Besides the word issue, there are certain sounds that drive me up the wall. Strangely, nails on a chalkboard is not one of them. Go figure. One that makes the list is the sound of someone clipping their finger/toe nails. I have to leave the room whenever someone starts doing it - the worst was when I was working and someone would whip out the nail clipper in the middle of a meeting in the conference room. Ugghhh! Which brings me to the specifics of this post. I was at the car dealership today (yes, again, but this time for the state inspection on the hybrid which was overdue by 2+ months - this is a whole other issue I'll discuss later) and Ollie and I were admiring the shiny new cars in the showroom when this old man starts clipping his fingernails. In the middle of the showroom. Worse, he just left the clippings on the floor. I almost vomited. In fact, it gives me the willies just thinking about it. That's a new level of grossness. Needless to say, we quickly exited the showroom. UUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh and the whole car inspection thing? Funny how the Prius is my husband's car (he's the one who needs it to drive back and forth to his job 44 miles away), but it's registered to ME so I get the letter from the DMV informing me that they're blocking the registration unless I get it inspected within 30 days. And I've had that stupid car in for service at least twice since August (regular maintenance, thank god) and the service people didn't notice it was out. Not that it's their job, but usually they're pretty good about letting me know that it's coming due soon or overdue. Think I'll have to take them down a notch from "Excellent" when they conduct their phone survey about my service experience.

My friends all laugh at me because I don't like the word "moist". Hearing it or even reading it makes my skin crawl. I don't know why. It just does. I hate it so badly that I will use any synonym I can think of - hydrated being the most common. I don't have problems with words that rhyme with/are spelled like it (like "hoist" or "joist"). I have no idea why I feel that way about that certain word but it is what it is. There, I've told the world!

And spare me the comments telling me how weird I am - I already know.

So I took the Mom Taxi in today to get new brakes and asked for follow-up on an issue they'd diagnosed last week (at the same time they told me I needed new brakes) but didn't have a price for. Well, they had a price today and it was $241 (new FM modulator for the built-in DVD player). When I asked why it wasn't covered under warranty, they asked to see my extended warranty card and promptly informed me that it had expired. The warranty mileage was 72000; I drove in at 72858. Ugh! What really pisses me off is that this has been a problem pretty much since I bought the car and it just wasn't on the priority list of things to fix. A day late and a dollar short, I guess. Okay, $241 short to be precise.

As an aside, if you mis-type the word "today", you get "toady". The error could yield a pretty funny result depending on context.

Excerpt from The Duke Lacrosse Player's Guide to Party Etiquette

Drunk girl: People thought I looked good?
Guy: Yeah!
Drunk girl: How do you know?
Guy: Because they gave you money and licked stuff off your breasts.

--140th & Broadway

Overheard by: Logan

via Overheard in New York, Nov 5, 2006

My husband and I picked up two bottles of wine on our trip with the intention of sharing a romantic moment or two at the B&B. Unfortunately, climbing mountains all day shot that all to hell. We were too damn tired to do anything by the time we got back to the room. So we brought the wine back with us to enjoy at home. One of our selections was Vampire wine. Okay, it was my selection and it was made solely on the basis of the label.


C'mon, you gotta admit it looks cool. Well, we opened it tonight and it was somewhat of a disappointment. It wasn't as full-bodied as I had hoped (pun intended) and tasted a bit too much like vinegar. Oh well, the red synthetic cork with the Vampire logo makes for a colorful addition to our cork collection. And there is a mildly interesting website for the product: www.vampire.com. Maybe the vodka is better.