Won't Somebody Think of the Children?!?

Our plane was set to land in Atlanta Friday night, and my mother and sisters were supposed to pick us up. They had NO idea what they were in for.

I'd forwarded our itinerary to my mother 2 months before the trip, but apparently she didn't look very closely at it. Our plane set down right on time, and I called my mother as we taxied down the runway.

Me: "Hi Mom...we're here. Probably be off the plane in the next 10 minutes or so."
Mom: "What airline are you on?!"
Me: "AirTran, why?"
Mom: "Because your itinerary didn't say what airline you were on, so I dropped Bear off at the curb to go in and see if she could figure it out. But now this stupid cop keeps honking at me, and Bear isn't back."
Me: "Just circle around! Bear's 20 years old, she'll be fine, and we'll be out soon."
Mom: "I just let Jo out of the car to look for her!"
Me: "Why would you do that?! Bear will be fine! Jo's too little to be wandering around the Atlanta airport alone!"
Mom: "Oh my GOD this idiot police officer keeps honking at me. I have to go."
Me: "OK...I'll call you when we get out."

So, we get off the plane and head toward baggage claim where Bear is probably waiting for us. Because the Atlanta airport is an absolute monstrosity, we actually have to take a tram to get there. So, I call my Mom again while we're on the tram.

Me: "We're off the plane. Did you at least get Jo back in the car?"
Mom: "Yes. I have Jo, but Bear's still missing."
Me: "Well, just keep circling and we'll find Bear when we get to baggage claim."
Mom: "Well, I would IF THIS ASSHOLE WOULD GIVE ME MY G_DAMN TICKET!"
Me: "MOM! What are you talking about?!?"
Mom: "That jerk cop is taking his sweet time instead of just writing my damn ticket and letting me go."
Me: "What ticket?!"
Mom: "The one he's writing me because he's a jerk. God, what a jerk. I can't believe nobody's killed this guy! Isn't this Atlanta? People have guns here, right?"
Me: "Wow. Okay, we'll be there in a couple minutes."

My Mom never swears, and I'm pretty sure she was hanging out the window of the car while yelling about the cop, so we tried to get out there as fast as we could.

Tom: "What's going on?"
Me: "My Mom's probably going to be arrested for terrorism."

We get off the tram, and of course Bear is waiting right at the top of the escalator for us. We grab her, head out the door, and spend the next 20 minutes trying to find my mother and Jo. Turns out they've parked in the deck and are looking for us on the curb. The curb a full floor below us. We finally figure it out when Tom calls Mom's cell phone and asks, "Look up. Do you see sky or cement? Cement? Okay. We see sky. Don't move." After trudging with our luggage up four flights of stairs, and then back down one because Mom forgot what level they'd parked on, we were in the car. I elected to drive because my Mom couldn't afford another ticket that night, and asked for the story.

Mom let Bear out of the car to figure out what airline we were on, but Bear left her purse and cellphone in the car. So Mom called to tell her that the cop was making her move the car and instead heard the phone ringing right next to her. So, she sent Jo to the entrance where she'd dropped Bear to find her and bring her back to the car. (All the while letting every pedestrian known to man cross in front of her so as to give the illusion of not parking.) Jo couldn't find Bear, and the police officer didn't like the speed with which Mom was moving her car. He followed her and honked his horn over and over yelling "MOVE YOUR CAR!" Finally, he pulled up next to her and told her that if she didn't move right now, he'd give her a ticket.

Mom: "I can't move my car. My daughters are in there."
Cop: "I SAID MOVE YOUR CAR!"
Mom: "I SAID MY DAUGHTERS ARE IN THERE! I CAN'T LEAVE MY DAUGHTER! DO YOU HAVE KIDS??"
Cop: "MOVE THE CAR OR I'M WRITING YOU A TICKET"
Mom: "THEN I GUESS YOU'LL HAVE TO WRITE ME A TICKET!!"

So he goes to write my mother a ticket. She ended up with a $103 violation and is planning to drive all the way to Atlanta to fight it in court. She insists that she did move the car, and so was never technically parked. The ticket says that she repeatedly ignored the officers instructions, so we'll see what the judge thinks. :-p

We all promised not to tell Dad about it. The next day as she had one foot out the door to go to work, she turned to him and said, "Umm...I got a ticket last night. It's by the phone. Love you, bye." Nicely handled, Mom.

Vacation!

Tom and I went to Alabama last week on vacation. Alabama in the middle of July?!? What a great idea! Actually, it was a great idea because despite the fact that the week before we arrived, and my parents' pool looked like this:

At least by the time we arrived, it was looking more like this:

And before we left, it was perfect:
So, as you can probably tell, we had a blast. More to follow, including my Mom swearing at a cop, frog-flinging, and an Alabama lobster. In the meantime, feel free to peruse my Flickr album from the vacation :) Laters!

Commercial Success

Have you guys seen this commercial for Sylvania headlights? If you haven't, please take 30 seconds and indulge me.

I love this commercial. It's possibly the dumbest thing I've ever seen. To start:
"Now you see me"
"Now you don't."
Ummm...yes I do. You're right there. I can totally see you.

"Because the next time you see me, I might not be alone."
This makes me laugh every single time. Do you have that little regard for yourself?! It's going to be a big deal if I hit you with my car! Sure, it'll be worse if I hit a kid too, but hitting one person (even a lowly headlight salesman) is really going to screw up my day. Cripes.

So buy Sylvania headlights. Because if you don't, they'll keep making commercials.

And while we're on the subject of commercials, just a quick question:

Did they not budget for audio equipment? Is there no boom mic on that set? Oxi-Clean removes stains. We get it. No need to yell buddy.

This post wouldn't have happened if the book I was reading was better. Does "New York Times Bestseller" imply that all the people who purchased the book actually read it? I seriously doubt that everyone was this interested in the entire history of Russia as told through various characters with no apparent connection and chapters that are 200 pages long apiece.

Well, it's either Russka or more of those Joan Rivers Geico commercials. Book it is.

The Itsy Bitsy Spiders

*Disclaimer: Daniel, and anyone else with severe arachnophobia probably shouldn't read this.*

My apartment is overrun. I have no idea how this happened, I have no idea why this happened, I just know that it has to stop. For the past 2 days, I've been noticing a lot of spiders. And when I say "a lot" I mean, every single time I sit down on the couch I see at least one. I've lived in my apartment for almost a year now, and never have I had any insect problems. I don't think I've ever had a roach, last year there were no ants, minimal spider activity- I think Tom's had to get rid of 3 in a year tops.

This year, the insects are making up for it. For the past 2 weeks, there have been ants all over the place. I chalked it up to the rain- it rained almost every day for 2 weeks. Ants can't swim, I get it. Now that it's cleared up outside, and I vacuumed up all the rice-cake crumbs, I haven't seen any more. Did the ants lure the spiders? Don't spiders eat flies? I don't remember ants being featured anywhere in that song....of course, I haven't swallowed any flies lately either, so maybe that's not so applicable.

So, regardless of reasoning, the spiders are here. They're probably a millimeter in size...obviously little baby spiders. But here's the problem- there are like a million of them. Is there a GIANT spider in my house that is just laying offspring left and right? I haven't had any spiders until now- is it spider breeding season? Is there a giant male spider in addition to the obviously present female? How long have these things been gestating? Is there some busted-up egg sac in my apartment somewhere, because that would be totally disgusting. Did the Mom die when all the spiders hatched? (Isn't that what happened to that Charlotte spider?) Whatever. I'm trying not to worry about it because I don't know where they're coming from and I assume at some point they'll die from lack of other bugs to eat, or move out of the house into the wild of the suburbs.

Of course, it doesn't help that I get emails like this:

From: Tom@ilovemybuddy.org
To: Sam@spidervilleusa.com
re: omg the spiders

I'm not really worried. What I would do, is try and track down the source of the tiny spiders, and see if you can locate a small nest or something they're sprouting from. Then vacuum it up, and that should solve the problem.

NEST?!? These things nest?!? Also, I am not emptying a vacuum canister full of live spiders. Absolutely not going to happen. So, I'm sitting on the couch, holding a can of bug spray, jumping a mile everytime a strand of hair brushes my shoulder. And my foot itches. I assume it's a spider bite.

So, if I disappear for another month, it's probably a safe bet that I'm cocooned somewhere in the house. Send help.