Just shut up and unload the cart.

So I went to Wal-Mart today, which is always a chore. I hate that store so much, that when I walk through the door I start to feel all jittery and weird and angry at everyone around me, sort of the way I imagine David Berkowitz felt the first time his dog talked to him. It's a place that makes people look at each other with expressions of mounting malice, all "get out of my way, get OUT of my way right NOW, I need the TOOTHPASTE!" It's a place where there is much darkness and wailing and gnashing of teeth, is what I'm saying. So I've been taking my iPod with me and drowning everything out with Billy Joel and Mel Carter and The Frames, and I've been making a concerted effort to politely allow people in front of me and set an example of what behavior in a civilized society should be. I'm quite proud of myself, to be honest.

So today I was approaching the registers with a cart so over-laden I looked like I was shopping to stock up an early-Cold-War era bomb shelter, despite the fact that I had gone in there looking only for waffles and Brita filters, because goodness knows you can't get out of Wal-Mart without spending the equivalent of the gross domestic product of Equatorial Guinea, when I was cut off by a man with a cart even more over-laden than mine. I had spotted a register with only one person in line, an amazing find in this valley of darkness, and I headed right for it, only to be cut off by this man apparently doing an impression of a New Jersey driver on the Turnpike. I remembered that we're living in a civilized society and I listened to Billy reminding me that "it's all about soul" and I filed in behind him with a patient smile. I was quite proud of myself, to be honest.

Then he turned around and looked at the woman who had filed in behind me, also with an over-laden cart, and indicated that she was his wife. They seemed nice and the fact that they had two carts piled high made me imagine that they had 18 children or possibly lived in a commune and had been given the task of shopping for the members that week. I then (I was really proud of myself this time) offered to let the woman go in front of me with her husband, and he smiled and said, "No, no, we have two carts. You go first." Can you imagine? A font of civilized behavior springing up in the middle of aisle 7 in a Wal-Mart? I graciously accepted his offer and quickly loaded my purchases onto the conveyor belt, trying to be quick so as to incommode these nice people as little as possible. I smiled to myself and made a mental note to thank them again just before I left. That's when it all began to unravel.

The man in front of us, who had been the only one in the line, was purchasing some camel throw blankets and he was insisting they were on sale, despite the fact that they weren't ringing up that way. I might have known the momentum of the line would come to a screeching halt as soon as I entered it. I am a curse to lines. I get it from my father.

The cashier put her light on. No one came. The cashier called the blanket department. No one answered. We stood there. Other lines moved. Ours did not. I felt bad that I was holding these people up with my line curse. The cashier left to go to the blanket department herself. The woman behind me sighed audibly. We stood some more. The man with the camel throws tried to get my opinion on which his mother would prefer: People or The National Enquirer. I gave him a look that was meant to convey that I don't read trashy magazines and that I saw through his "mother" ruse and knew he was buying them for himself. He put them back and bought an US Weekly. I remembered that I was setting an example for civility and smiled at the man with the US Weekly in apology for judging him for reading tabloids.

The woman behind me decided to move to the line next to ours. The cashier finally returned, not having found anyone from the blanket department. She finished the man's order and just as I was reminding myself to thank the people behind me once my merch was rung up, I heard the following exchange:

Woman: I'll go in this line and you stay in that one and one of us will move faster.
Man: Just stay in this line. If this one moves and you get in that one, we'll be split up.
Woman: Oh, Bob, JUST SHUT UP, WILL YOU!
Man: JUST STOP BEING A [BLEEP] JERK!
Woman: YES THAT'S RIGHT BOB. I'm the JERK!
Man: Why do you have to be SO DIFFICULT ALL THE TIME?
Woman: Just SHUT UP and unload the CART!

(The caps are meant to indicate screaming at a volume easily heard in the Electronics Department.)

The cashier just kept her head down and furiously concentrated on ringing up items. An awkward silence fell over the crowd around us. And of course I'm thinking, "Oh holy crap, please don't let them be armed and please don't let this woman go off on me because her husband let me in front of him and please don't let her find out about my line curse." They were standing 8 inches away and I was too afraid to turn around and look at them. A parting smile and a thank you were now out of the question. I paid for my stuff and ran. It may have been my imagination, but I could swear I heard the sound of a bag of frozen peas being thrown at someone's head as I made my hasty exit.

And this only proves something which I have always suspected. Wal-Mart makes people despise each other. Friends, strangers, husbands and wives. It matters not. Walk through those sliding doors and you're gonna want to kill each other. And everyone else around you.

They don't have a gun department, do they?

Take-out Queen, dethroned?

Tonight I did something shocking, just shocking. I made myself dinner. The last time I made myself dinner was probably during the Reagan administration. I really don’t know what came over me. Even more, I kind of made up a recipe. I made a breakfast burrito! For the filling, I stole Zack’s Polish Breakfast recipe and removed the sausage because I am afraid to touch meat (Thanks Zack!) and I wrapped it up in a warmed-up sandwich wrap shell. It was quite delicious. Next time I would add some green peppers or possibly some cheese. I also got to use the cool carved wood cooking utensil that my friend’s dad made for me, and at no time was my kitchen in danger of being set ablaze. This was such a positive experience, I may even try it again next month.

My own special brand of coordination

It takes a truly special girl to smack herself in the jaw when picking up the telephone to place a call. Interpret the word "special" however you wish.

I'm going to get an icepack. And some Tylenol.

Oscar readiness continues!

So I went to visit Liz and Zack last weekend because they promised me a weekend full of Oscar movies and games of Settlers of Catan, both of which I am totally addicted to. Liz pretty much stomped us on Catan (Ali and Zack – 1 game each; Liz – 4 games), but at least she didn’t make me dig a trench. Only Kristen will get that. Anyway, Liz’s house is a superfun place to stay. Everyone should go! She and Zack make you really good food and cookies and you get to do fun stuff like go to the movies to see There Will Be Blood, the last of the five Best Picture nominees that I needed to see.

The movie was fantastic. So much so, that I will only be mildly disappointed (as opposed to devastated) if it beats No Country For Old Men as Best Picture. It’s about the rise of an oil man in the early decades of the 20th century. It was beautifully filmed and just told a great story, like something from back in the 50s when movies could just tell a great story and not have to worry about making lots of money. And I got to cross off 8 slots on my nominations list. So. much. fun.

Daniel Day-Lewis already has the Best Actor Oscar in his possession. Seriously, he’s probably carrying it around in his man-bag right now, it’s so much his by right. He completely disappeared into the role. You’d never imagine there was an unassuming, soft-spoken Englishman in there. It just makes me feel bad for Viggo Mortensen. The year he’s so awesome in Eastern Promises is the year that Daniel Day-Lewis decides to come out of hiding and make another film. Poor Viggo.

Paul Dano was also fantastic, but he always, always creeps me out when he’s in a movie. I rank him right below Cillian Murphy and just above Jonathan Rhys Meyers in that regard. And Dano was at his creepifyingly best in this one. Ciaran Hinds rounds out an excellent cast, so how could you go wrong?

I must now go read “Settlers of Catan For Dummies” so I can make a triumphant comeback on my next visit.

Yeah, we know he died 700 years ago. Just go with it.

Oh my gosh, you guys, I’m watching the Showtime show The Tudors right now, and it’s making me nuts. I was really excited to Netflix this show because I love Tudor history. I’ve watched two episodes thus far, and I now realize the last person who should watch this show is someone who loves Tudor history. These people are making radical departures from historical fact, for the mere amusement of it. They are the Oliver Stone of British television.

The show opens with King Henry’s uncle being murdered. But all of Henry’s uncles were long dead by this point, and were hardly to be expected to rise from the grave just to be stabbed by a bunch of French dudes. I was so confused and I expended a significant amount of mental energy trying to figure out what the year was supposed to be, only to realize that they were jumping around, at will, to events that occurred anytime in a 20 year period. Infuriating!

Zombie uncles were the least of my problems. Daughters and husbands who never existed were crawling out of the woodwork. Princes were called by their siblings’ names because apparently nobody on this show knows how to access the Wikipedia. The daughter of Henry’s younger sister looked to be about his age. Or older! She must have been conceived while her mother was still in the womb.

Henry had an older sister who married the King of Scotland and a younger sister who married the King of France. They merged these women into one character and had her marry… who else? The King of Portugal! Yeah, that makes sense. And let me tell you what, they’re going to regret that later when they need all that English-Scottish “We’re family but we’re enemies” tension.

One character said, “My father was executed by the king’s father,” and I’m screaming at the TV, “No, he wasn’t! Nobody executed your father! Your father was not executed!” And that was only one of many things I was shouting at my screen as my neighbors surely debated whether to pound on the walls or just try to have me committed. Others:

“Just establish what year it is. Just give me a year. Please, for the love of decency, give me a year here!”

“Why is she talking about her husband? She’s not supposed to be married!”

“Dude, you don’t have a daughter named Anne. You have an Elizabeth, a Catherine, and a Mary, but no Anne! Just call her Catherine!”

“Why are they calling him Pope Alexander? They just made up a pope! That is an entirely fictional pope right there.”

At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if Charlemagne walked through the front door. This show is not good for my health.

Movies: Ruining the book since 1920

Oscar-readiness continues with Atonement! Very good film. It got seven nominations, including one for Best Picture. It’s one of those lovely, sweeping epic films that usually win Best Picture, unless they’re up against even better films from the Coen Brothers about vicious murderers in Texas. Keira Knightley sometimes annoys me for reasons I cannot put my finger on, but she did a fine job here. James McAvoy was not physically right for the role of Robbie, but he’s so freakishly talented that you can hardly hold that against him. I did like it. I could have loved it, had not the book been quite 27 times better.

The whole time I was watching it, ringing through my mind was the motto from the T-shirt James told me about:

Movies: Ruining the book since 1920.

I can’t really get into what was different without spoiling the film, but seriously, go to a Barnes and Noble or a Borders or a library. Fiction, M. McEwan, Ian. Get the copy with the house and the fountain on the front, or the one with the little girl sitting on the steps. Don’t get the copy with the movie poster on the front or your imagination will be stunted and you’ll picture James McAvoy and Keira Knightley every time you pick it up to read it. That is, if you ever put it down. Really, this is the kind of book that makes you lie to your friends and say you can’t hang out with them because you’re busy, just so you can secretly stay home and read. This book will make you cancel dinner plans and leave parties early.

Ahem. Not that I ever did that, Chris.

But now for my favorite part of this whole experience: crossing off the nominations on my Oscar readiness list. This is especially fun since there are seven slots to cross off for this one. Crossing items off of lists is one of the great joys in life. It’s like a thunderstorm when you’re going to sleep, or messing up the peanut butter. Or reading a book by Ian McEwan.

Merry Me!

Okay, so it’s season 2 of Rock of Love, and I had been really excited for this because I loved the first season. The thing about the first season was that the show was so much fun, I wasn’t embarrassed to admit I watched it, despite the utterly ridiculous nature of the spectacle. The long-awaited season 2 had a promising start. As Amanda described it after the first episode:

“It's pure trash and I'm loving it. The women this season are even more ridiculous than last season… And the hair. There are at least 2 women that look like trannies!”

Trashy! Big hair! Trannies! So much fun, right? But now season 2 is just making me sad. I’m sad that the women are so stupid. I’m sad that Bret is so stupid. He either got more moronic in the last year, or his imbecility somehow escaped me during the first season. And the thing is, you really need to be able to root for him in order to enjoy the show. But this year it’s just like watching a bunch of pinballs of stupidity bouncing off of each other. And the stupidity makes me sad.

Sadness is watching three girls holding up the card they made for Bret, reading “Merry me!,” and then hearing them remark to each other, “We’re such a wonderful trio. Of brains.”

Oh dear.

I’m not going to stop watching the show yet, but I am back to being embarrassed about it.