You know, insurance companies suck. We were royally screwed by our car insurance company. I know that probably shocks you. I have no idea why it should shock me. I should be immune to horrible customer service, but I’m clearly naive.

Normally, I don’t give the names of the companies I’m frustrated with. As you know, usually I just write a humorous blog about it. This time it cost us a lot of money and I’ll happily tell you it’s Progressive’s fault. I wrote a scathing review on their Facebook page (see below) and plan to Tweet it as well. If this isn’t what social media is for, then it’s as useless as Progressive is.

The jackass adjuster actually had the nerve and balls to talk down to me when I questioned his appraisal and adjustments. FOOL. I am one woman who knows her cars, can give a tutorial about how combustible engines work, and knows appraisals like nobody’s business. I wanted to go through the phone and choke him out. I did use all the big words at my disposal. I know a lot of words.

I’m not funny today. Sorry.

Tomorrow is the Five Things. I’ll be funny then.

For now, fight the man!

The Sea Rose has gone live. It’s so exciting to see my name and my novella on Amazon. Its a whopping 99 cents so you can get your electronic copy by clicking this picture or the one on the right.

Lady Belling’s Secret will be up next week.

Stay tuned.

I am offering up household hints today.

I have learned things over the years that I am happy to pass along to you dear readers. Important things. Life and death things. Like how to get crayon out of every single piece of clothing in the house. I have this down to a science. I blame cargo pants and restaurants. I know that seems a bit disjointed but it’ll all make sense when I explain. There is no way to effectively check every single pocket in a seven-year old boy’s cargo pants without putting your hand in there which is something I do NOT recommend without chain mail gloves and even then you’re taking your chances. The restaurants are a problem because they insist on giving your child crappy fake crayons upon seating. No matter how many times you tell your children not to take them from the table when you leave, and how carefully you frisk them before you depart the premises, the damn things show up anyway - either covering your clean clothes or melted into the interior handles of your car in the summer heat.

If you need a sure-fire, but tragically time-consuming, way to get the crayon off, give me a shout out. I’ll divulge the secret.

Another thing that crops up around the house that people want to find a fix for is how to quickly defrost a chest freezer. The most effective way I’ve found is to get yourself a mischievous orange kitten and allow him play around cabinets in the laundry room where the appliance is plugged in. Before you know it, the freezer is completely defrosted and all you have to do is throw away all your meat. No fuss, no muss - no hairdryer or chipping away at frost. Couldn’t be easier. Who wants $250 worth of Costco meat junking up your freezer anyway?

You know, come to think of it, both of these incidents happen in the laundry room. I don’t think I should go back there.

The Bandit and I were snuggling in his bottom bunk. The room was cozy and dark except for the alligator night-light glowing in the corner. The radio was turned on low to an easy listening station. I was just about ready to fall asleep myself and thought he was already gone when the DJ softly gave the call numbers on the radio.

“What’s FM mean?” he asked. He always comes up with these complicated questions when he should be sleeping.

“There two kinds of radio that we listen to - FM and AM.” I wasn’t about to go into satellite and Citizens Band. Jeez I only have a very rudimentary understanding of radio anyway. “You have to have a certain kind of receiver to pick up the radio. Everyone playing music on the radio has a certain channel they are assigned to called a frequency. That’s the number part.”

“OK,” he said in the darkness. “But what does FM mean?”

“That’s just the difference between how the signal is sent. They change up the sound waves in different ways with AM and FM radio.”

I heard a deep sigh. “But what does FM mean?”

What the hell? Am I in science class? Is there at test at the end of this? “Well usually, FM radio is mostly music and AM radio is mostly talk shows. When I was a kid, we only had AM radio.” I resisted the urge to launch into a bunch of other nonsense we didn’t have when we were kids.

“Mom,” he said the words slowly like I was one of those people that can’t understand the most basic English. “What does FM mean?”

“Frog Music.”

He exhaled a satisfied sigh. “Thank you. Was that really that hard?”

I really wish the kid would stop asking me stuff like this. I always sound like I’m making this crap up.

I need to get my second manuscript, Miss Goldsleigh’s Secret, ready to send to the editor. I have Lady Belling’s Secret and The Sea Rose going up VERY SOON. I have a blog tour to organize. People who want my attention. AHHHHHHHH!

You know what’s wrong with the world? We’ll tell you - because we know. The wrongness is that you go to a hamburger joint to get ONLY a delicious carb free hamburger and nothing more - thanks for the fries clueless cash register girl! - but they also sell milk shakes and frozen custard. The selfish non-dieting bastards. Thankfully the world is still a funny place. See….

1. Kids and cellphones. Amylynn’s oldest, Sassy, is nine and is campaigning for her own cell phone. That is really, really not happening. We understand that there are parents (Ava) who will entrust their children with expensive electronics, but Amylynn isn’t one of them. Apparently the Obama’s are less concerned or perhaps their children are more responsible with their belongings than Sassy is, because there were charming pictures of their kids photo bombing at the inauguration ceremonies. We love this photo. Love it. We think it’s even better than Michelle’s Inaugural Ball dress and that’s saying something.

2. Boulders. Wile E. Coyote is alive and well and living in Utah. For the first time in the history of ever, the Coyote got it right. Had Wanda Denhalter been a road runner, she’d have been toast. If you are unaware, Wanda was asleep in her king-sized bed (they’re very clear on that fact in the news accounts - you’ll see why later) when a giant boulder rolled off a cliff and crashed into her house and squished her bed. Had it been a smaller bed it would have squished her, too. As it was, she earned a broken jaw, a broken sternum, and a passel of stitches. The authorities are flummoxed as to what caused the car-sized boulder to break free of the mountain. We suspect Mr. Coyote was up there with an Acme crowbar.

3. Inauguration fare. One would expect more. We certainly would have had our dream come true if Michelle had returned our ardent request for an invitation to the Inaugural Ball. We love a good party. Instead, we got another strongly worded registered letter from the Secret Service. We’re having the whole collection laminated for posterity. We would have expected shrimp and pretty little hors ‘douvers along with our champagne. Sadly, that is not what the guests had. According to reliable sources, the guests were actually fed stale pretzels, salted nuts and Cheez-its. Three was no confirmation on the Kool-aid. Can you freaking believe that? We suppose with the economy the way it is, that’s reasonable. Still, when we sat outside with the rest of the hoi polloi, shivering in the freezing weather, we had lovely no-carb beef on a stick.

4. Subway. Can you believe that Subway has been cheating us out of an inch of bread? We can’t. If you can’t trust Subway to get a ruler out every time they put a loaf of bread in the oven, then we don’t know what is true and what is not anymore. We went in and demanded our missing inches but they showed us the door. If there’s a class action lawsuit over this, we’re totally in.

5. Big tips - huge! We went out for Chinese food yesterday. We had a hankering for delicious carb-free Chinese BBQ spare ribs. Our waitress was very non-Chinese. She was also extraordinarily loud. That’s possibly because no one else in the restaurant was under the age of 80. We sat in our lovely booth - last decorated in 1983 - and tried not to giggle when she bellowed HELLO, I’M YOUR WAITRESS. All was redeemed when she told Ava she didn’t look a day over 35. In the spirit of full disclosure, Ava is 48. It is true that she doesn’t look her age but 35 is pushing it (That’s not true, I don’t look a day over 21 - AVA). We did give her a gargantuan tip so she should continue to fling the bullshit for as long as she is able.

First let me preface this post by saying that he’s fine - very sore, but ultimately fine.

When I got home form work yesterday, My Honey and I were both too tired to make anything for dinner. We stood together staring into the open refrigerator and decided to get take out. I waited at home and helpfully dozed on the couch until my phone rang.

“Hey,” he said. “Some chick just t-boned my truck.”

That woke me up. “Are you OK?” I jumped up from the couch and slipped my feet in my shoes.

“Yeah, but the truck’s munched.”

I herded the kids in the car and we went to the accident site which was literally two blocks from our house. It was also conveniently located a block and a half from the local fire station. The firemen said they heard the crunch of the accident from their station house and started getting their gear on, knowing they were going to get the call any minute. I arrived on the scene just after they did. They were all wandering around with these giant flashlight- hats on.

“Hey, are you guys going to be doing any mining later?” I asked. “Maybe panning for gold in the wash between calls?”

They had the good grace to laugh because I’m funny.

My Honey refused ambulance service to the hospital, but I took him later. We were in and out of the ER in an hour and a half which I think is pretty damn good. We touched nothing while we were there because Ava and I are still in our flu shot war and I’m not getting sick at the damn hospital when all we went there for are x-rays. They had us answer a survey at the end of our visit. They asked us what they could do better and the only suggestion I had was to stop letting all those sick people in the building.

There is something funny about this whole accident episode. I know that’s hard to believe since we’re never going to get enough money from the insurance company and we have to buy a new car and we really don’t want a car payment and My Honey is awfully sore. One of my super powers is that I can find something funny in everything. It’s all in the spin you give it.

Back in December My Honey asked me where the new tags were for my car. I shrugged. I had no idea. He informed me they were up in August. Oooops. We had to get through Christmas and then you know stuff happened, but I was really planning to get them done when I get paid on February 1st. I arrived at the accident site before the policeman so when the officer arrived he parked right behind my car. I cringed and tossed My Honey a sheepish look. Fortunately, Officer Handcuffs was too busy with the accident to notice my woefully late registration. Later, when I came back to the accident after fetching the dinner from the crunched truck and taking the kids home where their grandmother was going to watch them for us while I took My Honey to the hospital, I strategically parked BEHIND the officer. Smart, eh?

Finally the cop approached us to give us his report and return our insurance cards and stuff . “I’m sorry sir, but I also had to cite you.”

My husband blinked at the man in wonder. What the hell could he possibly be cited for? The other driver had run a stop sign and plowed into his huge Dodge Ram 2500 KingCab truck hard enough to rock it on it’s wheels and cave in the passenger side. In a residential zone.

The cop actually looked apologetic. “Your car registration expired 8 days ago.”

I damn near exploded in laughter. Holy cow - mine is seven MONTHS passed due and he gets a ticket for 8 days.

My Honey did not think it was at all amusing. “If you don’t stop laughing I’m going to kill you right in front of this cop.”

I couldn’t stop laughing. I still haven’t stopped laughing. Just so you know, I did get the car registered today because he paid for it. He was certain, with his luck as of late, he’d drive my car around town and get pulled over.

Apparently he doesn’t want to play registration roulette with me.

What kind did you have? WHAT? You didn’t go get pie? Well, hell. Get yourself to the Village Inn. They’re open 24 hours.

I read today that there are several mammals that can have narcolepsy such as dogs, cats, sheep and goats. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that cats can be

narcoleptic.

I’ve owned lots of cats in my time but I’ve never spent so much concentrated time with one. Since I spend every single weekday with him at work I know exactly what he’s up to. He’s up to nothing. Absolutely nothing. There are moments - bright, shining moments - such as the time a couple of weeks ago when he desiccated the office tree, but those times are few and far between.

94 percent of the time he’s asleep on his pillow on my desk. If he’s not there it’s possible he’s asleep on his spare pillow on the guest chair in my office. Or he’s eating so he doesn’t have to nap while hungry. Or he’s wandering around the office nagging me to hurry up and go back to my desk so he can take his nap. Some days he doesn’t want to sleep alone. I’m sure you understand.

Me and his Aunties pester him all day long. I’ve been known to roll him over in his sleep and

nuzzle his belly and even then he won’t open an eye. It becomes a challenge to perturb the cat. He’s such a good sleeper that sometime I worry he’s in a coma. Or dead.

They say cats are supposed to sleep anywhere from fifteen to twenty hours a day. Apparently, Jojo Kitty takes his responsibilities very seriously.

Click on the picture to go to the text of his speech.