Snookie's Avenger

Friday Editorial at Cynical Sarah:

Snookie's Avenger

Cursed Tongue Guide to Surviving a Toaster Oven Fire

The key to surviving a toaster oven fire is to be prepared for disaster. Every house/apartment/meth lab should have a fire extinguisher rated for flammable liquid fires, and electrical fires.

• Don’t be surprised that your smoke alarm didn’t go off when the kitchen is full of smoke just because it goes off every time you make toast
• Don’t Panic
• Don’t open the toaster oven door
• Don’t pour water on the fire
• Don’t pour Windex on the fire
• Don’t drive to the Wal-Mart

1. Unplug the toaster oven
2. Get the fire extinguisher
3. Read the instructions on the extinguisher, which you should have read before you went anywhere near the toaster oven
4. Point the fire extinguisher at the toaster oven
5. Follow the instructions on your fire extinguisher
6. If the toaster oven has stopped burning skip to step 9
   
7. If there are still flames licking the toaster oven, call the fire department
8. Leave the area, wait for fire department
   
9. Spend five hours cursing yourself for not setting the timer while you clean up the fine potassium bicarbonate powder off of every surface in your kitchen, including ones you didn’t even realize you had
10. Open windows to air out the space
11. Place bowls filled with vinegar on the counters to mitigate the smell of smoke
12. Now you can drive to Wal-Mart for a new toaster oven and fire extinguisher

A Tale of Two Accents

To commemorate “Bloody Sunday,” and compete for black voters both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama spoke at churches in Selma, Alabama.

In her speech Hillary Clinton affected a horribly butchered Southern accent. It was so bad, I was surprised when I saw the visual records of her speech she was wearing a real belt instead of a rope, and she was not chewing on a stalk of wheat. She wasn’t even carrying a brown jug with Xs painted on it. Listen for yourself if you think I’m crazy. Her accent was really that bad.

Now, I don’t have any qualms telling Britney Spears she needs a better publicist. If there’s something at which Spears excels it is creating situations that are cries for help. And therefore, she was practically begged for my advice. But Clinton, a lawyer, a politician, a capable woman who was co-President for eight years, a woman who managed to raise a daughter who isn’t an out-of-control mental. I feel uncomfortable advising her. But if she’s going to insist on acting down-homey, and accessible she needs to add a drama coach to her entourage.

It couldn’t possibly be that she fell into a Southern accent because she used to have one. She was born and raised in a rich suburb of Chicago, Illinois. She went on to college in Massachusetts, not moving to Arkansas until she was 26 or 27, far past her formative years.

Barack Obama also adopted a Southern accent during his speech. Even though he was born Honolulu, Hawaii, and lived there and in Jakarta until college. (I’ve never been to Jakarta, but I’m reasonably certain that chances are slim that he picked up a Southern accent there.) Not that I excuse him from being a Faky Fakerton, but he affected his Southern accent with a much lighter hand.

Clinton’s twang faded in and out and was downright insulting, and I’m not even from the South. I’m sure Clinton didn’t mean to offend Southern voters by butchering a Southern accent. I’m sure it was a misstep, a miscalculation.

She must have figured that talking like an idiot worked for George W. Bush, so it could work for her. Hooked on Phonics may have worked for Bush, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right method for teaching people with a fully functioning brain to read.

What To Do If You Bought Your Wife a Retractable Laptop Mouse at the Intel Gift Shop Yesterday

You messed up big time. Yesterday, you realized, by the talk about restaurant reservations what day it was. Valentine’s Day. Some inexplicably unromantic part of your male brain told you it was a good idea to go to the gift shop that happens to be in the building where you work

You get there and see that the Valentine’s merchandise has been picked over. There is a singing, dancing gorilla that doesn’t do anything when you press the button, a couple of cards that say “Happy Valentine’s Day, Grandmother,” and the usual Intel paraphernalia and office supplies. Maybe it’s Valentine’s panic that inflicts you with temporary idiocy. You know you’re in trouble, and you could still stop at Target for slippers, but for some reason you think it’s a good idea to buy a retractable laptop mouse.

Your wife has a laptop. She would love a retractable mouse to go with it. I’m sure she practically swooned when she peered into the plastic shopping bag to reveal a treasure trove of cheap electronics. The disappointed look on her face makes you think that you should have gone with the broken love monkey. But what you should have done was spend some time thinking of a thoughtful gift.

It is not punishment enough that you slept on the couch last night. You will most definitely be getting the silent treatment from anywhere to 24 to the next 72 hours.

Your wife will never forget that you couldn’t even be bothered to stop at the grocery store for roses that would expire within 12 hours of being charged to your Visa, you big spender, you. You’ve created ammunition for your wife in arguments for years to come. You will have forgotten all about this Valentine’s Day and will find yourself in an argument where she claims you don’t pay enough attention to her, and she will pull the story of the time you went to the company gift shop to get her a Valentine’s present.

Then she’ll bring up the year you brought home Valentine’s wiper blades. And you think she’s done, but she brings up that teddy you bought her that was not only something you saw in a Britney Spears video, but also two sizes too large. By now you’re singing the Meow Mix theme song in your head, because you just can’t take it anymore.

Save yourself from a laundry list of horribly thoughtless gifts. You could have gotten a CD from a favorite band, a book from a favorite author. You could have schlepped to the mall and bought her a box of See’s candy. But it’s too late now. You’re in for make-up jewelry, and it better not be Wal-mart jewelry.

Motherly Advice

This weekend I have a baby shower to attend. There's nothing I love more than dressing up and being in a room 90% full of complete strangers. The best part is eating refreshments in front of said complete strangers, while trying to conceal the fact that I am a complete slob.

One of the activities at the shower will be creating a scrapbook page with motherly advice. I decided to create a few practice pages in advance, in hopes of cutting down on the "What's taking that idiotic slob so long?" embarrassment. And I have found out that I have absolutely no motherly advice, being only a wife, and therefore merely "playing house" as one gracious, lovely Aunt put it.

I do, however, have plenty of questionable advice:

Wanted: Publicist for Britney Spears:

Must write talking points, and have patience to drill her on said talking points. Must have steady hand, in order to assist with make-up application, an eye for proportion for choosing of clothing and must be able to keep constant tabs on Ms. Spears’ hairbrush, which has a tendency to go missing. Must be willing to periodically delouse client, due to frequent exposure to lax bather. Must be willing to hold slightly used gum during television interviews. Must instruct Ms. Spears in deportment. No college degree necessary.

Recap of car crash interview with Matt Lauer.