Nebulous Mooch

I hate the self-checkout at the grocery store because that computerized cashier is way to suspicious. Every item I bag weighs too much and the live person supervising self-checkout always has to check my bags. It takes me 1,000 times longer (that’s no exaggeration) to get through self-checkout then it does to see a real cashier. Though the computerized cashier cheerily thanks me for shopping after I pay the bill, she isn’t much for small talk.

I usually go to the basket line in the store to avoid the empty accusations of the self-checkout computerized cashier. The other day while waiting in the basket line an elderly woman got in line behind me. She had a shopping cart (trolley for my British friends) and clearly shouldn’t be in the basket line, but I was minding my own business that day so I didn’t say anything. When she got to the counter she took a basket from beneath it, sat it on the belt, and started unloading the contents of her cart into it. There was a lot on stuff in her cart and she had to carefully balance the pile of groceries in the basket.

She kept her cart with her. She probably needed it to put the grocery bags in after she paid. She had taken care of the basket requirement for the line though.

That’s the good thing about being old. You can do something like that and no one will say anything to you about it–no one except the computerized cashier over at self-checkout. She would accuse you of stealing whether you’re 18 or 85.

I have a tumultuous relationship with spell check on the Mooch. It’s British and we don’t see eye to eye. It’s always wanting me to do things like add an “o” to fetus or diarrhea–two things I write about often. I’ve taken the ignore-it-and-it-will-stop-nagging-me approach to remedy the situation. The problem is that sometimes spell check just shouldn’t be ignored. Like when you’re not quite sure how to spell aluminium. That’s the British spelling of aluminium, but I don’t know the American spelling so it will just have to stay that way.

Anyway, Wikipedia has a fascinating article about the difference between British and American spellings. In this instance, the word fascinating is used loosely to mean mildly interesting. Here’s the article for you word nerds out there.

One of my favorite pairs of jeans tore recently. I hate buying jeans and want to hang on to pairs that fit properly as long as possible. Last week, I decided that I could just patch up my torn pairs of jeans. Because of the location of the hole I had to sew the patch on by hand and it took a long time. I did a pretty darn good job though. I only stuck myself with the needle 10 thousand times. That’s better than the 10 million times I stuck myself with the needle the last time I tried to sew something by hand.

When I wore them the next day my husband laughed and laughed and said that I shouldn’t wear them outside. Later that evening some people were coming to our house to have a very serious discussion, and he told me that I should change before they arrived.

Change before they arrive, I thought. What’s wrong with him? Then he showed me this picture.

I swear it wasn’t that noticeable in the mirror, but it didn’t have a big red arrow pointing at it either. He won. I changed and now I have the misfortunate nickname, Vagina Patch.

Note: Apparently, misfortunate isn’t a word, who knew? Well my husband did and made it a point to correct old Vagina Patch as soon as he got home from his gig. I meant to say unfortunate, but I’m leaving misfortunate in the post because I’m hoping to start a trend.

It’s summer and with summer comes lovely warm, sunny days. I love summer weather, summer clothes and summer walks in the warm sun. Too bad I don’t get to go on many sunny summer walks. I swear the weather is conspiring against me. Every time I step outside to take a stroll dark clouds gather overhead and by the time I get to the corner the rain has started to fall.

I never let a little rain ruin a walk. I have an umbrella and the last time I checked skin is waterproof.

You shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry. I think I remember Richard Simmons or Oprah or some such person saying that once or twice. I consider myself a responsible shopper and try my best to always follow this rule, but whether I’m hungry or not sometimes I can’t resist certain foods.

My latest impulse buy was a package of venison sausages. It’s not a bag of chips (crisps to my British homies) or a box of doughnuts, but this package of sausages does cause a bit of an eating dilemma in our home. My husband doesn’t eat gluten. He says that avoiding it makes him stronger. While I admit that he is stronger than he looks, I’m not sure that his strength has increased any since going on a gluten-free diet. Wheat flour is the last item on the sausages’ short list of ingredients, but it is still there.

Now I have a pack of six venison sausages and–here’s were things get a bit tricky–no freezer. Looks like I’m going to be eating sausage for most of my meals this week.

The other day someone knocked on our door to find out if we wanted to sell our car, Frank, for scrap metal. Frank doesn’t look that good, but we didn’t realize that he looked that bad. He’s loud and rough, but he’s reliable and that’s all we need.

We went to the British Library the other day. My in-laws are in town, and we’ve been sighting-seeing around London with them. The main attraction at the British Library is the Magna Carta. I have to admit that I’m not too into history. I know that the Magna Carta is important, but I never felt like I was missing anything by not seeing it.

The Magna Carta was good. It was still and in a glass case and old, just like you’d expect. The best moment at the British Library happened when we were resting on the benches there. My father-in-law leaned over and asked, “Do you mind if I go into a trance for a few moments?” After everyone said that they didn’t mind, he closed his eyes and went into what I have to assume was trance. When my husband came over and started trying to speak to him we all announced, “He’s in a trance.” After a few minutes he opened his eyes again and started talking to us like nothing unusual had happened.

I guess the library is as good a place as any to go into a trance. Maybe they should include that in tourist brochures. Come to the British Library to see the Magna Carta and slip into a trance.

Story 1

The other day I was walking down the street with my husband talking about the King James Version of the Bible (isn’t that what everyone talks about when they walk down the street?) when suddenly my syllables got all mixed up. Instead of King James Version, I said King Germ’s Vagina. Then I responded as any sane person would. I ran away. He, of course, ran after me laughing and saying, “Where are you going?” No matter how fast you run, you can’t run away from embarrassment.

Story 2

My sense of direction in down town London is pretty horrendous. The other day we were walking from Soho Square to some place else (I can’t remember where we were going exactly) when my husband asked me if I knew where I was. Taking a quick look around and recognizing a landmark, I said, “Yeah, because that’s the Harmony adult store over there.” After that I was teased for the rest of the day because I use sex shops as landmarks to help me find my way. I couldn’t even defend myself because it’s true. I don’t know the names of most of them, but when I see the shop with the green window frames and The Big Penis Book in the window, I know where I am. When I see the shop with the mannequin in the blond wig and dominatrix outfit, I know where I am.

Though my husband isn’t very handy, he certainly does come up with some interesting projects around the house. The latest one involved purchasing a large square piece of plywood. After doing a bunch of measuring he determined that the piece of wood he needed would easily fit into our car.

We went to B&Q so my husband could buy this piece of wood that he needed right that instant. When he got the board cut I thought it looked big, but I didn’t say anything. I stood in the parking lot watching him try to wedge it into the car and I kept my mouth shut. Sometimes I’m good at restraining myself.

I waited in the parking lot patiently with the board while he went inside to buy rope to tie it to the roof of the car. But, when he started tying the doors closed as he tied the board to the roof, I had to speak up. “How are we going to get into the car?” I asked. “What are we the Dukes of Hazzard?” While I loved watching the Duke boys outrun Boss Hog just as much as anyone else as a kid, my legs were sore from interval training and I wasn’t going to climb into a car window in a busy parking lot.

We tied the board onto the car by wrapping the rope around and around and around until we could tie the ends together. We didn’t have any scissors, of course. Then I prayed the whole way home that the board wouldn’t fly off and cause a major accident. We made it home in one piece. It’s a good thing we made that trip too, because today my husband told me that he doesn’t think he’ll use the board after all.

Our flat is too small to have a stray board laying around. We’ll have to tie it to our roof again and take it too the dump.

Every winter that I’ve been in the United Kingdom the weather seems to have gotten progressively worse. People are always saying, “This is the coldest I remember it ever being this early in the year,” or “We don’t normally get this much snow,” or “It doesn’t usually snow this late in the year.”

I lived in Korea for a little over six years and while I was living there I heard the same thing over and over again. Snow blanketed the streets and my friends all told me they didn’t remember ever seeing this much snow. Every year there was more and more snow.

I’m starting to think that I bring worsening weather conditions with me whenever I live.