Jelly Bird Poop

I hope you all had a very good Passover/Easter. Mine was very busy, and as such, when I had a moment to sit down and be still, I ate a whole bag of jelly beans and binge-watched Bosch on Amazon Prime found some productive things to do while contemplating life.

Anway…I didn’t get a new post up for today, but I found this one from around Easter last year and thought some of you who are new to my blog might enjoy it.

Thank you and sorry!

Why I should Be Banned From Target (And Other Easter Stories)

The Husband Dude was out of town on a roadie gig this last weekend, which left Shane and me to entertain ourselves and each other.

What this usually translates to is taking Shane to the mall and spending tons of money I don’t have, driving through Rocket Brothers for $15 worth of frozen coffee drinks and chocolate chip cookies, completely rearranging or reorganizing a closet or room, then binge-watching a series on Netflix until I pass out at 2 a.m.

And that’s just Friday.

On Saturday, I treated myself to a much-needed pedi and then went grocery shopping.

Shopping for and then putting away groceries usually wears me out. I don’t have to unload. That’s what the fifteen year old weightlifter is for. But usually by the time I’d done, I just want to sit on the couch in my cave of a living room and block out the world.

Except on this particular day, I was feeling energized. Ever since I cleaned out my linen closet and made it look almost Pinterest-worthy, I’ve been feeling pretty kick-ass about my ability to tame this clutter-hole we live in. The problem is, there are so many projects to be done, I’m not even sure where to start. As soon as I decide on one thing, I realize something else needs to be done first to make room for whatever I’m rearranging or moving.

I want to get my flip flops out of the laundry basket on my bedroom floor but first I have to find a place for my dressy shoes I don’t wear often because I’m moving the flip flops and sandals to the shoe rack over my closet door. I want to put the dressy shoes in boxes on the closet shelf but first I have to find a place to put my handbags. I could put the handbags on the rack on the back of my bedroom door but then I have to find a place to put all our jackets and coats, which can’t go in the coat closet because the coat closet is full of everything.

Except coats.

Basically, I’m living the adult version of “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie”.

While I was out grocery shopping, I found an over the door rack that had way more hooks on it than mine, so I bought it and decided to try it out after I put up the groceries. I took all my coats off the rack and put the new one up. Then I decided to see if my handbags would go on it.

They did, put they were more bulky than our coats and jackets so the door pushes so far away from the wall that it’s about halfway closed when left alone. That won’t work.

So I took everything off the rack and threw it on the bed and that’s when I decided we needed to go to Target.

If my home life is “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” then Target is the living embodiment of “If You Give A Moose A Muffin”.

“We’re not spending any money here except that $20 Dad told you he owed you when he gets back,” I heard myself saying as we walked in the door and I grabbed a cart.

Taking a cart at Target is basically like accepting a sample of crack from the guy on the corner. Once you have the cart, you know you’re going in the back alley to buy the goods.

And you’ll mortgage your house and embezzle from your employer to do it.

The Spring clothes were out and I remembered I only had two pairs of capris from last year that were useable, so I checked out the racks of clothes and selected two cute pairs of denim capris that I can wear to work.

And a blouse.

And a dress.

And two bras.

And a pair of sandals.

Naturally, I moved on to housewares. Maybe I could find some shoe boxes and something to corral my handbags with.

No such luck. But I did find a spice rack.

And another over the door shoe rack.

But I was very good. I didn’t buy the big white furry pillow that would look lovely on my sofa and perfectly matches the big white furry robe that I bought here last year and that looks like it belongs on the floor in front of the fireplace with a naked man on it.

Sorry. I digress.

I checked on the boy again and he was happily checking out Lego sets and WWE action figures. He’s growing up to be a good nerd like his parents. Since he wasn’t done, I moved on to the Easter section because I remembered that Easter is in a week and this Mimi was falling down on her grandmotherly duties.

Two pink Easter baskets. Check.

Two chocolate bunnies. Check.

One bag of jelly beans. One bag of Hershey eggs. Another bag of jelly beans for Mimi’s secret stash. Did I mention you shouldn’t go to Target hungry?

Did I also mention that I found these:

Someone picked out all the black jelly beans and put them in one bag!

When I was a kid, I loved jelly beans except for the black ones. My Dad hated all jelly beans EXCEPT the black ones. I always picked through the bag for him and gave him the black ones, leaving the other colors for myself.

I wish he was here to see the future. We don’t have flying cars but we have entire bags of black jelly beans!

While we’re on the subject of the future, why are they now being called “Jelly Bird Eggs”? When I was a kid, they were jelly beans, which makes sense because they are shaped like beans and they have a jelly-like consistency.

But Jelly Bird Eggs? What the fuck is a jelly bird? And they don’t look like eggs. The last time I checked, most eggs were…well…egg-shaped. I guess someone got cute and wanted to make it like these little sugar nuggets came out of some mythical creature’s ass. So, someone at a conference table threw out “jelly bird” as an idea and everyone agreed and someone else signed off on it.

They might as well call them Jelly Bird Turds because, honestly, they’re shaped more like the stuff I scoop out of Mr. Luna’s cat box than something a mythical fowl would lay and hatch.

And yes, I had this whole debate in my head about Mythical Creature Sugar Turds while standing there in Target, browsing the thirty different varieties of Easter grass.

Easter basket grass. For crap’s sake, who invented this shit? I have ALWAYS hated Easter grass. I know it makes the basket look pretty and fills it in so you don’t have to completely fill the basket with junk but it’s itchy and it sticks to everything and it winds up EVERYWHERE. It’s like a sticky, ugly version of glitter.

When I was a kid, there was only ONE kind of Easter grass. It was an unnatural shade of green, it was like shards of vinyl that clumped together, and it came in lawn-bag sized quantities.

Now, you have the classic grass, the biodegradeable paper grass, the pink grass and white grass. It’s like a fucking sod farm for Easter grass. I’ll just buy a few bundles for the front yard and The Husband Dude won’t have to mow anymore.

So now I ‘ve got the baskets, the grass, The Mythical Creature Sugar Turds, chocolate, and a book for each child because my old teaching habits die hard. While I’m rotting their teeth out, I have to nourish their brains.

It’s time for the final touch: a stuffed toy. Now, these girls have more stuffed toys than their mama knows what to do with and their house is small, but you know Mimi can’t give them an Easter basket without some kind of plush thingy. I searched for something small but cute.

There have to be two of them, and they have to be the same color. We can’t have any toddler throw-downs over this Mimi’s gift.

I finally settled on a small light purple chick. Chicks aren’t supposed to be purple but then again grass isn’t supposed to clump together when it’s dry, and birds made of jelly don’t lay delicious dessert eggs, and giant terrifying man-rabbits who walk on two legs don’t hide colored eggs, so this whole holiday is just unrealistic expectations anyway. I might as well go all in with a purple chick.

Except now I was searching for another purple chick. There was a yellow one and a white one. There were pink and brown and green bunnies and white and yellow lambs. Finally, I decided I’m just going to have to get messy and shove my hand into the pile, which was slightly above me anyway, and that instantly resulted in a big plush avalanche on my head.

Honestly, it wouldn’t be a bad way to die. I’m pretty sure there are fetishes around this exact activity out there somewhere.

Luckily my gamble worked and there, in the pile of livestock that was tinted the color of unicorn crap, was another purple chick.

I collected my fifteen year old and his action figure and headed toward the cashier when I remembered that I forgot to pick up ground beef while at the store earlier. Luckily, this was a Super-Target and they have groceries.

Did I mention you should never take a hungry teenage boy to Super Target?

We left with a pound of ground beef, Hostess donuts, and Lays potato chips.

Then we went to McDonalds.

What does a fifteen year old boy who bench presses more than his body weight eat?

I’m glad you asked, but a better question might be, what DOESN’T he eat?

Saturday’s order consisted of a Bacon Quarter Pounder with cheese, large fries, 20 piece chicken nuggets with barbecue sauce and szechuan sauce and a large orange soda.

I made him skip the apple pie since he had a whole bag of Hostess mini-donuts that I had no doubt he would be consuming most, if not all of it that evening while playing video games.

Spoiler Alert: You should never let a hungry fifteen year old boy hold the bag of fries on the way home. You’ll end up with an empty bag.

Another Spoiler Alert: Did you know that when you pile every coat, jacket, and handbag you own on your bed and then leave to go to Target, it’s all still there when you get home?

This seems like a good time to clean out the spice cabinet…

Spoiler Alert: It’s not.