Live Blogging My Call With The Division Of Water

10:33 am: This hold music would sure be a lot more relaxing if the clip wasn't 45 seconds long and constantly interrupted by a surly gentleman reminding me that all agents are busy. For the record, I have yet to speak to a live soul and I've been on hold for six minutes and thirty five seconds. Kenny G is a whore.

10:37 am: Still on hold. Does anyone know where Kenny G is living these days? I'm thinking about showing up there with a dish towel full of ether. Then I will take him into my basement and sing 45-seconds of "Camptown Races" over and over again. And probably poke him with hot metally things a little.



The perfect soundtrack to a nice, long beating.


10:40 am: We are officially twelve minutes into the phone call and it's still just Kenny G and that surly gentleman I was talking about earlier. Since I'm assuming neither one of them know about my $677 water bill, this has been a complete waste of time. If my children ever decide to play the saxophone, I will disown them.



10:44: 15 minutes in. I've decided to write lyrics to the hold music.

Here I am, wasting away
Because someone expects me to pay
$700 for water I didn't see (pronounced "say"...it's a country blues feel I'm going for)
And on my salary ("sala-ray")
I'll be forced to sell both my kidneys ("kid-nays")



10:50: Hallelujah! Beverly picks up. And she seems like she has a soul. This might go better than I thought.

10:52: The call is over. I waited over twenty minutes for a two-minute phone call. A two-minute phone call in which I was informed that they'd be sending a special investigator out. Kind of insulting to the "not special" investigator that came out to check meters yesterday, no? So now I have to wait for some David Caruso-type to swing by and grill me about my missing water. Beverly also told me if David Caruso doesn't call to schedule an appointment within, oh, two weeks or so, that I should call her and Kenny G again.



Can't wait for that.

All We Had Delivered Was Pizza

Okay, confession time. When I was in middle school, I was a gang member. True story. Not your throwing-up-signs, busting-caps-in-asses, hollering-at-my-bitches-and-smacking-my-hos kind of gang member, of course. No, I was a member of the, ahem, “Rose Preps”.

Dear God, this is humiliating already. Picture if you will, six tweenage girls who shared a passion for unbuttoned vests, oversized Esprit t-shirts and poorly-cuffed denim shorts. Who, before the first class of the day, drew gang tats on each other in Crayola marker—always right above the knee (to this day I have no idea why). Who were determined to remind everyone else at school that they were, like, so way cooler than them because they were in a gang and NOT accepting applications, a-thank you. The Rose Preps. Un-freaking-believable.

Out-of-school gang activities were pretty intense, also. We’d all walk to Dara’s house after school (Dara and Jessica fought constantly over who was the gang leader—I was happy to be an underling, since whoever was top dog was always worried about getting ousted, the social equivalent of a good shivving). There we’d order pizza, gossip, propose new ways to embellish our gang tats (“I think the rose should have hot pink lips in the middle of it!”) and call boys. On the weekends we’d invite the six cutest guys at our school (slim pickin’s, people), pop in Mariah Carey’s Music Box and have dances in the basement.

I literally want to take a hot shower just thinking about it. We were such ridiculous tools, and yet we thought we were the coolest thing since fuzzy slap bracelets. I wouldn’t even be coming clean with you about my gang affiliation if I hadn’t stumbled across this rather unsettling piece of news. Evidently at one Massachusetts high school there are 17 pregnant girls, none of whom are older than 16. So I’m thinking…okay, that’s a lot of knocked-up chicks, but maybe this high school is just a touch sluttier than the one I attended? Maybe?

No, apparently the girls made a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. That’s right—they started a gang of underage mothers. And all you have to do to become a member is to get preggers. Here’s the really frightening part: girls are working their asses of to be in this elite club. One of them even enlisted the help of a 24-year-old homeless guy.

WHAT?!?! A HOMELESS GUY? ARE YOU SERIOUS? I mean, how in the hell did that arrangement go down?

Girl: Hey you! You there, defecating into that mason jar! Come over here!
Hobo, confused, putting lid on jar: Me? What? You want me to come near you?
Girl: Actually I want you to make love to me. I’ll give you almost three dollars in change.
Hobo drops jar.
Girl: I know you must be confused. Actually, what I really want is your seed. I want to carry your child.
Hobo: B-but, I could never support a child…
Girl: Duh! You can’t buy diapers with jarred turds, silly. My parents will support it.
Hobo: And…and my genes are pretty dicey. I might be schizophrenic. Plus there’s a tiny unicorn that lives inside my penis.
Girl: Totally fine. So can you hurry up and ruin my life already? Miley Cyrus is hosting the Kid’s Choice Awards and if I miss it I will just DIE!

I mean, honestly? Teenagers so desperate to get in the pregnant club that they’re boffing homeless guys? How does this happen?

Slow-dancing to "Without You" in someone’s basement? Embarrassing memory. Horizontal-dancing behind a dumpster with an unwashed box-dweller? Yikes. That might even be worse.

Why Can't I Quit You, Water?

I'm in a lover's quarrel with Water right now.

Water does my laundry. Helps out with a lot of my cooking. Takes care of the flowers. And of course I loooooove my long showers with Water.

But lately, Water has been flat-out dicking me over. You may recall the small rash of plumbing problems I experienced around the holidays. Well the toilet-water baptism I received was nothing compared to the shenanigans Water has been pulling lately.

Apparently, Water has been sneaking out of my place (unbeknownst to me, mind you) and screwing my neighbor. And by 'screwing my neighbor', I mean turning her ceiling into a work of art. And by 'work of art', I mean, grayish, brownish, beige-ish, f'ed up, impressionistic watercolor piece. Oh, she just ADORES me right now.

I had no idea my Water was running out on me. Evidently it was escaping through the guest bathroom, which is ironic, because I will never allow a guest to use it as long as my little brother is living with me. Every square inch of the room looks like the floor of a Wookie Barbershop. So yours truly had to pay for the plumber to come to her place, her neighbor's place, and now has to have her neighbor's ceiling repaired. Thanks a lot, Water.

And then I get my bill from the Cleveland Division of Water. My last bill was $31. 26. This quarter's bill: $677.04. Ummm....WTF, Water? Want to explain how one girl (and her transient brother) in a two-bedroom condo can usurp 18,400 cubic feet of water? Five hundred and seventy-five TONS of water?? Of course I don't think this bill is correct--but the way things have been going with Water lately, who the hell knows?

So I've decided to leave Water. I hope you all will be patient and understanding, as there are going to be some slightly noticeable changes with me. Mainly that I'm going to become a smelly, crazy person who craps in holes she dug in her yard.

You guys would still be my friends, right?

Coming Up With A New Marshmallow

They did it again. The Lucky Charms people added another meaningless marshmallow to my favoritest breakfast cereal of all time. This time it's an hourglass. A freakin' hourglass. Here's the incredibly vapid press release announcing the new marshmallow.


What the hell is lucky about an hourglass? Aren't they usually associated with time running out or aging? Oh and Black Widows? And that's when I realized that the last, oh I don't know, TEN MARSHMALLOWS didn't have anything to do with luck either. I started to wonder about the marshmallow creation process. Who was doing this and why were they so goddamn bad at it? This is how I'm picturing it:

Guy 1: They want us to come up with another marshmallow, bro.

Guy 2: No, are you serious? SHIT!

Guy 1: Yea, totally serious. And they want it, like, in five minutes or something.



Guy 2: SHIT! We are totally hosed, dude. Totally hosed. It took us like a week to come up with the red balloon. Like a whole week, bro!



Guy 1: Alright, alright, you're freaking me out! I CAN'T THINK LIKE THIS!



Guy 2: SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!



Guy 1: Wait! What about a rabbit's foot? Those are lucky.

Guy 2: Tried it, man. PETA was all over us. Plus the Trix people got all pissy. Said it was a personal attack.



Guy 1: Man. Okay...what about a...a...rock?

Guy 2: What the hell's lucky about a rock??

Guy 1: Like a lucky rock? I don't know! JESUS! I'm trying here!



Guy 2: Sorry, man. Sorry. Okay...so how's about a blue diamond?



Guy 1: That's been in the cereal since '75. What is wrong with you, bro?

Guy 2: I'm just freaking out right now!! I can't think!

Guy 1: I've got it. A marshmallow shaped like just a marshmallow. A lucky marshmallow.

Guy 2: That's...actually not bad. We should probably present more than one idea, though.

Guy 1: But we're running out of time, dude!

Guy 2: THAT'S IT! An hourglass!

Guy 1: YES!! Wait. Are hourglasses lucky?

Guy 2: This one is. It lets you control time. And if you can control time, you can control...

BOTH: ...your LUCK!

Guy 1: Brilliant! Dude, we're so freakin' amazing. Let's get 'em on the phone...