using plastic bags as gloves, I went dumpster diving in Mr. Friend’s trash can in search of the mysterious garbage bag Mr. 69 had tossed out earlier.

It didn’t take long for me to find it because it was the only thing in the can. I took the bag back to Mr. Friend’s house…and proceeded to walk right into the middle of a rather heated conversation.

Hmm…looks like I missed something.

I didn’t know it then, but I picked the worst time to show up. Here’s what happened while I was looking for evidence:

“Piss-poor timing” would be a major understatement.

I thought Mr. Friend was addressing me when he asked about the bag, so I opened it:

Let’s start 2010 off in the best way possible–with a post about my cats!

I try to give my cats a bath at least twice a year–not like a full-on bath in a tub or anything, but with these wet nap-like towelettes for cats. I used to give them real baths, but they hated the water and freaked out the second I put them into the tub. They would just start clawing at everything in an effort to find a way to escape–and then I’d get clawed up because was trying to keep them still. It was a nightmare that always left me covered in scratches.

Of the three cats, Pepper was the hardest to bathe. Turnip and Walnut were somewhat easier because all they did was scramble around the tub, so I’d just put shampoo in my palms and lather them up as I held them still. Pepper, however, was different. She is definitely the smartest of the three, and she made this very, very apparent when I tried to give her a bath back in 2008.

It started out like any other bath. I was wearing my protective gear, which was really just a couple of old shirts and two layers of sweat pants:

Pepper, of course, became scared the minute I turned the water on…

And began freaking out and trying to get away….

I tried my best to keep her in place, but she managed to slip out of my grasp.

Once Pepper got away, she ran to the shower door and started clawing furiously at it.

She kept clawing and clawing at it, and I realized she was trying to slide the door open. So I mocked her.

And she handed my ass back to me:

She opened the door! OMG! She slid the freaking shower door open! To this day, I still cannot believe it!

Anyway…

Pepper, still soaking wet, had run out of the bathroom…and I was running after her, trying to get her back before she got the rest of the apartment wet.

I was so caught up in the moment that I didn’t even notice the puddle of water on the bathroom floor…

And then…

I figured out that the game plan that worked on Turnip and Walnut would not work on Pepper. And as sweet, cute, and cuddly as she was, she was not going to make bath time easy. No way.

Since she knew how to slide the shower doors open, I decided to make it make it so that she couldn’t do so anymore:

Pepper wasn’t struggling this time (which I took as proof of my victory), and let me rinse her fur. At one point, she even stood up on her hind legs and almost looked comfortable…

I should have known she was tricking me! The moment I let my guard down, she took advantage of the opportunity and started to climb me like a tree!

Her nails! Her sharp nails!

She perched herself on top of my shoulders and waited for my next move. I didn’t have one. The only thing I could do was admit defeat:

She hasn’t had a bath since…

Happy New Year, everyone!

I love Christmas, but I hate shopping for gifts. I never know what to get for others, and don’t want to waste money on something the recipient does not need. Luckily, I’ve been able to avoid the stress and strain that comes with gift-giving. My parents only want Taiwanese snacks–stuff they cannot get on their own because the only 99 Ranch Market in the state went out of business–and my sister and I don’t exchange presents to begin with. And my friends and I don’t buy gifts for each other we’re all living on a budget, and are well aware of each other’s need to save. Of course, working with this system means I don’t receive many presents–but that’s okay because it also means I get to avoid crowded malls, traffic jams, irate last-minute-shoppers, and all the tension and frustration that comes with Christmas shopping.

That doesn’t mean I don’t understand the plight of the Christmas shopper. I feel really bad for all those people who are still running around on Christmas Eve, trying to find something for every single person on their lists. Last-minute shopping sucks ass, and if you’re still struggling right now–don’t worry. I have created an emergency backup plan that will help you get out of buying presents for the remaining people on your list–and might even make it so that you won’t have to buy a gift for another person ever again!

To understand how the plan works, you have to ask yourself something: Why would you give a gift to A but not B? The holidays are when people are feeling most generous, but not to the point where we’d give a present to a random person on the street. And we don’t give presents to everyone we know either. We instead limit our generosity to those we feel more connected to, e.g., close friends, family members, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, etc.

So if you don’t want to buy someone a gift, all you have to do is change his status from being “closely connected” to “ehhh…” You have to weaken the connection. And the methods you need to use depend on whom you are dealing with:

    1. Family Members

How do you break a blood connection, you ask? You say you’re adopted, of course!

Can’t buy a gift for a family member who isn’t really family!

    2. Friends

You’d only buy gifts for someone you’re good friends with…but what if she’s someone you’re not all that friendly with?

Friends no more!

Note: Obviously, you’d have to tailor whatever you say to the specific person you’re dealing with. For instance, if your friend is single then say you’re banging one of his relatives. I have found that using one of the grandparents is especially effective.

    3. Co-Workers

Some of us might not necessarily give our co-workers anything, but you might have to if your office is doing some Secret Santa thing. In that case, you’d have to buy your co-worker a gift–but only if he’s actually a co-worker.

You’re probably wondering: Now that I’ve successfully demoted myself in the eyes of my friends and family, what happens once Christmas has passed? How will I ever change things back to how they were before December 25th?

Don’t worry about stuff like that! Everything will be back to normal by April!

Saved!

Happy Holidays!

I’m really, really sorry about the late post. I’m in the middle of finals again, and studying has taken a huge chunk of my time. But the good news is this is the last round of finals I will ever have! And after next week, I’ll officially be done with law school! And then I can sit back and look forward to…to…OMG, I have to study for the freaking bar exam. Two months of cramming dry-ass law! And then I’ll have to take a multi-day exam about that dry-ass law. And after that I’ll probably get a paper cut, which will then become infected with some flesh eating bacteria…and who knows when I’ll ever be able to relax.

Anyway, I wanted to take some time out to tell you all how much I appreciate your patience. Every time finals week comes around, you guys have always been super supportive and really understanding of my time constraints, and I just wanted to thank you all for being so awesome….by telling you a story about explosive diarrhea and menstrual fluid.

First of all, I don’t like having a period every month. I hate how messy it makes my bathroom trips, and how it looks like I’m recreating the prom scene from “Carrie” every time I shower. And the pads–they’re the worst part of getting your period. They always trap all this moisture down there, and it can make the crotch area really humid. Airing it out helps, but how often can a girl really do that? The smell alone could kill someone.

I’ve been trying for years to come up with ways to keep my pad from creating a mini-monsoon season in my pants. I’ve done the bikini wax, thrown in handfuls of baby powder–and while those have helped keep the moisture levels down for an hour or two, the best method has always been the tampon.

Tampons don’t cause moisture buildup because they’re just cotton plugs you shove up your hole–unlike their cousin, the Pad, that prides itself on being a tiny vaginal shroud. Tampons have made my period cycles a lot less unpleasant, but I don’t use them very often because doing so can apparently cause health problems. So I limit myself to only using them after showers because that’s when vaginal humidity is at its highest. When I’m feeling particularly daring, I’ll use one even though I haven’t yet taken a shower. That doesn’t happen very often…nor will it ever happen again. When I deviated from my usual routine last week, it must have made the sanitary napkin gods upset because the decision came back and chomped my ass off.

It all started after I’d eaten something my stomach really did not enjoy…

Sidebar: A couple of people told me that pulling it out after I’d just taken a hearty dump was a tampon foul. I don’t know what the big deal is. It’s not like the string was long enough to become contaminated by any fecal matter. What would be the less disgusting alternative? Pulling it out after a pee? Or after handling raw chicken? 

So anyway…I was sitting on the toilet and reaching down to take the tampon out….

That’s right: the string was not hanging there! It wasn’t even in the vicinity, and I had looked everywhere twice. I also fished the applicator out of the garbage to see if the tampon was still in it. Who knows? Maybe I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing and threw it away after I unwrapped it? It doesn’t matter anyway. The applicator was empty…and so was my vagina!

As for the freak out, it was fast and it was furious:

I’ve never lost a tampon before. It’s always been where I expected it to be–so when it wasn’t in its usual spot this time, I had no idea how to handle it besides scream and flail around. And I was scared. The thing is, I know very, very little about human anatomy. At the very least, you’d think I’d know something about female reproductive organs–but I don’t. In fact, I know so little that what I was really afraid of was the possibility that my tampon had traveled to my stomach and was going to wreak havoc on my internal organs and kill me.

So sad…

Luckily, a few quick Google searches helped clear a few things up: (1) a tampon cannot escape into your stomach; (2) if one gets lost in your vagina, you can actually take it out yourself; and (3) the real thing I should have been worrying about was Toxic Shock Syndrome.

Toxic Shock Syndrome, or TSS, is nature’s way of telling women not to put absorbent foreign objects between their legs. Every box of tampons has a warning about TSS printed on it. The label on my box says, “TSS is a rare but serious disease that may cause death. Read and save the enclosed information.” What enclosed information? Oh! They’re talking about that little pamphlet I threw away because I didn’t think I’d ever need it! It probably had some useful stuff in there, like how to tell if you have TSS.

So I went back to Google and did a search on TSS symptoms. I had hoped to achieve some peace of mind by educating myself on the warning signs. The plan was that if I started TSS-ing, I would be able to get medical treatment before it evolved into a serious health issue. Unfortunately, that was one of the worst ideas I’d ever come up with. Here I was, freaking out about a serious disease that I had a chance–however remote–of contracting, and I think I can keep myself calm by looking up its symptoms.

And surprise, surprise, the plan totally backfired. Instead getting peace of mind, I went into hypochondriac mode and started feeling like I was experiencing all the symptoms I read about. Light-headedness? Check. Headache? Double check. I was on the verge of death! And what should you do when you are faced with a life-threatening emergency?

You would probably call an ambulance–which would be the highly sensible thing to do–but I called my sister. I always call her whenever I’m down and in need of advice, and potentially being at risk of getting TSS because my tampon was hiding all up in me was making me down and I needed advice.

My sister’s cell phone, however, went straight to voicemail, so I decided to leave a message:

Now I was faced with another problem. I wanted to tell her about the lost tampon debacle, but I didn’t want to actually say “lost tampon.” “Lost tampon” just sounds so gross, doesn’t it? And it’s one of those terms that’s often accompanied by an unwanted mental picture. I didn’t want to imagine what this rogue tampon was starting to look like, and I’m the one who had it stuck in me. So if I was all nasted out by the thought, then my sister was definitely going to feel the same way times 10.

But after two minutes of “uh…uhh…” I still couldn’t think of anything to say. And then, in the spur of the moment, I glanced at my laptop screen.  My browser was still showing the results of my Google search and one was a link to a Wikipedia entry about TSS, along with a few lines of the actual text. So I just read those sentences aloud:

Nice…

I hung up the phone and decided I was done playing Hide-and-Seek with a Tampax Pearl. No more freaking out over TSS symptoms or scaring my cats with my constant wails of despair. That tampon was coming out whether it wanted to or not!

The extraction was going to require some handy work, so I threw a dark blue towel on my bedroom carpet, sat down, put a mirror between my legs and–ughhh! *barf* That thing I was looking at was not a vagina! It was a sea cucumber’s mouth, and it was throwing up blood! Mind you, this was all happening during the middle of my period when the flow was at its heaviest. And when I reached in and tried to search around it was like wading through my own body fluid. The whole time I was wishing I was Moses and could part this very red, very smelly sea.

Despite my amateur Carrie-Prejean-doing-Japanese-fetish-porn act, I still could not find that damn tampon! There wasn’t anything in there. Nothing! Just more blood!

It was over for me. That tampon was going to stay in my body, and I was going to get TSS and die.

And then…!

It was my sister! She had heard the voicemail I left her and rushed over from work! I was so relieved to see her that I ran out of my room to give her a hug!

We later determined that the tampon came out when I was taking a dump. My period was that heavy.

Did you hear about the party crashers at the White House state dinner?

Of course you have. That sh*t’s been all over the news since the story broke last Wednesday.

When I first saw the headline, I was expecting the article to be about a bunch of naked college guys running through the White House lawn, or universal healthcare protestors waving signs about killing old people—or naked college guys protesting universal healthcare with messages about killing old people painted on their butts.

I didn’t, however, expect to see a picture of a well-dressed, middle-aged couple smiling with Joe Biden, who looked more than happy to be photographed. But that’s exactly what I was looking at when I clicked on the headline, and no amount of screen refreshes was going to change that into a picture of naked college guys.

Once I got past my profound disappointment, I started to wonder why that couple decided to crash the state dinner in the first place. I mean, of all the events to go to sans invitation, they chose the option that was most likely to ignite a major sh*t storm. We’re not talking about a little kid’s birthday party here. They crashed a dinner party at the President’s freaking house.

The wave of articles and updates that followed the initial news break didn’t mention anything about the couple being protestors, terrorists, or even plain ol’ crazy. The only assumption I had left was that they were hired by the CIA or something to do a quality check on the Secret Service’s security measures. After all, some companies hire hackers to exploit potential weaknesses in their computer databases, so maybe the husband and wife were hired to do something similar.

And then I found out that the couple had been trying to become reality show stars…and all of a sudden, their crazy-ass behavior made sense.

I find that to be extremely sad. There used to be a time when the “aspiring reality television star” excuse wasn’t a valid explanation for bad behavior—it actually made things worse. Things were bad enough because you acted totally irrationally, but your belief that anyone would want to watch your dumbass on television was just insane and rendered you unfit for society.

Those days are clearly long gone, and the “reality T.V.” excuse has become the only one we are able to accept. Single mother of 14 young children who were all conceived through in vitro fertilization? What the hell is wro—oh, you were trying to score a reality television show like the Gosselins and the Duggards? Never mind then. Lied to everyone about your young son floating in the sky in a giant birthday balloon, even though you knew he was hiding in your attic while authorities and volunteers were racing to save him? I’d tell you to go f*ck yourself, but you were trying to get your own show so you wouldn’t have to keep appearing on “Wife Swap.” So again, never mind.

We can now include the White House party crashers to the ever-growing neighborhood of douche bags who do stupid sh*t in hopes that it’ll help them score their own reality television shows. And the neighborhood is most likely going to continue to expand—which is fine with me. Really, it is. I mean, I think these people are all garbage and hearing that another one of them has made the news can become rather irritating. But I can put up with all the asinine assholes that rely on a tired-ass formula to achieve fame because so far, none of them have been successful. Instead of getting a television show, Nadya Suleman ended up with 14 kids and a new nickname, the Heenes got court dates, and the party crashers could get criminal charges. As long things stay the way they are—i.e., douche bags aren’t rewarded with airtime on any television network—the world will be able to avoid the total annihilation that will inevitably result if the delicate balance between good and evil is disrupted any further.

That’s right: I said “disrupted any further.” Let’s be honest, people, and call it like it is: the good/evil balance has been unbalanced for a long time, and we’re pretty much on the brink of the end of the world. Forget 2012—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse could show up any second now if networks keep producing visual diarrhea like “The Real Housewives of [major city]” or “Denise Richards: It’s Complicated.” And by the way, whoever came up with the idea to add the “It’s Complicated” to the latter title must not have seen a single episode of the show. If he had, he would have noticed that the only thing complicated is how Denise Richards got her own show in the first place. A more appropriate title would be: “Denise Richards: Pile of Dirt.”

Here’s to hoping that Pestilence doesn’t show up at my doorstep.

On Thanksgiving, people often reflect on all the things they are thankful. That’s why it’s called “Thanksgiving”…you know, because you’re giving thanks. Ah, the creativity–it’s like I named it.

Hearing what you’re thankful for is great, but honestly, if you’ve asked one person to tell you what he’s thankful for, you’ve basically asked us all. Yes, yes, family, friends, health, blah, blah blah. What I’m more interested in is hearing about all the things that didn’t make your list. That’s where the real fun begins because everyone’s going to have a unique answer–except the swine flu people. They just respond with whatever illness has been featured most in news headlines. This year it’s swine flu; in 2003 they said SARS and bird flu; in 1995 they said mad cow disease…next year they’ll be saying snail flu or flu-flu-flu.

Anyway, here are a few things that didn’t make my list this year. I have more than 3, but it would take years for me to write about all of them.

        I. Nostril Pimples

I actually have one in my left nostril right now, and it’s turned my life into a living nightmare. Scratching, blowing, picking—the freedom to do whatever I pleased with my nose is gone, replaced by a new reality that even the slightest contact with my nostril will erupt in crippling levels of pain.

Why do those damn things hurt so much? The other members of the pimple family tree aren’t painful, but having a zit in your nostril is like a death sentence. That probably means it’s the “black sheep” of the family, right? The one no one wants to associate with because it gets drunk all the time and tells bad jokes.

        II. Plastic Surgery Face

There are a number of reasons why I will never have any plastic surgery done on my face: (1) I like the face my parents gave me, and (2) I don’t want to have Plastic Surgery Face.

My basic Paint skills aren’t enough to help me draw a version of Plastic Surgery Face, but it’s all in the person’s nose, lips, and skin. Look up Shauna Sands, Kris Jenner, Daisy from “Daisy of Love,” and all the “Real Housewives of Orange County.” They’ve all got Plastic Surgery Face: their noses are shaped like ski slopes that are abruptly cut off by an unnaturally sharp-looking point, and they have giant lips that look even more monstrous when they wear pale pink lipstick (which they all do for some reason). And their skin doesn’t even look like real skin. There is something off about it—like, it actually looks as if they had plastic melted on their faces or something.

I don’t know if they look like that because they requested it, or because that’s the extent of our technological advances in plastic surgery. But there is something very wrong about being able to tell you’ve had work done on your face without even seeing a picture of what you looked like before. That result just seems like the antithesis of plastic surgery’s purpose. It’s supposed to make you look better, but I don’t think “better” means looking like a half-assed mannequin.

        III. Seitan

I’ve only eaten seitan once, but that lone experience is enough for me to say this with the strongest of convictions: If there was any part of me that was open to becoming of a vegetarian, then consider that part dead. Very, very dead. I will never, ever give up eating meat. And you vegetable people can go ahead and criticize my love for dead animal flesh, but I would rather eat carcasses than ingest a bite—no, an atom—of that disgusting fake meat you call “seitan.”

Seitan is imitation meat made from wheat gluten. It’s used as a substitute for real meat, and is claimed to be “surprisingly similar to the look and texture of meat when cooked.” And that would be true if real meat looked like diarrhea, and had the texture of…of…hmm, how should I describe it? You know how a Chicken McNugget has a layer of spongy goo between the chicken and the fried skin? If you were to scrape off that layer and remove all the delicious Chicken McNuggety flavor out of it, you’d get the texture of seitan.

I think seitan should instead be called “Satan,” because eating it is like going to Hell. In fact, I’m pretty sure I read somewhere in “Dante’s Inferno” that one of the punishments was eating that sh*t for eternity.

And in case you didn’t know: there may not be an “i” in “team,” but there is an “eat” in “meat.”

Today we will be focusing on the Douchelogic that is often employed by Crap Talkers. Just to be clear, when I say “Crap Talkers,” I am not referring to the entire human population. Even though we have all talked crap about others, and have had others talked crap about us in return, the Crap Talkers relevant to this discussion is a subspecies of human—i.e., humans who think Douchelogically.

The Crap Talker Douchelogic goes something like this:

I know people like this, and this is really how they think–and I don’t get the logic at all! It just doesn’t make sense to brag about how great you are at being someone’s fake friend when you purposely hide your true feelings whenever that person is around. I mean, why are you hiding how you really feel? Because you don’t want that person to find out how much you really hate his stank ass! There’s nothing mysterious about it. And with a 5% failure rate (factoring in the people who can’t keep anything to themselves…and big-mouthed children, like the little girl in the Swanson’s chicken broth commercial. You know, the one where the little girl promises to keep the family’s secret ingredient to herself, but then immediately turns around and asks a nearby kid, “wanna hear a secret?” Argh! She really pisses me off! So what if the secret ingredient is a can of chicken broth? Keep that sh*t to yourself! At least for grandma’s sake!)–the only reason why anyone would feel compelled to gloat about being able to pull off a “talk about you behind your back” routine is because that guy’s an asshat who thinks Douchelogically!

Later that day…