(See, I used to get my news from the Daily Show and now we don’t even have Dish Network anymore so now I mostly get my news from gossip websites).

Here is what I recall about our conversation:

Mom: I assume you’re calling to discuss the election?

Elaine: (thinking, what election?) Oh, right, I hear that didn’t go well.

Mom: (let’s all picture her in full mourning, like Jackie at JFK’s funeral) No, it did not.

Elaine: I heard that we (Democrats) kept the majority in the…um, the one where there are lots of members and did not keep the majority in the…umm, one where there are only 100 members.*

Mom: ::shoots herself for having a college educated daughter who can’t remember which one is the Senate and which one is the House of Representatives::

::end scene::

*Bad news – Gene tells me it was the exact opposite.

Sidebar: Elaine tries to remember the names of the Supreme Court Justices:

Let’s see, there’s the guy who may or may not have sexually harassed Anita Hill, there’s the lady, there’s the new lady, there’s the guy who became Head Justice right out of the gate and good for him, there’s Scalia, is there still a guy named Marshall?

::two minutes at supremecourt.gov later::

Holy crap, there are 3 women on the Supreme Court. When did THAT happen? So, there’s no longer a guy named Marshall, the head guy is Roberts, the Anita Hill guy is Thomas, there’s a Kennedy, I was right about Scalia (high five everyone!), there’s a Breyer, an Alito and the three ladies, one of whom is (almost) named Elaine, which is pretty damn cool.

Sidebar to the sidebar:

While I may be politically retarded, I have just discovered that I can no longer name all of Brad and Angelina’s kids without having to resort to secondary sources. Ta-da.

Sometimes it takes at least 5 minutes before I realize that today is Wednesday and she’s not arriving until Friday.

In other news, I processed a bunch of I-9 forms (to make sure there are no illegal aliens or terrorists in the company’s employ) and was horrified at the number of people born in 1985 that we have hired recently.

Again, it took a few minutes to realize that I have lost a decade and that these people are 24/25 years old, not 14/15 years old.

There! Now don’t you feel smarter?

I was very good and did not spend ANY money on Black Friday (it helps that I was working from 9-5, so I didn’t even think of trying midnight shopping again).

(Not that I would have, actually, as Gene made it clear that he did midnight shopping once and would never do it again).

Black Saturday, however…

As a side bar, here are some things to note:

1) I am out of perfume.

2) Because I have so many rules about perfume, I have decided to stick to J’Adore Dior (the spray bottle of the eau de parfum costs about $80).

3) Which is awfully expensive, even as a gift

4) The Almighty D gave me an eBay gift card for my birthday, which has burned a hole in my purse now for 8 months

So, back to the stupidest story you’ll hear today. I got the idea to try eBay for my perfume. D has purchased different fragrances online and she’s always had good luck. I found a decent seller with good feedback, etc, and eventually won an auction for around $30. Used D’s gift card for this, only out $10 or so from my Paypal account. Feelin’ good.

But then, this evening, apparently I took leave of every good bit of sense I’ve developed in 32 29 years of living and for some reason, I went back to eBay and searched for zhu zhu pets. (Apparently Zhu Zhu pets are this year’s hot Xmas item. They are stuffed hamsters. That is all I know). I’m a girl who lives dangerously, so I bid on one of the hamsters in an auction that only had a few seconds to go. Bid too slowly and the auction ended. Tried again. Bid too slowly again. Looked for a nearly finished auction with 30 seconds or so to go. Tried again. Bid perfectly.

Crap.

OMFG, I bought a Zhu Zhu pet. Sometime this week, a white stuffed hamster is going to be delivered to my house. And yes, I am going to resell it. Not because I’m an asshole (well, not entirely), but because I do not want a white stuffed hamster.

(Seriously. If any of you would like a white Zhu Zhu pet hamster, let me know. I’m not going to give it away but I want it out of my house ASAP and I would like to not lose my ::cough:: investment).

Someone needs to take away my internet connection.

In better news, the Great Black and Brown Hunter (a/k/a Betty) killed a rabbit today. And left it behind my chair. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Fortunately, Gene handled disposal. Eek.

And in TRULY better news: Gene got a phone call yesterday from a lady reporting that she had our dogs – black and brown dogs – and that one of them was badly injured. The dogs had tags from the suburb’s police department. They had the same personalized collars (with names and phone #s) that Betty & Scooby have. (That is, the collars had OUR phone #s on them, just different dog names).

“M’am,” Gene says, “I can see my dogs right here.”
How did these impostor dogs get collars with our phone # on them? Weird! I hope the injured dog is safe, but I am enough of an asshole to admit that I am glad the dogs were not ours. When I got home (the lady called 3 minutes before I leave work), Gene was lying in the dog bed, holding both dogs like his life depended on it. (Awwwwwwwww).

Graduated from Ball State University. Ten years ago today marked the satisfying finale to my educational career. Hooray! It is the proudest day of my life, still. I’m not using my degree, not even a little bit. I feel a little bad about it.

(Seriously, I love Old Navy. I walked in there yesterday and walked out with 7 t-shirts and 1 I thought dress and they are nice and long and cover my ass and don’t make my arms feel like they’re as big as Popeye’s. Miracle clothes. Clothes cheap enough that I don’t hate myself for long when I inevitably get greasy food on them).

(Did I tell you about dropping the rice part of a piece of sushi and it managed to get all over my shirt AND inside my purse? I am a talented girl).

Anyway (but I bet you’ll never forget what 9 times 8 is, will you? Especially if you owned “The Super Bowl Shuffle” on vinyl, like I did***)… what has always bugged me is that if you multiply anything times zero, the answer is zero. How unfair is that? I have 8 apples, you have zero, multiply them, now I have no apples. I want my damn apples! Where did they go? Ugh, it’s like gambling.

(*Ha ha! I was right, it was called the Speak and Math!)

(** And she had all kinds of tips to teach foreign capitals. I will be 90 years old and senile but will remember that Bogota is the capital of Colombia. Do they even make kids learn South American capitals anymore? Geez, I bet the average 10 year old now wouldn’t last a minute in the ghetto elementary school I attended from K-5, and NO not because they’d surely be mugged for their cell phone and iPod).

(*** Yeah, I know. Hated football then, hate football now, but it was the Midwest in the 1980s…)

Oh well.

(Full disclosure: this happened last year, too).