Things I Love (An Incomplete List)

There are lots of important things I love, including 93% of the people I’ve ever been associated with. This, however, will not be one of those lists.

1. Oscar Mayer Lunchables Extra Cheesy Pizza. Even though they are basically Communion wafers with cheese and Ragu on them, I just can’t get enough of them. Unfortunately, they fill approximately 1/16 of the adult-sized stomach, and the plastic compartments are impossibly too small for adult-sized hands. Who are they making these delicious compact meals for, Oompa Loompas?

2. Hormel Pepperoni. There are numerous ways to enjoy these circles of meat. The most socially acceptable way is as part of a meat, cheese, and cracker tray, usually at a shower of some sort. While I do enjoy them immensely as part of a meat, cheese, and cracker sandwich, I like them even better dropped quickly in a pan of hot oil, allowed to sizzle for no more than seventeen seconds, and eaten with freshly cooked white rice. Don’t judge, I’m Asian.

3. Speed limits. I bet you thought I was only going to talk about food. I’m not being sarcastic here, either. I am one of fourteen people under the age of retirement who drive at or below the posted speed limit. I love speed limits because when people pass me on their mopeds and glare at me, I just smile cheerfully and point to the sign limiting how fast I should be going. I rarely have anywhere to be at a certain time, so I get there when I get there. I also have a somewhat irrational fear that an 18-wheeler is going to explode in a ball of fire right in front of me, and if I’m driving slow enough, I can easily swerve out of the way, or calmly apply the brakes. Crisis averted.

4. Auto mechanics. I know that the skinny pedal on the right makes the car go vroom, and the fat one on the left makes it stop. I know how to make the windshield wipers work, but I can never seem to get the timing just right for any given level of precipitation. (It’s usually swiping too often that it makes that awful screeching sound across the glass.) Oh, and I can use the blinkers, and like to, often. But other than that, I’m a complete car dunce. If you told me the tiny cricket that lives inside the engine shoveling coal into the carburetor needed a lung transplant because of all the ash he inhales, I’d nod somberly, ask how much it will cost, and what his rate of recovery will be. (Contrarily, I do, however, hate the Sears Automotive Center. I’m convinced they break something on purpose when I get my oil changed, just so I will come back to get it fixed because I’m afraid my car will explode on the Interstate if I don’t.) (I’ve clearly seen way too many Matrix movies, or maybe they’ve just made too many.)

5. Outfits that make my daughter look like an animal. In a cute way, I mean. She can be a giraffe, a cow, and a duck, just to name a few. Not only is she fun to look at (even more so when imitating a lower life form, some we would actually eat, which is weird if you think about it long enough, which, apparently, I have just done), but when her feet look like cow feet, she laughs hysterically every time she catches sight of them. A-freakin-dorable.

6. The car-rider lane at my son’s school. Somehow, every child at Bug’s school has a parent or grandparent who has nothing better to do than sit in the car-rider lane forty-five minutes before the final bell rings, a club I am part of, The Waiting Club. During these forty-five minutes, however, I can read, which I usually do, or draw, which I sometimes do when I remember to bring my little baggie of Sharpies, or snooze with Bean, which I almost always end up doing in the midst of the other things I do. It’s forty-five minutes I can justifiably waste, which is enough of a reason for anyone to love.

7. Sunkist. Man, that soda is good. But it lacks the power that Dr. Pepper has to make me belch like a five-thousand-pound hippo. Do you really  need any more reason than that?

8. Disney Channel. I could seriously watch it as long as Bug does, except Bug sometimes chooses to watch Pawn Stars with Hubs. WHAT CHILD IS THIS?! It also keeps Bug preoccupied when I need to be doing something else, like cleaning, cooking, or blogging (duh). Additionally, I could totally see my kids being on one of their sitcoms. They just have to learn to sing along to auto-tune first, and maybe how to pluck a few chords on the guitar, and next thing you know, free lifetime passes to Disney World! (Which is really what I’m going for here.)

9. Carpet stripes from a vacuum. The lines are really just indisputable proof that I cleaned. I actually prefer my broken, gimpy vacuum that turns on the second you plug it in and sometimes spits out what it just ate over the new one that claims to outperform a Dyson, because I like the carpet patterns it makes better. That’s how much I like carpet stripes. They also subconsciously remind me of my obsessively-neat mother who vacuumed (probably still does) every single day when I was growing up, and as a result of having a constantly clean house, our friends were always welcome to swing by. I like having friends.

10. The way the outside of my house smells when I’m doing laundry. The vent to the dryer is right above our side-entry garage, so whenever Hubs comes home, or people come over, and I’ve got a load tumbling in the dryer, our entire front yard smells like lavender and cleanliness. It’s a first impression I like to leave, even though people probably immediately think of chores, instead of being welcomed into a happy, warm, glad-to-see-you house, one that is most often stocked with chips and dip.

And that’s all I got, and those last couple ones were a stretch. I like nice, round numbers, so I promised myself I would stop at ten, even if I did have to start getting ridiculous. (Because doing so would obviously compromise an otherwise-relevant blog post.)

Oh, two more things I love. These mugs.

Three, If You Count Aubie.