The middle finger makes me smile.

Summary haiku:
If I wanted a
scratched car, bitch, I would have bought
a damn jalopy.



It happens all the time and I've even bitched about it before. But some days, when people leave carts strewn about the parking lot, it just gets on my last nerve.

After a long and extremely annoying day at work, I had to stop at Target and return a fan that I spent 35 minutes trying to unsuccesfully assemble. It was hot and I was dressed up in heels, so lugging this giant box sucked.

Twenty minutes later, I came out of Target (with a new, improved giant box) only to watch this stupid, lazy whore empty her shopping cart, then push the cart up between all the cars... and it ended up resting against my bumper.

Of course, the fucking cart corral was right behind her. Not ten cars away, or even two. She would have had to walk directly across the aisle to slip it in. In fact, unless she had really bad aim, she actually could have shoved it from her trunk and returned the cart to the proper area without even taking any extra steps.

Why do people do this?

I don't know... it was just the last straw of my day. I slammed down my fan box next to my car and I was like, "Are you kidding me right now? Are you REALLY going to leave that cart up against my car? The corral is right there!," pointing about four feet away from her gigantic SUV.

Holding her iced Starbucks in one hand, she glared at me like I'd just eaten a kitten's face off. I took her cart and moseyed it over to the corral real slow -- which, since it was behind her, prevented her from pulling out of her space for a few minutes.

I walked be her window and smiled real big. She flipped me off.

And I think it was the first time I ever felt pretty good after being given the bird.

Bargains make me quiver with joy

Summary haiku:
Saving money when
your tax refund just arrived
doubles the delight.



So, the house. Still working on it. We've gotten the Things We Couldn't Live Without (lamps, shower curtains, wooden blinds in a couple of rooms, etc.), and we're now working the list of Things That Would Make Life More Convenient. Which brings me to one of the most joyous shopping trips I've had in a while.

I went into Target looking for wall shelves where I could display a couple of plants and a totally cute Vietnamese art sculpture I got at Pier 1. (The latter was on my list of Things I Don't Fucking Need, But They're Really Cute So I'm Buying Them.)

I saw several shelves, but they weren't quite what I wanted. Then I came to the endcap, and lo and behold, the perfect shelves were on clearance for $4.98 each -- marked down from $24.98! I bought all the ones they had left (5), because I like to keep the surfaces in my house uncluttered and I have tons of unused wall space in various rooms.

Money saved: $100.

Then I was just cruising around, as one tends to do at Target, when I came to the bathroom aisle. We don't have any towel racks in our bathrooms, so we've just been slinging towels over the shower curtain rod to dry. Which hides how cute the shower curtains are. And Target had these really beautiful brushed nickel double towel bars on sale for $12.98, also marked down from $24.98. I got one for each bathroom.

Money saved: $24.

Next up: A giant mirror to hang on one of our ginormous dining room walls. I had been eyeballing it on my last couple of Target jaunts. It's lovely, with a carved frame that's a muted, distressed gold color. $19.98, marked down from $90. Are you kidding me? Is today fucking Christmas?

Money saved: $70.

Can you believe there's more? The last thing is from the Things I Don't Fucking Need, But They're Really Cute So I'm Buying Them category. I got a fabulous, huge wall hanging for the bedroom. It's electric green silk with an olive green tree painted on it. It's simple and beautiful, but most important, it makes me feel really happy when I look at it. $14.99, marked down from $29.99.

Money saved: $15.

For those of you who can't do math -- which includes me, I had to use a calculator to do this -- I got $285 worth of items for $85. Which left me plenty of dough to pick up a green patent clutch and some canary yellow tights to wear under a couple of my spring dresses.

I am bursting with happiness. I'm off to hang one of my shelves!