Irritants And Blood Loss

Everyone has that one thing that annoys them more than anything else. That one thing that will get your hackles up and bring out the beast in you. For both my sisters it is fairness. They want everyone to be treated the same and not to show favoritism to anyone, be it the work place or with their kids. For me it is rudeness. That will stick in my craw every time and bring out the very worst in me. I live by the ol' axiom that manners are a social lubricant, even though my little sister can't get past the "lubricant" part to process the rest of that rule. ("What kind of lubricant? KY? Generic?") Yesterday my little sister and I went shopping, me for some decent work out clothes, and her for some new sheets. She is doing her room in brown and teal and wanted some brown sheets to go with her teal comforter. She found some sh*t brown sheets, even though I can't understand why one would want that color of sheets. Is it a safety precaution in case you have raging diarrhea and can't get out of bed fast enough? If I'm afraid I'm going to crap my bed can I just go into her room and do it on her sheets? She would never know. She challenged me to try that and see how long I live. Depending on how my guts are feeling, I may take that challenge.

Anyhoo, we are standing in line, me empty handed because I didn't find anything great that was cheap enough for me, and her cradling her sh*t colored sheets and trying to ignore my witty observations about sh*t brown sheets. There is one cashier and the people in front of us are getting a price check for a suit jacket. I can respect a price check. None of us want to pay one cent more than what the price is. But these people, when they found out that the suit jacket was not the price they thought it was -- it was on the wrong rack -- decided that the man needed to go find a different suit jacket while the rest of the family held the line. The line is growing longer while these people stood there waiting for him to come back with a different suit jacket. They page more cashiers, which takes them FOREVER to lollagag their way up there, and the next people in front of us left their coupons at home in Illinois and wanted to see if they could get some more for the mountain of crap they were buying. I was so provoked and annoyed that I started smacking my flip flop against the bottom of my foot, a habit I have when bored or annoyed. We finally get to check out and the first people finally found a suit jacket that worked for them. As soon as we were out of the store I ranted and raved and frothed at the mouth about those incredibly rude people who held up the line for a FRIGGIN SUIT JACKET! I wanted to pummel them with that suit jacket until they were a pile of bloody pulp or tail them home while shouting obscenities. Sugarbowl would let me do neither and because she was driving she won.

We are up to our eyeballs in raspberries right now. We have been making jam and syrup like mad women and freezing some for use this winter, when it is cold enough to run the oven. I found that I really enjoy picking raspberries, for some odd reason. I get scratched up by the damn pokey things, but I can find all the spots they like to hide their delectable fruits in. The mosquitoes have a thriving metropolis back there and I got so tired of being chewed up, staggering back to the house light headed and convinced that I am now anemic and need to go to the hospital ASAP for a blood transfusion, that I started thinking about using some Off bug spray. I hate that stuff. I hate the smell that gives me a raging headache and makes me feel like I am now radioactive. I was talking to my mom yesterday while the mosquitoes enjoyed the all day buffet that was me, and she suggested that I use vanilla to repel the mosquitoes. She said she used it and it worked and you smell like something yummy baking instead of a walking nuclear melt down. I asked if it had to be real vanilla or if I could use the fake stuff and she said it didn't matter. I went back inside, doused myself with our imitation vanilla, smelled delicious, didn't get drained of all my blood, and was able to rape the raspberry brambles of all their ripe fruit. I would suggest using it if you have to venture into a mosquito city. It really works.