Arrrg, Matey, and other nonsense

Here are some things that have been swimming around in my head:

• I know that pirates are nothing to mess around with.  They're scary, especially to the people being captured and ransacked by them.  I know I'll be turning in my travel plans to the Somalian coast, rest assured.  However, because I am not close to the situation at hand, when I hear the word pirate, my brain immediately pops into the movie screen in front of me this image: 

[Mr. Smee, Peter Pan]


• Normally, I'm a file-your-taxes-early kind of gal, and my refund checks have been long spent before April 15th.  Not this year, friends.  While I did receive my handsome Federal Return a few months ago, I've really dragged my feet at the State Tax level.  At first glance, my Tax Man (also known as my dad) claimed I owed the state of Ohio $300 plus dollars.  I refused to believe this, seeing as how I have only been living and working in the state of Ohio for the latter half of 2008.  If anything, they should be paying me for having boosted their economy and for educating their children.  Alas, it was an error on my tax man's part and the state of Ohio owes me $150.  Now that's more like it.  Now as for Arizona, I can't file my taxes electronically there, since I was a partial year resident.  So I had to get out the old abacus and stone tablet to calculate that the wretched state of Arizona owes me $250.  Make that payable to Kerrie L. Johnson, thank you very much.  If I remember correctly, I had to call the Arizona Department of Revenue incessantly for 2 months to check on the status of my return from last year -- looks like I should dust off that phone number, just in case.  I'm not being optimistic.
• Every 6 months, like the good girl I am, I head off to the dentist.  I've always loved the dentist (well, maybe not the time when I was younger and bit the hygienist -- don't mess with my brutal gag reflex!) and look forward to my bi-yearly visits.  I will be the first to admit, I'm not a great flosser.  I blame this on my tight inter-dental spaces (read, my teeth are close together) which makes it painful to floss.  I've since discovered dental tape, instead of dental floss.  The tape is a bit thinner and doesn't need to be jammed down into my gums.  With that said, I still don't floss daily.  I've been getting better -- but I'm not great.  So while I'm laying prone in the dentists chair, having sharp metal instruments jabbed at my gums, please don't tell me that the bleeding from my gums is due to my less than stellar flossing job.  At this point, I believe that the hygienist and I have a 50/50 claim to the state of my gums -- so let's just leave it at that.
• While on Spring Break, I have fully maximised my TV watching time.  Since I can't sleep in to save my life, I've been catching up on my Live! With Regis and Kelly, Martha Stewart, The Price is Right and other shows I've missed while having a 7-3:30 job.  What never ceased to amaze me are the commercials on during morning/afternoon television.  It really speaks volumes to the target audience -- the unemployed, the injured, the sick, the elderly and the stay-at-home-mom.  Sleezy advertise-on-tv lawyers probably fork out millions of dollars annually to get a spot during The Family Feud.  Binder&Binder must get hundreds of thousands of calls by people laid off or injured on the job -- and all because they're sitting and watching morning television!  I've stopped counting the number of companies offering free scooters, diabetes medications, tub liners to turn your bathtub into a safer place for you to get in and out of with your limited mobility, and the list goes on!  Who knew how many diaper brands there were (for both infants and adults!), college saving funds by Gerber, blood cord services, disinfectant cleaners, laundry stain fighters ... I'm exhausted just thinking about it.  My real question is, why didn't I come up with these products?  Why didn't I become the gal who designed the ads?  Because I would be rich by now!

It's funny that pirates were always going around searching for treasure, 

and they never realized that the real treasure was the fond memories they were creating.

-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handy