I Didn't List Tapered Jeans Because I Would Hope You Already Know Better

Please leave your own dislikes in the comments. But hurry, because tomorrow-ish I will be posting 45 Things I Like, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to miss the chance to bond via our mutual dislike.
And remember, this is by no means a complete list....
45 Things I Dislike:
1. Oreos
2. Anxiety attacks
3. Tom Cruise
4. Leggings- and let me say that it alarms me and saddens me that their popularity forces me to place them in my 45 things, thereby acknowledging their existence
5. The overly crunchy ends of croissants
6. Big bangs
7. Poppy seeds
8. The excessively tan, especially when they are Caucasian girls wearing their hair in cornrows
9. Caucasian girls wearing their hair in cornrows, especially if they are excessively tan
10. Turtlenecks worn beneath sweaters/sweatshirts
12. Berets worn by persons other than elderly French men (There are a few exceptions to this rule, but a very few.)
13. The phrase "healing process" when it not being applied to something physical and concrete, such as the formation of a scab.
14. People who would describe themselves with the phrase Free Spirit
15. The word moist, it gags me to even write it
16. Aviator/wraparound sunglasses, particularly of the mirrored variety
17. The name "Brittany" especially when shortened to "Britt" and greatly exacerbated if "Britt" is the captain of a high school sports team
18. America's Funniest Home Videos- explain to me why watching a man being assaulted by an elephant is "funny"
19. Wet naps- enough said
20. Strapless bras that seem perfectly content to stay up until you have purchased them and are wearing them in a public place
21. Tuna melts about which the menu says, simply, "Tuna Melt", that turns out to be aggressively flavored with lemon zest
22. My stomach's apparent delight in growling whenever it would be most noticeable and inappropriate for it to do so
23. Waiting to have a baby
24. Modern dance that is composed primary of silent twitching-please ask yourself whether your "dance" could be easily performed by an epileptic with a leotard. If the answer is yes, it is time to reevaluate your career choice
25. The make-out scenes on VH-1's Flavor of Love
26. The fact that I even watch the Flavor of Love
27. Mullets, male
28. Mullets, female
29. Your name, if it is Fifi and you are not a poodle
30. Doctors who think telling a nervous person they will die young if they do not reduce their stress level is conducive to reducing said nervous person's stress level
31. Processed cheese
32. The phrase "luncheon meat"
33. The phrase "I'd like to pick your brain," because EW
34. Barky, yappy, yippy dogs
35. UB40
36. The color combination teal & mauve
37. Persons who spell the words "for" and "to" with numbers.
38. People who pronounce the word library, Lie-berry.
39. Long hair on men
40. When people use the singular form of something instead of plural(Example three foot, three feet, twenty cent, twenty cents)
41. Junior High School
42. John Ritter
43. Nurses who call you with test results but attempt to substitute a chirpy "Everything looks fine!" for said results: unless it is a yes or no blood test-i.e.- "No, you don't have cancer," or "Yes, Jermaine is your father"-I would like the results relayed in the form of actual numbers, rather than your boundless optimism
44. Walmart
45. Anyone, including myself, touching my feet

Seriously

Allow me to walk you through the experience of watching American Idol in the Beale household last night:

Me: Hang on. What happened to Paula's left sleeve? Did Simon finally get to the point where he just couldn't take her nonsensical ramblings anymore and rip it off in a rage?

Jason: Ummmm....

Me: Hold the phone. Is she wearing pleather elbow-length GLOVES? With assorted bracelets?

Jason: Ahhhhh.....

Me: REWIND. ARE THOSE GLOVES FINGERLESS? Also, is she doing the Macarena right now?

Jason: O Kayyyyyy.......

Me: REWIND THE PHONE AND HOLD ON TO IT. Fingerless pleather elbow-length gloves covered in bracelets and capped off with a cocktail ring? Am I seeing this? I think I am seeing this. Maybe I hit my head at some point today and now I'm hallucinating. That's probably what's going on here. Why can't I hallucinate Brad Pitt? Is that Kristy Lee Cook singing "God Bless the USA'? WHERE DID MOMMY PUT HER GIN?

Jason: Oh, Lee Greenwood.

Me: How can you even think about Lee Greenwood at at a time like this?

Mad About Me

I haven't written anything decent in a couple months now and it's tickin' me off. When am I gonna become famous, so I can get some lackeys to take care of the annoyances in my day, allowing me to devote more time to writing? Seriously, you people are not helping me out at all. To recap, I need you to either:
A.) Make me famous
B.) Become my lackey
GET GOING ALREADY!!

Traveling Man

I have been traveling for business this week. Of course, I went to the Midwest, where the floods have hit. The trip home yesterday brought with it yet another joyous experience at the airport. I flew from Columbus, Ohio to Greensboro on Skybus Airlines because it was the cheapest option from here to there or vice versa. Now, you'd think that there wouldn't be more than a few people a year that would would want to travel on Skybus to the greater Columbus metropolis, but the plane was full of adorable little doe-eyed travelers. I was standing in the gate area picking out who was leaving home from Ohio and who was just visiting--Ohio, Ohio, Greensboro, Ohio, Greensboro, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio. It's really quite obvious really. People in Greensboro don't wear full beards and flannel shirts in the middle of spring. Especially the women.
So we boarded the plane and wedged ourselves into the seats, listening to instructions on what to do in case of a water landing. What? Are we taking a little-known westerly route over the Pacific between Ohio and Greensboro? Seems inconvenient, but I'm not a major airline, so what do I know? I chose to stay quiet, lest they think me a terrorist.
Turns out that I didn't need to immediately worry about traveling over a major body of water anyway. The major body of water was coming to us. We were 27th in line for takeoff and nobody was in a really big hurry. To hear the tower tell it, there was some sort of flash-monsoon heading directly to the Columbus airport. Storm of the century. Hail the size of poodles. In the distance, I saw a man building an ark.
So we sat. Our captain was very helpful with updates, telling us that nothing whatsoever had changed and we were waiting for the storm to hit.
Ah. Yes, let's not get out of here before the poodles come. Let's wait and enjoy the show.
We were all careful to move from our seats, because the plane could move AT ANY MOMENT!! Wait for it!!! The excitement on the plane was palpable. Plane sitting should be a ride at Disney.
Then the Captain came on again and said that the storm was moving more slowly than expected, so he was just gonna go ahead and power down for a while. We were free to move about the cabin until further notice.
Sweet joyful liberty! Finally I can run free in the aisle! Go horseback riding! Swim in the Olympic sized pool!!!
Or I can sit and stew. And seethe.
After 2 hours (well really more like 30 minutes but it felt like 2 hours), I hear the engines power up. The Captain comes on over the intercom with his cheeriest voice and proclaims that we are ret'ta'go. I look out the window. No poodles. Light drizzle. My house plants were wetter than our runway.

What Up Dawg?

I just wanted you guys to know that Randy Jackson is going around wearing an ascot:

I thought you should be made aware of this. That's all. You know, just letting you know that he's out and about in this. Just in case you were wondering what he was up to.

Taxed

This past weekend we had our taxes done. It wasn't good, it wasn't bad. We pretty much broke even. I could go on a rant about taxes and the government and how they are stealing from the rich to give to the poor (not that I'm in either of those brackets) and how I had a ton of fun doing my taxes, what with dealing with no less than 10 W2's between my husband and I (2007=the year of the part time job) and no charitable donations and only earning a small smidgen of interest on our mortgage. Nope. Today will be rant-fee. Because today, I am curious.
With all this talk of money, I have been thinking about some fundamental human questions. I know that we are all in different places in our lives and jobs. Some of you may be out of work right now. But I think that these questions apply to all and I hope you are able to answer a few of them. For instance:
How much money is enough? Would you take less money to do something that you really love? How much less? What would you be willing to give up in your life in order to have fun at your job? Would you move? Would you take half as much money? What?
If you are in a job you love, why do you love it? What makes a job worthwhile and fun to you?
Do you value your free time enough so that you are willing to work harder, even if it's doing something you don't necessarily enjoy, just to be able to have better, more fulfilling "play" time?
Are you willing to work harder at something you dislike just to have a more enjoyable retirement?
What is the happy medium for you?
Cause I'm having a hard time with these questions lately.

Please Leave A Message

Voicemail from my Dad 10:24 AM
"Hey, this is your Dad, I just wanted to check in with you from sunny Mexico. (Pronounced Meh-hee-co) And also, a little input on your message, on your voicemail message? You say, "I'm not here right now" and I want to know where you are. Because you have to be somewhere. Cause it's a mobile phone. It's a cell phone. It's a mobile. So if you're not here, where are you? Anyway, I'll send you a postcard. Love you."
Um... more Margaritas, anyone?

Microsoft

So I was in the Ghetto Grocery (aka Food Lion) yesterday after work because somehow our Nacho Alarm System failed and we'd managed to run out of all the stuff you make nachos with, and there was a little girl in line ahead of me with her Dad. Probably nine or ten. Old enough to walk, not old enough to drive. And she's dancing around with her eyes squeezed shut, one hand clutching a pink mp3 player, the other flailing around in the air, and she's singing along:
"Ma ma se ma ma sa, ma-MI-CRO-SOFT! Ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma-MI-CRO-SOFT!"
The best part is that I'm 99% sure she was clutching an ipod.