The New & Improved Book of CC

So anyway. Matt's starting to prepare for the impending collapse of human civilization. Or the zombie uprising, whichever comes first.

'Cause when you've got zombies and blue berets out there on the lawn, you need plenty of bottled water and ammo.

These concerns brought us to Sam's Club yesterday afternoon. Matt bought a membership, and generously signed me up for the complimentary extra card. I had my ID picture taken in front of a Murrakin flag.

We went up and down every aisle, delighted and amazed by the sheer abundance. I made a mental note to get my holiday baking supplies here. A 72-ounce package of Nestle's chocolate chips for like four bucks? I am there.

Matt bought two pallets of bottled water, a bushel of frozen meatballs, and a cord of hoagie rolls. I didn't find anything I desperately needed, but was tempted by the 84-count box of Boca Burgers for six bucks.

On the way out, however, we were accosted by some Girl Scouts. I got three boxes of Caramel Delites, the luscious baked goods formerly known as Samoas. That name was changed in order to appease the long-oppressed indigenous peoples of Samoa.

But, oh! What a wonderful time of year-- just as the days are getting longer and warmer, Girl Scout cookies and Cadbury Mini-Eggs arrive. That reminds me. If the ghost of Sam Walton could hook me up with a 55-gallon drum of Mini-Eggs right around the $7.50 price point, I'd be a very happy girl.

Y'know, if I have to do a research paper for Sociology class, it will most certainly be about the social class inequality of Sam's Club and Wal-Mart. The Sam's Club crowd is on a completely different echelon than Wal-Mart. This is that great "middle class" everybody keeps talking about, but cannot really define. You just know them when you see them. Yet the poor Wal-Mart shoppers are the ones who more desperately need to save money on Utz Cheeseballs and Little Debbie cakes.

So, yeah. Now I can buy frozen broccoli by the metric ton. Unfortunately, at home I'm pretty limited for storage space-- one shelf each in the pantry and fridge, and a fraction of the freezer.

But one day in the future, when U.N. troops are clawing at the windows and drooling for my brains, I'll be all set, thanks.

House-sitter's log. Day 4... 3/26/09

Right now, a burly man wearing a stocking cap is outside the window. He's checking out the well. Yeah, this place is so far from civilization that we must extract our water from the earth, rather than purchase it from a public utility.

The dogs are certain he is here to kill me and steal their kibble.

Monday night, with no warning, water just stopped coming from the faucets. Matt got up to pee during a crucial World of Warcraft raid, and the toilet was empty and unflushable.

This is bad. You DO NOT make Matt deal with stuff in the middle of a raid. Nor do you get in the way of his bathroom habits. But... BOTH? Bad, bad juju.

None of the sinks had any water, either. This lasted for maybe an hour and a half. When the water started flowing again, it was filthy and rusty.



Tuesday morning, we awoke to more filthy water and a mine field of cat barf. Our relationship is a true partnership based on equality; we sprang into action to share the workload and tackle the crises.

Matt: OK, I'll call the plumber, and you can clean up the cat barf.

A plumber came and checked it out, and found nothing wrong with the pumps or anything inside the house/basement. The water level in the well outside, however, looked very low. That's a job for a different specialist. Thank you, that'll be $93 please.

Today, the water is clean and flowing. The well guy found nothing wrong with the well. I don't know what his hourly rate is. Or how long the water will last.

As the pre-eminent amateur adjunct associate professor of Maine linguistic studies, I have just created a name for the local dialect. I hereby call it Aubiston Creole. Native to the Auburn-Lewiston area, it is a mixture of French, English and complete gibberish mumbling.

As the language has not been extensively studied outside of amateur academia, there is no translation dictionary yet (give me time). For now, one can only extrapolate meaning from the context in which it is heard.

Yesterday, I observed an old woman on the Auburn Mall bus. Speaking to the bus driver, she used the occasional Aubiston Creole phrase. Apparently the phrase "Dree-DARE-tee" has some temporal/spatial meaning, referring to a time or place at which the woman caught the bus.

Unfortunately, it is a dying language. Parents have not passed Aubiston Creole down to their children. On that same bus, I overheard a conversation between a woman and her daughter.

Mother: Have lunch yet?

Daughter: Yeah.

Mother: Jaff?

Daughter: What?

Mother: Jaff?

Daughter: ...

Mother: WHAT. DID. YOU. HAVE.

My very important research shall continue.

This week, millions of college students will be vandalizing their unconscious friends with Sharpie markers in paradise.

Shaming never gets old.

Me? I'll spend a glorious week house-sitting on a farm. I'll be taking care of dogs and cats and chickens. Oh, and Matt, too. Throw some pizza or chili at him every 4 hours, and he's good.

In the meantime, the homework beast is still chewing on my leg.

Luckily, new advances in procrastination technology are making it possible for me to be aware of these deadlines, yet remain remarkably cavalier about them.

Cheers!

Attention:

Will the person who discarded their clothing in my side yard last night please claim your panties at your earliest convenience?

Thank you.

(Some time last week. )

Guy to girl: "Hey! Did I say you could walk in front of me?"

Girl: "Sorry, master."

Guy: "Whoa. If you had a genie costume on, that would be so hot."

As far as I'm concerned, hot sauce is the very foundation of the food pyramid.

My personal food pyramid is surrounded by a fiery moat of hot pepper sauce, accessed via a celery stick drawbridge.

There are very few edible objects that are not improved greatly by a few liberal shakes of the molten pepper juice. I think most spicy-food lovers would agree.

Apparently, the folks who distill the capsaicin elixir known as "Frank's Red-Hot" understand this. They understand the psychology. They are appealing to the fiery passion their product inspires in their customers.

While perusing the Sunday newspaper, I came across this ad (accompanied by a coupon for a FREE bottle of the Red-Hot).



I ask you this. Is that saucy little splatter in the tagline just a clever design element?

Or is there an implied expletive? As in, "I put that shit on everything!"

If a love for spicy food indicates a spicy personality-- and a tendency towards spicy language-- then this is a brilliant piece of marketing.

Bravo, Frank! Please carry on with your noble mission of charring my tastebuds and raping my sinuses.