24 June 2009

[Imported] Complete strangers take better notes

Mmm, cake.


Sorry, can't think of anything witty to say here. TOO BUSY DROOLING.



All in all, I had a decent birthday. Nothing worth complaining about, not a whole lot worth mentioning either, but the mundane is what I live for. Or, at least, what my blog lives for. So here's a little story for you.

First, I have to tell you another story to set this story up, and I could have SWORN that I blogged it back when it happened (I was just going to link to it rather than tell it again) - I searched and searched and searched every blog in which I ever wrote because I swear it's there somewhere, I remember writing it dangit, but, ahh well. It happened two Christmases ago, and I'm sure my readership has doubled (to FOUR!) since then, so I'll go ahead and tell the story again, and to at least 50% of you, it will be brand new to your ears.

So. Two Christmases ago. With me so far? Good. My cousin and her husband got me a 6 pack of Altoids. That's nice, my breath must really smell, eh? Actually, back then I ate them like they were small, minty fountains of youth, or maybe solid crack - pick your simile - and so it was thoughtful of my cousins to get me a gift that I would actually use.

Except that they were my absolute least favorite flavor in the entire world.

Now, I'm not trying to sound like a bitch, though I'm sure it's coming across that way. But let me just say that I practically had those little blue boxes of Altoids welded to my hand, I ate them so often. And just as often, I would offer them to those around me, including my cousins, and so I KNOW FOR A FACT that they had indeed both saw AND tasted my flavor of choice.

Let me make the most overly-dramatic comparison I possibly can here so you can see where I'm coming from. To get a 6-pack of the one flavor I can't stand was kind of like buying a huge Chicago Cubs fan tickets to a White Sox game. The effort was there, but the thought was clearly not fully executed.

But of course, this was not a big deal, because OH MY GOSH they're just Altoids. I'm just making a big deal of it here because over-reacting is what the internet is made for, and if I didn't overreact, there'd be no story. Anyway, I politely and discreetly asked where they got my gift, because while it was appreciated, I would, if you don't mind, dear cousins, like to return these for another flavor, preferably the ones in the blue box, if you have no objections, and I sincerely hope that you understand, because the last thing in the world that I'd ever want to do would be to upset you for preferring one type of Altoid over another.

(That's probably a pretty accurate way I asked them in real life too, because I am beyond paranoid about hurting people's feelings and letting people down to the point that sometimes I worry that I'm breathing more than my fair share of oxygen when in the presence of others, and despite how I might come across on this here intraweb (i.e. abrasive, snobbish, and a bit of a whiner), I simply cannot be happy if my actions in any way make the people around me feel anything less than pissing-sunshine ecstatic.)

Okay, fast forward to Now, birthday party '08. I'm sure you can already guess where I'm going with this, so I'm just going to cut to the chase and say YES, they DID IT AGAIN. Yes, I still eat those same blue Altoids, and though I'm down to about a pack a month, I STILL EAT THEM IN PLAIN SIGHT. But, no, they are determined to make me eat those awful red-box Altoids, and THEY WILL NOT BE DETERRED.

But, there's a twist this time! This time, my other cousin's boyfriend, whom I'm met all of five times MAYBE, somehow picked up on the fact that I have severely dry lips, which immediately shrivel up and fall off whenever I am outside a 3-foot radius of any given chapstick, and while I can't remember ever bringing this up in his presence (or the presence of ANY human being for that matter), he somehow knew that two tubes of Burt's Bees chapstick would be the ultimate gift, and, Abby, I'm just letting you know right now that if you don't want him, I do, because he certainly didn't need to get me anything, and not only did he get me something, he got me the BEST SOMETHING THERE EVER WAS, and that boy certainly did his research.

As for my family who has known me since birth, come on...Don't you know me AT ALL?

(Then again, I might have the bar set too high. After all, I'm the girl who watched Ebay for MONTHS trying to find my mom's favorite childhood book, which I only knew about because I just happened to overhear a conversation she was having with someone else. Oh, and I also had my grandparents ship me some orange creamsicle-flavored fudge from TENNESSEE, because I found out that it was the favorite flavor of the person for whom I was Secret Santa, and SO WHAT if I couldn't find it in North Carolina?)

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