Cleaning my room.

Yes, I did this of my own initiative. It was to the point where I could no longer move around anywhere without stepping on something possibly vital. So I said to myself "Dammit, it's getting clean, RIGHT NOW."

Heh. Little did I know.

First step: The bookshelf. Which is actually something like 3 bookshelves comprising an entire wall of my room. 10 feet or so of bookshelves. Which were currently stuffed with computer game boxes, manuals, random books, flashlights, suntan lotion (!), and mom's college stuff from 15 years ago.

*digdigdigtossthrowohcrapavelanchedigshovethrow*

And the heinous army of computer game boxes fled before me, leaving only five. Mom's college stuff from 15 years ago was banished downstairs, to be replaced by MY college stuff. My heaping collection of computer manuals gained shelf space. My CD collection gained shelf space. Books gained shelf space. So much shelf space existed, in fact, that I was able to make each shelf contain only one row of books. Life Was Good.

Then I looked at my closet. Or more specifically at the stuff falling every which way out of it. This was going to hurt. And it did. The 50s typewriter was HEAVY. I almost tripped carrying 3 trashbags of clothes out. A huge wooden box almost fell on me. I might have sliced my finger off a couple of times on random pokey things. But eventually I got it to the point where I could actually hang up clothes, store things on the shelf, and realize that there was indeed a cedar floor in there. Whee.

But then I saw my desk. And I should tell you about my desk so you understand. It is, essentially, a door. One of those 3x7 things you hang on walls. Yeah. It also has shelves for supports, which I now believe is a bad idea, because it gives you more places to put things. It also has a large area that I don't actually USE, because I can't GET to it. Thus it was covered with old papers and things.

*digdigshoveltosscrumplesweepsweepsweeppokeowowowthunkcrash*

Amazing amounts of paper, pens, protractors (I have about 20), and other assorted junk became sorted, tossed out, and generally moved. I finally put my keyboard back together after it's having been dissassembled for months. Random electronics moved to one little consolidated area. I found my camo paint stick from 10 years ago. And Life Was Very Good.

The final haul was something like 10 bags of trash/assorted objects/stuff that wasn't mine/goodwill fodder.

Which brings up the amusing part.

Mom: *walks in, looks around* Wow, you've been really busy. Wait a sec... where's all my stuff that used to be on this shelf?

Me: It's downstairs.

Mom: WHAT!?

Me: I needed the shelf space. It was in my way.

Mom: You're inflicting your messes upon me!

Me: No, I'm inflicting YOUR mess on YOU.

Mom: Well, er... where's all dad's books that you borrowed?

Me: In a bag downstairs.

Mom: I don't think I want to be going downstairs.

Me: Probably not.

Firstly, I think there was a ROTD XIX, but I can't find it anywhere. Any clues? I forgot to archive it.

But on to today's topic: The amusement of wrapping Christmas presents.

Mom and I are sitting around wrapping the things, and it comes up to wrapping one of dad's presents.

Mom: What wrapping paper should we use on Dad's present?
Me: It has to go with a gold bow (running out of bows at this point)
Mom: Well, um, how about this crappy paper over here?
Me: *busts up laughing*
Mom: That didn't sound good, did it?
Me: No, not really.

And then it gets down the Christmas Eve movies (we generally have 5 or so movies each year). I walked out of the room for a second, and mom had 2 wrapped by the time I came back. Then I looked away for 2 seconds, and another one was wrapped.

Me: You wrapped one that fast?
Mom: *grins*

Then she did it again! And again! Amazing.

Then there's the ritual counting of presents. 25 under the tree this year. Then mom pulled 5 more out of nowhere. I was sort of amazed.

Then Dad came home.

Me/Mom: *smirking*
Dad: Hi guys, I'm ho...That's a lot of presents.
Me/Mom: *smirking* Yep.

Then there's the fact that I A, know we're getting a DVD player (I picked it out), and B, that we're getting Gladiator and the Patriot. Good thing I have a craving to watch both movies right now, eh?

Or, how to run a VCR.

I decided this morning that yknow, I'd really like to watch Last of the Mohicans. Unfortunately, the only VCRs in the house are A, in my parents' room, and B, downstairs. Now, I'm not fond of camping in my parents room to watch movies, so I went downstairs.

The problem here, of course, is that the new VCR (year or two old) is pretty much shot. It has this little habit of eating tapes that kind of irks me... thus necessitating find another VCR. No problem, I figure. There are, after all, two older VCRs sitting around down there. So I hook up the first one, plug it in.

WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Ruh-roh. Yank the plug back out, unhook it, dig out the other one. Plug it in. No whining noise, so I proceed to try and hook it up. The problem is, it's so old it doesn't have the standard three video/audio jacks. This is a problem. Suddenly, inspiration hits. We snagged Grandpa's VCR and TV not too long ago! Run upstairs, check. Yeah, it's there. Turn the TV on, put the movie in, and...nothing. After screwing around with things for a while, it occured to me that the audio/video cable wasn't there. Well, says I, it's probably in the cabinet with whatever else.

*digdigdigdigdig*

Home videos from 1987... nope, that ain't it... For Whom the Bell Tolls... Nope, that ain't it. Tapes of people I've never heard of... nope, that ain't it... Rook cards, tools, a wierd plastic thing, but no cable. So I ran downstairs and grabbed the one that would have gone to the VCR down there. Buahahahahaha. Unfortunately, the remote doesn't work for some reason, and the VCR keeps switching itself off if it goes idle. But that's ok, because I can FINALLY watch my damn movie. Bleh.

On a side note, this whole problem could have been solved quite easily. Unfortunately, the conversation went something like this:

Me: Mom, the downstairs VCR is dead. Don't you think a new one would be good?
Mom: Buy yourself a new one.
Me: With what money? Besides, it's your TV in the first place. Don't you want a VCR on YOUR TV?
Mom: Go dig out one of the other 2.
Me: Well, the only one I know of smoked and whined when I tried it.
Mom: Ok, whatever.

Thus bringing us to the current situation, which involves me watching Last of the Mohicans, on the wrong TV, in the wrong part of the house (couch downstairs is more comfortable.).

[edit]

Or...not. When the VCR makes crinkling sounds on the tape and the tracking goes crazy, I become less inclined to trust said VCR. Guess I get to use my parents' VCR after all. FIVE VCRs in this house, and ONE of them works. How screwed up is that?

[/edit]

PRINCE JOHN: Do not try to look for the 19th rant. That is impossible. Instead, try only to realize the truth.

BADGER: What truth?

PRINCE JOHN: There is no 19th rant.

18? Oh dear. But anyway. Unlike the last one, this one IS amusing, so have fun with it.

What a day, what a day... I'm running on 4 hours of sleep right now, having gone to bed at 12 last night, and waking up at 4. Had I been following the normal pattern of things, I would have been waking up about now after crashing at 10 or so. That didn't actually happen today for a number of reasons. For starters, there was some freaking heinous LOSER outside with a freaking LEAFBLOWER.

*crashes*

WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Uggghhh... What's that noise? Oh, a leafblower. If only I had an assault rifle...

*thunk*

*lies around in a semi-coma for a bit*

WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

*gets up*

And if that wasn't bad enough, now that I was thoroughly pissed off, the PHONE RINGS. Mom wants to go shopping to blow off my meal card money. Oh, hell, I forgot about that. Yeah mom, sure. When ya gonna be up here? 2 hours? Ok. So much for sleep. Oh, and let's not forget that the last sustenance of any kind that I had was a cherry coke at 4am (side note: Some girl came down for pop while I was down there... Nice to knowI'm not alone, eh?). Well, now what? 2 hours to kill. I know, I'll pack and get ready to go home tomorrow. *digburrowrummagetossthrowackwhoacrunchcrunchpack* After almost being eaten by the paper monster living on my desk, I got everything sorted out on my bed. Books to go home? Huge pile. D&D stuff? 2 huge piles. Stuff to stay? Little dinky pile. Trash? Half the room. Just as I was getting a handle on things, my alarm goes off. Time to go down and meet mom. Grab walkman, head down. Only to wait for 15 minutes in the freezing cold. In a rather thin flannel. Exhausted. Finally mom pulls up, and we go over to the little campus store thing to blow off meal card money (because OSU in it's vileness doesn't rollover meal card money to the next term, and just eats it instead. They can't possibly lose.) Unfortunately, this is the middle of finals week, so the whole damn campus had already been there. So I wiped out the ginger snaps section (3 boxes), the cheerios (2 boxes), dots (3 boxes), and licorice (5 boxes). I STILL had money after that, so I got 2 bags of exhorbitantly priced jerkey. Whew. Then the bag breaks on the way out of the store. Whee. Next plan: Go to lunch.

Mom: What sounds good?
Me: I don't care. Pick something.
Mom: No, tell me somewhere.
Me: I don't care. I'm tired. How about, um, Chinese.
Mom: But there's nowhere for the leftovers (they're leaving on a trip).
Me: Um, I dunno. McDonalds is good.
Mom: Let's get Chinese.

So we go to the Chinese place. I order soup, and discover that the spoon has this red crap stuck to it from some previous meal. Gross. Switch spoons, eat a small bowl of what amounts to 2 wontons in a bit of barely flavored water. Well, the Mongolian beef will be better. And it was. Except my plate had some crap or another stuck to it, so I had to ask for a new one. My appetite by now was minimal, as you can guess.

THEN we got to go fight with my bank for an hour or so about an overdraft charge. Oh, the funness. Now I'm back, and I'd LOVE to go to sleep, but remember those huge piles all over my bed? They didn't move themselves while I was gone. *sigh*

Entry purged by State Security.