The Great Roll Under Conspiracy...

It occurred to me today that I tend to let little things bother me more than they should. I don't think that I'm alone in this, but I'm going to take steps to not sweat the small stuff anymore.

The major issue that was on my mind today was toilet paper. I think it's funny how something as dumb as whether the toilet paper goes over or under can become a "This is the hill I'm prepared to die on" issue. My former boss told me that the first fight he and his wife had after they got married was on this very same issue. (He was right, she was wrong.)

Now clearly the correct way to put a roll of toilet paper on the holder is to position it so that it rolls over. I'm not sure in what alternate universe rolling under would be the correct method, but I'm glad I live in this one. Do people teach their dogs to "roll under?" Does the annoying childrens' song say "There were 10 in the bed and the little one said, 'Roll under?'" I rest my case.

Try to argue with my logic... you can't because you can't argue with a crazy person... you never win.

I first became aware of the Great Roll Under Conspiracy a few months ago at work. I don't know who is behind it, but there is a dark force at work in my store and they are trying to make me crazier than I already am. For the last 12 and a half years, the toilet paper and paper towels have been put on their respective holders correctly. Lately I have discovered, with increasing frequency, that the paper towels are on the holder in the "roll under" position. Of course I immediately switch them. I'll go into the Ladies' Room and find that a new roll of toilet paper is on the holder, and yes you guessed it, it's rolling under.

If I were a stronger person, I could just walk away from this, but sadly I'm not. I am so compulsive about this that I will change it in restrooms at restaurants. I have to force myself to not change it in other peoples' homes. I do find it amusing that it's easier for me to accept someone's choice to embrace a religion or lifestyle different than mine than I do to accept their decision to roll their toilet paper under.

Veni, Viti, Vacuum... I came, I saw, I Hoovered!

I know that I was born possessing certain gifts that God saw fit to give to me, but housekeeping skills were not ones that He in his infinite wisdom saw fit to bless me with. All my life I've been terrible at keeping things clean. My mother gave my toys away to my preschool and the toy box at my father's store because I wouldn't clean them up. Watching those grubby little children play with my toys was awful and still I didn't learn to be a better cleaner. I tried for a little while, but soon fell back into old habits of stuffing things in drawers and into my closet.

My parents were very wise and got me a waterbed as soon as I was out of a crib. A waterbed's frame is solid, there is no hiding stuff underneath it. So while all my friends got to shove stuff under their beds instead of truly cleaning, I had to find more creative places to hide my things, instead of just cleaning them up properly.

Now that I have a home of my own, and its up to me to be the one to keep it clean, I realize why my mother used to work so hard at getting my sister and I to do chores. It's a lot of work, and it seems like there are forces working against me to get it done.

One day while I was cleaning, I started imagining the participants in this battle. I think that the main players are Major Pigsty, Lieutenant Lazy Butt, and Corporal Comfy Couch. Major Pigsty is a sneaky devil... he must be in some black ops division of the military. Domestic Destruction Detachment?

I know that the DDD must be working against me because it is simply not possible that 2 people and 1 dog could create this much of a mess. So the best that I can figure is that Major Pigsty sneaks in when I am not home and creates havoc. He commands his detachment to come in and dirty the dishes and leave them laying around after I have cleaned the whole kitchen.

Major Pigsty does not work alone, he recruited Lieutenant Lazy Butt to do his dirty work. Lt. Lazy Butt sneaks into my psyche and tells me things like, "You don't really need to vacuum right now, just turn on the TV for a little while," or "Washing the laundry is the biggest part of the battle, you don't really need to fold it and put it away." And Lt. Lazy Butt is so conniving yet convincing that I find myself on the couch with the computer in my lap and watching my dvr'd episodes of Days of Our Lives.

Lt. Lazy Butt is aided Corporal Comfy Couch. While this may not seem like a dangerous pairing to other motivated people, to me they are a truly terrifying duo. Corporal Couch is a silent partner in this operation, and he works much like a Venus Fly Trap. He sits there looking all comfy and alluring but then as soon as you sit down you are good and truly stuck for at least a little while.

Now picture, if you will, poor beleaguered me fighting against this insidious force of darkness all by myself. To keep this on a slightly even scale, I guess I'll have to give myself a military rank too. I think that I am probably PFC Horrible Housewife. I come onto the field of battle and I survey the wreckage and have to fight the urge to simply wave a white flag of surrender to the DDD. I look around for reinforcements, but find myself standing alone. So, usually I allow myself to be taken as a POW and simply held captive by Corporal Couch while the DDD does their worst.

Occasionally though I find the strength and courage to fight back. Today was one of those days. I decided to take decisive action against these evil geniuses and hit them hard. I formulated a plan and armed with bleach and hot water I headed for my bathroom. I gathered up the bathmats and shower curtain and threw them viciously into the washing machine. I took the shower curtain liner and soaked it in the aforementioned hot water and bleach. Then I went back downstairs and picked up my frenemy Zappy the Vacuum and I went after Big Blue. This was where things got a little scary. It had been awhile since Zappy and Big Blue had met, but I persevered and after a few moments I had triumphed. So, riding high on the small victory, I moved onto the TV room and put Zappy to work in there too.

Then I decided that the bathroom hadn't seen the last of me, so I went in armed with my trusty can of Dow Scrubbing Bubbles Bathroom cleaner. I thought that I had finally found my reinforcements. If you watch the commercials you see that the bubbles come zooming out of the can, and while triumphant music encourages them on, they whizz around the shower scrubbing their little hearts out. However, much to my dismay, the commercials are a BIG FAT LIE!!! They didn't come zooming out ready to do battle. In fact, the cowardly little buggers were reluctant to leave the can. They clung to the nozzle, gathering into a big foamy glop that ran down the can and all over my hand. Perhaps they were scared to go into the battlefield that was my shower, but that's no excuse. I finally forced them to live up to their responsibilities and rush headlong into the fray and start working. It appears their hearts weren't really in their work, so I helped them out with a scrub brush, and stepped back a few minutes later feeling very satisfied with the crushing defeat the DDD had suffered at my hands.

My spirits lifted by this accomplishment, I hung the shower curtain liner back up to dry, and then grabbed my trusty Oreck vacuum (That DOESN'T delight in giving me electric shocks) and vacuumed the upstairs. Not to be stopped now that I was truly on a roll, I stripped the bed and came down and started another load of laundry.

Now I am happily ensconced on Corporal Comfy Couch documenting my partial victory over Major Pigsty. I realize that this was merely a tiny little skirmish in an ongoing war of epic proportions, but I'm going to revel in it anyway.

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom....

I had a thought pop into my head tonight, and it almost prompted a new facebook status, but I realized, sadly, that only my sister would understand it. Then I started to dissect my thought in my head, and before I knew it, a blog post was half written.

So, as I have said before, my train of thought is like a bullet train. It moves so fast that I can hardly keep up with it. My thoughts tonight ranged from how wonderful a non-stick rice cooker pan is, to what was the greatest thing before sliced bread, to an impromptu comedy routine that I came up with more than 10 years ago to cheer up my sister.

Let's back up and explain the comedy routine so that I can expound upon the sliced bread thing, and end up at the rice cooker.

One night, as I recall it was a blustery fall evening, my sister and I were driving to Bellingham. She lived in an apartment down near Samish Way back then, and I was driving her home. I can't believe that I recall this conversation so clearly, but (And I'm sure you'll all be so glad that I do recall this so clearly) we were talking about our periods, and different feminine hygiene products. (Told you you'd be thrilled.) I remember advising my sister to get herself a box of panty liners because they were such useful little items. She'd been feeling down in the days prior to that, and I still don't know where this came from, but I launched into an impromptu comedy routine all about panty liners. Of course, to understand why this is even remotely funny I must explain that I was using my southern accent that was inspired by Vicki Lawrence's "Mama's Family" character, Thelma. I put on this accent (for the first time ever) and started talking all about how useful panty liners were. I pronounced it "Panna-lah-ner." It's one word. And I kept saying how "They're the greatest thing since thet there Wal-Mart!" For the entire half hour drive, I entertained my sister with my Pannalahner routine and had her thoroughly cheered up when I delivered her to her door.

From that point on, I stopped referring to things as "The greatest thing since sliced bread" and started using "The greatest thing since thet there Wal-Mart" instead. Occasionally I would use the phrase "The greatest thing since peanut butter."

I have often found myself wondering "What was the greatest thing before sliced bread?" And really, is sliced bread SUCH an amazing advancement of society that we must compare everything to it? Who was the first person to slice bread? Were they Sainted for their contributions to mankind? What are they the Patron Saint of?

Moving right along... I have always been terrible at cooking rice. I cannot cook rice on the stove top. I don't know why. I am a fairly decent cook, and am actually good at preparing certain foods, but I am not capable of cooking rice on the stove top. When I opened my brand new Rice Cooker at my bridal shower, I was SO excited! Finally, I was going to be able to cook rice and have it actually turn out like its supposed to.

Now we arrive in my kitchen on a night in the not so distant past. I was using my beloved rice cooker, and when I went to lift the pan out of the cooker, it would not come out. I was puzzled. Then I smelled a funny burnt plasticky smell, almost like melted crayons. I finally managed to pry the pan out and discovered that a label of some sort had managed to make its way onto the element and burn, effectively glueing the pan to the element. I was heartbroken.

I decided to buy myself a new rice cooker for my birthday, and when it arrived, I discovered, to my delight that it had a non-stick pan instead of the regular full-stick pan that my old one had. This might not seem like such a big deal, but to someone who is so terrible at making rice, anything that makes it easier is a HUGE deal.

So, as I was preparing dinner tonight, I thought about posting a facebook status of "Stephanie Munden thinks that non-stick rice cooker pans are the greatest thing since thet there Wal-Mart!!!" Then I laughed at myself and realized that no one would understand that except for my sister, and possibly my mother, but they are never on facebook, so it would be a waste of a (In my humble opinion) clever joke.

It took me all of about 2.3 seconds to make my way from, "Wow, this non-stick thing is great" to Pannalahners and what came before sliced bread.

Good thing these train seats have motion-sickness bags, huh?

We need a sedative and a giant net on aisle 7 please...

Last night I decided that I wanted to try a new recipe for dinner and I needed a couple of items to be able to make my Waikiki Meatballs. (SUPER YUMMY by the by) While I was at Safeway I remembered that I needed some more Instant Vanilla pudding mix so that I could make more Twinkies.

I wandered around the store collecting this and that, and I arrived at the pudding mixes and began my search for Instant Vanilla pudding mix. I immediately found the small boxes of instant vanilla, and began looking for the bigger boxes that I needed. I was stumped because all I could find was big boxes of Cook-N-Serve... (As I'm typing this I realize that this is the most ridiculous blog ever, and I apologize to anyone who is actually reading this, but it gets better, well... crazier) and so I kept searching for my instant pudding. I found the big boxes of instant chocolate, but then right next to it was Cook-N-Serve Chocolate and then Cook-N-Serve Vanilla. At this point, I realized that I was not seeing double, but that the Cook-N-Serve Vanilla was in two spots on the shelf. I, being the neurotic person that I am, start checking the shelf tags to see where the Instant Vanilla is supposed to be located. I find the correct tag, and start removing box after box of Cook-N-Serve and finally located some Instant behind it. At first, I was putting the Cook-N-Serve where it actually belonged, but the shelf was pretty full. So then I started putting them in my cart, so that I could go find someone who works there and explain what happened.

As if this wasn't crazy enough, I turned my attention to the chocolate pudding, found the same problem, so of course I pulled all the wrong puddings from that spot too. Then I faced the shelves for them so that anyone looking for the instant pudding (Wow! I'm turning into Binocular Lady, I'm sure that anyone who is still reading this is thinking "Say Instant Pudding ONE MORE TIME!!!") and I set off with my cart ridiculously full of Cook-N-Serve Puddings and my measly 3 boxes of Instant Pudding that I needed. I went in search of a Safeway employee that I could give them the boxes and finish my shopping. I found a guy with a Telxon in his hand (The electronic thingy that scans the barcodes on the shelf tags, and is used for ordering and inventory) and I went up to him and saw that his name tag said "Supervisor." I said, "You look like someone who can help me." I explained about the puddings, and how I was going to get a basket to put them in because I didn't actually want them, but I didn't want another customer to not find what they were looking for. He looked at me like I had 3 heads. I went and got a basket and transferred all the unwanted boxes of pudding into it so that I could give them to Mr. Supervisor.

Apparently he spooks easily, and he disappeared, so instead I had to tell my story to yet another person, the nice little girl at the checkout. I handed her the basket of pudding, and had to begin with, "Ok, I'm not totally insane..." (Because I'm sure that was reassuring to her.) I explained what was going on, and then told her that I am the inventory manager at my store, and that's what I do, and so I wanted to help them avoid frustration and confusion. She was very nice and thanked me, and after discovering that we know some of the same people, I got my receipt and left. I ran into Mr. Supervisor (who isn't very good at hiding) and told him that the nice checker had the basket of pudding, and then explained again that because of what I do at work, that's why I had fixed the pudding for them.

I left there thinking, "Well that's just fantastic, now I have to find a new grocery store, and I really like Safeway."