Recent Conversations

At a Cookie Swap:

• Fellow Cookie Swap Attendee #1: "I wanted to be a writer, so I could tell everybody what I think."
  
• Fellow Cookie Swap Attendee #2: "I love animals, I wanted to be a vet, and be like Dr. Doolittle." "Lana, what did you want to be?"
  
• Me: "I wanted to be a corporate attorney so I could make lots of money and buy shoes." "I have priorities."
  
• Fellow Cookie Swap Attendee #2: "Oh yeah, you should be a lawyer, you love to argue."
  
• Me: "No I don’t!"
  
• (Group giggle over me arguing I do not like to argue.)
  
• Fellow Cookie Swap Attendee #2: "You don’t like confrontation, you are great at arguing. You should be a lawyer so you can help people."
  
• Me: "I get to help people being {profession deleted) and what is really great is they pay me and thank me for telling them how fucking stupid they are, I’m in the right career."

I love Cookie Swap Attendee #2, she is a really neat lady, and very shrewd.

Conversations with mooching nephew who stayed with me for a few weeks, he is 22, but is mildly retarded and schizophrenic, don’t drink when you are pregnant kids!

I Raking leaves on the front lawn:

• Nephew: "Why do we have to rake the leaves? Who cares?"
  
• Me: "I care, I want the yard to look nice. Don’t you like to help your poor decrepit old auntie?"
  
• Nephew: "If you were not such an old hag, you would have a husband here to help you."
  
• Me: "Your mother owes me big time."

II: After shopping for crap ungrateful moocher wanted at K-mart:

• Me: "Where the hell is my car? I can never find my car since some loser stole my alien antenna thingy."
  
• Nephew: "Here it is. Ooops, nope, not your car, too nice."
  
• Me; "Hey Punky Brewster it is a long walk to {new house 1,000 miles away} don’t push your luck.
  

III In my living room after nephew was here a couple weeks, and his sister, with whom he mixes like oil and water, was also staying with me after flying back here to visit her boyfriend at his request. But she did not spend any time with him, and with no place to stay asked my nephew to ask me if she could stay with me after wearing out her welcome with her grandparents and best friend. I said sure, thinking it would be a few hours until she flew home, and this was going into her third day with me. I love these damn kids. Making long distance calls, eating me out of house and home, waking me up at all hours of the day and night. Laying on my couch in their underwear and/or grubby shoes when they take time to break away from annoying the shit out of me, literally, while I am in the bathroom. The upstairs of my house is not heated, so I had the kids sleeping in the living room on mattresses:

• Nephew: "I pushed the couch up against the door so Mon Petit Amour and The Girly Kitty cannot get on my stuff. I am going to cut through your bedroom to get in the living room."
  
• Me: "Oh no you are not. You may not go in my bedroom unless I invite you."
  
• Nephew: "Fuck you, you have too many fucking rules! I am leaving and going someplace else where I can watch what I want on a TV that is just for me, and lay on the couch, and not have to have pants on, and I do not have your fucking rules. Fuck you with no phone calls before 8 o’clock in the morning, and no phone calls after 8 o’clock at night, and telling me to stop yelling at people when I am talking on the phone. You have too many fucking rules. How come I can’t come in the bathroom and take a shit when you are in the shower? Why the fuck am I supposed to wait until you rinse the soap out of your hair? When the hell are you going to finish fixing the house so you have more bathrooms? I am not coming here anymore, you have too many rules. Telling me I cannot have any more ice cream, and telling me I have to watch your stupid fucking show, or go in your office if I want to watch something else. How come I have to stop lying on the couch so you can sit on it and watch your stupid fucking shows? That Matthew Perry guy is a loser. Why do you like him? And I am not here to baby-sit your fucking cats. How come you do not punish them for walking on my stuff? They walk all over my clothes. And they mess up my blanket. How come they do not have any of your stupid rules? I am leaving and going some place where I can do whatever I want. Fuck your rules."
  
• Me: "I promised your Mommy I would take care of you and keep you safe until we are able to fly out with you to bring you to her at your new house. So, make sure you tell me where you are going so I can let her know you are safe. Want me to help you pack?"
  

It is not fun to fuck with me and my rules ladies and gentlemen.

Conversation with next door neighbor about the house across the street that just was sold.

• Me: "I didn’t want to be nosy, since I know how it felt to have the whole neighborhood minding my business when the shit hit the fan in my life, but I keep thinking something terrible happened. Do you know what happened to Mrs. Nice Little Old Lady Who Has Lived There Since I Can Remember? The For Sale sign just appeared one day out of the blue.
  
• Neighbor: "Yes, Nice Neighbor Who Helps Everybody With All kinds of Crap told me she got very sick, and her daughter had to put her in and assisted living facility. They needed to sell the house."
  
• Me: "Jesus that is awful. She was always so sweet and kind. I hope she will be ok. I know how hard this must be for her family."
  
• Neighbor: "Well, you know it is more likely something like this will happen to all of us than not. It is just how things work out."
  
• Me: "Do you know anything about the new people who bought the house?"
  
• Neighbor: "Yup!" (wicked smirk)
  
• Me: "What?!"
  
• Neighbor: "It is a young single guy."
  
• Me: "I wonder if he has a ladder I can borrow, I need to caulk my windows and clean my gutters."
  
• Neighbor: "Lana, you have to check him out when he gets here. See if he is cute, and stuff."
  
• Me: "Hi, my name is Lana, I am the advance team on Hottie Reconnaissance. Are you straight? How do you feel about yard work? Do you accept payment in beer and pizza? Yeah, I don’t care if he is hot, or straight, I just wanna borrow his power tools. All single guys have power tools, and great stereos."
  
• Neighbor: "Good, then if he is a hottie, I will seduce him, and you can have his other tools. (Wicked peals of laughter.)