I recently found a great deal on an all-inclusive in the Dominican Republic. I had never been to an all-inclusive, all I knew was there was going to be a beach and as much alcohol as I felt the need to consume. Sign me up.
I received the first taste of the people I was to encounter on this trip at Dulles airport. I sat overhearing (alright eavesdropping) two women discuss their extensive travel logs, mainly to Cancun or South Padre Island. They were reminding each other of helpful hints they'd learned along the way such as not to drink the water, don't even let them put ice in your drinks.
How was I to sit around the pool with my fruity umbrella drink if I wasn't allowed ice? I decided I would risk it.
It was once we arrived at the resort that I realized I did not fit in to the three categories of people that choose an all-inclusive resort in the Dominican. The first being young families from South America, the second being retirees and the third and my personal favorite, newlyweds. Wait. Midwestern newlyweds.
I had never before seen so many girls with such artificially tanned skin that it was beginning to look grey, perfectly manicured fingernails and white tank tops with BRIDE bedazzled across the breast.
My favorite couple were newlyweds from Ohio. They sat across from us on the back of a truck taking us to ride dune buggies one day. When they first sat down, they were all smiles and ready to really get out there and see the native lands. However, the excitement slowly melted away once they realized that they were in fact leaving the resort.
"You know, we couldn't even understand what that man was saying," the attractive Midwestern girl whispered to her new husband, "they could be taking us anywhere right now."
"Well you were the one talking to him, did you see our name on the list?"
"I don't know he pulled it away too fast."
To calm their fears, they began filling the awkward silence with chatter such as, 'so today's Tuesday. Tomorrow's Wednesday.' I refused to help fill any silence and instead I believe probably stared a little too intensely at them, but I was intrigued. They then began talking about how everyone would think that they weren't even married yet because he didn't bring his ring. Yep they really pulled one over on everyone.
It turns out that the driver did in fact take us to the appropriate place to ride the dune buggies and we proceeded to drive out to a private beach where we watched the two of them pose for pictures straight out of the swimsuit section of the Sears catalog.
On the drive back, they were feeling much better and talking up a storm with everyone else on the truck. There were the two overweight policeman from Michigan wearing t-shirts with cut off sleeves, with very skinny over-tanned wives wearing cowboy hats and large sunglasses. Then there was an extremely young couple who looked uncomfortable sitting next to each other yet had giant hickeys all over their necks. Throw in a couple overweight sisters and we were one big happy family back there.
The Ohio couple was leading the conversation about how awful the buffets at each person's respective resort was, when we went over a particularly rough patch of road.
"The city really needs to get on this," she said shaking her head.
My boyfriend and I remained mute the entire trip back along with a middle aged German couple. One by one, the other couples were let off at their resorts finally leaving it down to us, the German couple and the Ohioans. The uncomfortable look came back to their faces, but they kept the banter up between each other. When it was time for them to get off the truck, they quickly grabbed their belongings and bounded back into the safe arms of their resort. The four of us watched silently and then looked at each other. I know, our eyes said. I know.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Keep Your Pee Off Me
One of the biggest things I have noticed here in the burbs is how everything must be germ free. I have already discussed the mutant germ repelling shopping cart handles, but it does not stop there. There are sanitizing wipes at entrances of grocery stores and exits of bathrooms, and Purell has become like crack inhabiting every purse and glove box in Northern Virginia.
Usually I would not be quite as bothered by this severe level of anal, but now it has effected me personally. What I want to know is, why do all of you germ freaks out there believe it is okay for someone else to receive your germs in order for you not to receive someone else's?
It has happened multiple times now that I have gone into a bathroom and blindly sat down only to realize that I am in fact sitting in someone else's urine. I've watched you women, you hoverers, leave the bathroom. You use the paper towel to turn off the water and open the door, only to turn and toss the paper towel into the bathroom not caring wether it lands in the trashcan or not. So now you have touched nothing. However, you have left your pee on the toilet, your dirty paper towel on the floor and half the time you leave the water running. I've used cleaner port-o-potties on the third day of a bluegrass festival than most bathrooms I've seen around here.
I want to know who these people are that believe the world is right when they do not recieve a single germ but leave the next unsuspecting soul with a nice little wet present that they then have to walk around with on the back of there legs.
All I have to say is SIT DOWN. We are women, that's what we do. Please stop making me sit in your pee.
Usually I would not be quite as bothered by this severe level of anal, but now it has effected me personally. What I want to know is, why do all of you germ freaks out there believe it is okay for someone else to receive your germs in order for you not to receive someone else's?
It has happened multiple times now that I have gone into a bathroom and blindly sat down only to realize that I am in fact sitting in someone else's urine. I've watched you women, you hoverers, leave the bathroom. You use the paper towel to turn off the water and open the door, only to turn and toss the paper towel into the bathroom not caring wether it lands in the trashcan or not. So now you have touched nothing. However, you have left your pee on the toilet, your dirty paper towel on the floor and half the time you leave the water running. I've used cleaner port-o-potties on the third day of a bluegrass festival than most bathrooms I've seen around here.
I want to know who these people are that believe the world is right when they do not recieve a single germ but leave the next unsuspecting soul with a nice little wet present that they then have to walk around with on the back of there legs.
All I have to say is SIT DOWN. We are women, that's what we do. Please stop making me sit in your pee.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Next Time I'll Order In
One of the first questions I have came to me on a recent trip to the grocery land called Wegmans. For starters, I had a hard time adjusting to the store when I first moved here. It is like the Epcot of grocery stores, I can travel to a land of all cheese and then walk over to the world of organic everything (including clothes). And if all my traveling works up an appetite, I can choose anything from Indian food to pizza and head upstairs to eat it and watch everyone else shop. What I especially adore is the random sushi stands or sample ladies blaring Bob Marley. I just know that when he was writing those songs he was thinking of middle aged suburbanites shopping in the organic aisle, talking on their cell phones, wearing hiking attire from REI.
But that is not my question. My question comes from the new carts that I recently found there. What I want to know is, how do I attain the power over people to make them believe that whatever it is I show them, must be better than the perfectly good product they had before. The cart I pushed around last Tuesday made all the progress I had made toward walking into Wegmans without a panic attack disappear.
I will start with the anatomy of the cart. These people have taken the idea of the big basket to push groceries around in and cut it in half. Now, I am to push a cart with a small half-basket on top and a four foot long basket on bottom. Both baskets being too shallow to stack even a loaf of bread on top a carton of eggs. I am fairly short, coming in at 5'3", and so to maneuver something that long causes some difficulty. At one point, I got pinned in the produce section after my boyfriend made a sharp turn. I was looking around panicked for a safe route out, but everywhere I turned there were more long carts and kids running and women pretending not to notice me even though I was summoning my boyfriend in our secret phrase of "ca caw" to let him know I was stuck. Eventually he heard me and came back to help. Needless to say I was on pushing probation from then on.
The next problem I have I touched on briefly already, it is the fact that nothing can be stacked in the carts anymore. Have people gone so completely germ and disease nuts now that their food cannot even touch while still in the packaging? That really is a silly question and can be answered simply by looking at the handle of the cart. Yes, the new handles are actually special handles that repel bacteria. Whoever invented this one is laughing in his money somewhere. Apparently the sanitary wipes provided at the entrance aren't enough to ward off all the dirt and grime that resides inside a Wegmans and bacteria repelling handles are needed. Whenever I first read this, I was slightly apprehensive about holding the handle. To just look at it, it seems like a normal plastic handle. That is why it scares me. I do not know if something in the handle melts the bacteria away or if there are some type of radio active waves that zap the bacteria in the air. Either way, I wanted to break out a pair of gloves to protect myself from it, but I didn't want to embarrass my boyfriend so I faced my fears and took hold.
When it was finally time for check out, I was left alone to check out with the mutant cart while my boyfriend went to the bathroom. The first problem I had was the fact that the new carts are now wider, leaving only millimeters to spare on either side. Once I got the cart into the aisle, I realized that I could only reach the three items on the top shelf of the cart. I then had to back the cart out of the aisle and back it in to reach the items on the bottom shelf, all the while the 17 year old with perfectly messed hair was staring unapprovingly at me and the woman in a hurry to go somewhere (Everyone out here is always in a hurry yet there's never anything going on. Someday I strive to find out where they're all going.) was huffing up a storm. My problem again with backing the cart in, was the shear length of it. I could not reach over and grab the top shelf without catching my ankles, which was sure to end in me on the floor, so I had to bend over and grab the bottom shelf and waddle myself, butt in the air, backwards into the aisle. Once I was finally able to unload the cart, I had to then waddle the cart even further out the back end of the aisle so I could get behind it to swipe my card.
My boyfriend walked out of the bathroom to find me sweating and shaking. The woman who was behind me shook her head at my sorry excuse for a Wegmans shopper on her way out.
If these carts are to make my life easier, maybe grocery shopping is not for me after all.
But that is not my question. My question comes from the new carts that I recently found there. What I want to know is, how do I attain the power over people to make them believe that whatever it is I show them, must be better than the perfectly good product they had before. The cart I pushed around last Tuesday made all the progress I had made toward walking into Wegmans without a panic attack disappear.
I will start with the anatomy of the cart. These people have taken the idea of the big basket to push groceries around in and cut it in half. Now, I am to push a cart with a small half-basket on top and a four foot long basket on bottom. Both baskets being too shallow to stack even a loaf of bread on top a carton of eggs. I am fairly short, coming in at 5'3", and so to maneuver something that long causes some difficulty. At one point, I got pinned in the produce section after my boyfriend made a sharp turn. I was looking around panicked for a safe route out, but everywhere I turned there were more long carts and kids running and women pretending not to notice me even though I was summoning my boyfriend in our secret phrase of "ca caw" to let him know I was stuck. Eventually he heard me and came back to help. Needless to say I was on pushing probation from then on.
The next problem I have I touched on briefly already, it is the fact that nothing can be stacked in the carts anymore. Have people gone so completely germ and disease nuts now that their food cannot even touch while still in the packaging? That really is a silly question and can be answered simply by looking at the handle of the cart. Yes, the new handles are actually special handles that repel bacteria. Whoever invented this one is laughing in his money somewhere. Apparently the sanitary wipes provided at the entrance aren't enough to ward off all the dirt and grime that resides inside a Wegmans and bacteria repelling handles are needed. Whenever I first read this, I was slightly apprehensive about holding the handle. To just look at it, it seems like a normal plastic handle. That is why it scares me. I do not know if something in the handle melts the bacteria away or if there are some type of radio active waves that zap the bacteria in the air. Either way, I wanted to break out a pair of gloves to protect myself from it, but I didn't want to embarrass my boyfriend so I faced my fears and took hold.
When it was finally time for check out, I was left alone to check out with the mutant cart while my boyfriend went to the bathroom. The first problem I had was the fact that the new carts are now wider, leaving only millimeters to spare on either side. Once I got the cart into the aisle, I realized that I could only reach the three items on the top shelf of the cart. I then had to back the cart out of the aisle and back it in to reach the items on the bottom shelf, all the while the 17 year old with perfectly messed hair was staring unapprovingly at me and the woman in a hurry to go somewhere (Everyone out here is always in a hurry yet there's never anything going on. Someday I strive to find out where they're all going.) was huffing up a storm. My problem again with backing the cart in, was the shear length of it. I could not reach over and grab the top shelf without catching my ankles, which was sure to end in me on the floor, so I had to bend over and grab the bottom shelf and waddle myself, butt in the air, backwards into the aisle. Once I was finally able to unload the cart, I had to then waddle the cart even further out the back end of the aisle so I could get behind it to swipe my card.
My boyfriend walked out of the bathroom to find me sweating and shaking. The woman who was behind me shook her head at my sorry excuse for a Wegmans shopper on her way out.
If these carts are to make my life easier, maybe grocery shopping is not for me after all.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Current Pitstop Northern Virginia
I am finding out that I did not fully understand what I was signing up for when I agreed to move to the suburbs of northern Virginia from my 1/6th of a trailer in West Virginia to be with my boyfriend while he finished college.
I was working as a whitewater raft guide in West Virginia when I met my now boyfriend, we'll call him Ted. It was March, and I was training and he was coming down for play trips before the season started. We hit it off right away and grew closer over the summer, surviving my sister's wedding and two deaths together, my grandfather and his. When he asked me to come live with him after the season, I agreed and assumed things could only get better after sharing a twin bed for 8 months in a trailer that had been split into 6 rooms of which we shared one. There were many times that there was so much clutter and so little space that there was absolutely no way for us to not touch each other. Needless to say, we had some tense times.
Then I moved here. I have lived in a variety of places including Yellowstone National Park, Death Valley, CA, Billings, MT, and Nashville, TN, but none of these places prepared me for this, the suburbs. I have seen things here that I could not imagine there was ever a need or want for, but day after day I learn of something new. There are also so many fears of things going wrong, almost to a point of wanting something to go wrong so that it can be fixed. I listen to Ted's sister who is in high school talk of all her friends who are in counseling and rehab because of drinking problems. Drinking problems? Anywhere else, it is called being a teenager. Your parents discipline you and you live and learn from it. No need for counseling.
I am finding out that I do not fit in well here in the suburbs, but I am learning a lot and trying. I recently whitened my teeth and even received a facial last week. However, during that facial I did get lectured by a complete stranger for being a college graduate and waiting tables. I let that one go, I am sure she had my best interest in mind.
So we will call this a learning tool for me as to why I see some of the things I see here.
I was working as a whitewater raft guide in West Virginia when I met my now boyfriend, we'll call him Ted. It was March, and I was training and he was coming down for play trips before the season started. We hit it off right away and grew closer over the summer, surviving my sister's wedding and two deaths together, my grandfather and his. When he asked me to come live with him after the season, I agreed and assumed things could only get better after sharing a twin bed for 8 months in a trailer that had been split into 6 rooms of which we shared one. There were many times that there was so much clutter and so little space that there was absolutely no way for us to not touch each other. Needless to say, we had some tense times.
Then I moved here. I have lived in a variety of places including Yellowstone National Park, Death Valley, CA, Billings, MT, and Nashville, TN, but none of these places prepared me for this, the suburbs. I have seen things here that I could not imagine there was ever a need or want for, but day after day I learn of something new. There are also so many fears of things going wrong, almost to a point of wanting something to go wrong so that it can be fixed. I listen to Ted's sister who is in high school talk of all her friends who are in counseling and rehab because of drinking problems. Drinking problems? Anywhere else, it is called being a teenager. Your parents discipline you and you live and learn from it. No need for counseling.
I am finding out that I do not fit in well here in the suburbs, but I am learning a lot and trying. I recently whitened my teeth and even received a facial last week. However, during that facial I did get lectured by a complete stranger for being a college graduate and waiting tables. I let that one go, I am sure she had my best interest in mind.
So we will call this a learning tool for me as to why I see some of the things I see here.
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