Anya Extends An Offer She May Bitterly Regret

It all started at an H&M, as these things are wont to do. Paul is shopping with Swiss Miss. Anya is at home mulling over which gold spray paint to use on her antique chandelier. Things are strange. Suddenly, the phone vibrates! A message from Paul.

“A customah!”

PAUL: There was this cat shirt I almost bought you, but then I remembered that you don’t like cats or H&M.

ANYA: Haha under the right circumstances I would accept both. Probably have to let go of that hatred since I rock their dresses so hard?

PAUL: It’s for the good of the planet!

ANYA: Basically. Also, I will regret this but I accept any and all animal clothes from now on.

PAUL: Ohohoh. (This is the first sign that he’s going to fuck with me).

ANYA: I could up the ante by committing to wearing them to work.

PAUL: Stop.

ANYA: I could send out an office email with my offer.

PAUL: Does this include mythical animals and/or fantasy hybrids?

ANYA: Absolutely.

PAUL: Creepy Lawyer will buy you a towel dress that says ‘PUSSY’ on it.

ANYA: I’ll write up a set of rules.

So here we are. Anya, a connoisseur of all things both wearable and animal themed (except actual fur OBVIOUSLY), is going to foolishly commit (what other kind of commitment is there, really?) to wearing any and all animal themed clothing and accessories that she receives. To work. The guidelines are as follows:

     - It can be any kind of animal, real or imagined, as long as its genitals aren’t featured.

    - Also, not dead.

     - It can be any kind of clothing, but she will not be wearing underwear outside her pants or other such nonsense.

     - It can be secondhand (except earrings or undergarments, she doesn’t care how well you washed it.)

     - She reserves the right to tailor these items, but will wear them visibly (not wearing pajama pants to work as actual pants, because she does need to stay employed, but will make them into a shirt/skirt/headband).

Things That Should Bump in the Night: We Continue to Defy Logic

Last week, we talked about some of the strange things we (mostly Paul) are afraid of. Catch up here!

Spoiler! This adorable creature makes him shudder

Now we’ll have to get back to Anya, whose fear of being attacked by one the perps of SVU only kicks in when she is alone, in the dark, trying to get to her car. Not so crazy, in this day and age. However. She has a few other deep seated phobias that make much less sense. You can guess from our twenty somethings tagline, that we are children of the 1990s. Great. (Someday that will fucking shock people. “You were born BEFORE the year 2000?!!??!” No time for that crisis right now, but damn.) So we all saw Free Willy, right? The inspirational tale of a troubled young white kid who starts hanging out with an orca that lives in a sad, dirty park and the mysterious old tribal dude who trains him.

When Anya first saw that movie (as a small child), she was totally on board with the whole “abandoned kid living on the streets resists his foster parents until a spiritual connection with a whale helps him become a functioning human and connect with other people” thing. Not so on board with the part where said kid is cleaning graffiti from under the tank (why?!) and the fucking orca POPS UP OUT OF GODDAMN NOWHERE! It probably doesn’t even happen that way, but as a child she did NOT see that coming. To this day, she hates that noise of deep water that you hear in movies. You know that weird gurgle that always happens when submarines/marine life/etc. is submerged? Hates it. Can’t watch the beginning of Titanic, she hates it so much. Can’t deal with Flipper, Jaws, or anything that involves people diving. That part in Skyfall where they were under the ice? UGH.

Conducting the Google search for this picture was physically uncomfortable, that’s how much I hate it.

We’ll wrap it up with what is perhaps the most far fetched fear of all. We all watched The Magic School Bus, right? Remember that episode where Arnold’s stupid cousin comes with them and Ms. Frizzle takes everyone through the solar system and he takes off his helmet on Pluto and comes back with a bad head cold? That might have started this one. Anya is deeply horrified by outer space. This is possibly (probably) also stemming from that time she watched Armageddon in fifth grade and Bruce Willis fucking got left on that goddamn asteroid. No amount of Xenon: Girl of the 21st Century could assuage her concerns, and she has stated more than once that if the world gets into a Wall-E type situation, she will just stay on Earth with the landfills and the sad robot. Not fucking flying into outer space. Ever. Something about the idea that you could just float away...forever. And suffocate on your own air. People do not fucking belong up there!

Except no. Not impressed.

So we’ve both got some questionable hang ups, fine, great, moving on. What is probably worse and more telling than the things we are afraid of, is the things we aren’t afraid of.

We love the wacky people we call “those Victorians” in our best wistful/condescending voice. The Victorian era was a time of some truly terrifying shit, but we’re strangely okay with the vast majority of it. If you’re unfamiliar with trends in Victorian era photography, google that RIGHT NOW PLEASE. Maybe you’re sufficiently horrified by the fact that they made a habit of things like hiding mothers in the background under tapestries, taking pictures of dead people (especially kids), and playing around with exposure times to make themselves look headless. Aren’t they hilarious? We’re not even close to horrified enough.

Anya was spending some quality time browsing collections of these photographs and playing “which kid in this picture is dead?” while at the Libertarian’s house the other day:

Anya: Oh my GOD, they opened its eyes back up, how CRAZY!

Silence.

Anya: Are you seeing this? How many candles are in this picture?? (counts 21) That coffin is going to catch on fire!

Silence.

Anya: Seriously are both of these kids dead? I love this. Oh my god the headless ones! Look how funny they think they are! It’s like old timey memes! Look at this grouchy old lady holding her head under her own arm!

The Libertarian: I don’t know if I can look at the headless ones, it’s kind of making me sick.

Anya: Just a few more! Or you can go over there. Sorry!

Not fooling anyone wearing that, girlfriend

(If you’re interested in looking at the exact pictures this conversation was centered around, they’re here).

Alright, so we’re pretty down with all of those creepy pictures of stern looking women you see in horror movies. One thing we can’t handle from the Victorian era? Fucking hair wreaths. No joke, that shit is not ok.

You’ve already read about Anya’s unfortunate affection for feral animals, and you know Paul hates raccoons as much as she loves them. Some people might say she lacks a healthy fear of the various critters that wander the forest (or city) at night. You should have seen her cackling with fiendish delight at this scene from the hit television series, Bunheads:

You might be shuddering with horror when you see that opossum hissing at good old Sutton, but Anya was honest to god all “awwwwwwwww look how precious!” (which is also how we assume Spacey Secretary would react, speculating on whether or not Sutton had ham in her bed). It’s a problem. Especially a problem when you live someplace that they could be hanging out in your backyard at any given time. Especially when seeing them squished on the road makes you sincerely sad for the rest of your drive, and this occurs probably every three miles on the highway. That’s some misplaced motherfucking empathy.

We’ll leave you with this gem: while brainstorming for this post, Anya asked Paul to add anything to the lists of fears and should be fears that he thought was missing. Without even looking at the draft he immediately responded “things we should be afraid of but aren’t: dying alone”. Little did he know, the first and only thing Anya had added to that list was...dying alone.

Minds. Melding.

Things That Go Bump in the Night: Our Perfectly (un)Reasonable Fears

Late one night this weekend, Anya was hanging out in a vacant house that is under significant construction, reading a murder mystery. Shockingly, this is not the story of a drug deal gone bad (or good, or at all) nor is she in the habit of purposely scaring herself. She does not enjoy being afraid, HATES watching horror movies, will never visit a haunted house, not into it. (I have distinct memories of doing that “Bloody Mary” thing in front of the mirror in a darkened bathroom as a ten year old, and my descent into self induced terror ended there.) She is pretty easily frightened, like that one time she was watching Law and Order: SVU and that guy who skinned squirrels killed his mom and laid in bed with her corpse and she had to call Paul to come pick her up because she would not leave the couch for fear of squirrel skinner in the house, waiting to butcher her. We were probably twenty? Yeah.

Anya’s family loves SVU and would happily sacrifice her for an episode based on their loss.

Anyway, she was sitting alone in this pretty chilly, pretty empty, pretty creaky house that her parents are remodeling, and she was 110% sure that someone was lurking in the basement and/or garage, waiting to chop her up into pieces. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Or if there was a lurker, they decided to wait another day to strike (great, now I will NEVER finish ranking the fabric swatches my mom wanted me to look at!). Anyway, petrified Anya made it through, but we assume many of you can identify with this. It can be super spooky to be all alone in an abandoned building, with sounds of mysterious origins coming up through the vents. Horror movies have taught us, that along with snakes, spiders, porcelain dolls, and clowns, nothing good can come of this. We’re never shocked when someone tells us they are afraid of heights, rollercoasters, someone hiding under the bed or in the back of their car, etc.

Thank you, The Cabin in the Woods, for making laugh and giving us horrifying nightmares.

Of course, we can’t be normal here. Sure, we’re freaked out by basically all of the above, but we also have some rather strange fears, and some even stranger things-we-should-be-afraid-

of-but-aren’ts.

Let’s start with Paul, since Anya already gave you a peek into her crazy head. As a child, Paul spent New Year’s Eve in the family room, watching whatever coverage his parents preferred of the ball drop. They had snacks, played some canasta, made a night of it, fun was had by all. Little did he know his life was about to change dramatically. He and his little brother heard some mysterious scratching at the front door. Immediately alert, they crept slowly toward the door, playing cards still clutched in their sweaty little hands. Peering out the window, what they saw on their front porch would haunt (one of) them forever. A bloodied raccoon was darkening their doorstep, scratching wildly at the door. To this day, Paul swears that it was rabid and coming from a recent fight, purposely expiring on his doorstep.

Is a quiet evening with Kathy and Anderson so much to ask for!?

Since that fateful day, Paul has had what some would call a strong aversion to raccoons. Others would call it an irrational fear. Anya would call it a character flaw, as you could probably guess based on her fondness for disgusting and feral animals. It only causes problems in our relationship when Anya insists on sending Paul pictures of raccoons.

Pure evil.

But it’s not even the most irrational of fears. After all, a rabid raccoon COULD be lurking in your bushes/in the backseat of your car/in your walls, and it COULD jump out and bite you and you’d have to get an unpleasant series of rabies shots. (Worst case scenario, shots. Come ON, Paul!) Although this next fear is even less reasonable than a fear of raccoons, it causes fewer problems in our relationship, probably because we’ve both got a touch of it.

Have you ever been going about your business, whistling a merry tune, unfolding your picnic blanket when suddenly something pops out of your makeshift tablecloth? It’s moving?! It’s a snake!!! OH FUCK! But then it’s not moving, and upon closer inspection, it’s rubber.  Your picnicking companion is lying prone in the peaceful meadow, weeping tears of glee at their clever prank and your horrified reaction. This is as a good a time as any to end the relationship, because what kind of person plays such a lame trick and then rolls about helpless with mirth? A fucking psychopath with a terrible sense of humor.

Could be worse.

I think most people would be startled and fearful in the above scenario (rubber snake prank, but also applies to being trapped in a remote location with a serial killer). Unexpected vermin are never good, and unexpected venomous vermin are even worse. But what if you knew the snake was there? What if you were fully aware that there was a rubber snake glued to the bottom of your picnic basket, and every time you packed or unpacked it, you were going to have to store your watermelon alongside its fake rattler? Most people would probably get used to it, and do that crazy thing your brain does where it stops seeing things that are always there.

Not us! There is a rubber snake that was cleverly(?) planted in our office some time ago, by someone who should have retired some time ago. He’s pretty goddamn attached to this snake, and it’s just WAITING right in the supply closet. Sometimes arranged as if it is poised to sink its fangs into the next person who needs letterhead, sometimes guarding the paperclips, the snake is a menace. And even though we both KNOW it’s in there, we have to take deep, steadying breaths before reaching into its hypothetical range, terrified of its hypothetical slithering/biting/scaly fang stabs. Our secret shame, now you know, world! (or the six of you that are accidentally reading this)

Neither we nor this middle-class Suri are amused.

Another thing that terrifies both of us in equal measure is those Weimaraners with hands. You know the ones? They wear the suits and their silly, dopey heads just hang out while their HUMAN HANDS GESTURE AROUND EVERYWHERE?! UGH. Honestly, we can’t even bring ourselves to Google it and provide you with a picture, you’re going to have to do that yourselves. What began as a mild childhood discomfort while watching Sesame Street, has grown into an acute adult affliction.  Fuck. That. Noise. Enough said.
 

Check back for a future entry with increasingly irrational anxieties, as well as a fun compilation of things we should be losing sleep over, but aren't.  Anyone with us on these nutty fears?  What weird shit scares the pants off of you?

Phony Facebooking and Bullshit Weddings

I have a contemptuous relationship with the public sphere (despite have an online blog thinly veiled with anonymity), which causes me to look rather disdainfully on those who update their Facebooks, Twitters, and Tumblrs with pictures of every meal and notes on every trip to the bathroom.  What’s even more offensive to me than these transgressions are when people use social media to share things that I find extremely personal and private (e.g. mourning the death of a loved one, the start or end of a serious relationship, professional failures).  It always comes across as extremely disingenuous and causes a series of negative reactions in me, from disdainful scoffs to livid phone calls (“Anya, what the fuck is this!?  Why is Failed Freshman Math posting ‘it sux that ur mom died, bro’ on Elementary Companion’s Facebook!?  Can I send a nasty message?  Can we take a golf club to FFM’s car!?  JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.”).

So perhaps you can understand why I had a strong reaction when I logged onto Facebook and discovered that my Conservative Cousin (conservative in political views only; girl dresses like cheap call girl) had a secret wedding.  Towards the end of last week, Conservative Cousin posted a blurry picture of a tacky diamond-looking ring, which caused me to pause and wonder, “Is that an engagement ring?  No way, Movie 43 was in theaters longer than she’s been dating this one, it’s probably just her standard mobile update of whatever jewelry/hooker heel/too-tight dress she’s currently sporting,” and went about judging the other posts on my newsfeed.  Fast forward to Saturday, when I pulled up my web browser to see pictures of her in a white veil and mini dress posted from “Paradise,” Nevada, which I quickly learned is someplace within Las Vegas (the wedding district? A skeezy motel?).  And it’s obviously not actually a secret wedding if she’s posting all over Facebook about it, but none of her family members (including her parents, of whom she is the only child) were present at the wedding or invited (I can only assume), so I guess it’s more like the actual definition of eloping, which always strikes me as completely bizarre to actually do for anyone who isn’t a pair of star-crossed teen lovers.

Ah, to be 14 and have absolutely no concept of reality.

My thoughts in approximate order:
“Of course.”
“Thank god I didn’t have to go (to this one).”

“I have to have call my brother.”

“Here’s my trump card for whenever Mom tries to make me see her/be nice to her or defends her in any way.”

“Can you have a bachelorette party by yourself?”

“Wait, is she actually  wearing- Yep.”

“The ‘sanctity of marriage’ at its finest...”

After getting over the initial glee and subsequent critiquing, I called my brother and announced, “Drop whatever you’re doing and get on Facebook.  Go to Conservative Cousin’s page and enjoy.  I’ll wait.”  He did so and we had a nice group chuckle.  After a brief debate over whether the dudebros from the “reception” were random douchebags or friends of her husband’s (siding with randos), we discussed how to break the news to our mother.  While we were both having quite the time over this revelation, we doubted that our mother would find it quite as humorous as we had.  In lieu of making a belated Save the Date with one of their classy Vegas hotel pics, it was decided that I should just call her and relate the story in a serious-sounding manner.

“Mom, I have some bad news for you.”

So I attempt to call my mother to inform about the wedding in the least-mocking way I can manage.  Her response is that of disbelief, in a literal sense.

MOM: Paul, you know how goofy Conservative Cousin is, I’m sure she’s just kidding around.

PAUL: Mom, there are like pictures and everything.  It’s not like a fake Facebook marriage with your clearly platonic friend.

MOM: See?  You just said that it’s a thing that people do, I’m sure it’s that.

PAUL: Ugh, not the same thing at all.  Those are done to hide the end of a real relationship and then it’s with somebody who’s your best friend, and possibly in a relationship with somebody else, and everybody who looks at it instantly knows that it’s a joke.  You don’t do it with somebody you’re actually in a relationship with!

MOM: Paul, you know I’m not on Facebook, I have no idea how it works, I’m just sure that she’s pulling some kind of prank.

PAUL: Whatever, Mom.  I’m coming over tomorrow and showing you pictures.

Parents just don’t understand.

The next day upon arriving for dinner, I kept my promise and asked her to meet me in the computer room to settle her skepticism.  I pulled up my cousin’s Facebook page, where my mother was greeted by her new last name, and proceeded to walk her through the three-day engagement, lowest points being the her self-application of the wedding make-up in a public restroom with feet visible under stalls and reading her vows from an iPad.  As we neared the end of the rueful reception, before my mother tried to unpack what she had just seen.

MOM: Huh...  I really thought she was just kidding around, but it sure doesn’t look like that, huh?

PAUL: Nope.

MOM: Can you go back to the picture of them where they’re holding hands at the front of the... wherever they are?  Hmm...  Last time we visited, I met two of Conservative Cousin’s boyfriends.  I think he was one of them, at least.

PAUL: ‘Cuz that makes everything okay.

MOM: I’m not saying it’s okay, Paul.  Her mother is not going to be happy about this.

PAUL: How could anyone be happy about it!?  She’s insane!

MOM: Now Paul, you know that she has that ADHD.

PAUL: Mom, you CANNOT blame her secret Vegas wedding on her ADHD!

MOM: Part of it is making impulsive decisions!

PAUL: There’s the need for instant gratification and then there’s eloping. IN. VEGAS.  That’s nuts, no matter how you slice it!  And by the way, you’re welcome for not being the kind of child who would ever do that.

MOM: Never say never.

PAUL: What?

You may find his inability to pay attention in class annoying, but just wait until he grows up and gets a tattoo on his face!

Am I being a little harsh on a family member who deserves my love and support?  Maybe you think I should be a little less scornful, but our being related doesn’t change the fact that she has essentially zero redeeming qualities (she’s made jokes about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so... there’s that).  You could also argue that I’m a complete hypocrite for criticizing anyone’s hollow-hearted online presence when the forum I’m using is a public blog, but as Anya is wont to say, “When did I ever say I was fair?”  Am I alone here in perceiving rampant insincerity in our online interactions?

-Paul