lessons not learned

If you were hungover and thought cooking Indian food would make you feel better, you would be wrong...

24 hours earlier...

Yesterday was one of the most time honored traditions for all: St. Patrick's Day. My friend's and I have titled this "the Happiest Day in Dallas." Because for a few glorious hours, open container laws are thrown out the window and thousands of people flood the sidewalks of Greenville Avenue, watch a pretty lame parade, down green jello shots, and do awesome stuff like this:

St. Patrick's Day 2011

Since I attend a Nazi-run cosmetology school, missing a Saturday is out of the question. In fact, if you miss more than three in a year, you are dropped from the program completely. Therefore, I had to miss out on this year's festivities. To add insult to injury, in the Ugly Smoker's area where I take breaks to chain smoke Marlboro Lights to dull the pain of hearing my fellow students ask their millionth stupid question of the morning, I could HEAR the festivities!

I hadn't even planned on going out after school because all of my friends would be intoxicated to the point of being unrecognizable. However, my friend who worked that day wanted to go out and I knew he wouldn't be a slobbery, Bell's Palsy victim looking, drunken mess. So, I decided to go with him, have a few drinks, and not waste a Saturday night in the years of my life when Botox isn't necessary.

Well those 'few drinks' quickly escalated into a number of beers, a couple tequila shots, and me pouring myself into my bed like a puddle of dirty backwash at 3 AM. 

Now, I usually reserve my Sundays for recovery. And by 'recovery,' I mean I going to the grocery and preparing my meals for the week. I grew up in a family who considered cold cut sandwiches a primary food group, so I'm no stranger to leftovers. When I started working, I learned that my lunch hour was better served eating leftover, home-cooked meals and chain-smoking than driving around eating the same four fast food restaurants around my office five days a week.

This past week I broke my cardinal rule of break room etiquette and reheated some bomb ass shrimp and crab at school. Seriously, it smelled like a wet dog walked in on Oscar the Grouch making out with a dead manatee.

Yes, I am terrible person and don't deserve to have any of my dreams come true, but in my defense, the food was a gift from a friend's sweetheart mother who was visiting town and wanted me to have a really fancy lunch at school. Since it was school that had me missing a Ladies' Lunch she wanted to take me out on the night before.

Anyway, some of the more crass and idiotic students in the break room got all upset and catty looks and mean comments were exchanged between my friends and a table of queens and overweight girls at an adjacent table.

Naturally I had to brand myself a repeat offender. So, I decided to make one of my favorite dishes: chicken tikka masala. 

A previous successful execution of the aforementioned dish.

In my endeavor for culinary revenge, I was the one with the proverbial Band-Aid in my burrito. Halfway into the chicken, I felt the sudden urge to choke to death on my own vomit. I couldn't handle the spicy and usually delicious aromas. 

Also, my head couldn't much handle the mechanics of a recipe I have made tons of times before. I basically got into a screaming match with a bag of Mahatma Basamati rice. 

I have purchased and prepared this brand before, and was 1,000% certain something was off. The preparation called for 8 cups of water for 1 cup of rice AND the same amount for 2 cups of rice. I mean, that just can't be right. Surely I was victim of improper packaging instructions, but their website said the same thing... 

I still suspected foul play and decided to do it my way. Needless to say I ended up ruining A LOT of rice. This was also impacted by my inability to decipher the difference between the sentences: "reduce cooking TO 10 minutes" and "reduce cooking time BY 10 minutes." A subtle misread, and again, I'm glad rice is cheap.

I was in no state of mind to be near a stove, so I finished what I could and cracked open a can of this:

I then proceeded to meet my friends for a patio margaritas, because I am me, and learning from my mistakes is something I'll do around the time I start needing that Botox.

Yesterday.

a good old fashioned rant

People as a thing are getting dumber and dumber by the day. While I worked with a number of douche canoes in my previous career, my new life of hair whipping ponytails and unlocking the secrets of beauty at school, is showing me a new darker side of dumb.

The other day during my lunch break I took a quick trip to the Happiest Place on Earth: Sonic. I ordered my usual:

A lot of people find / are accidently directed to my
blog by googling 'Sonic hot dogs.' John FTW!

Anyway, like I tell the homeless people of Dallas who do NOT take Visa, "I never carry cash." I find I spend it too quickly and can't wrap my mind around the fact that my singles may or may not have touched the loins of a girl with a deadbeat dad and very few computer skills.

So, I almost always pay for my meals and Route 44s with the handy car-side credit card machine! This system is a great but it doesn't allow you to add in a tip! Insert obvious, cheap and dirty joke: here ___. Sometimes if I a scraggily George Washington sitting in my console, I'll kindly give it to the car hop. And today I happened to have a few!

The car hop came out and was kind enough. She even went back in to get me extra ketchup! As I reached for my cash this chick says 'where's my tip?' I was so shocked I couldn't come up with a clever retort until I was halfway into my Chicago Dog. It would have been: "Here's a tip, don't ask for tips!" Yeah, and then she would have been all "Oh, I guess the customers aren't the only ones who get SERVED here!" And then there probably would have been some sort of break-dance off...

This happened during a lunch break from my new Thursday through Saturday adventure in hair school... I was prepared to be surrounded by individuals of varying levels of intelligence and sanity, but nothing on Earth could prepare for how stupid some of the people are. Stupidity is their Olympics, and they are in it to win it.

For starters, the most offensive girl wears these:

1) These aren't even REAL Uggs. I mean, that's like buying generic meth. If you're gonna do something wrong, do it RIGHT.

2) The bedazzling? In keeping with my analogy, that's like shouting at the top of your cracked out lungs, 'Hey, y'all. Look at me doing a lot of this generic meth!'

3) She is the kind of girl who is totally wearing these to be cute... Like tooth loss is just a fun bonus to her faux-meth addiction.

Unfortunately her stupidity doesn't end with just her terrible fashion choices, which also include: tacky leather studded bracelets, men's ties, and t-shirt dresses under a t-shirt and over black pants. I'm sorry, but even Avril Lavigne and all the guys on American Idol think you look like a jacka**.

She asks stupid questions and never pays attention. So a majority of my classroom 'learning' is waiting for my equally inept teacher try and re-explain simple concepts like brushing and curling hair to someone who still isn't paying attention. It's like watching Paris Hilton try and teach Kim Kardashian quantum physics.

I mean, she is a girl. I would assume she would have a grasp on these basic things, because she's been doing them since she was a child or sluttly teenager. Yeah, she is totally THAT girl who has no other friends who are girls. Anyway, her hair is TERRIBLE. It looks like it is made of straw, she has outdated highlights, and basically looks like Ke$ha stood on a tarmac for 11 hours.

In efforts of full disclosure, I must include in this rant a confession... The stupid is rubbing off...

The other morning, I spent about 8 minutes in the shower debating with myself and counting on my fingers and toes whether or not I was 26 or 27. While debating on drowning myself because nothing that stupid deserves to live, I thought of these two young women. If they can get up day after day and boldly say and do idiotic things with dedication that borderlines pure passion, then I can forget how old I am. I had to get on facebook and look at the photo album from my last birthday party to confirm I almost aged myself a whole year in the shower!

PS - how awesome is this?