BEWARE: Ms. Smarty Pants

Ms. Smarty Pants is the type of person who feels that everyone must know how wonderful she is. Like their purpose on this earth is to make sure that everyone looks at them in awe. In other words, a narcissist.  Ms. Smarty Pants wants more than anything for people to say things like, “Wow, Ms. Smarty Pants really knows what she’s talking about.” or “Look at what an amazing job Ms. Smarty Pants is doing.”.

Ms. Smarty Pants thinks that the only ideas that are good ideas are ones that she has come up with. If anyone else presents ideas to make things easier and more efficient, Ms. Smarty Pants shoots them down. She will explain to you in great detail, all of the things you should be doing in lieu of this idea that you’ve come up with. Her tone will be condescending and chiding. She will list out all of the things that you “should or could do”. Here presents a problem, because this list of things that she presents contains things that you are already doing or have already tried. Ms. Smarty Pants is not your superior. You are not her subordinate though she speaks to you as if you are. Ms. Smarty Pants may try to laugh off her 'superiority complex' by making light of the situation with a joke.  This is to try and make it seem as though she is the bigger person.  In reality, this only makes it more obvious to the other parties involved that she...is a nincompoop.

Ms. Smarty Pants will take advantage of every opportunity to make you look foolish. This peacock-ish performance is conducted in an effort to make herself look more advantageous. She is the hunter and you are the prey.
 
Below is a list of ways to fend off Ms. Smarty Pants and her arch.
 
1. Respond to her 'suggestions' with gibberish.
 
Ms. Smarty Pants: "You should be doing this."
 
You: "Flurple schmack woot."
 
2. After she lists out all of the things that you 'should be doing', that you are already doing, list them all back to her in reverse order. Also known as 'Yoda Speak'.
 
Ms. Smarty Pants: "Well, what you should be doing is calling, talking, emailing and coaching."
 
You: "Coaching, emailing, talking, and calling, I am."
 
3. When she tries to laugh off her behavior, respond by laughing with a grossly overstated chuckle.  Agree with her but be sure your agreement is dripping with sarcasm.
 
Ms. Smarty Pants: "Ha ha ha. Aren't I cute and funny with what I'm saying to try and salvage the impression people have of me?"
 
You:  "Ha ha ha haaaahhha  ahhhahha haahhha haah ahhhahh! You are so funny Ms. Smarty Pants."
 
Of course, the best thing to do is avoid Ms. Smarty pants entirely.  Unavoidable situations do occur so hopefully these suggestions of defense will help you if you ever find yourself in the company of Ms. Smarty Pants.

Spam Wars

From: Brittany Schaeffer

To: Mr. Utondu

Date: Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 4:45 pm

Subject: Corrected: PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AND REPLY

Dear Mr. Utondu,

I have received your letter and was a little bothered by the excessive grammatical errors. One would think that if anyone had dealings with large amounts of money, such as the one you speak about in your letter, he would make sure that the letter is written using proper grammar and spelling. I have taken the liberty of making some suggestions on the email you sent me so that, going forward, you will have a more professional appearance to those you send this letter to. After all, a good scam artist must present himself well to the ones he is attempting to swindle.

In response to your letter, I must tell you that it caused considerable concern. I appreciate you telling me to calm down, but as I have seen letters like this before I was not surprised to receive it. I have been offered propositions similar to this one and because I already consider myself extremely wealthy, I have no need to participate in transactions such as these. Secondly, it seems as though you are asking me to lie about being the 'care-taker business associate' to Mr. Jin Sun. This is not something that I am comfortable doing. Lying, cheating, stealing and scamming are not activities that I participate in. I have learned that taking part in these sorts of dealings only manifests problems.

I would like to thank you kindly for considering me for this "transaction". I'm so honored that you took the time to select me out of the thousands of random email addresses I'm sure you have access to.

I hope that you have a wonderful day.

Sincerely,

Duchess of Reality

From: Mr. Ashley Utondu

To: Brittany Schaeffer

Date: Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 4:51 pm

Subject: PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AND REPLY

The Desk of Mr Ashely Utondu
Audit/Remittance Department of
African Development Bank (ADB)
Auagadougou Burkina Faso

Dear Friend,

(CONFIDENTIAL)

I know that this email will be a big surprise to you, but i (The letter 'I' is always capitalized when speaking about yourself.) want you to calm down and read very carefully.

I have a business which will be beneficial to both of us..(It is not necessary to use two periods at the end of any sentence, one usually does the trick. Unless you are using ellipses which is a whole other topic entirely.) the amount of money involved is ($5,700:000:00 (This should not have colons between the numbers.) five million seven hundred thousand US dollars) which i (Again you should always capitalize the letter 'I' when speaking about yourself.) want to transfer out of the country to your bank account, all to my financial benefit and yours too. (It would read better if you said ", for our financial benefit.") and also to take my wife abroad for treatment of liver damage. (I am curious to know how said liver damage occurred. Cirrhosis perhaps?)

This money is owned by a man called JIN SUN, a business commercialist in west-african regions. he (At the beginning of every sentence, you should always capitalize the first word.) has been dead since four years ago (2005) and since then, no claim has been placed on his bank account balance.

I want to transfer this money out of the country but such fund (Being that you are trying to transfer more than $1.00 {one US dollar} the word fund should be plural and therefore have an 's' at the end.) cannot be transferred without a next of kin attached to the fund. the (Seriously, you need to capitalize the first word of every sentence.) fund (The word 'fund' needs to be plural.)could be transferred in these (I think you mean 'this' way.) way; you shall present yourself as a business associate to the deceased person[JIN SUN) as details shall be that you are the care- taker business associate to mr. jin sun and his properties. (There are too many things wrong with the rest of this paragraph for me to list them all.)

I shall make available to you materials and information with which a successful claim shall be placed on the fund. i (Please capitalize the first word of every sentence.) shall also be your guidiance and instructor throughout the duration of this transaction so as to ensure a swift and sure transfer of the fund to your bank account.

As to your benefits, you shall be entitled to 40% of this fund for your co-operation in this transaction while 5% will be set aside for expences incured during the course of this transaction.

So if you are interested, send a reply to me immediately and in your reply please include your [private phone and your fax numbers] urgency has to be implied and this business must strictly be a deal between both of us.

Waiting for your urgent response so that i (The letter 'I' needs to be capitalized when speaking about yourself.) can move ahead and give you the indept (Do you mean 'in depth'?) details concerning this transaction and also the steps to take for a smooth transfer of the fund into your bank account.

Best Regards,
Mr.ASHELY UTONDU

Scents of Smell

One of the greatest compliments a child could give to their mother is taking a big whiff of you and then saying "Mommy, you always smell so good." I know this might sound weird but, it's true. If you think about it, you can almost smell all of your memories. Fond or not. I know exactly what my mom smells like. I remember exactly how my grandmother's crawfish etoufee smelled (that I have tried without success to duplicate more than once). I can recall the smell of the homes of each one of my family members and friends.

Who doesn't love the smell of a brand new baby? The emotions associated with that 'new baby' smell is happiness and excitement. (Ty, your comments are not welcome here.) I believe that scents can be associated with almost every emotion. When you're feeling happy, chances are you'll remember what scents you smelled when you were happiest. Such as Thanksgiving dinner and being surrounded by family and friends. The onions and garlic, the turkey...you get the idea.

Such a simple phrase may seem so meaningless. But it's not. To me, it means that she feels safe. That my scent is comfort and warmth. Happiness and contentment. That she loves me so much that she wants to take in every last drop of me right down to the smell. I must say that it makes me feel like I'm doing something right.

I am...I love...I have...

I am beautiful. I love my family. I have everything. I am thin. I love life. I have gratitude. I am wise. I love sleeping. I have happiness. I am helpful. I love my job. I have power. I am honest. I love people. I have a home. I am intelligent. I love peace. I have wealth. I am at ease. I love my body. I have a wonderful heart. I am sucessful. I love laughter. I am thoughtful. I love myself. I have ability.

Exterminating Rats

Now that the warmer weather has shown it's face, the rodents and other critters have come out of hiding. And they're hungry. Ty and I found these really cool rat traps at Lowe's that you can set with one hand. I am not brave enough to set the other kind. It might have something to do with the fact that they can break your fingers. Anyway, since last weekend, we've caught 8 rats. The kids like to 'help' my coming with me to check them in the morning. One of the traps can be seen from the window in our kitchen. This is the one that we usually check first because we don't have to go outside. This morning, Tommy got up and I asked him if he wanted to check the rat trap with me. He agreed and so I opened the blinds in the kitchen. He climbed up on a chair and looked out the window. Sure enough, we caught number 9! While I was silently 'WOO HOO-ing" in my mind, Tommy says "Mommy! The rat is stuck! He's crying...He want's his mommy!" I didn't know how to respond, quite frankly. But, it was so cute that he felt bad about the rat being 'stuck'. Gosh I love my kids...

Obsessed Much?

As most of you already know, Tommy is potty trained. Except at night we put him in pullups. More often than not when he wakes up it's wet. You might also remember that Tommy is a growly gus when he wakes up. So he woke up this morning yelling from his room, as usual. Ty told Emma to go and get him. She said "He's gonna yell at me." but being the good girl that she is she did as she was told. The moment she stepped into his room he started yelling "No, Emma, go away!". With a defeated sigh, she walked away and said "See...he always yells at me.". I thanked her for trying and got him out of bed myself. We walked back into the kitchen where the smell of breakfast cooking was rapidly filling the air. That seemed to lighten his mood so I put him sitting in the chair to wait for breakfast. Being a little boy, he is obsessed with his ummm, member. I think for boys it's like a built in toy. He still had his pullup on and it was wet but not wanting to bombard him with bathroom talk I waited until he was ready. I've gotten pretty confident that he'll tell me when he needs to go rather than having an accident. He was sitting in the chair slapping the pullup and he blurts out "Look mommy! I have a big penis!" Wow... All I can say it that I'm glad that this was said in the privacy of our own home rather than in line at the store.

Playing with Scissors

So, when most kids get their hands on a pair of scissors they cut paper or, worst case scenario, hair. Well, not my kid. Tommy was sitting at the kitchen table cutting paper scraps into tiny little pieces. It looked like he was using the scissors properly so, I let him (also avoiding a potential meltdown). Jose walks in while Tiffany and I are in the kitchen making dinner. He carefully asks "Do you know Tommy has scissors?" In unison, Tiffany and I flippantly answer "Yes". Jose shrugs his shoulders and returns to the beer making activities in the garage. Not a minute later Tommy starts whining "Oh No! I beeding. Owie Mommy!" Earlier in the day he had a terrible nosebleed so I initially thought that his nose had started bleeding again. I look over and sure enough Tommy was bleeding. But not the same way he had been earlier. He had taken the scissors to his nose and sliced a perfect "U" shape into the tip of his nose. See exhibit A below. Oh the adventures we have in our home. (Please Note that this was and extremely minor incident with the potential for serious injury. We have since taken the proper precautions to prevent such things from happening again.)

In the middle of the night he starts crying and yelling. I go into his room to see what the matter is and when I ask, he just lays there and yells and cries. I plead with him to stop yelling and crying and to just tell me what's wrong. Why can't he just tell me what he needs?!? He just lays there looking at me and crying. Finally he says 'Ice water!'. I get his ice water, and he settles down. I kiss him goodnight and close the door. The moment I get back under the warm covers he starts at it again. I lay there for a minute silently hoping that he'll stop; trying desperately to telepathically communicate with him: "Tommy, shhhh, it's ok. Just settle down. Drink some water. Shhhh. You'll wake everyone up." I come to the realization that I have no telepathic abilities whatsoever because it is clearly not working. So, I get up and burst into his room and say "Tommy! Stop Yelling!" and when I reach his bed I notice that his nose has started bleeding again and it's all over his face and his pillow. I felt terrible. I cleaned him up, made him drink some ice water and turned his pillow over to the clean side (Yes, I should have changed the pillowcase but it was the middle of the night and I don't know if I have any extras anyway). So I asked him if he wanted me to hold him in my desperate attempt to clear my conscience of feeling like a bad mommy for yelling at him. He said "woking chair". So I took him into the living room and rocked him until he went to sleep. It was just what I needed. Looking down at his sweet face while he slept I thought about how these moments become less and less frequent as they grow older. I was astonished at how all of a sudden he was so big. The last time I rocked him like that he was half the size he is now. And, it wasn't very long ago that his head, that is now the size of a large melon, was once the size of a softball. I sat there rocking him for as long as I could keep my eyes open and told him that I was going to bring him back to his bed. He whispered "OK" and went right back to sleep. We both slept soundlessly for the rest of the night. I learned that what he needs is sometimes what I need too.

EXHIBIT A: