Her fire, faux innocence, and obsession with cats was obsessively terrifying. We hung on as a nation to see what dumb stunt would happen next on the Netflix series. We were so transfixed that we couldn’t see it was a distraction from the virus being sprayed on us all. I think I remember hearing the planes that did it.
I know. It sounds like a stretch, but at this point, after this year, anything could have happened. Anything sounds more logical than one guy eating a bat in China that caused the whole world to get sick.
I have decided that Carol Baskin was involved. And, just like any great politician, I will stand by my theory, no matter what any doctor from the CDC says
The Warning Signs
If you watch just the first episode you can see she is clearly fighting for world domination. Now that the Tiger King is out of the way, it is only logical that she would try to take down the rest of us. She won’t stop until it is just her and the cats! Ignoring her blatant mental illness, you can see the crazy anger in her eyes as she sits with a Persian cat and wears a sweater with a cat knitted on it. She thinks of herself as a cat. When I was young, I wanted to be a red crayon, but I let that shit go, Carol! I’m an adult. I know I can’t be a red crayon
Ignore this at your own risk. I tried to warn you. She may look like a harmless, deranged aunt from Ohio, but she is not to be underestimated
Talk first, think later. I have always had this habit and it has gotten me into trouble more times than I care to admit. I’ve been called bold, brazen, and unfiltered when in reality, I am just missing the part of the brain that makes one give two shits about the opinions of others. I also believe creativity is at its best when it is uncensored. I realize the reader may not believe that but, reminder, I am the one writing this article.
I have many unappreciated talents which include mockery, random statistic formulations, extreme sarcasm, and the uncanny ability to say anything with enough confidence and a straight face cool enough to get anyone to believe anything. I am also great at twisting or making up quotes to suit my current agenda. Basically, what I’m saying is I should definitely be President.
I think of myself as being somewhat creative and a self-diagnosed genius, so I am constantly on the lookout for new marketing strategies for my work and my blog. In addition to writing a blog, I am writing a novel and an e-book. This is after I get done with my day jobs which include managing over one hundred and eighty rental properties, listing houses, financial consulting, and credit repair.
I am also a mother to six children, two dogs, two birds, and a turtle. Mosaic making is a hobby of mine I plan to dominate when I’m done with that one guy who writes on Medium.
I won’t lie. I’ve had more great ideas that got shot down than approved by the powers that be. Apparently, risk takers are not appreciated by everyone. Luckily, I believe in myself enough for all of us. I’m not at Trump level, but close.
Picture an online advertisement for my credit repair services. The quote I suggested was, “Your face is not the only thing that needs filtering. See Kylie about giving your credit a new look too!” You see the image of someone that is truly terrible looking, but could be fixed with some filtering or plastic surgery. That was a hard no from my broker. It was one of many over the years
Imagine calling somewhere to conduct business or to make an appointment and being put on hold. Instead of hearing the soothing sounds of soft jazz, you are pleasantly surprised with the motivational sounds of hardcore rap encouraging you to be the best murdering drug dealer you can be. This was also a hard no. We are missing an entire demographic here!
Trying to sell metal detectors with the new name of Corona Detector. My husband did not approve and neither did the people I pitched it on in the elevator that day.
I have a tenant whose first name is General. I thought this was one of the most unbelievably genius names I have ever heard. I immediately approached my husband about getting my first name changed to Doctor. Just as fast, I was once again shut down.
These are just a few of the millions of unbelievably amazing ideas I have had throughout the years. I’m not resentful, but I can’t believe my ideas were trashed when a man made millions of dollars by inventing a pool noodle.
Risk Taking
We have become ingrained in our over-sensitive, politically correct culture and I don’t like it one bit. You have to do something different if you want to be different. The definition of insanity — according to Einstein in one article and definitely not him according to some others — is to do the same thing over and over but expect a different result.
I always tell this to my friends who get in relationships constantly with the same types of crappy men. Think outside of the box. Try something different. It may be the best thing you ever did.
Optimism still seeps out of me alongside every great idea and I just know my time to shine is coming soon.
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The COVID-19, also know as the Coronavirus, pandemic will not be forgotten by any of us any time soon. It has wrecked havoc on my life from getting my wedding venue and honeymoon cancelled the day before my wedding to ruining my son’s baseball career. That was just the beginning of the nightmare we were all about to endure. A nightmare that seems to have no ending in sight.
I will be the first to admit that I used to tease and make fun of the zombie apocalypse, end of the world obsessed people. They would all watch that violent show on AMC and then really believe that stuff would happen. Not only that, but, they believed it would happen soon. I also spared no ridicule for the doomsday preppers with their bunkers and massive collections of canned goods. I’m not laughing anymore.
I took a good and hard look at myself during this virus and found myself to be seriously lacking. My survival skills, on a scale from one to ten, were at a negative twenty. I had no stores of canned goods or bottled water. And, even worse, I had never even thought about toilet paper being the first essential item to all but disappear. I was totally unprepared. That will not be me the next time this happens.
I will be locked, loaded, and ready from now on.
TheTP
When shit hit the fan, I was not surprised to see evidence of hoarding start to happen. Much like when southerners see a snowflake, the supermarkets started getting low on certain items, mainly milk and bread. That was normal. This time, instead of bread and milk, the people panicked and bought all available toilet paper. This was not normal.
Months later, I am still confused by this. I bought bottled water and canned food. My butt was the last thing on my mind at the time. You can’t eat toilet paper for survival, but you can wipe your butt across the yard.
A lesson was learned this year. During these last few months of chaos, I have had to borrow toilet paper and, once, had to drive two hours to my brother’s house to find some. I will never let my toilet paper supply dwindle down again.
Reading
There have been a few good things to come out of all of this. I have always been a book hoarder, both paper and digital, but now I can hoard them with no backtalk from my husband! He now understands we might need these to fully educate all of our offspring in the future. I hope they like Stephen King and Ken Follett.
I might be taking advantage of this situation a little, but he has also stockpiled a few unnecessary items. Nobody needs that many tree stands.
Alcohol
This might not seem essential to some. Tell me that after trying to homeschool six kids and work a full time job. Retraction: Tell me that after trying to homeschool MY six kids and work MY full time job. I will make sure plenty of wine is on hand from now on, no matter what. I will use whatever methods I can find to prevent being defeated by my life. If I have to learn how to make my own shine myself deep in the woods somewhere, then so be it. My grandfather did it and he was not the sharpest tool in the shed. Probably because of his moonshine.
Tip: some types of alcohol can also be used to make hand sanitizer supposedly.
Back to the homeschooling debacle. I can not begin to describe the trauma this home schooling stunt has caused me or the learning disabilities it has caused my kids. School is on track to reopen very soon here and I have never been more terrified to send my kids back there. It feels like I’m sending them straight to COVID.
I am leaning towards making them stay home. I would rather have them dumb, but alive. Of course, they want to go back to school and life as normal as soon as they possibly can, so I have not discussed this with them yet. I keep hoping the schools will delay things a little longer.
Gardening
I started gardening after all of this in preparation for the next global pandemic or food shortage caused by fear mongering. I know now that I need to know more survival, cooking, and gardening skills if I expect to survive the hunger games.
However, if we should actually ever drop down to a short supply of food, my husband is an expert hunter and fisherman. For those of you that are not so lucky, I would recommend starting a garden or considering taking a course on how to loot. You can just go back and watch some old episodes of CNN for the looting lesson. I wouldn’t recommend coming to my house, though.
As I work on myself and the new life that has suddenly become mine, I try to be optimistic and positive outwardly. Inside, I am patiently waiting for my life to get back to normal. Deep down, I think we all will be learning a new normal. Life from before is over.
In my latest episode of How I Could Run Things Better Than You Do, I am focusing on the always hated, never anticipated visit to the DMV. We all dread the five year visit. Because we know we won’t have all the paperwork they require and will have to come back for the next three days in a row until we finally get someone that accepts any of the 40 proofs of identity you have brought along.
The first thing I would do is a complete overhaul of staffing. Anyone that hadn’t smiled in the last five years would be hitting the road. New hires would be trained by the local Chick-Fil-A manager. Rudeness would never seethe through their pores and apathy would be instinct in this branch. You would be greeted with a smile and offered a coffee and a biscuit immediately upon your arrival.
While employee training was in effect, I would start working on the mandated changes, by me, to the design and aesthetic of the interior. Instead of going with an industrial steel gray, I would go with soft lighting and the calm colors of nature. When people get mad that they have to come back with 97 more documents, it won’t be a violent confrontation because they will be relaxed and soothed from their experience in our environment. Getting anything done would still be an act of Congress because I can’t overhaul the location, the experience, and the government all at one time.
The interior would be sparkling clean and smell fresh, unlike its normal odor of pork rinds and grapefruit juice. There would be cleaning and sanitation of the entire location done on a daily basis, so contracting chlamydia from a chair would stop being a fear for a visitor.
We will make organ donation and blood donation mandatory to get a driver’s license. Pictures must be updated every two years. Let’s face it, a lot can happen in five or ten years, causing us to look like totally different people. That is a lot of donut eating days that have gone by in the timeframe.
Fifty three customer service windows will be available in order to service customers quickly. Our average wait time would be three minutes, which would be just long enough to drink your soda and pet the puppies. We would keep puppies from the pound there during business hours to facilitate adoptions.
Once the customer was done with customer service, they would be personally escorted out and given a gift basket from Bath and Body Works to make up for the inconvenience of missing twenty minutes of work.
As usual, I have broken down how to run an establishment that has needed an overhaul since its inception in 1584. Be on the lookout soon, for my upcoming article on how I would be a much better President of the United States.
As a child, none of my dreams included anything having to do with money. This is because, at the time, I had no idea what it was like to be broke as hell. Now, many years later, I have included money in my dreams and goals for the future. I am also still clinging on to a few dreams from my childhood. I tend to have really immature grown-up goals as well. I am aware that at my age, I’m supposed to be dreaming of cross-stitch, knick knacks, and IRAs. Or maybe gardening and bingo.
I would give absolutely anything to have my own personal version of Dwight Schrute working along side of me at my office so I could mess with him continually for my own pleasure. If that happened, I would be so excited to go to work every morning. As it stands, my current co-workers do not enjoy me messing with them and get offended. Nobody at my place of employment has obsessions with swords or beets.
Obviously I didn’t watch the office when I was a child, but I am including this dream of mine because it is clearly a ridiculous thing to want so badly as an adult.
The coolest phone that ever existed
When I was 13, I was the only one of my friends that didn’t have that super awesome phone that was shaped like a pair of lips with red lipstick. I’m not gonna lie, this is still on my bucket list even though I don’t even have a landline. I will get on just to meet this goal.
Actually, I would rather install this bad boy in my office so I could show it off more. It would let everyone that entered my office know that I had arrived.
When I was younger, I used to watch Duck Tales every Saturday. This habit caused me to desire the riches of owning a treasure chest full of gold. Even though I am proud of my accomplishments and successes, I don’t feel like I will have ever made it in life unless I have one of these in my living room. I also associate sugar cubes with financial success. Once I’m rich, I will only take cubes in my coffee. Loose sugar is for chumps.
If I do ever become rich, look out. I will be one of those eccentric rich old people that spend their money on charities and huge statues. I will buy billboards just to say snarky things along the interstate. I will use my money to do good things and also to amuse myself. I will also buy an ascot immediately.
Roger Rabbit
I used to love this movie. Actually, I still love this movie. I was also and still am jealous of Jessica rabbit. I am quite aware that this is a cartoon character, but dang she is hot and I wish I looked like her.
Will Ferrell
Don’t tell my husband, but I really feel like Will Ferrell is my soul’s twin. I feel like he is the only one that would totally understand my sense of humor. It is absolutely my second biggest goal in life to meet him and hang out with him for an evening or forever, whatever happens.
Knowing me, though, I would freeze up and act like a huge nerd instead of the hugely entertaining person I normally am, according to people that I pay.
My first goal is obviously for my children to grow up healthy, happy, and successful. But mainly happy.
I have always read a lot. I started reading when I was very young, around age 4, and quickly fell in love with it and have never stopped. Please note, according to my mom, this does not make me a genius.
As a child, I loved the escapism that books provided me. As an adult whose daily life is sometimes saturated in bulls&*t, I still think it would be the coolest thing in the world to find a book like that boy did in The Neverending Story. I could come home after a long day of jerkwads, pick up the magic book, and actually be transported to that world for a little while. With my luck, I would get trapped in The Shining or something like that.
Translator
This is actually a semi-mature and recent dream of mine, but my life would be so much easier if someone would teach my map and translation apps how to understand a southern accent. I am so tired of talking into my phone and having none of it be understood. If I am that hard to understand, then how come everybody can understand me in real life. Answer me that Siri?
At the end of the day, I think I am still an overactive twelve year old stuck in this 41 year old body. I guess the kid in me just doesn’t want to grow up.
I’m fine with that. I’d rather be a little, or a lot, immature than boring as hell.
Aging is a slow dance with a beautiful man whose name is death, but he goes by Bill so that you won’t know it’s him. It is not a lie that youth is wasted on the young. Few of the young realize the opportunities that youth allows them.
When I turned 40, I handled it better than I thought I would. I still felt the same way as I did at 39 and I still thought much the same way as I did at 13. “What’s the big deal,” I thought to myself.
In my journey to age 41, I did make note of sudden changes that appeared as I got older. When I turned 32, I started lowering the volume on my car radio.
When 35 hit, I woke up loving gardening and flowered artwork.
At forty, I suddenly went nuts for Christmas decor and started collecting Christmas ornaments. I got embarrassingly much too excited about a new vacuum cleaner.
Then I turned 41. I guess my freak out mode was delayed a year because 41 is when I really freaked out. I felt like I woke up suddenly a decade older. The only things missing were me suddenly loving cat sweaters and cross stitching rainbows. I was sure that was coming along shortly.
Shortly after my forty first birthday, things started to change. Suddenly, an evening with friends that included a few drinks took three days to recover from.
I started carrying Advil in the car in addition to having it at home. The weather became an awesome topic of conversation and I ran into at least three people I knew every time I went to the pharmacy.
I had to fight myself into not buying a cat sweater. I canceled three appointments that I made for a permanent and a set and Piccadilly at 4:30 seemed the perfect locale for dinner instead of resembling a formaldehyde smelling funeral home.
PhotobyUnsplash
I looked at my wrinkles, sagging body, and gray hairs that appeared overnight while trying to think about the good parts of aging. I knew there had to be some.
I definitely am a lot more mature and responsible than I was 12 years ago, although I’m still decades behind my peers in that respect. No one loves pranks and 12-year-old humor more than I do. I also impulse buy a lot.
I still get hit on plenty, but that’s really not saying much because some of these men would hit on a dead toad if they thought it would put out. And it’s usually at the gas station or over Messenger.
Recently, I looked at some pictures of Jennifer Aniston, and women like her in their fifties, who claim not to ever have had cosmetic surgery done. They look like they’re 19 instead of 50. I bet they don’t even own a housedress.
I call bullshit. Either they are lying or they’re buying $12,000 skin cream made from some secret ingredient that only they know about such as endangered eagle jizz or something similar.
Anyway, my exterior might be aging a bit, but my internal self is still young and vibrant. I love to have fun, be social, and be with friends and family. And mess with people and stir up trouble.
Unsplash
I both dread and look forward to what 45 holds in store for me. As I age, my brain, beliefs, and morals get better, but my body is slowly falling apart.
Like a fine wine, I’m getting better with age, but only on the inside. But I’ll grow old fighting it every step of the way.
Kylie’s Rants 