"Mom on a Mission," stop selling crack

8:00pm on Tuesday evening. Roommates and I are sitting on the couch watching TLC or "When Tigers Attack!" or something. We hear a knock at the door. My roommate goes and answers the door. A tall lady with dark curly hair and glasses holding a plastic bin full of cookies and pastries happily greets all of us. She announces herself as a "mom on a mission".

She is selling baked goods to help pay for a trip to visit her kids in Ohio. They live with her ex-husband. She says they trade custody every other year and this year she's without them. She says she has a bad back and has to wear special shoes so that she can accommodate her walking-heavy, door-to-door mission.

She says she's not begging, but being self sufficient because it's irresponsible to ask the bishop for help. She says she can take a card if we don't have cash and shows us what I only assume is a credit card reader (complete with card logos on it). I'm not sure how it comes up, but she mentions that she has a daughter living off-campus in a similar set-up as us.

My roommates go get their cash and buy croissants and the like.

She turns to me and says, "How about you? Would you like to help?"

I stare back and say, "No, thanks."

My roommates think I'm a heartless wench. The "mom on a mission" leaves -- onto the next apartment to peddle her (crack laced??) pastries.


OK. Before you judge me for being terrible, there's more. In my experience here at BYU, I've seen this lady 3, maybe 4 times. She always says the same exact thing. Always flashes her crazy shoes and tries to get a firm commitment out of everyone in her line of vision. She's always trying to go visit those kids in Ohio. I bought some weird bread the first time I saw her and I think I just gave her cash the second time. I did not eat the bread.

I explain this to my roommates and they are not sure what to think. They are also worried they will die of dysentery, having already begun to partake of the goodies.

The thing is -- I don't know if I buy her story. She's clearly coherent enough to be an awesome sales person. Why doesn't she work at a car dealership? Or a cell phone store? Or... anywhere? If she and Mr. Husband trade custody every other year, why did I see her last year? And the year before? Maybe she does work somewhere and only peddles pastries on the side.

Is she unable to get a job because she's crazy? Why does she think that 20-year-old kids in Provo have an expendable income to help her with her personal problems? News flash: We're all poor and we're all trying to get home to our families (I paid $700 for a plane ticket to go home for Thanksgiving). Perhaps she's just trying to make money without paying taxes on it to support herself. Who knows. It just weirds me out.

Have you seen her? Does anyone have any info on this lady? I googled every combo of words I could think of to turn up results on this lady and came up with nothing. Let me know!


P.S. Mom on a Mission, if you are in fact a Mom on a Mission and you really are just trying to visit your kids in Ohio, I apologize for thinking you're a drug dealer. You still weird me out, though. And I still don't want to give you my money.

P.P.S. It's maybe important to mention that my roommates didn't die of dysentery. They were actually fine.

Birthday!

So... yesterday was my birthday! Hooray!

I really like my birthday. I feel like every good thing that happens on my birthday happens because it's my birthday. Additionally I feel like everyone I see is a guest at my day-long party. It's a great way to live life.

Last year I decided that I was going to be mature and have a small dinner party with some close friends. It was a lovely evening.

This year I regressed and went back to demanding parties. It was awesome.

My favorite part of birthday bash 2010 (other than the beautiful flowers my mom sent me at work <3) was at 11:58pm last night.

My roommates and I were sitting on the couch watching Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. My cell phone told me that I only had 2 minutes left of birthday merriment. I announced this to my roommates.

They decided to make these 2 minutes count.

All 3 of them started chanting/singing happy birthday wishes. This lasted the full 2 minutes until my birthday was done. Do you know how long 2 minutes is? Right now, I want you to sit still for 2 minutes.

It's really long! Anyway, these crazy birthday chants eventually came to an end at 12am, Oct 21. I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.

Thanks, ladies. And thanks to everyone else who made this year count!

Why I'm Scared of Mexican Food

I'm going home for Thanksgiving this year! This is the first time I've been home for Thanksgiving since I was 16. I'm pretty much stoked. I really like my family. And they're probably even better in November because everyone knows that November rocks.

Once upon a time, though, I decided to go to college a gillion miles away from home. This made going home expensive and therefore not-very-often. My freshman year the plan was -- go home for Christmas, but stay in Utah for Thanksgiving and bum off your cousin's holiday.

I could handle this. It was a good plan. I really like my cousin and he's basically my only family that doens't live in the Southeast.

During the week leading up to Thanksgiving Thursday, lots of my friends were shipping off to enjoy Thanksgiving with their families that didn't live in Florida. Only a hand full of us remained in the deserted land that Provo had become.

My fellow rejects and I were... well... college freshmen. We'd recently become obsessed with a 24-hour Mexican restaurant that had breakfast burritos and loads of greasy, gooey foreign food. We went on Tuesday night and thoroughly enjoyed the quesadillas or whatever it was we ordered. We laughed, drove around, felt cool and finally went home.

6:00am the next morning:

I wake up with a really confused stomach. It's telling me something is not right. Not at all right. Luckily stomach and I made it to the bathroom on time for the greasy Mexican food to be expelled from my body. This wasn't fun.

Much to my dismay this happened again at 7:30am. And 10am. And 10:30am. I'd never thrown up so much in my life. I hobbled out to my car to take myself to the health center.

While hauling myself into the driver's seat, surprise! I was recognized by the parents of one of my classmates from 2nd grade. How on earth did they know it was me? Maybe sick, gross 17-year-old me closely resembles 7-year-old me. Anyway... this was no time to chat because I could vomit at any second. So I was kinda rude, but needed to get to a hospital asap. If you ever read this, Jensen's mom, I'm really sorry that I was in too big of a hurry to stop and chat. I hope you're well.

So I made it to the hospital where a nice lady asked me too many questions and I was like "all I want is to stop throwing up". And she said I had some kind of gastro-enteritis or something like that and said she'd give me a shot to help me stop throwing up.

She led me into an exam room and pulled out a shot. Then came the surprise -- the shot was going into my hip. What? I didn't even know that happened. I asked the lady if it was going to hurt and she said, "Yea. This is one of our nastier shots." She actually used the word "nastier".

So I'm basically scared for my life as she sticks the nasty shot into my hip. It did hurt. I managed to get back to my car and go home. Where I threw up three more times. Thanks for nothing hip shot.

So the next day was Thanksgiving. I woke up feeling fine and actually had a lovely time with my cousin and his family. I didn't eat too much for fear of vomit-ation, but was actually ok.

The nurse-lady said that my gastro-enteritis wasn't caused by the Mexican food -- it was just a virus going around. However, this has kept me away from Mexican food except on special occasions or when I feel like I'm being judged for not loving it.

Why I am incapable of adulthood

Turns out I need car insurance. And I have to be a grown up and pay for it myself. I mentally and financially prepared myself for paying for car insurance. What I was not prepared for was mail (paper mail, mind you) coming to me full of scary grown-up jargon asking me if my identity had been stolen and here's your policy number and please verify and comprehensive $698.00 quarterly annulment scary scary words...

Bless his heart, my agent, Scott, was so patient with me as I took 5 years trying to find my routing number and figuring out what limits I want (this basically consisted of forwarding all his emails to Mom so she could tell me what I want). Now that I'm pretty sure I have car insurance, I'm kinda lost. The following is an email I sent to my car insurance agent.

Hi Scott,

I'm sorry for being practically incapable of being an adult, but I'm wondering what happens now... I guess I have a policy, right? And each month about $120 will be deducted from my account to pay for it?

I've received some mail from Allstate, but can't quite decipher what it is. One of the letters said that I need to verify my identity with someone? Anyway... What do I do now?

Thanks.

Asia


Basically saying:

Dear Scott,

I tried to read your scary mail but instead I put it on a stack of things that I don't know how to deal with. In order to make me feel like less of a failure, I'm emailing you in the hope that you will just tell me what I need to do.

Thanks,
Asia

Pet Peeves.

So I recently discovered some pet peeves I have. I used to think I was a really low maintenance person that was chill as an Alaskan antelope. Turns out I'm not. Lots of things bug me. See below.


1. Whistling

Oh gosh, just stop it. What reasons do people have for needing to whistle? The answer is that there are no reasons.

Quick anecdote: I was on campus today delivering some digi beta tapes to Burbank and I heard some really loud whistling. It was really loud. Almost impressively loud, but I will never be impressed by whistling. I looked around to see who might be forcing everyone who is standing outside in Provo to listen to their little ditty. Surprise! It was my ex-boyfriend. I immediately felt gratitude for the turn of events in my life that led me to not marry this loud whistler.


2. People my same age calling me sweetie or telling me they are proud of me.

Don't tell me you're proud of me if you're my peer. Saying you're proud of someone is like saying "You have made the correct choice, oh ye of lesser experience than I." This is a fine thing to say to your child or grandchild or... yea, that's about it.

If someone who is your same age does something awesome, an appropriate response is, "Way to do that awesome thing!" or "Oh man, show me how to do that awesome thing you did." or "That thing you did should cause you great excitement."

Those are appropriate responses.

Also -- calling me sweetie. Please be 50 or over before you do that (that means you, 23-year-old girl at the Verizon store).


3. Talking when you need to clear your throat.

If someone is speaking to me while they have something phlegm-y in their throat, it makes me want to barf. They could be talking to me about their dying wife's final words of encouragement and I would still want to barf. I probably wouldn't even be able to focus on what they were saying enough to hear that they're talking about their wife's final words, so really you can't call me insensitive.

Clear. Your. Throat.


4. When people think they are the first person to do something when they really are not.

Attention everyone: everyone can do the Gollum voice from Lord of the Rings. Really. Everyone. You are not the first. You are not the only. Turns out all you have to do is close your throat and make your voice sound gross. Stop doing it, or at least stop thinking you were the first one to do it.

Attention again: upon first hearing the word "euthanasia", everyone thought it was "Youth in Asia". Everyone thought this because, without seeing it written down, it sounds mighty similar to (or, if you'd rather, exactly like) "Youth in Asia". This is not an embarrassing thing nor is it a funny thing. Everyone does it.

One more thing everyone does: staying up really late sometimes. I've often witnessed the conversation where people try to one-up one another with their staying-up-late stories. It is not interesting unless you are a vampire and have, in fact, never slept. You would always win the one-up conversations. Way to be.


5. I feel like I need a 5th thing to be nit-picky about... but can't think of one.

I like things to end in nice round numbers. That can count as a pet peeve-y thing, right?

Why I Suck at Dating

I suck at dating. I'm so bad at it, in fact, that I rarely get the chance to do it. This is not a new thing. This is, in fact, old news. I have been on some of the worst dates in the history of the activity and I still remain one of the worst boyfriend-getters ever.

I've given this some thought and here's what I've decided. I suck at dating for the following reasons:


1. I can't flirt.

Really though, I can't. Not consciously anyway. The giggly, arm-touchy technique never developed in my adolescent years and trying to get these skills during my post-adolescence is not going well.

I see it happening and I feel like a safari scientist (is that real?) as I observe and try to figure out how it goes down. No deal, peeps. Around cute boys, I remain either silently stoic, friendly in a sisterly way (you don't know how much I get of that), or uber awkward.


2. Impatience.

I'm really really impatient when it comes to boys. I don't know where this impatience comes from, but I kinda feel like I need to trick boys into going on dates with me so I can trap them forever in a loving relationship.

For example -- I'll see a cute boy. I'll say hi to cute boy. I'll immediately feel anxiety that we don't live in a beautiful lake house together with our 6 children. I mean -- come on.

The boy is probably thinking: Oh, cute-ish girl! Hello, cute-ish girl! Perhaps I want to hang out with cute-ish girl. Oh wait, she's a wiz-natchy psycho beast.

For this reason, I don't often progress to the "date" phase.


3. I say awkward things.

I say lots of awkward things. When I get nervous around a cute boy, I feel the need to cover my bashfulness with clever humor. This never goes well.

For example:

[This conversation is embarrassingly real. I don't miss you, 2007.]

Cute boy: Oh, hey! I'm going through the temple for the first time next month!
Asia: Oh, that means you have to wear funny underwear!

[This has already gone very wrong. I've said an inappropriate and kind of offensive thing about him, his underwear, and a religion we both belong to. You don't think I can make it worse. You are wrong.]

Cute boy: heh... yea I guess....
Asia: Well... wear your favorite ones until then!

It just was not a good thing to say to really anyone, much less someone you want to ask you on a date. Needless to say, the date never happened. Cute boy is now married and he and his wife both wear funny underwear... suckers.


4. Sometimes I dress like I'm homeless.

This one is kinda self-explanatory. I'm just lazy sometimes and I love this pair of shorts that my mom has repeatedly tried to hide from me/throw away.


5. I subconsciously flirt with really awkward boys

A large handful of the small list of dates I've been on in my life have been with awkward boys. How does this happen? I used to feel like I was a magnet for the low-self-esteem boys of the world, but have since realize that I bring this on to myself. I flirt with awkward boys.

My flirting just has no on/off switch. How I wish it did. However, because of this, I've been on some very interesting/entertaining dates that I would never have been on otherwise. Maybe I'll share these in a later post.

Until then -- attention boys who are a little bit too touchy-feely, a little bit too young for me, or a little bit too awesome for me (admittedly, most of you are): Yes, I will go out with you.


6. Hilary Duff movies have ruined my idea of love.

Remember in A Cinderella Story how Hilary Duff was all nerdy and emotionally abused by Jennifer Coolidge and had no friends but was still a mega babe? Well, despite all this, she gets Chad Michael Murray to fall in love with her.

Ok, what?

Hilary, you've done me a disservice. I'm easily as awkward and dorky as you were in that movie, and I see no sign of a foxy quarterback eyeing me for some action. If, in fact, if there are foxy quarterbacks looking for socially challenged cute-ish girls to court, they have all been kidnapped and we should send out a search party immediately.

Sports.

Asia + sports = ?


1. I don't play any sports and I don't watch any sports.

2. I have decided I am a sports appreciator. I don't mind that others like sports (except when it makes traffic horrible) and I don't mind playing the friendly game of HORSE.

3. I once had a huge crush on a soccer player.

4. For a brief period of time I was a high jumper for my high school track team.

5. I like the way boys look in baseball uniforms.

6. I know who the following people are: Pele, Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, John Madden.

7. Sitting on a dewy field in the morning to watch a game of flag football makes me feel kinda patriotic.

8. Sitting on a couch watching any kind of sports on the TV is boring to me.

9. Sitting on a couch watching OLD sports seems like a huge waste of time to me.

10. I have been to a "footy" game in Australia.

That is all I've got when it comes to sporty things.

So sporty people, play on!