Essaywhuman?!!!!!

There’s absolutely nothing on TV tonight, so while we clickity clack away on our little laptops, making money to pay for the neverending stream of dental care, Splash is on. Splash! Surely you know Splash. Tom Hanks. Daryl Hannah. Some sort of unbelievable mermaid plot that continues to be rehashed over and over and bloody over again in different incarnations including one starring Julia Roberts’ niece that I will fully cop to watching on HBO, but I really don’t care, because honestly? I love it. I’ve always wanted to be a mermaid. Hasn’t everyone? I have an ungodly amount of the movie memorized, and what I find particularly amusing is that everyone makes fun of the name Madison that Daryl has chosen for herself, and yet – and yet! – it’s one of the most popular names today, and right now, as I sit here, there are four, maybe six, Madisons being born right here in this county! I’m sure of it! And all of them are hoping to grow up to be mermaids. I know I am.

I realize this is about as exciting as watching mold grow, but I feel disingenuous in not sharing that I’m on Weight Watchers. Again. And what I find increasingly disturbing is that I don’t know what I’m doing right or wrong, but at the end of every day, I have too many points leftover, and I’m stuck trying to figure something out to eat. I know, cry me a fucking river, but I just have to figure that I’m doing it wrong, and surely, I can’t be adding up all my points properly, because it’s not like the weight is falling off of me in thick sheets, and yet I’m not that hungry. And while I’m doing my fair share of Draconian measures such as sucking down beef bouillon for snacking sustenance during the day because I’m so scared of running out of points, I feel astonishingly guilty pouring a little bowl of cereal at 11 p.m., because I’ve got 4 points left, and like bloody hell I’m going to leave food uneaten. Not leaving food uneaten is the reason I’m converting foods to weird little point values and entering them into the least user-friendly system ever (HONESTLY WEIGHT WATCHERS. Hire a GUI designer, would you?)

This is the first time I’ve done the Flex Plan (I’m a Core veteran), and it’s just…well, something’s not right, but I’ll tell you what’s even less right is seeing the lowest weight I was the last time I was on Weight Watchers. MY GOD, I was a skinny little bitch, and yet I wandered around whining about how big my hips were. I’d like to punch that little 130-pound me right in the face, and tell her to go eat a taco, that’s what I’d like to do.

And since nothing is more exciting than weight loss or lack thereof, except maybe periods, I feel compelled to mention that the P decided to take a break from its friends M and S while I was in the car on the way to the airport, and mildly panicked that things weren’t going well down there. And also, I was extremely crampy, which required me to purchase one of those minipacks of Midol at the airport, which, by the way, was impossible to find, along with tampons, and wouldn’t you think they should just build a giant vending machine in the middle of the terminal and charge $10 per tampon? Because, honestly, if there’s ever a time where you’re willing to pay a premium for tampons and Midol, it’s just before you get on a plane where things could get…sticky, and hell, they have a captive audience. Then of course, I would start packing a box in my carry-on and sell them on the black market, like contraband. Except then I would have to start carrying Playtex, or at least something with a plastic applicator, and…no…so there goes my career as traveling illegal tampon seller.

Anyway, after the Midol was purchased, the man behind the counter offered to open it for me, which I guess was kind of nice, except that he screamed it repeatedly in broken English, along with too much detail for anyone, except for maybe Dwight Schrute. Honestly, he yelled, in front of an entire line,

“DO YOU WANT ME TO OPEN UP YOUR MIDOL FOR YOU THE PACKAGE IS PLASTIC AND I BET YOUR PAIN IS VERY BAD. IS IT CRAMPS MY WIFE GETS CRAMPS SO I OPEN THE MIDOL FOR HER ALL THE TIME. LET ME OPEN THE MIDOL FOR YOU. I RELIEVE CRAMPS.”

And then he repeated it again, nodding as he whipped out a (child-like, safety) scissors and freed the tablets from the plastic.

“I RELIEVE CRAMPS. I OPEN THE MIDOL.”

I fully realize the irony in me telling way more people about this than were in line at the airport, but it’s very different when someone says “I RELIEVE CRAMPS” over and over again like a mantra, when all you want to do is PAY for the cramp relief without the personal touch, and you don’t want an entire line of people watching you cross and uncross your legs in terrified desperation, only to see you waddle off to the bathroom in search of some assistance before things get out of hand. And while that was very nice and all, and I do think he meant well, but isn’t that kind of…weird? Never mind. I know it’s weird. Of course it’s weird. But, ah, well meaning.

I RELIEVE CRAMPS.

Happy almost-Tuesday!

*The Roots. The punctuation is even correct.

17 comments March 12th, 2007