Another One Bites The Dust

Another divorce.

I just got off the phone with my college room-mate. What can I say...

I received a not-so-happy email from Melody last night accusing me of not keeping in contact. Now Melody and I have were roomies for a year in college. We got along well and had fun. She wasn't exactly the partying type of girl but she was a good enough room-mate and we laughed a lot together. She wasn't the most well liked girl on campus but I liked her. She was nice to me. I was probably the first non-American she'd ever come across and I doubt she's met many more since me. She tolerated my insanity and I tolerated her mess - how, I don't even know. We always got along well - even when we hated each other's guts. It's hard to explain. But it's easy to recognize our difference once you walk into our rooms. Her side of the wall is filled with Disney characters and mine, well, mine was filled with half naked men (hey, I'm the normal one here! :D). We email and chat online once in awhile but certainly not religiously. Needless to say when I got this email I was a little surprised. I wrote back and gave her a brief update of my life and asked the same of her. Well, I got a shock this morning when I read that she, like the rest of my other high school and college girlfriends, is getting a divorce .

Of course I called her immediately. A little worried. I've never met her husband but the few times I have communicated with him on the phone, he's never come across as being 'nice'. She answered the phone sounding suspicious. I was using my calling card so it probably read a Denver number. "KAREN!!", she screamed immediately recognizing the way I yell 'Melody!'. She still talks like she's home for the weekend from school and updating me on her life in in-the-middle-of-nowhere-vernon, connecticut. Thirteen years have swooshed by. Wow, how I have changed and like-to-believe, progressed, and how she err... hasn't. She's got a graduate degree in horticulture. Yet, since graduation, she's been working at the Disney Store - big shock there, NOT! Then she started telling me how HOT Mark is... uh oh, I just knew where the conversation was heading. "MELODY, YOU CHEATED ON YOUR HUSBAND!?" She laughs... . I repeated my question. A little amused to be honest. I just can't understand why my friends have all gone down the same path. ...and to be honest, it's rather demoralizing. Meloday makes it number... gawd who can keep track of all of my friends who have cheated on their husbands and/or getting a divorce. What is it with these girls I know!?!? Then she told me how she lost 80 pounds since April this year blah blah blah. WOW! Granted, it's a lot of weight (it's practically one whole person!). But she's known this Mark fella (apparently) for the last ten years! Doesn't that say something about him??? Oh well, what can I say. She says I won't understand. Little does she know, from all the crap I've heard all my girlfriends tell me, I understand better then anyone else out there. Yes, she married a 50 year old man beyond his years whom she shouldn't have and wants out. I get that. But she didn't have to wait till she lost 80 pounds and slept with another man to do that! Sad...

It makes me wonder about women who get married out of pressure. I know some of these girls I know certainly did. I also know some married girlfriends who aren't the most sensitive when putting a question across. Why do married women make single women believe that being married would make everything better? Worst, why would our parents make me believe that? LOL! Yes, sometimes, if you're lucky, life really is better. I got lucky! VERY LUCKY! Still, not every women, obviously, gets to be like me - and realizes it. So why are we made to feel that we need to have a man in our lives? Why are we made to feel once hitched, it's time to have a baby?! You have no idea how many times my married friends with kids tell me to stop 'posing' and go start a family. I HAVE A FAMILY! It's Bruce and I. We have a full night's rest every night and we're happy.

If you have a single girlfriend out there, don't try and set her up. Please don't ask her why she's single because either she wants to be single or she obviously doesn't know the answer to that stupid question. People are sometimes quite contented with where they are. Ever thought of that? No need to mess them up. Keep your 'good deeds' to yourselves. Otherwise it won't be too long before someone else get another girlfriend calling or emailing them about another rendezvous or ugly divorce procedure.

Why I Can't Shop At Walmart Anymore

I cannot shop at Walmart anymore - not in 10 lifetimes. We just returned from getting some hangers there and it's been at least six months since I was last there. Tonight, my final time shopping there has reminded me why I will not be seen back there ever again? No, I cannot let myself ever shop at Walmart ever again. Not in ten lifetimes! No... not because those stupid Christians on TV actually took out airtime to tell us not to - what do they know, they believe in freakin' fairies! Not because it's now a little farther away from us since we have a second, even bigger and fancier Target closer to our house... and it certainly is not because it is probably the cheapest place in town to buy ANYTHING. I just can't shop at Walmart anymore because:

1. I feel like I'm in New Orleans after the hurricane DURING looting
2. I don't feel like I'm actually shopping in the US nor any civilized nation
3. People working there don't have the attention span of a 3 yr old - they can't
check you out without talking to the cashier three aisles away or the last
customer they'd just checked out
4a. They have an "Express Lane" for customers buying 20 items or less (95 percent of the people have 20 items or less). That means you can choose between the Express Line (with 28 people waiting) or the other lines (with 3 people each with 472 items). Nice choice...
4b. The people in the Express lane can pay with coins, third party checks, coupons, gift certificates, currency they printed on inkjet printers, and anything else they can barter.
4c. The Express Lane has this sign posted: "Only 20 Itmes Please". While I appreciate the courteous use of "please", I wish they would have spelled it "pleeze" to keep with Walmart's Holiday Illiteracy theme.
5. I can't deal with shopping with hobos
6. I don't respect people who buy candle warmers so can keep their rooms scented
without burning their candles
7. I don't respect people who try to save every cent and buy a potato peeler that
peels them curly fries
8. I don't need to save 30 cents per shopping trip
9. I don't want to be shot if I honk at a moronic driver in the parking lot
10. It's a suckie shopping experiance no matter the time of the day
11. I prefer quality versus quantity
12. Target is SOOO much nicer (and it's not even that nice)!

It's so bad ROMT is even thinking of dropping our Sam's Club membership and moving to Costco. It's a sad day when we think about leaving Sam's Club, not because it's bad, but because it sits next to Walmart.

Are Most Foreign Women Cheap?

Ok you don't have to diss me and send me mean email. I'm a foreigner so I have every right to right to talk about 'us'.

I'm hosting a Christmas Party for the formerly-abroad group. This group is made up of Americans who have formerly lived abroad (ok I guess American women are also referred to in this article), foreigners like me who have married Americans and now live here, as well as foreign women (mostly Europeans) who are here with their husbands who are working temporarily in Memphis. Now this group of women are hardly impoverished by any standards. Most of them don't work... nor need to have a job... and most of them have older teenage kids - ok I hang with a bunch of cheap old bitches. The party is in less then a week and I find these women trying hard as they can to stinge. Whether it's their time on making a dish for the potluck luncheon or buying something as cheaply as possible from the store. I just don't understand them. While I don't expect everyone to spend 5 hours in the kitchen to make a fancy dish (this is after all, America), I also don't expect them to bring 'everyday-crap' to be served in my kitchen. It's a Christmas party for crying out loud!

Let me say that I have no objections as far as people buying something from the store for the convenience. But for goodness sakes, know what you're buying. Quality vs quantity. I, myself, am getting a whole roast duck from the local Chinese restaurant. It's the best in town (but that's only because I now can't be arsed to cook for a bunch of women who don't seem to appreciate the fact that I am going through SOME trouble to host their damn party). The husband has been so sweet and thoughtul to voluntarily get me an outdoor heater in case the party leads us out there for some reason (you never know with a bunch of women all liquored up; yeah, we've seen how those Austrians act when they're on the train to Budapest). So far, I have gotten many enthusiastic emails announcing who's attending and telling me of the salad dishes they're bringing. Oh come on!! What is it with these white women and their freakin' disgusting salads?!?!?! A couple of casseroles (which beats everything else), three salads and two dessert platters later (and yes, I can assure you these darn dessert platters will not be of my gourmand expectation; Costco if we're lucky), I'm stressed out. Why can't people just put in some effort?!? Did the chairperson not say in her 'invitation, 'bring your FAVOURITE dish'?! Arrgh, it just annoys the hell out of me! Someone emailed today and advised that they're bringing egg salad. Ok, it's a fellow Asian. She's Korean. I'm about to scream and pull out all my hair here... "EGG SALAD?!?!?! OHMYPHUCKINGGAWD!!! I emailed back suggesting she brought something party'ish and maybe even Korean if she cooks. I'm done. She's bringing phucking kimchee. Is she dense?!?! I didin't email back. ...she can jolly well sit by the corner with the stinky kimchee all by her damn self!

Ok, so maybe not all white girls will bring salad and we, foriegners are not just this bunch of losers. But I miss good potlucks. The good cooks and one pushy-always -filled-with-great-suggestions-what-people-should-cook-always-hungry-person I know have all moved away :( I'm just used to having a potluck where all 20 women bring delicious food enough for 90 men - never mind these skinny little bitches who all nibble on their food like rabbits and swear they have to go on a diet. Bloody annoying.

This will be the last time I'm going to volunteer for this group of cheap sorry asses.