Bake for 9 to 10 years (AKA "...And it’s more than just a rhyming)

I dabble with baking, I’m no pastry chef or anything, but I do know a few simple rules about baking. The temperature of the oven has to be right, as well as timing is pretty important. If you under bake it comes out too doughy, if you over bake its burnt and more than likely dry. There are certain ingredients that are pivotal to the recipe and then others that you can experiment with. It can be easy and fun, but at the same time you can under no circumstances be a reckless baker, if you are just throwing ingredients around or you aren’t setting the oven to the right temperature, or setting the timer to remind you, then you get a mouthful of nastiness.
I’ve had almost a decade of dating experience and more of baking experience and I can’t say that I’ve learned a whole lot from it except that I enjoy baking more than dating. But I will try to pull from my shallow well of knowledge to help you see dating in a baking perspective.

The first rule of baking, the temperature has to be right. In order for dating to work out at all there has to be a form of attraction between the two people involved. If there is no attraction, nothing is going to happen. There has to be something pulling the two people together; weather it’s shallow attraction, sense of humor, common interest/cause, something’s got to be there to begin with, otherwise you are placing the dough in a broken oven and you’re going to be waiting around for a long time with no finished product in the foreseeable future.

Next - timing. Sure, you have the oven ready to go, the temperature is just right, there’s the friendly banter, the constant flirting, so now it’s all about how long to go on before you admit to each other your true feelings. There are the anxious bakers; the ones who want to shout it out right away, but that’s like taking a cake out of the oven prematurely, it deflates. D&D was an anxious baker. He kept opening the oven to see if the cake was ready and I, being the cake, was not ready. Rather I sat in the middle of the oven petrified that someone actually wanted to bake me. Enough of the analogies with me, it’s getting comical thinking of myself as a cake.
Then there is the opposite, closing the oven door and forgetting you’ve got the cake in the oven. You continue to flirt and be friendly, but you’ve left the cake in the freaking oven and you forgot to set the timer! I think we all know what happens to a cake forgotten in the oven at 350 degrees, it burns, starting at the corners and working its way into the middle. A cake, err, girl could grow cynical or bitter from the outside-in waiting for the baker to open the door and take her out of the oven. If the baker is not careful the cake could grow to hate him for leaving her in the oven so long and in the end, it is the cake that ends up hurt and temporary ruined for other bakers to enjoy.

It’s okay to experiment with some ingredients, you can choose different chips to put into the recipe for chocolate chips, and the cookie can still turn out well. Those chips could be different personalities, hair colors, body shapes, senses of humor, etc. But then there are ingredients like the egg, or the baking soda, these you cannot experiment with, the real life equivalent to the egg or baking soda depends on your standards, for some it’s that they have to be a member of the same religion, they have to share similar values. Without similar values the cookies won’t turn out right no matter if you have the temperature and the timing worked out perfectly, things on the outside will look like they are progressing smoothly, but when all is said and done they end up flat and tasting a little off, for some people, they’ll keep eating the cookies no matter what (as some people will stay in a relationship they don’t really care about just for the sake of being in a relationship) and for others they will throw the cookie out and start over.

My advice to all you young aspiring bakers (guys), pay attention to the temperature and the timer and for all you baked goods (the ladies) if you feel you’ve been in the oven too long, get out before it’s too late, and chances are it’s not going to work out with the baker that put you there. But maybe despite all the similarities between baking and dating you shouldn’t take advice from someone who thinks its okay to compare them.

Hollywood is Not America

I used to have a picture similar to this one taped to my ceiling so that the last thing I would see before going to bed would be this face. I shouldn't have even been watching 90210, I was too young at the time, but thankfully I had a sister who was just as hooked as I was.

Seeing as how I am still single (shocker) and I mean completely single, not a suitor for miles, and if there are they aren’t being obvious enough for me to pick up on the signals, I’ve decided to take a trip down memory lane of former and possibly renewed Hollywood crushes. You’ll just see random pictures, most of them require no explanation.
On Facebook, yes, I tried to keep that out of my blog, but it’s such a big part of my life somehow...I started a group, “Fictional Characters Have Ruined Me for Real Life Romance.” I’m pretty proud of the group, mostly because through it I have discovered that I am not alone. Fictional characters really have screwed it up for us. I’ve talked about it in the group and I kind of don’t feel like getting into it. Though I did want to point out that none of my k-12 Hollywood crushes were exactly because of their characters in the movies and television shows I saw them in, with the exception of Casper, the friendly ghost (when he was a boy, not that white fluff that flew around the house). I mean, I fell in love with the Source of all evil from Charmed, Cole, many guys I knew/know don’t have to aim high to surpass those standards.

My Hollywood crushes now-a-days are more damaging, like John Thornton from North and South, or Angel Clare from Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Let’s also throw in Indiana Jones, Batman, Leopold (from Kate and Leopold), the main guy from 27 Dresses, and Grigg from Jane Austin Book Club…oh and the guy from Penelope. These guys have looks but they also have a lot of other things going for them, a lot of things I’m not noticing in guys I share geographical proximity with. And with the exception of Leopold and Grigg all these guys can be kind of jerks at times, but I still love them. Real life guy tries to be a jerk and he’s off my list of possible future eternal companions. …Seriously, this is why I don’t get asked out.
Anyway, I just thought I would write a little tribute to all the guys I've never met that made life more interesting and entertainment more enjoyable.

And aside from the brief teenage craze of having Jason Priestly(SP?) on my ceiling, I was given a christmas present my first year out of high school with Jim Caviezel ironed on to a pillow case...I wonder where that is?

Be like the squirrel, girl. Be like the squirrel

I’ve realized that leaving a blog talking about a concussion as the latest one for a week is probably not a good idea, especially when I had been blogging a little more frequently than that. Those of you in different parts of the country don’t have the opportunity to see that I am fine, walking and talking like normal, rather than a veggie in a hospital bed. But then again, those of you who know me also know that I am a hypochondriac and no matter how badly I described it or how potent the potato wedge stench was - fortune never lets me actually be injured. In pain? Yes. Sick to my stomach? Yes. But it’s never serious, and unfortunately the day it is no one will believe that I am not exaggerating.
I thought I should let you know that I have a spider, under a cup, in my room. It’s been there since Monday and it just won’t die. I can’t let it loose because I feel certain that it will only return to my room as I think this is its second visit to my room. I thought I killed him the first time, but when I went to check on his mangled body the next morning it was gone. I knew he had to be alive because I was hoping I didn’t have something else in my room that would make a midnight snack out of a dead spider’s body. He’s like the Russian guy on Lost, don’t know if you watch that show, but the Russian just won’t die and he keeps coming back for more! So my little Russian Spider sits under a cup, under a metal basket, acting as a door stop. Sometimes I tap the glass and watch him scatter from one end to another in his small living space. Sometimes though he jumps at the glass/plastic, cementing my decision to keep him locked up. When he is most certainly dead I’ll scoop his body up with a piece of paper and flush him down the toilet, or maybe I’ll make my roommate do it, just in case he revives. She’s braver.

Tuesday night I realized that Richmond is not a very large city. It made me reminiscent of my misconceptions with Idaho Falls, it was only when I became lost and passed by the Great Harvest Bread store for the third time that I realized I wasn’t dealing with NYC. So Tuesday I had the same revelation about Richmond as I oriented myself and realized that from where I was standing I could see three places that I had previously thought were on opposite sides of the city. No, Richmond is not that small, but I had never realized that Bottom’s Up was right there by Have a Nice Day Café and the old train station. Which meant that they are all close to Broad Street and also near the Farmer’s Market, Poe Museum, and the Capitol.

Also on Tuesday I gave parallel parking another shot. In high school I passed Driver’s Ed pretty effortlessly, with the exception of parallel parking and emergency breaking (that would explain a lot). I have tried to parallel park since high school but have often found ways of avoiding it. Tuesday I realized I was just going to have to parallel park. I found a spot and then spent the next couple of minutes trying to do it right. I started to back in and realized I was either going to hit the wall with my back bumper or the car in front of me with the front bumper. So I pulled out again, and attempted for the second time, again, failure. On the third try I was determined as well as laughing. How embarrassing! I was just hoping that no Yo’s on the street were watching the Bo-Bo (or as little baby Busath would say, Bootsie) West Ender try to parallel park. My only real comfort was that Nicole, a girl from church, was two spots down trying to do the same thing and failing miserably. As I finally got into my spot I saw her drive by, giving up, and a cop driving behind her. I watched to make sure she wasn’t getting pulled over and then decided she had given up because the cop wouldn’t pass her, which in the end turned out to be what really happened.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got for you right now, but I wanted to be certain that you knew I wasn’t dead. Oh and props to Sarah with the squirrel, it may have been an accident but you’ve done our team proud.

You're talking to a man who's laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe... I was petrified.

I hit my head pretty hard last night. Felt sick to my stomach right before going to bed and woke up with a headache. Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up and my arm was killing me, for a split second in my stupor I believed it had to do with my head injury, but then I chalked it up to possibly sleeping on that arm and it seems to feel fine now. This morning I still felt nauseated, I think I’m suffering from cerebral hemorrhaging, actually I just looked it up and by technical definition (a stroke) I am not suffering from cerebral hemorrhaging. But that’s not to say that I’m not hemorrhaging cerebrally. The only symptoms I really seem to have are drowsiness, severe headache and the desire to throw up, though the desire isn’t actually on the list, the real symptom goes beyond the desire and straight to the action. Ah, well, I’m sure I’ll be fine by lunch time. I mean, you all knew I was a hypochondriac right? If not, I am.
P.S. I hate the outfit I have on today, thought it would be okay, and now, after an hour and a half at work I’ve decided I don’t like it.

Spiderman. Spiderman. Does whatever a spider can.

Yesterday at work I had something to do. We are moving buildings, so yesterday these guys came to take our filing cabinets to that we can have them painted to match the new office, because the new office will have some color to it! I’m so excited, I found out yesterday that my cubicle will either be blue or gold, I’m holding my breath for blue, but if it’s gold-ish I’ll just pimp it out like it’s meant to be, complete with pimp-daddy hat on the coat rack and a cane leaning against the wall below it. Maybe I’ll have rap constantly streaming from some rimmed speakers on attached to my computer. Yeah, put baby spinners on those puppies. So for everyone’s sake let’s hope I get the blue, and if I have to have gold, let me have the window! It will make it better. Um, not what I was going to talk about.
Yesterday afternoon I was in a foul mood, not really sure why, but Gena could tell and she asked me what was wrong. I told her nothing, though there was plenty I could have mentioned. So when Julie told me that I could show the guys around downstairs to find all the filing cabinets and bookcases I wasn’t very good at hiding the fact that I didn’t want to. I hate walking around the building with people; I hate giving the tours or walking interviews to the conference room, or worse, upstairs. I don’t know what it is; I’m most definitely not destined to be a tour guide. Not to mention that all the filing cabinets were supposed to be emptied by the 13th and I opened a series of cabinets to find trash and empty hanging file folders in them. I thought, “What the heck does empty mean to you people?” Last I checked the definition didn’t have an addendum on it that said, “except for stuff you no longer need”. So I collected all the trash and file folders and put it on that departments cart, if they want it organized they’ll have to do that. I’m not their mom or babysitter; these people are older than me for goodness sakes.
When Gena was asking me what was wrong I told her that I would be fine in 20 minutes, so I went to my desk and worked on being normal before 20 minutes was up. Then I went to her desk and smiled and she rolled her eyes and told me it was an act and I said, “Gena! Don’t bring me down!” But then I was fine, I was talking to her like I normally do and I wish I hadn’t let my sour mood be so transparent yesterday. But by the time I left my desk she believed I was fine. When the moving guys came downstairs I was okay with showing them where everything was. One of them, I’ll call him Spiderman because he had a huge spider web tattoo, was a talker. Every time he came in he had something to say. At one point we got him two bookcases and he said something about how many we had, my count said seven total. So he grabs a few more filing cabinets and he comes back in and I tell him we have one more bookcase. He says, “I hope more than one I have 10 on my sheet and we only have two in the truck.” So I ignore the comment at first and start going through in my head where all the bookcases were and counted, there was no way we had 10, we had half that. So I call Julie and ask her how many they collected from the third floor. We went upstairs and checked all the locations to make sure we’d gotten them all and then we went downstairs to meet the guys again.
Spiderman tells Julie that he has 13 on his list and I’m wondering how tuned in this guy really is. I mean, 15 minutes ago you had 10 on your list, now you have 13? So he said he’d bring his list in and we could compare list, just to make sure that. As it turns out the person who gave him the list either had a misprint or was severely confused, sure enough the list said 13 tall bookcases, so Spiderman scratched out 13 and wrote in 5, like there should have been. He said he was relieved, because if we had 13 bookcases he would have had to stack them, and that leaves more possibility for damage. That’s great. Then he talked to Gena and I about his tattoos and showed us some of his others. I’m not a tattoo person, but they were very detailed and cool looking, but I hope he knows if he doesn’t keep his arms in shape those tattoos are going to change a little. Then he left. And that was my experience with Spiderman and the best part is, I just had to walk and point for the last 2 hours of work.

Speaking of Favorite Things

Okay, so I know that it's only 9:00 am but I have already been surfing the web. It started this morning when I recieved my daily Dilbert comic strip in my mailbox. I liked it so much that I just had to print it, so I clicked the link to print and it took me to Dilbert.com, from there I was able to read Scott Adams' blog. I used to read it all the time and then just stopped, don't know why, because even though he's a liberal/democrat, something other than republican, I have always enjoyed his blogs.
So after learning about bugs that can make crude oil with their waste products http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4133668.ece I began to read some comments, which led me to another blog, which led me to a pretty cool website that could only hold my interest for 10-15 minutes (after all I've only been at work for 45, so it couldn't have been that long). But it was pretty neat, the link should be below. But you take a picture with just one face in it (oh how I wanted to take a picture with me and someone else but it wouldn't have worked) and then you zoom in on the face and you go through a few steps, then you get to play. But the reason it only held my interest for a few minutes was because you didn't get to choose exactly what happens, you get to choose a "style" and it changes it for you. For your enjoyment I've saved a few of my favorites for you to see.
Some of them are super weird, as though I had a really bad expereince at the tanning bed or something and in the process my mouth always comes out looking funny. Anyway, like I said, I'll post the link, and if any of you are interested in trying it out let me know how yours turn out. You know, post them to your own blogs or something, except Cassie because for some reason I don't get to read her blog (hint-hint). Anyway, here's the link. http://morph.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Transformer/

Not much else is going on except for the obvious boredom, but I think that you guys have guessed at that.

Last night we had Open Mic Night for FHE. I was going to read the poem from Never Been Kissed, but not enough people from my support group were there so I didn't have the guts to do it. But the evening turned out pretty well. I was worried that it might be awkward and there were certain times that it was, but over all I think everyone did a really good job and I'm glad I didn't flake out like some people...oh, I mean, uh, I love my roommates! Just kidding.
I wish I weren't so bored this early in the day.

These are a few of my favorite things...

It’s raining outside, in fact it’s a thunderstorm. I recently made my happy list (Thanks Mary). Thunderstorms were on it. Other things that made the list are:

*Slurpee’s
*PTO and Holiday Pay
*My dog
*Winter and East coast falls
*Work closing early
*Baking New Recipes
*Making my family laugh
*Having my back scratched
*Sitting next to a boy I like
*My Nephews
*Quick come backs
*Sleeping In
*Snow
*Studying Criminology
*Ukrop’s cake
*Snicker doodles
*Skirts
*Splashing in rain puddles
*Fuzzy Socks
*Basketball
*Cinnamon crunch bagels
*Music
*Jelly Shoes (80’s)
*Me Time

I like the idea of a happy list, but there’s opposition in all things so today when I was driving I started to think of things for my unhappy list. Actually, my thought was, “That’s not a happy list item,” which made me realize that for the Happy List to exist there must be an equally opposite Unhappy List. I can’t help it; it’s the pessimist in me.

*Railroad tracks
*Blood
*Spiders
*Meetings
*Sour Milk
*Car Accidents/Fender Benders
*Cooking dinner
*Ironing
*Wet socks
*Folding Laundry
*Paper Cuts

I’m sure that there are many, many things to add to both lists, but it’s all I have for you now.

My greatest fear, is that the African dining squirrel might have already dined. That would be terrible.

This is for Sarah:
This morning I get into my car, turn the key in the ignition and backed out of the driveway. I get onto the road and put my car into drive, I start heading out slowly on the street because even though I am late I don’t want my new neighbors to think I’m some reckless driver. As I come up on the yield sign I see a squirrel standing in the middle of the road. You know how it is, they stand on their hind legs and hold their front ones by their chest and then give you the blank stare as though they don’t know what you are doing. Here I come, a huge charcoal silver car, coming straight at the squirrel and he stares at me like he doesn’t know he’s inches from death. I slowed the car to a stop, he continues to stand there and in a fit of madness I begin to laugh, “Seriously?” I asked Traffic Control Squirrel. He’s lucky I have a problem with hitting animals. Finally he moves to the side of the road and watches as I pass on by. I'm suspicious that possibly another squirrel ran under the car while I was stopped and placed a tracking device, but what can you do? So there’s a squirrel story for Sarah, hope you enjoyed.
So in other news, I went to Wal-Mart the other day (Tuesday). In case you are wondering why Wal-Mart comes up a lot now we live extremely close to one now. So my roommate and I went together, when it came time to get in line I stood between two registers, not sure which one to go to because even though one would only take a few moments longer than the other one I felt the urge to pick the fastest. My roommate, Emily, walks by and steps in front of me into the line on my right – rude. So I think, “I’ll show her” and go to the other line, why do I have to be so competitive? So when I’m in line I tend to stare at magazine covers or look at all the chocolate that I want nothing to do with, but still stare at as though I’m contemplating which to buy. This is mostly so I don’t have any awkward moments with other customers or any premature contact with the cashier. Its how I find out important things like how Katherine Hegel lost 14 pounds (because she needed to?) and how Jessica Simpson has been betrayed by someone, can’t remember who at this point. So I’m doing my usual ‘minding my own business’ thing when the guy in front of me says, “Do you live around here?” I panicked, and the first thought that came to mind was, ‘don’t talk to strangers’ the next is, ‘do I lie?’ and finally 3 seconds after he asked I say, ‘Um, uh, yeah.” Smooth. So he asks me where there are good restaurants to eat at around there, I tell him my favorite place is O’Charley’s and try to give him directions, which I bomb completely. In the meantime he’s asked the cashier for two packs of cigarettes and she’s informed him he needs to go to a different register for that, so he’s holding his case of beer as I try to orient myself and tell him how to get to the restaurant. Emily comes over and I ask her how to get there and we both fail miserably. Finally we both decided to send him to Topeka’s, it’s just down the street (same one the Wal-Mart is on) so he thanks us and walks to the cigarette register and I call out, “good luck,” because he’s going to need it after getting confused by us. So I say we’re really bad at giving directions and Emily says we were so bad he switched registers. So she goes to look at books while I check out and I quickly grab my stuff and go to get her because part of me wants to walk out of the store and quickly so we don’t run into the guy again. Not that he was giving out the creepy vibe or anything and he was descent looking, but this is how socially retarded I am. So I finally get Emily to set down the book and we head out, well the guy ends up right behind us. We have to stop just outside the store because there are cars coming and no one pays attention to the pedestrian lines in the Wal-Mart parking lot. So this guy comes up to stand by us as we wait and he puts his arm (the one holding the case of beer) up to rest on the car stopper (you know, the thing that destroys a car before it can run into the building, should that ever happen) he asks us if we know where there are any good clubs and my first thought it, “Seriously dude? You want to ask us where something else is? I think we’ve proved that we don’t know.” So Emily says, “We don’t do clubs,” to which he said, “You don’t go out at night?” In a friendly way, not in the “weirdoes” way. Emily and I both said in complete unison, “not to clubs, no.” To which we both kind of laugh, because we are so not club girls. Then we begin to cross the road, I say ‘sorry’ and ‘good luck’ one more time for good measure and he says, “see ya,” which I can’t understand because I don’t ever expect to see this guy again in my life. Why say ‘see ya’ to someone you know you’ll never see again?
Anyway, Emily and I get back to the car and I begin to wonder if he was trying to pick us up, and then Emily says, “That’s why we’re still single.” It’s good to know I’m not the only one who is daft to all things dating. Not that I wanted the beer/cigarette man, even if I knew what he was doing at the time he was doing it I wouldn’t have responded well to it. He’s not the kind of guy I want.
Whatever, maybe one day someone normal and within my range of standards will try to do the same thing, and hopefully then I won’t be too dippy to notice. But who am I kidding?

Doth Mine Eyes Deceive Me?

Since we're half way through 2008 I thought I might drop a line and say that so far it's been a pretty good year. I started out the year with a birthday (big surprise there, I think I've done that every year so far). I got my first Corporate world bonus check which was extremely nice. I bought a new laptop, a new camera, and an iPod. In March I headed to California for Marianne's wedding. I've already been down to North Carolina this year too. I recently doubled my dating average from last year ('07 - 2; so far in 'o8 - 4), with a date planned in August, (that's right, I plan these things in advance) when I go for my yearly Utah trip. At the end of this week I'll be officially moved into the new house. And right now I'm drinking orange juice, in fact I think I just drank more OJ while typing this then I did in all of 2007...needless to say my orange juice kick is a new one. Maybe I have a vitamin deficiency.
One of my greatest victories in 2008 so far as been to have sympathy for a squirrel. I know, weird, I mean, with my past experience with them I should be the number one advocate for their extermination. I was headed down that path before one day I looked out my window to see one squirrel that would change my heart. He's not all about attacking people and from what I have observed he's got quite the personality, as squirrel personas go. He's the S.T.S. (Short tailed squirrel). As you can see from the picture he seems to have lost his tail, maybe he was born without it, maybe a larger animal got a hold of him. Either way, it's got to be hard to be a squirrel without a big fluffy tail, can you imagine adolescence for this guy? I got this picture the other day, since this squirrel has a habit of spying on me it wasn't hard to snap a photo. When I started to go towards him he ran off, but not in a straight line, he hopped from one side, then to the right, back to the left. I wonder if the lack of tail makes it difficult to maintain balance. Anyway, I think he's cute and I'm going to miss him when I move.
Other things that seem a little off...
I pulled into my driveway today and passed by this car, but I didn't even notice anything wrong with it until I had already pulled into the driveway, I saw it in my rearview mirror and decided instantly that I would have to take a picture of it and blog. So you can thank this odd looking van-truck for today's blog. ...What do you think he does when it rains?
And as if I wasn't already random enough today...see if you can tell who the injured kid is in this clip from one of my favorite old school shows, Freaks and Geeks.

I've fallen out of my bed three times in 4 hours, that's a new record.

I got bored this morning, big surprise there. But the thing is, I was getting ready for the day, I just got bored while I was doing it, so I happened to be looking in the mirror and I tried to close one eye while leaving the other wide open. Now, I can have one eye closed and the other slightly opened, but couldn't have it open the way it is when both eyes are opened (that's a lot of 'open's). The other eyelid tugs down a little. So I looked closer at my face - the eyelids don't seem to really be connected by skin (I mean they obviously are but closing my eye doesn't tug on the skin on my nose and that's closer than the other eyelid). So I looked at my mouth, one large tissue defintely connected together, so I wondered, could I half smile and not effect the rest? I tested it, covering my smiley side to see if the other side moved. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't. Now I understand that the eyelids while not visiably connected are more than 99.9% connected through nerves, and maybe the mouth is too, but possibly I severed a nerve as a child so I can do the half smiley thing, but it just struck me as odd. Anyway, the human body is pretty cool.
So yesterday I danced more, I don't know what's wrong with me, something about the month of May. For Enrichment yesterday we had a girl from the ward come and teach us a piece. She brought two girls from her company and I have to say I'm better at sitting back and appreciating dance, but I went out there and learned. The group that showed up to dance was small, which made it better for me because then I was more willing to participate. It was pretty cool, though I kept laughing and apologizing for ruining the overall outcome because I could never remember the one part where we face the other direction and move forward a couple steps, from there I would spin to make up the movement and end up on the ground at the same time as everyone else, but I’m pretty sure that they noticed. But I stuck to it even though I repeatedly threatened to sit down.
Last night Emily and I went to Wal-Mart and while we were there we could hear this pretty piano piece coming from an aisle (turned out it was the aisle we were looking for too, how providential), so we started playing with the sample music they have and I whipped out some of my newly acquired dance moves, and for some reason I felt that since it was Saturday night at Wal-Mart I would be okay to act that way in public. A lot of my social rules get put on the shelf when I’m at Wal-Mart, like at Christmas when Rub and I went down the Christmas toy aisle and pushed everything that said “Push” and got all the different toys singing and dancing and lighting up, then we would run one aisle over and crack up as though it were the funniest thing ever. In all honesty, it wasn’t that funny, and had we been more mature the ruckus would have annoyed us, instead we pushed, ran, and laughed like we were little kids. Thinking about it, I would never act that way in Target, which is probably why I love Wal-Mart sometimes. I never claimed to act my age.