Lorca Damon's Blog, page 7

So There I Was at Hooters…

Aw, look! It’s the new hire training.

I know exactly what you’re thinking. You’re already envisioning the intellectual carnage that took place when the Lorcanator found herself in a restaurant surrounded by flame-orange T&A. Ha! That’s where you’re wrong! I had no mishaps, tit or otherwise. In fact, it was just a pleasant lunch. I had the crab legs.

I have never understood the issue society has with Hooters. Sure, it’s a little on the sexy side, but the waitresses are wearing far more than most people wear to the beach, and thanks to their regulation burn-proof pantyhose, they’ve actually got less exposed skin than the old lady who waited on me the last time I was in an Applebee’s.

“But Lorca? Aren’t you outraged at the objectification and exploitation of women that goes on in an environment like that?”

NOPE. If you don’t wanna work there, go to beauty school and dye hair for a living.

Seriously, people act like there are roving bands of HooterRecruiters that snatch beautiful, chesty women off the streets, women who were actually on their way to their graduation ceremonies where they would have received diplomas in particle physics, only to be abducted, then have an owl tank top slapped on their chests and plates of hot wings thrust into their hands with orders to take them to table twelve.

You know who REALLY HATES HOOTERS? Ugly people who have no imagination. I happen to be ugly, but I have an unfathomably incredible imagination, so waitresses making a lot of money by leaning too close to dumb asses and accidentally bumping them in the shoulders with their D-cups while pointing out the twelve varieties of wing flavors doesn’t bother me in the least. In fact, if I looked half as good as those waitresses do in that floss-sized uniform, hell, I wouldn’t just work at Hooters, I’d wear that shit to Walmart and PTO meetings.

Now, truth be told, there were some incidents at various franchise locations in which the waitresses were sexually harassed and in some cases, even assaulted. Honey, if you can’t figure out that the kitchen of that restaurant contains a sharp knife for removing the penis and a deep-fryer to toss it in, well, maybe particle physics is more your speed.

Lazy Post: Who Needs Harvard Anyway?

The point of a lazy post is I woke up remembering that I have a blog, but I also woke up remembering that three out of the four weekdays I’ve participated in this week have sucked monkey ass. Hence, a lazy post.

I’m pretty sure I taught this student. In fact, there’s a slim chance I gave birth to this student. It only served to remind me, “Who the hell needs Harvard? I couldn’t have afforded it, even if you had been smart enough to get in.”

The Periodic Table Has Nothing to Do with Changing Your Tampon

Since I can actually behave like a sober adult sometimes, I recently took a freelance job writing a textbook about the periodic table. I studied one hundred elements in great detail, including where they were discovered, how they were discovered, who discovered them, and who died in the process of discovery due to the then-unknown properties of radioactivity (spoiler alert: it was Marie Curie). Unfortunately, in the now-quite-likely-event that the government will hack into my computer to see if I’m a terrorist or not, I’m probably goin’ down for all of the Wikipedia searches on plutonium and hydrogen bombs.

About two-thirds of the way through the project, my husband started to act really weird and distant. I really didn’t put the two things together because, other than the obvious handful of people, who would get weirded out by the periodic table? Only, he did. And I couldn’t figure out why since (duh) it couldn’t have anything to do with the freakin’ periodic table.

When we finally had a nice heart-to-heart conversation about it (I don’t remember it that well, it took lots of alcohol to endure a conversation about how the periodic table was messing up my marriage), he admitted that he thought something fishy was going on when he saw that there was a file in the middle of my laptop screen called “Periodic Table.”

I will spare you the lengthy conversation, but the highlights reel looked a lot like this:

HIM: So, there’s this thing on your computer that says Periodic Table.

ME: Yup.

HIM: When were you gonna tell me about it?

ME: Never (sip).

HIM: You didn’t think that was something I needed to know about?

ME: Well, of course I thought you needed to know about it, but I assumed your seventh grade science teacher would have covered it. That makes it no longer my responsibility.

HIM: We didn’t talk about stuff like that in my school. I went to a very godly school.

ME: (sip) So if you didn’t talk about the Periodic Table in science class, what exactly did you cover in the class? (sip)

HIM: Well, we covered stuff like that in school, but they had to send home a note and then your parents had to agree to let you take the class.

ME: (siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip) Honey…

HIM: What?

ME: (sip) Do you know what the Periodic Table is?

HIM: Of course! I’m not an idiot!

ME: Let’s just pretend for a second that I don’t know what it is. Can you tell me about it?

HIM: It’s where you keep track of when you have your period, duh.

ME: Oh god (sip).

HIM: And the only reason you’d be keeping track of it on your computer is if you were trying to get pregnant!

ME: (siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip) See this glass right here? I can’t make it through most of the scientific explanations I have with you without one of these, and I can’t do that if I’m pregnant. Of course, if I somehow got pregnant at my age and had to start all over with diapers and breastfeeding and car seats, I wouldn’t be speaking to you anyway.

After a detailed discussion of what exactly I was doing with my very own periodic table (diagrams were involved), my husband breathed a wonderful sigh of relief and happily went back to playing with his toys. I drafted a quick letter to his alma mater’s school board for their epic science class fail.

This Is OnStar. You’re Gonna Die.

Isn’t it weird just how often I have to start a blog post by SWEARING that I really do love my husband? Luckily, loving my husband and messing with his brain to the point that he’s afraid to go to sleep around me are not mutually exclusive.

I am very, very proud of my husband. He got a new job with a massive-assed promotion, and now he has all these perks like super health insurance and golf vacations and a company car.

And a smart phone.

He’s never owned a smartphone. Whenever my smartphone rings, he walks over to me holding it out like it’s made of weapons-grade plutonium while announcing that it’s ringing (like we all couldn’t hear it ringing), just so I can swipe my finger across the screen and answer it. He hates my phone because it has a touch-screen keypad and he dials nine wrong numbers every time he tries to order a pizza.

Not only does he now have a smartphone, it’s linked through the Bluetooth in his new car. And he doesn’t know that.

Repeat: he doesn’t know that his phone is connected through the Bluetooth in his car.

And just because every once in a while he says or does something stupid that is worthy of punishment, I wait until he backs out of the driveway and I call his smartphone, knowing that it will activate the Bluetooth.

And I pretend to be the lady from OnStar, telling him that his brakes aren’t working.

Yes, I use my best soothing computer voice (like Hal from 2001) and I say, “Good morning, Mr. Damon. This is OnStar. Please move the vehicle to the right-hand side of the road.”

“What?” he yells (because you should yell at a computer when you don’t know what it’s doing).

“This is OnStar. Vehicle malfunction detected. Please move your vehicle to the right-hand side of the road.”

“My car’s working just fine!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Damon, but a vehicle malfunction has been detected. Initiating troubleshooting…buffering…buffering…brake system misalignment, fluids are low.”

“What?! No, look! I have brakes! See?”

(This is where he starts pumping the brakes over and over, confusing the hell out of the people behind him. I know this because every once in a while one of my girlfriends picks me up and we follow him, just for laughs.)

“”It is imperative that you stop applying the brakes, Mr. Damon. Brake system shutdown commencing.”

“WHAT?! No! Don’t shut off the brakes!”

“Please move to the right-hand side of the road and wait for assistance.”

“I’m not waiting for a tow truck! I have to get to work! The car drives just fine!”

“Please cease vehicle operation, or OnStar will assume control of your vehicle.”

“Holy hell! You can’t drive my car! I’M driving my car!”

“Brake system default setting requires reactivation. Please enter the key code.”

“What key code?”

“Enter the 22-digit key code, or the vehicle will come to a complete stop.”

“I can’t come to a complete stop, I’m on the interstate!”

“Enter the 22-digit key code, or the vehicle will come to a complete stop.”

“Don’t you DARE stop this car! I’m doing eighty in four-lane traffic!”

“Your current speed exceeds the maximum allowable speed limit for your zone. Please move the vehicle to the right-hand side of the road and wait for the police.”

“I swear, if I get a ticket I’m coming after you!”

Every time we have a power outage during the night, I pull this same prank, only I pretend that the system got reset with a UK default. I use a British voice, and keep insisting that he move to the left-hand side of the road and pop the lid on the “bonnet.” Luckily, there is an entire global economy of voices to try. I’m actually holding auditions for people with really hard-to-understand accents for next week’s prank.

Whip Me, Beat Me, Get Me Drunk and Milk Me Like a Goat

I’m in trouble with God’s people again.

You might recall that I was politely asked to step down as a Sunday school teacher because my writing is offensive, and truthfully, “we can’t let you wrangle 22 first graders on Sundays anymore” were the most glorious words ever spoken, in a church or otherwise. I thought the storm might have died down somewhat, but no. I received a very confusing and one-sided voicemail concerning my contribution to the last church fellowship dinner.

I swear to you, it was just a cheese wedge and some really frou-frou crackers. No, the cheese wasn’t molded into a penis shape and the crackers weren’t spelling out cuss words, but if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time I can see how you might think that. It was just a plain, ordinary plate of Triscuits and cheese. It happened to be Drunken Goat cheese, which I thought was a great thing to bring considering it’s imported all the way from Tennessee and costs as much per pound as an actual goat.

See, I know what you’re already thinking. You’re already slapping your forehead and screaming at your computer monitor, “Why, Lorca?! Why would you bring a food item with the word ‘drunken’ in the name of it TO YOUR CHURCH?!” Because that’s totally where my brain went when I got the voicemail, but  no, alcohol wasn’t even the issue.

According to the would-be gossiper, a sweet older lady in our congregation wasn’t aware that goats could be milked. She must have missed every single day of biology class, because milk is kind of one of the precursors to being considered a mammal. She also must have missed health class where they talked about how much alcohol gets expressed in breast milk (human breast milk…I never took goat health) AND she missed driver’s ed where they talked about how long alcohol stays in the body.

If this voicemail is any indication, the poor kindly woman is somehow under the impression from the name of my cheese that you can’t milk a goat and make this cheese unless you get the goat drunk first. And that the whole process is kinda sexual and gets posted on YouTube by a leering bystander with a cellphone.

Yup. Unless the goat is drunk. There’s no goat milk for the goat cheese unless the goat is actually drunk.

And this is my fault?

Keep reading, I will stop finding this hilarious in a second. I promise.

Farmers all across the country are liquoring up their goats before pulling on their little goat teats, all so I can ruin a great church dinner. With my sin cheese. Drunken animal sin cheese. And I’m here to tell you THAT THE GOAT WAS TOTALLY INTO THAT KIND OF THING. She was practically begging for it.

Nope, still hilarious, still can’t type.

Okay, I’m better now. Basically, the lesson I’ve learned here is that no matter what I do, someone’s gonna bitch about it. It might be writing smutty pseudo-porn, or it might be slipping a mickey finn to a barnyard animal with the express purpose of molesting it for my dinner. Either way, I’m doing my utmost to bring down the sanctity of religion, just by showing up.

I Wrote a Smutty Book and My Mother Decided to Read It.

We all have had those sad jobs we did back in college to pay the bills. Mine was working as a lifeguard (long after I was so old that it wasn’t cool anymore, and it was actually just kind of sad and desperate-looking). And working in a Baskin-Robbins. And delivering magazines to gas stations for eleven hours a day. The humiliating, degrading, minimum-wage list goes on.

It wasn’t really for the money that I decided to write a trashy, beyond-smutty romance novel. It was more for the…oh hell, I don’t know. The experiment? The need to rebel? The fact that romance outsells every other genre by a huge margin? Wait, that would make it be for the money. Hmm.

Anyway, I did. I wrote a completely nasty, clothes-flying-off, chocolate-sauce-going-everywhere, people-tied-to-kitchen-tables kind of book. And it was well-received by everyone who read it and I wasn’t the least bit ashamed of myself.

And then my mom read it.

I think I’m supposed to say something profound about how it’s a new day, we can read and write whatever we want, the publishing revolution lets authors explore outside the confines of their genres…etc. No, instead, I feel like I opened a porn studio and hired my mom to swab the actors with Vaseline every time they start to chafe. She’ll be in good company, since I also now feel like I hired my second grade nun to hand them cups of water between takes.

Only, I think the joke is really on her because if her very short, very shocked email to me says what I think it says, it turns out that my mom buys these trashy books and reads them, only the rest of us think she’s reading high-brow literature and World War I-era biographies of lesser known generals. Her email kind of sounded like she didn’t realize that I was the same person as this romance author. Well played, Mom.

It All Started with a Banana

Ages ago, the best product reviews EVER made their way around the internet. If you ever have some friends over for a little heavy drinking, sit around the old laptop and read these Amazon reviews out loud for a device called the Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer. The upgrades the company made over the 471 model are outstanding, and the reviewers have spoken.

Seriously. This little plastic device that you smash over a banana to make circular slices has almost 5,000 reviews. You must read them all. Click right HERE and the internet will take you there.

And in the spirit of the Hutzler 571 review fun, the public has once again taken to the internet to tell us exactly what is awesome about a pair of running shoes. Pinks ones, to be exact, pink ones that were worn by a certain state senator from Texas during her astounding eleven hours of blocking a really mean vote. This time, don’t be drunk when you read the reviews. You’ll wanna be sober for these bad boys.

Some of my favorites include:

“Marathon shoe for marathon filibustering

The next time you have to spend 13 hours on your feet without food, water or bathroom breaks, this is the shoe for you. Guaranteed to outrun patriarchy on race day.”

“Men, do not try these on!

I tried on a pair at the local mall and suddenly Texas Republicans started telling me what to do with my genitals. They started explaining reproduction to me like I was a seventh grader. Unfortunately, being male, I had no way to shut the whole thing down. I’m so confused…”

“These shoes (and a woman’s body) have a way of shutting the whole thing down

An essential tool for running down the clock in a state 773 miles wide and 790 miles long! These shoes are perfect for those days when you must spend 13+ hours standing, not lean on your desk or take any breaks – even for meals or to use the bathroom. The snazzy hot pink color brings out your inner badassness and helps you to “humbly give voice to thousands of Texans” and stop a “raw abuse of power” in its tracks. Raise a feminist army and lead the charge when your competitors cheat and change the rules on you. These Mizuno’s are built to protect your feet from mudslinging and add sunshine to the political process. Highly recommended for fierce women and anyone who’s not a Greedy Old Prick (GOP).”

Have a nice weekend, y’all…

Johny Depp Is Trying to Kill Me. And So Is a Herd of Sheep.

I’ve been on a mini-staycation with the kids, which means that they’re out of school and I quit doing anything productive in order to hang out with them. And that was my first mistake. I gave them too much love and attention, and now they think they can talk to me whenever they want to.

Before you judge me for that Mom of the Year Reject statement, please envision the scenario that happened last week in which I bent down to pull up my pants in the bathroom and slammed the back of my skull into my daughter’s chin. Yes, she had decided to come talk to me, despite the fact that I was using the bathroom at the time. That’s how I got to stand there for about five minutes holding a cold washcloth on the blood while my pants remained at my feet. Good thing we were in the bathroom already where the washcloths are, huh?

Now that my kids have 24-hour-a-day access to all things Mom, I’ve noticed a running theme with both of my children. They both appear to be addicts who get really hyper and strung out-acting when they don’t get their fix. But because this is the Lorca household, they can’t be addicted to normal childhood summer type things like TV and popsicles. No, my children, ages thirteen and ten, are addicted to Johnny Depp and sheep. Respectively.

Without ever admitting it because it would just be weird, my daughter seems to have developed a crush on Johnny Depp. And, seriously, what human alive, man or woman, DOESN’T have a crush on Johnny Depp? I mean, he’s awesome. I can’t name three bad films he’s done, and that’s including the 21 Jump Street years. And like a good mommy, I dug my own grave by buying my daughter a couple of Johnny Depp biographies for her birthday earlier this month. Now, she follows me through the house (and yes, even into the bathroom like her younger sister) to read me interesting facts about Mr. Depp. The first few were actually interesting and sparked good discussion, such as the fact that Johnny Depp actually was in the movie Platoon, but his scenes were cut because he apparently is a better actor than Charlie Sheen. The rest of the information? Not as interesting, especially when delivered while I’m working in my office, trying to sleep, or attempting to poop by myself.

Sheep. Where do I even begin? Our younger child has developed an unhealthy fascination with sheep. Not toy sheep, stuffed sheep, live sheep, or eating sheep…with BEING sheep. In case you can’t tell, that word is plural right now because not only has my daughter morphed into a sheep, she has declared me to be her “sheepy mommy” and we can only communicate with sheep noises, including our own ways of saying “I love you” by bleating at each other. Much like Johnny Depp, it was briefly cute and adorable and now I kind of want Johnny and the sheep trapped together on a desert island.

Sadly, I was stupid enough to share that remark out loud, and my older daughter reminded me that Johnny Depp played Captain Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie where he was, in fact, marooned on such an island. He managed to escape the island after his companion, Elizabeth Swan, played by Kiera Knightley, built a signal fire with the stash of rum that Johnny Depp had previously buried on the island that last time he was shipwrecked there.

The really upsetting thing is that I’m somehow the bad guy for rolling my eyes, pulling out my hair, and screaming, “I don’t care!” whenever Johnny Depp or sheep make an appearance, so like a good mother, I just nod my head and take another long drink of whatever I’ve managed to pour myself.

#CTWW Preschool May Not Have Prepared You For Life

I’m completely busy today, as in, “save the whole cave from a herd of angry mammoths”-busy, so for my change the world post today I’m completely ripping off this guy’s very poignant video about how we lie to children every day and tell them that the things that are great about being in preschool are preparing them for life. Remember that sweet poster about all the things you learned in kindergarten, and how awesomely they apply to the rest of your life? Not a chance. As this guy points out, NO ONE WILL EVER PRAISE YOU FOR POOPING once you graduate college. I mean, preschool. It’s time to stop the lies!

If you can make it all the way through his video without having your whole world view on the education system permanently scarred, I’ll hug a dinosaur.

In actual realistic news, we can also change the world by only listening to Jon Stewart’s take on the whole NSA-Whistleblower thing. Anyone other than Jon Stewart who wants to get on TV and talk about how some guy leaking the news that our government spies on people without a warrant is actually committing treason (eyeballing you on this one, Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly), also needs to hug a dinosaur. From underneath. While I praise it for pooping.

It Finally Happened. I Couldn’t Laugh At My Child.

I never thought this day would come, but it did. My twelve-year-old had to have emergency surgery, and I couldn’t mess with her.

I had great plans to get her home, tuck her into bed, then put weird things on her head while she was asleep and take pictures, pictures that I would then post on this blog. I even told her I was going to, naming awesome things like this weird crocheted Viking hat I was going to photograph her in. The more she cried and begged me not to, the more determined I became.

Then something horrible happened. Apparently, I either grew up, or I developed a conscience. Either way, it’s a very unsettling feeling and I’m not really sure what to do with it.

We got to her surgery appointment, and I had to hold my scared 12yrold in my lap while she cried quietly. That’s not an easy thing to do when the 12yrold is as tall as mine is, and when my lap is making a steady progress towards disappearing like mine is. But the best thing ever happened: during her quiet little tears of fear, I asked her what would make her feel better and she said, “Can you tweeze my eyebrows while I’m still under anesthesia?” I held her close and assured her that I would climb over the nurses to get to those eyebrows, if that’s what it took. (Sadly, I forgot all about it, but even that’s not my fault because she looked really, really bad when she came out and trust me, eyebrows were the last thing wrong with her face. She still has all of her eyebrows, in fact, because now that she’s recovered she won’t let me near them with anything pointy.)

So even though groggy pictures of my daughter with the dog perched on her head never happened (the dog happened, just not the pictures), I did manage to sneak a few pictures with my phone of my daughter’s attempts to communicate via dry erase board. It’s not even in English.