You're Toast

The other day my brother and I came home from work and were famished. I decided the perfect lunch would be Peanut Butter & Jelly on toast. He agreed. I popped my two pieces of bread into the toaster on the highest setting because I am not at all patient when it comes to food taking any length of time to cook. I wanted the toaster to heat up quickly and then I'd cancel it when it was the shade of brown I preferred. We're talking away and I pop my toast out of the Brave Big Toaster and he marveled at how lovely it looked. I proceeded to make my sandwich as he popped his two pieces of toast in the Brave Big Toaster. He left it on the highest setting. After a few minutes if idle chit chat I noticed there was a foul odor brewing in the kitchen. Not having any brain power left after a full day at work, my brain just said to leave the room and not investigate what that odor was. Next thing I know my brother shouts "It's BURNT!" He looks at my half-eaten sandwich and then back at his black toast and says "Why doesn't it look like yours?!?!" I explained that I canceled my toast just as soon as it had started and he looked at me and said "WHY didn't you tell me that!?" Sorry, I didn't know I had to walk you through how to make toast.

All of a sudden my brother disappeared. He left the house. I thought it rather odd that he'd get so angry that he'd leave the house. It takes something like work or girls to make him leave the house. Oh well. Next thing I know he slams both doors and stamps his way back into the house.

"I took my burnt toast outside to toss to the birds and the wind was so strong it carried the toast to the roof of the garage! Now what do I do?!"

At this point I just burst into laughter and that made him even more frustrated. First you burn your toast because you can't think for yourself and then you throw it outside for it to land on my garage. Maybe he should have just sat down and gone to bed before doing anything more. But, alas, I could not speak any of those words because I was laughing so hard that I cried. And peed a little.

I missed yesterday because...

...I looked like this for most of the day.





















So...yeah, that's all. And I don't really have dreads. And I usually wear clothes when I'm in heels...but making heels was way easier than figuring out clothing.

I had a caterpillar as a pet once. It died.

Ever have those moments where you relive old memories? I am blessed, cursed, and/or doomed to be able to do this in a unwarrented split second. It plays like a YouTube video in my mind's eye, minus the handy pause button (I'd kill for that), and I re-experience the emotions bound to that memory as if they were fresh. A grin can be plastered to my face at an awkward moment turned hilarious. My stomach will roil in nausea at the discovery of a romantic indiscretion. Lust begins burning beneath my skin with glimpses of recalled bare skin, and loss will bring an emptiness into my chest.

Although this is attached to positive, negative, and neutral emotions alike, it is always the negative emotions that stand out the most to me. I assume this is because my body's reactions to these emotions are uncomfortable, and thus make the next hour, day, or week a mass of time in which I look for ways to shove the memory back into its crate and lock it away.

Out of all the negativity, there is one specific memory that haunts me the most. It leaves me with the overwhelming taste of grief and loss in my mouth.

And it was caused by this lil' fella:

I was eight-years-old. Or seven. Maybe six? No. I think seven seems to be more accurate, but I'm not sure. I don't want to actually do the math though. So whatever the heck my age was, I was an awkward kid. Chubby, too tall for my age, clumsy as a half-grown puppy, and probably running around with a panda tee-shirt and socks pulled up nearly to my knees.

There are two important notes to make before I continue:

A.) My parents both worked full-time, and I was enrolled in the after-school program with my brothers. My brothers were too embarrassed to have anything to do with me. I had no friends, unless you count the twelve-year-old, behemoth of a six-grader who enjoyed beating me up near the slide. So, aside from snack time, I spent most of the two hours alone.

B.) I wanted a pet! But my mom said no. Goddamnit.

It was a day in early fall or late spring. I don't remember the exact time of year, except I was in school and it was warm enough for shorts. I had been denied my request for a pet for perhaps the thousandth time, and it was beginning to take my toll on me. "Pets cost too much money," my mom would say. "You have to feed them, walk them, brush them, blablahblah." I was eight-seven-six-whatever, and couldn't figure out a way to tell my mom about an inexpensive pet. I pondered this during my time alone, alternating between running away from my bully and relocating caterpillars from one side of the blacktop to the other. There were a lot of caterpillars.

During one trip from one end to the other, a couple of caterpillars crawling over my fingers, a light bulb turned on in my head. Caterpillars were cheap, right? They were practically free! All you needed was to find old peanut butter jars in the trash, poke some holes in the lids, and plop the caterpillar in it. Food was easy too! Just run outside and grab some leaves, courtesy of Mother Nature. They didn't need to be walked or brushed or watered. I was estactic and impressed by my own brilliance. I had discovered my first way to stick it to the man.

I dumped the creepy-crawlies I was already holding, ran inside and grabbed a empty sandwich bag from my backpack. From that point on I was on a mission. Starting first with the ones I had previously abandoned, I plopped them in the bag. And then I scoured the entire blacktop and playground. My zip-lock bag soon became squirming mass about the size of a tennis ball.


For a visual concept of what I mean. Imagine your regular zip-lock sandwich bag. And then imagine a mass of caterpillars. They should look a little something like this:






Add those two together, and... you have just created a sandwich bag filled with caterpillars! Congratulations!


So, yeah, that is what it looked like. I had probably fifty caterpillars in there. Fifty caterpillars. That's a lot. ifty pets all of my very own All squirming in my cupped hands. It was exciting. And, other than the minor problems of finding that many peanut butter jars and figuring out names, all fifty of them wouldn't cost me a dime. Therefore, my mom would definitely let me keep them. Her previous argument was totally null and void! That was the most exciting of all. I was awesome. I was happy!


The evil teacher lady ruined my plans. She did it on purpose. I know she did. I don't even remember her name, except that it most likely had to be a word meaning malicious intentions to ruin childhood hopes and dreams. She caught me as I slipped in amongst the other kids, trying to blend into the crowd as we marched to the cafeteria for snacks. Looking back on it, she probably noticed that I wasn't as clumsy as usual (I had a goal not to squish any of my newfound friends.) And she knew, like a vulture recognizes a dead baby deer from a sleeping baby deer, that I was happy, and she set out to ruin it. She took me by the shoulder, peered at me over her stupid glasses and told me that I had to "get rid of all those bugs." Her tone was harsh, but her eyes were alight with satisfaction. I knew I had lost, and I knew she was enjoying it. I hated her then. I hated her with all my little heart.

And so, with my heart filled with hate and my eyes brimming with tears, I trudged back outside. I made sure to go around the corner into a small section of the blacktop that was no longer visible from the cafeteria's windows. I cuddled my pets, all fifty of them. I felt like a horrible pet owner. I had only had them for like three minutes and already I was abandoning them to some horrible fate under a first grader's stomping shoes or in a bird's beak. Mental images of green caterpillar guts sprayed across the blacktop filled my mind, and I cried a little. Ok, ok... That was just to make me sound a little less like a nerdy wimp. I cried a lot. Snot dripping out of my nose a lot, forcing me to wipe my face several times with the front of my shirt.


Finally, after hearing my teacher lady yell for me to come inside, I dumped the contents of my bag onto the chalk-covered blacktop, directly at my feet. They did the strangest thing then. I can still see it vividly in my memory. As they squirmed away from each other, they all headed away from, forming what would appear to be the rays of the sun. In my head, it looked something like this:

And that was the last time I ever saw them. I hope they all became moths or butterflies or something, instead of just green goop on the bottom of some kid's shoe.


Did this make you sad a little? If not, you have no soul. If so, good. It should! Now remember this story. And when some kid, whether it's your kid, some hobo's kid, a student kid, or whatever, comes up to you with a sandwich bag filled with caterpillars. Let him or her keep it or else they'll be scarred for life, the deaths of fifty-or-so caterpillars forever imprinted on their souls.

Pee the nerd.

Loganomic: What's Darth's name prior to, ya know, the darkside?
PEE: Ummm
PEE: Patrick?
*Loganomic shakes head.

Yet we still love her. It's cause of her boobs.

Yeah. It's all about me.

This is basically how I see things. I think it's pretty accurate. Click on the thumbnail below to get an enlarged - and thus more readable - glimpse of my mind's memory:

LaurenE's intros cont.

Now we move on to Melina aka Melinia aka Merina. Melinie is the dark horse of the group. One minute she's nice, sweet, and innocent, and then sboom! she's cussing like a sailor and telling it how it really is. I love being her friend....I wouldn't want to be her enemy.

Melina is one of the quieter imoppers, she's not constantly interrupting everyone else like the rest of us, but now that I think about it, thats probably because she doesn't really have the time to. She works at a job where like, she has to do real work and can't just chat on the internet. And then when she's at home she's pretty busy taking care of her zoo. I have a feeling though, that sometimes when she's logged in but not talking, she's doing her own thing on the interwebs but keeping one eye on the conversation me and lick are having about say, our braim tumors and just shaking her head.

Melina's Two Cents

Oh. Hello! This is Melina here getting ready to lay the lowdown of how I see each of us imoppers. They are in no particular order, of course.



Peewee ~

Oh dearest peewee. She is so funny and witty with that dark side that keeps you coming back for more. You talk to her in a chat room for months and think she is this cute and sweet, innocent little thing and then she pipes up with something completely inappropriate and your brain pops and realizes who she REALLY is and now you can't get enough of that witty, sarcastic, dark humor. I think of Peewee as the bridge that connects us all as I don't think we would be quite as tight knit without her. She is also great with makeup and one night made her eyes up to be this rainbow sherbet-like lovely combination and has promised me she'll do her hair and eyes up in rainbow again one day. When things aren't going well for me at work or home life I often think "But I have yet to see the Peewee Rainbow Combination" and that keeps me plugging on.



Logan ~

Hmph. He can be the most caring of individuals but not when you're in a Walmart looking for Swedish Fish and he basically tells me to stop texting him asking him where they are. Then, he's just mean. By the way I finally found those Swedish Fish. At some point we were faux married which basically involved me threatening to walk him over hot coals or stinging bees I can't remember which. It was a short marriage, as most of mine usually are. It is fun to watch him be totally surprised, shocked, horrified, and forever scarred by whatever links Lic posts. I get a big kick out of this. Logan is also a big animal lover which I find adorable and sweet. He's also a worry wart and accident prone.



Lic ~

I've known about Lic for FOREVER on the old forum but never really got to know her until we all grouped together into this IMOP thing. Lic is an adorably doting mom but way more than just the title of "mom with two children". She is funny and yet oddly troubling. She will link us to the most insane, shocking, horrifying things on the internet and I sit here going "What. the. fuck?" a lot. If it weren't for Lic I'd probably not know quite as much about these things as I currently do. I appreciate her educating us in these ways as now I won't be so shocked when I come across them in real life (god I hope I don't..).



Steph ~

Oh Steph. Sometimes I worry about her! She is funny and very devoted to her lifestyle and dedicated to giving some of the most hard on their luck animals a loving home for the time they are with her. She volunteers at an animal rescue cleaning cages, fostering animals, and all that good stuff. Stupid people are the bane of her existence. Well, that could be said for all of us but she definitely lets it be known! She has an obsession with good beer which I will never understand as I hate the stuff. She has good taste in cars and probably good taste in clothing and makeup but I wouldn't know what good taste for either of those things are! She is also quite perverted and lets the whole world know when she has certain infections in certain areas of her body due to certain sexual acts. Quite charming.



Laureneeee ~

I was very perplexed when Laurenie came onto the scene but was assured that she was safe and sensible. Lauren is very much into animals of every kind and will spend all day researching one thing or another and BOOM next thing you know she is sending you pictures of her newest obsession. Sometimes they scare me. ;)



Billie ~

Oh funny Billie. Knowledgeable, wise, witty, and lays things down how they are in a comical way that no one else can. She flits in on a rainbow and leaves on a lightning bolt. We never get enough of Billie!



Melina ~

Melina. What can I say? She pops in and out of the conversations as she sees fit. A lot of times she sits back down to peek into chat and find the most insane things going on and she'll put in her two cents and hopes it goes well. There are many faces to Melina, almost as many as there are nicknames for her. You never know which one you're going to get! She generally cares a great deal about all of the Imoppers and can't express how much joy and hilarity has come from this group over the last 18 months or so. Of course she does have to save face so she can't just go all out wild but she does her best with those two cents. ;)

Mah turn!

Ok, my turn.

Pee, Tauni, etc.
Not a morning person but came to the hospital at 4 am when my head fell off. In all fairness I probably didn't wake her up since she was most likely effing Logan at that time, but that makes it even more awesome that she came. ...to the hospital. You get my point. Basically, she's a sweetheart and wonderful friend. And has monster boobays. And my boyfriend once told her that she should just take her clothes off since she said it was warm in the house. She's held my hand while I shit, gotten my puke in her eye, and had my nip on her nose. What else can I say?OH! She also thought there was an earthquake once because apparently that's what it feels like from across the apartment when my drunk ass falls off my own bed. At least my head didn't fall off that time. Man...after writing all that, I can't believe this chick still talks to me.

Lauren, Rauren, etc.
You can talk to her about anything. She's like the tofu of conversation but not in a bad way, and that's probably one of my favorite things about her. Excellent listener. Has dogs with the magical ability to make phone calls (kinda like raptors can open doors in Jurassic Park). She has crabs in her sheets. Literally. Everything is bigger in Texas, like her brain, which is even more magical than her dog making phone calls. The random blurts of super-duper-insane-intelligence are effing hilarious and awesome. Also, you can't out-do the need to get fake lashes, do costume changes, and have a "back drop curtain" for our first "video chat". Lauren is awesome.

LIC, Rachel, RIC, etc.
Without her I wouldn't have the coolest car seat in the universe or daily emails from some random designer-kid-clothing website. She can't laugh without covering her mouth...does that make her part asian? I know they have some cultural thing about showing their teeth...maybe that explains Melina's aversion to Rachel. Hmm. Regardless, she's the queen of all things random on the internet. I can now die saying I've seen a grown man stuff an orange traffic cone up his ass. I wouldn't have gotten that experience if it weren't for Rachel and Stileproject.

Logan, Rogan, Logican, etc.
Logan is boning Tauni. Just thought I'd throw that out there first. Logan easily summed up: Nice to socially awkward, rude, unfortunate looking females, but mean(ish) to his friends. He's weird. I guess the day Logan starts being nice to you is the day that you might want to look into plastic surgery and a personality change, though. He came to see me with Tauni at 4 am when my head fell off too, so he's quite the trooper. He got to meet my boyfriend for the first time when Mike had tears streaming down his face in the hospital...so that's kinda random. And even though he puts on that "mean" front, Logan is actually a really awesome friend. I'm actually not saying that sarcastically, I swear.

Melina, Merina, Merrrrrrrrrina, etc.
Ok this is gonna be short and sweet, because that's EXACTLY what Melina does in chat. We'll all be going about our business, having a strangely non-perverted conversation and SBOOM, Melina will appear the ONE moment that someone mentions something that can either be construed as perverted or when someone mentions genitalia. It just...happens...each.and.every.time. Clockwork. Oh also, we all know exactly what her hell would be like and it makes us all laugh inside. A lot.

Billie, Birrie, Biwwie, etc.
We only get sneak attacks from Billie and it makes us all sad. She did get a cell phone which is a HUGE advancement in Billieness, but she needs the internet at home so some of her humor can be inserted into this thing.

And I think I'm done. I was going to do one-word ones but that actually seemed like it would take more time. Maybe I'll still do it. Hmm.

It's ok. The toilet is unclogged now.

I've learned a lesson for you all tonight. If you use too much toilet paper, it will clog the toilet. If you have a broken rubber thingy on your toilet, it will keep mini-flushing. If you have a clogged toilet *and* a broken rubber thingy? Your bathroom will flood. So even though you think you're super clever by peeing in the shower so you don't have to go out and buy a plunger.... you're mistaken. The toilet always outsmarts the human. Always.

Now... onto my introductions! I'm going to go in order of meeting them so that no one thinks I'm playing favorites.

italianqt:
Ahhh Steph. Staph. Stapharinie. Staphalopogus. Stapharooni. Lovahpampts. She's my ex-roommate, but we didn't move out on bad terms. So it's not like I hate her and want alimony or anything. I watched her grow and learn and open her mind into the person she is today. I also saw her drunk off her ass eating jalapeno poppers straight off the table. You win some, you lose some. Her head recently fell off and when I went to "simply pick her up from the hospital", we ended up staying with her for a few hours. And her boyfriend Michael. She works with air conditioners and installers and people all day. Chuck Norris is her wet dream. MAC is her second wet dream. Tonight she peed on a stick. We're going to get married at a gas station. Ooh and her nipple? She placed it gingerly upon my nose.

lick:
My Rachikins. My little hot pocket. My lixsicle. Yes, I have obnoxious nicknames for everyone. Anyway, Lick is the bra to my tittays. Lick is the money clip to my money. She's the pudding to my bread. She's the best friend I've never met in real lifeskies. We have this weird relationship where we constantly hit on each other and make everyone else just slightly uncomfortable because they're not sure if we're kidding or not. I fell in love with her when she told me the story of a girl and a hot tub.... and I've been completely smitten with her ever since. Have I mentioned she's hot? Yeah, I'd hit it. And I have a card she sent to me hanging on my fridge that has unicorns and rainbows and hearts on it. That is literally the epitome of Rachikins.

Logo:
Ahhh Logo. Loganomic. Logotronic. Shnookums. Why do I feel the need to start each of these intros with nicknames and a reminiscing tone? Ok on to the important stuff. When he first came into the chat room I was my usual obnoxious self and instantly nicknamed him Logo and he said "hmph". That's pretty much all he says? And his "hmph" has many different emotions to it. He lives in Jersey but came out to San Diego to visit his daddy once. Steph made the three of us meet up- we were too lazy and didn't really care. Well his wiley charms- talking about black ice, California drivers, and elbow babies- made me swoon. Sooo now he's my boyfriend. Muh boyfrieeemd. Muh wittle hampsum shmookerpampts wiff his wittle stefoscope and thcrubth. I should probably mention that embarrasing him is one of my greatest joys in life. Yeah, I'm a gem.

Melinie:
Mmeeellliiinniiieee used to be a moderator for one of our old chat rooms so automatically she was the enemy. I couldn't talk about peener or drop F bombs around her- that's evil if you ask me. So when someone decided to be the King Asshole of the old chat and when I asked Melinie if she'd like to create a new chat and she said "Oh fuck yes thank god"? I knew I was going to love her. Melinie is the person you always love and never hate. She has this sense of humor that will just completely slay you. And she makes pastries at work all day for fuck's sake. Who doesn't love that?! Oh! And she drools on rats and hates ayshuns (which is amazing because I'm going to school for Chinese medicine... she just rocks back and forth and imagines me making orange chicken. This keeps her calm).

Laurenie:
I only have Laurenie last because I'm honestly not quite sure when the eff I met her. She was like, the person who joined the chat and sneakily made her way into my heart. She's the really hot blonde that you think is dumb as shit but then you learn that she was the only girl in AP Chembiophysiostattracheotomy. Laurenie is easily addicted to animals, all kinds and any kinds. And I'm proud/ashamed to say that I got her addicted to hermit crabs. Like.... I get at *least* eight pictures a day of her hermies. And I wouldn't have her any other way.

So there's my besties and the people I 'hang out' with on a daily basis. I love you guyth.

Introduction to the Imoppers cont.

Next I will introduce you to lick aka lixie. She once said about herself "adorable is my lifeblood", and I cannot think of a better statement to describe her. She is the one imopper I have met in real life which is nice because then I can describe her as "my friend that moved away that I keep in touch with online" rather than "my online friend that I have never me in real life".

Lick is the only one of us with children (steph's faux-stepchild doesn't count yet) and this gives her more excuses to buy adorable stuff. Sometimes she gets jealous of her daughter's adorable things, especially if they include Hello Kitty. She also loves makeup (especially if its sparkly), baby animals (especially if they're minis), most things Japanese, and shopping (especially for adorable clothes for her kids).

Theres tons more about Lick, I'll add it later. But right now I'm having too much fun in chat because Pee's toilet is overflowing and she doesn't have a plunger.

LaurenE

At her finest:

LaurenE: i still haven't gotten a confirmation on when my crabs are shipping :(

Poor Crabless Rauren :-(

Introductions.

I was all set to make this epic drawing of all of imop as my introduction. It came to me in a dream one morning. As it turns out, I can only draw in said dream. Writing it is.

Imop is my little family and I love each and every person in there. Yes, it's totally kind of sad. In my defense, I have hung out with Lauren in real, actual life, prior to imop's existence. Twice. We may not be the most socially functional bunch ever. I can live with this.

Pee; My platonicish life partner.

My partner in crime. Only we've never actually partnered in crime..and we don't really do anything crimey. We totally would have been partners in crimey stuff if we had known each other when we we younger though. Definitely. Pee is one of the bestest people I know, and also my favorite. She also looks like an oldschool movie starlet. Just saying.

LaurenE; My braims twin.

If there is anyone in the world who gets me, it's Lauren. This is extremely valuable to my sanity. Some day we shall move in together and live in a sea of betta fry and toads. She also shares my love for adorable and sparkly, while everyone else hates. How one can hate on adorable and/or sparkly, I do not know.

Steph; My faux mommy friend.

Steph is...sometimes a little slow. I just showed her a picture of a hello kitty thermos, and she thought it was a vibrator. She also managed to scramble imop. I love her because of this, not in spite of it. She will always try to be there for everyone. One time she almost died, and it sucked. Her head almost fell clean off, but it didn't, and we were glad. I can always count on steph to put up with my mom ramblings since she faux adopted her boyfriend's son.

Logo; My arch nemesis.

I'm pretty certain his title is an exaggeration. Maybe not. Logo is Pee's boyfriend. He hates me because she likes me better than him. True story. Tormenting him is one of my top five joys in life. Sometimes he hurts his back and has to take painkillers and he gets really nice. That is my favorite Logan. He actually is a nice guy, when he feels like it.

Meliner; No longer lame.

I never knew Meliners was cool until imop happened. I was familiar with her for a long, long time through the old chatslashforum. One day she totally became cool and I have liked her ever since. I am pretty convinced that Meliner sits online all day, staring at chat and waiting for something awkward to be said so that she can jump back in. Melina is super good with rats, but she wanted to get a betta from walmart and keep it in a one gallon tank with no heat. Sometimes we like to text her pictures of things that frighten her, at random points in time.

An Introduction to the Imoppers

So we had a big plan for how we were going to all introduce each other in these clever, original, humorous ways, but that hasn't happened yet so I'm going to take it upon myself to practice my bibliographical skills and let you know more about us.

I'll start with Italianqt. I have to. She technically "created" the imop chatroom. Every time she logs in it says "italianqt is the founder of this room". It should also say "italianqt is dyslexic", but it doesn't. Italian is very opinionated and is not afraid to say what she thinks. This is one of the reasons she was forced to create imop--everyone in the other chat room was getting mad at her.

I have to say though, that even though we've never actually like...met...in real life, she is one of my best friends. Heres an example of what a good friend she is: one morning I happened to wake up particularly early and was just laying around in bed with my 2 dogs. Unbeknownst to me, one of my pups stepped on my phone and managed to call italianqt. Not only was it pretty early in the morning, its two hours earlier where she lives. Within moments of the accidental dialing, I get a call from her. Her voice is all scratchy from having just woken up but she immediately asks "is everything ok?". Although I felt horrible about having woken her up and making her worry, I also felt very loved that she cared enough to call and check on me at that ungodly hour. If it had been Pee's number my dog had accidently dialed? Well, I don't want to think about the consequences of that.

Italianqt is also most definitely imop's #1 pervert.

The improper way of handling a fire (whether it is fictional or not.)

Pee: aaaahhhh there's hot oil everyyyyywherrrree!!
lixie: ....
lixie: is it on fire?
Pee: YEEESSSS
Pee: EVERYWHERE
Pee: MY HOUSE
Pee: BURNING DOWN
Logo: ...
Pee: AAAHHH MY CAT!
Logo: Didn't you learn anything watching me cook them?
Pee: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Pee: Tell my mom I loved her!
Pee: Tell my brother he's a douche!
Pee: Tell Nannon something!
Pee: And take care of BabyLove!
Pee: She's on fiiiirrreee
Logo: ...