If I were a con artist and owned a _______ company

If I were a con artist and owned a toilet paper company, I would buy out all the other toilet paper companies and then raise my prices super high. The demand would be very high, and I would be the only company left. As the only company, everyone would come to me, and with my prices SO high, I would make a mega ton of money. I mean, let's be honest, who wants to go without toilet paper? 

If I were a con artist and owned a gasoline company, I would just be a regular gas company owner. Oh, burn! 

If I were a con artist and owned a pet breeding company, I would stop owning that company because breeding is stupid. Then I would go work at the local humane society. 

If I were a con artist and owned a shoe company I would also be a foot surgeon. I would engineer all my shoes to be insanely stylish and comfortable AND CHEAP... at first. After a few weeks of wearing them, the shoes would severely mess up your feet and you would have to come have me do surgery on your feet. Shoe money + surgery money = lots of money. People would still buy my shoes even though they screw up your feet because they're so affordable and stylish.

 

If I were a con artist and owned a Christmas tree company, I would have fantastic tall and full trees. I would only sell my trees, however, to families with a member who has an unstable mental health past. I would spray all my trees with unscented hairspray (so nobody would know) and when families turned on the fireplace, their houses would catch on fire. This is a terrible thought, right? Burning people's houses down and blaming a mentally unstable person in their family? Wrong! I would also be a firefighter. Not a regular firefighter, though. I would just happen to be near when the fires start, so I would put out the fire and save all the people in the house! 
Tree money + reward money from the city for saving countless people = lots of money
Bam. 

If I were a con artist and owned a cell phone company, I would have really cheap phones and plans. That way, more people would buy my products. Then, I would arm the phones so that whenever they're on, they produce a nearly inaudible frequency that would make all my customers go completely insane. The only parallel between all these thousands of people going insane and ruining their lives would be their cell phone company, and that is a highly improbable parallel to be at fault, so I would never be blamed. 

Eventually, though, I'd probably be found out and get sent to jail. So I guess all of this planning is in vain. 

This Year's Adventures

Since it's December, almost the end of the year, I've decided to make a compilation of my favorite adventures of the past year, because frankly, this past year has been quite adventurous. Since I take photos of pretty much everything, this will be predominantly photos.
Enjoy.

Okay, so I know this is an oddball to start out with.. But here my weirdo choir friends an I conducted... Wait for it... A fake wedding. We were in girls choir, did I mention? That's right, all girls. An all girl party.. Conducting a wedding. Nonetheless, we created a quite questionable wedding "dress" for one and a "suit" for the other. Whilst marrying the "couple," The lines, I believe, were "By the power vested in me--which is none--I pronounce you couple married." It was an  interesting day, to say the least.

May 20: A partial solar eclipse visible here at my very own home. The light does an interesting dance through the trees.

May 28th: Hiking with my dad in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Yes, it was May and there was 2.5 feet of snow in some places. Yet, we were in shorts and short sleeves. The jackets weren't needed after the first few minutes. That, I would say was an adventure.

The Epic Summer Cross-Half-Country road trip. Utah to Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, then back to Nebraska and home to Utah. (Funny how we were in Nebraska 3 out of 9 nights and that was the only sign we didn't get.. /: ) July 6-15. 

 Mount Rushmore was one of the highlights of my year. I've wanted to go there for years and it was awesome.

The Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium in Omaha, Nebraska. One of the 3 largest zoos in the US. This place was HUGE. 

This.. This was amazing. Eating dinner on a bridge over the Mississippi River at sunset, near Keokuk, Iowa. We even got a show-- the bridge had a passageway underneath where we were standing to let trains through over the river, but when boats need to come through the opposite direction, the bridge has to move. Surprise! Moving bridge! 

Last destination. 

I planted a tree. Yeah, it's sideways, but I planted a tree. 

July 28th

Building a sandcastle with my cousins. It was a bit of a homely thing, but it stood for a good amount of time. August 17th

September 3rd: Rock Climbing.
My dad and I drove out to the Great Salt Lake and climbed this very large "rock." It was a lovely day.

This is the Veteran's Memorial Cemetery in Utah. My uncle is buried here, and this summer I decided to collect stones and paint them. They all fit in the palm of my hand, and I painted something different on all of them, then took them and put them on every headstone in the row in which my uncle is buried. September 15th. 

September 20th: Sprinkler running in choir uniforms.

More "rock" climbing. September 23rd at Bridal Veil Falls. The water was SO cold. 

November 3rd: A trip to Logan, and we found an antique shop! I puffy heart antique shops. 

December 12th. Singing at the Utah State Capitol in a circle, center of the rotunda, with our directer in the middle of us. We sang a song called Carol of Joy which is a lovely Christmas song. It was the highlight of my day. 

I Like Waffles

One day I decided to make waffles. Since I'm a lazy, cheap teenager, I grabbed the box of Jiffy mix and the waffle iron and got to work. I was mega excited for these waffles, guys. I would equate it to a person who hasn't eaten in two days. I was that excited. So on the box there are all these options of how many waffles you want the mix to make. I didn't want many, so I chose the smallest option, which was 4. Four waffles. I would have two and leave the rest for someone else. So I started cooking my waffles! The anticipation was kind of crazy. I waited for the little light on the iron to turn on and I opened it and it was like heaven. There it was, waffle heaven. So I ate it. I actually kinda snarfed it down.. I imagine it wasn't very attractive.. 

So I kept on making my waffles. When I got to number 5, I knew something wasn't quite right. 5. I looked at the box. 4. But.. But I have 4 already and lots more mix! 

I ended up with 9 waffles, coming to the conclusion that I am a wizard. 
A waffle wizard. 

Not a pancake wizard. 

Because that has absolutely no alliteration. And pancakes are gross. Who came up with pancakes anyway? They don't even taste like cake.. Cake is good. Pancakes, not. 

Whoever came up with waffles is kind of a super genius cause those things are dang good. 

When I was in the third grade, my school started at 9, and I was a morning person, so I was up in plenty of time to get ready for school with time to spare. My mom, being awesome as she is, made me pancakes. Every morning before school I had apple cinnamon pancakes with maple syrup. And they were delightful. 
Maybe that's why I don't like them anymore.

 
Or maybe it's just plain pancakes. Man, those are nasty. But plain waffles aren't. 

Hence, 
Waffles > pancakes. 

All Gym Teachers are Jerks

But really. Is it a job qualification? On the application, question 1: "are you a jerk? If yes, please continue. If no, please feel free to stop filling out the application altogether." Question number 2: "do you have athletic ability? If yes, please continue. If no, continue anyway, cause who needs knowledge about what they'll be teaching?"

Every gym teacher I've had has been a total d-bag. The first one I remember was in the third grade, and he wasn't even technically a "gym teacher." That was in a public elementary school where P.E. was a reward (not for me-I always hated it). He was this fat, old guy who sat at the head of the room and yelled our instructions at us. 

The next gym teacher I remember is a woman. She was a really nice lady, in all honesty, when she wanted to be, which was often. I guess mostly she was strict. That was in the regular classes she taught. But when you got her in the gym or out on the field, she was a witch. I admittedly faked sick several times throughout my year having this woman as a gym teacher. I dreaded that last hour of school where I had to endure her barking orders and forcing me to be athletic (I'm a very, very selectively athletic person; I'm good at one sport).

THEN. Middle school just sucks altogether, right? Well.. Gym teacher from hell. He worked with my mom because she worked at my school from 6-8 grade. So he knew my mom. And they were a little bit friends, even though my mom totally agreed that he was a jerkface. I don know what it was about this man.. Maybe he was just really sarcastic, because he had been nice-ish to me on occasion, but if he was sarcastic, it was very unreadable. I'm pretty sure he's just mean. 

One day before I had class, I'd forgotten to wash my shirt. So I asked my mom to throw it in the wash. She put my light grey gym uniform shirt into the wash with a dark red something. I'm not even sure what that something was now, but it was red. She put it on cold, so it wasn't supposed to bleed. I was still a little leery of this act, but I trusted her judgment. Well, it bled. My grey shirt was tinted ever so slightly pink. You really couldn't tell. Well, you couldn't tell till you put me in a room with 25 other kids whose shirts were not tinted slightly pink. Of course the teacher commented, I told him the story, incredibly embarrassed, hoping he'd spare me since it wasn't my fault and he was sort of buddy with my mom. Well, I was wrong. He took away some of my points for that day. I was so mad that I wanted to cry, because that's what I do when I'm incredibly mad. Eventually, the shirt problem was resolved, even if it was the only problem with him that was, because my mother is quite outspoken when it comes to her children's well-being. 

So having a parent work at your school is a perk, even if it was her fault in the first place.

Adventures in the Cone of Shame

So last Saturday my cat got hurt. We don't really know how or by what (we think it was another cat), but it's a pretty significant wound. She has something like 14 or 16 stitches. 









Wanna see a close up of that? 

















YUM. 

My cat is probably about 45/55 outside cat, so she's in the yard and adjacent yards fairly often. And she is very territorial- I guess most cats probably are. She gets in fights frequently, but she usually doesn't get too affected by them. She'll have a limp for a couple days or a scratch somewhere but it lasts for 2-3 days at the very most. Well on Sunday she came inside and she was limping a little. We didn't think much of it, but then she started acting super paranoid and wouldn't stay still. She kept licking her tail so I knew she was hurt. My mom looked at her about half an hour later (I don't like to touch her when she's hurt). She moved a chunk of her fur and there was a big 2 inch gash in her would-be-hip area, just above her tail. It was really.. Gross. And bloody. And gross. 

So anyway, she was extremely paranoid and was totally watching her back like crazy. Eventually she hid under a couch and stayed there for hours hurting. 
Anyway, we ended up taking her to the vet to get stitched up on Monday. They kept her over night, so on Tuesday afternoon when I came home from school she was there, on the couch, being pitiful. They shaved a bit of her fur off of course, and we decided she would look extremely strange as a bald cat, given how crazy fluffy she is. 
So she has a cone on her head. 

She looks ridiculous. And it's really quite sad and pathetic. She has to wear it for two weeks and she can't go outside, so she's going a little crazy. The first couple days she was content to just sleep and sleep and sleep, but now she's like "LET ME OUTSIDE, HUMANS." Yesterday the front door was left open several inches and she laid on the floor rather dramatic-like just staring out the screen. 

On the first night she was home she tried to eat. With her cone. I honestly feel really bad for her, but it was hilarious. She kept trying to get her head in there to eat but the cone was pushing the bowl farther and farther away from her face. Now that it's been a few days she's sort of got the hang of it. 
Also that night she tried to get a drink of water and tipped over the whole big bowl, water cascading all over the carpet. 
Today she managed to take the cone off for a time. We don't know how long exactly, but she had already made her stitches bleed so we had to put it back on her. She then sat in the middle of the hallway, glaring at anybody who looked her way. 
By Saturday morning, Duchess was obviously very, very bored. She had mostly gotten used to the cone, except that it itches and she doesn't like that. She welcomes any and all neck scratching by us wholeheartedly. But she is so unbelievably bored. She wants to go outside so badly, but she can't for another week. So on Saturday morning she walked around the house meowing every five seconds at us. Not just a regular meow. No, not at all. It is not by any means cute or precious. It's annoying and loud and kinda sounds like she's dying. She loves to complain. So she did that for a couple hours on Saturday morning, but we were gone the majority of Saturday. When we came home she'd moved on from that horrible complain and decided to start running maniacally all over the house instead. This lasted awhile. Unfortunately, as soon as she was tired of that, she moved back to her obnoxious complaining. 

And this is her, being bored, climbing sideways against the wall. 

Today we took of the cone for a few hours because she was being so annoying, but mostly I think she wants to go outside. But she's still got a week left till everything will be healed right. Pray I have the patience not to kick her, even though I would never do that. 

A Boy Happened

Disclaimer: super personal and I'm not holding back at all. Also potentially dramatic and/or boring to anyone who didn't live through it. You were warned.

 

What has happened the past year-ish of my life? 

Well, we'll start in August 2011. Starting at a new school, got a new haircut, new lots of things, and it was like a whole new life for me, this high school experience. Not a normal high school experience, cause I don't believe in public education, but still high school. 
I remember everything about that first week of school- that last week of August. I liked the "new" of it all. It was so lovely to have change. I was 14 at the time, going on 15 the coming October.
So, I was making a few friends. But there was this boy. In one of my classes. Just one, every other day. I wanted SOO badly to talk to this kid. I noticed him on the second day of school. That was August 23rd. I tried so hard to catch him after that one class we had together. Every day I'd think that was the day I would speak and every day it didn't happen. I didn't even talk to him until September 28th! (Also that was the day of the Taylor Swift Speak Now World Tour 2011 in my town, so it was a pretty dang great day.) But Oh my gosh, I was such a coward. And when I did finally talk to him, it was because I forced a mutual friend to introduce us. Shame.. 
So we were, like, okay to talk less-awkwardly now with the whole introduction thing. That was still kinda rare at the time though. It was soo obvious that he was interested in me. 

On days when I didn't have class with him, I had a class right after him in the same room. So every B day as he was going out, I went in and he smiled and said hi. Every B day. 
On October 4th-ish I invited him to my birthday party. Yep. I was barely talking to this kid and I'd only officially known him for like a week and I'm all like "hey, have an invitation!" Well, the next day he told me he couldn't come. that was.. Oh my gosh that was such a bad day. Not even because of him but it was a terrible day. That morning this girl who apparently liked him came up to me, she's all, "So, I hear you like this kid?" And I'm like, "Well I don't really know him that well, but yeah, I think he's cute." And she said in the snottiest voice "well, he's mine." Being a teenage girl, at first I was thinking whoa.. And then I went into challenge mode. But this girl hated me. She abhorred me. If I came near her she would walk the other way. (Now we're actually pretty good friends-go figure.) Anyway, that was just a super terrible day for lots of reasons. 
On October 7th I had a solo in our first choir concert of the year. Totally aced it, in case you were wondering. That was the day. HE FREAKING HUGGED ME AFTER SCHOOL THAT DAY. I was ecstatic. It felt like there were squirrels jumping around in my brain. I was really interested in this kid, and he hugged me. HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP. It was a super mega awkward hug but STILL. 
So the next day was my birthday party and it was kinda a super fail.. But we won't get into that. 
Lets skip to November. 

Ah, November. So I was in choir, right? Well we were putting on a musical at the school. I was in the sitting choir, and since my school is not your average high school, we had a pit orchestra for our musical. No pre-recorded crap, just live music provided by students who worked lots of hours on it. Anywho, this kid was in the pit orchestra. Both of us were in it but neither of us were actually on stage. But that's where this all worked out. The stage actors had rehearsal by themselves from 3-5 pretty much every day after school during this time. But my rehearsal started at 5. I lived half an hour a way from the school, making a trip home not entirely worth the time it took to get there, so I just stayed after until my practice started. That was almost 2.5 free hours. At the school. And this boy was there. GASP. 
I can't exactly remember how this all came about, but we spent every second together during those rehearsal days when it wasn't our time. During that time we got to know each other pretty well. On November 18th, we held hands and it was freakin adorable. He's all like, "I've never held hands with a girl before." And I was like 'aww!' 
Anyway, during this spending a whole lot of time with him, my friends were noticeably pissed about it. They would always badger me with questions about him, convinced we were doing stupid, bad things together when we disappeared for those couple hours. But all we did was talk. And just talking with someone was lovely. 
We were pretty close after that and we spent a ton of time together. My friends hated it, but I didn't care. 

Eventually winter break came and it was 19 days long. That was such a long time.. After the break, we didn't really spend as much time together, and I think it kinda freaked him out a little bit. We were just so used to being together all the time but I think he got kinda worried and maybe even a little offended after the break. For awhile there we were kinda constantly mad at each other..  

On January 19th he kissed me.. On the 21st we stayed up talking till 2 am. On the 25th I kissed him.. And on the 26th... The 26th was at the time one of the worst days of my life. 

He came up to me before school, told me he needed to tell me something. There were roughly 4 minutes till school started and he takes me aside and says, "My dad found out." See, he had to be keeping this a secret the whole time, cause like I said, his parents are retarded (that's where my near-hatred for overprotective parents came into play, in case you were wondering.) anyway, he told me about his douche father (that's my name for him now-told you I'm not holding back) and here's how it went.. My brain: h$@dyha%HGEHEHhahhuiwoojdb*suhabhavvbc#njcuWHHAAAAT. My face: No detectable emotion whatsoever. My mouth: *very, very quietly* so? 
"He wants me to end it." Once again, my brain: geyhagaiiz#$opsbdhehw*djsHA$VGEHEOAOLZBbsujak. My mouth: uhhh I need to go to class... So then he hugged me before I went and I was like, 'WHAT THE HECK IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN, DUDE?' Why was he hugging me? He was supposed to never talk to me again.
So the rest of the day we didn't even look at each other. We passed each other countless times and just awkwardly looked away. Not a glance. So then right before the last class period of the day I walked past him (very purposefully) and he grabbed me, he's like, "Can we talk?" But I had to get to class. "After school, then?" FINE, I'LL TALK TO YOU AFTER SCHOOL. 
So the whole class I was like: vsuuahHuwi*#JjAHhjajjajh*@rijsjnahAQWJopnfkkah. (Actually that's kinda what my whole day went like..) So, after school comes around and we talked a little but I have no idea what the conversation was like. I remember everything to a T most days, but I cannot for the life of me remember that conversation. So then when I was leaving HE KISSED ME AGAIN. LIKE WTH IS WRONG WITH YOU?! YOU ARE BEING SO CONFUSING RIGHT NOW I WANT TO PUNCH YOU. 
I went home and I cried.  

Needless to say, however, we most certainly did not end our relationship. Quite the opposite in fact... 
For awhile things went on fairly normally. We still had that one class together. He sat in front of me and one day I was so tired I put my head on his shoulder and fell asleep. Then we got into a bit of difficulties.. Throughout March we sort of avoided each other, for lack of a better word. I mean, I totally didn't mean to, but I thought he was done with me and my friends were spreading rumors and telling him that I hated him and stuff like that. However, I did not. At all. There was this day.. The 26th of March. It was lightly raining outside and after school we went out there. I was obviously afflicted but I didn't want to tell him what was wrong. I felt like he'd been totally ignoring me for the past two weeks. Early on in our friendship I would always tell him I had a million questions that I could just sit and ask him forever. This day in the rain he asked me what happened to that. "What happened to the girl with a million questions?" And I seriously wanted to cry. This past year has been a huge year of change for me, but I didn't realize until that day that I was quite different. I was growing up. In retrospect, I was probably a little depressed at that time in my life.. Anyway, I don't really know how we got over that, but on March 30th we had lunch outside together, which consisted of no actual consumption of food, just laying in the grass and talking. This came to be a common occurrence. First it was "I want you every Friday for lunch." Then it was every Friday and all B days. Well, eventually it became every day.  

This boy.. I can legitimately say I loved him. I know everyone says that young love is always just infatuation or imagination, but this wasn't. We knew each other. Like, really knew each other. We told each other everything, all the secrets and dreams and mistakes. And I can honestly say I loved him. Loved, that is. 
I don't really know anymore.  

But to continue the story, we were back to spending all our time together. 
During spring break I made a huge mistake. I went to go hang out with this friend who I knew had a huge thing for me. Problem #1: my really good friend had a huge thing for this kid. Problem #2: I was basically "dating" someone else. Problem #3: I was being stupid. Anyway, this friend kissed me. 
After spring break, I knew I should tell my basically-boyfriend.. So I told him. But I didn't tell him the entire situation, and really, it wasn't a big deal at all. Not just because I was trying to convince him it wasn't my fault, which it only kinda was. It was my being there with this friend in the first place that started it all, but he totally kissed me and I didn't kiss him back. Anyway, this boy was extremely upset. That was a pretty hard time communication-wise..  

The end of the school year came closer and closer. All along, there was a possibility that he might transfer to another school. (Right now anybody who's reading this knows what's gonna happen.) but that comes later in the story. I still have the last two days of school and the entire summer to talk about!  

The last two days of school were the most bittersweet days of my life thus far. I was extremely depressed in anticipation of my long, lonely summer to come, but I spent a lot of time with this boy and it was good. 
Lots of things happened those two days.. But I won't get in to explaining all the little over-observant, girly details of it all. 
While I left school on the last day, it was all I could do not to cry my face off. I did cry my face off that night when I was trying to sleep. I wore his jacket to bed. He gave it to me to keep a few weeks before school got out. So anyway.. That night I sent him an email just as a comfort for myself. The next day was Saturday and I got an email at about 10 in the morning. Little did I know what that lonely Friday night email would start. I estimated (with a little bit of math) that about 10,000 emails were sent this summer. And you're probably thinking, 'wow, you emailed this kid the entire freaking summer?' To which I will say, yes I did. Because that was the only way. (We both have an iPod touch, so it was basically like texting.) so, anyway, even though I hate electronic communication, it was the best I could hope for. We did FaceTime quite often but mostly it was the emails. And I have to say, we learned even more about each other. The summer was good. We stayed up till very early hours of the morning and late hours of the night talking (because we both have nightmares). It was the best summer of my life. (That's not all I did. I did a lot of traveling and went on lots if adventures, too, which I will post about later. I promise I'm not a loser who had the best summer of my life sitting at home emailing a boy.)

 
Anyway.. On July 25th he told me his parents had made the final decision-- he wouldn't be coming back to school. I was very upset. Extremely upset and sad and mad and every emotion there ever was. He promised he would be back. He promised me while I was crying in his arms on the last day of school that he would be back. I should have known better. I was a stupid little girl... 

On the 30th of July I went to his last basketball game. I looked super attractive, just adding that in there. He lives 40 miles away and my lovely, non-overprotective parents drove me there. He'd grown at least an inch since the end of May.. He'd played the whole game so I'm not gonna lie, he was exhausted and hot and yes, sweaty. BUT I DIDN'T CARE. I WAS GONNA HUG THIS BOY IF IT WAS THE LAST THING I DID. (It wasn't the last thing I did.) I don't know how long I hugged him. It was a long time. Probably close to 3 minutes. And then he kissed me. We talked a little, and then it was time for both of us to leave. I hugged him again, he kissed my forehead (which is my favorite thing ever) and told me he'd miss me.. I walked out to my car and sat in the back seat, trying not to cry. (I cry a lot, get used to it.) and the next night was one of the last nights I would talk to him. 

His father got involved, and it was basically the end. On August 3rd he called me at a friend's house and we talked for 13 minutes and 47 seconds. 
Then it came time to venture back to school and relive all those memories that I missed so much. It was painful. And I was extremely sad for a very long portion of the beginning of the school year. I also realized I had no male friends because I was always with him the previous year. But the start was a very difficult experience for me. 

I still walk past all the places where all those memories happened and get really sad. But now it's a little different than it was at first. I get sad, but then I get a little happy, simply because it all happened in the first place. 
I have talked to him. 3 times since that first Friday of August. Once on my birthday, the 13th of October. Then on the 17th and the 22nd also. He always apologizes. But it's not his fault. I am still bitter and angry, but not toward him. Not toward him at all. No, it's the father. 
I can say I do feel better now. Time does heal some things, but not others, and it will always make me sad and a little angry. That's why I'm hesitant to say that I still love him. Although I did for a time, it's been awhile, and I know I've changed, so he probably has too. I loved him. I might love him again. But right now, I think I just really care about him. I value him. 
Because for awhile I had someone to tell all my secrets to. I had someone to make me laugh every day without a doubt. I had someone to argue with over stupid things. He would always let me win and then we'd laugh at ourselves. I had someone to help me with anything and everything, and I would do the same in return. I had a best friend who I could always count on. That was taken from me. Maybe I'll have that back someday. But a maybe is a only a maybe. And right now, I guess a maybe has to be good enough for me.

Pet Peeves

One: nuclear. Sound out the word. Nu-cle-ar. It is, in fact, not nuCULar. I really am not one to freak out about how people pronounce words, but this one gets me. Especially when people take it further. Like nuculous. That is not a word! Type it in your computer and see the little red line. Not a word! 

Two: pruny skin. Ew. And what's worse is when you go on a water ride at an amusement park or whatnot and your socks&shoes are wet. Yuck. WET, CONFINED FEET. EW.  

Three: cussing. Um, do you really feel the need to use this word every thirty seconds? To me, this kind of person uses such words because his vocabulary is SO limited that he just can't come up with a more intelligent sentence. Cuss words make me cringe.  

Four: overprotective parents, but I already did my shpeel on that.

 Five: PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT ON TIME. Punctuality is attractive, people. Not to mention the fact that it's respectful. and kind. and considerate. If you are always late, you are by extension being disrespectful and rude. JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW. 

Six: when you go to somebody's house, use their bathroom, and THERE'S NO HAND TOWEL. What am I supposed to do with my wet hands? Wipe them on my face? UGH. 

Now, the ultimate pet peeve! *dun dun dun* PEOPLE MAKING UP CRAP THAT IS NOT TRUE. Why do you feel the need to do that? It SO did not happen, half of us know it didn't happen, and the other half are too naive-for lack of a kinder word-to realize it didn't happen. 
I admit I lie. I gossip too. Everyone does, unless you're perfect, and you're not, so shut your mouth. But when you take gossip to a new level and somehow feel the need to create a huge BS lie about someone you barely know.. What? What is that? It's dumb. That's what it is. YOU'RE DUMB. 
The end. 

Overprotective Parents--what?

Okay, I have to start this out saying that I have great parents. I myself am not a parent of course, but I feel like since I've had lots of interaction with parents, including my own, I should have a fair say. 
I'm the youngest in my family. I have two older sisters. My parents aren't perfect, but no parents are. I do believe, though, that my parents have been really great raising us kids. 
Maybe as the youngest I have more freedom than my older sisters, but I think my parents have it figured out. I do have quite a bit of freedom, but they also trust me a lot, with good reason. They know I'm not out committing crimes or doing drugs or getting pregnant. I feel like I'm responsible and trustworthy and I get rewarded for it. I also have good friends. 
I totally get that some kids abuse their freedom and lose that trust and parents should crack down on them.
But what I don't get is when responsible, mature kids have almost no freedom. Your kid is trustworthy and doesn't get into things he shouldn't, but you want to make all his decisions? How does that make sense? Or if you let him make his own decisions and then punish him for the choice he makes. What is this? 
I think that in most cases, teenager/parent relationships can be summed up in one phrase: the more you push them, the harder they'll pull away. You can't constantly nag your kids to make the decision you would make, or they'll go completely against you one day and do something terrible. Simply give them your knowledge and advice, then let them make their own decisions. Choices and their consequences are a part of life-a part of learning how to live. So let them make their choices and they'll have their consequences. Be it good or bad, it'll be a learning experience. Don't you want your kids to learn? 
There's my two cents on the matter..

Zombies

I want to know who decided on zombies. Really, honestly. I know it didn't just come to the minds of millions of people at once and was just there. Someone came up with it, it was agreed on, and everyone just went with it. 
Personally I think it's kind of disgusting and weird. Not weird like the awkward bathroom hello, but a different kind of weird. I mean, who came up with the idea of zombies anyway? Some years ago, a sick, twisted person had a nightmare and told all his friends? 
Oh my swear, when I was a pretty young kid, I watched this episode of Medium I think and it was the freakiest thing ever. It scared me so bad. It was about zombies at this funeral home. So scary. 
But really I want to know who decided on it. To be honest I think a cat apocalypse would be kinda cool. Like, possessed cats. That would be pretty freaky, but not super gruesome, you know. Well, actually it could get gruesome, thinking about the shredding of rodents my cat does that we talked about earlier.. I think it would be much more fun to be a possessed cat than it would to be a zombie. I don't want to eat other people's brains, man. That's just gross. But I don't think I would mind biting other people.. No blood or anything, just a friendly nibble and they're on the possessed cat team. Not too friendly, cause this is an apocalypse, but you get the point. 

The Awkward Bathroom Hello

So, I guess I'll start with what's it all about..

I'd like to talk about the awkward bathroom hello. Don't act like I'm crazy, cause I know you've all gone through it. Like, you walk into the bathroom and someone you don't know makes eye contact with you, so you smile or say hi or whatnot, and it's just weird. And it's even worse if it's someone you know! You're walking in there, you've got one mission, and they're like, "Hey!" In your mind, you're thinking, 'Crap, intercepted..' I mean, you had one mission. So whilst maintaining conversation with this person, you're slowly creeping to the stall, then you go in.. and they keep on talking! So you're in there, peeing, they're asking you questions, and you're wondering if you should keep up the conversation. Either way it's awkward though.. Let's look at it from a third person's perspective.
So, I'm this third person and I walk into the bathroom, and there's people keeping up a friendly conversation while doing their thing. How weird is that?
It's like when you're at the dentist and he's asking you questions.. Am I supposed to answer him? Really. If I answer, he probably won't even be able to understand me, and I'll probably end up licking him or biting him or something. On the other hand, if you don't answer him, you just left him hanging. Maybe I should ask a dentist. "Would you rather be left hanging or not be able to understand me?"

Maybe bathrooms and dentist offices are just awkward places, no matter how you spin it. Public bathrooms, guys.. I dunno.