Things I Love and Hate, Simultaneously, at the Same Time, Concurrently.
By Yarnista
1. Gummi bears.
Why, WHY do I have to like these things? There is nothing redeeming about them. Nothing. At least with chocolate, I can appease my inner critic with the fact that they have a modicum of heart healthy blah blah blah and that Snickers have peanuts blah blah and that chocolate is a naturally occurring food yadda yadda.
Gummi bears, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?
2. Fruit Roll Ups.
What the heck? Am I eight years old? Why are these so delicious? I mollify my conscience by buying the all natural ones, but things have gotten out of hand. Last week, I didn't bring a lunch to the studio, so I scrounged our snack bar and ended up with a cup of tea, a handful of almonds and four Fruit Roll Ups. Someone asked, "Eating Fruit Roll Ups for lunch again?" Apparently, I eat Fruit Roll Ups for lunch all the time and didn't know it. Now I'm sleep-eating dehydrated fruit?
Fruit Roll Ups, OFF WITH YOUR SCRUMPTIOUS LITTLE HEADS.
3. Minnesota winter water.
Here in American Siberia, we get our water from Lake Superior.
Yes, the water is filtered and cleaned before it comes out of the tap. The water tastes fresh and delicious. But the water is 4,000 degrees below zero. There are stalactites in my bathroom from a dripping faucet. You could cryogenically freeze yourself for scientific purposes in this water.
I know that the Minnesota police will come and revoke my residency card as soon as they read this, but the water is really too cold to drink. It is colder than ice water. It doesn't just hurt your teeth, it coats your teeth with ice, so you have vampire fangs that you subsequently cut your lip with.
It takes forty five minutes for the hot water to make it from your basement to the tap in the kitchen where you're trying to wash your hands after chopping garlic. Your choices are to die of hypothermia while washing your hands in the 4,000 degrees below zero tap water or stand there for six hours with your garlicky hands waiting for the water to warm up.
4. Children's toys that were delivered by Satan instead of Santa.
You know the kind. They make insidious noises, they creep around corners, they lurk in dark hallways, they autoclave glop to your wood floors, until one day you insist that the toy be put away, even though it's fun, even though it's educational, which then makes your child cry, which then makes them tell you that you're not their mother anymore, which then makes you say, "I don't care what you say, I am your mother, I grew you for seventy-five months and I say put the toy away," which then makes them ask why, mommy, why, and then you answer -- ready for it? -- because I am your mother and I said so.
I feel like I'm on Family Feud and I'm on Team Mommy, and when the host poses the question, "We asked 100 people to name the first lesson they learned from their mother. What did the survey say?"
When it's my turn, I'll excitedly jump up and down and yell, "BECAUSE I'M YOUR MOTHER AND I SAID SO!!!!" and everyone else on Team Mommy will clap and yell, "GOOD ANSWER! GOOD ANSWER!"
Y'all are going to yell "Good Answer!" aren't you?
5. Chocolate Labrador Horsedogs.
I love her. She eats my shoes. I love her. She chews my pillows. I love her. She has terrible gas. I love her. She puts her giant horsepaws on the counter and brazenly steals food. I love her, but she is the size of a Shetland Pony. I love her, she has soft ears and warm brown eyes and a sweet disposition, but she is so very, very bad. When I come home from work, half of the accessories in the house are on top of the piano, having been rescued from the Horsedog's Jaws of Destruction.
But I love her.
And that's all I have to say about that.
Sincerely,
Yarnista
Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 6:47PM 
