A DISNEY HALLOWEEN TREAT

I don't normally post real pictures on here, (as in pictures that aren't of weird, doodly things)--actually, I never have, but after our spontaneous Halloween trip to Disneyland last week I just can't help myself. I don't consider myself a photographer by any means, more just someone who takes a few pictures sometimes and kind of knows what I'm doing with a camera--kind of--but man, that land is a magical place. And we had a magical time. Even if it was randomly over 100 degrees EVERY SINGLE DAY WE WERE THERE at the END OF OCTOBER and it was 70 DEGREES THERE BOTH THE ENTIRE WEEK BEFORE WE WENT AND THE WEEK AFTERWARD. IT'S OKAY. I'M FINE. I DIDN'T ALMOST DIE. I DON'T REGRET IT AT ALL. *hides regrets behind my souvenir Mickey Mouse mug* Just kidding, I'm pretty sure it's nearly impossible to have regrets when you come home with memories and pictures like these. 

I'm not normally that into Fantasyland, but I came to appreciate it a little more during this trip, and mostly because this carousel is just really cool. 

OH HEY GIANT MICKEY PUMPKIN THAT REMINDED ME OF THE PUMPKIN IN HALLOWEEN TOWN. 

I think Donald had the best of the festive outfits of all the main Mickey Mouse gang. I mean, HE'S A PUMPKIN. HOW CAN IT GET BETTER. (And can we all just appreciate those barbershop pumpkins in that shop window? Disneyland just gets me, man.) 

Goofy was a close second with this ensemble. 

Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy was making a lot of kids freak out when we were there. They'd come off the ride in tears. I kind of don't blame them--Casper, that ghost is not. 

Glamour shots with R2. 

Tomorrowland is just a really cool place. 

As is Cars Land (probably a cooler place, but don't tell Tomorrowland). 

I ACTUALLY WON THIS GAME THIS TIME. I AM NOT A LOSER. IT IS A MIRACLE. 

Had to get a shot of the infamous "Red Lady" that I thought they were removing/changing this year, but I guess they didn't? She looks the same. I am confused. 

We uncharacteristically decided to go to a meet and greet thing (because it was SO HOT OUTSIDE), and met ourselves a Darth Vader. When we got up to him, he got all up in my face and basically asked me to join the Dark Side, and I couldn't say anything. It was weird. So long story short, we ended up joining the Dark Side because it was too hot outside.

Don't tell Cars Land, but Adventureland is actually my favorite. Okay, actually I can't really choose. I like all of the lands too much. But I've gotta say, Indiana Jones is one dank ride, my friends. 

Hey look! Mary and Bert! I like them!

And finally, I kid you not, this picture was taken as we were leaving the land on our last day. I turned around and Mickey was right behind me, and he waved at me. It was pretty cool. My clothes may have been drenched in sweat, and my earlobes may have been melting off my head, but Mickey waved at me. That's some Disney magic right there if you ask me. 

*cries one silent tear*

(Note: Does anyone else know about Disney Halloween Treat? It was a program they used to run back in the day and my parents taped it on VHS at one point and I'd watch it every year as a kid. In recent years I found it on youtube and have been watching it annually again, and it's just really great. Give it a whirl. Also, you should know that my ringtone has been this from one of the cartoons on Disney Halloween Treat for over two years now because I put it on for Halloween two years ago and have been too lazy to change it ever since.)

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: THE ILLUSTRATED EXPERIENCE

I know I'm late to the game, but I finally just saw me some B&B (also, Herbie: Fully Loaded) (not really). Though I've always been a fan of Beauty and the Beast (I think all brunette girls are in some form or another since there weren't a lot of other princess options out there for the non-blondes among us in the early nineties, and also no one had or ever will have voluminous, crayola marker red hair that stays perfectly coiffed underwater), I couldn't allow myself to jump fully into fangirl mode when the trailer came out because 1. I wasn't sure how I felt about the casting of Emma Watson as Belle and 2. Something horrible and cynical within me wants to hate on all of the live-action remakes Disney is doing for absolutely no reason. But still, the effect that the music at the beginning of the trailer had on me would be a sign of what was to come. *a foreshadow appears*

A few weeks after the movie came out, a good friend of mine was like IT'S PROBABLY LAME BUT LET'S GO SEE IT so on a recent Saturday afternoon we found ourselves filing into a half-full theater and feeling pretty smug about the whole situation. "Can Emma Watson really even sing?" we asked. "Pretty sure they just cast her because she's already famous for playing a beloved and bookish character," we said as we adjusted our monocles with an air of elitism. "Did we even need this story to be redone?" we wondered aloud to the frustration of the mother and her two daughters wearing yellow Belle dresses and tiaras sitting nearby (they didn't exist but I added this part here to make it sound more dramatic--call me Brian Williams). As the lights dimmed and we sat back, smugness oozing out of our over-large, critical, English major heads, we steeled ourselves in the back row of the theater for the two hours that lay before us we were so determined not to like. I will now tell the rest of the story in illustrated form: 

HAUNTED LIFT RIDE OF DEATH

Last night, we went to the local "Haunted Ski Lift" ride—out of our sense of duty to our favorite season to be as festive as possible—and I am still recovering from the trauma. 

Is it because I don't like heights? you might ask. 

No.

Is it because I am five years old?

No.

Well, is it because it was incredibly scary? 

No.

It was because we were completely soaked in a pounding torrent of haunted rain and I thought we were going to die. 

So actually, yes, it was incredibly scary.

Since there was no question that we would attend this event again this year, earlier in October I put it on the calendar for the evening of Friday the 28th. It seemed like the perfect time to go—it would help us kick off "Halloweekend," we were already going to be out and about that night anyways, and that would leave Saturday as the cozy night we'd stay in to carve pumpkins and decorate sugar cookies with Halloweentown on in the background (did I mention we were festive? Because we're that festive). But, the Monday before, while looking at the weather forecast for the week, I noticed that Friday was supposed to have "afternoon showers" with the chance of precipitation at 70%.

But that could change, right? I thought. 

There's no way that would happen, I thought. 

We will probably be fine, I thought.

What if I have a secret twin that is living her life on the other side of the globe and sometimes people think she's me and vice versa and we'll never meet and it is as if one of us never existed? I thought.

The rest of the week progressed, and on Thursday, walking home with an 80 degree sun beating down on me and sweating through my thin sweater, I raised my fists into the air and shouted IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FALL WHY DO YOU HAVE TO HURT ME MR. SUN I JUST WANT TO WEAR MY SWEATERS AND ENJOY BEING COZY AND I CAN'T HAVE THAT IF IT ISN'T COLD I WOULD EVEN TAKE A RAINSTORM IF IT MEANT IT WOULD BE COLDER PLEASE STOP MAKING IT SO HOT. But, indifferent as always to my pleas, the sun just chuckled and kept reading his copy of How to Annoy Camryn Monthly as I sobbed hot tears that streamed down my face and into the sweat stains already covering my entire body (a gross exaggeration—literally).

When Friday arrived, it was a little cloudy and a little cooler, but not by much. Angered by the lack of fall-like weather, and reluctant to change plans, I decided we should still go on the haunted lift ride so we could at least still have something to look forward to—even though in the back of my mind I was still worried about the possibility of rain.

"That would really suck if we were up there and it just started pouring rain, you know?"

"Yeah, it would. We can go tomorrow night if you want to, babe. I'm totally fine either way." 

"I guess we could. But...we should be okay. I think we'll be fine."

"And there aren't even any clouds around either!"

"...what about that dark scary one looming in the distance?"

On the way there, I called in and asked if they would shut down the lift if it started raining. I was told they "weren't really sure" and that "it doesn't look like it's raining right now." Reassured by the customer service woman's perfect knowledge of her company's policies, I decided that there was no way this couldn't end up being the best evening of our lives. WE WERE GOING TO RIDE THAT LIFT AND EVERYTHING WAS GOING TO BE PERFECT. ASHLEY FROM CUSTOMER SERVICE SAID SO. 

After parking our car and heading to the ride on a shuttle, the excitement and nostalgia set in. "Monster Mash" was playing, the driver of the shuttle was wearing a wacky wig, and he had a bucket of candy for everyone heading down to the festivities. We'd gone on this harmless lift ride every year since being married and we were eager to see what spooky installments they'd have for us this time. But the instant we walked out of the shuttle, we felt a couple raindrops splash down on our faces. That should have been warning enough. We should have turned to each other and said, "Hmm. Maybe this isn't the best idea," or "Maybe we should just go grab a Redbox and call it a night and come back tomorrow," or "Babe, do you want to experience something truly horrific? I don't think I do!"

But, stubborn as we both are, we kept going with the plan and, after a brief 10-minute stint in the gift shop to "wait it out" and "see if it got worse," we were outside buying our tickets as the tiniest rain drops fell down at random. "We have hoods," we said. "We'll be fine," we said. And in no time we were on our way climbing up the mountain on our lift, raindrops falling a little heavier than they had been before.

And thus began what I call the "Stages of Resignation" that are not unlike the stages of grief you learn about in health class in high school, except at the end of the stages of grief you're supposed to feel better and at the end of the stages of resignation you have experienced nearly every emotion possible and been driven to the depths of insanity, where kind doctors are waiting for you with a nicely-pressed straight jacket and a rag soaked in chloroform. My husband, somehow, was not driven to madness while on the lift (maybe it's because he's like, mature and well-adjusted or something), but I, ever the master of my emotions, became a total wreck. So since I experienced this first-hand, I will now relate the Stages of Resignation to you, in order, so that you will be able to recognize when this is happening to you before you, too, end up having a dramatic seizure fifty feet in the air.

Stage One: Disbelief

This situation isn't going to be really horrible, right? your mind wonders as you say calm, mature things out loud like "Oh, this won't be so bad!" and "Well at least this will be a funny story to tell later!" and "We've experienced worse, right?" As we began the lift ride in the light drizzle coming down while spooky mummies danced below to The Bangles' Walk like an Egyptian, I looked over at my husband under my hood and said, "I am SO glad I didn't bring my camera!" Look at me being cool and collected, I thought. This stage will last as long as it takes for the reality of the situation to set in, and in my case, Stage Two began as soon as the rain shifted from a light drizzle to a pounding monsoon.

Stage Two: Shock

As the rain poured down relentlessly, soaking all of my clothes and making me feel incredibly uncomfortable because there is nothing worse than sitting in wet clothes with wet jeans constricting your legs (except maybe being soaked over and over again while fifty feet in the air with no hope of relief), I realized that this was going to be the worst thing ever. And that we were really, really dumb. How did we think the rain wouldn't get worse the higher we went up a mountain?! How did we convince ourselves to go through with this?! How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?! The rain was coming down so hard that my hood kept flying off my head, so the only option was to keep my head down with my hood pulled way over my face and NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE ANYTHING, or not care about the rain hitting my face and forget about the hood. At this point, in my shock, having come to the realization that yes, this is really happening and yes, this is really horrible, I desperately tried to keep my hood on. And as the rain continued to pound down on us, I quickly descended to Stage Three.

Stage Three: Irrationality

My normal, everyone-is-going-to-break-into-our-house-and-kill-us irrationality was made worse when the gale force wind began to blow. I started questioning the stability of the lift, wondering just how hard the wind would have to blow to detach us from the cable that began to look at lot less sturdy. And with the way things were going, THAT SEEMED LIKE IT WAS VERY POSSIBLE. My mind raced between the horrendous outcomes of every "what if" question you could think of, most notably, "Am I going to slide off the lift in this rain and wind?????" I couldn't control myself, spitting out the water that would land in my mouth between frantic shouts of conversations like this: 

 "WHAT IF I WAS WEARING PLASTIC PANTS."
"BABE YOU AREN'T WEARING PLASTIC PANTS." 
"BUT IF I WAS WOULD I FALL OFF AND DIE?"
"I WOULDN'T LET YOU FALL CAM"
"ARE WE GOING TO DIE. THIS WIND IS SO CRAZY." 
"I KNOW BUT WE'LL BE OKAY"
"THE LIFT IS GOING TO BREAK. I AM GOING TO BREAK."

And at the conclusion of the frantic what ifs, Stage Four slips in before you even realizing it's happening.

Stage Four: Fear

This is the type of fear that is characterized by straight up sobbing and no brain activity whatsoever. Your mind simply can't think of irrational situations anymore because your reality is actually so terrifying to you that there is nothing worse that your mind could come up with. Even though in the back of your mind there's a little shred of rationality left shaped like Jiminy Cricket that's like "Dude, seriously? You're totally going to be fine, wish upon a star," you still just let it all out because THERE IS A CHANCE YOU MIGHT DIE. At this point, my husband realized just how upset I was (if he couldn't at this moment, I would be concerned) and tried to comfort me as the rain continued to pour down and we looked like a couple of drowned rats. "Babe, at the next station we'll get off, okay? Would you like that?" he asked me, like a dad asking an upset toddler if they want ice cream, and I nodded and said that yes, I very much wanted Rocky Road and to be OFF THIS DEATH RIDE, but when we got to the next station, THE THEME WAS CLOWNS. AND I WAS LIKE NOPE I'M NOT GETTING OFF. NOT NOW.

Stage Five: Anger

I think it may have been the clowns, the audacity of the clowns to even be there in my lowest, rock-bottom moment that sent me quickly into the next stage: anger. Turning to my husband, I started ranting: "HAVEN'T THEY SEEN THE NEWS REPORTS? ISN'T THIS RIDE SUPPOSED TO BE FOR KIDS AND FAMILIES? THIS IS HORRIBLE. HOW DARE THEY HAVE CLOWNS. I'M GOING TO SUE. I HATE THIS. I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS. WE SHOULD GET A REFUND. I CAN'T BELIEVE I PAID TO EXPERIENCE THIS. THIS IS THE LITERAL WORST THING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD AND IT NEEDS TO DIE." I started yelling back at the people on the ground who I normally chuckle at as they shout up to you on the ride. "Want to come play?" the skeleton-suit-clad guys below yelled. "WANT TO DIE?" I rebutted. "How are you guys doing tonight?" "WET AND MISERABLE." It was my turn to anger and disdain for absolutely everything that made my husband start laughing, which made me realize that this situation really was pretty funny, which lead me into the arms of Stage Six, which I wish would have lasted longer.

Stage Six: Uncontrollable Laughter

This is the brief glimpse of hope in an otherwise horrible, dreadful, soaking-wet in an unrelenting storm up in the air situation. Wow, this is actually super hilarious. Look at us! you think as you laugh and laugh and remember what happiness feels like. This would happen to us—we were asking for it! But before you can fully enjoy this stage, it is swept away when you realize that the situation is nowhere close to being over. For me, this happened as we got closer to the end of the lift ride, and realized that we then were going to turn around and have to go back through the entire thing all the way down the mountain. As we drew closer to the asylum scene presented at the last area, my smile departed and I once again was drawn back into reality, this time completely silent and defeated.

Stage Seven: Defeated Silence

Channelling my inner "child in an infomercial that hasn't eaten in months" face, I stared dejectedly ahead as the asylum kids at the end of the ride lunged forward and tried to scare us before we headed back around, DARING them to not notice how horrible everything was, knowing my mascara was probably all over my face and that I looked like I was one of Davy Jones's crewmen from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, barnacles and all. And, best of all, the lift came to a halt right in front of them, so we just sat there, opposite each other, me in a sassy resolution to show them how upsetting this was, and them looking mildly confused and also very wet. Then, as the lift started up, we turned around and WENT BACK THROUGH THE WHOLE RIDE. And somewhere on the way back down, while mentally willing the lift to go faster, I slipped into the final stage, which lasted through the rest of the night and even after we got home.

Stage Eight: Drunken Threats

This stage is very similar to the anger displayed in Stage Five, except at this point, you have no fight left in you and you're just completely done with the situation. I kept ranting, and yelling at things, and making ridiculous angry comments to make my husband laugh ('HEY, IS IT RAINING? I'M NOT SURE."), but it was all of a less violent nature. Most of it. I no longer cared and just wanted to get. off. the. stupid. thing. And on the way down it didn't take long to realize that ALL of the people working the lift ride FELT THE EXACT SAME WAY AND WERE ALSO DEFINITELY AT STAGE EIGHT. As we glided over the scenes, we noticed workers hiding under their props, desperately trying to shield themselves from the storm. One of the snarky skeletons whose life I had previously threatened shouted up at us saying "What's the difference between me and you?" "Um, you're dry?" "No, you're going home in ten minutes!" This made me realize that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't being so irrational about this after all (but really, I totally was). The rest of the workers beneath us shouted words of encouragement instead of trying to spook us. Turning to my husband, I kept saying, "THEY BROKE THE FOURTH WALL. THEY BROKE THE FOURTH WALL." 

Somewhere between touching down and walking on the sweet, sweet ground, standing dejected and dripping in the hallway of the gift shop while my husband bought himself a hat (under no circumstance will this ever not happen if the hat is cool enough), and squeegeeing my clothes so I could bend enough to sit in the car, we got home intact, though water-logged and pruny. (And, in my case, emotionally damaged.)

I used to like rain. I used to love putting on my rain boots and walking outside in the fresh, sweet-smelling after-rain air. I used to find it cleansing, soothing. I used to revel in the sound of rain falling on the roof as I drifted off to sleep. But now, after being stranded in a figurative wind tunnel while being pelted with the stuff for the longest hour of my life, I don't know if I will feel that way anymore. At least, not until after undergoing extensive therapy (and relearning that rainstorms do not = clowns). 

THAT ONE TIME WE ADOPTED MICE AND I WASN'T A FAN

About a year ago, as the trees were changing and I was cozying up into my favorite season of the year, we had our first, and hopefully last experience with mice. Now, this wasn’t the first time I had come in close contact with Mickey Mouse’s furrier and decidedly less-talkative cousins. From what I can remember, I’m pretty sure a mouse or two wound up in my family’s home while I was growing up, but this was back when animals were harmless and cute and not harbingers of death and disease (and before this). 

And up until this point last year, I still believed that I was tough—I could handle pain, unpleasant injuries, taking care of a Benadryl-drunk husband two months into our marriage when he was covered in hives and telling me he was going to die, and I even fancied myself to be the type of person who could kill and skin (de-feather?) a chicken should my family ever be destitute on a prairie with dwindling supplies of sustenance. But, because of this experience, I now know that really, I am just a gigantic chicken loser myself.

It began one evening, when my husband looked over at me as we were driving to the grocery store with a somber expression on his face. "I have something to tell you" he started, and immediately my mind went in twelve different directions, anticipating the entire spectrum of serious things he could possibly be announcing with such a statement, anything from "I want to buy a goldfish" to "I don't love you anymore and I'm going to have a child with a waitress named Crystal." But, even with my mind's preparation, I still did not manage to fathom the horror of what was coming next.

*blank stare* "What is it?"

"Now Cam, I haven't said anything about this all day because I didn't want to freak you out—"

*freaking out*

"But earlier today at home I saw something out of the corner of my eye and when I looked over, there was a mouse in the kitchen."

*blank stare as the news sunk in, then*

"YOU LET ME HANG AROUND WITH A MOUSE ALL AFTERNOON UNKNOWINGLY DO YOU EVEN CARE ABOUT ME I COULD HAVE BEEN SITTING IN FECES ALL DAY AND I HAD NO IDEA HOW COULD YOU"

But afterwards I was like, yeah, he made a good choice in not telling me. 

At the grocery store, we stood pensively in front of the death section, contemplating what type of end our mouse should meet. After much deliberation—regarding the most humane way to go about it but really caring more about what was cheaper—we decided on the traditional traps ($1.99) that, supposedly, do the job instantly instead of the terrifying sticky pad things ($5.99) that make the mouse sit and suffer and think about all the injustice and pain it's suffered in its life until it dies. 

We believed they were crawling up into the kitchen through this grate beneath the stove (which is probably one of the grossest sentences ever and I apologize), so we decided to put the trap in the inch and a half space between the stove and the counter top. After my husband spread peanut butter on a trap, I watched as he tried approximately fifteen times to set it without subsequently springing the trap. (I did not laugh.) But, eventually, he got it and we went to bed hoping that there weren't also mice in the mattress. Or in our pillow cases. Or watching us from the crack in the ceiling. 

I also thought about the prospect of me transferring raw meat from the counter to a hot frying pan in the future, and worrying about whether my unknowingly dropping a tiny piece of meat down into that little space one day would result in the mice developing a taste for flesh. Anyways. 

The first one up in the morning for work, I found myself running quickly past the kitchen as I left the house and not wanting to look at the trap. I had a feeling our peanut butter death trap (also another name for Reese's Puffs) had been successful, and I was not ready to see the carnage we had enacted, or the furry thing that was sharing our house with us. But, fortunately, I still got to see it because I got a text a half hour later including a picture of a tiny dead mouse clamped on the neck on our kitchen floor. I guess my husband thought I wouldn't believe a simple "Hey, we caught one!" or "That trap worked!" or "I realize you aren't really into looking at dead things and I respect that so I won't show you a picture of the aftermath but you should know that we caught the mouse. Also, I love you and you are the best" text. 

That night, we set another one just in case, and in the morning I ran in a similar fashion past the kitchen and at work I received a similar picture and reacted with similar disgust. But TWO. We had caught TWO. WAS OUR HOUSE NOT CLEAN? DID I LEAVE A BLOCK OF CHEESE UNDER THE OVEN? WERE WE HOUSING AN UNDERGROUND REFUGE FOR UNDERPRIVILEGED ORPHAN MICE?!

After disposing of the second mouse, my husband set a third trap before he left for school and I came home that evening really, really not wanting to be there. I put on the thickest socks I owned, ate from my stash of snacks I left up high in the living room so I wouldn't have to go in the kitchen, and sat in fetal position on the couch while doing my homework. After an hour or so of this, and probably reading the same page forty times, a piercing SNAP echoed into the room from the kitchen. 

And immediately I looked like this. 

Let me just say, you have not known fear until you've had a mouse in your house. And you definitely have not known fear until you've been sitting on your couch, just doing homework with Food Network on in the background (the most unthreatening and cozy channel, I might add), when a gigantic SNAP comes from the kitchen, and you know that there is either a smart mouse running around having bested your trap, or a wriggling, dying mouse attached to it.

I texted my mom and my husband at the same time, saying:

THERE WAS JUST A HUGE SNAP THAT CAME FROM THE KITCHEN AND I THINK IT WAS THE TRAP AND I AM SCARED

To which both of them replied, Go look at it!!

And what followed both of them saying that were back and forth conversations that looked like this:

DO IT

I DONT WANT TO

COME ON JUST DO IT

I CANT. WHAT IF IT'S STILL ALIVE?!

JUST GO LOOK

NO

IT CAN'T HURT YOU

HOW CAN YOU BE SURE

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

I DONT FEEL SAFE IN MY OWN HOUSE I HATE EVERYTHING

Needless to say, they were not proud of me that day. And I wasn't proud of myself. But luckily, for all of us, that was the last mouse that dared to venture into our house—that we know of—because we left a trap in that spot for the rest of the time we lived there and it was never touched again. So I suppose the moral of this story, if there is one, is that you don't know yourself until you've properly experienced a mice invasion in your home. And when it happens, you may not like what you find.

I found out that I'm a loser in more ways than I thought. But...at least I'm well rounded. 

And that, my friends, is what me being positive looks like. And the left panel of this drawing is what me thinking looks like. 

THE DRESSER

When we first got married, I was really into the whole "we're newly married college students so we shouldn't think we're entitled and buy a bunch of nice things because we're supposed to be poor and destitute right now" thing so I bought some cardboard boxes and built a multi-level storage cubby contraption with duct tape in lieu of buying a dresser. It was like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, only no one wanted to take pictures with it or keep it around for posterity. And by no one, I mean my husband. 

I thought it worked just fine--recall my crusade of imposed destitution--but a week of its presence in the corner of the room prompted him to begin looking at online classifieds for something that more closely resembled a dresser and less like something you'd find under a bridge. And before long he found one. But in his desperation to replace my gimpy shelves, he settled for what came to be known as one of the worst purchases we've ever made--right behind that time we said "Hey, let's eat at Chuckarama!" and that other time we bought a bunch of plants because they were only two dollars each and they all died within a week. 

Sorry plants. 

Yes, it could hold our clothes, but the woman we bought it from had sloppily painted it red, white, and blue, and the bottom drawer was missing its runners. Yet in his desperation to replace the cardboard godzilla terrorizing our room, he couldn't see past the dresser's obvious problems and horrible paint job and found himself sticking a wad of cash into that woman's hand and taking it home with him. Within a couple months, we realized our mistake when the bottom drawer fell completely apart, and for nearly two years I would walk into our room, look at it, and say things like "Maybe if I got some paint I could make this look less gross," or "Maybe we could try reattaching the bottom drawer for the tenth time and see if that works," or "This is the worst corner in our house and I hate it." And recently, we threw that dresser off our front porch and watched it explode. 

And we decided we would be more careful in selecting a new dresser this time around. 

At first, we thought just buying a cheap, build-it-yourself contraption on Amazon would be our best bet. Anything actually made of wood usually costs hundreds of dollars because apparently there are no trees anymore and I have a hard time spending $20 on pretty much anything--even if it was a possible antidote to an illness that was rapidly sucking my life away--so that wasn't happening. But I kept looking at classifieds online because maybe, just maybe through all of the gross things people try to sell I'd find something nice and not made out of particle board for less than one of those flimsy things would cost. But, we decided we wouldn't rush into things. We wouldn't buy something horrendous again out of necessity. We would just have to live with piles of clothes on the ground until something the right color, right size, and right price popped up. Or until we turned into primitive, bloodthirsty beasts due to the disorganization of our home. It can happen. 

But luckily, while checking the classifieds last Saturday on a whim, I saw an ad titled "1940s antique wood dresser" accompanied by a photo of a gorgeous, dark, refinished dresser that had tiny little wheels on the bottom of its legs. Tiny wheels. It not only was way cheaper than buying a nasty particle board dresser, it stole my heart. Did I mention it had tiny wheels? There was no denying this love, and so, preparing to make the journey 30 miles away to bring this beauty home, I measured the backseat of our car, assumed it would fit, and off we drove.

When we pulled up to the seller's house, a tiny Filipino woman walked out the door to show us the dresser sitting in front of her garage and take our money. She was very sweet and very proud of this dresser that had been in her family for so many decades and been taken care of well. We assured her we'd do the same. After we gave her the cash and she asked if my eyebrows were real, she thanked us and went back into the house as we picked it up to slip it into the backseat.

Only, it wouldn't fit. 

For the next twenty minutes, we tried every way we could think of to get it into the backseat. We took out the drawers. Went legs first. Tried pushing it through the passenger side. At some point the woman came back out with her equally adorable granddaughter and watched as we struggled to figure out how exactly we were going to get this thing down to our apartment. 

"You see her eyebrows? Aren't they beautiful? They're REAL," she said to her granddaughter as I smiled awkwardly while trying to shove this woman's priceless dresser into the back of our car and growing worried at the appearance of my husband's angry sweat (which happens any time he is exerting himself physically and whatever he is trying to do isn't working).

The woman then took charge of the situation and told us to try it a certain way she thought would work, and within two seconds of trying to squeeze it in, she gave up and said "It's not going to fit. You'll have to put it in your trunk." We looked at each other, knowing it wouldn't fit in there either and said "Okay! Thank you!," eager to drive away in shame. Hoisting it up into the trunk, it was snug, but still stuck two feet out. And with that, I navigated us to the nearest Wal-Mart as my husband drove like an old woman for the first and what I believe will be the last time in his life.

For a reason I don't understand, he parked us way out in the boonies of the parking lot that are normally reserved for RVs and cars that stopped working two years ago. In this particular parking lot, this area was home to a huge truck covered in mud that may or may not have had a confederate flag on the back of it. It was that kind of truck. Oh, and our car. We were there too.

Leaving to go inside the store to find bungee cords to strap the dresser in, he told me to stay there to keep an eye on the dresser and maybe "try to find a way to put it in the back seat again." Pssh. LIKE THAT WAS HAPPENING. But for some reason, after he left, I got out and tried to put the dresser in the back again. I did this mostly because I thought being outside was the best way to make sure no one came to steal the dresser (which in my mind is a very plausible thing to have happen, especially at Wal-Mart). After putting it back in the trunk and getting back into the car, I started trying to find a way we could get home without going on the freeway. Going 80 mph with this thing in the back of the car just didn't seem like the best idea. Luckily, I found a very convoluted, out-of-the-way route right before MY PHONE DIED. 

Immediately my thoughts were SOMEONE IS GOING TO COME STEAL THE DRESSER AND TAKE ME WITH IT OR KILL ME AND NO ONE IS GOING TO KNOW AND I DON'T WANT IT ALL TO END AT WALMART.

Sitting in terror for what felt like a half hour and could have been (BECAUSE HOW WAS I TO KNOW BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE THE TIME) I looked toward the front of the store and finally saw him walking out of the establishment with a plastic bag and my reaction was not unlike that of little children when their dads come home from the army and surprise them at school, or Dory's parents in Finding Dory when they...find Dory.

As soon as he got in the car, though, we realized that the bungee cords were bound into the packaging with other thick plastic cords, because this apparently makes sense to those who manufacture the cords that stupid young people need in dire furniture moving situations. Looking around for something he could use, my husband impulsively grabbed his house key and started sawing back and forth on the plastic binding, and in his vigorous desperation CUT HIS HAND OPEN. AND THERE WAS BLOOD. Switching simultaneously into survival mode and pretend-mother-of-six mode, I instinctively opened the glove box and shoved all of the napkins I hoard from bags of fast food (precisely for moments like this, even when my husband makes fun of me for it) into his hands while he successfully finished cutting the bungee cords free. (If you ever have a nosebleed or uncontrollable projectile vomit or any other type of mess that could use napkins, let me know. I have a lot of napkins.)

Getting out of the car and lovingly strapping our dresser in with the bungee cords, my husband got back into the car with his bloody hand, looked at me like he was Indiana Jones about to risk his life to get the Holy Grail through all kinds of danger, and said "Did you find a route home?" 

Why yes. Yes I did, Indy. 

Luckily I have a slightly photographic memory--I would compare it to a disposable camera that wound up in the laundry a couple times--so I was able to remember the weird side-roads we needed to take to get home without using much of my husband's phone that was also near death and using the majority of the rest of its battery life to write its will. 

And we got home. 

And we didn't die. 

And the dresser wasn't ruined. (We could care less about our car.)

But no, the story isn't over yet. 

Later that night, when the dresser was in our house and we were folding the clothes that had been thrown under the bed and putting them into the dresser, my husband suddenly got very quiet. 

And then the words "Camryn, there's a spider behind you," were said in a measured manner, words that to me are equivalent to "The house is burning down!" "The ship is sinking!" and "A giant fireball is hurtling through space and will strike the earth in 30 seconds!", and I jumped up, turned around and saw one of the biggest spiders I've ever seen climbing on the bed skirt that was right behind me when I was sitting. 

And with that, I had had enough. And I ran away and hid on the counter in the kitchen while the spider went the way of my phone, yet never to be recharged again. 

Oh, and we love the dresser. It's been great. 

I'M MARRIED TO CAPTAIN AHAB

After our month without an oven at the beginning of the year (you don't realize how much you use them until they stop working, so cherish your ovens), we thought we were going to get away without anything else going wrong with our apartment. Last year we experienced bees finding their way inside, melting in 90° heat desperately waiting for our landlord to put in swamp coolers, a few mice getting cozy in our kitchen, waiting months and months to get our janky door replaced, and mold growing in certain parts of the house before our landlord replaced the windows which we previously could not open. But this year, beyond the month without an oven, we hadn't had any other problems.

Until two weeks ago, when Flymaggedon began.

It started subtly, with the occasional fly buzzing around our living room. But soon it grew to four or five a day. Now, this wouldn't have been strange if we had a big hole in the wall, but our windows were secure, the door was rarely opened, and we didn't know how they were getting in here. Until the day my husband went down to the basement to do laundry, and saw a storm cloud of flies whirling around like a gross tornado of death. And, upon opening the washer door, found dozens of dead flies inside. It was then, staring at this disgusting scene with flies buzzing around his head, that something within him snapped. And he swore on the grave of our sullied washer that he would destroy every last fly that found its way up into our apartment from that point onward with a rage I had never seen in him before. This was a broken man. A man who had seen the depths of hell and would never be the same. A man forever changed by a single moment of horror. A man who had a bunch of flies in his house. Wielding his trusty flip flop like the grim reaper's scythe, he avenged our little abode with a fury unmatched by man. He became Captain Ahab, only there were hundreds of white whales tormenting him and he wasn't in a boat.

When we'd come home from running an errand, he would immediately grab his flip flop and search the house for flies, slapping them down in mid-air. When we awoke to buzzing around our heads, he would reach over to where he'd stored his weapon the night before and hunt them down while I hid under the covers. Sometimes I would be in the other room, with relative silence in the house when I'd hear the loud SLAP! of another demon fly meeting its end. He even developed a sixth sense, coming home from work, stopping in the doorway and whispering, "There's a fly in the back room," before running off to destroy it with the bottom of his right flip flop. Over time, the flip flop started to show evidence of the carnage my husband was wreaking. The amount of casualties grew each day. He became a man possessed, drawn into action by the sound of a distant lawn mower emitting a noise that sounded like the soft buzzing of a faraway fly. When we finally invested in a bottle of Raid that he sprayed generously around the basement, he thought he had won. The flies littered the ground like some sort of nightmarish confetti, and the intrusions stopped. For a while. But the mob returned, stronger than ever, and the war waged on. 

And, well, it's not over. I don't even know why I chose to write this in the past tense because THIS IS STILL HAPPENING. IT IS RIDICULOUS. But at least it gave me a reason to draw a picture of my Captain Ahab in a victorious pose that may or may not be made into a statue and put in front of our house when this war is finally over. In the meantime, I will let you know if we need recruits. (Or if we die.) 

He has permanent crazy eyes. 

SUBTOTALS: COLLEGE EDITION

Last week I donned a strange, brain-sucking hat made of cardboard, a long, flowing robe, and was hastily photographed in front of a green screen by strange people before having my name read into a microphone and walking 20 feet across a stage to have a diploma placed in my arms. And with that, I graduated. 

In the midst of all of this pomp and circumstance and eating out a million times with family and having confusing homework withdrawals during the haze of these last few days, I’ve started thinking about numbers. When using numbers as a means of measurement, everything is concise, everything is quantifiable, everything can be understood. College is all about numbers. Numbers are used to determine what grades you get, what GPA you have, how well you do on a test, how many credits you need to graduate, how many classes you need to take to graduate, and basically tell you how successful you are in your efforts. They’ve told me a lot of things over the past few years. They’ve given me honors, they’ve helped me keep my scholarship, and they’ve told me again and again, that, according to the school system we use to determine intellectual ability, I have done rather well, and, apparently, am pretty brainy. But, despite all of that, and all of the meaning we place on numbers in college, I don’t feel all that amazing. I don’t feel like I've finished my learning, or really accomplished anything particularly spectacular. The numbers say I have, but I'm still not sure how I feel about that. It's a strange feeling. 

But what I do know is that there are a lot of other things that have factored into my college experience and as I look back on all of them, ridiculous and meaningful, I thought I'd share some. And do so by attaching numbers to them in the same form as a similar post I wrote nearly three years ago. Because I can. So here they are.

Number of times slipped on campus in icy conditions: 0. Number of buildings on campus I had class in: 9. Number of Majors declared: 2. Number of programs I applied to: 1. Number of programs I got into: 0. Number of boxes of White Cheddar Broccoli Pasta Roni I consumed: 43. Number of Egg McMuffins I made and also consumed: 148. Number of people I married: 1. Number of part time jobs: 2. Number of papers written: 72. Number of all-nighters: 0. Number of nights nearly without sleep: 13. Number of times I went to the gym: 2. Number of apartments lived in: 7. Number of apartments on the first floor of a complex: 3. Total number of roommates: 26. Number of classes taken: 44. Number of classes I genuinely enjoyed: 40. Number of horrendously awkward dates: 8. Number of horrendously or even moderately awkward dates with my now husband: 0. Number of fire drills that got me out of class/work early: 2. Number of nights I walked home in the dark feeling paranoid: 132. Number of phone calls made to my mom in times of distress: 1,031. Number of inspiring moments in class: 346. Number of laptops I used: 1. Numbers of laptops I used that I affectionately named Felix: 1. Number of times I saw my parents in person during these four years: 11. Number of TV shows or movies my roommates watched that drove me insane: 17. Number of sisters-in-law I got: 1. Number of brothers-in-law: 3. Number of road trips taken: 5. Number of miles driven on those road trips: 7,832. Number of pets: 0. Number of notebooks used: 37. Number of pens used: 45. Number of pairs of boots I wore holes into: 4. Number of pizzas consumed: 59. Number of papers published: 1. Number of times I did things I didn't think I could do: 36. 

THE MAN WITH THE LEAF BLOWER: A STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS EXPERIENCE

*Walking on campus on the way home*

*Sees maintenance worker at the end of the path walking towards me, holding a running leaf blower pointed at the edge of the sidewalk*

I bet using a leaf blower is fun. 

Less strenuous than raking, too. 

Why do they wait until Spring to clean up all the leaves? Wouldn't it make more sense to do that at the end of the fall? Why do we want these leaf corpses lying around all winter? There aren't any Christmas songs about leaves. They're just messy. They clutter things. Why let them sit around for months? 

And it's sad for them to have to look up at the little Spring leaf buds on the trees they were once attached to and realize that yep, they're still dead. Poor leaves. 

*Maintenance guy gets closer, notices I'm walking towards him*

*The leaf blower is still running*

Oh geez.

I'm wearing a skirt. A billowy skirt. And he is Aeolus, holding the wind.

I hope he's not a creep. 

What if he did that?? I can't even imagine what I would do in that situation. But really! Would I yell? Hit him? Run away in shame? Write a strongly-worded email to someone in a position of power? 

*physically tenses up in preparation for the worst*

*Maintenance guy points it toward the ground in an awkward, I-know-what-you're-thinking-and-I-am-making-it-abundantly-clear-that-I-am-not-even-thinking-about-that gesture*

I AM SAVED.