And This Is Why You Shouldn't Shop On An Empty Stomach And An Empty Mind

So, me and Sunbum, the oldest Infidel daughter, hit up the grocery store one late and lonely Saturday night.

Heed our warning: Fatigue and Hunger can make for a dangerous shopping excursion combo.

Everything in the store either made us drool uncontrollably or laugh hysterically.

I'm sure the other patrons were absolutely thrilled to share the narrow aisles with our picture-happy selves.

I'm sure of it!

This super special Texas "Boomerang", that suspiciously looks like a Frisbee, will always come back to you--well, provided that you recruit someone for catch and return duty. I guess one could say that Texas discourages people from playing with themselves.

A Smiling Infidel EXCLUSIVE! We spotted a rare albino Yeti lying in hibernation on the shelves. Sunbum played Yeti-Human Goodwill Ambassador and gave that Yeti a big ol' bear hug.....and you saw it here first way before the tabloids have a chance to run the story along with another "Obama Is Secretly A Reptilian" headline.

I was walking around the refrigerated section minding my own business when BOOM! a little pea salad invaded my life. You just never can predict when and where a random pea salad will happen to you. 

And your life will never be the same as every immature pea/pee joke enters your mind causing you to linger in front of the coolers laughing and spraying spittle on your sacred pea salad container. (Hey, look at me! I'm singing "I got the whole pea salad in my hands....I got the whole pea salad in my hands")

Oh, Sweet Sue, wondrous mistress of canned meat. We had never before encountered such a mystery grocery specimen as an entire chicken stuffed into the confines of one diminutive can. Naturally, I just had to spread the gospel of canned whole chicken with all our fellow grocery store patrons. I was on a mission with a Sweet Sue proselytizing quota to meet. My final victim was an unsuspecting lady in the parking lot who exclaimed "Really?!!!??? That's so weird" when informed that she too could be the proud owner of a canned chicken that by now I'd lovingly dubbed "Lucille." (Want to see what Sweet Sue looks like on the inside? I warn you, it's pretty as in pretty disgusting. HERE'S the link. There's also a Facebook Fan page of which I'm a proud member.)

Tortilla Heaven.......We're going there someday to frolic with the Churro Angels under a Fajita Sky.

Just primping and preening for our Tortilla Heaven publicity photo packet. We'd make the perfect Tortilla Heaven spokesinfidels, don't you think?

I thought the gang of little gagging & magging Dots on the box was funny. Look at their horrified expressions. One would think that they posed for the Dots artist right after returning from the terrifying new film "Nightmare On Dots Street" where the Dots buffet scene sent them over the edge.

A box featuring a gaggle of clearly grossed-out characters is certainly an interesting marketing strategy. Here's my best Dots impression.

This is quite possibly the best named product on store shelves. I can just envision a young J.J Walker, of Dy-No-Mite! fame, bellowing out My-T-Fine! as he slurps up a heapin' helpin' of pudding.

How many people looking for love cruise the grocery store aisles in search of Mr./Ms. Right? Now they can tell folks they picked up a My-T-Fine and sweet little sumthin' sumthin' at the store last Friday night. Oooohhhh baby, you lookin' My-T-Fine!

Join us Infidels next time as we share even more scintillating Texas-styled store-ies with you!

All Hail The Mighty And Powerful Smiling Infidel!

Apparently, Dr. Laura is retiring from talk radio life effective at the close of 2010.
She cites multiple reasons including the fact that she desires to continue giving advice in an unrestrained manner devoid of corporate repercussions......I don't believe that for a second.
It's glaringly obvious that she read my criticism of her and her increasing brusqueness just a few scant weeks ago.
Yeah, losing big sponsors like Motel 6 and Advance Auto Parts hurts but doesn't begin to compare to the stinging pain of being chastened by The Smiling Infidel.
Oh, the omnipotent power I wield with this lowly blog is frightening.
Who should the next target be?
My first vote would be two different shows/channels on XM Satellite Radio.
The Rosie O'Donnell show is indescribably bad. She actually interviewed a trio of brothers who became YouTube mini-sensations after filming the repulsive removal of a candle stick-looking chunk of ear wax from the one brother's ear.
Scintillating talk show fodder, right?
Second to go would have to be the Cosmo channel, a radio counterpart to the insipid Cosmopolitan magazine.
I've only listened twice and found that five minutes was the maximum amount of time I could withstand their endless Valley Girl drivel.
Two ladies in their late 20's and early 30's employed as professional commentators really should refrain from peppering each and every sentence with an inane multitude of "uhhhh's", "like, like, like's", and "whatever's."
They seemed particularly thrilled with their own brand of genius by using the analogy that finding the right man is like two puzzle pieces fitting together perfectly.
Yeah, brilliant. I've never heard that one before. It was really worth repeating ad nauseum and throwing in like, like, like to the infinite power as though that would somehow render their point significant in some way. 
Hopefully, someone slips them something into their Cosmo glass the next time they go out--something like a pill-shaped Cleverness Infusion or maybe a potent Get A Freakin' Clue vitamin supplement.
Now that the irresponsible Jet Blue airline steward and Hissy Fit Queen, Steven Slater is being inundated with TV reality show offers it's become quite clear that anyone can have their own broadcast medium these days......but that certainly doesn't mean that they should.
R.I.P Discriminating Taste And Broadcast Standards

And Now For The Further Adventures Of That Hapless Homemaker: Ima Crockstar

Today's episode of Ima Crockstar brings you the true life happenings straight outta Ima's ghetto kitchen where there's always something cooking........and that something is usually from the clearance rack.

By the way, I've offically adopted Ima Crockstar as my new alias. I may use it in the future as a potential bowling league name. And it could prove useful as a nom de plume for when I prank cooking blogs with shockingly crass crockpot jokes.

Hey, it's preferable to Ima Crocstar which would infer that I endorse stuffing feet into the unsightly plastic sweat lodges known as Crocs.

Anyway, Ima Crockstar may be my alter-ego but we share one distinct commonality: we're both cheap women and cutthroat grocery shoppers.

As such, it's disheartening to stock up on the favorite fruits and vegetables of the mini-Infidels only to have them, for example, arbitrarily decide that the previous week's celery feeding frenzy is a thing of the past thus leaving the newer celery supply to rot in the fridge. This happens with frustrating regularity.

So, here's what I did: I created a new Infidel specialty I dubbed "ROTTEN FRUIT COBBLER." When life gives you fetid fruit,  turn it into a miracle of crockpot cooking.

First order of business was to scour my refrigerator. Don't report me, but my fridge shelters exotic bacterial strains as well as illegally harboring dangerous fruit fugitives.

Then, I quickly divided up the unattractive offerings into separate piles: Slimy, Fermented Enough To Make Fruity Moonshine, First Community Fruit Fly Colony, Like Nothing The Food Pyramid Has Ever Seen, and the scariest of them all, Sub-Human Fruit. I quickly disposed of that last category into a waiting trash bag.

One misplaced lightning strike and Sub-Human Fruit would become animated and frankly, the last thing I need in my tiny kitchen is competition for space from some ghastly Frankenfruit.

Basically, I ended up with peaches, nectarines, bananas, and a few rogue mangoes to serve as sacrificial crockpot offerings. Ima Crockstar and I are both excessively lazy. We didn't even bother peeling the peaches or nectarines, preferring instead to just savagely squish everything with our bare hands.

In keeping with the emerging tropical theme, a can of pineapple tidbits was thrown into the crockpot mishmash along with some concentrated orange juice, brown sugar, cinnamon and a little bit of Bisquick baking mix.

Then I just made a simple Bisquick/milk/cinnamon/hot melted butter concoction to top it all off. (Unsure of exact measurements? Yeah, me too. I'm a recipe guesstimator. Try THIS site. It's chock full of Bisquick cobbler crockpot recipes.)

In a word? The ending results were divine.

Ima Crockstar once again swooped into the Infidel kitchen and saved the day along with saving money and saving produce from the trash heap. I should order one size XL cape with a crockpot logo across it for my superhero friend/alter-ego.

Does your produce look like it starred in a horror movie called It Came From Satan's Fruit Stand? Don't fret. Think of me and Ima Crockstar and try our patented ROTTEN FRUIT COBBLER deliciousness!

I'm Really Too Old For This Kind Of Nonsense

Hey, guess what fun madcap adventure I had last night?
Absolutely exhausted, I collapsed onto my bed with a big gnarly wad of minty fresh Eclipse gum still wedged into my mouth.
Hey, guess what fun madcap adventures I had this morning?
I got to dutifully scrape gum off my pillowcase. And my nightstand. And in between my fingers where the gum fused together in a webbed pattern rendering me into the likeness of a severely malformed platypus. There was also remnants of chewed and fragmented gum strewn across the fleshy wasteland of my lower neck area.
Apparently, minty fresh Eclipse gum is a nomadic wanderer with a nocturnal streak. It just wasn't content to take up permanent habitation in my cavernous Infidel mouth.
So, if I followed that wise old proverb and let the gum go but it still chose to stay fairly close to me does that mean the gum truly loves me?
I wonder if the Double Mint twins ever had these problems?

Do You Have A Special Chocolate-Addicted Alcoholic In Your Life?

Well, here's some exciting news......now there's a beverage that conveniently combines two vices into one wine bottle for maximum gift-giving ease!
I have to admit that ChocoVine has intrigued me since I saw it stocked at our local HEB grocery store last fall.

"Nobody else could understand the secretive forbidden love shared between the coquettish cocoa bean and its sultry wine grape paramour........a torrid romance like theirs hadn't been seen in the commercial world since that slutty peanut butter hussy started sneaking around late at night with a wayward chocolate bar thus resulting in an offspring they named Reese's."

Far be it for me to get all judgmental about the shocking copulation of commodities but:
I predict a sharp increase in workplace consumption of "chocolate milk."
I prognosticate a future where police officers will have a head-scratching mystery before them. Are the days of giving out tickets for underage drinking over? Why have teenagers suddenly become so addicted to "chocolate milk?"
I foresee a spike in revenue for street corner beggars as potential donors sigh and comment about how sweet it is that the hobo has changed his drunken ways to embrace the dairy wholesomeness of "chocolate milk."
Should you spend your last dollar on chocolate or alcohol? Thanks to ChocoVine you'll never have to make this tough choice again.
Thanks ChocoVine! You're clearly ushering in an age of enlightenment never before seen in human history.

Is It Possible To Be An Anti-Woman Woman?

I used to thoroughly enjoy listening to Dr. Laura's call-in radio show but now I've opted to sever all ties to her and her increasingly unhelpful advice.

See, I'm an unabashedly conservative chick who believes in small government, a flat tax, and personal responsibility. As such, Dr. Laura and her espousal of traditional values initially appealed to me.

However, Ive grown weary of women automatically being the culprit for their man going astray. She's adamant that all wives must somehow be abdicating their spousal duties by not putting out enough which in turn leads a husband to go looking for outside action. Or maybe the wife is too fat which is also, in her not-so-humble opinion, an egregious violation of the marital contract.

That's always been her mantra so I just tune out her woman-bashing diatribe when she's on an especially shrill holier-than-thou streak.

Lately though, Dr. Laura is on a roll consistently dispensing eyebrow-furrowing, nose-wrinkling, Whatchoo Talkin' Bout' Willis? counsel to some of her callers.

Case in point was the lady who's been a stay-at-home mom of four kids for the past 20 years. Her oldest is a college student who lives at home while the youngest is 8. Like a lot of familes across the nation, her husband doesn't earn the kind of money he used to and they find themselves struggling even after making big lifestyle cutbacks. She has the opportunity to work part-time while her kids are in school. This seems like a win-win solution to me.

Dr. Laura practically shrieked at this woman telling her "You're going to divert time and energy away from a family that needs you" and "You're undermining your husband. Working will make him feel like less of a man, like he can't provide for his family." She wasn't finished as she concluded her advice with a "You'll come home bitchy and stressed from work and take it out on your family."

Wow. Dr. Laura worked establishing her career the entire time her kid was in school. Hypocrite much? This lady wants to alleviate some of the burden on her husband's shoulders in a way that still allows her to care for her kids. Furthermore, she doesn't have babies or toddlers. I speak from personal experience that this recession is a good time to rally the family and let them know that cooperation is vital and everyone needs to help one another.

I work a couple days a week. Unlike a lot of their peers, my kids know how to do laundry, help their siblings with schoolwork, and get dinner ready. It's not a tragedy that somehow diminishes the quality of their childhood. It's working as a cohesive unit to preserve the family. Duh, Dr. Laura.

Another caller really resonated with me. She's a 30-something mom of 6 kids. I know, right, who's flippin' crazy enough to crank out 6 kids?!!? Anyway, her baby is starting Kindergarten and she wants to go back to school to finish her degree but she stipulated that it would only be during the hours her kids are at school. The lady tearfully said that everyone in her family has advanced degrees and the pursuit of education is important to her. She blurted out that she felt as though something was missing in her life.

Dr. Laura went into hysterical mode as though this woman said she wanted to trade in all her mom jeans for an Abercrombie & Fitch wardrobe and a wild campus co-ed lifestyle.

Dr. Laura's argument was the same as the previous caller I mentioned. She vociferously browbeat this poor lady telling her that her family would fall apart if she took a couple college courses because it would require way too much time and effort. Dr. Laura also said that she should take comfort in her kids and not go looking for outside accomplishments and validation. She then recommended that the caller "get some hobbies" and "read books" to occupy her time while her kids are at school.

Discouraging knowledge? Seriously? This is a major WTF? moment. This lady may need a degree in the future should the unthinkable happen. Aside from that, she wants something edifying outside of being a mommy and wife. As a career woman you'd think that Dr. Laura would understand.

Irritated and murmuring out loud, I hoped that these ladies would stand up and champion themselves against this counterproductive advice. But they didn't. Both women just meekly agreed with every word Dr. Laura bestowed upon them as though it was their personal gospel.

Why would a successful female like Dr. Laura openly discourage fellow females from achieving their own personal successes?

Naturally, she cites "Family First" at every opportunity but the slogan is as hollow as a waxy chocolate bunny from the dollar store when applied to the aforementioned situations where the family would surely benefit from the matriarch enriching her own life and in turn the lives of her family.

It's an easy formula. Trickle Down Mothering, dammit!

Trickle Down Mothering. I'm a genius. Just give me the talk radio contract to sign already.

Are You In Search Of Some Scorching Hot Buns? It's Gonna Cost You!

Hot Cross Buns......Hot Cross Buns.....One-A-Penny.......Two-A-Penny.......One-Hundred-Twenty-Nine-Pennies. Hope you own a roomy and spacious coin purse built for Abraham Lincoln and 128 of his little coppery clones.


Although, the unexpected inflationary surge in the bun market is but a small price to pay for an avowed addict to revel in some sweet, sweet hot cross buntopia.

After all, this plastic package of pleasure boasts a whopping XXXXXX rating. Yeah, it scoffs at all those paltry triple-XXX hot buns. A threesome of hot buns? No way! This is a party just waiting to be opened by an adventurous sixsome!

Me and my six-pack. Hey, you see me sweet-rollin', you hatin'.

We're A Family Suffering From The Ill Effects Of IRA

You don't have to probe too far back into Infidel family history to find early IRA victims. Do you know IRA? You should. It's quite likely that you or somebody you know struggles with the heartbreak of IRA or as its better known Inappropriate Reaction Affliction.
See, I'm like my father. We both lack the necessary sentimental gene required to make it through ballad night on American Idol. It's an absolute physical impossibility.
I laughed uproariously during the entirety of the schlocky New Moon movie while my sisters-in-law were furiously hushing me in between dabbing away their endlessly flowing tears.
My mom, however, is a living embodiment of a Mrs. Butterworth's Syrup bottle nestled snugly inside a bag of extra cheesy Cheetos.
She's subsisted on a steady diet of treacly sweet nonsense and shameless cheese for so long she has to have built up an impressive dual cheeseball/syrup storage system somewhere around her spleen.
So anyway, my parents divorced when I was 2.
A few years before passing away my father confided in me that after the divorce he was inconsolable and listened to Elton John's despondent song, Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word non-stop for several months.
I was deeply moved by his uncharacteristically emotional outpouring so I naturally assumed my mom would be equally touched by the soul-crushing pain he endured but kept so well hidden from her and everyone else for the past 30-something years.
My mom's response? She collapsed onto the sofa and shook with laughter for a good five minutes.
IRA strikes whenever you least expect it.......Curse you IRA!