An unfortunate side effect of my blog gaining more and more visibility is that it is apparently also bringing me to the attention of more and more spammers.

Usually I don’t even look at the spam, preferring instead to spend my time strengthening my spam filters and wishing for a way to somehow attach a tiny but powerful blowgun to all spammers’ computers, so that anytime they even thought about sending out more spam they would instantly be flooded by a multitude of sharp, poisonous darts.

But the other day I received an email that acutally made me stop in my tracks and do a double take and, committed as I am to bringing you the humor in everday life, I can’t not share it here:

“Hi, may i present you freshest hot stuff?

I am ready to kill myself and eat my dog, (emphasis mine) if medicine prices here are bad.

Look, the site and call me 1-800 if its wrong..

My dog and I are still alive ”

Phew! I’m so relieved that enough people were sucked in by your scheme that you have not been forced to commit horrible acts of violence against yourself or your pet!

…makes me a loaded grenade of snarkiness just waiting for something to come along and pull out my pin.

I am in Chicago at a conference, and after 3 days I must admit that there is really nothing inherently funny about professional conferences. I’ve been forced to find creative ways to throw out phrases like, “totally talking out of my ass” from time to time just to lighten up the tone a bit.

Sure, we do have a conference leader who spends approximately 60% of his time “shush-ing” us from the front of the room, as if we were all 5 years old. But that’s not so much funny as it is unbelievably irritating, to the point where I just want to rush up onto the stage, rip out his tongue, and with it club him into insensibility because please, dear God, the shush-ing, MAKE IT STOP!

And then today we had a speaker who took an extremely interesting approach to group presentations. His talk consisted of verbally abusing us for about an hour and a half (for example, calling us a big bunch of whiners) and then (Important Side Note: I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP) if we complained, or questioned his approach, or really even dared to say anything at all, he made us pay him $2. I’m a little fuzzy on all the details of exactly how this is going to work, but apparently the process of our paying him to be really mean to us is going to turn us all into amazingly successful business owners.

Sadly, tub poo is actually starting to seem like a pleasant alternative.

I’m sure it will come as no surprise to any of you to learn that I have an extremely well-developed inner rebel. But the weird thing about her is the the things she chooses to rebel against.

For example, I will happily dump every single trash can in our house, tie up the garbage bags, and deposit them outside the kitchen door in the garage. But I absolutely refuse to take those same garbage bags and place them in the big trash can that we take to the curb every Tuesday. I just now went outside and checked, and it is exactly 24 extra steps from the kitchen doorstep to the trash cans. I refuse to walk 24 extra steps because I believe that in doing so, I am winning some kind of moral victory. (Please know that I never said any of this is rational.)

Fortunately I am married to a man who is afflicted with this same issue. But where my rebellion is up front and in your face his is more passive, so you don’t actually realize what’s going on until you notice for the 2 bazillionth time in a row that, Under No Circumstances Whatsoever will he retrieve clean towels from the linen closet and hang them on the hooks in the bathroom.

I’m not really sure what this proves other than the fact that if, as I am, you are the firstborn child of 2 firstborn parents, married to a man with one firstborn parent, that there will occasionally be moments in your marriage when you both act like rams who are continually smashing into one another, horns locked in mortal combat. Except that you’re not fighting for anything important, like a mate. You’re just fighting to defend your right to be stubborn about really stupid stuff.

My inner rebel also showed up A Lot in my work life, and I’m sure you can imagine just how much my employers enjoyed that. It did not matter what rule they made, I was an expert in finding a way to react with moral outrage and righteous indignation so that I could feel totally justified in ignoring the rule.

However now that I’m in my 30’s I’ve been thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could try to do things a little differently. And so for the last 7 months I have been taking a class to actually become certified at this profession of being a Life Coach. And that is also why I have been absent from my blog for the last week. This Tuesday was our 2 1/2 hour final oral exam, and while I do excel at totally-making-things-up-as-I-go-along and pulling-things-out-of-my-ass-at-the-last-minute, I thought that perhaps I should actually prepare for this exam, so as not do undo all my hard work of the last 7 months (and the 4 months before that).

And so I am very happy to report that I successfully managed my inner rebel, and now I am officially a Certified Life Coach. (Check out my website for more information.)

And we will now return to our regular scheduled programming of humorously commenting on all of the goofy contrasts that we, personally experience in life. (And there are lots.)

Just recently I applied for, and received, my very first business license. And all of a sudden, just like in 5th grade when I got a brand new package of stickers, people are falling all over themselves to be my new best friend.

At first I was a little concerned that my county might have sold my name and contact information to all of these service providers, and that our community’s financial success might possibly depend on the number of accountants, IT consultants, and merchant account providers that I personally could hire.

But my husband said that most likely it’s just that I’ve now become part of the public record (no more lurking, I guess), and that that is why I am suddenly attracting all of this new attention.

Now, I am all for people growing their businesses (especially as I am now going to stick in a plug for my Life Coaching business and website, Find Your Gold, serving people who are stuck in a conflict between what they really what and what they think they “should” do, and who want to learn how to give themselves permission to be who they are, and what what they want, and learn how to get the things they most want in simple, easy steps.)

So I’m not really minding the deluge of snail mail and phone calls. Especially when I receive an offer that is so aligned, so clearly focused, so crisply in tune with the heartbeat of what I am offering to my clients as this one:

“Let us help you with your embroidery or silk screening needs! Shirts, caps, bags, etc today!. Call us first!”

Are we a perfect match or what?