My Achy Breaky Fun-o-meter

It's official. I can't fall for that forced fun anymore. I'm just not so good at pretending now that I've been paired with a man who has no reservations when it comes to saying, "This sucks and is stupid," even as I'm trying to push rays of sunshine out of my eyes with all the focusing on the positive I'm doing.

Labor Day weekend is when my fun-o-meter had its first significant calibration. After packing a crafty lunch and a cooler of beer, loaded down with good intentions for spending one of my four paid holidays a year with friends, Mack and I spent two hours crawling 30 miles through traffic to go to a beach that was halfway covered with a tarp. Anytime Mack and I spend two hours cramped in 10 square feet of space, our love erupts into molten hot lava and we leave each other blistered and dark. Anytime we spend two hours cramped in 10 square feet of space and arrive at a tarp covered beach when we could have walked seven blocks and arrived at an enormous expanse of open beach, well, he wants to kill me and I can't pretend it's fun anymore.

Last night, my fun-o-meter was squashed to smithereens. Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year, and last Halloween, me, Mack and Ruble went to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios. It took two hours to get there (did I mention it's about 20 miles away?), but we were able to park quickly and get in in a reasonable amount of time. My fun-o-meter was sort of in limbo as to whether it would be fun, but when I turned to look at Ruble and saw the face of Norman Bates' mother between us and went screaming down the studio street, my fun-o-meter soared to new heights. Halloween Horror Nights had redeemed itself.

Since last year ended up being more fun than work, I thought this year we'd try the Knott's Scary Farm (at Knott's Berry Farm) Halloween event. With my smile strapped to my face and a ukulele strapped to Mack to keep him from realizing how long it was taking us to get there, we headed out on yet another two hour journey to go 30 miles.

When we finally arrived, the fun-o-meter was teetering. We pulled into the parking lot and pulled through the parking lot and pulled out of the parking lot and pulled onto the street in front of Knott's Berry Farm and pulled onto a street five blocks from Knott's Berry Farm and pulled back into the traffic to get into Knott's Berry Farm and pulled into the parking lot and pulled through the parking lot and pulled out of the parking lot and pulled to the other street bordering Knott's Berry Farm and pulled around the block and pulled past ten full parking lots and pulled our hair out and pulled back onto the interstate for a 45 minute trip back home.

No more will I go to an event that requires 2 hours to go 30 miles. No more will I bother with anything that is going to attract more than 5,000 people (unless it's a sporting event, an outdoor event, or something that has public transportation that will drop me off in front). No more am I going to kid myself that I don't mind crowds and that spending 80% of my time in lines is worth riding a roller coaster in the dark. The fun-o-meter will no longer fall for fake fun.

Trust Me: You Do Not Want to Read This

You have been warned. If you scroll any further, it is at your own discretion. If you have a big browser window, it's probably too late. I hope you weren't eating.

So Mack calls me at work as he's walking into the door of our house after school, at about 4:30. We're all on the phone, howsyourdaying it, when all of the sudden he says, "Oh no. Shiiiiiiit."

Apparently he'd stepped in a couple piles of it that Venus had left on the rug in the kitchen, which is brownish, so it's no wonder a detail-blind Mack didn't notice it before he stomped it into the sole of his Gap flip flops. Which were like $40.

"I've gotta go," he says.

"Aw, shucks, I'm so sorry I can't be there right now to clean up this mess. I'm just so swamped at my insanely busy job looking at these interesting carpet tiles that apparently clean up with a baby wipe doing research to take this kind of responsibility for my dog," I said, sort of. It probably came out like, "Sucks to be you."

A few minutes later, I see him on Google chat and decide to lighten up the brown, muddy situation. I'll let Google chat fill you in on this part.

me: stop eating the poop, mister.

4:35 PM Mack: im about to man-cry

kitty keeps trying to show me the poop

me: no man crying! that is too sad.

4:36 PM tell kitty to shut the fuck up or we're putting her in a meat grinder!

Mack: wood-chipper honey wood-chipper

check your Gee-mailme: i want to put her in a meat grinder. and make kitty tacos.

4:37 PM i'm checking it. heart the titles.

[Enjoy this snapshot of aforementioned titles.]

Mack: i just searched for "painless way to poison a dog"

me: streaky poop kind of looks like bacon

[Enjoy this snapshot of streaky poop. I added roses to try to make it

prettier.]

4:38 PM it looks like she should be dying with poop like that.

i puked in my throat a little.

Mack: they are big... notice my sandals to indicate the scale

[Enjoy this snapshot of the poop with sandal for scale. Again, the butterflies are an attempt to make this situation more delightful.]

me: nice work honey. you must be a poop scientist.
[This is actually very funny because once Mack was being confronted by the neighbor about some poop in the yard and he said, "How do you know it's my dog's poop? Are you a poop scientist?"]

4:39 PM Mack: i want to eat something but it smells so bad in there i could puke

me: ugh. i can't get the slime out of my mind and it makes me want to barf.

Mack: this life sucks

the slime on wet poop is nastier in real life than it looks on camera - the smell greatly enhances its nastiness

[Enjoy this snapshot of wet poop. Hopefully the rainbows make it superdeeduperfied.]

4:40 PM me: what is up with you and dogs pooping while you're gone and you having to clean it up?

[The day after Shannon's wedding another dog left a ribbon of barf and shit all throughout our house, and Mack was the only one in town to deal with it. He still smiles about that to this day. And he loves Shannon's Aunt Tiffany 4-ever.]

Mack: i'm going to put the dog and cat into the bath and throw your hair straightener into the water

if the lights go dark at zizo you know why

me: no!!!! that straightener is more than $100!!!

4:41 PM Mack: then i will find a cheaper appliance to use

me: the air pop popcorn maker was like $15. But I really like it.

4:42 PM Mack: am i a bad person for wanting to kill them?

me: am i? Mack: did you know that "Die dog, die!" means "The dog, the!" in German?

4:47 PM

Mack: YES KITTY I KNOW THERE IS POOP OVER THERE

4:51 PM

we could mail venus to your friend dave without him knowing

FedEX WILL DELIVER PETS

And so begins Venus' reunion with the long, lost love of her life... Dave. If I can just get Lisa to sign for the package...

Our Tangled Web Tree

Shannon posted on her blog a knitting project she just completed. It's basically a fabric bucket for toys, but the colors are pretty and it's bigger than all the knitting projects I've done combined. The "Shannon forced to model even though she's not feeling like it" pose on her blog is hilarious, and it actually reminded me of another knitting project she did that she modeled before washing it and shrinking it. So, because I can't get enough of Shannon, I wanted to share something from my collection of "Shannon forced to model even when she doesn't feel like it."