reverb cheating list

nice enigmatic title, right? you're probably thinking "is this some kind of echoing list about a swindle, a flimflam, a bamboozle, AN EFFING HOODWINK?" (tyvm thesaurus.com) and to that i laugh and say WELL, OBVIOUSLY, OR IT COULD BE IN REFERENCE TO ME CHEATING ON REVERB 10, which is this totally awesome thing you could do if you were committed and insightful and prone in any way to self-reflection, like rebecca or her friend scott or any number of clever people out there on the interwebs. but as dedicated readers of this blog, you already know i DECIDEDLY DO NOT fall into any of these categories. but guys, it's like they were totally taunting me with the prompt for the eleventh, which had the phrase "make a list of eleven things" right in the first sentence! (okay, i'm reading it over again and nowhere does it actually say "make a list." BUT IT IS STRONGLY IMPLIED. PLUS THERE'S NUMBERS). and so, as a treat to myself on this cold winter's night after working a hundred thousand million days in a row, i'm making this goddamn list and not even thinking about doing any of the other prompts AND THERE'S NOT A DAMN THING ANYONE CAN DO ABOUT IT.

so then i took a closer read (i admit, the first time i read it, all i saw was LISTLISTLISTLISTLIST), and this is the actual prompt.

"December 11 – 11 Things What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life? (Author: Sam Davidson)"

well, fuck. i don't even think i HAVE eleven things, you guys! of course, i did move into a house full of things that, while they aren't mine, per say, they are mine, like, a little bit, and i would very happily get rid of them if i didn't think i would come home from work the next day and find the locks changed and all my clothes out on the front lawn. because these things are sentimental, you guys. examples of these sentimental things include:

1. sentimental kraft dinner that expired in 1996 (and here i bet you didn't even know that kraft dinner expired at all! don't say i never taught you anything)
2. sentimental frozen juice containers (you know the plastic ones with the foil lids that you peel back? do they even make those any more?)
3. sentimental vicks vaporub
4. ten years worth of sentimental maxim magazines
5. sentimental holey socks, probably
6. etc.

but making this list really would be a bamboozle AND a hookwink, because a) they really aren't my things and b) i'm never going to get rid of them because someone i love loves them and therefore i love them too. so even though it might be a super big challenge, i am now going to tell you about, wait for it, ELEVEN THINGS I WILL GET RID OF IN 2010.

1. sentimental tube of lipstick - a while back my favourite curly-haired newlywed, lindsay, gave me a tube of lipstick as a gift for driving her to the chiropractor every week when she hurt her back and didn't have a car (what can i say. i'm an angel!). then that night i put on that lipstick and a sexy dress and we went out for indian food and drank our faces off and flirted with the waiter and it was the very best girl's night in the whole world and it was the very best lipstick in the whole world and i can't get it here in thunder bay. so i keep the empty tube in my car and sometimes i dip my pinky finger in there to see if i can dig some out but really the only thing i dig out is sadness.
2. sentimental thai take-out - OMG YOU GUYS SPEAKING OF THINGS I LEFT IN MY CAR! one day cory and i and my friend shannon went to this place in thunder bay that makes indian food and thai food and we discovered that they are much, MUCH better at the indian part of it. so we had a bunch of thai leftovers, and i vaguely remember cory taking them but then we didn't have them in the house so i thought shannon must have taken them. then a few weeks later, i was at work and shannon had to borrow my car, and when she got back she was all "your car smells like thai food!" and i was like, "haha, that's weird." then i started thinking about it and i was like "hmmm." and then "could it be?" and then "IS IT?" and then "nah" and then "hahahaha." then i went out to my car and there was a brown paper bag on the floor of the passenger side, and i was like, no, that's totally just an empty mcdonald's bag because my car is a sty and that's what i do, i throw empty mcdonald's bags on the floor of the passenger side. then i picked it up and was like, "oh. thai food." but you guys, that's not even the worst part. the worst part is, i stuffed the bag into a plastic bag and hung it over the gear shifter and IT'S STILL THERE. but it's okay, because the plastic bag totally means it's in the garbage, right?
3. mismatched socks - i have this thing about odd socks. i feel really sad for them. they go off on this big adventure, like on my feet or in a suitcase or a washing machine, and then somewhere along the way they get separated, can't find each other, and they're calling each others' names, like "LEFT! WHERE ARE YOU!?" "OVER HERE, RIGHT!" "I CAN'T SEE YOU!" "RIGHT!" "LEFT! I STILL CAN'T SEE YOU!" "RIGHT, DON'T LEAVE ME! DON'T LEAVE ME RIGHT!" "LEFT! NOOOOOO!" and i am always totally think that the moment i throw right out, like, bruce willis or someone will save left and left will be all "RIGHT! I MADE IT! RIGHT! I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU THE WHOLE TIME! RIGHT? RIGHT...? uh, right...?" fuck, you guys, i totally just talked myself out of this. please give me some moral support.
4. slap chop - i bought cory a slap chop and a graty last year, mostly just for the graty, which turned out to be THE BIGGEST PIECE OF SHIT AND DON'T EVER BUY IT EVER. but the slap chop was awesome, you guys--for the fifteen seconds it actually worked. then it broke. and now i keep it in the cupboard, and sometimes i take it down and poke it a little, and then i put it back in the cupboard, and then cory says "i'll take a look at it" but then he never does, and it just sits there taking up valuable cupboard space. and i'm basically going to go throw it out right now. or at least poke at it again.
5. mismatched tupperware lids - okay, so to be fair, most of the tupperware was here before i moved in, but i think it's okay to include on this list because a) i sort of think of the kitchen as my domain, you know, minus the sentimental kraft dinner and the sentimental juice etc. and b) the fact that they are mismatched is probably due to me and my ability to lose things without ever even touching them. but that tupperware cupboard is SCARY. every time i open it i risk being showered in plastic. and it's not just tupperware: it's empty cream cheese tubs and sour cream tubs and margarine tubs and every other fucking tub under the sun and I'M SICK OF IT ALL. i should not have to live in fear of my fucking cupboard. that shit is FINISHED. and to those of you who are all "yeah but what about them getting separated and calling each other's name and all that stuff," i say bitches, please. they're fucking TUPPERWARE CONTAINERS. they don't have feelings. god.
6. my laptop - if i was going to make a list of things i hate about my laptop, it would go like this: EVERYTHING. the "e," "d," and "3" key don't work, as some of you might remember, so i have to carry an aux keyboard with me at all times. it scorches my legs, has zero battery life, pieces of random plastic frequently just fall off of it, and it has about 0.00000004 megs of ram and the world's most depressing graphics card. oh, by the way, did i mention that it JUST RANDOMLY GIVES ME THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH ABOUT TWICE A DAY? i'm sorry, laptop, i mean, we've had some good times, and i know that i've ridden you super hard these past four years. but, let's face it, you almost lost my entire new manuscript last week. that's something i can't really forgive you for. plus, ps, you're a computer. it's not like you're, i don't know, a tube of lip gloss or something.
7. pennies - as every single fucking customer told me at my till today (as if i don't listen to cbc radio like the rest of you! god),  there's a private member's bill in the senate right now proposing to eliminate the penny. while, as someone who spends way too much of her life counting pennies, i give a wholehearted FUCK YEAH to that idea, i also give a wholehearted UH, CAN YOU WAIT FOR A MINUTE WHILE I ROLL THIS SHIT UP AND CASH IT IN? cause i have a lot of pennies to cash in. and if i do, think of all the tupperware i will free up to fall on my head.
8. that other thing that i totally should throw away - i don't know you guys, i don't think there is anything else that i can legitimately call mine to throw away. i might have to call this list a failure. maybe i should have made a list of things to get in 2010, like a toque or an external hard drive or a copy of my book (seriously, the last couple of readings i've had to borrow cory's copy. which is a bummer cause it's covered in drawings of penises. okay, that's not true. but it could be. that totally seems like something he would do).