Four things I'm really terrible at

Quick. Think of a list of your top five strengths. Congratulations! There are probably some really good, legitimate strengths on that list! Strengths that make you an adult! Like “math” or “filing your taxes on time” or “not eating fried oreos” or “making the bed every morning because I’m a fucking crazy person”. Because seriously. Why do you make the bed every morning, you fucking crazy person? YOU’RE JUST GOING TO SLEEP IN IT AGAIN. Who are you?! Marc Summers?!

I double dare you to not have OCD.

Ok. Admittedly, that turned ugly pretty fast. I’m sorry Marc Summers. I really loved Double Dare. And you.

Anyway. Here is the list of my top five strengths:

1. Super Mario 3 besides the ocean level. Because fuck that giant red fish and all of her stupid babies.

2. Knowing all the lyrics to the Humpty Dance

3. Accidentally setting the stove on fire while not putting anyone in direct danger.

4. Identifying celebrity voices in cartoons

5. Making lists

I think we can all look at that list and realize two things pretty quickly. First, all of those things are bad ass. Because when I say Super Mario 3 besides the ocean level, I mean ALL of the rest of the levels. Even the ice level, WITHOUT the Tanooki suit. And that shit is impossible without the Tanookie suit. Second, precisely zero of them help me in any way in a real life situation. I cannot think of one plausible situation where any of those things could save my life or win me five million dollars.

Aaaaand dammit.

Now think of your weaknesses. Are they pretty normal, like “I leave wet towels on the bed sometimes” or “I don’t multitask well”? Or are they all mentally and physically crippling examples of why you’ll never be a real grown up?

Not you, Adam Sandler. I’ll keep watching whatever movie you put out because I love you. Just please keep talking in that weird voice.

Long story short, here’s the list of things that I am terrible at, which inadvertently reveals how terrible I am at life. The fact that I’m still alive and functioning at any level is actually pretty impressive. Where’s my trophy, motherfuckers?

1. Making grilled cheese.

Seems pretty easy right. Butter the bread. Put cheese on it. Stick it in a pan. Flip it once. Don’t burn it. Make sure it’s done.  Lenny from Mice and Men could do this. And Lenny is a giant idiot manchild. Like Glenn Beck (If you're reading this, Steve Poore, I'm totally sorry about that. Sort of.).  And I bet even Glenn Beck could do this. Which makes me more sad than the time I bought a Ninja Turtle ice cream from the ice cream man and, not only did I get Donatello, who was my LEAST favorite turtle, but Donatello was also missing one of his bubblegum eyeballs. Because here’s what this means: I may be worse than Glenn Beck. What’s that you say? You’re being too hard on yourself, Jen? No one, not even people who use the word “preventative” (which is NOT A GOD DAMN WORD), are worse than Glenn Beck?

Because here’s what always happens when I try to make a grilled cheese sandwich:

Exhibit A: underdone, pale, soggy and disappointing. That’s what she said.

Exhibit B: found in the uncovered remains of Pompeii following the Mount Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD.

Those are two sides of the same sandwich. Scientific proof that I am worse at life than Glenn Beck. Or at least as equally disappointing as a Cyclops Donatello Ninja Turtle ice cream.

2. Communicating

You know how adults have these things called “conversations” where they “talk” about their “feelings” and “things that are important to them” with other adults? Me neither. I actually just assumed it was a myth like Eskimos or genies or people who say they “love Alabama”.

Roll. Fucking. Tide.

When someone close to me tries to talk to me about something serious, I immediately feel hot and nauseous and start counting the total number of sides on all of the squares in the room. Seriously. Try to have a conversation with me about something important in a room where there are ceiling tiles.

If I have to talk to someone I love about something serious, I write them a letter, leave it in a notebook, put that notebook under a stack of books, put that stack of books in a box, duct tape that box shut, stick that shit in a closet and hope that they find it someday. I’m not really exaggerating. I once found a letter I wrote to an ex boyfriend about how I thought we should break up five years after we broke up. My thought process? “See? That one sort of worked itself out.”

Remember, this is how I treat people I love. So please imagine trying to have a serious conversation with me if I didn’t love you. It is exactly as bad as you think. I can’t be serious, so as a defense mechanism, I either turn the entire thing into a joke, or I’m the bitchiest bitch that ever bitched, totally out of the fear that comes from talking, which, by the way, is something I do every fucking day anyway. That I have any friends or a job at all is amazing. For example. A couple years ago, I had an employee that was plagiarizing some of the work they turned in. Did I say some of it? I mean all of it. Which is sort of a big fucking deal because I was a newspaper editor. It was caught by a really amazing news editor before the stories ran, but obviously, I had to fire him. First, I sent him an email asking him to meet with me the following day. This is the actual conversation I had with that employee, who I will call Gabe for what I assume could be serious legal repercussions:

**Gabe enters the room and sits down**

**I hand him his assignments, and the original stories he plagiarized from a competing newspaper**

Me: Dude.

Gabe: What?

Me: You’re totally fired.

Gabe: Why?!

Me: Because you’re an idiot. And unless you’re an idiot who also possesses the magical powers of a warlock who can erase my memory, you can’t work here anymore. No idiots at a newspaper.

At which point the sales manager proceeded to have kittens and sort of took over as I walked out of the room, knowing that there were exactly 192 sides to the tiles on the ceiling.

Bonus! Imagine being in a relationship with someone who communicates juuuust about as well as I do… I’m sure it’s fine...

3. Riding a bike

So here’s the thing. I didn’t learn how to ride a bike until I was like 15. Just kidding. I was eight. See how that doesn’t seem so bad when you originally thought I didn’t learn until I was 15? No?

If you’ve never met my brother or sister, you may not realize that they can handle simple tasks like walking, or jogging, or riding a bike, or standing completely still without falling down. I, on the other hand, cannot. Here’s a few examples of how unathletic I am: I fell down standing perfectly still at the San Jacinto Monument, I have sprained my heel, I have fallen down the stairs, I have fallen up the stairs, I cut myself with foil, one time I was running to third base and tripped and just sort of bounced there because I can’t slide, I gave myself a concussion when I tried to flip my hair out of my face and hit my head on the roof of my car, I tried to look cool in front of a dude I had a crush on by not breaking eye contact while I was drinking a drink and I accidentally stuck the straw up my nose, I was on crutches for like a week when I tried to jump over a tennis net that was TWO INCHES off the ground and I tripped over it and fell. There are lots more. I just don’t think I can bring myself to list anything else.

I asked my sister for a list of all the times I hurt myself because she’s a jerkasaurus. This is what she sent back. Mostly because she’s terrible.

Long story short, for me “learning how to ride a bike” was much more similar to “my dad throwing me pretty relentlessly into a pitching backstop”. I’m pretty sure I learned how to ride a bike out of fear that I was just going to die of massive head trauma if I didn’t.

And you know how people say that you never forget how to ride a bike? A couple years ago, I was riding a bike and my pants got caught in the chain and my sister had to rescue me before I fell into a ravine and died. The end.

4. Writing blogs

So here’s the thing. Writing terrifies me. Unfortunately, it’s sort of the only thing I can do that also carries with it a legally employable element. Prostitution is out. I’m not great at chemistry so making meth isn’t going to work. Math isn’t my favorite, and I hate negotiating, so drug dealing is out. The thought of sitting at a desk all day makes me throw up in my mouth a little. But again, writing terrifies me. Especially trying to write anything funny. Because here’s a secret: I’m not fucking funny. I’m just really weird and awkward, which may translate ok in print, but in person, you’d probably be like “why is she drinking tequila out of a big gulp? Why isn’t she sitting in our wicker furniture? How come the only time she talks, she says ‘that’s what she said’? Did she just call me a jerkasaurus?”

There it is. I’m so shy in person, that I overcompensate by pretending not to be shy. So when I tell people “I’m shy around people I don’t know” they immediately think “wow, this bitch is a total bananasandwich liar.” A lot of times, you’ll hear dumb writers who have ten bajillion dollars say things like “you should write for yourself! That way you’ll be happy!” Well, shut your bajillionaire mouth. I like to write for other people. It’s sort of the only contribution I can make to society, that doesn’t involve me singing each of you to sleep at night with beautiful Paula Abdul songs, which is a little impractical. But writing is pretty scary. I’m basically saying “Here. Here’s this stuff I wrote. Now go to the comments section with your second-grade writing abilities and tell me that you bet I’m probably ugly and that I have a tiny brain.”

I have started writing three books. One of them is half finished. Two of them are just plot summaries. Here’s what happens in my head when I read over them:

Ok. That’s sort of funny. Wait. No it’s not. Is “gigantic” or “giant” a funnier word? This is terrible. Maybe it’s ok. Nope; it’s not. Is “fuck-ton” a word? Lewis Carroll invented words. You are not Lewis Carroll. Wait—maybe this is ok. Ok; nope, not at all. Everyone is going to hate you.

I spent, like ten hours, trying to decide in one post whether I should say that roaches were my “arch nemesis” or “most formidable rival”. Ten hours. On that. Because there is something wrong with my brain. Writing is scary. And it’s the only thing I can do. And if it’s the only thing I can do and you hate it, what the hell good am I? That’s right. I’m as useless and terrible as Lindsay Lohan. And I did not have to debate whether or not to use Lindsay Lohan’s name. Because seriously. She’s useless and terrible.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my very long excuse for why I haven’t written a blog since December.

***If you would like to get emails when I post to this blog that I neglect, you can subscribe towards the top right hand side of the page. It's usually below the ads trying to sell people help for eating disorders. Because Google Ads gets me.***

How I am More Irresponsible Than a Petty Thief

When I asked everyone about a month ago which of three stories you wanted me to write about, your response was overwhelmingly in favor of “The Three People in the Universe that Hate Me and Why”. (By the way, guys, rude.) And I am going to write that one. I promise. But first, I have to tell you about a situation that happened last month in which I proved to be more irresponsible and aggravating than a petty thief.

First, let me preface this by saying that I am responsibly irresponsible. I went to school. I got good grades. I have a career (in a dying industry, but quit focusing on that! Stop being so negative!). I am a relatively morally and ethically sound person that makes generally good decisions.

Fig. 1.1
Yes. I think listening to MC Hammer is a good decision. This is why I said generally good decisions.
























But ultimately, I am not an overly responsible person.

Here are some examples:

• I don’t check my mailbox. Ever. On the rare occasions that I do check my mail box, there is usually an angrily scrawled note from a postal worker about how they had to take my mail back to the post office because the box was so full. They give me some terrible deadline to pick it up (only 11 days! Who has the time?!) and then threaten to send it all back. There are usually three or four of these in my mailbox at a time. Whose mailbox is that full? So full that the postal worker has to take out all of the mail they presumably put into the box? But here’s my argument. It’s really far away from my apartment. And no, I’m not going to go pick up my mail. I have no desire to go to the post office where a picture of my overflowing mailbox is probably posted on the wall with bullet holes and blood and knife-stab wounds in it. In this vision, my name is under the mailbox and there are people snarling at it like the moment they figured out who the villain was in The Happening.

Fig. 1.2
So…plants?

No thank you. You can keep my mail. In that same vein:

• I do not know where the post office is. I do not want to talk about it.
• For roughly three months, my refrigerator has contained two bottles of margarita mix, one half-consumed 24 pack of Lone Star (that I didn’t even purchase), one bag of flour that got wet and can’t be used, two bottles of Blue Moon, a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20, some Yellow Tail wine that most people would cook with but I fully intend to drink, a container that I think had potato soup in it at one time, and, for some inexplicable reason, a bottle of bleu cheese dressing that expired in 2009, which insinuates that not only have I had the expired dressing for two years, but I moved the expired dressing from one apartment to the other.
• I’m supporting Britney Spears’ comeback.

Fig. 1.3
Supporting Britney Spears: Wildly irresponsible

You get the idea. Now that you know the truth, I’m going to tell you about how a thief broke into my car and how it caused them more aggravation than me.

Near my apartment, there is a bridge that an awesome bat colony lives under. Did I say “bridge that an awesome bat colony lives under”? I’m sorry. I mean “bridge that a totally awesome bat colony lives under”. They fly out about dusk every night to eat mosquitoes and scare crybabies and turn into Freemasons or whatever.

Fig. 1.4
Remember-Freemasons are not vampires. And they probably aren’t bats either.

Because my brother hadn’t seen this mass exodus before, we went down to the bridge to look. I parked my car across the street, in a lot that has signs that say something to the effect of “I hate you, you’re stupid, don’t park here or I will literally skin you alive and sell all of your organs on the black market. And then we’ll tow your car”. So I took my chances. Of course, I was nervous, so I kept glancing back over to see if there were pygmies with knives driving tow trucks ready to skin me alive and tow my car away. There weren’t. After about fifteen minutes, there was, however, an enormous diesel truck parked next to mine. My internal dialog went something like this:

Oh! Another truck! They’re probably watching the bats too. It’s so weird they parked right next to me! There are so many other parking spaces…I guess they think NEITHER of us will get towed that way. They’re probably really sweet. I wonder who it is! Maybe they’re standing right next to me! (Then I smiled at the person standing right next to me.)

The theme of incurable optimism keeps reoccurring throughout this blog. You can find it here and here. This situation is no different. As it turns out, the person who owned the enormous diesel truck was not standing next to me.

After the bats were finished being awesome, my brother and I walked back to the car. On the way there, I looked up and saw the enormous diesel truck. I then looked down for precisely half of one second to make sure I didn’t trip over the curb, fall into the street and get brutally crushed to death by oncoming traffic. When I looked back up, the enormous diesel truck was gone.

Man! They left fast!

Where have we seen this kind of naïveté before?
Fig. 1.5
Here.

Fig. 1.6
Here

Fig. 1.7
And here.

That’s right. In Buddy the Elf, who loves Christmas and whose father is a Christmas elf, Navin Johnson, who was raised a poor, black child, and George Bush, who I am convinced thought he was playing the part of a lovable rascal for nearly a decade. We see this kind of sweet, child-like naïveté when the world is about to be a douchebag and rob people blind of their innocent nature. Which is exactly what was about to happen to me.

My brother walked to the driver’s side door and looked at me with an expression that, I think, is similar to one Al Gore would make if you told him that you didn’t know what “the internets” were.

Fig. 1.8
“Bitch! I INVENTED the internets!”

(On a slightly more hilarious side note, if you Google image “confused mad Al Gore” you not only get a confused, angry Al Gore, but Al Gore’s head photoshopped onto a showering woman’s body, a monkey with his tail tied in a knot, a zombie, and the Three Stooges. Just throwing this out there.)

The entire driver’s side window was shattered. There was glass everywhere. And my purse, which was under the passenger side seat, was gone. An extra slap in the face, my iPod, which is FULL of excellent artists like Huey Lewis and Paula Abdul, was sitting on the center console where I left it.

I immediately changed my mind about the person who owned the enormous diesel truck.

How COULD he?!

You know that feeling you get when you can’t find your keys? And you know you had them, and you know they were in your hand, but you put them down somewhere to play one very fast level of Super Mario 3 and now they’re probably in the refrigerator or the dog’s kennel? And if you don’t find them fast, you’ll NEVER get to the Super Troopers quote-along in time, and you’ll miss out on the syrup chug and maybe they’ll also be out of fake mustaches? That’s exactly how I felt as I tried to run through what was in my purse and what I lost. And this is what I came up with:

• One packet of instant Quaker Oatmeal-Peach
• One expired driver’s license that also had the incorrect address on it (yes. this is the license I was using.)
• One very tiny screwdriver, possibly either to use on glasses or for a mouse to use for making sardine cans into very tiny beds
• One Power Ranger action figure-Rocky
• One small bag of ear plugs
• One melted MAC lipstick
• One menthol Chapstick, capless and full of dirt and, for some reason, a sticker burr
• One spark plug gapper
• Three pens, two broken and one out of ink
• Business cards for my makeup artist work, most of them crinkled, others with gum in them
• One empty roll of Bubble Tape
• One gas station receipt, which revealed that I once (more than once, but this only documented one time) put an entire $4.34 in my tank before I got bored and decided that was enough to get me to work
• One pencil, unsharpened
• One camera, filled with pictures I took of myself, and pictures of my foot. I don’t have time to explain.
• One debit card, half eaten by my dog, connected to an account with precisely $17.12 in it
• My purse, which is an ADORABLE corduroy leopard print purse that came from Old Navy and cost $3.50.

But here’s the thing. Who sees a PT Cruiser convertible and thinks to themselves, “jackpot”?

So I called the police and then called my bank and told them to cancel the card. And that’s when the lady that answered laid this on me. They had already tried to use the card, for $170 at a Chevron, and it was declined. Do you know what that means? They tried to make ME pay for $170 in gas for their enormous diesel truck and they had to pay for it themselves because I am so irresponsible. And the best thing they got out of my purse was a packet of instant oatmeal. (And my purse, which I was most upset about, because it was leopard print AND corduroy, clearly making it a fashion one-two punch).

I got the window fixed, which was an irritating $110, (which, if you’re a scientist, you’ve figured out is still less than the $170 they had to pay in gas) and just lamented the loss of my very cute purse that even a homeless person could afford to purchase.

And here is where things get amazing. About a week later, I got a phone call from a number I didn’t know.

It was a woman. Who found my purse. On the street.

And here is where things get really amazing.

The only thing missing was my camera.

So here’s what I imagined the thieves’ day went like after they stole my purse (I don’t know why I envision that there are two, working in tandem to steal my purse from my very unsecured car, but it is what it is):

Scene 1: Driving away
Horrible person 1*, on the way to the gas station: This purse has oatmeal in it. And a power ranger.
Horrible person 2**: I have a shard of glass in my hand.

*From here on out, Horrible Person 1 will be called Marcel, and **Horrible Person 2 will be called Jeff. Because in my head, that's what their names are. Mostly because I don't trust people named Marcel or Jeff.

Scene 2: At the gas station
Gas station attendant: That’s $170, please.
Marcel: Here’s my girlfriend’s card. She’s in the car. Her name is…Jennifer?
Gas station attendant: This card has been declined.
Marcel, who has just given gas station attendant his card: God damnit.
Gas station attendant: I’ve lost my pen, do you have one to sign the receipt?
Marcel, who tries to use any writing utensil in my purse: God. Damnit.

Scene 3: Leaving the gas station
Marcel: This woman needs to get her life together! I need some gum!
Jeff: There was some Bubble Tape in her purse.
::Marcel opens the empty Bubble Tape::
Marcel: GOD DAMN IT!!!!!

::Marcel grabs my camera out of my purse, throws the purse out of the window in a fit of rage. A nice lady picks it up, finds business cards that don’t have gum in them, and calls me.

Fig. 1.9
Not a Dramatization.

Scene 4: Later that night, in the thieves lair, which I imagine is very lair-like where there are drug dealers and marauders wearing eye patches and lots of other stolen items like bicycles, the original Mona Lisa, the CD’s that were stolen out of my car when I was 18 and King Tut’s treasure.
Marcel, crying hysterically, talking to his girlfriend: …And then, all she had in her purse was some disgusting lipstick, some oatmeal, an action figure, business cards with already chewed gum in them, an expired license with a bad address —and we know it’s a bad address because we went to the apartment on her license to beat the shit out of her, but the only person home was an old man who didn’t know her—a credit card with nothing on it, an empty roll of Bubble Tape and a camera. And all that’s on this camera is some chubby chick and pictures of her foot. (sobbing—like that kind of sobbing where he’s just sucking in air and making weird honking sounds)…Her iPod was seven years old and all she had on it was some John Stamos song and New Kids on the Block and Huey Lewis (one final choking sob)...And Jeff cut his hand, and I’m pretty sure it’s infected… (aaaaand scene. fade to black with Marcel, who is inconsolable, with his head in his girlfriend's lap.)

And that is how irresponsible I am. More irresponsible than a petty thief.

And I got my purse back. I think we all know what the lesson here is.

Fig. 1.10
Fashion 1-2 punch. With a pen for size reference.