The Call

I was at work and heard it coming from the other room. It was… THE CALL.

By the call, I mean the high pitched girlish scream coming from the next room.

This was proceeded by my boss running as fast as goddamn possible out of another room. That call followed by that action could only mean one thing.

A spider.

That was fine, I don’t have arachnophobia. Basically it’s like this:

Of course, I put on my big girl panties and went on in there with a glass, located the spider and:

No, I don’t have arachnophobia. But I understand fears.

As I mentioned before, I have a strong dislike for clowns.

A hate if you will.

A deep dark hate from the bottom of my soul, only eclipsed by my intense fear of those mother fuckers.

So if I ever come and find a clown in the room, I expect all my friends to do the same to me.

And when you release it into the wild, you have to drive far enough away for it not to find its way back.

Otherwise you’ll come home to this:

And never tell me where you’re releasing them. Otherwise it could end up like this:

In Hindsight...

I’m sure almost everyone has read that story. The one where the babysitter is watching some kids and after putting them to bed, she goes to watch TV and there’s this creepy angel statue at the window of the parent’s bedroom and she calls them to ask if she can cover it with a blanket cuz it’s freaking her the fuck out and they’re all like:

DUN DUN DUN!!! (If you haven’t read it and want to, you can do that here)

I mean, every babysitter has had that moment. Right? RIGHT?

Well, balls.

When I was younger, I used to babysit the children across the street on a regular basis. One night I got there around 8:30pm and the kids (2 of them, let’s call them Nancy and Kyle) were getting ready for bed. Nancy was 6 and Kyle was 4. Their parents left within a few minutes of my arrival, so I ensured the kids brushed their teeth, read them a bedtime story and tucked them into bed.

Freedom at last. It was a rough 20 minutes before I was kid free! I decided to celebrate by curling up in a ball on the couch in the family room and watching TV until the adults came back. The layout of this house was like this:

So I mosied through the kitchen door to head to the family room and saw this:

WHAT THE ACTUAL FLAMING FUCK. WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?

Yes. There was an extremely tall person sitting on the couch, hiding themselves with a sheet.

I fought the urge to pee myself, and tried to quietly search the kitchen for a weapon. Unfortunately for me, the parents were responsible ones and did not leave their knives/axes/guns out in the open, so I grabbed the only thing I could:

Yup. I was armed with a spatula. So I ninja’d my way down the stairs, maintaining eye contact with the psycho on the couch, trying to be sure to make little to no noise. Finally, the moment arrived:

I got the corner of the sheet and pulled, raising the spatula up so I could bring it down with the fury of 10,000 angry breakfast joint cooks onto the face of the (extremely stupid and lazy) creep. As the sheet fell, I made eye contact with him:

Yes. Ronald McFuckingDonald. Staring at me with his dead black eyes. One of those creepy ones you see sitting on the benches in the kid’s play areas at the fast food joint. Watching. Lurking. Waiting.

This is where I mention I am terrified as FUCK of clowns, and have been almost my entire life. Being around them literally makes me cry. I would have rather had it be this:

Or this:

I could have spatulaed the SHIT out of either of them. But no. It was a fucking clown. So what actually happened was this:

Of course, my shrill high pitched girly screams woke up Nancy, who sleepily comes down the stairs and looks at me:

And then Nancy takes my hand into her tiny little ones, gazes up at me and says:

NO! NO THEY ARE DEFINITELY NOT. THEY ARE DEFINITELY NOT PEOPLE. NO.

So I wipe my tears, take Nancy back to bed, and then proceed to spend the next 3 hours like this until the parental units arrive:

Sitting on the stairs maintaining eye contact with Ronald.

**Spoiler alert: He didn’t move.**

Finally the adults arrive home and of course, Mrs.Adult comes up and it goes like this:

Mrs.Adult: Karin, why are you on the stairs?

Me: THERE IS A FREAKING CLOWN ON THE COUCH DOWNSTAIRS

Mrs.Adult: Yes, I know.

Me: I AM SCARED OF CLOWNS.

Mrs.Adult: Yes, I know that too.

Me: … THEN WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?

Mrs.Adult: Well, Mr.Adult did some work at like, 3am for a McDonalds, and the night manager couldn’t pay him, so they gave him Ronald instead, and the kids were so happy!

Me: And then?

Mrs.Adult: And I know you’re scared of clowns, so I hid it!

Me: Under a sheet on the couch in the family room?

Mrs.Adult: … Yes, because then you couldn’t see it!

Me: A 6ft tall seated clown was hidden under a sheet in the room you knew I’d go sit in after putting the kids to bed and you thought that would be less scary?

Mrs.Adult: Well, if he was covered, you wouldn’t know he was a clown.

Me: Ok, but then I came downstairs and thought there was a 6ft tall person hiding under a sheet on the couch, and I tried to kill it, and it was a clown.

Mrs.Adult: … In hindsight, I see the flaws in my original plan.

So I spent the night in my bed, staring out my window, expecting to see this:

A few weeks later, they ask me to come babysit again. I show up and am told:

They sure did. They moved him right the fuck outside, sitting on a bench in the backyard. Watching me. And we’d had some rain over the last week, which had basically made him look to have a melting face. But his eyes were intact. So instead of spending the night waiting on the stairs, I spent the night standing at the back sliding door, staring at Ronald. Even after the sun set, I stood there, staring into the darkness, just in case that fucker came. And I was ready, not only with a spatula but wooden spoon as well. If you grew up before the year 2000, you know how goddamn lethal those are!

Karin’s Warning Labels – According to Neil

I’ve been told a shit ton couple of times that I should come with a warning label. If I plan on any kind of relationship with someone (friends or otherwise), they should be sufficiently warned so that they can make an educated decision before being sucked into the super fun whirlwind that is my life.

So I figure I should just create a blog entry with the “warnings” in it, and then I can just link it and consider that warning enough!

So, without further procrastination, these are the warnings Neil has deemed important enough to make people aware of:

Ok, in all fairness, this is really vague. Most relationships induce vomiting and aren’t complete without several fits of rage. Otherwise it’s boring as fuck. So I call bullshit on this warning. Let’s move on.

This has to be perception based. I don’t have crazy logic. I have Karin logic. And if you give me the chance, I will explain why Karin logic makes complete sense. Like, the following statement is true:

I’m genetically a surgeon – my father was a surgeon before I was conceived, therefore the medical knowledge is locked in my genetics. I don’t need 10 years of schooling and a fancy degree to amputate your arm, leg or face. Just trust me. I AM A DOCTOR.

That is not crazy logic. It’s just science.

I feel my response to this “warning” already answered it and made it null and void, so we’ll move on.

Ok this one I just don’t even know his own reasoning, so I can’t argue it. I think I’m low maintenance. In fact, I’ve been told my bar of expectations is so low that pretty much any douchebag can walk over it with no issues, so I’m just going to say this is Neil being crazy. MOVING ON!

This is true. I do always want stories. SO FUCKING WHAT!

That’s it?

Damn.

In all fairness, I get this one. HOWEVER! Neil once said to me he was glad I didn’t drink, because the shit I do sober is hard enough to explain. So take that with a grain of salt.

I don’t do Karaoke because, well… You know when a cat is in heat and screams bloody murder, and there’s a blender running in the background and then some drunk hobo screaming for everyone to shut up? That sounds 10,000x better than me. I’m doing you a favour, potentially future friend. And the seafood is self-explanatory.

My dancing is the physical action version of my singing. YOU’RE WELCOME.

I have big boobs. I may or may not wear a low cut top, depending on my wardrobe choice that day. Deal with it.

True. This is a legit warning that I can 100% stand behind.

Another true story. But hey, if you do something that pisses me off, the likelihood I will forgive you is pretty high, right????

 

This is a constant struggle between the two of us. I want real ponies, he only offers dead ones. I don’t feel the ponies thing is an obsession, it’s just a constant disagreement which is why it comes up a lot. IF YOU GAVE ME A FUCKING PONY, THIS WOULDN’T BE A GODDAMN ISSUE!

And finally…

Yeah that’s true too. Well, that wraps up our list. You’ve been warned.

**end of warning**

The Fiat Gang

I don’t know if you ever noticed, but motorcyclists seem to be part of some elite gang. Seriously. Watch them cross paths next time (obviously as long as it’s safe to do so, don’t go causing accidents by being one of those douchebags that can’t focus on the road and their surroundings).

They wave to each other. Almost EVERY time on regular roads… On highways they don’t acknowledge each other because they’re focusing on driving. We all know motorcyclists for the most part are dickbag drivers (they get the same manual as BMW drivers with their vehicle purchase, I’m sure):

But over all, they are mostly aware of their surroundings and only do their gang salute when it’s safe (for them) to do so.

Which brings me to my next discovery. Apparently Fiat drivers are a gang too.

For those of you that don’t know me (my Google stats say that I have people from random countries like Iran and Nigeria as my “viewers”), I drive a Fiat.

A small Fiat. One of those little ones that has 2 doors.

It’s also a standard. Which means it goes pretty darn fast. I say that it goes fast because it’s a standard since I tried the 2 door automatic, and holy fuck it was not fast. I mean, it eventually got there but it showed up fashionably late.

My car may be super-fast, but because it’s super small, being stuck in rush hour is terrifying. This is what I see behind me:

And my side mirror:

Anyways. I digress.

I’ve recently discovered that every time I pass another 2 door Fiat going the opposite direction, the other driver nods at me. Not just a regular nod, but some kind of smug, straight lipped, stern stare nod. Something like this:

I’m not currently capable of doing that without about 6 re-takes, so every time I do attempt to nod back, I probably look mostly retarded, but I will get there one day! Until then, I will look totally bitchin’ bad assed driving my car:

Sort of. As I mentioned before, I have a crazy amount of hair.  I had to take that photo while strategically parked. When I drive, I usually have the windows down (because I’m hardcore like that), which causes my lovely hair to fly fucking EVERYWHERE, so when I try to do my nod, it probably looks more like this:

And less like this:

But! I am part of a gang. And we are taking the country by tiny, economical storm!!!! Seriously, check out that head room back there: