2) If the grocery store gossip rags would stop trying to make the first names of celebrity couples into one name. The hideous implications of BENNIFER made me puke, even more so now that the Ben-part has SWITCHED-Nifers and the relationship is being treated like a B MOVIE SEQUEL: Return of Bennifer, Bigger, Badder, Pregnanter, Momzilla, Friends of Matt and his Squeeze. And there is no excuse that will keep whoever perpetrated TomKat out of HELL. I mercifully missed the initial advent of the term BraGelina, which sounds like a Catholic church supper dessert made of foundation garments and Kool Whip.
3) If doctors weren't so freakin' prescription happy. I can't go in for a check up these days and just say I feel COLD without walking away with fifteen prescriptions. The closest I come to an MD is an A in college biology--and I suspect I feel so cold in my doctor's office because I am dressed in a kleenex thin paper gown and he is forever warming up his stethoscope between my high beams or shoving his purposely refrigerated metal speculum up my "you know where"...
4) If I had a PARROT with a big ruffly topnot so that he looked like an inquisitive Hessian Soldier. I could teach him "HALT--WHO GOES THERE" and the entire poem, 'The Raven', and get him to crack and unshell my snack nuts and stuff. Plus, he could discipline the cat and keep her from amusing herself by vaulting off my FREAKING chest at 2:00 IN THE FREAKING AM!
5) If EVERYONE I met for the first time would send a follow-up e-mail like the one I got this morning that says, "I forgot to mention that you are entirely too thin! (you write in your profile like you are not, but you are.)" In fact, even if you have not met me, you should probably send me a similar e-mail sometime this week, because...okay...here I simply refer you back to Number 1 and my search for a MAN.
6) If Independent Bookstores would all STAY, FOREVER. I know of three separate stores that I LOVED that are respectively closed and closing or snow plowed under. That's three in my little circle of known stores, GONE, and that is JUST THIS YEAR and I can hardly bear it. Nothing against the Big Boys--Lordy--I like a huge selection and discounts as much as the next book junky--but there has to be room in the world for small stock and specialization and handselling TOO. There HAS to be, or debut books can so easily slip off the radar and be gone and lost.
7) If pets would habitually tattle on cheaters. And then scratch their privates all bloody raw and stuff.
8) If EVERYTHING could be organized into lists. And then checked off!
9) If more people would spontaneously post to my profile unusual gifts and sh*t. I say this because I Googled a picture of a REAL LIVE bull after John sent me his gift this past week and its undercarriage caught my eye. I don't know why...well...I do...it had this BIG GIGANIC HANGING TESTICLE...so I said to a colleague at the office,..."HOLY CRAP...is that a cow testicle?" and some exacting boogerhead walking by looked into my office at me like I was a big ugly stupid bug and said, "Actually, that is a BULL's TesticleSSSSS," and there was a silent and parenthetical "You Moron" the size of Russia hanging off that long chain of obnoxious testicle-multiplying esses. At which point I smiled and said "Literalist, huh?" <--- Lie. I then shrunk back in my chair feeling like a total dork for talking like I talk (i.e. highly innaccurately and hyperbolic-ly) and you know what, it's a COW testicle SINGULAR forever now, in absolute rebellion against drive-by belittlers. SO THERE, YOU FREAKING PECKERHEAD.)
10) If I had OnStar. And the brains to figure out how to use it. And a new car to install it in. And a new garage to park my new car in. And a new house to go with my new garage. Okay. I better stop here...
