rejected facebook status updates

Facebook status updates I decided against recently:

Too provocative
Kate Surgeon showered this morning with a dirty Venetian. Oh, no wait. She showered with her dirty venetian blinds. Same thing, right?

Kate Surgeon took a pole dancing class last night and, though there were no mirrors in the studio, she's pretty sure she looked like a deranged cat in heat.

Too Much Information
Kate Surgeon has three zits she'd like to introduce you to: Snap, Crackle, and Pop!

Kate Surgeon wonders if you ever wonder, after looking at a poop, what you ate.

Too Sappy
Kate Surgeon misses him. Like crazy.

Kate Surgeon liked his imperfections best.

Kate Surgeon is pretty sure she was the only one crying at pole dancing class.

Kate Surgeon wants to shake him, and then smooch him, and then shake him, and then smooch him.

Too Vague
Kate Surgeon believes in avocados.

Kate Surgeon eats too much dried mango.

Kate Surgeon is crossing her fingers.

Too Work-Related
Kate Surgeon would like the receptionists at work to follow her around everywhere. They think she's HILARIOUS!

Kate Surgeon regrets to inform you that her office crush has found another job. Flowers may be sent to her at the office.

Kate Surgeon now has only two bottles of wine in her bottom drawer. The others have found their way home. (And by "home," she means her innards.)

a collection of no importance

In my neighborhood:

Did you know we had a tornado recently? We did! Right here in Brooklyn! I was walking home, surveying the damage to the neighborhood trees and whatnot, and there was a guy a few paces in front of me. We stopped in the middle of the block to look at what was clearly some kind of construction project.

"What do you figure this is supposed to be?" I asked.

"Somebody's roof," he said.

We looked around, but none of the houses looked topless, so we were baffled.

----------------

I passed a free box* the other day that had only a Cheerio in it. Now, I've given away a lot of crap in my life, but that seemed like an awful lot of work for just one Cheerio.

----------------

There are a large number of very attractive mommies in my neighborhood, and I'm always surprised when I see one with a really ugly kid. Because I think, "God, if this kid is so ugly, how funky must the dad be?"

----------------

Regarding my Perfect Nephew:

My sister and I have coined a new word for those adorable sleepers made of fleece that look so cozy we wished they made them in grown-up sizes: Fleepers!

Recently she received one that was intended to make the baby look like an animal. We have dubbed it the Moose Fleeper.

----------------

On the phone with my sister the other day, she reported that the baby was in a really ugly outfit. She only has seventy-five thousand outfits for the kid, so I asked her why this happened. She told me that her husband had dressed the baby, knowing full well he was going back to sleep.

"It's not like anybody will have to look at him wearing it" was his defense.

----------------

Apropos of Absolutely Nothing:

Remember The Perfect Storm? How three or more weather patterns came together to really hose that one little ship out there in the ocean all alone? Well, a similar thing happened to me the other day at work.

How is it possible, I asked myself as I put on the aromatic equivalent of a life preserver, that at 5:15 pm, there were at least four different people pooping in the ladies' room?

----------------

Can you, without looking it up, adequately define the word "peremptory"?

1) Me, neither

2) Liar liar pants on fire

3) Dork

In a conversation the other day that would take too long to even untangle, let alone write about, my friend Christina and I decided that, after my pole dancing class tomorrow night, when I go into stripping professionally, my stripper name will be "Peremptory Cinnamon."

Which, even now, as I write this, makes absolutely no sense.

(I hope you're happy, Christina.)

*For those of you non-city-dwellers not familiar with the concept of a free box, it's a box that you put on the street with all the crap you no longer want, with the word "FREE" written across the top of it. Then your neighbors come and take stuff out of it. Not a bad way to get more stuff you neither need nor particularly want. But hey! It's free!

i have vanquished a mammoth cockroach

It was late night in the kitchen, when I heard him knock on the door.

"Ma'am," he said, "I'm here because I'm a cockroach, and I'd like to terrorize you." He was easily six feet tall, and ugly. Really, really ugly. I mean, so ugly, even his mother probably didn't love him, and that's saying a lot because I've seen some pretty ugly babies coddled by their cooing, loved-crossed mamas.

"Well, come on in," I must have said, although I have absolutely no recollection of it.

When I turned the light on, he moved hastily, though dazedly, towards my stove. With no tool in hand with with to whack him, I made small talk with him, while I shuffled towards the wine rack, keeping a wary eye on him the whole time. Calling it a "wine rack," though, is kind of a euphemism because, really, it's where I store any and everything cylindrical. Like water bottles. And vodka bottles. And Lysol.

"What, um, so... how long have you been in the neighborhood?" I asked, lamely.

"My family's been here for eons," he said, wiggling his antennae at me disconcertingly, and searching my kitchen floor for a dropped morsel or twelve.

"Eons? Really?" I said, perhaps a little too fakely, as he picked up one of his six, hairy legs and made to pivot on it.

But I was faster than he was, and whipped out the Lysol and sprayed him right in the face.

The overwhelming scent of "Fresh" must have pissed him off, because he shoved me against the bookcase -- which is odd, since the bookcase is in the office, two rooms away -- and ran under the stove, which he lifted over his head with one leg.

"THAT. STUNG," he said, clearly miffed.

"Sorry!" I shouted, whined, and moaned all at the same time, while rapidly putting on shoes and searching for the sixteen year old can of Raid I thought for sure I had inherited when my roommate and I split five years ago. No dice. It was Lysol all the way tonight.

He stuck his head out from under the stove again, and this time he was wearing a U.S. Army-issued gas mask. "Fuck you!" he said, and blew past FloJo while sprinting to the fridge.

This wasn't happening to me. I mean, I'm no neat freak, but I do mop my floors.

"Hey!" he said from the safety of the fridge's underside, "Did you know there are some raisins under here?"

"Yeah," I said, chagrined. "I dropped a couple of grapes earlier in the summer. They tasty?"

"Not bad," he said, munching away. I stuck my head down to his level to see if he was nearby. As soon as I stood and backed away, though, he made his fatal error. He stuck his head out again to show me how light and fluffy the grapes-turned-raisins had become.

And I sprayed that fucker with all the Freshness I had.

He spun around in a circle and made a mad dash for the stove. But this time I was ready for him. I was wearing my clodhoppers.

BLAM!

My foot hit the floor and there was no roach underneath it.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

I slammed again, and this time, much to everyone's surprise, delight, and absolute utter horror, he was dead. With his guts hanging out.

And that was the gross part. He had guts. And they were hanging out. And that seemed so Not Right to me that I had to spray the whole affair with Lysol again, just to make sure that it was Fresh.

I'm not a paper towel user, as they're pretty unenvironmental, but there was no way I was going to use and wash a rag on this scumsucker, so I got a paper towel and prepped for the disposal. I was prepared to cover my tracks, and they'd never pin this one on me -- assuming anyone was missing this bastard in the first place.

But one paper towel just didn't seem enough. So I got another. You know, just in case.

And in one well-orchestrated move, the evidence was gone. The cops would never think to blame me. Because only the Freshness remained.

Oh, and this picture: