My Coat

We had been having some yo-yo weather in Minnesota and one day I grabbed a wool jacket to wear to work. Of course it warmed up mid-afternoon and so I forgot the jacket in the conference room (I had a very important business lady meeting there and I was running fashionably late so I didn't stop by my office prior to). 

The next day I asked the receptionist if anybody saw my jacket. Nope.

"Oh well, it will turn up."

Several days and maybe even a couple weeks went by. My friend Tara came into my office to tell me the story of how "somebody" had dropped a coat off in my other friend Alayet's cube. She was excited that somebody was giving her an article of clothing. She went on to tell Tara, though, that the coat had hairs on it and therefore was "dirty and disgusting" and "why would somebody give me this filthy coat?" Turns out somebody assumed since it was an XS that it was Alayet's (which is a compliment to me since she weighs about 87 pounds).

I told Tara that I forgot the jacket in the conference room and we laughed for 27 minutes.

I mean, "filthy"?

"Dirty"?

"Disgusting"?

Look how she drowns in it.

Hal-isms, Vol. 65

A Voicemail from Hal:

"Kady I know it's hard for you to believe that I can tell about people like Prince and I can...just know everything...I know you think it's not true but we went to a wedding anniversary today and they had a jar fulla candy and you were supposed to pick the number...I guessed two hundred and twelve and hit it RIGHT ON THE MONEY. I know it's bragging and it isn't meant to be and mom's starting to call me Rain Man. Bye."

Zach-isms, Vol. 1

Meet my husband, Zach. He's the sweetest and handsomest fellow in all the land and someday I will tell you all about how we met and fell in love, but for now -- the first installment of Zach-isms:

Sometimes he says them when he's still sleeping:

"Is there really M&M's for sale?"

...and sometimes when he's still awake:

"After being married for a few months I now know that women's poops don't not smell."

"Which chin should I kiss?" 

"I saw my friend Brian the baker. His name is Brian and he's a baker."

...and sometimes I get really excited when Nora McInerny Purmort retweets a picture of my uglyface review of her book to her 10,000 Twitter followers:

"Why do you want 10,000 people to see your ugly cry face?" 

Sunday Favorites: Pure Poetry

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to re-post an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on August 6, 2013:

My brother sent me this text tonight -- a photo of a poem I wrote to him when I was younger:

If you can't read it, here's a transcript:

ODE TO PETE

My love for you Pete

stretches from here to Crete

it will outlast time

and unlike a mime

it proclaims loud and clear

that I hold you so dear

your picture I hold close to my heart

even though in the past in my face you would fart

hold me down on the floor

from your butt the juice would pour

I could not withstand

the force of your hands

holding me down

in your stench I would drown

the air would turn grey

but...I love you anyway

BONUS JOKE:

How do we know Jeffrey Dahmer was a careless smoker?

He left BUTTS behind the couch.*

*#1: The Jeffrey Dahmer reference dates this poem to approximately 1992, or me at 15. #2: I'm so sorry. That joke is terribly insensitive and I would slap my 15-year-old self up if I had a time machine. Who am I kidding? If I had a time machine I would slap my 15-year-old self up for perming my short hair:

My apologies to the victims' families.

Even the Candadians Have Them!

Four-...and sometimes five-leafed clovers!

As seen in Montreal, Quebec

Hal-isms, Vol. 64

"I rest my case."

"We have to take your mother to her posthumous cancer appointment."

"I see in the news that Butterboy didn't do so well but who knows what the lies are?"

Kady: "Dad - sometimes in life all you have is your family."

Hal: "Oh, BS. I got my dog and my guns."

Some Favorites From my Garden

World's Tallest Filing Cabinet

Somewhere in Burlington Vermont in the middle of a field lies the World's Tallest Filing Cabinet. It's in the Guinness Book of World Records and everything!

I had to see it. Had to! Especially with these ringing endorsements from all of these exciting people on Trip Advisor:

Best day of my life.

Kasey 'n' Kids

My sister Kasey has been driving the same crappy van for about 27 years. She loads up her three kids and all their crap and drives them around and it keeps on running and so she keeps on driving it. She found some letter stickers and instead of saying Ford Van or Chevy Van or whatever it is, now it says:

 "KASEY             'N'                 KIDS"

Kasey's not the best driver. She got her license later than most small-town teens, and then only out of necessity because I moved out of the house. 

Anyway -- the other day I met up with her for dinner and the two of us ended the night at our other sister Kelly's condo in a downtown St. Paul neighborhood, whose scant parking leaves visitors only a few options, one of which is using the assigned parking garage: an insanely difficult to navigate web of tight turns and concrete pillars.

I was following Kasey in my car. When it was her turn to enter the garage, I and another stranger in a different car watched in horror as Kasey's van jammed itself inexplicably into the wall to the right-hand side of the garage opening. 

...and we continued watching as Kasey simply shrugged her shoulders, punched and held the gas, forcing the van ever further into the garage -- taking the entire side of her van with it.

...leaving this beautiful heart-shaped mark. 

Sunday Favorites: Treat Yo'Self

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to re-post an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared when I was a man working in Arizona back on November 16, 2011:

We get a lot of looks.

Everybody stares at the water meter installers in the neighborhood. Some come up to ask what we're doing, but they all do a huge double-take when they realize we are women.

If we go into any kind of store we get lots of attention in these crazy getups.

I think it's just a little unexpected to see girls in any sort of stereotypical male job. It's been a very interesting social experiment actually. And of course it only makes me feel super tough and strong.  I like to do things like swing my pick ax or throw heavy things when people are watching.

Another thing I like to do when kids are getting on or off the school bus is to say, "Stay in school kids!" with a shrug of my shoulders, even though I KNOW they are thinking what a cool job I have.  And it is cool. Really cool. Part of what we have to do is collect a bunch of the metal pit lids from in front of people's homes and deliver them to have holes drilled in them. Then we bring them back with the holes. I think we would be drilling the holes except I broke two drill bits on one hole. (The holes hold the radios that we install and program.) Anyway, for this part of our job, one of us drives and the other one of us rides in the back of the SUV with the hatch open. Our code word is "hop pop" when we're ready for the driver to drive to the next one.  I use my pick ax to pry the lids up and this part of our job looks really cool, trust me. I always tell the kiddies that the holes are for putting quarters in.  (I'm hoping I can get a secondary source of income.) Today I got a little girl to dig an entire hole for me. It took forever but hey, I needed the break.

I digress.  The point of this post is to discuss gender disparity amongst manual labor workers.

Not really.  Anyway, I've discussed before how I always feel like a dude because I look like this at work:

And we work. We work ten to twelve hours a day. I never wear makeup and I never get dressed up. When I get home I shower and put on my new pajama sweater dress I bought at Old Navy for $5.97 and fall asleep in a chair in front of reruns of 30 Rock at 8:45pm:

And Summer takes photos.

Today we decided we needed to do treat ourselves...and got Pedicures next door to the FedEx office we frequent for paperwork shipments back to Minnesota. All the ladies at the shop stared and double-taked just as much as the neighbors when we're elbow-deep in their water meter pits.

We're pariahs. We don't fit in the man's world of basic plumbing and we don't fit in the woman's world of Asian pedicure shops.  

Oh Well and Oh Man it felt good to look feel like a woman for 45 minutes.

Treat Yo'self!

Photo Special: Montreal

HUH? Wait. WHAT?

I hate it when people bust me taking their photo. OOPS. I had to pretend I was just "taking pictures of other things".

Misunderstanding

I got this text from my friend Laurissa who was vacationing in Greece:

Trendsetting