Things we should learn from the Salem Witch Trials

Man. Remember in 1693 when all those ladies were acting suspiciously so we just said, "Hey. They're probably all witches. Why else would they want to wear shorts? We should probably just hang them." And then we hanged them? That was really the best way to tackle that suspicious lady problem. Is this the right way to do Throwback Thursday? Maybe it’s not. Regardless, here are some of the things we should have taken away from the Salem Witch Trials.

1) If a lady tells you to do something, especially if that lady is wearing a bonnet, you’d better fucking do it because she’s probably a witch.

“All I said was to put the MOTHERFUCKING SEAT DOWN when he finished so I don’t fall in during the middle of the night.  And somehow I’M the witch?"

 2) If you are a lady and you want to boss people around, do not wear a bonnet because you will be mistaken for a witch and will, with almost 100 percent certainty, be hanged, set on fire or pressed to death by gigantic rocks. And here’s the thing. Bonnets are a terrible fashion misstep, but they shouldn’t be punishable by death. Sandal boots are a different story.

Witch

Witch

Docent or witch? I have no idea so we’ll have to set you on fire. Witch.

3) Most suspicious ladies are probably witches. Which explains my former landlord who had like seventeen parakeets (because seriously. Parakeets are worse than watching every episode of Charles in Charge in one sitting), my former co-worker who would read her bible at lunch and then spend the rest of the day criticizing my nail polish, and Charlize Theron.

NOBODY is that beautiful and nice and funny and smart.  Expect a visit from Magistrate Hathorne, Theron. You’d better get that absolutely adorable accent going.

4) Do not act suspiciously in front of a man with a wig.

“Oh, hey, Emily Proctor. No, I won’t crush you under giant rocks. Wait.”

“You’d better work, bitch. Wait.”

“What’s that? No. My name is Donatien François. Well yeah some people call me that, but… Hm? Yeah I guess you can call me Marquis… What’s that? de Sade? Yeah that’s me. Wait…”

Men in wigs do not take  suspicious-acting ladies lightly. Because men in wigs will either set you on fire, make you work on the runway and make love to a camera, or will force you into their sex dungeon, which is probably not as cool as 50 Shades of Grey makes it sound. Also, shame on you for reading 50 Shades of Grey. You’re probably a witch. Also, shame on me for reading 50 Shades of Grey. I’m definitely a witch.

As evidenced by my tell-tale Squeaky-Witch-Bra test

 5) If you are a lady, and you do not like another lady, just tell everyone that she’s a witch. I know that people sort of already do that, but the consequences now are like “yeah. She totally IS a witch.” And before they were like “Really? Maybe we should just set her on fire?”  That kind of reaction could really come in handy. Here are some practical uses for starting your own witch trial:

• When a checker at the grocery store tells you they can take you in their aisle, but a suspicious lady cuts in front of you
• When you’re at Barnes and Nobles and you’re looking at the last Huey Lewis and the News CD but a suspicious lady takes it before you get it
• When you fall down in the middle of a tennis court because you tried to jump over the net but you missed and everyone is laughing and you see that one of the people laughing is a suspicious lady
• When you’re standing at your favorite bar trying to get a drink but the bartender is sort of ignoring you because he’s talking to Charlize Theron instead and you realize that Charlize Theron seems like a suspicious lady

Now you're on MY turf, Theron! Get your beautiful face out of here! Also, I may have a girl crush on Charlize Theron.

• When you decide that enough is enough and Nickelback should finally be stopped and you put cobras in all of their sock drawers and they die and you get arrested but you notice that one of the people outside the jail is a suspicious lady

See? Witch trials can’t backfire at all! You’re welcome. We should probably all go out and hug some suspicious ladies today. And make sure you tell them that if this was 1693, they would have been hanged for witchcraft. Don't worry. They'll probably take it as a compliment. 

Five reasons I will not survive the zombie apocalypse

So when I started writing this blog, I was initially trying to list the pros and cons of a zombie apocalypse. As it turns out, the only thing I could come up with as a pro was that the economy would crumble and the entire world would fall into a catastrophic collapse, so the fact that I’m pretty much broke all the time wouldn't matter anymore. I mean, I would still be broke, but everyone else would be too, so it wouldn't be as noticeable.

That sounds way more selfish than I anticipated.

The only other pro is that someone would obviously take advantage of the opportunity to murder every single member of Nickelback. (And maybe Scott Stapp from Creed, but that may just be me being greedy.)

Watch it, Stapp. I've got my eye on you. 

Also, after going over the pros and cons of a zombie apocalypse, I realized that I would possibly be more fucked than anyone else in the entire history of people being fucked. Besides Stephen Hawking. If someone left him outside and his chair died. In that case he’d definitely be much worse off than me. Actually, that’s not a terrible escape plan.

So here are five reasons I would not survive in a zombie apocalypse.

1) I run slower than things that are dead.

According to the new version of Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, a handful of spry zombies from The Walking Dead, Resident Evil, Shaun of the Dead, I Am Legend, Zombie Strippers, The Evil Dead and several other movies that I’m pretty sure are based on fact, zombies can run, despite what should be extremely limited motor function, faster than Carl Lewis if you set him on fire. (First, I do not want to set Carl Lewis on fire. Second, I’m not a runner. Carl Lewis is the only runner I know besides that runner Brad Pitt played in that stupid movie about running. And Forrest Gump. So Carl Lewis, That Guy Brad Pitt Played in That Stupid Movie About Running, and Forrest Gump. I am aware the reference is out of date, but I’m working with limited material.) What I’m saying here is that I fall a lot. I've actually fallen while standing perfectly still.

My sister drew this picture of me. Mostly because she
is a heartless B with terrible drawing abilities, but also because
one time we were at the San Jacinto Monument and I was
standing still and fell down. She draws my arms like
that because she has never seen a T-Rex and thinks
that because my arms are perfectly normal, they are
dinosaur like. I told you she was a heartless B. 

And sometimes the thought of even putting running shoes on makes me involuntarily take a nap.  As it turns out, based on what I've seen in movies, I have a more limited capacity for physical adeptness than a human who has been bitten by a zombie, infected with a horrible disease, died and then reanimated with several non-functioning lobes of their brain. Which made this a sad day for me.  Reason number 1 that I will not survive the zombie apocalypse: I have two speeds: falling down and asleep. Neither of them is adequate for escaping from ravenous zombies.

2) There will undoubtedly be a limited pie supply in the zombie apocalypse.

In case you don’t remember, or haven’t read my blog before, first, shame on you, and second, I love pie.  I imagine making pie would be considered among a list of “shenanigans” that have low priority when you’re running from hordes of the damned.  Also, pie-making supplies would probably be low after a while, and you would have to start using pie shortcuts. And you can’t really shortcut pie. If you shortcut pie, alive-or-zombie-Paula Deen (whichever the case is at that point in the zombie apocalypse) will find out, track you down, kidnap you and take you back to her planet where she is an alien overlord that tortures people with desserts, which is only ok if she somehow tortures you with pie, but she’s an evil alien overlord so I doubt it.

I mean, it's pretty obvious that this woman is an
alien overlord. Who will torture you. But not with pie.

And while I’m not saying that I would die without pie…wait. Yes. I’m saying I would die without pie.  Reason number 2 that I will not make it in the zombie apocalypse: the only things I’m terrified of more than giant Michael Phelps monsters are Paula Deen and life without pie.

3) I already have zombie apocalypse hair.

Let me begin by saying that I love the Walking Dead more than 20 tyrannosauruses on 20 mountaintops. If Daryl Dixon showed up at the door right now with a dead possum and a crossbow and said “if you go outside and catch and then skin a squirrel with your bare teeth I will marry you this instant,” I would be in the backyard climbing the fence with acorns in my mouth and stop to question his judgment only after I removed the squirrel blood and took off my wedding tiara. But let me tell you what pisses me off more than any one single thing I can think of besides the existence of Oklahoma. Andrea, Maggie, Blond Girl Whose Name I Do Not Know and Lori before she was eaten by a zombie. Spoiler alert. Lori gets eaten by a zombie. Know what pisses me off about them? Their Paul-Mitchell-Biolage-Tony-is-my-stylist-shiny fucking hair.  On any given day when I walk outside, it is entirely possible that I will end up with leaves and twigs and small animals in my hair. After being outside for more than five minutes, my hair looks like a George Washington wig if you drug it through mud and then a tornado and then a bat landed in it to have babies and then those babies grew up in it and made it their home for several generations of bats. What I’m saying is that I have zombie apocalypse hair and I’m not even in a fucking zombie apocalypse. There is no possible way my hair would survive a zombie apocalypse. It would become sentient and attempt to kill me in my sleep.

It's too late for Russell Brand.

The third reason I would not survive the zombie apocalypse is because my hair is already angry that it is terrible and will try to strangle me when I’m not paying attention if it is forced to endure a zombie apocalypse.

4) I have no discernable talents.

When you’re running around the streets alone during a zombie apocalypse (without pie and with terrible hair), you’re either going to get eaten by zombies, killed by Tom Petty posing as a fake mayor, or a group of strangers will take you in. If you have some sort of discernable talent that will help the group. Let me give you a rundown of my talents: I can sort of draw stick figures. I know the lyrics to every Paula Abdul song ever written. I know that Tom Petty played a mean mayor in a post-apocalyptic movie called The Postman. I know Ninja Turtles trivia. I’m pretty good at Pictionary. I know grammar rules, sort of. I can do a passing impression of Danzig, and a less good impression of Bobby Hill. That’s it. I’m pretty much unemployable in the real, non-zombie apocalypse world. Once motherfuckers start rising from the dead and chasing me, I will be completely and utterly useless. My friends Kellie and Sam, who inexplicably love me, are aware that I have no talents, and Kellie has agreed to let me run the bordello on their very heavily guarded and well-stocked complex. And I will rule all of the hookers across all of the lands, and I will brand them so they will not escape, (but I have already chosen a head-brander, so please do not send resumes, unless you would like to be a hooker. And in that case, please do not send video resumes). Here’s my fear though: Kellie and Sam have agreed to let me run the bordello under duress, in optimum conditions. We are not currently, I hope, in a zombie apocalypse. And they agreed because we were trying to think of ways I could help and this is all we could come up with. It’s like when I try to help someone working on my car and they let me hold a flashlight so that I don’t accidentally explode anything. I’m pretty sure once the zombie apocalypse starts, Kellie and Sam will have their guards shoot me on site as soon as I run up awkwardly to their complex without pie and with my zombie apocalypse hair. The fourth reason I will not survive the zombie apocalypse is because the only talent I have that we could come up with is running hoes.

"Come on, girls. This corner isn't going to work itself."

5) I make terrible decisions.

This one is pretty self explanatory. Here’s a fairly comprehensive list of some of the terrible decisions I've made: I had a perm. I bought a PT Cruiser. I own a bump-it. I once tried to break up with someone and when they said “no”, I just went with it. I own every Paula Abdul TAPE ever made. I bought a yoga booty workout DVD. I went out on a date with a lying, jobless, judgmental, samurai-sword-collecting blind guy. I got not one, but two useless degrees in literature. Sometimes when I’m in awkward social situations, I wear my Shrek ears. I did my hair like this for a long time:

I brought sexy back. And then it ran away screaming about its eyes.

Once, when I was eight and already really, really nerdy and unpopular, I made an entire group of my peers watch me do a cheerleading dance at somebody else’s birthday party. At some point during a meal six years ago, I accidentally swallowed one of the tines on my plastic fork and did not notice until I had finished eating. In high school, a guy I had a crush on asked me to deliver a message to his girlfriend on my softball team: He said “tell her I love her and to have a good day,”  but I got so flustered staring at his face I said “I will, I love you, too.” I have lost staring contests to three separate squirrels on five different occasions. I once told Farva from Super Troopers during an interview I would not marry him because I had already seen his junk and the magic was gone.  I have read 50 Shades of Grey. Last year, when a guy walked me to the door and told me he loved me, I got scared, made him high-five me said "sweet, man" and ran inside. I spent an entire afternoon when I was 12 learning every lyric to every song on Vanilla Ice’s To The Extreme. I drink boxed wine. I watch Lion King knowing full well that it is going to make me cry every single time. I left a job as editor at a daily newspaper to ultimately work at Ulta. I purchased a Snuggie. I once went out on a date with a guy who told me his favorite sport of all time was “mountain biking” and that his favorite AMERICAN novel was ULYSSES by HEMINGWAY and my head exploded because of all of the things that were wrong. On several occasions, I have purchased parakeets only to remember that I fucking hate parakeets.  When my parents took us to Disneyland when I was six, I was walking through the park behind my mom and dad with my eyes closed, ran into a lady wearing a sweater, assumed it was my mom and assaulted her with hugging: it was not my mother, but she was not a kidnapper, so win-win. I am aware that riding a bike is likely to cause me catastrophic injury, but I ignored this knowledge and my sister had to rescue me when all of my pants got caught in a bike chain and I almost fell into a ditch.

The fifth reason I would not survive a zombie apocalypse is that people are born with an innate ability to make good decisions, and that part of my brain was apparently lobotomized when I was an infant.

So there you have it. If any of you have any room for a no-talent, pieless, slow, zombie-apocalypse  hair train wreck on your zombie apocalypse team, let me know. I can provide approximately three hours of Vanilla Ice and Paula Abdul entertainment. 

Six bugs on my arch nemesis list

***WARNING: This post contains pictures of very scary bugs and one of Michael Phelps with lobster pincers.***

I think that I'm a pretty friendly person, but, like every other bat-shit crazy person I know, I have a few arch nemeses lists floating around. Unfortunately, I can't publish the list of people who are my arch nemeses because it would probably look suspicious when live scorpions turned up in all of their sock drawers (are you listening, Nickelback?). Because I can't list the people who I've declared as my arch nemeses, I'm giving y'all a list of bugs that are my arch nemeses. To be honest, there isn't much difference between the two lists (are you listening, Nickelback?).

1) Roaches
Ok. Roaches in Texas are like a genetic experiment gone horribly awry. They are roughly the size of a Volvo. They have terrible legs, they have creepy antennae that can feel their way into your soul where they will definitely lay babies, and they bite. (What's that? They don't bite? Well then, Bill Nye, explain to me how the fuck they eat.)

FIG. 1
Pictured: A fucking roach. That is fucking biting.

Also, roaches are aggressive. Don't look at me like that. A couple months ago, I woke up and walked out into the kitchen for a drink. There was a roach on the ceiling and he was approximately three feet long and he had a switchblade knife pointed at me and was wearing a bandana and a Guns N Roses shirt.

FIG. 2
Rough Approximation

He twitched his wings at me in Morse code, saying "if you take one step closer to me, I will fly into your hair and bite you" and then he charged at me to send me a message. To which I responded "Oh! Sorry!" and turned off the light and ran out of the kitchen as fast as I could (which, truthfully, isn't very fast). You read that correctly. He charged at me. Which is aggressive.

While roaches have always thrown me into mild states of cardiac arrest, I put them on my arch nemeses list after I woke up one morning with a roach on my arm. I screamed, simultaneously faceplanting out of bed while attempting to claw my own shirt off. I stood up with my ankles twisted around each other, the roach on my face and my shirt somehow stuck around my head. I tripped, screaming, and fell onto the bed which I bounced off of, screaming, and fell onto the dog's kennel, which I bounced off of, screaming, and fell into the wall, which I bounced off of, screaming, and faceplanted on the floor again, half naked with my shirt still somehow tied around my face. And the roach was still on me. Basically, I added roaches to my list the day a roach turned me into a half naked human pinball and won a battle of wills.

2) Water bugs
According to scientific research that I have just made up, water bugs are a combination of very scary pinchers, roaches and Michael Phelps, which are three of the things I'm most terrified of in this world.

FIG. 3
This seems legit. And you brought this on yourself, Michael Phelps.

Because my parents wanted to increase the possibility of death for all of us growing up, we had a pool. Inside this pool on occasion, were extremely terrifying water  bugs. From now on, we'll refer to them as Michael Phelps monsters. First, let's take a look at these things:

Fig. 4
"What's that, sir? You also come in Terrible Monstrosity size?"

That's a Giant Michael Phelps Monster. I used a giant Michael Phelps monster for a few reasons. First, it's easier to see all of their terrible nightmarish qualities when they're blown up to gargantuan proportions. Like their terrible eyeballs that can see all of your fears, or their terrible backs that are meant to trick you into thinking that they're a leaf you can pick up in your pool until it squirms out of your hands with it's terrible slippery body and lunges for your face. Second, I used a picture of a giant Michael Phelps monster to show you that they come in gargantuan proportions, which is probably God's way of saying that he wants me to die of a heart attack in the middle of a swimming pool.

Have you ever been peacefully floating on your back in your favorite Hello Kitty swimsuit in your parent's pool (this was a while ago, like at least two years) when suddenly it felt as though an Orc or a grizzly bear was clawing at your ass cheek? And then you remember that Orcs aren't real? And that there are no salmon in your pool so it's probably not a grizzly bear? And that's when you start to panic because you realize that there is a Michael Phelps monster loose in your swimsuit? I put Michael Phelps monsters on my arch nemeses list when I ended up almost drowning in a swimming pool because I freaked out and couldn't find the Michael Phelps monster that was loose in my swimsuit.

3) Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes made it onto my list last week. I know that's weird because they're kind of the worst creation in the history of things that have ever been created, but none of them have ever given me West Nile or Malaria, so honestly, I thought we were cool. I mean, yes, they're like terrible tiny vampires. But according to teenagers and 40-year-old moms who are pedophiles, vampires are sort of in right now.

Last week, I was driving home. My car is a convertible (an AWESOME convertible. As awesome as six Aston Martins except it's a PT Cruiser) and a mosquito flew directly into my eyeball. I'm not good at physics, but the velocity my car was travelling plus the velocity at which the mosquito was flying equaled approximately one million miles an hour, which equaled about seven millions pounds of force against my eyeball.

FIG. 5
These calculations seem correct.

This caused me to almost kill myself and several other people on the road. And the policeman that pulled me over because he thought, I am assuming, that I was drunk, did not quite understand what I meant when I said that a tiny vampire was trying to eat my eyeballs. So I put mosquitoes on my arch nemeses list last week when one caused me to almost kill several people, attracting the attention of the Friendswood Police, who then gave me a ticket for my expired registration.

4) Brown Recluse spiders

FIG. 6
Because holy Christ, that's why.

I have lots and lots of irrational fears, like that I'm somehow going to get eaten alive by an escalator or that any time I sit in a recliner, I am definitely going to fall over backwards. One of my more rational fears is that I am going to get viciously attacked by an entire colony of brown recluse spiders and doctors will have to remove all of my limbs and most of my boobs. Oh. That's not logical? Go Google "brown recluse spider bite" for me. It's ok. I'll wait.

FIG. 7
The bite is literally too terrible for me to post. So here's a picture of Richard Simmons.

Did you do it? Was it the most terrible thing you've ever seen besides anything starring Jennifer Lopez? If you didn't search for it and see the horror movie that results from one of these bites, first, that was probably smart, and second, all you have to do is picture the most terrible, disgusting wound in the whole world and then multiply that by exactly one fuck-ton. I put brown recluse spiders on my arch nemeses list as soon as I discovered that they lived in Texas, most likely in my attic, and then concluded that they had become self-aware and were planning an uprising.

5) Silverfish
First, look at them:

FIG. 8
"What? Oh I'm just hanging out. Trying to lay eggs in your brain."

Second, silverfish are like that really terrible socially awkward guy no one invited to the party and he refuses to leave.

FIG. 9
"But I brought French onion dip."

I'm just going to throw a few things out there:

• They eat books
• They live anywhere I am currently trying to take a shower
• They eat books
• They feed primarily on carbohydrates without getting fat, which means they are officially better at life than me
• They eat books
• They apparently live in piles of expensive bras
• They eat books
• Some species of silverfish HAVE NO FUCKING EYES, which somehow makes it even more frustrating that they always know where my arms are when I'm trying to simultaneously carry something and not touch a silverfish

FIG. 10
"Enemy arm at 6:00! Let's go, Comrades!"
(Also, silverfish sound Russian in my head. I blame the Cold War.)

I put silverfish on my arch nemeses list when I was four days old and someone tried to bathe me and I'm 100 percent certain there was a silverfish on the wall trying to crawl onto my arm.

6) June bugs
These are the things I know about June bugs.

FIG. 11
...besides, "I hate them."

• They have creepy legs
• They are like stupid kamikaze pilots that aim specifically for faces
• They do not know what the word "June" means
• They are like the very dumb and irritating cousins of Egyptian Scarab beetles
• They are apparently delicious, based on the number of June bugs my dog brings into the house and tries to eat, only to let them go so they kamikaze right into my face
• If you are a lifeguard and have to keep the pool clean, approximately seven trillion will accumulate in the skimmer baskets. When you try to get them out and have nowhere to put them, another lifeguard whom you incorrectly assume is a friend will suggest that you set them on fire. Several of them will, as it turns out, not be as dead as you originally thought  and will begin to fly at you out of anger and retribution.

FIG. 12
It was pretty hard to find a picture of this.

I put June bugs on my arch nemeses list when I was 20 and a lifeguard named Chase suggested I set a pile of presumed-dead June bugs on fire and three flaming undead June bugs attempted to kamikaze my face.

So that's it then. I'm pretty selective about what goes on this list, but I'm sure I'll be able to update it with equally terrifying arch nemeses bugs eventually. (Are you listening, Nickelback?)

***Also--I've added a subscribe-by-email thingie to the right hand side of the page if that would make life easier for anybody. Like my mother. Who had this conversation with me the other day:

Mom: I've never read your blog.

Me: Mom, are you serious?

Mom: It's not my fault! I don't know how to get there!

Me: Type in my blog name in Google!

Mom: What's your blog name?

Me: Seriously?! Diary of a failed anorexic!

Mom: Jennifer! No one wants to read about anorexia. That's not funny.

Me: Diary of a FAILED anorexic.

Mom: Oh, I get it. That's kind of funny, I guess.

She keeps me humble.***