Review: ORPHAN

The other night, me and Chief decided to do something REALLY outside the box and unusual.

We decided to actually GO to the movies.

On the SPUR of the moment!

Nothing but rebels we are!! LOL!!

Anyway.. Bubba had gone to see ORPHAN last week and loved it so since it was the only movies that 1) we both wanted to see and 2) had a show time starting a few minutes after we arrived.

If you don’t know the premise.. the movie is about a couple that adopt a older child (played morosely by Isabelle Fuhrman) and then all hell breaks loose.

Your basic B grade horror movie.. but with a twist.

A big twist. One that I never saw coming but one that Chief saw even before the credits started!! No, seriously, he guess it about a half hour in and of course, I thought he was completely insane.

My punishment? Listening to him say DIDN’T I CALL IT? every second of the half hour ride home!! LOL

Personally, I loved it. I really enjoyed it. I like being scared and there was a few times when I shouted OMG! out loud.

So yea.. I would recommend it as long as you don’t expect too much out of it.

Oh.. and if you’re a card carrying member of the Woman’s Club,Peter Sarsgaard plays the father. And you know me… I luvs me some Peter Sarsgaard! He, right there, is worth the price of admission!

Split Ends and Egg Rwolls

… so the other day I commit to getting my hair cut.

Me and my hair have issues. Namely that it acts like a teenager and does whatever the hell it wants to do regardless of how much “product” I put into it.

I have this wacky mane of curls that apparently, people pay a lot of money in a salon to copy but when it gets “too” long.. I shed more then the dogs do and the only thing it will allow me to do with it is stick it in a pony tail so that I won’t look so much like a wack job.

Problem is.. I’m just a wee bit old to wear pony tails. Everyone tells me that I look like I’m in my mid-thirties but I actually just turned 44.

The other thing is… I’m just SO not a “salon gal”.

I can think of a million and one things that I can do with the time it takes to sit in a salon. Like.. oh, I don’t know.. pluck out my eye lashes?

But when it gets to the point that I’m justthisclose to taking the dog clippers and shaving it all off, I know it’s time to fulfill Section XXIV to keep my Woman’s Membership card.

Since the shop is located on one of the main Boulevards that cross the county, told Chief that I was just going to drive up until I find someplace to get it cut. There’s a million and one franchise placed :: read Hair Cuttery :: and since we’re small business owners, I wanted to patronize a small place to help do my little part in keeping them in business.

I find this place a few blocks up. It’s a tiny place called Tina’s and it’s directly across the street from a larger chain that just opened a few months ago. Perfect! Just the kind of place I was looking for.

So I pop my head in. The place was tiny and you could tell that it specialized in older woman who needed roller sets because it had those big, old fashioned hair dryers that looked like Nasa invented them.

This Asian woman sees me and I ask her if I could have my hair cut. There was already a woman sitting in one of the two stations getting a perm so I didn’t know if I was going to have to wait or not.

Yes.. yes.. come in.. sure.. sure.. you get hair cut.. sit.. sit..

Cool.

So I did.. thinking that there was someone else hiding in the back that was going to appear to cut my hair. But no.. as soon as I sat in the chair, this little Asian woman whipped a cape around me and started spraying my hair with a spray bottle.

Um. I have ALOT of hair. Like I said, it’s curly.. it’s thick.. and it was almost down to the middle of my back so I had my doubts about the spray bottle. But I was going back to the shop and would have my baseball cap on so it really didn’t matter.

What way? What way yew want cut? she asks me.

Little known fact about me is that once upon a time, I had my cosmetology license so I can communicate exactly how I wanted it cut. But just in case there was a language barrier, I told her that me and my husband owned a deli and that I needed to have it long enough to pull back threw my cap.

Ooooh! Ooooh! She says.. Yew hown deli? Where deli at? Deli near heair?

She keeps cutting and tells me some things about her family.. kids.. etc. The usual stuff that strange hair dressers talk about to new clients.

A buzzer goes off and she tells me that she would be right back.. that she had to rinse out the lady with the perm. No problem. I’ll just.. um.. sit here.. and.. um.. dunno… look at some.. um.. gee.. 10 year old magazines?? Oh.. no.. actually I’ll read the ingredients on my bottle of Blackberry Lemonade. Twice. Then backwards.

She finally gets back to my hair and says to me:

I make egg rwoll. Good egg rwoll. Best egg rwoll. Yew sell in yew deli? Dey good egg rwoll. I make myself. You like. You sell in yew deli and help me owut? Ok? Ok? I brwing down 100. You sell. You help me ouwt, ok?

Ahhhh… WHAT?

She repeats that she is the High Priestess of Egg Roll Making and that she wants me to sell them in my store.

Now.. just between you and me.. there’s a WHOLE lotta regulations when selling “self prepared” food.. even more so when you’re buying “self prepared” food from someone else. Namely, it has to be produced in a licensed commercial kitchen :: which I doubt Egg Rwoll Lady had :: and all the ingredients need to be listed. It’s a risk on a good day… HUGE risk when it’s some lady you just popped in to get your hair cut by

It was an awkward moment and I really didn’t feel like explaining all that to this woman. She was.. after all.. holding a sharp pointy object near my head! So I did what I always do when something like this presents itself.

I’LL TALK TO MY HUSBAND

But she wasn’t having any of that. She wanted me to definitely say

YES! YES! YES, HIGH PRIESTESS OF EGG ROLL MAKING! I NEED TO SELL YOUR EGG ROLLS IN MY STORE EVEN THOUGH THERE IS A CHINESE TAKE OUT PLACE RIGHT. ACROSS. THE. STREET. FROM MY SHOP.

But I told her that Chief was the chef and he was the one that made the final decisions. The only thing I could do is ask him but I would definitely have him call her.

Yew help me.. she said. Yew help me. I need help. Yew sell my egg rwolls and help me.

And I was all.. I AM helping you! I’m here, right? I could have gone to the Hair Cuttery, right? But I’m here.. TRYING to help out a small business and you’re just all up in my grill about selling your egg rolls when I told you that the only thing I could do is ask my husband about it!!

She gave my hair one last yank.. threw her comb and scissors on the station table and said, “.. yew check hair. Yew like den leave 10 dolla on table. Yew don’t like, yew tell me wot wrong and I fix”

Talk about an ATTITUDE! Sheesh!

Honestly, I didn’t even look at it. I shook it out.. left 15.00 on her table.. thanked her and made for the door.

NO FORGET! YEW BUY EGG RWOLL! YEW HELP ME OWT OK?

Back in the safety of my car.. I downed the last of my Black Berry Lemonade and looked around for Rod Serling or the Candid Camera guy. If it wasn’t Candid Camera then it definitely had to be the freakin’ Twilight Zone!

I drive back to the shop and Chief was all like .. OMG! I LOVE YOUR HAIR! and I was like, tough.. I’m never going back there again.

I went on to tell him what happened and he was literally crying from laughing so hard.

Did you think I was exaggerating when I said that this type of shit happens to nobody but me and Dick Tracy??

Just Another Thing That’s Wrong With Me

… so more then a few years ago, I had to get a plate for three teeth on the upper right side.

This because my psychotic ex-husband landed a good on.. shattering my already weakened teeth :: the result of a bout with hep B years earlier ::

I always had good .. strong.. straight teeth but after recovering from Hep B, I realized that even if I looked at an apple, my teeth would crack. But what are you going to do. Not eat apples, that’s for sure.. or if I do, it’s nibbling with my front teeth like a rabbit.

Anyway…

So I went to the dentist :: THAT was an experience all in itself :: but the bottom line was that he made a temporary plate for me to wear until the permanent one was completed.

Wait.. let’s back up a little bit.

At the time, I had a good dental plan. But regardless of how good your plan is, very few cover the cost for what I needed done. I knew I was going to have to pay out of pocket.

Rephrase: I knew I was going to have to pay BIG TIME out of pocket

And that was fine. Expected, even.

So at the start of my “care”, I tell both the dentist and the office manager that I was on a limited budget and I needed to know what any copays were due so that I could schedule the appointments around my pay periods… or at least monthly.. bi-monthly.. whatever.

I don’t like owing people money.. and I wanted to make sure that they got paid.

Understood.

So after each appointment for the root canals and extractions and whatever the hell else I had to get, I would ask the office manager what I could be expecting money-wise. And after each visit she would say “… oh, nothing right now. But I will certainly let you know in plenty of time.”

Cool.

So I get the temporary plate :: which isn’t really a plate. It’s just three pretend teeth formed and shaped out off “teeth” material and popped into the space where my real teeth were :: and as I’m making my next appointment the office manager INFORMS me that before the dentist could insert my permanent fake teeth, I need to pay the $1600.00 balance.

Um.

Excuse Me?

I mean…

WHAT?????????

What do you mean BALANCE??

This caused a whole big bruhaha that I’m not going to go into :: mainly because it’s been so long ago that I can’t remember verbatim and secondly, I just don’t feel like reliving it :: but the bottom line was that I wasn’t going to get the permanent one’s until everything was paid up.. Remember, this does NOT include the permanent teeth/plate/bridge .. whatever the hell you call it.

I didn’t have that much money to give to the dentist. In fact, I had asked if there was a way to make installment payments and she said there was but that by the time I paid it off, my gums were going to change.. meaning the permanent plate already molded wouldn’t fit and I would have to start the process over again costing me more money.

I realize it was her attempt to get the money as soon as possible. And I don’t really blame them.. but I still feel that if they would have done what I had asked from the beginning, they would have had their money.. I would have had my teeth and I would sitting here writing about something else.

Or maybe not.

That whole “Butterfly Effect”, yknow…

All that to say that since I’ve gotten the temporary teeth/plate/ bridge :: can we just refer to them at TEETH from now on? It’s starting to get confusing! :: they’ve been in my mouth.

They weren’t suppose to last this long but knock wood, they have. Although I don’t do any hard chewing or grinding on that side so there isn’t alot of wear and tear but still.. it’s been at least 9 years or so?

The thing about them though is that they don’t come out. Well.. that’s not all together true. They DO .. but only at inopportune times or when I forget and since my teeth into a doughy bagel. But it’s not like I can take them out daily and soak them in that stuff like you see the old people doing on commercials.

Because of that, I’m always diligent about making sure my teeth are brushed. Especially since the psychotic ex-husband knew it was my weakness and played on it constantly.. giving me some sort of a little complex.

Fast foward to the day of my grandmom’s funeral.

Me and Chief stopped at a local convenience store to get cigarettes and I bought a pack of Strawberry Mint Orbit gum :: because it don’t stick to my fake teeth! :: and he bought a thing of Tic-Tacs.

Roughly 4 or so hours after we had woken up that morning, he leans over to me in the church pew:

HIM: Here, take a mint

ME: No thanks

HIM: No. Really. Take a mint

ME: (gasp) Do I really need one?

HIM: Yea. Badly.

ME: (gasp again) But I was just chewing on Orbit!

HIM: Here. Take. The. Mint.

Needless to say, I was mortified. Beyond mortified, actually. But I thought that maybe it had something to do with the Strawberry Mint Orbit Gum because I never thought there was an issue before and the only gum I chew is usually NOT fruit flavored.. so I let it pass.

This morning, around 4:30am, Chief rolls over on top of me and one thing led to another and we did what married people usually do early on Sunday mornings.

Well.. maybe not everybody but do I REALLY need to spell it out for you :: wink.. wink!! ::

Afterwards, I walked around the bed on my way to the bathroom and he started to say, “.. Don’t take this the wrong way or anything..”

My immediate response was, “.. here it comes”

I don’t know why I said that.. it literally just slipped out of my mouth.. but he went on to say that sometime today, “.. you really should clean your plate. Your breath is atrocious. It’s been that way”

Atrocious?

ATROCIOUS?

BEEN THAT WAY?

OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD!!!

Punching me square in my chest wouldn’t have taken the breath away that much.

Mind you.. in his defense, he didn’t say it to be mean like my psychotic ex would. But OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD!!! We just did the nasty and our faces were less then an inch apart!! OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD!!!

I was mortified. Felt horribly embarrassed. I immediately went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth SO hard and with SO much toothpaste that I’ll probably end up with chemical burns. I was literally almost throwing up brushing my tongue so hard.

All this while fighting back tears.. which made my nose run.. which made my sinus’ leak into the back of my mouth.

Wonderful.

Simply wonderful!

I went back in the bedroom and got back into bed.. with my back towards him and not opening my mouth. At all.

But I couldn’t get back to sleep.

So at 5:30am, I got in the car and drove to the 24hr Walgreen’s. :: Thank GOD for 24 hour Walgreen’s :: and bought a HUGE bottle of Listerine.

When I got back, I stayed out in the living room because.. I don’t know why exactly. I just couldn’t go back into the bedroom. About an hour or so later, he comes out and said something about me not being able to get back to sleep.

I shrugged so that my dragon breath wouldn’t sear across the room and singe his bald head.

He said, “.. you know, I have the stuff to clean the plate with.”

I said, “.. I can’t take it out. It only comes out once in a while by accident.”

He said, “.. I wasn’t trying to be rude or anything.”

I said, “I know you weren’t.”

He said, “I’m going to go back to sleep.”

I said, “Ok”

So off to the bedroom he went.

Now I have this phobia. And the worse part is … since being laid off, I don’t have any dental coverage now. Not even crappy dental coverage. So even if I did have extra money hanging around to go to the dentist, it would cost me even MORE.

Since I don’t, it’s a mute point.

Just add THIS to the list of things that make me feel inept.

Wonderful.