The Rat Chronicles: (Part I) Google the Poop

                A few weeks ago I moved into a new apartment, got a new job, and started being a grown up. The roommates and I had to deal with some of the usual new apartment issues. Our pilot light went out on the heater, we had a really bad clog in the shower, and we found out that the apartment came with an extra roommate. Yeah, there are four of us now, and two dogs. Oh, it’s not like he takes up much space because he is a rat. YES! My wonderful new apartment that was “such a great deal” has a rat in it!

                I first discovered a small rat turd, ok a large rat turd, in the middle of the bathroom floor. I decided to ignore it. I was busy and it could be anything. I mean, I had never seen mouse poo that large and I refused to believe that a rat would live where humans live in Los Angeles, California. Rats live in New York City. Everyone knows that. About 3 days later, I find another one, and I decide to tell the roommie. She and I had minor panic attacks and start searching through the rest of the house. We find more evidence and have major panic attacks. Then the animal instincts kick in, and I HAVE to kill it. There is nothing that can satisfy me besides the death of this rat!

                Roommie and I decide to buy traps, but I’m not an idiot, I know that the first mistake I can in this war is to underestimate my opponent. If you don’t understand and know your enemy, then how do you know who you’re fighting? First things first, I download The Art of War then I get to work. I need to be sure that we have a rat and not a huge mouse. So I google the size of the poop. That worked. They had scale drawings. We definitely had a rat on our hands. I couldn’t seem to find a good source on how to kill a rat that didn’t gross me out. Lots of blood, gore, and videos with machine guns…not kidding.

                So I head to the store. I wanted a regular snap trap, but roommie thought that Folic Acid would do the trick. Too bad folic acid prevents spina bifida, doesn’t kill rats. However, those rats would have the healthiest babies ever! We go to buy the traps, but nowhere open in the middle of the night in LA sells rat traps. (A little known fact about LA, everything closes super early. I think it’s from all the crime. There is no 24 hour Walmart, and very few 24 hour restaurants. It’s disgusting) My thinking is that mouse traps are better than no traps at all, but a man at the store begs to differ. He tells me to A) tell my landlord and B) not buy the mouse trap. He seems to think that the rat will just look at the trap and laugh and me (and evil squeaky laugh) and then he will know that he is superior. This man was right. The rat is superior.

(Tune in Next Time!)

Make Little Brittany Proud: What 8 year old me would have wanted.

Ukraine welcom to the blog. Bienvenido!

Remember that nun that I thought lived down the street and had weird habits? Well one day I saw her running just as fast as she could down the street (still in nun garb) and then stopped, turned around, and ran just as fast back the other way. A few days later. I was watching Law and Order and I saw a bunch of Orthodox Jews, and I realized that was her outfit! She's not a weird nun. She's just a teen Hasidic Jew! So relieved. 

Here's a song I'm obsessed with: 

Totally unrelated:

Well, it’s the middle of January and I realize that my New Year’s Resolutions are pretty crappy. (Because I never made any) So I am going to make some.

So I have to look over my life and see what I doing and what I want to do. As I do this, I start thinking about me as a kid. I’ve been thinking about being a kid a lot lately. My toys, my dreams, my desires, and my intense imagination. Most of my strongest memories are my imaginary ones.  So I think, what life would make little Brittany proud? And I know exactly what I need to do. I need to become a LA county lifeguard, who is a part-time cartoonist, and a part-time pig trainer. (I had varied interests as a kid). Ok as you may have guessed, I’m not a fantastic swimmer. So, this life isn’t going to be as perfect as I may have hoped. I recently found a list that I had written to myself 10 years ago, of things that I wanted to do before I died. And as much as I wish, get a BA in Spanish, meet Tim Allen, and buy a car were on that list, they aren’t. I have to make some changes to make 8 year old Brittany proud.

So here is a short summary of life right now:

-I’m job hunting, that’s gross, but has to happen again. Starbucks doesn’t really pay actual bucks

-I’m moving soon. We needed our own rooms.

- I need to eat lunch soon (that one was for me)

-I’ve started the open mics around town and am getting this standup comedy thing on its feet. It’s standing up…almost.

- I’ve been doing improv shows every week, and that’s cool. It’s always good to A) exercise your brain B) exercise you voice C) Meet people D) Be creative.

-I’m writing stuff, very slowly, but writing things. I need to finish something soon.

- I’m also acting silly, dancing around, making references that most people at the table won’t get, making friends, scaring people, hoping to go to Disneyland, and trying to stay away from the cops.

Basically just being me, but I realize that much of what I feel I was known for (ie having great birthday parties and initiating sing-a-longs) has been pretty much lost.

Here come the New Years resolutions!!!!

 I hereby resolve to:

-Finish writing something great

- Have 30 minutes of brilliant stand up

-Only invest my time in things that I love. I will live by my passions. That is why I left so much back in the ol’ K-tuck.

-I will not work a job I don’t like,

-I will not be friends with people who I do not enjoy.

-I will not eat food I think is yucky.

-I will not wear anything that I feel isn’t great. I will make my 8 year old self super proud!

-I will attempt to cultivate a group of people who will celebrate an epic birthday with me,

-I will also attempt to cultivate a group of people who will have a sing-a-long with me. I can do it. 

I’m working for the most powerful rodent in the world. #6

I work for “Mouse Works Inc.”. My first real day was to work the press junket for a film we will call, Autos 2. (It’s the sequel to Autos.) My job for the day was to, and I quote my manager, “Stand here and look pretty.” So, I stood next to a hand sanitizer dispenser for 5 hours in the cold. Yes, back when this happened, it was pretty cold here. I know what you’re thinking, “Wasn’t it really great to work the press junket? There were reporters and celebrities, and interesting interviews!” Well, I will tell you, YES it was pretty great. I got to see great interviews with really interesting people on topics that interest me. Yes, autos and animation interest me. I never claimed to have sophisticated interests. However, I also realized something, when you work for a giant corporation with endless funds; they have no problem paying you to do nothing. A major part of my “standing there and looking pretty” was “not to talk to anyone.” That is very hard for me. Very hard!  It’s even harder when the people who are standing around you notice that you have been standing in one spot for hours and they start asking you questions, like, “Why are you here?” What was I supposed to do, play Pictionary? I had to answer them.

So, now we have another entry of here’s what I said, here’s what I wanted to say:  

            They would ask: What are you doing? You’ve been standing here for hours. Or they would say. Why are you standing here? Or what’s your job today?

            I wanted to say: I have no idea. They told me to stand here, look pretty, smile and not talk to you. I think they are just trying to A) guard their stuff from you and your grubby hands and B) make it look like there are more people here. It makes the entire situation more exciting when there are more people here.

            I really said: I am demonstrating how to use this hand sanitizer. Would you like a demonstration? Then I would giggle and show them how to use the automatic hand sanitizer pump. It’s pretty easy.

They would usually leave me alone after that.  

After 5 hours of watching people interview celebrities, I came to this conclusion; some celebrities are babies. I kind of want to say, “It’s not going to get better than this for you. You are sitting in a chair (I’m standing up) and people are being nice to you, and asking you questions that have no wrong answers, like, do you have a car? Do you like cars? What’s the most fun thing about your car?

After those questions you will get some free food, and the people around the food will be nice to you, and you don’t have to park your own car, or pack your lunch, or make sure that your black pants are clean for tomorrow. You don’t have to find any quarters to wash those black pants. You probably have a washer and dryer in your house, and a wife or nice Mexican lady who knows how to use them. If you are unhappy after all those things, then you need to really examine yourself.  Maybe you followed the wrong dream, because I’m pretty sure all your dreams have already come true at this point and you are still being a baby. Maybe you really wanted to be an administrative assistant. Maybe then you would be happy. If you need help figuring out what you want to do with yourself, I will gladly trade you. You can work at Central Perk and stand here next to this hand sanitizer for 5 hours and I will sit in that chair and have people kiss my butt. I hope that helps!