2 plus 2 equals 4

My life has been kind of weird lately.

Weird as in I have no sheets on my bed. Because they looked dirty. And I found a bug on them. So, I threw them on the floor. And I am not going to pick them up. I am going to buy new ones.

Weird as in I am considering pursuing a career in shampoo bottle writing. Because I would like to be the person who makes washing your hair sound like an experience. And I would like to be able to say to people, "Oh, you use Suave? Did you read the instructions? No big deal, but I wrote that."

Weird as in I am wearing mismatching socks, and yesterday I ate Dairy Queen. Because I couldn't find matching ones. And because I was hungry and I didn't want to go to Barros Pizza wearing the same outfit I had on last time I was there.

Weird as in when I was 12 and writing out my 10 year plan, it did not include sleeping on a bed without sheets or writing (on shampoo bottles or otherwise) or eating Dairy Queen. I think it included five kids and matching socks.

Weird as in I watch too much TV, eat cookies too often and spend too much time trying to flatten the bumps in my ponytail.

Weird as in normal. As in not stressful. As in fine.

...As in 2 plus 2 equals four.

That's one of the only things I knew when I was 12 and still know now: 2+2=4.

The other one is: I'm not going for 4. I'm going for 1000.

Hey,

It has been a weird day.

I drank kale for breakfast.

That is all.

A Rationale for Hoarding

If you have ever watched TLC's Hoarding: Buried Alive program, you have probably thought to yourself,

Dang.

And,

Seriously?

And,

Intervention! Intervention! Can we please get some intervention up in here?!

And when the program was over, before you changed the channel to Wizards of Waverly Place (or is that just me?), you probably took a moment to be seriously pensive and think:

How does that happen? Why do people become hoarders?

How does someone go from the sweet lady who likes shopping at Ikea and reading want ads to the crazy lady who has 54 dead cats buried under a collection of newspapers and pieces of furniture that were never assembled?

Well, as most things do, hoarding starts small...

(Disclaimer: I realize that this is a serious issue. I am about to make light of it. If that offends you, please stop reading. Because I hate offending people.)

...It's starts on a 105 degree Tuesday.

In a normal work office. On a normal work day.

The time is 10 minutes after lunch hour.

And the future hoarder is still hungry.

She is wondering how she can survive without 28 more grams of sugar.

Just then she sees a glint of silver glimmering from a pocket in her purse.

Just kidding, nothing's glimmering. Actually, I can't remember why she looked in her purse. But she did.

And in her purse was one very smooshed--that's right, smooshed--Special K Bar.

In fact, based on the state it was in, she probably should have thrown it away weeks ago.

But instead of following normal food rules of society, she ate it.

And it was the best 28 grams of sugar she ever had.

Just kidding. Actually, this potential future hoarder has eaten gelato in Uruguay and chocolate cake from Costco--she has had better grams of sugar. But the sugar was good.

She also found a mysterious $10 bill that she thought she had spent. So she will now probably associate hoarding with re-attaining spent money.

In case you haven't figured it out, the potential future hoarder in the story is me.

So if you see me on TLC in 10 years in a house full of kittens buried under piles of Special K wrappers, you won't have to ask how it happened. You won't have to wonder why. You won't have to ponder how a perfectly normal girl who just happens to have birthday cards saved from her 10th birthday, ended up in crazy town.

You'll know.

It was all because of a $10 bill and a smooshed Special K bar.

I Seriously Need a Cat

I don't know if you know, but a certain gourmet cat food company is hosting the opportunity of a lifetime.

Which, incidentally, was not meant to be pun, but sort of is.

Here's why--

The other night I was watching re-runs of either How I Met Your Mother or Project Runway on Lifetime TV, when the commercials came on.

Usually, this would be the time when I hit the fast forward button on my remote.

But that night was different...

I was watching live TV.

Maybe it was fate. Or maybe it was just a coincidence.

But either way, that's when I saw it--the sign.

[Insert 1993 hit pop song by Ace of Base]

It was an ad for Fancy Feast's photo contest sweepstakes.

It told me to take a photo of me and my beloved pet cat, and I could be the winner of a big screen TV, year supply of cat food and...

A WALK-ON ROLE IN A LIFETIME MOVIE.

Ahhh!

Forget YouTube.

All I need is a picture of me and my cat. I'm going to be famous!

Not to mention, it's always been a life-long dream of mine to play a drug-addicted teenager with a propensity for spontaneous human combustion.

I'd even settle for a teenage runaway who sees ghosts.

And I'm sure that walk-on role is all I need to begin an illustrious career of playing distraught teenagers (preferably ones made famous by young adult literature) for the rest of my working life.

Obviously, I am already perusing Forbes magazine for the top ten places to retire at 28.

I've always wondered why, despite being a decade older, I still look 12.

And now I know.

It's so I can move to a retirement community in North Carolina while I'm still young.

There's only one flaw in my otherwise perfect plan.

I don't exactly have a cat.

I did once.

But that didn't really work out.

Don't worry though.

I have a back-up plan.

See, my neighbor had a cat that was not fixed.

And it was not kept indoors.

And it was a lady cat.

And, doing what lady cats do, it went and got itself all sorts of pregnant.

And so all I have to do, is walk down the street with some catnip, find the cuddliest of all the feral cats and take a photo with it.

In exchange for this photo, should I win the contest, I will give the stray a year's supply of a certain gourmet cat food.

You know, for helping me with the opportunity of a lifetime and all.