My Retainer

I told you to stay tuned and you did!  And you all thought I was being silly.  Here it is, my retainer.

These gross invisiline retainers were new and exciting when I got my braces off in eighth grade, but zoom in on this: I have really sensitive gums.  That razor sharp rock solid plastic shredded my mouth and I begged for the traditional style of retainer because this thing was killing me.  My dentist (who I never liked and thought was kind of a jerk, but everyone else thought was just SO awesome and SO kind and SO charming) told me problem solved after her shaved some of the edges down.  Problem not solved, Buttplug.  It hurt me!  I announced "This hurts me and I'm not going to wear it.  Give me the other style because I'm not wearing this."  They didn't give me the other one, and guess what!  I didn't wear it. 

So PSYCH!  This is actually my SECOND retainer because my teeth moved after not wearing the first one and my mom had to buy me a second one, which I loudly declared I would not be wearing during the entire process.  My mom was so mad, and I don't blame her, but when you're 14 there is little concept of the ratio of pain level to financial cost.  So all my teeth moved, I barely wore the retainer (exactly like I said) and my retainer found it's way into my box of things that for reasons I can't explain, I should not get rid of.  Maybe because I knew it was so expensive I felt like I should keep it.  And you know what?  I got WAY more compliments on my teeth after they spread back out than I did when I first got my braces off.  I had to have braces to correct some grinding issues, not because my parents wanted me to have a parallel smile.  Even though I have some "girl next door" teeth now and not perfectly aligned teeth, the grinding is fixed so alls well that ends well.  

Good bye, retainer!  I never liked you and now my guilty conscience about not wearing you is cleared with throwing you away.  Take that, Dr. Larry Levin.  You never made me feel comfortable and might be one of the major contributions to why I am irrationally afraid of going to the dentist.

How The Tiny Grinch Stole Christmas

I received a really awesome Grinch stuffed animal for Christmas once.  His heart lights up and grows three sizes.  My mom still brings him out at Christmas time and I think my niece and nephew like him now.  He was really soft and he was big.  There is little cooler than giant stuffed animals when you're a kid.  Maybe fireworks, ice cream cones, giant cardboard boxes and days off from school because of snow.  Big stuffed animals have got to be in the top five.

My Grinch plush pal came with a miniature version of his famed Dr. Seuss book.  I have the normal size of this classic, so I decided I didn't need the mini version anymore.  I see my Grinch stuffed friend every Christmas when I go home, and I always find myself absentmindedly holding him at some point. He is a very huggable shape.  Check it out, it really is the whole book.

Also, a note on stuffed animals, and to tie into my post about working at Target, I have an extremely soft and warm spot in my heart for stuffed animals.  I think they all have little stuffed animal souls and it makes me feel crushed when I see them mistreated.  When I zoned toys, I used to set them all up so they were facing out and no one was squashed or neglected.  I recall walking around Christmas time late at night through my Target with a stuffed German Shepherd under my arm.  Maybe that was why I couldn't toss this.

Purging Your Stuff Is GRRRRReat!

You may not be able to tell by this still photo, but Tony The Tiger here is a bobble head.

My friend Brian gave me this Tony The Tiger bobble head for my high school graduation among a few other things, most of which were from Newbury Comics, a suction cup dart gun, a really pretty journal that I used in college, Tony, and I can't remember what else.  I have had Tony sitting on my desk amongst the clutter on every desk I've had since he gave it to me.  9 Years of him looking at me while I write and saying "Hey, Melissa!  That last sentence was Grrrrrrreat!

I share a desk now and there had to be some sacrifices made.  I had to get rid of all of my stuff (Yeah RIGHT.  It's packed for when Julie and I are financially well off enough to have an apartment in which I can have an office and have whatever the hell I want on my desk.  Read: Queen Amidala Barbie, my favorite rock, my mini pirate ship etc.)

Tony, however, holding only the value that someone I like gave it to me, didn't make the cut.  Brian, your gift was well loved beyond what you probably paid for him.  Tony can inspire someone on that big desk in the sky.

Anything But Clothes Costume

What is a State School Education without exhausting every theme party there is?  Sometimes "Friday" is not reason enough to drink the same beer with the same people so you have to jazz it up.  I attended many variations of the "Bross and Hos" theme ("Golf Pros and Tennis Hos", "CEOs and Corporate Hos", The very creative "Egyptian Hos and Pharohs" and the famous and to the point "Pimps and Hos".  I was a pimp at that one in a three piece red suit from the salvation army).  But I always liked the more creative themes.  Anything But Clothes is typically an excuse to wear something that falls off easily so you can catch the same nip slips from the same people while drinking the same beer, but I took it up a notch and was glad most of the other partygoers did too.

I slaved for hours on this dress made of duct tape.  I used a dress I already had as a pattern and worked all night.  I had to cut myself out of it and tape myself back in when I took it off, but it was totally worth it.  I was one of the only girls who could sit down, go to the bathroom, get my costume wet (it was raining, we all smoked then) and easily take it off and put it on.  I had to put on all of the girl's shoes because I was the only one who could bend down.  

Here is my dress in action.  It was January of 08.  That's a monopoly game on Elizabeth, cigarette and beer wrappers on EB and I don't really know what on Liana, it kind of looks, oddly enough, like clothes.  

It was fun and I have enough photos and blurry memories from the party as well as the know-how to make a new dress out of duct tape, so I think I can get rid of this one.  I suspect the occasion to wear it again will not arise.  If it does, I'm getting another color and making a pattern.

Shrek Cake Topper

Following that depressing Fart Rant, I had to pick something I'm GLAD I threw out.

I have never had a Shrek cake.  I have never made a Shrek cake.  I don't recall seeing one, although it's possible.  I can't recall because I never really cared enough about Shrek to remember a Shrek cake.  Don't get me wrong, Shrek is funny.  I went to see the second one in theaters because something else was sold out and I remember I laughed like crazy.  But I don't think I need this Shrek cake topper.

It is reminding me of something pretty much unrelated that for a school project on the literature of the bible (not as weird as it sounds) my group and I had to make a Genesis cake and we used a Luke Skywalker Action figure to be Adam and a Princess Barbie to be Eve.  Let that idea roll around.  

Air "freshener"

I think it's safe to say I don't need this in my adult life.

Becky gave it to me.  It was either a gag in with my Christmas or birthday present, I don't remember which, and I never opened it.  I don't know if it smelled like farts or not.  I hope so.  

I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to end this post and make this witty and funny and a little about personal growth or at least about moving on or making fun of my old self or having a pleasant walk down memory lane, but I can't stop thinking about how hilarious farting is.  I can't BELIEVE I never opened this.  I think farts are hysterical and I don't care who knows.  I'm mad I threw this out.   Reformed Hoarder's remorse!

pffffft.

Tip Cups

I worked at Bart's Homemade in college for about five years.  It was predominantly an ice cream shop, but it also was a coffee and espresso bar and we had sandwiches and bagels and home made cream cheeses and pies and cakes and stuff.  Bart's was right in the heart of downtown Amherst just as going green and buying local was becoming trendy.  It was all counter service and I spent arguably more time there than anywhere else.  The only two rivals would be with the UMass Minuteman Marching Band anywhere in the US and Canada (any time spent with them felt like a place) or in my gross college party house.  But I think Bart's has got to be up there.  

I still talk to my boss occasionally and I met some of my favorite people from that time in my life there and had a lot of important life moments there and learned a lot there about business and about food and about coffee and about myself.  I also learned my new favorite managerial tactic from my boss there.  It was very hard to get fired, but it was easy to be forced into gross cleaning projects.  I regularly forgot to defrost croissants and bagels. Therefore, I had to spend ten hours on my hands and knees in snowpants and snowboard goggles with a cup of hot water and a paint scraper cleaning the freezer floor.  I don't think it had been done since the eighties. You could either take the cleaning project, or you were fired.  If you did your project like a man and didn't bitch, all was forgiven until you did something else dumb, or showed up late, or were particularly sassy.  I thought that was good discipline.  

We were an akward family there and we fought like siblings and we smoked countless cigarettes out the side door with the hair dressers and I must have consumed gallons of diet soda and it is the place I developed and honed my burger relish recipe and probably single handedly kept me from starving.  I found out I liked breakfast sandwiches working there.  I find that so hard to believe I didn't know I liked egg sandwiches.  I didn't know I liked a lot of things until my boss, Tina, told me to stop being a wuss and try it.  

These are my tip cups that were kept in my mailbox.  We used to tip out and leave our money in these.  It was how I afforded cigarettes for the most part.  And sometimes beer.  And any weird items I found lying around or gifts from the particularly bizarre Bart's customers would be kept there.  Everyone had one and we'd decorate them as days went on.  It was always weird when someone quit and they took their tip cup and it was no longer part of the line up. 

Bart's closed not too long ago.  Maybe a year or two (you saw the keys to it).  I think I can get rid of my tip cups and call it good.  

Oh, and here's an apron I stole from Bart's, too.  I also threw that out.  I have a cute one now that my mom bought me.

Star Wars Things Are Hard To Get Rid Of 3

It's no secret that I love Star Wars.  I don't need to explain it anymore.  And I know everyone is expecting me to go straight for the comments about what a fox Princess Leia is in Return of the Jedi in her prison bikini, but I'm going to have to disappoint.  Han Solo is the reigning fox of the Star Wars Saga and everyone from gay ladies to straight dudes can find some common ground here.  He's very cavalier about his hunkiness which makes him all the hunkier.  He's a bad boy with the ever talked about heart of gold, sort of, for a little while after he learns his outlaw lessons, and there's a reward involved, and he does cool stuff like shoot guys with little pretense and makes witty comments that every action adventure team needs someone who is kind of hunky to make.  

So it's obvious that it would be damn near impossible to put a miniature Han Solo wall calendar in the garbage.  Especially if he's being so sexy like this January pose.

And how about July, Ladies?  Lock up your padawans.  

Cool it down, Decemb- WTF?  Of all the buff and hot possible screen shots of Han Solo they go with this?!  Yeah, don't worry, the one of him frozen in carbonite is in there and all the other greats, but I refuse to believe there are only eleven calendar worthy pictures of Han Solo available and they picked this one as a send off?  Damn.

I have decided to put Han in the recycling bin.  Seeing as this calendar is for the year 2000 and is relatively small and not very collector worthy (I wrote my birthday in it. Stupidstupidstupid) It can hang on the inside of some nerd's locker after it's recycled and made into a Hunger Games calendar.

The Goodwill Fairy

When I first moved to Portland I lived in a two family house with seven other friends and five other cats.  I drank a lot, worked a little, devoted full days to my tan and otherwise got into summertime twenty-something "I don't want to grow up" hi jinx.  There were lots of pranks, the favorite being "pretend you're asleep" whenever anyone comes home.  There were drinking games and late night dance parties and fast food eaten on the floor with too much sauce and twice weekly Michael Jackson "Thriller" dance practices.  One of my roommates was particularly superstitious.  I recall her doing a ward for evil spirits burning sage in all the corners of the ceilings one night my first week there, and if I wasn't a complete Buffy Aficionado and hadn't seen Willow and Tara do that like, a million times I would've headed for the hills.  Instead I made fun of her out loud but felt secretly a little safer.  Y'know. Just in case.

So one day when I wasn't looking, this weird ceramic cat appeared on top of my bookshelf.  We had really high ceilings so I didn't notice it way up there at first, but once I did, I picture messaged it to everyone all "are you missing a ceramic cat?"

No one owned up to it and most of them were really shitty liars and pranks usually got ruined in minutes because no one could stop laughing.  Like the time Jamie hid baby clothes in DJs laundry.  So I became totally freaked out by this ceramic cat and began to believe it was haunted and it's so creepy and weird that I should think anyone would be weirded out by it.  I refused to touch it or move it.  I once held on to a Ouiga board for YEARS and moved all over the country with it because I thought getting rid of it would be bad juju and I'd wind up like Robin Williams in Jumanji until I learned the only safe way to get rid of it was to give it to someone else.  I wouldn't even let anyone open it.  I only ever played it one time and it spelled out full names of people, including me, and it was only me and one other girl playing it and I think she was too freaked out by it to have been moving it.  I hope Goodwill counts as giving it away, cause that's what I did.

And SPEAKING of Goodwill, this haunted phantom cat statue was actually purchased at the Goodwill very near my apartment and was put on my bookshelf by Jamie's boyfriend (Jamie is too short) and they kept the straightest faces I've ever seen.  I felt a fool, and didn't realize I still had the cat until now.

Good bye, fake curse.  I hope you find my Ougia board and you two can cancel one another out.