The Sun is Bullshit

The low winter sun is fucking with my circadian rhythm. It makes its way up over the roof of that newly constructed house across the street that chopped down the shade tree because it was “diseased” and then it streams through my stupid straw window coverings imported from Bali (but they go so amazingly well with my Japanese-inspired wallpaper from the U.K. that I spent an arm and a leg on, so I’m not replacing them, no way, no how, because hello boys, my bedroom looks like a hot jungle fuckpad where you want to want “Seinfeld” and I don’t have that no tv in the bedroom rule) it would be okay if it just streamed through in a 45 degree north-west fashion and settles on a spot where wall meets ceiling but no, it hits the mirror on the west wall and then burns its fiery shaft of light into my face:2 “Wake up Sleeping Fugly, you have two hours of nonsensical ruminating about your To Do List before you go about your day slinging paint and tubes of caulking.”

1. Update Passport. Soooo, I googled like you should and I need to print out application and get photo. My hair is out of control. Get haircut, too? No, that’s too much. I just need to get one of those “wands” that make those loose curls that Carolina and Jessica have. I am so jelly of their lids. Bitches with their shiny hair and nimble fingers and it’s not like they have time on their hands, they work at the Depot, too. They get up extra early to do this. I am telling you, this new generation are the worker bees and they will save the world with their practical know-how.

Waking up early would be good and natural if I had a regular schedule but some days I am slinging said cans of paint until 11 p.m. and when I get home at 11:30, I am wired for cocktails and monkey business, ie trolling through Facebook and gossip sites whilst the infomercials are on. On those days I’m lucky if I get to sleep by 2 and this is not natural for me. They also started to give me random morning shifts that begin at 6 a.m. which means waking up at a shocking 5 a.m., Lord Jesus, there’s a fire, but I complained so hard that I have noticed they are no longer on my schedule. I CAN’T POOP SO EARLY IN THE MORNING AND I DEFINITELY CANNOT POSSIBLY EVER IN A MILLION YEARS LAY SOME PIPE AT THE HOME DEPOT PUBLIC WASHROOM SO UNLESS YOU GET A PRIVATE ONE LIKE AT STARBUCKS, I WILL HOLD IT IN ALL DAY AND BE CRANKY TO THE CUSTOMERS! Sometimes when you tell people something straight up, they hear you and so the good peeps at the HD seem to be respecting my shitting regime according to the schedule, knock wood.

Anyway, last week to get around the early shifts, I worked 9 straight days, splitting my shifts up. It was a lot of math (can’t go over your allotted hours!) and dick-wrangling with some furious text messaging and now as a reward for a job well done, I have two days off in a row, which feels like an eternity. I have nothing pressing to do EXCEPT for the fact the yesterday before my afternoon shift, I washed my sheets and my sneaky cellphone hitched a ride in one of the pillowcases. I have to contend with its drowned corpse but I don’t even hardly care, fuck it, I’m going phoneless. Normally such a boneheaded careless move would have sent me off the edge, spiralling into such a panic that I would be high-tailing off to an Apple store in my pyjamas and #nomakeup, sweating and standing in line for a hundred and one years for an appointment at the genius bar. While waiting, I would concoct a twisted pack of lies about how my phone just up and died! but! maybe possibly it got splashed with water that somebody else sprayed on it when I wasn’t looking. I am such an asshole sometimes, and as a retail slave, I hate customers who make shit up like that. The other day a lady came into the paint department and stated: “I just washed my windowpane with water and all the colour off. Blue. All the blue came off.” (and yes, she was Polish)

And I: “Really? Was the paint dry?”

And she: “Yes the paint was dry. All the blue came off.”

Then me: “You painted your windowpane blue?”

She: “Yes. All the blue came off. With just water”

Me: “Water? Really, just water?”

She: “Yes, just water. The blue came right off. On the rag.”

Me: “Okay so you painted your windowpane blue and you let it dry and then the paint came off when you washed it with water?”

She: “Not the paint, the paint stayed on but the blue came off!”

Me: “But the colour is infused into the paint, so if the blue came off then the paint went with it. Maybe you didn’t prep the surface properly before you painted?” (P.S. when I paint, I do not prep shit except wipe off dirt with my elbow, I slap paint on anything and it stays there for years. What exactly is your problem, asshole on the phone calling the Depot when you should be 1-800ing the HELP 24-hour Hotline number clearly written on the paint can? Maybe you people need to stop neurotically picking at your walls and then complaining about the product when your own surreptitious subterfuge is at play. It’s not the paint, it’s you and your busy fingernails, OCD, do a solid and go volunteer nit-picking some lice out of the kids’ heads at your local rec center.)

And then she exploded: “MY HUSBAND PAINTED AND I CLEANED! AND THE BLUE CAME OFF”

Obviously there was some other issue going on in her household. The rest of the conversation went on for so long that I actually became bored. I hardly ever get bored. Frustrated and Lonely are simmering on the back burners of my emotional stove and Crazed Out of My MInd and Horny As A Teenage Boy in a Campground are boiling away in the front, pretty much on any given day. Boredom is not allowed on my menu. If you constantly bored, you should probably let yourself fall from the tree and go walk into traffic.

So I had to shuffle her along because she was clearly more insane than any Home Depot associate should ever have to deal with BUT! this is why I love the Deep, the crazies make everything seem like you are in a distorted reality. Every day is like an acid flashback, such wow, it’s probably all the dust and chemicals in the air. And wait, she really did say WINDOWPANE, remember that, hippie hookers? Whoa, maybe I am hallucinating everything, including this blog.

I need a battery recharge and hang out at home in the dark for the day. BUT there’s more to do:

2. Make appointment for “annual” physical…has it really been 3 years? I probably have dust-induced cancer, scared. But I have no phone yet so I can’t possibly call, cancer will have to wait.

3. Get Car Wash. I wash my car like you bitches go to the nail salon, I take pride in my box. But not today. Just rain already. I hate you, Sun. Go hide behind a fluffy cloud. But not Benjamin Moore’s Cloud White OC-130 because I don’t want to see that on my Day Off either.

My whole whacked out schedule is messing with my mind, making me forgetful and my inner clock is out of sync, and it used to be so precise. Every day is one big lump of day and the nights are spent dreaming of dispensing paint and giant Game of Throne-style orgies where the dudes have penises shaped like donuts and churros and nothing quite fits inside…help me.

So today on my first day off after 9-day acid trip, after being woken up by the Sun’s mighty laser boner at 6 a.m, I set out to do some chores like figure what to do about out my phone, buy Kleenex which is so pressing that it by-passes the To Do List. I have a motherfucking cold that I have been ignoring and has turned into an actual illness, possibly lung cancer. Okay,I have been watching too much Breaking Bad in one sitting. Also, it turns out during my Home Depot 9-day dust acid trip I have forgotten to eat for at least a week and as I walk to the car, my pants are literally falling down with each step.

“Go buy some new pants, Peterson!” Colleen yells out from the porch next door. I have unconscious anorexia! What a trip! The thought of shopping fills me with fear and dread. And true confession: I HATE that when I lose weight it comes off my ass first, then everything literally goes tits up. My boobs and middle pudge need to be tempered, not my butt. I had a trainer who would always say about weight loss and gain: “First one hired, last one fired” when it came to the myth of “spot reduction.” In other words, fat is the boss and in my case my butt is the minion, just an unpaid intern and my tits are that asshole Donald Trump. This makes me unhappy. I will never twerk proper. But today, I have other fish to fry, fuck new pants, body issues and definitely fuck the dead phone, the couch is yelling at me; “MAMA HURRY UP AND BRING DORITOS!”

Also as I am getting into the car, Colleen tells me I need to watch the show “Derek” on Netflix.

4. Watch “Derek” on Netflix. Best day EVAR: I watched the entire Ricky Gervais series in the darkness of my living room whilst the asshole Sun shined its last bit of bullshit rays on the falling leaves of autumn, who cares how nice the day was…bring on the darkness! And if you haven’t seen or heard of this show, GET ON IT NOW, it is so good. It’s funny and it’s sad at the same time. This is the fine balance I am striving for in writing and why I spew this shit out in a public forum. The acting is amazing. If I tell you what it’s about, you might go meh, no want to watch that, but it’s Ricky Gervais! And he’s playing an autistic 50-year-old man who volunteers in a nursing home and it’s shot like “The Office,” how could it not be brilliant?

After I watched the final episode (there are only 7 20-minute episodes so it’s only about 2 and a half hours total, you can do it too in one sitting too, my antsy ADHD friends) It reminds me that Getting Old is scary and is way on the bottom of my To Do list. But first:

5. Visit Parents. Tomorrow on Day Off Part Two, I will contend with getting a new phone. I have made a civilized on-line appointment with the Apple store in the Upper Canada Mall (no wait list!) where I will just say “it stopped working” and nothing else and they will give me a new one for $169 and I will suck it up. There will be no drama or panic attacks. I will also visit my parents who live in this brand spanking new retirement home that has a confusing cruise ship vibe when you walk in, it makes me a tad bit anxious when I go there: Is it the Love Boat or the Titanic? But then Julie bounces into the lobby with her clip board and then phew, it’s “The Love Boat,” exciting and new, come aboard, we’re expecting you. But it’s a tad too serene for my taste if I’m going to park there, it could use a bit of Ricky Gervais and his misfit buddies performing Duran Duran on the Lido Deck. Just saying.

And as I am writing this in the dark I have an epiphany:

5. Get Light Blocking Blinds For the Bedroom Window. I can keep my dumb straw curtains but have shades underneath! But then why would I do that on my day off when I can do that at the Depot on Saturday? And possibly that hot dude from the Flooring can cut them for me and then it wouldn’t seem like a chore and I can maybe practice my flirting techniques before I dry up and turn into drywall dust. Bitches got to multi-task at all times.

Here’s a clip from “Derek:”

Posted by Kristin Peterson. Categories: Uncategorized. Tags: acid flashbacks, Derek, Home depot, Ricky Gervais, To Do List. Leave a comment

Sep. ’13

7 Life Lessons From an Old Ho in an Orange Bib

I put customers first, don’t you know. I am so sorry to have neglected my interwebz friends this summer as I have been too busy WITH MY PART-TIME JOB WITH FULL-TIME SLAVE HOURS dispensing paint and arguing with your Polish grandpa why he shouldn’t stain his brand new pressure treated deck UNTIL NEXT YEAR when the enviro-urine otherwise known as acid rain has time to literally eat away the factory coating of the cancer-causing-Erin-Brockovitch-style-lawsuit-waiting-to-happen factory residue that makes the wood so green and fresh looking. And yes, I understand he could be dead by then, but so could we all in this perilous world, accidents happen, any time anywhere. He’s so cute though, your grandpa Dziadzia, I love old people very so much, they are so sweet like children in a way, they just say what they want to say but! he is a such stubborn asshole that I want to throw a 5 gallon pail of Deckover on his head when he dismisses me in this manner: “Let me speak to a MAN who knowsss what he eez doingk.” Whatevs, Mr. Manski, I have been staining pressure treated wood every fucking summer on my parent’s fence since I was a tomboy growing up on Walton”s Mountain IN THE 19-MOTHERFUCKING-70s, but I will find you another sales associate with a penis who will placate your infantile histrionics with his magic wiener wand.

I actually enjoy my job but sometimes you customers are a bunch of savages, take a number and stand in line, what part of “waiting your turn” did you miss in nursery school? After 3 months of listening to your never-ending stories of how your paint just “spontaneously peeled off your walls” and heads up: it’s because you are a dumb fuckwit who will watch cat videos on youtube all day in your office cubicle but don’t have the wherewithal to google: “how to paint,” Oh no, that would be too boring for you with your busy life making your “hard-earned” money. There is a special place in hell for you, and that is picking out paint chips for your Polish grandma’s laundry room in FIFTY FUCKING MILLION SHADES OF BEIGE. Christ on a stick, Babcia, “griege dreams” looks exactly like “oyster puree” which is also indistinguishable to the naked eye to the colour of depression if it was manifested into a tint by Pantone.

Customer shmustomer, I put my hookers first. The one thing I truly love about going to work is seeing my posse, those that work on the Home Depot front, they are the true heroes, not you with your hodgepodge shopping list which includes that “thing on youtube that comes in a spray can and is supposed to repel water” and your fantasies of DIY home repair that include a happy ending because you saw it in a porno movie back in the day when plumbers were Lotharios before the internet nipped narrative structure in the bud, thank gods for that, I’m just saying. My little orange HD family is what keeps me going back. Yes, we are a dysfunctional lot and talk trash behind each other backs, who needs meds for OCD and whatnot, but really at the end of the day we support each other because we have one common enemy and that’s you, your Polish grandparents, and upper management of course.

There’s a lot of young people working at “The Deep.” Sometimes I feel like a den mother to them, I love them all as though they were my own spawn, even that really weird kid with the overbite who kind of just stands, swaying, in front of the pro desk wearing an non-regulation orange vest although I’m seriously beginning think just pretends to work there. And he eats all the brownies in the break room. When people say that young people these days are lazyass hoodlums, they need to come by the HD and see these kids hauling their pants to the ground asses to work at 6 a.m to until 11 a.m. I would be very proud if I were their parents. My kids are good, don’t get me wrong, but they would be nonplussed to get up at 5 in the morning, I would probably have to bribe them with money because donuts don’t work anymore.

Anyway I embrace my little orange chitluns as my own, I want them to nestle under my soft downy wing and pass on my motherly advice to them all. I know people will make mistakes no matter what, but I want them to know they are not alone and I am there to lend an ear. Here is a list because that’s how I do things on this blog:

1. Don’t sweat it, you will make lots of placenta in the future! Random, I know, but one day in the summer one of my favourite girls asked me what childbirth was like, maybe she was interested in knowing for future reference, who knows, so I told her my two tales of push and spew and for some reason, she got hung up on the placenta part and how some people eat it after in the form of pate canapes. Oh, how we recoiled in horror at the idea of that and from then on “placenta” was our code word for “Hey Ho!!” Soon enough “Placenta” became my prison nickname. Then just before the summer ended she came up to me in tears because her really cute and bittersweet Home Depot boyfriend (yes, we are an incestuous family) dumped her just before they were both going to move to Kingston together for school. It’s a typical boy move, it seems. Dude thinks he’s going to broaden his horizons and Johnny Appleseed his way across the TransCanada Highway but little does he know that girl he let go was someone very special and I will bet my donut money that he begs for her back by Halloween but! I hope she doesn’t take him back because bitches gotta duck the punches like a ballerina and move on. In steel toe boots, no less.

2. There is no such thing as menial labour, every job is an opportunity to grow or simply blog about, that’s my story. I know we all bitch and moan about our employment situation no matter what it is but every job has some leverage and/or a lesson to learn. The more assholes in your face, the better you become at snapping the rubber gloves on and lubricating your forefinger on way to your to the top. There has to be a reason that a twentysomething girl named Candi with an “i” moved up to a management position. You just know by looking at her that she must have been conceived by two teenagers from a deep spot in a KOA campground on a dark summer night and then raised by her obese grandmother on her father’s side who wears sweatshirts with airbrushed unicorns and probably takes her dead pets (ferrets and other fine rodents) to a taxidermist where she displays them on top of the fridge. If Candi can do it, so can you, my little hookers! Carry on and don’t forget wear protection, obviously.

3. Take care of your teeth. Sometimes the young people’s’ grooming habits have me going OCD. I can’t even get with the stories in the morning that you “passed out on someone’s couch” the night before. It’s obvious to me that you neglected to brush your teeth and I have no time for that so don’t be proud you drank 27 beers and 4 rum coolers, gross, just gross. The most important thing you can do for your health and looks is take care of your teeth, whatever you might think that nothing bad will ever happen because you are invincible, it’s not true. BRUSH AND FLOSS YOUR TEETH EVERY DAY! And go to the dentist, YOU HAVE A FUCKING DENTAL PLAN, USE IT!

4. Shyness is nice but shyness will stop you from doing things in life you really want to. I didn’t make this up, this was a lyric from the Smiths song from the olden days where I came from that actually stuck in my head and I have used it as a mantra. I used to be a really shy child and young adult, people would forget me really easily even though I am a monster amazon-type. But then ever so slowly I learned to use my voice and let the shit come out. I have a slight stutter sometimes when talking to strangers but instead of ignoring it, I acknowledge it and make a joke of it and they smile kindly, like they are thinking “how sweet, this giant wooden Indian tobacco statue can actually speak.” Most people are nice and they respond to your vulnerability so don’t be afraid to let it show. And by the way, pro tip: most people are quite low functioning and/or self-absorbed that they do not even notice things past the tip of their own dick. It’s sad really.

5. I like your tattoos but I am really worried about those earrings that have turned your lobes into dangling onion rings. That is all.

6. Learn to eat better! You are a young ho, I get it, you can eat what you want and never gain weight but realize that is a one way train ride into Delusionville. One lovely young lady, who may or may not be an exception to my metabolic shift rule, is so tiny and skinny and she eats double orders of fast food in one meal. A couple of days ago, and this just kills me, she had some kind of foot long hoagie (and yes, I am that old, I call a sub a hoagie) from Subway, along with an order of fries from Harvey’s, a portion of food intake twice the size of her head. I watched her eat every bite because I am not joking, her mealtime my porn hour. It happens every single day and I think she may be the exception and she is pushing 25 and still no signs of some kind of Pokemon-style Snorlax transformation. She is simply a goddess and I will let her have that crown of meatballs. The rest of you though, this shit will sneak up on you and you will be all like “what the hell” and stuffing your junk in your skinny jeans pretending nothing is happening but it is. Just a friendly warning. But! Remember I will still love you just the same with your fresh pudge layer.

7. You are not old, I am old, so fuck you. My calming force in my department, my walking human anti-anxiety medication, said to me the other day: “I just turned 27, I feel old.” Ugh, I know, right? But his point is he feels bad because he is over-edcuated and not in the place he wants to be at the stage in life he is in and this is understandable. I remember feeling old and misplaced in my twenties which seems wrong in retrospect but it’s the pressures of modern day society to be “successful,” whatever that means, I still don’t know. I don’t have much advice except to just pursue what makes you passionate and happiness (and despair, it’s a swirly really, let’s not kid ourselves) will follow. I know this might be the lamest thing I will ever say, but nothing makes my heart pound faster than prying open up a freshly shaken can of paint of all the hundreds of cans I open in any given day, and it is not your Polish grandma’s “perogie barf beige.” It’s a deep crimson red, let’s call it “shark attack.” Hooha!

Posted by Kristin Peterson. Categories: Uncategorized. Tags: advice for young people, haome depot, life lessons, orange, water repellent NEVER WET. Leave a comment

Aug. ’13

Morning Wood and Other Small Joys

“Do you hate it here yet?” I have a fellow in-mate at the Home Depot who keeps asking me this question and I always answer: “NOOOOOOO! I still love it here!” He thinks I am being sarcastic but I’m not. There are free popsicles in the freezer and sucking one back while flopping down on the leather couch in the break room is the highlight of my day. It doesn’t take much to amuse me. Sometimes when I’m feeling subversive, I put my feet up and hog the whole couch. As I lick my popsicle, I check my Facebook and scroll through all the photos you post sitting on docks at “The Cottage” with your “life is good” caption. I never “like” these photos of yours, not because I am jelly stuck in South Etobicoke in my orange apron slinging out cans of paint and stain, I don’t “like” them because I really feel sorry for you. I know what you are really doing up there, chores galore, admit it, and here’s a pro tip from the ho at Home Depot: You need to power wash your deck and remove all the old flaking shit before you apply a new coating of stain, dumbass. And also before you paint your skanky old cabin, you need to get rid of the mould and mildew with Concrobium, bleach might cost less but it doesn’t do the job, you cheap bitch. And patch that roof up so you won’t have mould in the first place. Okay, I am jelly and do hate you a little bit. I would give anything to come up to your happy little shack in Halifuckingburton or even that creepy trailer in Tweed to apply a layer of Thompson Water Seal on your deck and swim in your murky lake for a day off. My summer has been bullshit this year. I have not been swimming once and I have yet to have any sort of cocktail with Pimm’s in it :(.

However, I may have been breathing in dust for two months but! I have lost weight without trying and I no longer have insomnia! I have been saving money because I am always at work and can’t spend money! It turns out it’s not what you make, it’s what you don’t spend that counts. Who knew?

I have made peace with my lot in life and have even learned a thing or two at the Depot:

1. I have developed a Poker Face. When I first started, I was afraid that people would think I was a fraud because I knew nothing and would run to Paint Jesus for every question a customer had. Seriously what is up with all your convoluted quagmires like: “How do I glue a piece of velvet on porcelain?” “How do I build a cat tree but I don’t want to use nails or staples?” “When I open the can of paint, there are bubbles…is there something wrong with it?” Just when I think there are no more crazy-assed questions, someone comes up with something more insane than the last one so guess what I do now? I MAKE UP AN ANSWER USING LOGIC…who knew I even had any? Don’t want to use staples or nails because your cat’s paws are so delicate, use a tube of No More Nails. It’s glue so the cat will probably be mid-scratch and fall on it’s ass when the carpet rips off the wood but whatevs. Do people even google anything anymore? The bubbles in your paint could be the farts from a drowning rat that got caught in the can at the factory, here’s a complimentary stir stick so you can twirl around and see if there is a rodent corpse in there. And if the porcelain you are going to glue velvet onto is a toilet seat, then better use something waterproof like marine glue. And then tear it off using Goo Gone because that was a really disgusting idea in the first place.

2. I have developed thick skin. Every so often, there is a certain type of man who thinks he is Mr. Handy Plus but is about to embark on a project that is so majorly wrong that when you advise him that it won’t work, he yells and calls you a stupid idiot and could he possibly talk to someone who knows, like Paint Jesus, who for some reason gets twenty dollar bills slipped into the pocket of his apron on a regular basis. Yes, Paint Jesus is hot and knows everything but even I know you can’t put wood stain on pre-primed pressure board trim because it doesn’t even have a grain, for fuck sake, but try telling that to the crazy old Chinese man who screamed at me, insisting a can of Minwax “Mission Oak” was just what he wanted to finish his home improvement project. Go right ahead, sir, Paint Jesus gives you his blessing. “Who gives a fuck?” is actually what he said. You maketh your mess and buy more paint to fix it up. No problem.

3. I have developed a crush. This happens to me in any given situation where I am confined to a place for a lengthy period of time. Even back in the day, when I was in real estate school and stuck going to classes for what seemed like an eternity (but was really only 3 weeks) at that 80s relic hotel “Inn on the Park,” I took a shine to this weirdly elfish looking dude in my quadrant of seating. I liked him because he used to dig in his ears with his pen when he thought people weren’t looking. But I was and I could relate because I have the same ear fetish or affliction depending on how you look at ti. Other than that, he was really kind of revolting in every other way which makes me wonder about myself a little bit. If I was in solitary, I would probably start lusting after a wall spider or the hand that pushes my lunch in my cell. I think I think I develop these crushes as a survival mechanism, it gets me excited to go to work in the morning and slightly more motivated to beautify, especially making sure those eyebrows don’t get too long and curly because that is what happens when I’m not paying attention. Here is how I developed the crush in case you want one too: He said ‘hi” to me while I was squatting in the caulking aisle, fishing for rogue silicone filler. I said “hi’ back. Then I saw him again the next week in the break room, and he walked by me on his way to his locker and said “hi’ and I said “hi’ back. Even though I remember what he was wearing each time and that he had shaving cut on the right side of his neck, I thought nothing of these causal exchanges until I saw him in the men’s washroom, that door is always wide open for some reason, and HE WAS ZIPPING UP HIS FLY and we locked eyes for maybe a half a second longer than appropriate for someone who has just freshly packed away his man meat… aaaaand I was smitten. But! He is a rare sighting and I AM NOT STALKING HIM even though I can’t help but check his schedule because sometimes the binder just flies open to his page and it is hardly ever the same as mine….sigh…..sooooo:

4. I have developed another crush. What can I say, it’s a big place and why confine oneself to one person? When the representative for Behr paints walks into the Depot, it’s like a sex bomb explodes. Some people just have it and it can’t be helped. It’s the power of the Mojo at Home Depot. *SIGH* So what if he’s married? It’s harmless flirtation, so…..

5. I have developed a way to hone my own fading mojo. On any given day, at 7 in the morning, there is a line up of contractors. These men are hung-ray and it is the crack of dawn and they are holding hard hammers, if you know what I mean. This area is located right at the entrance where you have to pass by to go to your department no matter where it is, although if you were a shrinking violet, you could take an annoying detour around building supplies and ignore what is known as the “Morning Wood Runway” altogether. But this is what makes the early shifts worthwhile in my world. You know that Robin Thicke “Blurred Lines” video that everyone was all freaked out over and you had no idea why until you realized there was an unrated vevo.com version and then you watched it 700 times so you could learn a thing or two because you wondered: Why is it there are 3 perfect naked women and only one of them stands out? It’s what I will call the Emily factor, that is the brunette one as if you didn’t already google that. Well I have watched it 700 times and analyzed it so you don’t have to: It is all about eyes and body language. The girl can’t dance worth shit but she has the Power of the Mojo, the other two I couldn’t pick out in a line up 10 seconds after watching the video for the 701st time. What does she do? She struts while she twirls her hair. Try doing that as an old bitch in an orange apron and safety boots but guess what? The impact of a steel toe boot on a concrete floor makes everything shake even without hardly trying.And I already have that OCD hair twirling thing down pat. Work that runway, sister, a lumber yard of morning wood, what more could a ho ask for? Life is good, bitches.

Posted by Kristin Peterson. Categories: go girl, Uncategorized. Tags: Blurred Lines video, Home depot, mojo, morning wood, Robin Thicke. 3 Comments

Aug. ’13

Habanero Hottie is the New Ebony Mistress

There’s something about working at the Home Depot that reminds me of prison. I’ve been watching that Netflix show “Orange is the New Black” which I love, love, love and if you don’t know what it’s about yet, get on it now. Women in prison, what could possibly go right? It is so good, I’m on the second round of viewing. I don’t get it when people say they “don’t have time to watch tv” and you know who you are. I have a 40ish hour work week where I can’t even cheat on that because I have to punch a timeclock (this goes against my nature) and I have managed effortlessly to watch 13 real hour-long (no commercials on Netflix, yo, this is the new world and me likey) episodes in 3 days, settle down and keep up and stop picking weeds from your garden. Jesus, it’s not that hard to sloth.

Anyway, the Home Depot. like my new favourite show, is also a community of orange-clad motley weirdos who only have each other to bond and form cliques with. Who works at the Home Depot? Everybody and anybody from every walk of life and in spite of the rigorous screening process they take to hire you, there is no typical Home Depot ~~inmate~~ employee. The one thing they have in common is they all shuffle around in their steel toe boots with a kind of quiet disgruntled resignation, and some less quiet than others. Those are the “rude ones” you guys complain about on internet forums. It turns out they are not rude per se, they have just done hard time, probably a half a shift of pack down right before a power hour and a quick Harveys lunch. You try doing that grunt work, bitch, and see if you can smile and gives two shits about some kind of crack you need to seal to keep the ants out of your filthy kitchen. I’m not like that yet, by the way, I am all sunshine and helpfulness even though I don’t know what the fuck I am talking about because I have never even used a caulking gun. Why don’t you hire people to do things anyway? Honestly, I can’t imagine what makes a person wake up on a Saturday morning and say to themselves: “I am going to the Home Depot and pick up a kit of 2-part epoxy acrylic floor covering and paint my garage.YOLO!” Do you even understand how to do this? This is something you need to google, you don’t just ask some Home Depot ho with a training badge on their apron if you need to prime first. It is hard! It is science and artistry combined! Hire someone and go watch Netflix. That is my one piece of advice as a Home Depot associate to you dumbass DIY-ers with too much time your hands.

Back to my analogy, just like in prison at the Home Depot, the weak ones will be exploited. I’m sure every department has a scapegoat, the one where teamwork just doesn’t apply. It’s the one fellow employee you do not help because he/she has been a douche/douchette and you overlook the greater good, like stellar customer service and product waste so you can gleefully watch them make a mistake and then have reason throw them into the fire and toast marshmallows over their corpse like a primal savage. It’s the social behaviour you learn in kindergarten that applies in every group scenarios I am sure. Our misfit is a middle aged Indian man named Anil whose name has become synonymous with blundering asshole. I hated him at first because he 1) laughed his microcephalic head off when I made minor rookie mistakes in training and 2) he once douchefully pushed me aside when I was in the middle of filling an order on the computer. Also I enamoured by Indian people and I especially think their accents are the most charming of all but his voice has a grating quality that needs to be silenced with duck tape.

Last week, now known as Blue Monday, he took an order for two gallons of “Laguna Beach” that contains 3 ounces of cobalt pigment which is a shitton of deep blue FYI..,It could go along way filling up pails of Boothbay Harbour, Alaskan Wildflower, Cerulean Blue, et cetera. As an aside, I really want to be the one who names the colours, I would be much more creative. Blue Balls, I would call a colour just to see if anyone would notice. Well wouldn’t you know it, he forgot to put the second can under the dispenser so we were all covered in blue days because he failed to clean it up and oh, how he laughed that high pitched crazy-assed cackle when the puddle started dripping off the counter onto the floor. This is a typical Anil day.

Behind his back, this how we talk:

“He doesn’t listen to women.”

“He doesn’t listen to men either, don’t kid yourself.”

“He doesn’t listen to customers which is why he makes so many Oopsies.”

“Apparently his family died in the tsumani but when he told me the story, he was laughing though, so he might have been lying.”

“He always laughs, that’s his M.O. and that’s an awful story, now I feel bad for him.”

“Don’t feel bad for him. He keeps throwing my water bottles away.”

“No, I definitely feel bad for him, why would lie about his family?”

“Because he lies about everything, he doesn’t even punch out at lunch.”

“That’s just fucking horrific, I am enraged now.”

“I can’t believe he forgot to put the lid on the can before he put it in the shaker.”

“What a feckless maroon.”

“I still can’t believe he forgot to put the can under the dispenser.”

“Everything is still blue.”

“When I went to the bathroom this morning, there was blue in my poop.”

“Oh my god, TMI!”

I don’t care what the other inmates say, I still feel sorry for him. What if he really did lose his family and he smiles the way primates do to diffuse a threatening situation? That is why I smile at work, I am actually deathly afraid of you customer-types. What if you are like that old lady who seemed so cute and harmless in her motor scooter wearing a fright wig that looked like Golde’s from a high school production of Fiddler on the Roof? How comically sweet was she motoring down the aisle until she started spraying black lacquer Rustoleum all over the place and screaming: ‘I DO NOT HAVE RUST! YOU WHORE! YOU SOLD ME THE WRONG CAN OF PAINT!” Oh, and how I grinned from ear-to-ear my primate smile as I darted down the hall to hide in hardware only to curl up in fetal position behind the WD-40 display. Please shoot me if I become one of those self-entitled old ladies with a temper that could out-do a toddler on a sugar high. What if all of Anil’s weird and socially inept behaviour is because he is lonely and hurt inside? What if he lives alone in a one room basement apartment all the way in Scarborough? It makes me sad to think about him beyond the orange curtain. I mostly took this job as a stress-free distraction that I wouldn’t bring home with me at the end of the day with me and bonus: lifting up all those paint cans is like hours spent at the gym that I don’t have to bother with because all the men at the gym are married and what a waste of time that is. All the men who shop at the Home Depot are married too, by the way, so much for any collateral benefits. As my daughter astutely pointed out: “Single men are too lazy to paint.”

But I am really obsessed with Anil, I try to imagine his life and why he is the way he is. Yesterday, he was setting up a can of paint under the dispenser and it was obviously askew and ready for disaster. One of my fellow in-mates nudged me and pointed it out before yet another accident was about to happen and he whispered “Shhh, don’t tell him.”

The colour was “Raven Feather.”

“ANIIIIIIIIL!” I screamed, “The can isn’t under the dispenser!” And the disaster was diverted. I’m not a hero, I just didn’t want to be pooping out black for the next week. And oh how he laughed at what could been known Black Tuesday. I hope he doesn’t think I like him.

Posted by Kristin Peterson. Categories: Uncategorized. Tags: Home depot, household tips, Orange is the New Black, paint. 3 Comments

Jul. ’13

The Wedding Bell Blues

Last weekend was the much-anticipated wedding of my tenant that I told you about if you were listening and yes, I wore Spanx after all 😦 . But have I ever told you that all 3 of my downstairs tenants (including my ex-husband, haha) have moved away to get married? Why don’t I rent it to someone I might want to marry down the road? Or at least a teflon dude like George Clooney who is dedicated to “bachelorhood” and will never leave me? I am using my air quotes because I think George is actually gay (c’mon people, his pussy posse is a beard brigade) and a so-called confirmed “straight” bachelor is a unicorn that doesn’t really exist in the real world. All those trollop-type men who you think will never settle down will inevitably end up married one day,trust me. Those are the type of dudes who surprise you and marry the nanny of the kid they accidentally fathered with the woman whose birth control “failed” while they were casually dating for a few weeks. So, so, so “romantic.”

Anyway, I can’t control who answers my ads on Craigslist. The internet is a jungle, we all know that. Which brings me to exactly two years ago, my tenant at the time, who had bounced no less than 6 of his rent cheques in less than a year told me he was sooooo sorry he would have to leave because he was saving for a house for his future wife even though all they did was fight over the phone, what a mess, seriously. Some couples you just can’t root for. He gave me less than a month to find a new tenant but to his credit cleaned the place so nicely that my photos on Cragislist garnered a plethora of responses. I had a choice! But also I had to worry about my neighbours because they are righteous sisters who have my back and I want desperately to please them. So in my inbox pile was an email from a young man who was living in Africa working for a charitable organization and coming to Toronto within a month to work at the head office. Ding, ding, ding, jackpot! Nothing my neighbours love more than posting stories of third world problems on their Facebook pages. So I rented it to him, sight unseen, never meeting him in person. The ladies next door would have to love him. And his cheque cleared so at least I loved him.

He moved in and a couple of months went by, he kind of kept to himself,we thought he might have been a socially awkward hermit. It wasn’t until Halloween that he came to one of put porch parties, which are usually an impromptu gathering in summer where copious beers and wines are drunkity, drunk, drunk until someone falls over. But Halloween is always a special event and we asked him to join us. It turns out he wasn’t an introvert teetotaler at all, he drank a bottle of gin and entertained with stories of drunky times in Africa which is actually party central, who knew? At one point he fell off the porch. Aaaand he had officially assimilated with the people of Dixon Avenue.

Little did we know at the time, the neighbours’ youngest sister was at the porch party and some sparks were flying between her and my tenant. For a couple months following, they started secretly seeing other. It wasn’t until one of the other neighbours outed them after seeing her come out of his apartment every morning at 6 a.m. that their jig was up. Isn’t it amazing how things can go on under your nose, literally, and you can’t see it? So romantic, no air quotes or sarcasm here. Some couples give me faith in the system, they are really a sweet pair. Also see how Craigslist can be used for good not just evil?

You know how I sometimes blather on Dorothy Parker-style about how I don’t believe in marriage, blah blah blah, it’s for fools, blah blah blah, one of them is lying, blah blah blah, somebody’s gonna get hurt real bad, blah blah? Well nobody cries harder at a church style wedding than moi. There is something about a bride in a white gown and a groom in a sharp suit that chokes me up, I get that way with bag pipes too, don’t know why…One of my good friends got married a few years back AND had bag pipes at their wedding, I almost melted into the floor. Also a little secret: I LOVE all those bride dress shows on TLC, isn’t it hilarious that they air all those shows on Friday night for all the single ladies to weep into their cats’ backs while drinking the entire 1.5 litre bottle of French Cross?

Weddings are awesome. Another dirty secret: I sometimes plan one of my own as a diversion from the rest of my fantasy regime. Here it is, indulge me while I turn into Bridezilla:

1. I need a groom of course, and here he is:

Louis CK! I would never be bored with a man who takes selfies in front a urinal. And he is at the top of my 10 Hot Ginger Men list, which is my most popular post on this entire blog. I know I talk about Idris Elba a lot, but I think it is just his character in “Luther” that I am in love with. I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FANTASY AND REALITY. Don’t you worry about me. Louis, call me!

2. The Ring! Yes, I want a ring! Now that Kat von D doesn’t need it :(, I WANT IT:

It has tiny little skulls holding up a diamond! If it had little owls I would like it better but this one will do.

3. The Dress. I know, it’s all about the strapless but I would be afraid my tits would pop out because my sweater puppies are now old hounds now and they can’t be trusted because gravity. I would go for something like this cleavage/leg showcase and no veil, please, I am a lady of a certain age and that would just look dumb:

NOT THOSE SHOES! Ugh fug! That’s where my “something blue” would come in, I’d wear these:

I know right? Wicked.

4. I would want my hair like those staid house bitches on Downton Abbey with jewels and feathers in it. It turns out that when my hair is in an updo, I am not compelled to twirl it and stuff it in my mouth, OCD is in check, I’d just have to keep my hands busy elsewhere:

5. I would have a winter wedding, so no sweating, no itchy nipples or thighs rubbing together and making slapping sounds…smart, right? Also February is a dull month with nothing going on but Valentine’s Day which don’t worry, I wouldn’t pick THAT day because that would be a douche move: “Look at us getting married on Valentine’s Day! Our love is the most beautiful and sacred of all!”

Let’s go for the end of February, maybe the 29th so we’d only have to celebrate our anniversary every 4 years because when it comes to actual marriage, less is more.

6. I would get married in a hotel, maybe the Gladstone because it’s so hipster, and everyone could drink and conveniently flop there when they got too bloated to carry on. I would feel embarrassed having a church wedding as I was raised agnostic and adopted my own religion where I have interpreted the “7 Deadly Sins” as virtues. Heathenism I think it’s called. I would want the “Teen Queen” room because it’s all about me and my needs, oh my God, Rob Lowe, I’d still hit it:

7. And finally, you’d all be invited and my wedding song would be this one…it makes me cry a little:

Posted by Kristin Peterson. Categories: Uncategorized. Tags: George Clooney beard, Kat von D engagement ring, Louis CK, the Gladstone Hotle, wedding dresses, wedding hair, weddings. 6 Comments

Jul. ’13

Where Does the Time Go?

Dogs don’t care about time, they just live in the moment.

I haven’t worn a watch since the days of Swatch-mania circa the late 1980s and I stopped wearing them altogether when I had a collection of 10 of them that all needed battery replacements at the same time and would cost as much as a new watch to revive them again. “Fuck that shit,” I said and never looked back. I don’t even need a watch anyway: a) my cell phone is so connected to me it has amalgamated into my DNA AND it has a handy clock on it and b) I always know what time it is even before I check the time. I have a finely tuned intuition clock that wakes me up 5 minutes before my cell phone alarm goes off because I so fucking hate/fear/dread that noise, I will do anything not to let it permeate my ear drums. My subconscience has my back and will wrap up that dream plot early and jostle my bladder to force me up so I don’t have to hear “Marumba” at 5:30 a.m. However, sometimes my subconscience is a douchebag and wakes me up every 15 goddamn minutes just in case I start dreaming of Idris Elba and his dick actually works this time and doesn’t turn into a lizard and run away. Why do all my sex dreams end with some kind of surreal erectile dysfunction?

Anyway, now that HAVE AN ACTUAL JOB, I am now much more aware of time management. Also I bought a non-Swatch watch because I keep my cell phone in my locker so I’m not tempted to finger fuck it while I’m on the clock. I think that is a major no-no, nobody should pay you to play Bejeweled Blitz, you are your own idiot on your own time. Anyway Before Job (B.J. as we will call it), I would lovingly milk out my chores, spacing them out so that each task would cover a certain amount of units of time, like in “About A Boy” when slacker Will (Hugh Grant) explains how to while away the day:

Now I motor through my errands like I’m yanking out rogue eyebrow hairs. For example, today being my day off, first thing this morning I drove Evangeline up to her job at her swanky private school day camp, Bayview Glen, then went to the car wash and got “the works” while I filed my toenails on the bench outside (relax, no one was there), then went to Loblaws and twirled the aisles, came home and powered mowed my lawn and the neighbours’ and ALL THIS before my morning poop. Seriously, it was 10 a.m. and I was ready for cocktail hour and was going to sit down with y’all and blog about my childhood friend coming to visit me last weekend when the phone rang and I actually answered it.

It was a strange number but I was feeling reckless and turned out to be Evangeline calling from the school’s medical office. She was having one of those heart palpitation thingys that I have not told you about but is an actual symptom of anxiety, she is okay now, thanks, but I killed more than 2 units of time picking her up and then popping into the butcher shop for Tamshire bacon. The butcher asked me if I was going to see “Pacific Rim” this weekend because my boyfriend (Idris Elba) is in it.

“I’m an old woman, I don’t have time to watch monsters and robots fight, there’s nothing in there that I can grasp and then take back with me for later use,” I said. It’s true, since watching that wretched mess, “Inception,” with my beloved Leonardo DiCaprio, I will never waste another second sitting through a summer blockbuster again. I have my warm laptop and I have my hot torrent of “Luther” that will satisfy all my needs. I have no problem watching shows I love over and again and yet I’m reluctant to try new things. I think this is a symptom of becoming a curmudgeony old person. Oh well.

Another 3 whole units of time were frittered away watching “Boogie Nights” this afternoon.

“That was a weird movie,” said Evangeline.

“Don’t you think Dirk Diggler is cute?” I felt bad because she wanted to watch “Breaking Dawn Part 2” (I know, right? Barf-oh-barf, why has she not outgrown this?) and insisted upon “Boogie Nights” as I hadn’t seen it since it was in the theatre in 1997, holy cow, where does the time go? and I had a fond memory of Mark Wahlberg but I couldn’t quite remember why.

“That was a prosthetic, I’m pretty sure.” That’s what she said.

Huh.

******************************

So now I’m here, better late than never. Last weekend Val, my oldest friend from my childhood, came to town from Boulder to visit for a few days. We grew up in a tiny town in Quebec, Mont St.Hilaire, a unit of time “south” of Montreal. Although, let’s address this first, I’m talking to you, Montreal, this is something that has been bugging since I was literally four years old: Why is your sense of direction so fucked up? Is your compass drunk? Check the map: The “South Shore” is actually east. I don’t want to make a big stink out of it but come on, people please, you have enough problems with your cracked pavement, sinkholes, and collapsing bridges, LOOK AT YOUR MAP, BRO: Boucherville and Longueuil are on an east shore and NDG is south so why do you call it “west?” And when you say Laval is north, it’s actually west. It’s sad really. LOOK AT IT:

And between y’all and me, if you address their whacked due north system it to a Montrealer, they’s be all like “Baaahhhh-waaahhhhyy” then mumbling something incoherent. So there is really no point in arguing. They do make good gravy, though, I will say that.

Anyway we grew up off that map somewhere to the right, let’s not stress out about this again but it really does bug me, we looked at the sunrise and then the sunset when we were young savages trolling the orchards and in through the trees in mountain and knew even then something was off-kilter. We spent all our waking non-school hours together and made up a language that only we could understand. We lived outside in a tent in the summer and an igloo in the winter and terrorized the neighbourhood in bare feet and feral hair with our never-ending pranks that I had completely forgot about until she reminded me. I now am actually embarrassed decades later. Take note: I am embarrassed. I know I am all TMI with my sex dreams and you probably think what could two re-adolescent girls do that was so bad, you are wrong. You’ll have to buy me dinner and maybe I will tell you one of our dark deeds. In the meantime I am asking the gods for forgiveness and ask to absolve me by cutting out wheat and sugar that is not alchohol-based from my diet. That’s how the gods roll, right? Quebec-style. Give some shit up, then you are golden like a pancake smothered in maple syrup. Plus I am killing two birds with one stone. That Wedding is just over a week away and I don’t want to wear Spanks in July!

Anyway, Val moved away in Grade 9 to Toronto during the mass exodus of the late 70s and we only had snail mail and the occasional visit, Then we grew up and older, I moved to Toronto and spawned, she moved to Boulder, had her family and we kind of lost touch until the magic of Facebook, of course. And if you think I am all about talking shit and over-analyzing to death then put the two of us together and we did not sleep hardly at all the first night. THERE WAS NO TIME! Oh, how we trolled the internet, checking out each other’s friends and exes, scrolling on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and even that big fake titted bull, LinkedIn. We had to control ourselves because some of our crazy pranking instincts were starting to kick in. We are old now and have mellowed out because wine. Too old, too tired, and that’s okay, most people now have call display and they can track down your pubic hairs through DNA testing, so it’ s just as well.

What was interesting was it was like no time had passed between us since we were kids, there was no feeling of being strangers. I am lucky to have someone like her in my life but I wish she lived next door again because I just don’t have the time figure out how to Skype. I know, your grandmother probably does but I am lazy that way.

Posted by Kristin Peterson. Categories: lady boners, LOCAs gone wild, Uncategorized. Tags: About a Boy, Idris Elba, Pacific Rime, time management, units of time. 2 Comments

Jun. ’13

When Bad Things Happen To Stupid People

Isn’t that hilarious how just last week I was talking about how my greatest fear is highway driving and how my car, Precious, hates velocity? True story, scroll down to the last post…AND THEN IT HAPPENED! It turns out Precious doesn’t hate velocity PER SE, she just had some lady part problems. Like her mother, she is middle aged, 7 car years is fair to say prolly equals a 50 year-old drying up bitch with some good years left but with scrapes from an enraged mall parking incident two days before Christmas and a side door dent from another parking lot on a super windy day…and yes, both were my dumb faults for backing into a pole and parking too close to an SUV with those righteous stick family adhesives on the back window, although anyone with common sense knows not to park theirs next to one containing children because parents are too drunk or frazzled to care if the doors swing open too far and hit the next car, can you blame them? Have you ever tried to stuff an arched back wailing toddler into a car seat? Who cares if a middle aged lady Scion XB needs $500 worth of body work? Get that child safely tucked into the Jeep Sahara so you make it home without breaking anyone’s legs. I SO understand, but back then I had the smarts to have a mom-van with sliding doors and you laughed at me, see? Makes sense now, right?

Anyway on Sunday, five of us family member drove up the Don Valley to Newmarket for Father’s Day, and because I hate highways so much, my nephew Arne drove us: He, Me, Freddy, Evangeline, and Sister Sue.

“The clutch is not engaging properly,” Arne said mid-way somewhere beyond the moon. But he always says this, at least since Christmas, I think it’s his tag-line on Grindr.

“What does that that mean?” I ask from the backseat, looking at my eyebrows in the rearview mirror. What is going on with my eyebrows? They used to be so dark and lush and now they are all but gone. I haven’t even been stress-plucking, I think they are just shedding and rotting in my old age. And why did I used to hate my eyebrows so much? They were way better than Angelina Jolie’s supposedly perfect brows, they arched more cleverly and with wry humour that made you think I was laughing at you (and I probably was back then, not anymore). Now I am drawing them back on with a brow pencil. Pain in the ass, sometimes I end up looking like a chola. Or Joan Crawford when I rub the gooey brown junk off. What the hell?

He said nothing and my daughter kept giving me worried glances and then we managed to get to Aurora, except we didn’t know it at the time because who knows where you are on GeoGuessr ? (Seriously click that link after you finish reading this and play the game with Google maps, fun fun fun). Relatively speaking, in case you don’t know the geography, is like if Toronto is Earth, then Newmarket is Mercury, we’re now in Venus, which is basically in the middle of nowhere, and that there was cell phone service was a fucking miracle and how grateful were we when the car finally died safely at the side of the road. And Arne, bless his heart, had the wherewithal to Instagram it. And then call a tow truck.

I, on the other hand, had lost all the saliva in my mouth and production came to a halt. I started to bark.

“What are we going to do? I don’t have CAA! I don’t even have a credit card!” I am so stupid. Pro tip: Do not hide those envelops in the back of your junk drawer, pay the minimum balance each month. You can do it.

Everyone else is all chill, as that is the Peterson nature, I am the Chihuahua of the family, all nervous and neurotic. Don’t worry, blah blah blah, they kept saying and Sister Sue finally placating me with her enviable vacant Mastercard. So we waited for the tow truck and my Other Sister Sandy to pick us up from the side of the road. Other Sister Sandy came almost immediately (or at least as long as it takes to get from Mercury to Venus) and the tow truck driver took his sweeeeeeet time. ಠ╭╮ಠ

That was when we a) got sunburned and b) met Officer Excellent from the OPP who bellied up to our wreckage with his cruiser. His last name was actually Excellent! Is that not awesome? He was the sweetest man, all laughing and cheerful, and he hung out with us until the tow truck arrived. There was a kerfuffle about how would would all travel, squished in my sister’s car or one of us on the tow truck? Officer Excellent would figure out for us. Dude could do anything. Even the Russian mafia tow truck driver was enchanted by his charm (“That is the nicest OPP officer I ever met!” in thick Russian accent) but alas, he had a hooker in the passenger seat and yes, she was definitely a working girl with her feet up on the dashboard and one of her tacky pink gladiator sandals was hanging on the rearview mirror, I am not even kidding, so he didn’t have room for one of us. We begged Officer Excellent to give us a ride but “that wouldn’t be safe” instead it was A-okay with him for all us all piling all sardine-like in the back of Other Sister’s sedan-type car, “Godspeed!” he said as he whizzed away in his blue OPP Excellentmobile. Adorable. Sigh.

Aaaaaand the Russian mafia tow truck bill came to $270.71.

Pro Tip: When your car breaks down on the highway, THIS IS THE MOMENT YOU CALL CAA and join on the spot and enjoy a free tow from a driver who probably enjoys his hookers AFTER his shift. These are the things that stupid people learn after the fact. Because everybody with a car of a certain age should have roadside insurance. Holy shit, most people with only a brain stem know that. Why don’t people tell us head-in-the-sand-types that you can actually join when your car breaks down? Well I am now, and you’re welcome. ****UPDATE: Apparently the old dude at the gym was WRONG, membership is activated 24 hours after initial sign up for new membership, so that was $270.71 well spent after all.

The next day, my beloved mechanic Mike, took a look at the car and the obvious was true: Burnt out clutch. He called me no less than 3 times that day and the next while he was fixing it and said: “Kristeeeeeen, why do drive a standard transmission? I think you should have an automatic, blah blah blah!”

He was clutch shaming me to the point of tears. Clutched shamed and horrified that my stupid veiny long-toed feet caused $850 worth of damage, I actually did cry and have a massive meltdown. What the hell? The car is 7 years old and needs a new clutch, that doesn’t seem too crazy, or does it? So I googled and found out that NORMAL people, not just the stupid ones, burn out their clutches. (Also confession: I have done it before on the Mini Cooper but maintain it was a faulty, piece of shit car because it was only a year old and everything else broke on it within the first year. Fuck those BMW crooks).

But nonetheless I cried and cried all that night and was talked off the ledge by my fellow blog friend, Erin. The clutch shaming was too much for my fragile ego. It was an accumulation of the shit storm that has transpired over the last few years. Although everything “bad” that happened, happened because I was a dumb ass. Like for example, even when I went to pick up the car, as I was walking along Eastern, I tripped and fell on both knees, shattering my dainty, dollar store quality crepitated knee caps and scraping both shins. You know those types of road burn wounds take forever to heal. Betty the dog won’t leave me alone, she thinks the scabs are raw bacon bits, licky, licky, licky (tickles, I kind of like it, gross I know). If I wasn’t wearing stupid flip flops, it probably wouldn’t have happened. So now I am wearing Birkenstocks, which is almost as ridiculous but the soles are hard and less slippery. A stupid bitch can actually learn a lesson once in awhile.

Also back to the important issues like my eyebrows. Pro tip: I found the eyebrow kit from Benefit, it’s way better than a pencil because you brush it on all feathery so it looks like hairs, not a sharpie marker line. If I didn’t have the internet for things like that, I would be spending at least $850 in 7 years having my brows groomed by the professionals at the Brow House, so by that estimation, who cares about a little old clutch? Honestly, get a grip, Peterson, these are all just first world problems.

Posted by Kristin Peterson. Categories: This Charming Man. Tags: Benefit eyeshadow, CAA, chola brows, eyebrows, manual transmissions, roadside insurance. 4 Comments

Jun. ’13

How To Tell Someone They Are Making A Huge Mistake

Wow, I feel like I haven’t blogarrhea’d out a post in eons, not because I’ve been lazy…okay, maybe a tiny bit lazy, Freddy and I are power-watching, or Bluthing, all 4 seasons of Arrested Development before he goes away for the summer. But I have also been busy flying my broomstick in the west end of the city. I’m going to have to change the title of this site to “my toronto WHEEEE”…you know the “EH” stands for “east hoods,” right? It’s not that bovine Canadian colloquialism, “eh” that every patriotic hoser uptalks at the end of every sentence whether it is a question or not, because I never do that….eh?

Anyway, I have a job in the west end and more on that later, I signed a confidentiality agreement that I read as assiduously as an Apple licensing agreement when downloading the latest version of iTunes,in other words not a single word of it passed through my retinas, so I don’t want to blab about it too much in case I say something that taints the orange halo. When I say “west end,” I am not talking about twee Trinity Bellwoods, half-gentrified Parkdale, or that contrived, trendy, boring dump, Liberty Village. My new job is in deep, dark Etobicoke! Do you know how long it took me to learn how to spell it? So many syllables, where do put the emphasis? For those of you out-of-towners who read me, you say it like: uh-TOE-buh-COH…the K is silent, like all good k’s should be. Etobicoke is the stomping grounds of our mayor, Rob Ford, and where I work, dollars for donuts, he will walk in one day for a weed whacker or a propane tank and I am going to just DIE star-struck. I mean it, the more shenanigans the mayor gets into, the more I love him and I love him more intensely each day as he is such an amazing gaping goatse of an asshole, but in an entertaining way. So delete me or whatever.

I thought I hated the west end and it would be a drag to get there because in my old age I have developed a fear of highway driving. Every time I’m on a highway, I keep thinking my mind is going to snap and I will spazz out and steer my golf cart into a giant truck. That’s another thing, my little first generation Scion XB drives like a toy car and velocity is not its thing, so when Precious gets to the highway speeds, there is a definite sensation that her wheels are going to pop off, especially when she hits those thrill bumps at Humber Bay. So I take the Lakeshore/Queensway and I love it. I am a mellow city driver and stop lights don’t get me down and time is my bitch, I like to waste it doing the most mundane things like sitting in traffic. Also I have discovered all kinds of cute stores and restaurants along the way, like THE CHEESE BOUTIQUE off of South Kingsway. My sister told me about this place, it’s rooms full of cheese, chocolate, and pepperoni. It’s like a culinary museum where everything is for sale and melts in your mouth.

It’s a whole new world for me and fuck knows I need a change, you can set your watch by my east end activities. I am super-stoked about my job. I get to wear steel toe safety boots, so I found a cute pink pair at Mark’s. gonna put the “ho” in Home Depot. There you go. The other day when I was walking to the training room from the paint department, which is going to be my beat, I got all choked up and teary eyed, not because I was sad but because I was so overwhelmed with a relief and gratitude. Weird, right? Everyone there is so nice, I’m just not used it. I’m used to being invisible. Even the training has been fun. Don’t you just hate being in a conference room with out a bunch of motley strangers and then being forced to do that thing where they go around the room and everyone has to say their name and tell something about themselves…like what? I have nothing to say about me, ironically, and I live in absolute fear of these types of situations. I hate saying my name out loud and always have the impulse to say my name is Ginger. At The Home Depot, which I can’t stop habitually pronouncing “DEE-poe,” as “duh-POE” emphasis on the last syllable, they find it funny and my unbridled enthusiasm charming. Instead of circle jerk introductions, we partnered up, cracked open a box of Smarties, chose 3 colours each, and asked each other 3 questions from the board which matched each colour. Important inquiries such as what is your favourite tv show and what would you do if you won the lottery? Then we got to introduce our partner and tell everyone what we learned about him/her. This was genius because in less than 10 minutes and with just 3 questions, I got my partner, George’s, entire life story including his phone number. I am going to rock this job.

Also there is a Bier Market next door which is one of the better chain restaurants. After my third(!) and final interview last week, I met Jesus there for a pint. Not THAT Jesus, MY JESUS, JESUS OF THE JUNCTION, the name of my screen play, don’t steal it. This Jesus has always got something going on, he needs me for “free” therapy which costs him a minimum of 2 pints, sometimes 3…or when he is completely needy then we have 4. Trust me, it’s a bargain, he is such a hot mess. He is 43 and dating a 20-something-year-old like he is entitled even though he barely has a job, you know the type. He lives in his married sister’s basement for free but babysits her kids whenever she needs him. This is a pretty awesome set-up because when they are at school, he spends all his time at the gym or the tattoo parlour getting his ink touched up. He does have the most beautiful mermaid tattoo on his forearm that I am jelly of except that she is wearing a seashell bra, I would have had her sans bra but with strategically placed flowing hair, or not. Who cares about a nip slip on a tattoo? It’s so badass. But Jesus does because he doesn’t want to “shock his mama.” That is just so hilarious.

He can’t sit on a patio in the sun because one of his arms, the non-mermaid one is freshly scabbing over with blue and red flakes of skin. It’s some big mess based upon the “Red Wedding” from “Game of Thrones.” Gross. So we sit inside at the bar on the only nice day of the summer so far. Whatevs, I actually care about the weather. The sun is bullshit anyway, I like this whacky cold summer. But let’s get right into Jesus’s problem du jour.

Jesus’s younger brother, Hector, is getting married at the end of the month. It turns out EVERYBODY, family and friends, hates the guts of his fiancee. She is a “conniving cunt,” his words, and is after him for his business which is a fish market, The Fish Monger’s Cunt, name of the next screen play, don’t steal it. He went on a big rampage about her that we don’t need to repeat but suffice to say, this is one of those women that give bitches a bad name.

Jesus asks: Should somebody tell him, before he gets married, that we all hate her? Or do we just let it happen and watch the inevitable train wreck?

What do you think, people?

I am of two minds on this sort of thing, having been in and seen people in destructive relationships. On one hand, you can’t tell someone NOT to be with someone because they won’t listen and they will resent you.”Love” makes people not just blind, but deaf AND with the judgement of a drunken teenager. Ages ago I used to be in a circle of couple friends (“couplings” *barf* I know) where the dude was funny, smart, and handsome but his wife was this super-ugly, chinless, pear-shaped militant vegetarian twat with no humour or redeeming qualities whatsoever, and yet I was the only one who vehemently hated her. I am convinced the others in the group just put up with her because the guy was so nice, but no, they seemed to actually like her. I had to scratch it up to one of those mysteries of life where I am the outsider and everyone else is in the Twilight Zone. But when EVERYONE hates the person, that is meaningful and maybe someone should say something. If you don’t, then some day, maybe not next year, but in two or three, Hector will wake up from his oxytocin fog and look at the woman he married and shriek whilst biting off his arm: “WHY THE HELL DIDN’T SOMEONE WARN ME I MARRIED A COW?”

I think it’s up to Jesus, the best man.

So the burning question is: How do you tell someone they are about to make a huge Bluth-style mistake?

1. The passive aggressive approach. You tell a story as though it is an Aesop Fable and you hope the person understands it is about them. Like Jesus could watch Arrested Development with Hector, specifically an episode that depicts Michael’s disdain for George Michael’s homely girlfriend, Anne, and he could turn to his brother and say something LOL-like: “This show is so much like our family, if I were a character, I would be Michael and if you were a character, you would be George Michael.” And then hope he gets it. But he won’t, because people are stupid. And Jesus is totally GOB anyway, so that point would be moot.

2. Get even more passive aggressive. Send him an anonymous note like: YOUR FIANCEE IS A COW, DON’T MARRY HER. SIGNED, A FRIEND. This will probably never work. People believe anonymous notes are written by embittered cat ladies or hermit men who have enough equipment in their sheds to build bombs. BUT! At least it plants a seed in their dumb heads.

3. Tell him gently. Simply say: “Hector, I think you might be rushing into this and if you want to back out, it’s okay.” And you have done your due diligence, although probably far too mild mannered for it to have any impact that when he does end up chewing his arm off, coyote-style, he will completely forget you said anything at all.

4. Just tell him straight up. I am a fan of this one and have been known to point out many loitering, flatulent elephants in any given room. Say it in language he can really understand: “Hector, usted está haciendo un gran error, tu novia es una vaca, todo el mundo le odia.” And there you have it. Brutal honesty is super scary and sometimes you will have diarrhea afterwards but it will be a great relief, trust me.

5. And if you chicken out: Get your friend to work it into a blog post and send him the link, and if he gets past the first 5 bloated paragraphs then he gets the message and if he doesn’t, it is out there forever living in the ethers of the internet where you can access it in 10 years and say: “I TOLD YOU SO!” Oh, and anybody else who knows somebody who is about to make a huge mistake, you can send this as a cautionary tale. You’re welcome.

This is about fixing a broken heart and I am OBSESSED with this video:

Posted by Kristin Peterson. Categories: Uncategorized. Tags: Arrested Development, I have made a huge mistake, weddings. 2 Comments

May. ’13

Diet Tips for Drunkards

I like to play this game: Would you rather have lunch with Rob Ford or Justin Bieber? Obviously, Mayor Rob Ford…right? I don’t hate him as much as you people, my fellow Torontonians, as his shenanigans have increased traffic flow to my little blog with google search terms like: Ass-grabbing, fat mayor of Toronto who ate the gravy train while smoking crack and eating KFC. My fertile imagination could never fathom creating a character so amazing. I would actually love to hang out with Rob AND his bro for an afternoon of drinking beers, eating wings, and shooting the shit. Good times. So much fun would they be, unlike the Biebs who would probably pout and slouch in his leather diaper pantaloons, scratching the scabs off his stupid tattoos and never looking at you in the eye whilst he complains about his greasy chicken fingers. He is 10 gallons of menstrual berry douche water poured into a 12 ounce can of Red Bull. I have an irrational hatred of him that far exceeds your somewhat rational disdain of our corpulent mayor.

So judgey wudgey are people. So what, a little a crack. Obviously he’s not doing so much of it that is it detrimental to his physique. Seriously, people, do you really care that Rob Ford’s brother, Doug, was a hash dealer in high school? WHERE DO YOU THINK THE HASH YOU HOT-KNIFED IN GRADE 10 CAME FROM? Your mom? No, it was distributed from the drug lords in South America to the good citizens of your hometown, the people who ran small businesses like car washes, chicken shacks, and nail salons (watch some Breaking Bad, people) and then funnelled to enterprising youth like Doug Ford who sold it to ALL of you so you could get high in a kitchen party on Saturday night. And guess what? He didn’t have to get up at 5 a.m. to deliver the Globe and Mail like you did to make thirty bucks a week. THAT is what I call smart hockey.

I saw this picture on Reddit last week of Rob Ford and his jubilant politico cronies that made my heart cry with Jesus-like compassion and yes, even love. Look at those bitches clapping and laughing like the prom scene in Carrie and then to left there is Rob, all alone, sullen and out of place…I just want to take him under my soft, downy wing and wipe the stress sweat from his forehead and introduce him to Smashbox Photofinish green primer from Sephora and take him to my favourite restorative yoga class where the smell of lavender essential oil candles cuts out the wafting fetor of SBDs. And THEN we can go out for a bucket of chicken because fuck yeah, KFC is awesome:

I want to squeeze all the so-called evil out of him! I do so much love a fat man. AND I don’t care what y’all with your righteous lawn signs say about bike lanes and no casinos, I think he had a valid point on both of those issues. Casinos bring in both revenue AND Tony Orlando! Also your visiting relatives from Minnesota will have something to do like play slot machines while you go biking on the Martin Goodman trail to Cherry Beach to get a quick blowie in the high grass. Which brings me to the point that bicycles are all very well and good for subversive traffic but if you are going to share the road with cars and trucks, you better follow the rules of the game, Pinko.

Here’s a quick rant before moving on to diet tips: As much as we want our city to be green and bicycle-friendly, it is not designed that way. The weather is shite most of the year and guess what, granola bar? There are cars and trucks that need to go places. Also as part of our transit system, on some of our busiest roads we have big lurching, slow-moving manatees, otherwise known as streetcars, that clog the arteries of traffic. Why does this antiquated system still even exist? This is not Tennesse Williams” New Orleans, this city is bigger than Chicago. They are awkward and mismanaged. When they are stopped you can’t pass them, when one breaks down, they all go out of service, lined up and hogging an entire lane of roadway. As a driver of a car, you have to be stealth like a ninja to get anywhere downtown. But noooo…they want more bike lanes to add to the combobulation of traffic because cars bad, bikes good.

I used to be a courier and rode a bike for a living. Never once in those days did I think I was equal to a car. One false move and I could be hurt or killed and so I rode DEFENSIVELY, with the understanding that drivers in vehicles have blind spots and other important things to focus on than my dumb, pimply rashed, lycra-clad ass. The other day, while I was driving in back of a streetcar on Queen Street East, just west of Broadview during rush hour, the fat fucking manatee streetcar hissed and farted and if you’ve ever seen Toronto streetcars, you know this is the special sound of a streetcar driver stopping the car and running into a Tim Hortons for a slash and then picking up a coffee which is by all means their right and no one should begrudge anyone of a donut, but it also means you can pass the car and go on your merry way. So I went into the right lane AT THE PACE OF YOUR GRANDMA IN HER WALKER, and slithered by the streetcar and then stopped at a crosswalk where people were crossing, I am not a dick, I did not run them over. I hear a knocking on my car and a cyclist rides up to my left and yells into my open window; “You cut me off!”

“I’m sorry I didn’t see you,” I said, which was true as I was watching out for pedestrians in front of me.

“You cut me off when you changed lanes, you should check for cyclists!” The cyclist is one of those ubiquitous sinewy middle-aged men who buys trail mix at the Carrot Common, you know the type. He participates in triathalons even though he has sloping lady shoulders and is probably a shite swimmer. He is laughably dressed head-to-toe Tour de France ensemble while his ugly navy blue suit waits for him in his office at his boring finance job. The only joy he and his shriveled testicles get is biking to work, obviously. Here’s a pro-tip, Captain Gear Geek, when you are out riding with the big boy cars, how about slowing down with the traffic when it is coming a halt and ANTICIPATE what the car in front of you is going to do which is obviously to pass a stopped streetcar. This whiny little asshole enraged me to the point where I wished I had knocked him over crushed his $5000 bike with my dainty Scion tire, but he sped off, weaving through traffic and over the bridge before I could even form the letter “F.” Entitled white man privilege motherfucker.

End of rant.

Last week from my Facebook newsfeed, I worried less (as in not one fucking iota) about crack-smoking Rob Ford than I did about GMOs and Montsanto and the Frankenfood causing diseases with all the pesticides, etc. I read all the stuff people were posting and really began to get freaked out. Wheat is one of the scariest deviations of genetically engineered food out there. I am not an alarmist type but this really bothers me. So I decided to cut out wheat for a few days last week to see how I would survive. Also what the hell, I will give up other things like fructose corn syrup. And Oreos. And cut back on cheese. And who am I kidding? I’m ON A DIET because I have a much-anticipated wedding to go to in 8 weeks and I need to fit into something in my closet and I want to look hot on Instagram in the context of an old lady cougar. I’m going to be wearing my disco shoes.

I hate when people talk about their weight and diets, it’s so boring. Hearing people go on about how many weight watchers points in a burrito, gluten allergies, master cleanses, etc, makes me want to force feed them globs of lard after I have duct taped them on top of a medical scale. When I was a teenager, I had cultivated an eating disorder that lasted a few years until it got tedious and unrewarding and I realized no one else really cares what you weigh, in fact they like you better fat and happy. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR DAILY CALORIE COUNT SO SHUT UP.

Because of my teen anorexia, a few rounds of disco diets in my twenties, and following the Zone a couple of times post-babies, I am awesome at dieting. It’s not rocket science and I read up on all the current new “facts” and it’s just hilarious. You are no longer just a plain old fatty anymore, instead your diet is causing “inflammation.” LOL! I just figure if you give up a bunch of shit that you were normally eating, then you will lose weight but no, they have to constantly put out new spins so you keep buying the latest books.

“You know giving up alcohol is key,” said Jesus (not that Jesus, my Jesus, Jesus of the Junction) when I told him I am relinquishing wheat for the sake of humanity and not having to wear Spanx in July. Jesus trains with a kick boxer and watches his carb intake like a little girl.

“Fuck that, Jesus, I give up alcohol for a month every January and sometimes in August and I can tell you, I will lose a quick couple gallons of water bloat but I will make up for my misery in ice cream. I need to focus on a cause and make myself believe I am doing something for the greater good like creating a better environment for our children and their children’s children,” I explained, trying to be earnest about my one woman wheat boycott, “Not drinking is dreadfully boring and inevitably leads to binge drinking and then a melancholia that can only be described by the Smiths in the song ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.”‘

“Alright then, you have a point,” Jesus conceded and then went on to talk about himself and some 24 year-old girl he’s been banging who he met at the gym, apparently she is on some Paleo fuckery diet and went from a size 10 to a 4 eating like a cavewoman, woohoo! He is such a perv to be dating someone 20 years younger but I listen to what he has to say and pay enough attention to realize that dried up berries probably fermented into alcohol that our hairy relatives enjoyed and therefore this diet will work for me.

Here are some pro-tips on how to lose weight and keep on drinking like that crazy mofo Rob Ford, he should go on it with me. I HAVE MY VICES AND I AM GOING TO WORK AROUND THEM SO HERE WE GO:

1. Your liver is not a mulit-tasker, it’s a man, it only processes one thing at a time. In order to avoid metobolic mix up, don’t eat when you drink. Plus you will get drunker faster. Win win.

2. A Caesar (or Bloody Mary if you are an ignorant, deprived American) makes a nice light lunch.

3. Don’t drink fancy cocktails made out of sugary mixes like margaritas and Bellinis, otherwise you will drink your way into Type 2 diabetes and that will be the end of that.

4. Instead, mix vodka with club soda and lime.

5. Drink a bunch of water every time you have a cocktail. Hahahaha, you will totally forget to do that so leave a bottle of water by your bed and try to remember to drink it before you pass out.

6. Beer also makes a nice light lunch but don’t drink that shite cloudy wheat beer because GMOs….and it’s crap.

7. Remember that drinking lessens your inhibitions and makes you break open the Goldfish GMO crackers when you pass by the pantry. Do not do this! Eat a carrot! Pro tip: If you encase a walnut in a Medjool date, it tastes just like a brownie…sort of. Close enough.

8. If you have a hangover because you drank too much and you must have a greasy breakfast because you are dying, then skip the GMO toast with the eggs and bacon and eat maybe half the home fries, this way you will avoid most of the “inflammation” that white carbs cause. By the way, inflammation is just a fancy term for bloat but makes you feel less ashamed. “I am inflamed because of all the GMOs,” you can legitimately say in order to avoid the cycle of self-loathing and feel like a victim of environmental toxicity instead of merely a pig.

Maybe that is Rob Ford’s problem: He is simply inflamed with GMOs. When you think of him that way, he is much less of a monster. All of us are inflamed, just some of us are more so. To paraphrase Morrissey: Some pigs are bigger than others.

Put that in your crack pipe and smoke it.

Posted by Kristin Peterson. Categories: Uncategorized. Tags: diet tips for alchohols, Doug Fprd hash dealer, Rob Ford, Rob Ford crack smoking. 5 Comments

May. ’13

The Plight of the Remainder Man

So yeah, my birthday came and went and I didn’t dry up as expected. On the eve of the big day, the gods delivered an exploding magnum of sweet menses nectar that I welcomed with a fist pump: “Yesssss!!! Still full of fossil fuel!” Only to be shot down by my friend, Ask Yahoo: “Your period is like a geyser? That’s a sign of menopause, ho!” Whatevs.

As you may know, if you are on my tail of tales, I turned 50 on May 11. I was all freaked and couldn’t even say the number, it came out like “fuh” then graduated to “Fuhfff-tuh” but now I am saying it every where I go like I have Tourettes. On my actual birthday I began to own the whole ragged mess.

“I’m 50!” I blurted out to no one in particular as I sat in the ladies’ washroom stall at The Only Cafe.

“Fuck yeah,” the feet waiting outside in front of me said, “My mother is 50. She looks fab and she can still ride a bike.”

“That’s awesome! And I can still wipe my own bum!” I said, walking out of the stall. It turned out that the feet in front of me was one of my daughter’s friends, age 19, who was at the bar to see her play a solo show.

“Oh my God,” she gasped (not really, but it’s my blog) and she really, honestly, truly did say: “You don’t look 50, I thought you were about 35.” What a dear, sweet, stupid girl. I thanked her and gave her a hug, smothering her with my expired mom tits and went back to the bar. It was a good birthday, once I started pronouncing “fifty” properly, my friends and family spoiled me rotten, buying me lunch, dinner, beers, a golden skull, good old money, and my beloved Elizabeth Arden’s PREVAGE, holy cow. But I don’t like to milk a birthday. There’s nothing worse than a grown-ass adult who makes a big production of their birthday like they are the second coming of a newfangled Narcissist Jesus. Hear’s the rule, people: Over the age of 10, NO MORE LASER QUEST FOR YOU!

Anyway, this is just a segue to what I really want to hash out, analyze, make pro con list, confer, deliberate, and bore you to the point where you yell at me: JUST MARRY HIM ALREADY, like I have a choice. As I have blathered on about before, I have a “Remainder Man.” He is that platonic-ish male friend I have mentioned who parks his trailer in my driveway and buys me beer and wings AND who I have known for many, many, many years, who I may or may not be actually in love with, but let’s discuss. Thankfully he doesn’t read this blog so we can yap about him freely, but I’m going to refer to him as R-Man to protect his identity just in case because he has a wide circle. This is going to be messy and disjointed so I’m just going to do this in list form and you just follow along or close your eyes and think of England or check out Perez or whatever:

1. R-Man did not call me on my birthday, which is fine, he is a man and birthdays are filed in their brains right behind bullshit and boring chore lists. But he did call me the next day which was Mother’s Day which was by far and away a more thoughtful and sweeter gesture, no? He took me out that afternoon as a Hangover Helper and we drank copious sums of cleansing ale. He told me about how he was at another dude’s 40th birthday party (I know, right? It’s the men that need all the birthday cuddles). At the party, R-Man was talking it up to all the ladies as that is the R-Man’s modus operandi, he flirts like a fucker on fire, and his girlfriend ended up punching him in the mouth. Of course, that is what a crazy jealous bitch will do and I completely get it, been there and used my acrylic finger nails to swat at some dude’s face once, but you cannot change the stripes of a tiger. Just saying. Also she really needs to go. I hate her with a venomous passion.

2. R-Man’s tiger stripes amuse me. Over the years I have learned his checking out other women is like his Tourettes and sometimes he will mutter “vagina” in public when there is a lull in the conversation. This makes me laugh and laugh because I am actually a 12 year-old boy trapped inside a 50 year-old lady meat costume. But maybe this means we are just like bros and we should go huntin’ and fishin’ and pee standing up together.

3. Whenever R-Man walks into a room, I feel so happy that if I had a tail, it would wag vigorously. Now hold on, is this just platonic like dog love or is it romantic? My heart does NOT do that beat skipping thing which might be over-rated. Now that I am old and know better, is that fluttery feeling just a flight or fight reaction to some sociopath that you really need to stay away from? And if my tail wags, is my pussy far behind? I’m just asking, I don’t know.

4. R-Man is 5 years younger than me but that will even out in old age because he has more afflictions than I do. In reality, if I marry him (shut up!!! just thinking out loud), I will most probably still enjoy a few golden years as a widow, rockin’ the seniors’ home with my bubble gum pink hair and neon green stretch pants, drinking kir royale in the lounge. I’m excited for that.

5. Back to R-Man’s girlfriend just because I think it’s bothering you that he has one and that I am big ho for stealing him away WHICH I HAVEN’T DONE YET. First of all, this is not a Brangelina scandal waiting to happen. No one can “steal” anyone who doesn’t want to quit a bitch. Don’t kid yourself, 99.99% of all couples you see walking around in Canadian Tire purchasing garden hoses are fantasizing about using that thing to somehow escape through the water tank and then run like the wind into the sewer. R-Man and his girlfriend live in separate places, and they break up like it is a casual activity. What are they doing tonight? Oh, just staying in, maybe ordering a pizza, watching Homeland, then breaking up. Or maybe instead of pizza, get takeout from that new Indian place except that butter chicken gives him diarrhea.

6. Lots of things give R-Man diarrhea and while I wouldn’t say he is a picky eater, he is particular. For me, that is somewhat of an all around deal breaker, but we can work it out. He wouldn’t do anything as asinine as going on a “Master Cleanse” but he does obsess about his weight. I swear, I have never had a conversation with him where he doesn’t tell me at some point what he weighs and what he weighed before the current weight. It’s really annoying, I don’t want he wants from me because it’s usually just within a range of four pounds and we have just eaten a pound of wings and washed it down with 3 pints, oh my god, girlfriend, who cares? But everybody has things that exasperate the other person, right? Some things you just need to let go but I swear if he brought a scale into my house, I would smash it down from the roof, just watch.

7. R-Man is the most boisterous person you will ever meet. He will walk into to a bar and yell out HEYYYYYY, everybody in the beach knows him and they are all tickled to see him, he’s got the kind of name you want to shout out. Although I have a special nickname for him that I say in a baby voice, that’s kind of cute right? He is a classic extrovert but with his moon in hermithood. He has some primitive cabin that he escapes to for his alone me-time which only makes good common sense because otherwise he would just be a buffoon all the time. I like a loud man, but even more I like a loud man who knows when it’s time to shut up. I have noticed that quiet dudes are the controlling, sneaky ones that you need to watch out for. There is never a dull conversation with R-Man but!!! BUT! He has a temper on him. And when you think that age might have mellowed him out, something sets him off, and it’s usually road rage, and then The Fury comes out. Road rage is one of my pet peeves. Why do people get all crazy Jekyll and Hyde when they drive? You wouldn’t yell and honk if you were walking in a mall and had to slow down for a lady with a stroller so why get so enraged when someone in front of them takes their time to make a left turn or merge or whatever. Even if some taxi driver pulls a douche move, just settle down, and guess what? You’ll get from A to B without having to scream expletives. Calm the fuck down. I like it better when I drive. I guess that’s the solution, just don’t let him drive.

8. R-Man and I took a road trip a few years ago to Sudbury to pick Freddy up from camp. It was the funnest day ever, there was no road rage at all, just a lot singing along to The Smiths (we love the Smiths!!!) at the top of our lungs and then many stops after drinking Red Bull and urinating in the woods together. We both like to go pee outside even if a proper toilet is available. The first time we bonded was on the same day we met in 1998, we played some random softball game (don’t even ask who what where or why because I have no idea) one afternoon and had some beers, then we both peed in the parking lot in back of my mom van, the Mercury Villager aka The Great White Whale. Maybe we have some kind of primal connection that occurs in the animal kingdom when bodily fluids are excreted and a little bit of oxytocin comes out in the pee-pee, and why wouldn’t it? It’s biology, yo!

This is all the rumination I can handle for now, obsessing about a dude only leads to despair. It’s probably best that he remains Remainder Man as dreams have a knack of just not coming true…sigh…and time is against me now.

In the meantime, let’s just dance, omg, these girls are so funny:

Posted by Kristin Peterson. Categories: lady boners. Tags: birthdays, peeing in the woods, the smiths. 1 Comment

art of modern living

vodka, good times, urban tales, insomnia

The Sun is Bullshit

7 Life Lessons From an Old Ho in an Orange Bib

Morning Wood and Other Small Joys

Habanero Hottie is the New Ebony Mistress

The Wedding Bell Blues

Where Does the Time Go?

When Bad Things Happen To Stupid People

How To Tell Someone They Are Making A Huge Mistake

Diet Tips for Drunkards

The Plight of the Remainder Man

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: