Childhood Toys and OBSESSION

Today I have decided to once again look back in the day at the things I used to love when I was a little kid. I had a few favorite toys that I couldn't get enough of, and to this day I still remember how ridiculously attached to them I was.

Little mingo was like any other girly girl who grew up loving dolls. I was very much attached to Barbies, just like millions of other little girls. I had tons of Barbie dolls, and a Barbie house, and a Barbie car, and a suitcase, and even a motorized jeep. Man, that thing was awesome. My mom used to charge that thing up and I'd hop on and ride it all over the backyard and sidewalks. It was bubble gum pink and white and cool as hell. So little mingo thought. This one is kind of how mine looked, except for the "floodlights" on the back of the jeep.  

                                              

Another thing I loved was my pink Barbie suitcase. That thing was amazing, I had it for years. It was basically like a modern day rolling hard cover suitcase, except when you opened it up, it became like a travel-sized house on the inside! There was a pullout bed that opened up into a bathtub, and revolving hangers inside a clothes closet, and there were working drawers and the lights turned on! After batteries were included, of course. That suitcase was freakin awesome. It was one of the few Barbie items I never ever got tired of, and I believe the only one to make the move from Texas to Illinois when we moved. I can't believe I found this picture of it online!!

               

Another doll-type toy I deeply connected with were my glow-worms. I don't know if anyone remembers these, but they were basically dolls with a plush body. The face was plastic, and when you squeezed them the faces lit up. They resembled a cross between what a tightly swaddled baby looks like and the segmented body of a worm. They sound odd, and to be honest a little freakish, but my glow-worms were my ROCK. I went to sleep with them every night, a large glow-worm and a baby-sized glow-worm.

                      

Little mingo's fave was like the blue one. I'm fairly positive the glow worm I had never had an expression like the green one there. If it had, I'm certain we never would have bonded. He's looking at me as if to say, "Hey, baby, how you been doin? Why don't you stay by my place tonight? C'mere and give big daddy a squeeze..." EW. Creepy.

One toy in particular fostered my early love for jewelry. It took a little bit or searching to find what the junk these things were called, but eventually I did: Crayola Creations, Joolz Magic Rocks. I was asking my mom if she remembered these things using this explanation: "Hey mom? Do you remember these rock things that eventually turned into jewels, and then I had these plastic animals that the jewels went inside to create the body?" After blank stares, I realized my succinct description was not going to work. I was astonished I was able to find these things at all, all except for the animals.

                                

I also found this lovely diagram to explain how the miraculous change from rock to gem takes place:

                                           

You basically put the ugly rocks into the magic diamond-shaped revealer, added water, and hey presto! Instant gems. My particular set of Joolz didn't have an option to make jewelry exactly, which is where the animals come into play. The idea for creating the animals was similar to that of a cell phone case. It's basically a shell, and it opens to fit the phone snugly inside, and then you snap it shut. Beautiful. The animals operated akin to this. My animal cases were comprised of sparkly pink plastic, and you opened them up to fit the transformed Joolz inside. My favorite was a cat that had a heart shaped face. So sweet.

Ok, one last one that I was completely obsessed with: LITE BRITE. I was ADDICTED to that thing!! There was something about creating vivid pictures surrounded by that soothing glow of light that instantly attracted me. Sure, the hundreds of teeny multicolored plastic bulbs you had to attach to the lights became easily lost. And most often, unless you followed a specific pattern, your pictures were nothing more than glowing jumbles of colored crap. But all that didn't matter, because the Lite Brite was awesome. 'Nuff said.

                                         
I was just like this little kid, playing with my Lite-Brite in the dark, intent on my glowing creations. Doubtless destroying my eyesight in some way. Did I mention I'm nearly blind? I don't blame YOU, Light Brite. Never you. You brought only joy into my life.

                                

I remember when my Light Brite went missing one day. TO THIS DAY I BRING UP THIS DEVASTATING EVENT TO MY MOTHER. One day I came home, ready and raring to get to work with my Light Brite. The creative juices were flowing, I was going to make a freakin MASTERPIECE, dammit!! But my Light Brite was nowhere to be found. After an extensive search that steadily grew more panicked by my lack of success in locating my toy, I finally decided to ask my mom, unaware of the heartbreak that was coming. She had thrown it away. It was gone. GONE. In vain I continued to look for it, disbelieving that my own mother could be so heinously cruel as to throw away my favorite toy. But all I ever found were a few stray plastic bulbs. I never fully got over the loss of my Lite Brite. I like to think that somewhere, some random child found my Lite Brite and fell in love with it too, and that it's been passed on to generations of children since then. Wait, no I don't. Keep your filthy paws of my Lite Brite. That's MY Lite Brite, bitch! I'll remove your thumbs with a corkscrew!! Bitch. Yeah. Told you.

Y'all Come Back Now! For Updates! Y'hear?

So after yesterday's depressing post, I've decided that something more cheerful is in order. YAY FOR HAPPINESS! I will therefore blog about my mostly happy April. 

And so we have UPDATES:
I actually hadn't posted for quite awhile because I had been dealing with both being really busy and really sick. Sometimes simultaneously. So here are some things that went down in April.

HAPPY 25TH BIRTHDAY TO ME!! On the day of my actual bday, my awesome friend Mandy took me out for a day of fun as my present. I also got balloons and a gift card to JAMBA Juice, to which I'm ridiculously addicted! We began the day by going to get amazing pedicures at Queen Nails. We went through the whole treatment, the massages and everything (even the chairs had those mechanical massage ball things in them). And I was so proud of Mandy, she did amazingly well, she didn't even kick the nail technician in the face! Mandy is EXTREMELY ticklish in the general foot area, and the first time that we ever we went to get pedicures it was freakin HILARIOUS. She started laughing hysterically and actually KICKED the poor lady doing her toes. And then it became even worse, if you can imagine, when the lady pulled out her heavy-duty tools for the heels of her feet. I dream about it to this day. I would call it a nightmare, but can you really define something as a "nightmare" if you giggle in your sleep? Hahaha anyhoo, my toes were bright neon pink and Mandy's were neon orange, and we both got adorable leopard print on our big toes. SO CUTE!! I would totally have taken pictures and posted them if I didn't think it was really creepy to take pictures of feet. Ewwww. SO, after our pedicures we HAD to go any get cheap sandals to show them off in. We had not been prepared initially and had worn closed toe shoes! To Payless we went. After a short shopping excursion, we then scooted off to lunch at Olive Garden. It was delicious, as usual. I love their house blush wine there, soooo yummy... Then we traveled to the movies, where we saw Insidious. It was actually pretty good! And scary! I haven't been scared by a movie since The Ring, which almost completely shattered my psyche. I didn't sleep for a while, and I refused to watch the movie again for a looong time. The next time I decided to see it, I brought it to my friend's workplace (a high-end children's clothing store, the least scary place I could think of) and saw it there. And then I wasn't scared anymore. Mostly. Hee. So anyhoo Insidious majorly creeped me out (there's a scene in which the demon-thing is sharpening his metal claw nails on a giant wheel, and that COMPLETELY freaked me out!!) After the movie, we went to get ice cream, and I was very very happy eating my cookie dough. Delicioso. After all that, I met up with my family. My parents had given me moolah toward the ring I wanted to buy for myself, and my little brother David got me an adorable necklace. My sister Julie got me a book that she actually found through noxy's blog, the new Sweet Valley book! And my sister Ali and her boyfriend got me cards (Ivan's card had an iTunes giftcard in it!) and Ali gave me an awesome dinosaur balloon wearing a party hat that I immediately christened Filbert. Here he is:

And then my family took me out to dinner at the Outback, which was super amazing, and I almost died from all the food I had eaten that day. But it was a supremely happy birthday!

Also on my birthday, I went to go buy my birthday gift, my ring from Zales!! I FINALLY WON!! It took calling every single day for two weeks (sometimes twice) to get them to finally concede to my price, but I did it! And I'm so happy I did, they had to learn that it doesn't pay to lie and be deceitful with their customers. In the end, the regional manager that I spoke with was extremely nice, and after speaking with evil person after evil deranged person, it was very refreshing to talk to someone who was committed to helping me. Lovely!

My birthday celebrations weren't limited to the actual day of my birthday! My friends and I all went out for a western-themed evening of fun, starting out with dinner at Texas Roadhouse. After a delicious steak dinner, we headed over to Saddle Up, a country-western themed bar. I went very prepared in my cowboy boots! But apparently, the music is country before 10 pm, after that they play regular music, so they were not needed. Sad. =( But I had SOOO much fun out with my friends! A few of us had drinks and took a few shots, and we were happily dancing (well, some of us. Others do NOT enjoy dancing as much as I do!! Even though I probably look like an idiot!) I went to change out of my cowboy boots and into some flats, which turned out to be a very large mistake. Some drunken idiot decided to let their empty glass fly, and it smashed into the ground and freakin cut my foot open! Who hands out glass glasses to drunk ppl anyways?! I was just going to keep dancing and not worry about it until the inside of my shoe felt oddly...wet. I looked down at my foot and discovered that my minor cut was bleeding profusely. I tried to go out to my car to use my emergency first aid kit (yes, I have one. I admit I'm a dork, albeit a very well prepared dork!) but they had a fight going on outside and refused to let people out, and if they went out they would not be let back in anyway. So I went to the bathroom, where the very nice bathroom attendant attended me, giving me paper towels and band aids. And then I went back to party! it was an awesome night all in all, I always have so much fun when I'm dancing! (The shots helped also. I had an extremely yummy one that tasted exactly like apple pie. DELICIOUS!!) I wish I had taken pictures documenting everything, but I am never prepared for taking pics. I forget what with all the fun going on. Luckily, noxy happens to be an excellent picture taker, and so I shall thieve some of the pictures she took to illustrate things that went down!
                               

Also something majorly fun, we went to go see My Chemical Romance (MCR) at the Aragon Theatre! It was me, noxy, Ali, my cousin Andrew and Ali's friend Diana who went. I had actually already seen MCR three times before (once to see them, once when they were opening for another group, and the third time for Ali as a bday present- they're her fave band) but this was nice cause it was Andrew's first concert ever (and MCR is his favorite band also!) and Diana loves them too. It was a lot of fun! The drive there seemed to take ages, and there were scary midget lesbians everywhere, along with a lot of old ppl (which is WEIRD for a rock concert!) but it was sooo much fun! People were more low-key, there was no moshing but lots of jumping, and the air around us was so incredibly hot that I couldn't BREATHE, but it was fun! There were a couple of oddballs and rude ppl, of course. There was weird plaid guy, for example. He just stood there with his overly excited girlfriend and STARED at people. At first, I thought he was staring at my sister cause he thought she was hot. And then when the crowd shifted, he stared at ME for awhile. CREEPY. And then he actually turned around and stared at noxy for awhile too! Meanwhile his girlfriend jumped like a crazy person, and her swinging ponytail repeatedly hit poor Andrew in the face. Heeee. Here's me n noxy, again in a stolen pic:

                                

Also a lot of fun was Easter, which was very low-key this year. We only had our immediate family there, but the Easter egg hunt was fun, as always! We had a respectable amount of eggs for the hunt, somewhere around 35 dozen. Here's a small sample of the eggs while drying after being dyed:

A lot of people don't quite understand the custom we brought over from Texas, which is throughout the year, we collect the shells of eggs we regularly use. We only open a small hole in the tip of the egg, empty and use the egg, and wash the shell. We then store the empty shells the whole year, and right before Easter we dye them, fill them with confetti, cover the holes with tissue paper, and hide them throughout the yard. Traditionally, the older "kids" hide them, so the younger ones search for them during the egg hunt. This year since it was just us, my mom and aunt actually hid them, and the rest of us got to search! So fun. So anyhoo, we collect the eggs and then we SMASH them on each other's heads. Heh heh. It's awesome. In years' past, we've actually experimented with the filling in the eggs, and we've done shaving cream and flour. The time we mixed those together was absolutely disgusting, the two together created a horrific paste. Everyone had to take showers before we could eat the BBQ. But it was AWESOME =) April was a good month. Lots of celebration. That's the way I likes it.

I Wouldn't Read This. It's Depressing.

Sooo. It had not been my intent to use this as a sounding off board. But recent anger has prompted me back to blogging, and this one will not be enjoyable. Sorry in advance to my two followers. I don't have a diary, so this will have to do. So...I guess it's an anger that stems from my own feelings of inadequacy. I can't even explain sometimes why this anger just bubbles up. It seems sometimes like maybe I'm just overreacting to a simple statement that wasn't meant to insult or upset me in any way. So maybe I just have anger issues, and that's it. But I feel like it might be deeper than that, if only that it means I have other issues as well. What it comes down to is that a lot of the time, I feel like I'm overlooked and taken advantage of. In many situations.

Ok, this is how it started: tonight I helped my mom with her "homework." She's a teacher, and is required to take a class to keep her certification. She and I were reading through chapters at 1:30 in the morning, and I was writing down summaries and explanations of problem-solving ideas from the information. Somewhere in the middle of working, she started talking to me ONCE AGAIN about her worries about my sister. She's going to begin her first year of college in the fall, and my mother is prone to over worrying about pretty much everything, so this has been a major topic of conversation for a while now. She started talking about how much she's going to miss my sister when she leaves, and how things won't be the same. This whole subject of "leaving" has been a sensitive topic for me ever since I moved out myself. It really hurt me the day that I moved out that not a single person seemed to be sad that I was leaving. They didn't even say goodbye. So tonight when my own mother said, "It was different when you left. I knew you were close by and I would see you. It's different with your sister, she'll be further away and I'll really MISS her," it just...hurt. Like my leaving wasn't as momentous, just because I didn't live on campus? I know it was small, but it felt like the family portrait day all over again. One day the mail came in (when I was still living with my family) and there were photos of our family, a family portrait. I knew nothing of these pictures. They had gone to take a family picture WITHOUT me. And then actually displayed them. They only took them down because I became so upset that they were forced to. I couldn't believe that they had gone to take a family picture and not even mention it to me. I guess I just always feel like an outsider. They're all "the Vera family," and I'm the "Lucio" from the previous marriage. And the "Lucio's" didn't want me either. So I'm on my own?

I feel like I try harder than everyone else does. I love my sister, but she's a mean spirited, spoiled and selfish person sometimes. Not to say that I don't have my own numerous flaws. But I feel like my parents cater to her every want and need like they never did mine when I was her age. And they continue to act that way now also. She had her birthday just yesterday, and we got into a fight at the end of it. Inspired by the news that Osama bin Laden was DEAD, I was using her laptop to look up 9-11 footage. She wanted to go online to do some college stuff, and instead of using the other computer that WASN'T BEING USED, she decided it would be better to kick me off the laptop that I was actively using instead. In the process, we got to arguing (I didn't understand why she was being selfish about the computers) and she eventually told me that I was a selfish, rude bitch. I just looked at the bracelet on her wrist I had given her THAT DAY for her birthday before commenting about it. Then, minutes later when she thought she had missed the deadlines for enrolling in college, she had a major meltdown. Whose selfish, rude bitchy shoulder did she cry on then? Mine. And despite the fact that she had been such a heinous bitch minutes before, I stayed to talk her through her crisis, comforted her, cheered her up. I'm an enabler. And I don't know how to stop, because I just love my family so freakin much. It's not working for me anymore though. I think I just need to remove myself from a toxic situation and focus on MY needs, what I want instead. Not what I should do for everyone else.

Book It!

Anyone remember those prizes back in the day for reading books in school? I always participated in the Book It! reading incentives, and I always got that personal pan pizza coupon for meeting all my reading goals. Oh yeah. Later it was the Ozzy Reading Club, where the winners got to go to a Kane County Cougars game. I came back with three teeny tiny bats that were PERSONALLY signed by Ozzy. For me, getting these prizes was a given, because even when I was a little kid I LOVED reading. A story my mom always told me was about when it was just the two of us living in our apartment in Texas. By then, my dad had left, and my mom was going to school and working two jobs at the same time to support us. She would crawl home, dead exhausted, and little Mingo would be there with a stack of books, waiting for her to read them aloud. And even though she was about to fall over and pass out, she read me the entire stack of books without fail. She encouraged my love of reading, and to this day I'll grab a book and read it for hours at a time until I'm finished with it. Which actually is a mistake, because then I'm sad I no longer have a book to read... Anyhoo, here's a list of authors I got completely infatuated with at one time or another.

Author #1: Diana Gabaldon
  
My mom was again the one to introduce me to her books, and I instantly fell in love with them. In particular I fell in love with her Outlander series, which focuses on the romance between Claire and Jamie. Claire is a married woman living in Scotland in 1946 when she walks through a cleft of standing stones. She ends up being transported back in time to 1743, where she is almost immediately accosted by her husband's six times great grandfather, a captain in the English army. In order to escape him, she ends up fleeing with a group of Scottish clansmen, and is eventually forced to marry one to protect her from being hanged by the English as a spy. In the course of the first book, she continually tries to escape back to her husband from both the English soldiers and the Scottish clan she has taken refuge with, while falling in love with the young clansman she was forced to marry, Jamie. The series goes on for seven volumes so far, and I'm itching to get my hands on the next one, which probably won't be released for another three years or so. Dammit.

Author #2: J.K. Rowling

Ok, we all love Harry Potter. Or anyway, a LOT of us do. I've heard a lot of people tell their Harry Potter stories lately, so I'll share mine! I actually didn't get into the Harry Potter craze until after the third book had already been released. My mom (again!) brought me the first book and told me that her best friend's daughters absolutely LOVED the books, and that she had found the first one while out grocery shopping and thought I might like to read it. I gave it a shot, and I HATED it. I guess what happened to a lot of other people happened to me. I read the first chapter, got INCREDIBLY bored, and lost interest in it for awhile. It wasn't until much later that I got really bored and restless, and for lack of anything better to read laying about the house, I reluctantly picked it up again. After I continued reading it however, I got completely hooked. I leapt onto the Harry Potter bandwagon, and obsessively pored over every single book. When the movies came out I was actually disappointed though. I tend to be one of those people that never think the movies are as good as the books, and Harry Potter was no exception. I hated the first movie, and didn't really grow to accept them until the third movie came out. After that, I loved them again. But who wouldn't, since Harry has grown so much with them over the years? 

By the way when I found this yummy pic of Daniel Radcliff I also found an extremely, um, COZY picture of Harry and Draco together. Enjoying their bromance.



Author #3: Sidney Sheldon

 

I started reading his books sometime in middle school. At the time, my reading was going unchecked, and whatever dramas or trashy romance novels my mom had on hand, I read. I came across one of his books at one time or another, and became instantly hooked on them. They had the lure of the forbidden. In Mingo's little sixth grade mind, these books were taboo, because they were completely graphic material. They had sex, intrigue, murder, and my innocent brain couldn't process them fast enough. I started trolling thrift stores because I quickly learned that not only were they easier to find there, but then I could buy them for fifty cents and take them home with me forever. I amassed quite the collection by the time I was done: I bought and read every single book he ever wrote. I'm pretty sure I didn't miss any.

Author #4: Stephen King

 

Ugh I freakin HATE clowns!! Even the picture Of Stephen King is freaking me out! But again, I read a ton of Stephen King when I was in middle school. I had a few favorites that I could read over and over again because they didn't freak me out too badly, like The Stand and Dolores Claiborne and Misery. But mostly, they scared the bejeezus outta me. I actually cried when I read Pet Sematary, and I could never completely get through the book It, either. Because I hate clowns. Have I mentioned that?? The book Needful Things also scared the crap out of me. There was just something about all the people in that small town, trading their souls for material things they thought they needed or were important...really really creepy stuff. And yet I kept reading them. *Laying on little couch* "What does this say about me, doctor?" *Doctor purses his fingertips together and then proceeds to stroke his tiny beard intelligently* "Well, Mingo, I believe you are a glutton for punishment. We'll talk about this more at length next week."

Author #5: Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

 

Ok, this is another author I got infatuated with because it was forbidden. I absolutely LOVE trashy romance novels, or book porn, as my sister's boyfriend likes to refer to them. Loudly. In bookstores. When there are several people walking nearby, in listening reach. While I'm holding several. ANYHOO, this book called The Flame and the Flower was the one that began my craze. This is the exact covercopy I found floating around the house, and by the end mine was more moth-eaten and roughly handled than the one in the picture. To this day I read these, since there are tons of them floating around, and since I can't bring myself to bring more than 2 or 3 up to the counter where the smug cashier is waiting to ring up my book porn, having heard Ivan blurt that phrase out to the entire establishment.

I continue to read random authors, but these are ones I always seem to come back to. There were tons of other series I read back in the day; I read the Goosebumps books like everybody else, and I had a serious attachment to Sweet Valley High books too. My lil sister Julie is like me in that she's been a reader for a long time. But where I was reading Danielle Steel and the occasional Anne Rice vampire novel when I was her age, she reads Nicholas Sparks. I can't do that. I HATE that crap. Angry people, love interest, dramatic resolution, DEATH. Sucks, man!

Back in the Day Buffet

Today's a short one. I'm sickly and tired, and I soooo want to take an entire bottle of Nyquil and sleep for 85 bajillion hours straight. After reading my friend noxy's posts the last couple days, I feel inspired to write about songs that I loved back in the day when I was a little kid in Texas. Little Mingo almost always listened to whatever mom listened to. I therefore grew up loving a lot of seventies music, and this has given me a deep seated love for the Bee Gees in particular. Some of my best memories were of me and my mom, driving along country back roads, the windows UP because damn, Texas weather is HOT and no one went without air conditioning. Music would be blasting, and me and my mom would be singing along to Brown Eyed Girl and All My Ex's Live in Texas. However, my love for music has always been wide and varied, and thinking back, these are a few songs I ALWAYS rocked out to.

Deee Lite's Groove is in the Heart was an annoying, psychotic song, and I absolutely loved it. I remember watching the music video in our apartment, dancing along and singing my little heart out. I KNOW i watched it all the time, any time I could find it on TV, so I must have driven my poor mom insane. Ha. Payback for all the John Denver I was subjected to: "Thank God I'm a country boy!"

Another song I listened to was Cher's "The Shoop Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)."

I watched the movie Mermaids, and the only thing I liked about the movie was this song. Actually, the movie began my deep loathing of all things Cher. I freakin HATED Cher in that movie, I thought she was the worst mom in creation. She was a freakin slut bucket, always beginning and ending "relationships" with countless men, and forcing her kids to move every time her lousy love life tanked. Bitch. AND THEN she flirts with the guy her fragile and impressionable teenage daughter is in love with and actually KISSES him. Mother of the Year for that one. But I'm getting sidetracked by my disgust. Anyhoo, I loved the song, and even at one point was planning to sing it onstage with a few girls in high school. We were going to perform in our annual talent show, which in retrospect I'm glad didn't happen. Our high school was brutal back in the day, we would probably have gotten jeered off the stage.

As a Tejana, I listened to TONS of Selena. Everyone did. In fact, speaking of talent shows, I remember one in maybe first or second grade where 85 thousand girls all sang a Selena song. There was a guy performing too, but I'm fairly positive he sang and danced that one song in the movie The Mask with Jim Carrey. I'm pretty sure he had maracas and everything. But anyhoo, it seemed like the entire world was immersed in Selena's songs. I loved so many of them and listened to them over and over that I actually still remember almost all of them. I have too many favorites, but I KNOW I listened to this one constantly.

I always thought Selena's "No Me Queda Mas" was beautiful. I was a little girl who didn't understand spanish, and yet this song always gave me chills. It was like I could hear the pain and yearning come through her voice when she sang. I still remember when I found out she had died. My aunt had come to pick me up from grade school when she told me. I remember feeling incredibly devastated, as though I had personally lost someone close to me. I had listened to her music so long it had become a part of me, and I cried when I realized the person behind it was gone. For ages afterward I wasn't able to see the Selena movie with Jennifer Lopez. Actually, I hated J-Lo cause I felt she wasn't good enough to play Selena. In J-Lo's defense, I would have hated anyone who had taken the role. I finally saw the entire movie through not too long ago, and being the incredibly over emotional person I am, I teared up at the end when she dies and they go through clips of the actual news footage, with fans crying and her songs playing. I still don't quite understand the emotional pull behind it. I think it's a regional thing. In the area I lived in, EVERYONE was a Selena fan. A lot of less well off people found her an inspiration, because she had been living proof that a poor Latina girl could make it out on top. 

So these are some of the songs I loved back in the day. I have a cousin who loved her gangsta rap, so I actually liked some Tupac, and for a while there, my most listened to CD was Pulse. The CD itself didn't even come out until 2001, but it had a lot of songs on it I listened to back in the day, for example Bizarre Inc's I'm Gonna Get You and Rhythm Is A Dancer by Snap! Ohhh yeah. That's the stuff. Hostess. =) 

Inappropriate Movies for Young Children

Last Saturday was my sister Julie's 14th birthday. My brother David was INSISTING that he light the candle on her birthday cake. After he rudely blew out the candle on a birthday cake that didn't belong to him, he also decided to stomp off with the matches in hand, and inadvertently set them down on a living room couch. I later found them and, reminding him that there is a dog in the house that has consumed TWO cell phones, I picked them up and violently shook them in his face. Unaffected by my scolding, he and my other family members started talking about a movie we saw back in the day when we lived in Texas. In this movie, the main heroine consumes matches and burns to death. Dead. BURNS to death. Now, realistically speaking, I don't think someone can BURN to death in this manner. I'm pretty sure the person would be horrifically poisoned, but would probably not spontaneously combust. I'm thinking there was some artistic license taken with this plot line. But I digress. I'm fairly positive the burning in this movie was meant to be interpreted that the heroine's passion for her deceased lover burned so strongly that, in her consumption of these matches, she burst into flame. I saw this movie ages ago, and why did this explanation not occur to me before? Oh that's right, because I saw this movie before I moved to Illinois from Texas, probably somewhere in the second grade. This got me thinking, was this movie appropriate for a young child like me? What other movies was I subjected to? I thought hard, and these two movies came to mind.

The first is the movie I was just talking about, a foreign film with English subtitles called, "Like Water for Chocolate."

 

This movie is...just...awful for small children. It actually SAYS there, on the cover, "the passionate tale of forbidden love." FORBIDDEN, people! Anyhoo, here's the plot: the main heroine, a girl named Tita, falls in love with this dude named Pedro. The feeling is mutual, and Pedro goes to Tita's mom, Mama Elena, to ask for her hand in marriage. She refuses, saying that even though Pedro and Tita love each other, since Tita is her youngest daughter, she can never marry and must take care of Mama Elena until the day she dies. Ok, depressing much? Anyhoo, Mama Elena says that although Tita isn't available, her older, graceless, GASSY sister Rosaura is. Pedro decides to marry Rosaura to "stay close to Tita." Ummm ok first of all What. The. JUNK. I remember being pissed off about this even when I was little. This spineless a-hole marries her SISTER in order to STAY CLOSE to the woman he actually loves?? Excuse me??? Ok I remember watching Cinderella when I was little, and nowhere in the Disney animation did they have the prince giving up on his quest to find the woman who fit the glass slipper. He knew she was one of a kind, and no other woman could literally fill her shoes, and he wasn't all, "oh well I guess it's gonna be pretty hard to find this chick, eh whatev I'll just randomly marry whoever else cause it's easier." NO he did NOT!! Little Mingo was so angry about this, she instantly hated the movie. Why didn't Pedro just sneak away with Tita in the middle of the night?? Steal her away?? Douche. So, to continue, Pedro marries Rosaura, and Tita's mom forces her to do all kinds of evil bidding. She's forced to make Pedro and Rosaura's freakin WEDDING DINNER, and live under the same roof with them while they start a freakin family. Disgusting. The whole time, Tita and Pedro have stolen moments together (little Mingo also disapproved of adultery, by the way) until Mama Elena suspects and sends the little family to Texas. On the way, Rosaura's baby dies, and Tita blames Mama Elena. They get into a fight and Mama Elena slaps Tita and has her institutionalized. The doctor watching over Tita falls in love with her and nurses her back to sanity, and Tita plans to marry him, despite still being in love with Pedro. Pedro and Co. come back, and Pedro takes Tita's virginity. Ashamed that she isn't untouched any longer, she breaks off her engagement to the doctor. SO, Pedro has effectively not only made sure he will break Tita's heart by marrying her sister, he ALSO makes sure that she can never marry anyone else, either. Selfish bastard. Anyhoo, lots of other things happen. Tita's other sister, Gertrude, gets kidnapped by rebels of the Mexican Revolution, and she marries one and heads a rebel movement. Mama Elena gets attacked by rebels and dies, and then haunts Pedro and Tita because of their inappropriate relationship. She attacks Pedro and he's severely burned. Eventually Rosaura dies, TWENTY FREAKIN YEARS LATER, and Pedro and Tita finally are allowed to be together. Then, just when they're about to be intimate, guilt-free, Pedro has a heart attack and freakin DIES. Tita commits suicide by eating matches, and sets everything ablaze when she bursts into flames. The End. Happy story for an eight year old, eh?

The second movie I LOVED when I was a kid. It was called "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." It was a musical starring Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds, and it was awesome. 

 

Dolly Parton is Mona,this madam of a well known brothel in, you guessed it, Texas. She has a romantic relationship with Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd, Burt Reynolds, and everything is idyllic until Dom Deluise, who plays Melvin P. Thorpe, TV Watchdog extraordinaire, shows up and ruins everything. He is after the Chickenhouse, and shocks the small town with his undercover investigations (all in song, of course). Imagine if you will, Little Mingo singing along to family friendly tunes like "Sneakin' Around," "Little Bitty Pissant Country Place," and "Texas Has A Whorehouse In It." It was magical I tell ya. Anyhoo, because the Watchdog wants to have the Chicken Ranch closed down, the sheriff asks Mona to close the ranch on the biggest night of the year for them, the night of the big annual football game. The winner of the game gets the Ranch's hospitality, and it's an age-old tradition handed down generation to generation. The Sheriff is sure that Melvin P. Thorpe will target this monumental event. Mona goes against the Sheriff's wishes and has the party for the football team anyway, and Melvin P. Thorpe and his camera crews burst in on the celebrations, literally exposing the illegal prostitution going on. Local citizens are outraged, and the Sheriff is unable to save Mona's ranch. They shut her down, and all the girls sing a lovely song entitled "Hard Candy Christmas" in which they outline their plans for the future, away from prostitution. Then Mona sings "I Will Always Love You" to the Sheriff, and he literally sweeps her off her feet and marries her, making an honest woman out of her. Sigh. Happy ending. I always LOVED that movie. There was one scene in which the prostitutes all walk down the stairs together, singing and doing a sexy dance, and I ALWAYS sang that song! (I can't quite remember if I did the accompanying dance as well.) Hee.

The point of this post was not to comment on whether or not I liked the movies, but to say that I probably shouldn't have seen the movies at all! I mean, eight year old Mingo didn't need to see Pedro and Tita's forbidden passionate trysts or the Chicken Ranch girls' boobies flying everywhere! But see them I did. And I'm a better person for it. Probably.

It's On Like Donkey Kong

Ok. So I'm currently waging a war with two separate but equally evil entities. These massive corporations are currently giving me the WORST headaches ever, and so I feel compelled to besmirch their good names. Ha.

SO, evil entity numero uno: Zales. Now, I happen to work in jewelry, so I am painfully aware of the level of customer service that crazy people require. Not one day passes that I'm forced to be super sweetly nice to a bitching customer. Most of the time I can handle it well enough, you just gotta go with the flow most of the time. No probs. I am here to serve you, oh Liege. Oh, your diamond has gone missing, you say? The biggest one in your ring? Well now, look at these plier marks on the gold...Oh, you want it replaced for free? SURE, no problem! In fact you know what, let me connect you with the diamond mine I have shoved up my ass. Wait, I may possibly not say exactly that last part. But the other stuff is fairly spot on, we are forced to comply with a myriad of ridiculous requests. Because of this, when I visit a fellow jeweler I tend to be slightly critical of the customer service provided. Recently, I visited a Zales store in the Fox Valley Mall because I was on a quest for a birthday present for myself. I found this ring I liked, sooo gorgeous, for $399. Here it is.

Now, I'm no idiot. I know these people can further discount if you push for it. So I asked if the "gentleman" I was speaking with could lower the price at all. His response was a flat out NO. I was surprised because this dude was being incredibly cold and rude towards me, but I tried again. I asked, do you have an sales coming up? Again, I was met with a brusque NO. I said, I've purchased from here before, and they've been able to help out with the price before. To which he responded, "well it looks like you had a salesperson who made a mistake then." At this point I was just irritated, because it was obvious that this guy thought I was a young person who wasn't a serious shopper, and so he felt he could be dismissive of me and I would leave and not waste his time any further. So I left, resolving to come back and speak with a more helpful associate. I call the next morning for the ring, and looked it up online with the sku number a woman gave me. I was hella shocked to discover that the ring I was looking at the night before was actually priced at freakin $1400!! It was glaringly obvious at that point that the ring had been misplaced, and that the rude sales guy from the night before (the manager of the store, by the way) was obviously trying to get rid of me so that he wouldn't be forced to sell me the ring at the price he had to quote me! Oh but that was a BIG mistake on his part. I am super reasonable, and if he had picked up that ring at first and said, oh wow this has actually been put in the wrong place, it's actually priced much higher, I would have let it go. Mistakes happen. But his "human error," as he henceforth referred to it, was a slimy, underhanded deception. He deliberately let me think the ring was the lower price, knowing full well it was actually much more expensive, because he was positive I couldn't buy it anyway. And to be rude and dismissive to me on top of it? And insult my intelligence? Nope, sorry bald dude, it ain't gonna happen. After a VERY heated discussion with him, I used the number he provided me to attempt to contact his district manager. It of course did not connect me. I went through a long, arduous process to speak with a customer representative to file my complaint, and got a case number. Because now, it's ON. He's going to be forced to give me that ring at the $399 price he told me it was. I'm not one to back down from a fight, and this guy will soon find out exactly how tenacious I can be... I will be calling daily until I get the price I'm seeking. I'll have to post updates when I get my final result!

Whew. One down. Ok, evil entity number two: T-Mobile. Those fargin bastages have screwed me over WAY too many times!! I discovered on this month's bill that the family plan I am on is being charged twice for the single internet plan my phone needs. I go to the store to look into it. Apparently, when I upgraded on my dad's line (mine was not eligible at the time) they put the 4G network on his line instead of mine. Ok, got that. I called to switch it to my line. What they did instead was ADD it to my line, so there are two separate charges on two separate lines for one internet service! My dad has an old school flip phone, definitely not 4G capable, and so there's no way he could be using it! Both the customer service chick AND her supervisor that I spoke with said not only will they not reverse the charges for this, but that I will probably have to continue paying for both throughout the course of my two year contract. But wait, they have options! Ok, option #1: I can cancel mine, and only my dad's phone will have internet. Utterly useless. Option #2: I can split the cost on both plans, and have limited internet on both. Not exactly what you'd want for your expensive 4G phone, since you'd have to count the minutes you spent online. Option #3: I can buy a new phone outright on his plan, and they can then cancel the required internet service. No word on what to do with the additional phone. AND option #4: I can cancel the service and pay a $200 fee. By the end of this VERY frustrating conversation, the supervisor said, "Ma'am, be advised that I have given you your options and that I cannot cancel the internet plan or absolve the fee." To which I replied, "Ma'am, please be advised that you are a stupid bitch," before hanging up on her. Veeeery angry, I was. On top of it all, I'm still going to have to choose a damn option and call them back. I HATE THEM. Evil bastages.

SO! These are the current battles I face! One I went into head on, and the other I got roped into. I wonder if either will pay to correct the high blood pressure they're causing... No? Eh. Didn't think so.