you should have your license taken away, lady.

i was driving to work yesterday, and took the backroads, as usual when i try to take route 8 to avoid traffic.

so i pull up to a stop sign on chippens hill, fairly close to the middle school. i arrive at the same time as a white suv across from me, and a green jeep grand cherokee pulls up right behind us. as we're both going straight, both me and white suv go (he was ahead of me a little, as i stopped a little longer). as i start to go, the green jeep - who clearly SEES me going - guns it, cutting me off (she's going straight across my path) and turns to me - taking her eyes completely off the road and screams "F#$^# YOU!" - although she did turn her PHONE away, presumably so the person on the other end didn't hear her.

i was so disturbed by this - i had no time to react besides than to stare after her, completely baffled by not only her horrible driving skills, but also her manners.

i mean, she was on the PHONE! clearly not paying attention to the order at the stop sign (and incidentally, breaking our law in ct about not using a hands-free device)! and she had the nerve to swear while not looking at the road in a school zone! and she was wearing paris hilton sunglasses! and she had one of those annoying stickers that people put on the back of their car to indicate where they've vacationed! and she swore at *me*!

i so wanted to find her house and egg it. like really. i thought about what side streets she may live on and thought how easy is it to find a late model green jeep grand cherokee with "AOF" on the back of it, driven by a terribly rude person?

i figured her punishment was to live in infamy on our blog with the moniker: Horribly Rude AOF Paris Glasses Woman Who Drives Badly. i think that would be her native american indian name, in fact.

not enough weekend for all that wedding

so i had some weddings this weekend. two, actually. two weddings and a 2-year-old birthday party mixed in between.

i'm a little tired today, which i think has something to do with the cape codder/pinot grigio combo i was sucking down yesterday. i vaguely recall drinking a half gallon of water before bed, but i'm not entirely sure if i did that, or just dreamed it. all of it was very hazy the next day.

it started friday night were our friends had their very simple and elegant wedding. at least, that's what they called it. but when the viennese table with hand-filled cannollis and daquiris appeared, i no longer considered it simple.

and as far as shopping for a two year old goes, well, it goes something like this:
"um... we need a present for a two year old boy..."
"okay... what does he like?"
"frogs... but not noisy things..."
"let me know show these puzzles..."

my preparation for the weddings this weekend wasn't very detailed. and by that, i mean, i had gone shopping for two dresses because i figured i couldn't wear just one both times. i'm not sure, but i think during the week or so the dresses sat in my closet, they lost fabric. because sure enough, Friday afternoon, i found myself drastically exposing my chest - in fact, my coworker said to me: "wow. you look like my hooter's mouse pad." which in and of itself is an incredibly long story.

so by the time sunday came along, i had gone shopping for covering. because sure enough, the other dress required massive pinning and covering. but mostly because i was at the wedding with my family. and by that i mean, my ENTIRE family. my sisters and husbands both sat at my table (to be specific- *their* husbands, and just my one husband) and my parents were a table behind us.

we warned the people sharing our table of this little family connection before dinner started. because otherwise, you really wouldn't be able to tell. like really. not at all. we don't look *anything* alike, although if you close your eyes, you can't tell the difference between me and tg. they just would have thought: wow, they really do(n't) like each other! (i kid. we get along really well in group settings like that.)

but it was good times. i mean, granted, there was some kerfuffle caused by some.. um... well, people that drank too much and should know better but aren't in my immediate family so i feel like i can say that on my blog because what are the chances they could find it.

oh and my dad totally outdanced my husband, and j is nursing some seriously bruised dancing feet (and perhaps a minorly bruised ego). and somewhere around 7:30, i should have stopped the dancing. i had no idea that my broken rib would be re-awakened by all that bouncing. (unless i had thought about the fact that i resembled a hooters girl, in which case, i should have known better.)

You are cordially invited...

I’ve been told that some people are able to arrange a dinner date with a “Wanna?” and a “Sure.” I’m jealous. Because, when SJ asked the Pretend Husband and I over for dinner Saturday, it was an entire process.

SJ asked me. I gave a tentative yes and said I would check with the PH. I asked the PH and he said, “What’s she making?” When I told him it was chicken, he quizzed me about how she was going to prepare it (because SJ is an adventurous cook and the PH is… well, he’s not an adventurous eater. At all.) When I said I didn’t know how the chicken was going to be prepared, he wanted me to call and ask SJ. Forget it.

I called SJ and said we’d be over later. An hour later, SJ’s husband J called to check whether the PH likes cream cheese, which was an ingredient in the stuffing for the chicken. I took the call and proceeded to have a shouted conversation out the window with the PH about his feelings about cream cheese. It was decided he liked it, although he wasn’t sure about it going with the bacon in the dish. (Again, I refused to call SJ and clarify whether the cream cheese and bacon would be mixed together).

That, coupled with the fact that I don’t eat red meat and SJ made a piece of chicken with very little bacon to be sure I would eat it, made for a complicated arrangement. Luckily, everyone agreed on the apple crisp.

(By the way, SJ, I didn’t realize how much I had missed your cooking until this weekend. We should definitely get together for dinner again soon. We can have it at my house… but you have to cook.)

Welcome to the club, srg!

Whoo hoo! srg, one of the original and most frequent readers of Funny Gals, has started her own blog. It's called Two Black Cats and it's in our sidebar, but you can visit it by clicking right here.

I can't help but think SJ and I were part of the inspiration for srg to take the plunge into the blogging pool. I mean, we make sharing intimate details, talking about our most embarrassing moments and moaning about having nothing to write sound so glamorous, don't we? There's nothing like the pressure of knowing your blog hasn't been updated in a week and staring at the keyboard while your mind tries to come up with ways to make a weekend of staring at a television and cleaning the house sound entertaining.

And then there are all those great stories we have about, for example, KAT's grooming habits or SJ's lack of coordination, that we would never dare write about in fear our readers would lose respect for us (oh wait, we did... and you probably did).

And yet, we keep writing. And we know there are a few people out there who keep reading (and sometimes commenting). And the first time something mortifying happens and instead of letting it get to you, you think, "Oooh, this is a great story for the blog"? It makes it all worth it.

I'd hate to be around when a fax comes in!

I spend some time in town hall offices for work. Usually, there's not much blog-worthy action going on. Today, there definitely was.

One of the employees was showing a man how to use the copier. Then she pointed to the stapler and said, "You can staple it there... ke-chuh, ke-chuh."

Yep, she made stapler noises! Perhaps she was a kindergarten teacher in a former life?

Mars and Venus and all that…

Our water stopped heating up properly on Sunday (as we discovered when we gave Molly a bath and the poor dog started shivering).

The Pretend Husband’s solution? “Just let it rest and maybe it will re-heat itself.”

Six hours later, still no hot water (in fact, not even warm water).

My solution? I trekked down to the basement, found the button marked “Push to reset” and pushed it. Like magic, we had hot water again.

Without me, the PH would have taken cold showers for a week.

Just so we’re all on the same page, ya know = give a blow job

I can’t believe I’ve never posted this story here! It’s definitely one of my favorites and gets told at a lot of parties. You’re just going to have to imagine me doing a wink, wink, nudge, nudge motion every time I write ya know.

Years ago, when I worked as a newspaper reporter, we had a photographer who was a big goof with no social skills. He provided some pretty regular entertainment in the newsroom, sometimes funny and sometimes not so funny (like when he made SJ cry during her first week on the job. I ripped him a new one for that because our boss was a pansy who wouldn’t stand up for anyone or anything).

Anyway, the Big Goof came in one day and asked myself and someone else how to approach his neighbor. They had had a few conversations, seemed to hit it off and he wanted to ask her on a date. Taking him seriously (the first and only time, I think), we advised him to ask her out to lunch since that’s a little less formal than a dinner date. So he did and she turned him down by saying she had to go to the dentist that day.

On the day in question, he went home around lunchtime and ran into the neighbor girl. He came running into the office and reported that she had been to the dentist and been told she had nine cavities. I felt bad for the guy and said, “Big Goof, I hate to say it, but I think that’s an excuse so she can say she has to go to the dentist if you ask her out again.”

To which Big Goof responded, “You know how you get that many cavities, don’t you? It’s when you ya know and don’t brush your teeth afterward!”

Me: "What?!?"

Big Goof, "It’s when you ya know and don’t brush your teeth afterward!”

I said, “Uh, Big Goof? You don’t get cavities from that.”

He said, “How would you know?” and started giggling like a schoolgirl.

Rolling my eyes, I went into another room and told another reporter (an older woman) the whole story. We laughed about what a loser Big Goof was and went on with our lives. Well, a few minutes later, Big Goof came in and started telling the other reporter the story… “It’s when you ya know and don’t brush your teeth afterward!”

Just to mess with him, the reporter said, “Wait. What’s ya know?”

So he repeated, “It’s when you ya know and don’t brush your teeth afterward!”

The reporter: “Big Goof, what’s ya know?”

Apparently, saying “oral sex” or using any sort of euphemism was too much for this 25-year-old… he blushed, said “never mind” and ran out of the room.

The best part of this story happened a couple days later when we were still laughing about what happened and our editor wanted in on the joke. We went through the whole story and at the end, the editor’s only comment was, “The only oral Big Goof’s ever going to get is Oral B!” (Yeah, we were a pretty professional bunch!)

A couple of weeks later, the Big Goof got arrested for stalking the girl and tried to pin some of the blame on me for advising him to ask her out (Dude! I said ask her out once, not keep asking her out until she fears for her safety and, oh! follow her around town and randomly show up when she’s at the grocery store or hanging out with friends.) A short time after that, I left that job with some good memories, some bad memories and the best story ever.

I'll be walking with a cane by 33!

I’ve been friends with the awesome photog BAC even longer than I’ve been friends with SJ (probably because HE didn’t wear some funky, hippy-print shirt to HIS job interview!) In the years we’ve been friends, BAC and I have gotten into a considerable amount of trouble together. It got to the point where every time he got yelled at by his girlfriend, I had been somehow involved. (But she married him, so it couldn’t have been that bad, right?)

That time we had a little too much to drink and went to my apartment to sober up and he didn’t get home until 3 a.m. and his girlfriend drove around town to make sure he was OK? Yeah, I had something to do with that. That time he said he was going out for one drink and was out for four hours? Yes, that was with me. Like I said, plenty of trouble.

Which is why last night was so ironic. I helped BAC with a big project for work this week… even staying in his office until midnight (on a school night!) to work on it. So he promised me a drink or two in thanks (he’s also paying me, like, $5,000 for my help… or maybe he said $5). Last night, the PH and I met BAC at the sports bar we used to frequent all the time, had some drinks, ordered up some great buffalo wings and kicked back… for a whole two hours.

Three years ago, we would have closed the place down on a Thursday night. Yesterday, the clock hit 7:30 and I was yawning and yearning to get home to my comfy couch. We talked a good game and brought up those crazy times from our youth. But, in the end, getting into my pajamas at 8 p.m. won out. Apparently, I’m an old lady at 30.

Hard ground, cold weather, still the best sleep ever

Oh, hey! I didn't see you there. How's it going? Good, good. And me? Well, I'm good. Not too much to report lately, which is why I kind of abandoned you this week. Now I'm back.

But, still, without a lot to report. Let's see... the Pretend Husband, Molly and I attempted to camp out over the holiday weekend. It went something like this: KAT comes up with this great idea to sleep in the backyard in a tent one night and the PH agrees to it (which may have been preceded by him negotiating sexual favors in return for his company). So KAT enthusiastically picks out the perfect spot, lays down the tarp, sets up the tent, drags the sleeping bags, pillows and comforters out to the tent, digs out the flashlight and takes a lot of ribbing from her friends. Then she gets Molly's blanket and lights the way for the trio to walk out to the tent. Then she may have fulfilled her end of the bargain (if you know what I mean) and fallen asleep shortly thereafter.

KAT was woken by the PH and Molly about three hours later with the complaint of (from the PH) Molly not settling down, the ground being too hard against a softball injury and KAT's snoring waking him up. Oh, and (from Molly), there's a $1,500 mattress inside... explain to me again why we're sleeping on the ground?!? So the two of them hiked back to the house and KAT spent the rest of the night alone in the tent.

Thereby proving that KAT sticks to her promises and is more of a man than the PH.

God did not want me coming to work today

I say this mostly because of the fact that a) my body did not want to be roused from sleep and b) there was an accident or abnormal delay on every road I took to get to work (except my street – everything was fine in the ‘hood.)

Ordinarily, I say – whatever – to delays and just sit in traffic, idly staring at the wealth and privilege around me (actually, I’m usually looking up because I drive a Volkswagen, and they all drive Mercedes’ SUVs). If I’m not moving at all, I’ll send a text message or put my phone on speaker and check in with work. But that’s all when I’m stuck in my usual spot: between Fairfield and Westport. Thus the luxury.

But not today. Today, I was delayed by poor driving and poor dead animals in the following Connecticut towns: Plymouth, Waterbury, Every Single Town along the Route 8 corridor in the “All American Valley,” and then of course, Fairfield, Easton, Westport and Norwalk.

Additionally, I drove the last 20 miles of my daily adventure with my gas light on. Probably not my best choice, I realize, but just when I was about to stop to get gas, traffic started moving, so I considered it a sign from above. Above, being, the driver of the Mercedes’ next to me, signaling that I could move into her lane.

Have I mentioned lately that I hate my commute?