It's a bra, bro!

I hate bra shopping. I have hated it since my youth when I'd be paraded behind my mother through Elder Beerman department store, forced to look at training bras til my sophomore year of high school when puberty finally set in. It was always a little demeaning to look at training bras and realize you're 14 and standing there with equally embarrassed-looking 9-year-olds. Not to mention the sheer mortification of looking at a rack of bras -- nice, lacy, fancy ones -- and having your mother scream across the lingerie department for all to hear, "NOT THOSE, HONEY! THOSE ARE TOO BIG FOR YOU!!!"

You laugh now. I can smirk a little. But pre-pubescent Me wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Ever since then, I've hated bra shopping. I don't get giddy in Victoria's Secret. I have never been "professionally measured" as so many people advise. I kind of know my bra size. I go in, I look at the tag, I buy the bra and go. There is no trying on. Grab and go.

So imagine my excitement at having to buy a nursing bra today. Yeah, I can imagine all the perverts I'm going to get herding in here now. I barely even mention breasts and only mention my naughty bits in my Brazilian wax post and you'd be amazed the perverted google searches that land people here. And here I am talking about my boobies for all the world to see. Meh, what can ya do? Boobs. Boobs. Boobs. Let Google bring its worst.

That being said, shopping for nursing bras is an interesting concept unto itself. On another plane of existence, looking for bras that open up and let your boobies hang out would be considered kinky and kind of hot. Not so for nursing bras. Boobs are no longer sexy when there is an infant attached to them. And so I began my adventure, approaching the lingerie/intimate wear section and staring angrily at the cute pink, black lacy bras designed for women who aren't fat and pregnant and engorged. I used to wear bras like that. It's kind of how we got in this whole pickle.

And after begrudgingly asking for sales assistance (I hate asking for salespeople's help in any situation, let alone looking for clothing, especially bras, as we've discussed, I hate shopping for bras anyway, we really don't need to bring more people into this than necessary), I'm directed to the tiniest, most obscure and dusty looking rack. Past the cute. Past the pink. Past the lace. Past the Wonderbras. It's a sad and dusty little corner and you're faced with two options:

White. Or beige. (Nude seems like an inappropriate color option when discussing intimates.)

And the sales lady, a kindly grandmotherly type, kept poking into the dressing room asking if I needed assistance. I'm pregnant, lady, I'm not incapacitated. I'm capable of taking a bra on and off. Shoes, not so much, but bra, I got it covered, and I promise I won't leak, okay? No, I don't want to talk about my baby on the way with you. No, I don't want to talk about breastfeeding with you. You're trying to talk to me through a slat-style fitting room door while I'm sitting here coming to terms with the fact that my hot body is gone, that I don't know how these little hooks and latches work, and that all those girls who made fun of me for being flatchested in high school can lick my ass because being a D cup is totally not fun.

I settle for "good enough" in fit and comfort, in white, if you're curious, just because I wanted out of the entire situation. There. I'm done. Nursing bra, check. I can now have this baby being rest-assured that I can easily whip a boob out at a moment's notice. Fan-freakin'-tastic.

My political input

This is the closest you'll ever hear me talk about politics on this blog -- talking politics in the blogosphere is overrated and exhausting, and while I used to be heavily involved in it, I have no interest in it now (blogging at least -- in the real world, I love it). I will never directly tell you my political orientation or preach my political views. The people who know me know where I stand, and that's good enough for me.

That being said... I will say that if John McCain got the Republican nod for the Presidential nomination, I probably wouldn't vote for him, unless he's up against a certain Democrat who we'll call Millary Plinton. But if I had to vote based on how hot a candidate was in his 20's... yeah, it'd definitely be the Big Mac...



Because seriously? Damn.

One of the most obnoxious things you can ask a server

"DO YOU DO ANYTHING SPECIAL FOR BIRTHDAYS?"

NO. NO WE DON'T. And FUCK YOU for asking!

I'm temporarily retired from serving because I got too fat pregnant, but I still have the mind, heart and soul of a server. And seeing this video made me laugh my proverbial balls off, if for one thing: the birthday celebrations.

Thankfully, I'm now at a restaurant that doesn't do anything for birthdays -- if I really like the table I'm serving, I might put a candle in your dessert if you order one, but that's only if I like you and if I really feel like it. Other than that, tough shit. You're another year older -- guess what, you're like, 30, not five. You can make it through a meal without other grown adults doing a song and dance routine for you. I promise.

Prior to my current place of employment, though, I suffered the horrible misfortune of working at Olive Garden. Olive Garden is the asshole of the world. I see commercials on TV and I can feel my blood pressure hike a few more points. I could go on forever about why I hated Olive Garden and why you should never, ever eat there with anyone you love. But one of the biggest things I hated was the birthday song. Oh sweet Jesus, the birthday song. If you're reading this and you think it is cute or funny to make your server -- and the rest of the serving staff do a song and dance for your birthday, or for your friend's birthday -- I hate you. Your server hates you. The serving staff hates you. There is nothing cute, or funny, or fun about making your server degrade themselves into singing for you. The rest of the restaurant doesn't care that it's your birthday either. Again -- if you want a big party and a song and dance routine, go to Chuck E. Cheese. Those automated puppets will sing just for you.

These little girls are enjoying their birthday with song
and celebration. That's very nice. Also notice
that they are 4 or 5. They aren't 34 and irritating.

Near the end of my Olive Garden tenure, I had a guest ask me -- after forcing me to sing and celebrate another grown-ass adult's birthday like they were six years old -- if we liked doing it. I responded, "Actually, I die a little bit inside every time I have to do it." They looked like I'd just shat a dookie on their table. But you know what, it's true -- every server hates doing it. And the ones that don't hate doing it, and are WAY too into it, are fucking tools, and everyone they work with hates them.

Anyway. My point. I had a point here. Oh yeah, I saw this video on Funny or Die and laughed my ass off through the entire thing. Pay special attention at about the 1 minute mark. That is exactly what I wish that I could say and do whenever I get asked this question. So if you're reading this, just know this: nobody in the world cares that it is your birthday except you. So get over yourself. Happy goddamn birthday.

Hostesses can do math, too!

I was never great at math in high school. I kind of floated along by sitting next to or behind the class valedictorian, or dumb luck, and survived through pre-calculus and trigonometry and called it a high school career. I took statistics in college, but that doesn’t really count as math – especially when it’s taught by a Pakistani grad student who was so easily manipulated that our class convinced him to give us St. Patrick’s Day off because it was a Catholic holiday. I got an A and I think I showed up to class less than half a dozen times.

But I know basic math. I know adding, subtracting, multiplication, and some division. I can count on my fingers. And I know that I don’t like a particular hostess I work with, because of my mathematical deductions.

Let me explain.

In the multiple shifts I have worked with this hostess, I have noticed (as have others) that she frequently disappears from the host stand to go to the kitchen and eat bread and drink soda. This isn’t really a huge deal if we’re slow. The bread’s yummy and sometimes ya just need a carb-loaded pick-me-up. I’m pregnant. I can dig, I can jive, I’m hip and with it.

But no, she disappears when we’re at our busiest point in the shift, when I need her at the host stand to do things like, um, seat people. Being a hostess really isn’t a hard job. All it really requires is that you stay at the host stand and do what the upper-handed hostess (me) tells you to do. Take these people to table X. Could you tell me what tables are open? I need X-tables set up for X amount of people. It’s seriously not a hard job. I get paid way too much for a job that’s way too easy.

But I digress. I live in a sea of digression. Sorry. Today we were especially slow, and I was feeling especially snarky and cynical (when you’re 8.5 months pregnant, you really don’t care about decorum anymore). So I kept a tally of how many times she disappeared, for God-knows-what reasons. But from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., she had SIX bread/beverage breaks, and FOUR bathroom breaks.

Each bread break generally takes her five minutes. Some are longer, some are shorter, but five minutes is a safe and fair estimate. Her bathroom breaks today were, on average, about 10 minutes apiece. I don’t know what the fuck homegirl was doing in there. Maybe she was hungover (a definite possibility). Maybe she was sleeping (another possibility). Maybe she was taking a monster dookie (maybe, don’t care to think about it). But still. That’s a long ass time in the bathroom.

So we have:
6 bread breaks x 5 min. = 30 minutes of stuffing her face with bread
4 bathroom breaks x 10 min. = 40 minutes of who-knows-what

So that’s 70 minutes that she was not doing hostess jobs. And considering her work day today was from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., that’s three hours at work… over a third of which was wasted. I’m not a business genius by any means, and I’m not about to tell Big Fancy Restaurant At Which I Work how to run its business. But seriously? That’s ridiculous, and even more unfortunate, is the fact that this is how most shifts with her are. I mean, hell, just get rid of the chick and give me a raise with the money saved from wasted labor costs. Baby needs another pair of Ugg boots.

Actually, no, because A lectured me for buying her the last pair. But seriously… she could use a pink pair to go with the tan pair she already has. I’m just saying.

Death Sentence

My husband, A, has full blown stomach flu. We're talking the whole nine yards -- I haven't seen him hold anything, water included, for longer than about 20 minutes, he says just watching things on TV makes him queasy, talking makes him throw up, and he's been dead to the world for nearly 24 hours. Cold sweats, smells like death, sticky and gross. Yeah.

And the worst thing is knowing that it is going to undoubtedly hit me soon and there's not much I can do about it at this point. I have a fever already and have been trying to hydrate myself as much as possible in anticipation (since my body technically isn't mine right now)... but it's probably only a matter of hours before I join the puking ranks.

Yuck, yuck, yuck.

Ever wonder what the inside of a belly button looks like?

If pregnancy is good for anything, it's for turning yourself into a human science experiment. I'm one of the lucky pregos in that my belly button hasn't popped out. Rather, it's totally flattened itself out as it stretched.



That's a big rotund belly at 34 weeks. If you look just above the belly button, you can see the stretched out, disgusting gaping hole that was where my belly ring once was. Yeah, you don't think about things like this when you're 14 and getting your belly-button pierced is the coolest and most unique thing in the world (which it was, back when I was 14). Yeah, it's stretched out and kinda nasty now.

Oh yeah, and not a single stretch mark on my alabaster tummy. Just wanted to rub that in my fellow pregos' faces. :)

Okay, I'm done grossing you out for today.

One ticket to hell, please...

It's great that Tampax is ensuring the education of girls in Africa and stuff. Really, I mean that. BUT...

... is it bad that when I first saw this commercial, I thought, "I bet the girls stay home when they're on their periods because the lions might smell the blood?

I can't help you.

God bless SiteMeter. This nifty little tracker shows me everything from how many people have visited the blog, where they're from, what kind of computer/browser they're using, to what pages have referred them here and, my personal favorite, what Google searches land them here. If you searched something stupid on Google and somehow wound up here, yes, I see you.

It amazes me the kind of "self help" things that land people at my humble little blog. I am not a self-help guru. My six steps? Yeah, that's a joke, kids. I'm the girl whose standard of becoming an adult is using a cart in Wal-Mart. I really hope people don't seriously come to this blog hoping for, expecting, some sort of direction in their quests, only to leave disappointed because I just talk about poop and making fun of dumb people. Unless that's what you're looking for. In which case, poop and dumb people ahoy!

But anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, the SiteMeter. There are some weeeeiiiirrrrd cats out there on the web, and even social retards Google things looking for direction in life. And thanks to SiteMeter, my favorite Google references of the week have been:

“Steps to become a gyno"
“How to ease swollen prego feet”
“How to give better head”
“How to get my wife to get a brazilian wax”
"How to get head in a restaurant"

I don't know how to provide advice on any of these things, but I hope you people find what you're looking for. Except you, Mr. Head in a Restaurant... yeah, you're pretty much just an icky icky poo.

Weirdos and Icky Icky Poo's aside, it's also my beloved dog's birthday today. Lucky Bodhisattva of Fenway -- better known to all as "Bodhi" -- turns 2 today. Happy Birthday BoBo/BoBa/Bobophet/Oh-Bo-Ba-Dobi/Bocephus/Bodhicat!