Girls, please live by these words

Lemme tell you a 'lil somthin' somthin'...pretty lasts.  Hot is an expendable commodity.

GIRLS.  BE PRETTY.

I just had to share this because it's currently the best video on youtube.

I should just live in Costco

The other day I was in Costco (again, because everything happens to me in Costco, for some reason) (I think Costco should really pay me for all the times I've mentioned them on this blog) (well, I'm not materialistic.  I'll settle for their support in my bid for Supreme Dictator of the State of Utah) (or they could give me a gift card.  I'd like that too.)

What?

Anyway, I was in Costco.  I had to go to the pharmacy because my body suffers from a little thing I like to call "complete inability to function and be not-dumb" and I was pretty sure this was the correct Costco, the one where I fill all my prescriptions.  Except no it was not and being me, the only person in the history of the world to forget where her house is after living there for five years, I turned up at the wrong Costco.  BUT NEVER FEAR, said the pharmacy woman after I had waited a mere 30 minutes behind an old lady who kept hacking loudly and apologetically muttering, "Sorry, must be a tickle...I'm not sick...it's a...tickle" to no one in particular, as if all of us in line were keeping our distance based on her coughing and as soon as she explained the reasons behind it we would be like well that's a relief and hug her forever.

So the pharmacy woman was like KAY WE'RE JUST GONNA TRANSFER YOUR MEDICINE and I was like...um...kay.  Because in my mind she was saying that she was going to physically transfer my medicine from the other pharmacy to this one and I was trying to figure out the logistics but as it turns out I was, in fact, at another pharmacy where they also have medication on hand. I had to wait 20 minutes and in that time I basically ran around Costco like a woman possessed because why not, that's why.  I was like, "You can't throw me out, Costco!  I have my mother's membership card with me!  And I've written about you like FOUR TIMES.  And that's just so far!"

25 minutes later I was standing in an aisle seriously considering purchasing a collection of John Wayne movies even though I don't like westerns.  Such is the power of Costco.  Then I remembered that oh!  Yeah!  Prescription.  And I ran over to the pharmacy just in time to watch my pharmacy woman walk out with her lunch and I was like "HI WHAT ABOUT MY MEDS, LADY.  THIS BLOODSTREAM AIN'T GONNA MEDICATE ITSELF" but she just ignored me and went on her break.  So I stood awkwardly, trying very hard to both make eye contact with the other pharmacists and NOT make eye contact with the other pharmacists because I don't know how to handle myself in adult situations.  And so I waited for another 10 minutes.  And that's when I met a man.

He was walking around, muttering with a smile on his face, and every once in a while he would walk up to someone waiting in line and start a loud, apparently hilarious conversation with them.  Then he would walk away, shaking his head and laughing, and resume his muttering and pacing.  Then came the time when he decided to talk to me.  I didn't mind.  I like people.  Years of being socially inept have taught me to just embrace the awkwardness and I'm very good at it.

The man walked up to me.  His hair was sticking up at odd angles.  He was old enough to be my father.  One of his shoes was untied and his shirt was only half tucked in.

Man:  Well hey there!  How ya doin'?
Me:  I'm great, thanks!
Man:  You sure do look great, I'll tell ya that!
Me:  Why thank you!
Man:  My wife left me when I got this.
Me:  When you got...what?
Man:  Alzheimer's.

He stared at me very seriously as I choked on my own tongue.  I literally squeaked and sputtered as my brain ground to a stop and was like "Sorry, you're on your own with this one."  The man stared at me solemnly for about twenty seconds while I tried desperately to regain the function of my mind and say something appropriate.  I have never been rendered so utterly and unexpectedly speechless in my life.  But then everything was suddenly okay as he picked up the conversation, jubilant.

Man:  SO I GOT MYSELF A NEW ONE!
Me:  A...new...huh?
Man:  I got a new wife.  She's from Bulgaria.  Also, she's a rocket scientist.  That's what she does. Welp, bye!

And then I watched him walk away and I didn't know whether to laugh or not, but then I did because honestly?  I don't even have Alzheimer's and I will probably never marry a Bulgarian rocket scientist.  This guy's got me beat.  FOREVER.  Besides, he just seemed like the kind of man who would want me to laugh about it. 

I kind of wondered, then, whether or not I should have called someone.  Should this man be at Costco by himself?  Where's his Bulgarian rocket scientist?  How long until he trips on his untied shoelace?  But then he was gone, having done his job and done it well.

I think I'll just move into Costco.

Tavia and I talk drugs. Because that's what we do, yo.

Tavia: DUDE.  I'm working in a house, like fixing it up while I'm here, and I found coke, like the drug, in it today.

Me: Did you SELL IT.  I would have sold it.  And then CALLED THE COPS.

Tavia: I couldn't sell it, it was all over this shelf I was cleaning off.  Oh, and then I found weed in the freezer.

Me: How do you know it was coke?  Maybe the dude liked flour.  Or sugar.  Or crystal meth.

Tavia: It was coke.  We asked the other guy who was working with us.

Me: Did you smell it?  I probably would have smelled it just to make sure. Which is why I'm not allowed around cocaine.

Tavia: ...You have a lot to blog about.

Me: Wait, you found the weed IN THE FREEZER?

I don't remember if I've told this story already but I had a lot of caffeine so here you go, internet.

I think I may have tweeted about this while it was happening but it's a story that deserves documentation and probably a few pictures but I lost my camera in Colorado while it was happening and so now I don't have a picture of the clown man to prove anything.  I actually think the TSA stole my camera as evidence and then when they figured out that I'm not actually a terrorist, they were too embarrassed to give it back.  TSA, I forgive you, but I really need my camera back because I spent forever hours becoming a photography wizard and by "wizard" I mean "person who is able to turn her camera on and off without causing irreparable damage" so YEAH, TSA.  If you send it back, we'll call it good and I won't sue you.  I probably won't sue you anyway, though.  This post is not going to get any more coherent than this, guys.

My Airport Adventure: A Tale of Loss, Achieving my Dreams, and Strange Men Dressed as Clowns in Terminal A (Part One)
By Megan Prietzel

"I wish I could go to Colorado and see BYU in the NCAA tournament," I said.
"We should just go," replied Tavia.
"Okay."

Shortly thereafter, Tavia called her father.  I called my mother.  After a series of phone calls involving massive amounts of whining and promises to be responsible and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE's, Tavia and I headed off to Colorado to support and cheer on our beloved BYU men's basketball team.

We left after our classes and headed to the airport.  I was tingling with excitement and also inexplicable terror because airplanes are incredible.  So incredible that I still refuse to believe that they are real.  How can that much metal fly through the air like that?  IT CAN'T, I TELL YOU.  Except it does.  THUS THE TERROR.  Anyway, we arrived at the airport parking lot.  Rain poured outside the car.  Neither one of us wanted to leave the warm, enveloping comfort of the car's butt warmers, but we had a higher calling that day.  We HAD to get to Colorado.  And I vowed to be an adult that day!  It would be my first airplane ride ever without my mommy.  EVER.  Tavia doubted that I had the capability to act like a functioning member of society for an entire airport visit, but I was going to prove her wrong.  OH BOY, WAS I.

We left the car and lugged our two carry-on bags through puddles and into a little shack to await the airport shuttle.  A very athletic looking woman joined us.  At the time I was not ashamed because I visited the gym regularly.  I am now ashamed.  Anyway.  The shuttle arrived and Tavia and I boarded, ready for our adventure.  I sat on that crowded, damp bus with a grin on my face and I suppressed every urge to start singing "WE WE WE SO EXCITED!  WE SO EXCITED!" because I was a freaking adult, everybody, complete with a real suitcase and a living person who was not my mom.  It was to be the dawn of a new age.

We entered the airport.  I could feel the magic of modern transportation at work around me, a magic that I was about to take part in.  Unfortunately, I have this problem. 

I am not the kind of person who copes well with new and unusual situations.  Especially situations where something is expected of me, say like in a long line of rushing people in which I am expected to take off my shoes and fill a tub with all of my things as quickly as possible.  Tavia is one of those capable people.  She orders pizza on the phone because she doesn't mind talking to a person and telling him or her that she wants pepperoni.  Her face doesn't burn bright red and her palms don't sweat and she doesn't start mumbling awkward sentences that sounded better in her head.  That is why I desperately needed her.

We got in the airport security line thing.  Tavia calmly removed her shoes and placed them in a plastic tub, along with her jacket and belt.  She took a second tub and put her phone and laptop inside.  Then she set them both on a conveyor belt with ease, followed by her suitcase.  Meanwhile, my brain was going insane for no particular reason.

I am going to have to take off my shoes.  What if I forget how to do that?  What if I accidentally take off my pants instead?  I WILL LOOK LIKE SUCH AN IDIOT.  Oh my gosh.  The people behind me are probably wondering why I don't have a plastic tub.  Okay, so I um, grab this tub thing and um...put my shoes in it?  Is that right?  PANTS?  TAVIA SHOULD I PUT MY PANTS IN IT?  NO! No, Megan, get it together.  Okay now set the tub on the movey-belty thing.  WTFFF I need a SECOND TUB??  Oh dear heaven above.  Okay uh...for my laptop?  But my laptop is in my backpack...no no it's cool.  I can do this.  Man, this zipper is really difficult to open when my palms are this sweaty.  IS EVERYONE LOOKING AT ME?  Everyone is looking at me. I can't handle this pressure.  IF I DO NOT GET THIS BACKPACK OPEN EVERYONE WILL DIE.  Oh, I am truly blessed, it opened and I didn't drop my laptop.  Okay, well now I just want everyone to stop looking at me.  I can tell they're looking at me, even though they appear to be paying no attention at all. I'm gonna go ahead and toss the rest of my stuff in there as quickly as possible.  And now it's all falling out of the tub.  Um.  I'll just put my backpack on top...Yeah that works.  OH MY now I have to lift my suitcase and put it on the conveyor thing??  IS MY FOREHEAD SWEATING THAT MUCH, OR AM I IMAGINING THIS??  I bet the security guy thinks I'm a terrorist because I'm sweating so much.  I'm not, security guy.  I'm just incapable of performing simple tasks with an audience.  Oh no.  I can't lift this suitcase.  I CAN'T DO IT I CAN'T DO IT I CA-oh hey, I did it.  Kind of crooked...oh now it's stuck inside the scanning machine.  I AM SUCH AN EMBARRASSMENT TO MY RACE.

Needless to say, my inner monologue did not help my awkward fear when, after successfully passing through the metal detector like a champ, the security man stopped me because he found something suspicious in his magical x-ray machine. 

I knew it.  He thinks I'm a terrorist.  Or a drug dealer!  I'm not though!  ...Right?  AM I?  DID I BECOME A DRUG DEALER AND FORGET ABOUT IT?  Just arrest me now, security man, I'll admit to anything.  YES, IT'S MY COCAINE.  AND MY GUN.  ALSO MY PANTS, I THOUGHT I WAS SUPPOSED TO REMOVE THEM.

As it turned out I was not a drug dealer and actually the woman behind me had too much lotion in her carry on but the security man thought it was my bag and so I suffered a small heart attack.  

After my face faded from bright red to its usual pasty white, Tavia and I decided to get something to eat.  I felt as though Burger King was the only food I could want, mainly because we passed it on the way to the airport and I was starving and unable to actually consider my dining options.  So Tavia and I sat at a table and waited for our food after ordering.  Because I was convinced that my hunger was insatiable, I ordered the largest sized combo, which meant a beverage the approximate size and shape of my head.  I filled it with Coke and headed over to sit with Tavia.  I then promptly dropped the bucket of Coke right next to my chair and also kind of on my chair.  Tavia stared at me for a moment before sighing and admitting that she should have known this would happen, and yeah, she sort of should have because she lived with me and THIS WAS A NORMAL OCCURRENCE. 

I walked over to a nice little old lady who was mopping the floor and asked her to please clean up my mess.  Just then my food was ready.  Tavia and I sat and ate our fries and chicken nuggets as a sweet, elderly woman quietly mopped the floor around my feet.  It was easily one of the most terrible moments of my life.  I'll give you a moment to picture this.  Keep in mind that all the surrounding tables were occupied by people who were staring and felt just as awkward as I did.  Also keep in mind that I had tried to mop up the Coke with three forests' worth of napkins which did almost nothing but make a soggy brown mess that dripped all the way to the trash can and covered me in sticky soda.  Ready?  Got the horrible mental image?  Good.  Now hold it there for ten minutes and try to enjoy your chicken nuggets.  YOU CAN'T.

After that disaster, Tavia decided it would be best just to go sit in our terminal and wait for the plane to board.  As we sat in the terminal we saw a strange man.  He had gone through airport security near us and we were mildly amused to see him n our terminal.  He wore bright red overalls.  His hair was a huge tangle of orange-brown curls.  His shoes were distinctly clown-like.  He carried an assortment of entertainments: bowling pins, rubber balls, batons, and the like.  While we watched, he practiced juggling his bowling pins and unfortunately, he was not very good at it.  He also got very angry with himself every time he dropped a bowling pin and I couldn't help but sympathize.  I watched the clown man for half an hour before the effect of my bucket of Coke kicked in and I left to use the bathroom.  As I walked back, I passed clown man.

"Hey there, pretty girl!" he said brightly.
"Oh, um, hi," I stammered back, surprised to be addressed.
"You dropped something back there"
I turned and looked at the ground, mentally kicking myself for losing my pants or something.  I didn't see anything.  Confused, I asked, "Um, what did I drop?"
"You dropped," here he paused and smiled coyly, "your smile."
"Ah, my smile.  Yes.  Ah.  I'll just...pick it up..and...wear...it..." My mumbling degenerated quickly.  Clown man appeared to be about 20.  Clown man appeared to be talking to me.  CLOWN MAN APPEARED TO BE WINKING AT ME.  I desperately wished that I had anything, anything at all to say about my dropped smile.  Instead, I shuffled awkwardly away, intensely aware of the fact that he was still looking at me. 

He started juggling rubber balls.  I started wondering what the appropriate reaction to this situation would be.  Rebecca Black would not get out of my head.

The epic tale will continue in PART TWO, in which the TSA decided that my ponytail was a threat to national security.

A hat tip to Allie Brosh. UPDATED.

Hyperbole and a Half happens to be one of my favorite blogs ever.  It (along with The Oatmeal, XKCD, Natalie Dee and a few other illustrated blogs) is one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to my own posts and illustrations.  I feel it's important to give credit where credit is due. A lot of people have noticed that I have a similar writing style and illustration style to a few other bloggers.  I generally take this as a huuuuge compliment, because that means that someone, somewhere thinks that I have a vestige of talent.  And that makes me feel all accomplished inside.

One of my favorite drawings ever done by Allie Brosh is this one:

This is totes too awesome for words.  

Why?  Because that was ME as a child.  And it kind of still is, let's be honest.  the expression, the dress, THE DINOSAUR TOY.  When I first saw this picture I died of laughter.  And so, as my first hat tip illustration (probably in a series of them to several AWESOME bloggers and illustrators) I give you my Hyperbole and a half-ed drawing of myself:

I imagine that this would be me if I were drawn by Allie Brosh.  Probably.  The pink unicorn probably would have been a whole lot better if she'd done it.  But the purple one isn't too bad, eh?  This drawing was featured in my last article on Sparknotes.com. It was done on paint.net, and it took me forever plus infinity to adequately capture the style, so I'll be going back to bean people for now.  ANYWAY, if you haven't read Hyperbole and a Half, you SERIOUSLY have to.  It will change your life.  Most likely.

Allie Brosh, I salute you.

Updated:
First of all, this post was SUPPOSED to go up at the same time as the SL article, but Blogger was experiencing technical difficulties and was down for maintenance.  So I only just now get to respond to the hatred!  YAAAAY!

So apparently I'm a total idiot and I forgot to add in my article that the above drawing is homage to Allie Brosh.  I hadn't really thoroughly read the article once it was posted and just did now as I was linking to it for this post.  LOOKS LIKE I HAVE SOME SERIOUS HATRED GOING ON.  Which is justified, since CLEARLY that was a Hyperbole and a Half inspired drawing that I created.  Here's some clarification for anyone who is angry about my own illustration styles versus any other blogger:

 The above illustration uses a style I call "bean people" in my head, because they look like beans and they're incredibly easy to draw.  This is my general go to style.  I like the dots for eyes and the coloring outside of the lines because I think it's cute.  Occasionally I'll do something with their eyes if I want to give them a stronger expression.  Other examples of illustration styles I sometimes use include:

These are just a few examples.  As you can see, I don't have a really set style of illustration.  All of them are influenced by other people, but that's kind of a given.  Everyone is influenced, and I definitely have wayyy more than just one muse.  When I'm drawing, I'm not thinking about Allie Brosh's drawings or anyone else's.  The unicorn toy drawing WAS actually mean as a salute to Allie, but CLEARLY that didn't turn out too well.  So we'll see if hat tip drawings continue.

THE POINT OF THIS IS TO EXPLAIN THAT I'M NOT A CHEATING COPY CAT.  Credit where credit is due.

KTHX.

Happy Birthday because birthdays are important

I would just like to take a moment to wish my dear, sweet, slightly scary friend Tav a happy birthday.  She is lovely and tall and if you are a tall, attractive male, please send me a fb message because this is completely unrelated to Tav and has no bearing whatsoever on my birthday plans for her.

Happy Birthday, Tavski.

UPDATED: Tavia is totally not a giant monster beast.  She is actually very pretty and is not THAT tall, but I'm 5'1" so everyone seems tall to me, including Frodo.  Yeah.  Just thought I'd clear that one up because I AM NOT LIVING WITH A TROLL.  Unless she's actually a very pretty disguised troll.  Which really wouldn't be that bad and then it could be argued that trolls might be attractive.  Anyway. 

I have a story. This is not it. Instead, enjoy this song.

I will tell you my story when I have the patience/time/motivation to write it down and illustrate it.  It involves dilated pupils and Costco.  So basically, it's going to be awesome.

In the meantime, my friend Mark (Nasta G) posted this original song.  He is one talented guy, and I especially like it cause of the video game music.  Ten points if you know what it is.

Seriously, though, this kid wrote a rap for last year's talent show at our school and it was both hilarious and extremely well-written.  I don't like rap, you guys, but I like Mark's stuff.  And it's not just cause he's my friend, cause I have plenty of friends who are awesome, but I generally don't link to their work.  I only do that if I'm SERIOUSLY into it.  And at the moment, this song is my "I'm pretending to study but really laughing hysterically at SparkLife comments" song.

Check it out, y'all.  Or peasants.  Followers.  Minions?  Commoners?  I still do not have my word. 

Brothers and sisters, check it out.