Elastic's Got A Brand New Bag!

For the past 15 years I've lived, laughed, and loved per the bossy instructions on those cloying Mary Engelbreit magnets. I'm still working on fulfilling Mr. Spock's admonition to "Live Long And Prosper" but it's hard to obey the powerful messages broadcasted on cheesy merchandise all the time, you know?
A whole decade and a half. That's how long I've endured a bag lady evolution of sorts.
At 19 I carried a book bag to school that dazzled and amazed all who passed by with its brightly festooned cowboy boot motif.
My college career cut woefully short, I traded the Boot Scootin bag in at the age of 20 to make room for the plastic shopping mall bags that often held a recently purchased handbag or two like some sort of weird Bag O' Nesting Dolls thing.
It's ironic but those sets of bags were courtesy of my job which involves newspaper bags.
Later that same year bags symbolizing gluttonous spending were forever replaced by grocery bags brimming with the ingredients necessary to achieve a state of sublime marital utopia; bags from the maternity store soon followed.
By 21, I added a diaper bag to the mix which unexpectedly became my constant companion over the next 10 years and throughout 5 more mini-Infidel births.
There's a gym bag lost somewhere in the chronological order. It lived a short and uneventful life ferrying around a couple pounds of lethargic guilt at letting my fitness club membership lapse. Its remains lie somewhere alongside the Hello Kitty lunch bag purchased when I got on a kick to eat healthier.
The frightfully gray and puffy bags of weariness taking up residence under my eyes have traveled on this entire journey and cognitively recites the Tales Of The Tired to all who look upon me.
But now my bag lady life has come full circle for as of January 12, 2009 I am once again an Infidel chick who parades around the hallways of school, book bag swinging from my arm.

Papi's Christmas present to me looks similar to the model above. Is there anything sexier than a practical utilitarian bag stitched from more olive drab khakis than you'd find at a Gap store employee meeting? No, most assuredly there is not.
I'm also on a diet which means no more Buffets. I'm so sorry Jimmy......at least we'll always have Margaritaville. Golden Corral Buffet: Don't send out the search and rescue party, I'm just fine.........for now, anyway. But if you insist, can you make sure they bring me some of those delectably fluffy rolls and maybe a little steak filet or two....or three?
And as if the Infidel family couldn't get any more in the makeover phase, we're also fervently striving to budget better in 2009.
When I skimmed over the Top #10 New Year's resolutions list I realized that I'm personally attempting about 7 of them.
You should hear me belt out Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying"; it sounds more along the lines of "You Sing Like You're Dying" but at least I'm doing everything humanly possible outside of riding a bull named Fu-Manchu to bring some hope and change to the Infidel homestead in this upcoming year.
Man, hope and change. I went there and used that. Maybe I should just declare this the historic year of the cliche.
I'm a windbag/bag lady not yet sure what bag will be accesorizing my life in the near future. As long as I'm not being carted away in a body bag the possibilities are as limitless as the hairs on my chin.

I Keep My Friends Close And My Chin Hairs Closer

You know how certain weed species get introduced to an area outside their native habitat and they immediately set out to virulently choke out the natural landscape? Yeah, well, wiry chin hairs keep cropping up to destroy my natural beauty despite the Herculian efforts aimed at eradicating them.
As I pondered the uses that an overabundance of chin whiskers can provide, I indulgently chuckled. I envisioned myself taking the hoity toity art world by storm as I create abstractly avant garde masterpieces using only the bristles of my custom chin hair paintbrush. I'm a humanitarian at heart but I'm woefully short of the required hair length necessary to weave a wig for Locks Of Love. I'd like to maybe make my own line of chin toupees for the hair follicle-challenged hipsters out there. It must be agonizing to attend poetry slams and indie rock concerts devoid of the de rigeur goatee. How I weep for them. I yearn to transform my own hirsute misfortunes into soul patch happiness for others.
I try to remain optimistic about life despite my smooth skin shortcomings but then I ran into my old friend Mrs. Sam at the park on Saturday.
As we chatted, my eyes kept disobediently gravitating towards Mrs. Sam's jutting chin. And then the stark realization occurred that Mother Nature is nothing more than a cruel and insidious harpy.
Mrs. Sam and I go wayyyyy back. So far back that I've actually blogged our most scintillating tales complete with hand-drawn pictures from the second-oldest Infidel daughter. From making a binding verbal pledge vowing that we'd never cannibalize one another's family in a time of famine to animated discussions of us potentially teaming up to run for President/Vice President, Mrs. Sam and I have mused about many things.
At the time (2006) Mrs. Sam seemed adamant that I ascend to the top of the ticket since a black candidate could never win a Presidential election in America. Surprise!
Mrs. Sam And I Are Both Immortalized In That Song Called "Doin Tha Butt"
An Anti-Cannibalism Contract Between Friends Who Don't Have The Last Name Donner
Anyway, I'm 30-ish, white, and I suffer with the heartbreak of strikingly noticeable black chin hair that furls and curls as it makes its way across my chin like a giant scraggly tumbleweed. Mrs. Sam is 50-ish, black, and suffers from an extreme proliferation of shaggy white chin hair as though her face is merely masking her real identity as the Abominable Snowman.
Ebony and ivory NOT living together in perfect harmony. Side-by-side on our chin pores, so gross, oh Lord, why can't weeee(afford electrolysis).
Do you see the unfairness of the situation?
Everyone desires to stand out in a crowd but this just isn't the way to go about doing it.
A chin hair swap would absolve both of us of our heavy unwanted hair burdens. I have what Mrs. Sam wants and she has what I need. If that's not possible, how about just some decent chin hair camo or chin hair ammo? Is that too much to hope for?
How I long to one day have the authority to truculently shriek: "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.........cause I don't have any" to an advancing foe.
*sniffle*

I Was So Hungry Last Night I Could Have Eaten A Whale.....And So I Did!

I inadvertently stumbled upon a miracle of the evolutionary process as I prepared a tray of garlic bread slices for the oven.
From the thoroughly scientific research I did in my kitchen I've concluded that whales originally descended from bloated commas and whimsical paisley patterns.
Need to see some hard data that backs up the validity of my hypothesis? Just look at Photo Evidence #1 down below.
By shifting the bloated commas and bread paisley in a clockwise position, they wondrously transformed into a pod of baby Shamus!

Photo Evidence #2

Some lucky souls have witnessed the miracle of the Virgin Mary appearing before them on their tortillas while others have unexpectedly come face-to-face with the image of Elvis himself-and all his sideburned glory-embroiled upon their fried peanut butter & nanner sandwich.

Me? Well, my oven and I got to play host to a whole loaf of Orca-shaped bread.

The spirit of Free Willy lives on through the power of yeast!

Notice the perfect oval eye? All the better to see you with, my pretty!

See the small indention where Shamu's mouth is? Who knew he kept his lips pursed like a whale version of Napoleon Dynamite? I wonder if his lips hurt "real bad" too?

Look at the curled-up position of the tail. Okay, that's enough looking at whale butt. Gosh, if this whale tail isn't safe from ogling, what hope does my own whale-sized butt have?

Also make note that this particular miniature killer whale species was marked for immediate extinction. Yeah, you can blame us Infidels for making them disappear and disappear quickly but it should also be said that death was imminent for this Shamu bread family.

Just take one long look at them, they're completely brown and crunchy. That's what they get for not putting on proper sunscreen.

Their blowholes laso have the remarkable capability to spout cascading streams of garlic-tinged butter.

That butter-peddling harlot Paula Deen probably goes on Whale Toast Watching Tours all the time......and she never closes her mouth either.

Ahhh, better than a butter I.V.

If you happen upon a pod of Shamu bread lurking quietly on bakery shelves, I would seriously advise against placing them in your aquarium.

Your mail-order sea horses will conquer and devour them.

Instead, buy a box of Goldfish crackers to feed your adopted Bag O' Orca.

How about inviting your oddly eccentric friends, Jonah and Captain Ahab over for a Whale Eating party??!??

The moment that reps from SeaWorld see this post they're going to start opening up food booths featuring outrageously over-priced slices of Shamu toast. You know I'm right.

I hope they deal me in for a profit percentage.

The dinner ended in tragedy. Despite my conservationalist spirit arising to encourage the Infidel Family to "Save The Whales" they continued on, ignoring my whale-saving pleas until there weren't any whales left to save.

Poor me, sitting here all leftover whale deprived.

Once Upon A Mattress (Store).........

Yeah, this post is entirely too long but it's really funny, completely factual, and has the potential to be turned into a very special Mattress Movie Of The Week.

So last week, the youngest Infidel son decided to cast himself in the starring role of a new reality show called I'm A Little PEEPOT! Yep, he's a little PEEPOT, alright, short and stout; he tipped himself over (onto my bed) and poured it all out.
My son, the mattress assassin.
I suppose it's only fitting that Senor Pissalot himself brought about the final demise of our long-suffering mattress since he was birthed into this mortal coil on that very same mattress seven years ago. It's akin to a mattress version of The Circle Of Life.
R.I.P Marital Mattress. For 14 years your creaky spring coils and saggy padding endured a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.......and crumbs.
All of a sudden, I feel like mournfully singing a verse or two of Sunrise/Sunset.
Up until last week I was still a mattress-buying virgin, pure and mild.
Nothing in my lifetime could have prepared me for the bed-hunting odyssey that came to pass.
The three oldest mini-Infidels and I wandered into a snooty furniture store to browse and found ourselves getting stalked by this unbelievably geeky, bespectacled salesman in a rousing game of mattress showroom hide-and-seek.
That was fun, especially when we ducked into the next display and watched the salesman devolve into a total state of confusion as he spun his reed-thin neck around Exorcist-style in a futile effort to scan the demo furniture landscape in search of his escaped quarry.
So then we sauntered off next door to the Mattress Expo store where I quickly located a Mattress Queen suitable for an Infidel Queen like myself and at a fairly reasonable price, too.
I sat across from the fusty and abrasive salesman as he wrote up the receipt and arranged a pick-up time for the next day.
At that moment, the other sales guy-who'd been content to passively plop himself down on one of the mattresses during the whole purchase process-seized upon the opportunity to unexpectedly lean over and growl into my ear: "Tomorrow, when you come to pick up your mattress, it'll be just YOU and ME because your kids will be back in school."
And then he sniffed my hair.
I'm very disappointed in Head&Shoulders anti-flake formula shampoo. That stuff should have been like Kryptonite to this flakey guy.
Thoroughly creeped out but too startled to speak, I glared over at this younger version of Jerry Stiller clad in a tacky olive green-hued bowling shirt while he simply smirked lecherously back at me.
I would have liked to christen him with an apropos nickname like "Pillowtop Pushing Perv" but I found out that he actually goes by "Scoobie."
Yes, Scoobie.
Old Scoobie going around sniffing for a Scoobie Snack but the only thing he'll ever get from me is a gigantic Scoobie SMACK!
The oldest Infidel son, Buster, puffed out his chest and curtly told Scoobie that he would be accompanying me to the store the next day and that he takes Kung-Fu.
Scoobie looked disappointed but that didn't stop him from jiggling his paunchy belly in our faces as he showed us his nerdy Ninja moves while singing "Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting" off-key.
Upon leaving the store, Scoobie sent my personal Creep-O-Meter soaring through the stratosphere. As we hurriedly stampeded towards the exit, he bellowed out: "Ma'am, don't forget that mattress has a 10-year warranty on it......but don't let ten years pass before you come in and see me again......"
Ewwwww.
I started to wonder if I'd inadvertently stumbled into someplace other than Mattress Expo. Could it be that some of their outside lettering either shorted out or fell off?
I mean, Scoobie acted as though he'd be more comfortable employed at a store called Mattress EXXXpo or Mattress Exposed.
Poor Scoobie is too short to work at Mattress Giant because he's a Mattress (Mental) Midget. Mattress King is also out of the question. The only regal title Scoobie qualifies for is Royal Pain In The Ash.
Mattress Firm? Ummm, no. Fuggedaboutit.
Later in the day, as I relayed the shocking events to my mom, she started laughing and told me that James, the surly salesguy who'd attended us, had hit on her when she'd gone in to pick up her mattress a few months ago.
According to my mom, James loaded the mattress up and then breathily told her that she couldn't possibly handle the mattress without help and that he'd just come home with her and set it up in her bedroom, free of charge.
She declined the offer.
I think Scoobie and James are suffering from a severe onset of delusions; likely a residual effect of inhaling way too many noxious mattress factory fumes during the course of their careers.
I mean, really, has any woman in history given in to these cheesy come-ons? Do these guys think that any lady, anywhere, will suddenly turn to them and sultrily say "Sure, let's go put some mileage on one of these mattress floor samples, right now!"
I bet there's some sort of Mattress Man Monthly publication that James and Scoobie are just dying to write a letter to that starts out with the ubiquitous line: "Dear Mattress Man Monthly: I never thought something like this would happen to me, but........."
Well, I don't happen to know anyone of the female persuasion willing to give them fodder for their steamy story swaps over at the annual Mattress Man convention.
Needless to say, the prospect of another Scoobie encounter didn't thrill me so I forced Papi to sign up for mattress retrieval duties.
I'm happy to report that Scoobie did not make a move on Papi even though he wore his most sexiest, butt-hugging pair of Levi jeans.
Scoobie must subscribe to the "It's 2009 and any lady, any at all, is just FINE!" philosophy.

*By the way, I do LOVE, LOVE, LOVE our new mattress set. It's like a Silent Springs 2000 model; necessary when you have children lingering only a thin wall away from you. We're still debating a proper use for our retired mattress. Here's what we've come up with so far:
A Really Ghetto Trampoline.
Placing the mattress in a corner of the backyard and surrounding it with scented candles so it can function as a specialized Suburban Animal Mating Center.
Donating it to the Princess And The Pea foundation.
Transforming the coils into homemade Moon Boots or Po' Folks Pogo Sticks.
Building our very own Mattress Stonehenge.....until the uptight HOA directors makes us take it down.
I'm open to outside input and ideas. :)*

It's No Coincidence That You Can't Have Brawn (Or Brains) Without A B-R-A!

For years I've remained cognizant of the cryptic messages that my XM Satellite Radio has wordlessly sent to me via its display screen; but I'm truly baffled to explain this latest digital outburst.

Fight Like A Bra.....what exactly does that mean, XM Satellite Radio?
Should I fend off mortal enemies and foes using a soft cup technique which entails me just kind of aimlessly batting them around with my hands encased in pillowy cushions? Or should I take a few battle cues from the padding and smother those suckers like how the foamy lining chokes the will to live out of booby skin?
If I were to Fight Like A Bra right this very moment, it would be a clean fight. However, if we'd engaged in a vicious quarrel a few minutes before my shower, I'd have absolutely guaranteed you a very down and dirty bra skirmish.
Bottles of Boob Sweat: Guaranteed to repel any and all attackers
Should bra fighting ever become a national sport we all know that the underwire and all its malicious poking, tugging, and boobage-cutting maneuvers would win the grand championship.
I suppose there'd be a training bra/featherweight boobs division too for those perky young whippersnappers who haven't honed their brassiere war strategies yet.
Personally, I think Fight Like A Bra gives some interesting insight as to why I detest wearing a bra so much. You see, its warring nature is wholly incompatible with my genteel ways.
Although if bra fighting really did make headway into the world of competitive arena sports like bull fighting has, I'd have to cheer for my sturdy Playtex bras. I know they'd beat the snot out of those flimsy lace things that Victoria's Secret has to offer........ One good snap, and they're OUT!
Heavens, I force Playtex to take the 18-hour bazonga-holding challenge on a regular basis. Of course they're well equipped to fight it out with other bras. That is some superior durability at work right there.
To ensure victory we'd first have to make sure that the Madonna line of I-Stuck-My-Boobs-In-A-Pencil-Sharpener-To-Make-Them-Pointy bras are disqualified.
Madonna can take those grotesque boulder-holder abominations she foisted on an unsuspecting public and get into Unicorn or Rhino fighting or something.

I'll have to have a more in-depth chat with my XM Radio display about its too frequent communiques rife with odd advice and what exactly it wants me to do with it.
Not too long ago it was flashing graphic things at me like You Give Good Love, I Want Your Sex, and I'm In The Mood For Love, and I was all like "Pardon me, XM Radio? Are you coming on to me? You need to mind your manners."
I also hate it when it asks me geographical stuff like Do You Know The Way To San Jose? I mean, gosh can't it just talk to one of its GPS buddies? I'm not a freakin cartographer. And no, I don't know how to take you down to Funky Town either.

Okay, so perhaps the XM Radio isn't exactly a useful tool to rely on for life-altering guidance but the next time you find yourself embroiled in an escalating confrontation just remember the promptings of my XM Radio and employ some Fight Like A Bra moves; sure to make any opponent feel squeezed, manhandled, strangulated, and profoundly uncomfortable just like my own breastages do every single day of their young, fleshy lives.

I Thought I Really Knew My Husband......But That Was Before I Saw His Naked Pictures On The Internet

Yes, there's really 3 photos of my Mexi-man showing off his naked Mexi-CAN right on the Internets.
See, when Papi was but a young and saintly 19 year-old missionary he had the unfortunate luck of both getting called to an area that lacked indoor plumbing and being coupled with an impish companion who possessed a wicked prankster prowess......or should I say possesses a wicked prankster prowess in the present tense?
While perusing a web site and catching up with his fellow mission companions this weekend, Papi was shocked to see nudie photos of his backside posted up for all the world to see like some sort of Papi Posterior Pictorial.
I've enjoyed going clickety really fast through the pictures; it makes it look as though Papi's doing a sultry Mexi-Can-Can Dance just for me.
That's right Papi, shake it a little more for your Elastic Mammacita!
Papi remembers that this particular companion enjoyed sneaking up on people and pulling practical jokes.
Papi even vaguely recalls the day his companion hid around the corner of the outdoor bath and snapped his picture as he got into the concrete stall; he just can't believe that the now 36 year-old man would post them on a mission web site like that!
Sometime during the mission, another missionary-undoubtedly seeking revenge- turned the tables on this unethical Elder and snapped a picture of him entering the bath with his own camera. Conveniently enough though, he censored that picture on the site while leaving Papi's intact.
I could potentially zoom in and order poster-size prints of Papi's naked nalgas to give to all our closest loved ones next Christmas.
Of course, I would make sure they're tastefully done. I'd alter the photos' natural brown coloring to a more classic and artistically appealing black&white. Sadly, that would shoot my art gallery exhibition idea. I wanted to call it either "Brown Is The New Black" or "Look At What Brown Can Do For You!"
I met Papi when he was 22. I didn't get a private Papi posterior showing until he was 23. Seeing these pictures was like taking a quick Time Machine trip......a Time Machine trip sponsored by Playboy, that is.
It's very naughty to admit this about viewing exploitive pics of a man who's dedicated himself to serving God for 2 years, but Papi was totally hot!
I only wish his companion would have snapped an even dozen candid Mexi-CAN shots of my Papi so I could have ordered an Elder Papi: Missionary Man calendar made for my personal enjoyment.

*EDIT: Here's some pictures of my Papi in action on his mission. Make that fully-clothed Papi in fully-clothed action on his mission. Sorry to get you ladies all excited like that.
I have to admit that I'm somewhat grateful for that sly Elder Davis and his photography fetish. Thanks to him I'm able to see pics of missionary man/action figure Papi for the very first time since Papi left all his film back in a Mexico City storage unit. So, thanks Elder Davis!*
[Papi is the cute toothy guy on the right]

[Papi is the cute toothy guy on the left :)]

[I keep teasing Papi but he swears he's not wearing a Walkman. I think it's a mini fanny pack but Papi denies it.]

[The upcoming sequel to James And The Giant Peach......Papi And The Giant Mango!!!! Shot live on location.]

[Papi is the cute toothy one on the right again. They said "Choose The Right" and the man sure did listen!]