Tomorrow we are going to break up with our bank. And I can’t wait!

Earlier this year I wrote about how I moved some of our accounts over to a new financial institution. Because, as I said, “I decided that I was tired of paying the old bank every month just for the privilege of keeping my money there.” More and more our monthly statements were starting to look like this:

Monthly Service Fees:

Driving past our building on the way to the grocery store: $3.00

Breathing air: $5.00

I have been ready to leave them for a while now, but my husband was not quite ready to pull the plug on this banking relationship. (”I’ve been with them longer than I’ve been with you.”) Until we received a letter from our bank informing us that it was time to pay the annual rental fee for our safety deposit box. It was the same old stuff, until we got to the part explaining that, seeing as how this fee was no longer going to be automatically paid to the bank (since the account that used to pay it has since been closed), it was now going to cost us an extra $25 to rent this box because we were going to be sending the payment in manually.

I can only imagine that this new fee breaks down something like this:

Having to take time out from sucking away all our clients’ money by opening an envelope: $2.00

Possibility of getting a paper cut from opening said envelope: $2.00

Expensive bottled water transported directly from clear mountain springs on the back of tiny, beribboned poodles in order to replace the saliva lost when we said, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, we figured out how to get extra money out of you even though you’re no longer sending us payments automatically! Neener, neener, pppffbbtt!”

Manicure for poodles: $1.00

I really, really REALLY hate this bank! (Also? Not that fond of poodles.) And we need to get out now while we can, because I know it’s only a matter of time before our bank statements start to look like this:

Medicine needed to relieve headache brought on by excessive meditation on the question, “How can we suck away even more of our customers’ money?”: $10.00

Expensive, hand-woven towels and personal manservants needed to delicately mop the sweat off of our furrowed brows: $250.00

Bonbons needed to stimulate the rush of endorphins that will cause us to have the brilliant revelation that actually, our clients should just be automatically turning over every single cent they ever make to us, and hey, why aren’t they doing that already?!: $1,000.00

Penalty for failure to automatically sign over to bank all paychecks and personal assets: $100 katrillion dollars, + 1 kidney + firstborn child.

Needless to say, I am VERY excited about tomorrow. Because,

monthly payment to host website: $19.95

electricity: $15.00

hating: FREE!

The opportunity to snark about my bank online so as to milk every possible drop of enjoyment out of breaking up with them: priceless

It’s time once again for the Carnival Of Family Life, which today is being hosted at the blog, Adventures in the 100 Acre Wood.

Fun highlights:

-Go here to read, “Just my Luck or RIP Little Chipmunk”.

-Go here to read about Mad Kane’s adventures in shopping for underwear for her mother. “She and I had spent the entire afternoon combing through three department stores for the definitive pair of panties. Or at least my mom’s idea of same. This illusive undergarment had to be loose, comfortable, 100% cotton, and totally devoid of lace. And that was just for starters. It also had to completely cover my mother’s hips and come in a large size, the exact number of which she resolutely refused to disclose.”

This weekend we spent time with a friend we hadn’t seen in a while. Her job recently came to an end, and knowing that she would soon no longer be seeing these people every day she spent her remaining time with them collecting the funny things they said. Here, for your reading enjoyment, are a few of those gems.

Two Guys Discussing A “Man Law”:

Guy One: “Dammit, [Guy Two], you never listen to Luther Vandross when other guys are around!”

Two Women Discussing The Projected Path Of A Potential Relationship:

Woman One (to Woman Two): “It starts off where you’re dressing up as Little Bo Peep, and the next thing you know he’s wearing your skin.”

English As A Second Language:

Guy One (who is from America): “Hey, [Guy Two], your desk looks like crap.”

Guy Two (who is from China): “What?”

Guy One: “Your desk. It looks like crap.”

Guy Two: “No. My desk look more like lobster.”

Guy One: “No. CRAP!”

Guy Two: “I know crap! Crap have eight legs and live in ocean!”

I am just loving my new blog tool, Hit Tail. It’s providing me with tons of data about my blog, which of course I am just passing right along to my engineer husband (AKA, “Someone who actually knows what to do with scientifically gathered data”.) And then that leaves all the fun stuff for me, like today’s Top Ten List:

The Top Ten Funniest Keywords Or Phrases People Are Using To Find My Blog On The Internet

10. using your witch powers

9. ostrich vomit

8. cat poo in tub

7. dirty jobs hippo

6. mike rowe tooth

5. benign wart on head

4. rats in our house

3. neon orange bug

2. naked vacation

1. ryan is a poo

It’s time once again to feature all of your “must-read” blog posts. If you have a post you’d like to feature here, just send a trackback from your post to this post, and a link will automatically be created to showcase your writing. Please note that you do NOT have to be a member of the Open Trackback Alliance in order to participate. All bloggers (except for spammers) are welcome here!

About two years ago my husband and I went to the electronics store to purchase a DVD burner and an iPod. He sent me to find the iPod, and went off in search of the DVD burner himself. I personally know nothing about electronics, but I memorized everything he told me to ask for, and I figured that I could lean heavily on the approach to male salespeople known as ” The Damsel In Distress.”

Unfortunately, I was in for a very rude awakening. Apparently guys who work in electronic stores are completely oblivious to damsels in distress.

(Important Side Note: The other group this doesn’t work on is Other Women. Say, for example, that you go to a dinner party at a friend’s house. And say that once you’re there you locate a guy and decide to focus your “Please rescue me!” energy on him. The guy may very well want to ride to your rescue, but he won’t have the chance to do anything about it. Because you will be dead. Because the woman to whom the guy belongs will have stabbed you in the face with her salad fork. But, I digress.)

So one day I was recounting this story to a friend of ours, with special emphasis on the fact that while I, personally, was passed over by at least three salespeople, the moment that my husband began walking towards me clerks flew over from all corners of the store, and were falling all over themselves to help him. (And yes, I am bitter.)

When I was done with my story our friend replied, “Well I know exactly why that happened. It’s because you don’t have enough nerd points.”

(Another Important Side Note: This is the same friend who, when told that I had become a Certified Life Coach responded by declaring that the entire profession of coaching is a made-up job.

My husband tried to mediate this little “misunderstanding” one day, and so he asked our friend, “Well, didn’t you ever wonder who you are, or why you’re here, or what you’re supposed to do with your life?”

And our friend replied, “Well, yeah. But then I turned ten, and I decided to become an engineer, and I was fine.”) [Read more…]

And verily, I say unto thee,
The Mocker did arise and go forth
unto the land of kitchen supplies.

And lo, she did purchase an espresso machine,
and also did obtain a special frothing pitcher
for to create her own Chai Tea Lattes at home,
a drink unto which, verily, she hath become accustomed
since returning from her sojourning
unto the far Seattle-land.

And yea, The Mocker did look out
upon all that which she did mock before-
the fru-fru Italian names
and the specialized equipment,
which then begat these many beverage elitists.

And lo, as she looked out across
the Hot Beverage Landscape
and saw that verily it doth now reside
within her kitchen as well
The Mocker saw that it was very good.

A couple of days ago my husband and I were sitting on the couch catching up on this week’s episode of NCIS. The Director of NCIS, played by Lauren Holly, was talking to Special Agent Gibbs, played by Mark Harmon, about a case they were working on involving a man who was engaged to multiple women at the same time. She was talking about how even if you are in a relationship with someone, you may not really know them. They might be keeping secrets from you.

“I don’t have any secrets from you,” I told my husband.

“I know!” he replied. Due to some quirk in my own personal makeup, I can neither lie nor keep secrets. It’s like any kind of secret information is a foreign body in my system, and I must vomit it up and out as soon as possible in order to keep my system running smoothly.

“What about you?” I asked him. “Do you have any secrets?”

“Nope,” he said, and we went back to watching the show.

In the next scene Dr. “Ducky” Mallard is talking to Agent Gibbs about the corpse he is examining. “I got a hunch and I decided to trim his (the corpse’s) nose hair,” said Dr. Mallard.

At this my husband pauses the show (all hail the awesomeness of TIVO!), leaps up off the couch, and says, “Oh yeah, I do have a secret from you.”*

Oh, dear sweet Lord In Heaven, I thought to myself, completely panicked. What the hell kind of secret does “nose hair” remind you of?!

“Um, that’s okay, dude,” I said, backing away from him. “You can just go ahead and keep that particular secret to yourself.”

*It turned out all right, though. For some reason I still don’t completely understand, that just reminded him that he’d brought me back a present from Mexico.

I could not help but be cheered up just a little bit by the news that Florida’s Turkey Testicle Festival will be allowed to keep its name.

First, such a thing as a “testicle festival” actually exists? AWESOME!

Second, “testicle festival” is such a great rhyme.

And third, according to this article, “… more than 12 other cities…host annual events with the name ‘testicle’.”

How could that not make me feel at least a little better?

And that really sucks.

It’s a lot like breaking up.

On the Five Stages Of Grief scale, I’m alternating between “I Hate Your F*^&*@# Guts!” (deleting them from my phone, looking for some possession of theirs I can destroy) and, “Why Don’t You Want Me As A Friend Anymore?” (Much. Crying.)

It’s good to have other friends now, friends who read the emails I write them and say, “It sounds like you’re in the dark place. Please call me when you’re in the dark place. You don’t have to go there by yourself.”

It’s also good to have a coach, who teaches me tools to help me through my various life experiences.

It’s not so good to be a coach though, because then I just pound myself with so many “shoulds”. “You should be over this by now.” “You shouldn’t be so upset.” “You should’ve known better.”

So it’s good to have a coach who will step in and take the tools away from me temporarily. “I feel like I gave you a shovel, and instead of just having some fun digging around you tore up your whole yard,” she said to me. Actually it was more like she gave me a shovel and I used it to beat myself into the ground.

Now I’m on “Self-Help Restriction”. “You’re grounded from using any tools until the next time we talk,” was her verdict.

Good call.

I can’t wait for this week to be over.