Category Archives: WCTFAO

Weird Crap That Freaks Amanda Out: Volume 7

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I went to the salon. Before I left the esthetician said, “Would you like a free complimentary touch up on your makeup?”

It was not even 10 am and I am on vacation. The salon was the sole reason I got up and ready before noon. I am feeling fresh and my make up is light and summery but apparently, I already look like I need a complimentary touch up. Thanks for the backhanded offer, but no thanks.

Fancy salons freak me out.

I turn into a quiet, scared little thing who has no ability to speak up and say “WHAT THE CRAP ARE YOU DOING TO MY BODY?” Instead, I smile politely and bear it until I can get home and say to whomever will listen, “LOOK AT WHAT THEY DID TO MY BODY.” Maybe it’s just my personality (I want to do it all myself! I am already capable of this! Get your hands off my feet!) or maybe one of their layers of makeup is magic, but those places turn me into a complacent doormat.

I usually get the “you look like crap let me help you spend buttloads of money” impression at fancy salons. A few years ago I had a gift certificate to get my hair done at a ritzy place. The entire time the hairdresser told me that my hair was dull and lifeless. I was not taking proper care of it and there was a thick, waxy build up on my strands. Her solution? Forty dollar shampoo. Oh, and forty dollar conditioner. I have never once been told my hair is dull and lifeless by anyone other than a fancy hairdresser. I have in fact, been told that I could do shampoo commercials (I’m here for you, Pantene).

I have only had one facial in my lifetime. I was approximately 15 years old. I was what you might call a late bloomer, so at 15, my skin was still childlike in nature (ie spectacularly clear). The entire time I was told that I wasn’t taking care of my skin and that it was in really horrible shape. Here, buy this fifty dollar moisturizer. It will help your acne (which at the time was non existent).

I can count the number of professional manicures and pedicures I have had on one hand. For my brother’s wedding, us girls went out to get our nails done. The lady made my cuticle bleed like mad and put some weird nailpolishy thing on it to make it stop. No explanation, no apology. Just something to stop the blood flow. It was the equivalent of someone chewing a piece of gum and using it to plug a leaky boat. I’m rather certain it wasn’t sanitary.

Another time, another wedding, another mani/pedi. This experience was much better, although I don’t think my lady talked to me once, except to ask if I would like my feet to be made one size smaller with a potato peeler. The pictures on the walls freaked me out.

Those are donuts

Maybe I’ve been going to the wrong places or finding the wrong people. Maybe I could be convinced otherwise. Past experience tells me that every time I get all excited to get “pampered” I leave feeling sub par and like I could have done a better job. Also mildly weirded out that I just paid someone to touch my feet.

As a woman I am told that these experiences are wonderful and relaxing. It will help make you feel more beautiful. Honestly, the best experiences I ever had in this area involved myself, my mother, a bottle of nail polish and a mug of tea. The most fun I had as a kid was spending hours alongside my cousin, turning our toenails into butterflies and ladybugs and teddy bears. I’m very much looking forward to the times I will get to paint my nieces’ and/or daughters’ nails and giggle about life. If you want to pamper me, don’t send me to a salon and pay exorbitant amounts of money so a stranger can silently and judgingly remove my bunions. That’s not my idea of being pampered. Give me some good friends, lots of snacks, homemade beauty solutions and a belly full of giggles.

Sorry salons, but you really just freak the crap out of me.

What about you? Salons: love ‘em or hate ‘em?

GUEST POST: Weird Crap That Freaks Ricky Out

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Today for your reading pleasure, Ricky Anderson and I have swapped posts. Ricky is a network administrator at an accounting firm by day and a blogger by night. I don’t know what the first one means, so we’ll go with the second part for now. I first became internet-aware of Ricky when he conjured up some computer wizardry and made http://www.shortandsilly.com redirect to this here site. I’m still in awe and don’t really understand it. He assures me it’s legal.

Ricky was a Team Captain in this year’s Blogging All-Star Challenge. His team lost miserably but that’s only because Jon Acuff’s deep-v was compelling voters to stray from true awesomeness. I voted Team Ricky and after you read this list of Weird Crap That Freaks Ricky Out, you’ll understand why. Don’t be blinded by the deep-vees of the internet world, friends. Stick with Ricky.

Make sure you visit his blog to read my guest post. While you’re there check out his stuff. It’s kind of like going to someone’s house for dinner and rooting through their medicine cabinet. You’ll never know what treasures you’ll find. Without further ado….

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Confrontation - I hate difficult conversations. I will do anything to appease someone just so I won’t have to talk to them about it. I had to have one of those conversations with my neighbor a couple weeks ago. I literally felt ill beforehand, pacing the house in a giant ball of stress. When the actual conversation happened, it lasted 25 seconds and ended with him thanking me for letting him know.

Driving Away From Home – I’m a safe driver. I’m a cautious driver. I’ve never gotten a ticket or caused an accident. But I absolutely suck at directions. I can get lost in my own driveway. No, a GPS doesn’t fix this. While using a GPS, I once ended up in the wrong state when trying to return a rental car. Turns out there’s more than one Kansas City.

Chicken Pot Pie, Grits and/or Okra – Really, people? This is what you’ve decided to eat? You know they have good food in the grocery stores, right? So…skip the yucky stuff. When my niece Adelle was 3, we were all eating at a restaurant. She got fried okra instead of fries with her burger. She didn’t like them and started fussing. Her folks had her dip them (the okra, not her folks) in ranch. She fussed louder (okra in ranch is a great way to ruin ranch). I nudged her and pointed to an empty spot on my plate. She’s a quick learner, and we solved the problem of this cruel and unusual punishment, pronto.
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Hotel Floors – We’ve all seen the news reports on bed bugs and unwashed comforters in hotels. I toss the comforter off the bed and get comfy with the bugs. What really gets me is the floor. In my head, I imagine a hairy man tossing his underwear on the floor and then rubbing it all around. You will never, never catch me walking barefoot in a hotel room. I wear slippers or flip-flops all the time.
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What’s something weird that freaks you out?

Weird Crap That Freaks Amanda Out: Volume 6

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You know that one movie where MacCaulay Culkin spills some milk and eats some pizza and his uncle calls him a jerk and he has to go sleep with the kid who wets the bed and he has an ugly brother who has an ugly girlfriend as well as a tarantula and then he doesn’t get to go on vacation and he steals a toothbrush and gets chased by a guy in an apron and then there is something with a guy and a shovel and other guys who step on ornaments and are afraid of voices they hear from a Talk Boy? You know the one.

I love that one. I quote it often, you little jerk. No, that’s not what freaks me out. Stop being such a disease. What freaks me out are moments that mirror events in the movie.

I had one today. I came home and no one was here. There was no note, no cars in the garage and no trace of any life other than the dog (but I don’t think she counts). This isn’t freaky. This happens often. After a few hours of nothingness, I was beginning to think I had forgotten about a mandatory family event. I sent a text. No response. I sent another text to another family member. No response. I sent a text to someone who isn’t even in the same city as me. No response.

After three unanswered texts, I had a straight up, no denying it, completely irrational but still pretty funny HOME ALONE MOMENT. In the midst of these moments, all I can think (over and over and sometimes out loud) is “I made my family disappear.” My brain usually comes up with a ridiculously awful scenario in which all of my family members and loved ones truly disappear.

When I was younger, I used to think it was the Rapture and I’d go searching for contact lenses and dental fillings (curse you, Kirk Cameron!). Now I realize the ridiculousness of this behaviour.

Instead as a fully mature adult (?), I pace around my house and plan where I will set booby traps.

Yeah.

Fortunately, before I got too deep into my planning, I received a text that was straight out of Anne of Green Gables (except if she could text. I mean I’m sure she would be capable if given the technology. But it would have been far less effective to break a BlackBerry over Gilbert Blythe’s head. And more expensive. I wish people still used the term bosom buddies) thus making me realize people still existed.

My loved ones didn’t disappear. But HOME ALONE MOMENTS still freak me out.

Two questions for you, my dear blog readers:

1. Who else went (uh, goes?) searching for empty clothes when they can’t find their families?

2. What is the sweetest booby trap you can think of?

>Weird Crap That Freaks Amanda Out – Volume 5

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>It is winter here in Canada. And with winter comes a multitude of things. Winter is cold. Winter is gross. Winter is generally irritating if you drive a vehicle. But winter is pretty (I’ll give it that much).

I can usually handle the cold. Wait, this is a giant lie. I am constantly cold even in the summer, and winter just puts me over the edge. But it doesn’t freak me out. I have accepted the fact that I am always cold. I have invested in an electric blanket, we own several fireplaces, I wear fuzzy socks, I use a Snuggie and I usually have a human furnace hanging around who is happy to sit on my feet. I can handle the cold.

I have also accepted the fact that owning a vehicle in the winter is irritating. The brushing off of snow, always seeming to be low on wiper fluid, the ice cold steering wheel and the slip sliding about the road. Yesterday morning my brand new baby even had a wee bit of difficulty starting right away (sitting all weekend in minus 23 degrees Celsius will do that to you, I guess). It’s irritating. But I can handle it.

But then there is the worst part of winter. The part that I have difficulties even writing about. The part that makes me yell and complain and carry on and make really awful faces. The worst part of winter happens when I go to get dressed for outside. I put on my hat. I put on my scarf. I zip up my coat. I put on my boots. I go to tie up my boots and encounter the evilest of all evil winter things.

WET BOOT LACES.

I yell, I complain, I grunt, I do a “ew this is gross” dance. I cannot handle wet boot laces. This is the part of winter that puts me over the edge. I must clarify. If I have been outside in the snow and my laces are wet, I am not bothered by it. Newly wet laces are acceptable. It’s the ones that have sat in the dirty puddle of boot tray sin that send me over the edge. The dirty snow water has been soaking its evil throughout the laces just for me to grab and coat my hands in disgusting. I don’t like the feeling of it. I don’t like the smell of it. I don’t like the way the water shoots out of the soaked laces and hits me in the face. It makes me want to move far away to a magical land where sopping wet boot laces don’t exist.

The other day I said something mildly insulting to my mother and her retort: “Watch it or I’ll make your boot laces wet!” This is such a problem for me that it can now be used against me. I admit that I have a problem. A rather weird problem, too. I have tried tucking my laces into my boots, but somehow they still escape to hang out in a puddle. I need help. Probably more than I’m willing to admit. But I still need help.

How do I fix this winter-long problem?

>Weird Crap That Freaks Amanda Out – Volume 4

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> Things that taste like grape freak me out. I hesitate to even call this “grape” flavour. Grapes, I like. Grape juice, I also like. Artificial grape flavoured stuff, I most definitely do not. Let’s not call them grape flavoured, ok? They are purple flavoured things.

I have this extremely vivid memory from when I was maybe 5 or 6. I was sitting on my bunk in the back room of our trailer*. I had some ailment that required Tylenol. There were two Childrens’ chewable Tylenol tablets sitting on the table in front of me. I remember staring at them hoping they would either shrink or just go directly through my bellybutton and into my stomach. I nibbled one and gagged. Purple flavour.

That night I learned to swallow pills.

Ever since then, the taste and even the smell of purple things make my stomach turn. If I’m at a function and someone has been drinking grape Crush I find it difficult to talk to them. I can smell it on their breath and it sends shivers down my spine. Worse than knowingly ingesting purple flavour is ingesting it thinking it will taste like something else. I find Starburst jellybeans incredibly deceiving. There are black jellybeans in that bag but they taste like PURPLE. I go for black, and I taste PURPLE.  This is terrifying. This is also why I don’t eat Skittles in the dark. I don’t trust candy that has purple mixed into it.

If I find that I have purple flavour in my mouth, you will either see me spit it out (if appropriate) or chew, swallow and chase it with anything other than purple. There will also be gagging and possibly yelling involved (it will most likely be supremely girly in nature “ew ew ew ew!”). I’m telling you, it’s traumatic and I most definitely cause a scene. If I weed out the purple beforehand, it will either be thrown at someone (again, if appropriate) or given to a purple-loving friend (who of course is not sitting right beside me breathing purple-breath into my face).

A list of purple things to avoid: Skittles**, gumdrops, jellybeans, bubble gum, Jell-o, Kool Aid, grape Crush, suckers, medicine, freezies, popsicles, Nerds, and grape drink (grape juice is to grape drink as orange juice is to Sunny D***),

Yes, I know this is strange and like always, I have come to terms with it. I am comfortable with letting my freak flag fly. My name is Amanda, and I don’t like purple things. I hope we can still be friends. If you eat all the purple Skittles, we can be best friends. Just don’t breathe on me afterward, mmkay?

*Like, the summer vacation kind of trailer, not the plastic-flamingos-tacky-lights-really-thick-glasses-on-a-guy-named-Bubbles-tornado-through-the-trailer-park kind of trailer. Just to clarify.
 **Original Fruit only. Tropical is safe.
***Fun Sunny D fact: it contains vegetable oil! Yay!

>Weird Crap That Freaks Amanda Out – Volume 3

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>For today’s installment of Weird Crap That Freaks Amanda Out (WCTFAO) we will be discussing pudding. Yes, pudding. That jiggly, custardy, creamy and extremely bizarre (and absolutely disgusting) dessert.

I have never liked pudding. This began in my early years. I was (and still am) allergic to dairy. This is not an intolerance that can be fixed with a mere enzyme pill before I eat some ice cream or lasagna. This is an allergy that jump starts my asthma, and if left unchecked, turns me into a wheezing, coughing, phlegmy (but much cuter) version of Louis Armstrong*. Real dairy pudding was a no-go for me. My mother bought the non-dairy soy type of pudding. I remember banana and caramel flavours somehow tasting like beans. I also remember gagging.

My aversion to pudding grew in elementary school. My packed lunch was always full of non-packaged, non-processed foods that were usually made from scratch.  My one classmate, Shane, always had those plastic cheese/cracker duos, Lunchables or Dunk-a-roos. Along with those packaged goodies, he almost always had a cup of chocolate pudding. Shane had a lunchbox haven of processed junk, and he also had large gaps between his teeth. It was common lunch room practice for him to skootch his chocolate pudding through the gaps in his teeth. He did this in a very slow and deliberate manner, so that it looked like his tooth gaps were squeezing out tubes of the poop-like substance. Please just pause and picture that for a moment. Gappy teeth covered in GLOBBY chocolate pudding. I am pretty sure Shane is into drugs now.

A child once told me that she was excited to eat Nerd Pudding at the cottage with her dad. Uh, Nerd Pudding? I was afraid to even ask. It is, as you might guess, pudding with Nerds in it. So as if the custardy mess wasn’t enough, try adding chunks of artificially flavoured sugar that will leach colour into the already unacceptable dessert. Why would you waste perfectly good chunks of sugar like that? It almost seems cruel.

Those of you who are familiar with me and my dietary restrictions know that I will eat almost anything, just as long as it is gluten free. I am totally ok with consuming bread that resembles cardboard in both taste and texture. However, there is no circumstance in which I will consume large amounts of pudding. I do want to like pudding because I know it is strange that I can’t handle it. Some of my daycare co-workers have witnessed my willingness to keep trying to like it. I can usually handle an apple slice dipped in a very thin layer, but as soon as there is a glob, oh sweet mercy, I gag and try my best not to bring it back up. FOOD SHOULD NOT BE GLOBBY. Food should also not be made from a powder. I hesitate to even call it food. I’ve had a few people say I don’t like pudding because I’ve never had REAL pudding. No. Please, no. I don’t care if it is real or not, I refuse to eat a food that hangs in limbo between a liquid and a solid.

In conclusion, pudding freaks me out. I know that is weird, but I am ok with it.

*I am happy to report that my dairy allergy has improved with age and I can usually get away with consuming dairy in small doses. The only things that turn me into the King of Jazz are ice cream, cats and very cold weather.

>Weird Crap That Freaks Amanda Out – Volume 2

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>Last night I was with a friend, and the two of us were primping for a night out. While I was searching through her iTunes for some funk music, she was getting herself ready. She mentioned that she had a burn on her arm, and I turned around to look. Just as I turned around, she ripped off her band-aid.

I almost threw up.

It wasn’t the burn that caused me troubles, it was the band-aid. They are absolutely disgusting. The thought of skin being pulled by adhesive, and some little hairs getting yanked out in the process gives me the heebie jeebies. I think this quirk of mine stems from the large amount of time I’ve spent in hospitals and blood clinics. I can sit and watch the needle prick into my skin, the blood being drained out of my veins and then see all of the vials of my blood but smack a band-aid on me and I’m done.

Woozy. Fainty. Nauseous.

I’ve argued with nurses in an effort to convince them to let me go without a band-aid. Some of them refuse and tell me it’s against the rules, plus you’ll get blood on your sweater. I don’t give a flying poop, I don’t want an awful stickery thing on the delicate inside of my elbow. It just doesn’t seem right. I will avoid the mark of the band-aid at any cost.

There is something else gross about used and discarded band-aids. Like the ones you find floating in pools. Or the ones that are dangling by one sticky thread off of the scabbed knees of kindergarten kids. Then there is that gummy black ring that they leave on your skin that can only be removed with baby oil and excessive scrubbing. If something sticks to your skin that badly, it shouldn’t be there in the first place.

In conclusion, band-aids are nasty. I’m going to go have a shower and hope I don’t scrape my knees anytime soon.

>Weird Crap That Freaks Amanda Out – Volume 1

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>In today’s installment of Weird Crap That Freaks Amanda Out (WCTFAO), we will be discussing Thrift and/or Antique Stores. This may seem a little odd, but I would like to remind you that this is called Weird Crap That Freaks Amanda Out, not Stuff That Freaks Out Quite A Few People, Not Just Amanda. So excuse me for being weird.

You might be saying, but Amanda, I know you love Value Village, and that is most definitely a thrift store. And you are right, I do love the Village of Value. For the most part. I must explain what kinds of stores I mean. These stores are usually found in bizarre and mostly sketchy locations (side roads in Bruce County or on Lancaster St in Kitchener). They are most likely tiny and very dusty. They are over crowed with things claiming to be antiques, but are nothing more than old dishes that you could find in your grandparents’ basements. I really love old dishes, and I am thrilled that I inherited my grandmother’s full set of fine china, and some of her crystal (lead! whoo!), but something just feels “off” to me if there are incomplete sets of numerous styles of dishes all mashed into one incoherent display. There is no continuity, just a mish mash of old crap that no one wants any more. Where are the rest of the dishes in the set? Did you break them all? Do you have a personal vendetta against that one lonely bread and butter plate? What did it ever do to you? For this reason, the dish and old-crap-that-no-one-wants-anymore section of Value Village freaks me out.

Stores that really freak me out usually have toys. Not new, fun toys, but old half-dead creepy toys. Like dolls with stained dresses and hair that was chopped off by some scissor happy four year old. They are those dolls that when you lay them down, their eyes close, but since they are so old, only one eye closes and the other one stays partially open just to look and you and be creepy. Honestly, who wants to buy an old doll that some strange child drooled on? To me it just feels like left over happy memories. No one wants the doll anymore. What happened to the original owner? Why don’t they want their precious dolly anymore? And WHY oh WHY do they feel they need to try and sell it to an old person with an affinity for half-rotten old toys? Creepy, right?

Next, these stores have a distinctive odour to them. That old musty, moth ball-y gross smell. What IS that smell, and how come it all thrift/antique stores smell the same? I would like to know the answer to this question. Actually, maybe it would just be better to leave it a mystery. Maybe I’m weird, or maybe I’m just sensitive to smell.

Another characteristic of these stores is bound to make me look completely insane. This is something that I can’t describe entirely, but I will try. When I walk in, I feel a little claustrophobic. I feel this eerie sense of…unfinished business? and it makes me want to pull up my shirt or scarf to cover the back of my exposed neck. I keep by hands folded tightly and drawn into my chest until the ordeal is over. Maybe it’s because of all of the dirt, maybe it’s because it’s full of other peoples stuff…left over and discarded. Creepy, I tell you. Mighty creepy.

I love old things, I really do. I also love stumbling across something really unique and unusual. Much to my dismay, this event is likely to occur in some of these creepy stores. So for the most part, I think I can bear the creep-factor. That about concludes the first volume of WCTFAO. I realize that I may appear to be completely deranged, but I’m ok with that. Leave a comment if you feel the same. I hope you’ll still be my friend.