Hi Martha - can I call you that? Or maybe Marti? I feel like we should be on a first-name basis, since you are apparently living in my house. It's funny, I haven't seen you, but it's been rather messy around here, and it's entirely possible I've confused you with a pile of newspapers. I really hope I don't turn into one of those old women who can only get from one room to the next by following the path between the stacks of newspapers. Although, of course, that will never happen, because I have WAY more magazines than newspapers, and as you know, magazines are glossy and rather slippery and piles of them would topple over and kill me long before I get a chance to grow old.
But that is a problem for the future, and my problem for the present is where are you?? And WHO are you? I feel this is a fair question to ask, since you are now receiving mail at my house. At first I thought it was just a piece that was placed in my box by accident. That has happened before, and it's always fun to see what the neighbors are buying. (I have to admit, though, none of my neighbors mail is as interesting as my friends' neighbors' mail... she accidentally received an 'adult device' and opened it before she realized it wasn't actually addressed to her, and then had to solve the problem of how to return it to the neighbors without a) being seen and b) having them know that not only does SHE know about their, um, proclivities, pretty much everyone she ever met now knows). I'm a little jealous, really. Marti, you don't happen to subscribe to have any outstanding catalog orders that I should be looking for, do you? Perhaps something, oh, laptop-y? Or Pottery-Barny? Nothing has shown up yet. I swear, NOTHING has.
Well, except for your 15% off Holiday Shopping Pass to Doodlehoppers 4 Kids, which is also one of MY favorite toy stores. It's a wonderful place to shop, don't you think? I always get sucked in when I'm there, and I claim I'm buying all the Hello Kitty toys for my daughter, but I really do love Chococat. It may be why all of my cats are black - they remind me of Chococat. Did you know that black cats are actually the LEAST favorite color of cats? I find that appalling. And I have white furniture. If anyone should hate black cats, it should be me. But I don't. I think they are kind of cute. And they don't show as much dirt as you'd think (although really, if that were my basis for selecting a pet, I would TOTALLY get a calico cat).
So if you shop at Doodlehoppers, then I can only assume that you also have small children. Are they living with you? Are they living HERE? I haven't seen them at all! There are frequently many small loud children running through my house at any given time, and I have a hard time keeping track of all of them. One of two of them could very easily be yours. I hope you don't mind that I've left the Cheetos and Little Debbie Christmas Cakes out on the counter tonight. If your kids come home with a sugar buzz, I take full responsibility. Normally I try to not have Cheetos and Little Debbies in the house, especially since I spent a ridiculous amount of money to lose weight this year, but the Cheetos are for guests, and the Little Debbies are a bribe for my toddler so she'll go to school and not complain. I'm so sick of the whining. I imagine you must be, too, since you're living here. It's probably why I haven't seen you - you've been avoiding the noise. I don't blame you, no ma'am, I don't blame you at all.
Here are a couple interesting death facts, since we were in fact, talking about death by magazine stack - did you know that Bosnia (yes BOSNIA) has a higher life-expectancy than the US? I find that amazing. I am assuming that they are removing from the statistical analysis death-by-genocide. But, you never know. My other favorite death fact: You have a higher chance of dying from an asteroid impact than from dying in a tsunami. I am not making this up. Somewhere in this post is a link to those statistics. Since we know that lots and lots of people have, in fact, died in tsunamis (tsunamai?) in recent years, I can only assume that the movie Armageddon was actually a documentary. Which is kind of disappointing, since it was a pretty bad one at that.
Did you know that in most documentary films, there will be a random dog wandering through across the screen at some point? I watch a lot of documentary stuff (well, I used to, before I had children and hosted random mystery roommates), and that was one of the things I would do to amuse myself when we were at the slow part of the film. Because let's be honest, there's always a slow part. I love documentary film, but there is almost always at least one scene that makes me long for an exploding asteroid. Who knew I was just watching the wrong documentary?!
So, Martha, back to you. Did you honestly think I wouldn't find out you were living here? It's not as if you pick up after yourself. Clearly, you're the one responsible for all the dirty dishes left in the sink at night, and for the clothes that never get picked up. (You really must stop trying on my things and throwing them across the chair - I'm getting rather tired of it.) And the next time you leave toothpaste on the sink, would it really kill you to wipe it off? I mean, come on, you're at the sink already. The water is already running.
And tell your kids to please quit leaving dirty fingerprints on my mirrors. And if you're going to let them wear my chapstick, could you please, PLEASE, tell them to not kiss the television screen??
Okay, Martha, I need to go clean up one of your messes. Apparently, when you had dinner earlier, you didn't tell your children to not eat under the table, and now there is a crumbly pile of cornbread. You know, I was saving that for dinner tomorrow. Thief.
