Crazy being the operative word here

Over the weekend, the Husband and I went to dinner and a movie. Because we are both trying to stay away from the siren song that is heroin sugar, we opted for Crazy Bowls and Wraps.

I know. We live big around here. What can I say?

We've been to other locations, but this particular franchise was a new visit for us. Seeing as how I am so boring diversified, I opted to get the same salad that I always get. When my salad was brought to our table, I noticed that the usual dressing on the side was missing.

I looked up at our server and asked if she could bring me some dressing. She looked at me like I had just asked for a large bucket of deep fried baby and said, "Um, we don't have any salad dressing."

I looked back at the Husband and then back to our server. "You don't have any dressing? Like at all?"

"No. We don't serve our salads with dressing."

Exsqueeze me? Are you on the same planet I'm on? Eating salad without dressing is like eating rocks or nails. For fun.

That is the whole point of eating a salad. So you can put some dressing on it.

When I told her that the last time I ordered this salad at another location, it came with a very tasty dressing, served on the side, she simply rolled her eyes and went back to the kitchen.

She returned and, with a smile stolen straight from Satan's lips, placed a dish of what I am sure was mayonnaise topped with pepper in front of me. "Here. Try this dressing. It's really good."

Fearing it was actually mayonnaise, pepper, and spit, I left it on the table. Along with most of my very dry, very boring, very unsatisfactory salad.

Tell me I'm not alone in this. Salad MUST have some sort of dressing, right? It doesn't have to swim in it, but a little bit of moisture? A little bit of sauce?

Don't worry, though. I totally made up for it at the movies with a large bucket of popcorn and some Reeses Pieces.

And, of course, a jumbo diet coke.

P.S. The movie was amazing. I would highly recommend it.

Inquiring minds want to know

Totally random, but there are some questions that have been rattling around this empty head of mine all week, and I am looking to the wise internet for answers.

You know, instead of putting my soft-core p@rn dreams out there for you to interpret. (Really, internet? Hugh Jackman? Really? I just don't get it. But then again all I can picture him as is the wolf man from Xmen. Never saw Australia. Maybe that would help?)

ANYhoo, onto the pressing questions of the day.

Why is it, no matter how hard I try, can I never divide my bread dough evenly? Is there a special tool out there that would ensure my loaves are the same size? I realize the discrepancy is small, but for this OCD brain, it hurts just a little every time I look at it. I have to stop myself from slicing the bottom of the smaller loaf off when it comes out of the oven.

Yes, I am diseased. No, I do not care.

Anyone have any answers for this one? A scale? A dough measurer thingie? I need something.

And then I can work on peace in the middle east.

Second, WHY can I put shirts like this in the washer with bleach and the colored writing on them comes out fine?

And shirts like this in the washer with bleach come out with all the letters bleach-ified? Why does bleach NOT affect some things and totally destroy others?

Inquiring minds want to know.

(These letters used to be dark blue. Now they are a manly shade of pink. Which totally makes my self-conscious middle school boy happy, I'm sure. And yet the rest of the lettering remains unharmed. What the eff?)

And last, but not least, why are there not seat belts on school buses? Do not tell me it is because the 60 children on the bus are actually safer without them. I've seen those buses barrel down the streets, and those kids are standing, kneeling, jumping, twisted around, and sitting every which way but forward. I am literally sick at the what ifs should the unthinkable happen.

Something tells me it has a lot to do with the thing they call money, and that bothers me a whole lot. After all, look at the precious cargo being hauled around every day:

That angel face is at least worth the cost of a seat belt. Don't you think?

Give me your best answers so I can sleep at night and dream about Ben Affleck the Husband in peace, will you?

The post that was (and then wasn't)

So there was a little post up yesterday, and after receiving more hate mail in five minutes than I have in my entire life, I decided to take it down.

Not because I let other people dictate what I say on this blog.

But because I had a horrible day yesterday, and after sobbing on the phone to the Husband about it, the last thing I needed was to sit down in front of my computer and be berated by strangers.

By people who clearly do not know me at all. By people whose intent is to hurt and to hate.

Neither of those things are my intent.

Nor will they ever be.

My sense of humor simply may not be your thing.

If that is the case, my advice to you is this: STOP READING.

To the rest of you fine people: Thanks for all the sweet words you leave here. They mean more than you will ever know.

We better have the cleanest teeth known to man or so help me...

Now that school is in full swing, I have been trying to get my routine put together. I forget with the chaos of summer how much I love a rigid schedule.

Like, laundry on Mondays and Thursdays. Bathrooms on Tuesdays and Fridays. Random closet organizing on Wednesdays.

It's pure OCD bliss, I tell you.

[And yes. I realize I'm totally weird. And, no, I do not care.]

This morning I decided to tackle the top level of our house. I started in my own closet, worked my way to the Husband's, and ended with both bathrooms.

There was dust, 409, and magic erasers flying everywhere.

So when I got to the kids' bathroom, I was prepared for the usual globs of toothpaste dribbled down the cupboard. I expected to find at least eight empty shampoo bottles lining their bathtub. [Which, naturally, I did.]

But what I was not prepared for?

The secret stash of old toothbrushes that someone has been collecting in the bottom drawer of the kids' bathroom.

It was like the serial killer trophy case for toothbrushes.

Remember that scene in the movie The Ghost and the Darkness when they find the lions' den and there are just piles and piles of bones?

It was like that. Only with toothbrushes.

I counted them (whilst wearing rubber gloves and tossing them into the trash) and there were 23.

Yes. TWENTY-THREE.

I am pretty sure that is like every toothbrush they've ever owned in their lives.

The question I have is why. Why?

I sort of get the rock/stuffed animal/coins/paper airplane collections. But old toothbrushes?

They have to get this from their father.

She's trying her darndest to save my soul

There is a new master in my life:

Thanks to the Hannah, I have been made to be accountable for my sins:

Apparently, girlfriend doesn't like it when the mama swears.

I would not think of myself as a foul-mouthed fiend. I don't swear in casual conversation with friends. I do not ever swear at my children in a fit of temper. And I have yet to fling any expletives at the Husband during marital, ahem, disagreements.

But occasionally, a mild swear slips through my fingers on the keyboard and ends up here as a joke. Or I drop something heavy on my foot and grumble a less-than-choice word in frustration.

Like the hell word.

Or the damn word.

Very rarely, maybe a version of the son-of-a-beyotch word.

Most certainly never the F word. [Unless that word is the frick word. Guilty of that one a lot.]

But on our recent trip to Utah, my lack of appropriate language when joking with my brothers brought Miss Hannah to tears. Her little heart overflowed with worry for my soul. With pleading green eyes, she looked up at me and softly asked why I keep breaking the commandments.

I had no answer.

Clearly, saying to my brother on the phone, who was leaving work to meet us all for dinner, "Hurry up, dammit!" does not a joke make in the mind of Prudence McPrude Hannah.

And so I have acquiesced. After all, were those same words to escape my children's lips, there would most certainly be hell heck to pay.

So consider this my formal resignation from the use of bad language on this blog.

No more hell. Or damn. Or even frick.

[Shoot. I just totaled up the number of quarters alone this post is going to cost me, and I think somebody will be a few dollars richer by the end of the day.]

Crap. [&#@!!#]

Is three dollars all a soul is worth these days?

Note the spring-action, perfectly molded spots for holding spare change in this picture of someone else's lucky car

Last week, as I rounded the corner of the McDonald's drive-thru for my little dose of crack cocaine happiness in diet coke form, I reached my hand down to grab some change to pay for the drink. As my hand repeatedly grasped only air, I looked down in horror to find that my change was missing.

Only not just my quarters, nickels, and dimes.

MY ENTIRE CHANGE HOLDER WAS GONE.

I immediately called the Husband and accused politely asked if he knew anything about it. He scoffed and wondered why on earth I would think he would want to take my change holder.

I interrogated the children when they got home from school and all three proclaimed their innocence to the point that I believed them.

What the eff?

Essentially, what I am left to conclude is this: Someone risked prison and their eternal salvation to steal a change holder right out of my car, netting themselves MAYBE three bucks in coin.

Leaving behind my iPod, and several scratched and scuffed Barbie movies to take my three dollars in change. Not to mention the meal in old french fries and crumbs they could have scooped from the floor of the backseat.

The change thievery I can forgive. But for the love of all that is holy, WHY DID YOU HAVE TO TAKE MY CHANGE HOLDER? I loved that thing. Might have been my favorite part of the car, what with its neat and tidy organization. The separation of coin by type and size. The spring-loaded mechanism that kept everything right in a row.

Sigh.

I am now forced to root around the bottom of my purse for spare change like a regular person when the craving for that ice-cold brown deliciousness strikes.

It's just wrong, I tell you. Wrong.