THE SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA
FROM THE DESK OF CHIEF JUSTICE IDRIS LEGBO KUTIGI
THREE ARMS ZONE, P.M.B. 308, GARKI -ABUJA (FCT)

ATTENTION: SIR/MA,

This is to acknowledge you that your name and E-mail address was found among the list of foreigner that have been scammed by Nigerian Fraudster. It might interest you to know that we have signed an agreement with the United State Government during the last meeting with our President Commander In- Chief of harmed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, ALHAJI UMARU MUSA YAR’ADUA and the FBI to fight against this fraudulent act and to return all contract funds that has been stolen and people who has been scammed too. A total sum of ($3.5million) united state dollars in cash has been set aside for compensation which will be delivered to your door step by accredited diplomatic courier agent.

Note that the only office/chamber you are to contact prior to the delivery of your fund is the office of Barr. John Okoro, you are to contact the attorney for further documentation of your fund to be sent to you.

You are further advised to deal directly with him and follow the due process and all instructions as directed by Him which is the way to guard you achieve the success in the wire transfer or delivery of your funds to your designated address/location. Endeavor to contact the ATTORNEY in charge of your Fund now with his contact information as given below:

ATTORNEY’S CONTACT DETAILS
Name: Barr. John okoroa (OKORO CHAMBERS)
E-mail Address: ********@gmail.com

Some officials has been assigned to handle this payment but failed due to dishonesty and unnecessary demands for fee, You are hereby advice to stop any further communications with them and contact bank in charges of your fund, as the compensation fund is valid till SEPTEMBER 2008.

For more information on how to make sure your fund is delivered to your location, you are to reply this mail to the above contact information of Barr.
Peter with your details of information as listed bellow:

Full Name…………………….. ………
Home address………………….. ……
Telephone number………………….
Occupation……….. …………………
Company name………….position…. ……….
Country………………….. …………….
Age and sex……………………………
Zip code…………………….. ………….

Any form of identification of your self, either International passport, drivers licenses this is very important as prove of ownership.

Please we demand an urgent response prior to this matter and to work with us to enable track those Miscreants and send their information to the FBI to carry out actions in the US immediately because those Miscreants have some agent all over the country and we are now working with the internet operators and the Nigeria police force together with the FBI of the United States and also the Economic Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) of Nigeria so that the scam can be eradicated in this country, hence i want you to follow your fund code below, which is given to you by the Supreme Court of Nigeria.You are to keep this code for security purposes.

Also note that every beneficiary will be responsible for shipping fees which cannot be deducted from the fund because there is a bond holding the consignment that states that only the sole beneficiary of the fund is permitted to open it after it has been sealed by the foreign payment department. The shipping fee is just $470.00USD only. Also note that the Nigeria Supreme Court here will alert the United State Bureau and also your state police immediately your shipment leave the shore of Nigeria so as to avoid any restriction and problem when the fund get to its port of destination.

Best Regard.
Hon.Justice Idris Kutigi CON
Supreme Court Of Nigeria

I was in the restroom at work the other day when I caught a girl/woman/lady/person peering through the break in the stall door as I was pulling up my pants. She knew that I saw her because I started to laugh when I noticed her. (What else could I do?)

So, she goes into the next stall, which was empty to begin with. What she muttered to herself once she got into that stall, I would like to think, was due to whatever she had to encounter in that stall that she was trying to avoid by waiting for me. At least this is what I am going to tell myself. She said, “Hmmmph! Some women are disgusting!”

You can see why I am leaning in that direction. I am pretty sure there was nothing disgusting or out-of-the-ordinary that she saw while peeping at me. I’m under the impression that I am not a freak of nature or something. I’m pretty sure.

To be on the safe side, I shouldn’t share this… story… with… anyone…

I find that an awful lot of my work notebooks are devoted to thoughts on public restrooms. Etiquette, and how my views on humankind have changed since I have to use public restrooms at work.

I keep a mental note of all of my co-workers who don’t wash their hands, or just run them under the water real quick. Wet, lather, rinse… for as long as it takes to sing the alphabet. We all did the training.

I believe more people need to take advantage of the Family Restroom. It’s a bigger room with one toilet, a sink and a changing table. You might not think much of changing your baby’s diaper in the main restroom. But really… nobody is paying attention to how adorable your child is when all we can think is “don’t let me have to see poop!”

And moms- if your son is in 4th grade- if he’s as tall as you are- if he’s checking out girls- you don’t need to take him in the ladies room. You certainly don’t go in the stall to check to see if he hit the mark.

I won’t get into the things I’ve seen. There are certain things that I can’t try to wrap my head around. I think, “how does that happen?” and then I can’t think about it any further. Thoughts on angles and trajectory would be all that ever filled my mind. Does this happen at people’s houses? Did the person who did that wait until they thought the place was empty to leave the stall? Or did they have a sense of pride about it?

I’ve got no sense of pride about this entry. I’m interested to see what sort of spam comments I get, though.

What was I thinking of in there? First of all- I was thinking that I used the adjective that may have been simultaneously invented by tons of people recently- “I think I need to go take a shower, I am feeling a bit Monique-y”

or, should it be “Moniquesque“? That sounds a little classier.

Anyways,

Is “simulataniously” even a word?

Hair color. Last time I needed to color my hair, I couldn’t find my normal box. So I looked through the range that was closest to the one I was used to, and found the girl who looked like she was having the best time with her hair color. And it seemed to work. I had a positive attitude, things seemed to go right, the cute boy was talking to me when he really didn’t need to. I felt it was the hair color. Maybe this one, even though I feared it was a bit too dark, really suited me. It wasn’t red, or purple, or ashy. It was pretty close to the color of most of the hair growing out of my head. It was my ticket to success, probably.

Cut to five weeks later. My natural highlights were starting to shine through. Now, if I was the sort of person who felt I needed to keep the hair color that some divine spirit gave me, my hair would be AWESOME. I don’t have that squiggly, crazy textured, dull, gray hair. I have brilliant, thick, shiny, healthy, platinum highlights. It’s like, freakin’, what are those strands of thoughts in the Harry Potter books? These rouge hairs are like precious metal. But I didn’t want them when they first showed up at the age of 27 years, 6 months and one day, and I don’t want them now somewhere between 2 and however many years later… let’s stick with two.

I went to the hair color aisle to find the happy, confident, dark brown hair lady… and she was gone. all of the slots were filled, she had just been replaced. Perhaps I should have written down the number and the name of the shade. But, for some reason I thought I could get by memorizing the model on the box, darn it!

Why do certain brands have to change their models so often? It could be that a lot of women are like me- I refuse to buy a color that might work if the girl on the box looks a little too snooty. Why can’t they all be like Colorsilk, who have had the same boxes since 1974?

I went with the Root Touch Up, which is only $1.50 less than a whole bottle of color, but “matches” a wide range of colors. I’ll see how it works out tomorrow.

Aha! A little research has brought me to this page! and rendered this whole post irrelevant.

People Greeter Alex, who I’ve known since he was Alex #1 in Produce, sat down next to me with his bowl of chocolate ice cream and promptly asked, “So, Brandi… when are you going to get engaged?”

And I laughed and answered, “when I find someone I like enough to get engaged to.”

He liked my answer, “That’s the way to look at it!”

“It’s funny, Anthony’s always asking me when I am going to get married,” I told him, “and he doesn’t seem to think, ‘when I meet someone I like that much’ is an appropriate response.”

Alex shook his head, “You know where you need to go… the community college. That’s where the guys who are thinking about their future are.”

I just giggled, and nodded, and then excused myself- my lunch hour was just about over. I didn’t have the heart to remind him that I am in my late thirties.

things are being weird.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a $25 Amazon gift card from my credit card rewards.

At the time, I couldn’t think of anything that I needed, but that thing was haunting me there on my bedside table. I decided to do a little experiment. I wanted to see how many items I could get for $25.

So, I went from department to department, looking for cheap items with free shipping. In the end, I pretty much stuck to the Craft, Office Supplies, and Book departments for my final picks. Mostly because those are my favorite sections. But partly because looking for cheap items in the “Health and Personal Care” section is pretty creepy.

It took a couple days of browsing, and I had $25.30 worth of stuff. Just enough for free shipping. And just enough to use up my gift card. Then I went to check out and found that one of the items was free in a 4-3 deal! I could have got one more thing.

So here we go- 14 items for $23.89…

5 pack vinyl electrical tape

At $3.99, this was my big ticket item. Because I needed it.

binder bars

50 page capacity, 3-hole binding system, 12 count. $1.49

construction paper

96 sheets, assorted colors. $2.49. Another thing I needed.

spring pattern party bags

You can get this sort of thing on clearance when it’s almost Halloween. 20 bags, $1.20.

van gogh bookmarks

A staple of Amazon’s “I need something cheap so I can hit $25 for free shipping” userlists. 12 bookmarks, They’re about 2″ x 5 3/4″. $1.50.

the autobiography of benjamin franklin

$2.50. “Unabridged” but “without footnotes”

the declaration of independence and other great documents in american history

$2.00. From “Give me liberty or give me death” to some other thing Abe Lincoln said, this book is chock full o’ history that I can’t wait to brush up on.

the elements of style

$2.99. I alreadty feel like I am writing more better blog entries and stuff.

index cards!

A little something for my collection, these 100 index cards will wait patiently next to my 650 other index cards until I am ready to index things. $0.72.

two toucans

These little toucans are for scrapbooking. I will find a way to use them in the toucan story I have floating around in my head. $2.06.

silver spines

I ordered these because I didn’t know what they were. Although these were labeled kitchen, these little 2 inch bits if metal have something to do with scrapbooking. It looks like you can hang charms and junk from your pages with them. hmmm… $1.41.

tab dividers

Oh, nostalgia! The first day of school, the Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem Trapper Keeper… inside, brand new dividers waiting to divide my school subjects (with tabs). $0.70.

hanging data binders

This picture is fuzzy and it doesn’t give you a good idea of what the item is. But, I think that if it was a clear picture I’d still have to explain it. Now that I am looking at it more… um… I kinda realize that I don’t really know what it is. yeah. $1.49.

toronto blue jays notepads

Set of three. $0.72. They had a wide selection of sports teams. I’ve just always wanted a Blue Jays memo book.

There you have it-

Subtotal of Items: $25.30
Shipping & Handling: $15.24
4-for-3 Promotion: -$1.41
Super Saver Discount: -$15.24
Promotion Applied: -$0.00
——
Total: $23.89
Gift Cards: -$23.89
——
Total for this Order: $0.00

We’ve had the picture on the side of the fridge for years. It was printed out from the animal shelter’s website, and it shows the puppy that we would eventually adopt standing in a bowl of water on the cement floor of the enclosure that she was in with her brothers and sisters. A little Lab/Shepard mix that the volunteers had named “Norma.”

Gracie had been looking at that picture just before she came out to sit with me while her mom made dinner.

“Did Marilyn die?,” she asked.

“Yes, she did. It was very sad.” I answered.

“I loved her. I have a picture with her on Christmas.”

“She loved you, too. You were her baby.”

And then she looked over at the 100 pound lab puppy chewing on a rawhide bone in the middle of the living room floor, “Dan was her boyfriend!”

I attempted to explain how Dan wasn’t born while Marilyn was alive, but these sorts of time lines are still a little hard for a four-year-old to grasp.

“Maybe…” I could see the wheels turning in her little head, “Maybe we could hold Marylin up and Dan could kiss her!”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but it doesn’t work like Snow White.”

And we hugged.

Then she asked how Marilyn had died. I explained that she was very sick.

And then came a question that I wasn’t prepared for, one I’d never even thought about. “Did she know she was going to die? Right before, did she know?”

“I’m not sure. I suppose so.”

And it got more uncomfortable when she asked, “Are you going to die? Like, after you grow up?”

“Yes, I will. But it’s really not something I’d like to think about.”

“Okay,” she replied. “Let’s talk about something else.” phew! “Let’s talk about DISNEYLAND!!!”

I just got a big solicitation envelope from the world wildlife foundation. They sent an adorable baby wildlife calendar! What a great way to try to get me to send them $16!

Those other charities don’t send me calendars.

Which is probably a good thing now that I think of it. I’ll be filled with pride as I look at the happy little pandas and tigers and chimpanzees that I’ve saved from extinction.

Sure, I want to save everyone. But how happy would it make me to look at pictures of old people with oxygen tanks and tracheotomies or sad little kids with low blood sugar all year long?

Keep sending the lighthouse address labels, other charities.

I rarely look over at the “trending topics” bar on twitter. I’m usually alerted to things like this when someone I am following joins in. Unlike usual hashtaggy dealies, last night’s barrage of #inaperfectworld’s was fascinating to me for a few minutes. It was interesting to see where the priorities of “the twitterverse” (or whatever) lie. Here are a few of my highlights-

@pallavi101 #inaperfectworld all celebrities would reply to you on twitter :/

@TrapNYC #inaperfectworld you could cheat on you’re grl without any consequences

@MeganRenee210 #inaperfectworld i’d gain like 20 more followers in the next 2 hours and them not leave me lol

@blackbarbie214 #inaperfectworld people wouldnt be so hooked on they image

@cynicalsaint #inaperfectworld beach boys would be all alive and touring.

@annaxxxvelez #inaperfectworld I would be married to Orlando Bloom

@DONDEEZY0105 #inaperfectworld I wud be able to smell, bite, and suck all the pretty toes I want lol

@Edwin773 #inaperfectworld dere wont be wack ass artists!

@GeneralSalt #inaperfectworld I have a GL power ring, Captain Marvel’s powers and BATGOD ability to beat everything with enough preptime

@brightondoll #inaperfectworld I would be 5′9

@SexMurderMayhem #inaperfectworld I wouldn’t curse as much as I do, I would attend church, my weave would stay how I wanted it to, and I would attend Harvard

@popcorn44 #inaperfectworld me and @ddlovato would be bffs