I was entirely shocked to find not a single Mountain Folk in Assville, NC, where I spent the weekend. I’d been hoping for some banjos, a dog named Blue, or perhaps, a fuckton of toothless yokels.

I saw none. I was mildly distressed by this.

In fact, Assville, NC, is a HIPPIE town. An EXPENSIVE Hippie Town. Who knew? My parents would have felt right at home.

(I did, however, eventually see a guy playing a banjo)

(that pretty much ruled)

Anyhow, I woke up Sunday morning and checked my email because I cannot possibly function if my email remains unchecked. I mean, what if TODAY is the day that House, MD calls me and begs me to write for his show?

My email was, as per usual, full of stupid sites whose email lists I cannot manage to remove myself from, and a curious thing. I had at least fifty new posts for Band Back Together. That’s, um, out of the ordinary. But, I congratulated myself, perhaps it was all the people I’d just MET. Maybe I had, in fact, strong-armed into writing for us and/or working WITH us.

So I clicked to see what the title of one of the posts was:

“The Many Benefits Related To Obtaining Superior Mortgages.”

FANCY. Also: SPAMMY.

I clicked through and saw that all of the fifty new posts were, in fact, spam. Well, that’s not so fancy. Spam users I’m used to. Spam posts? That’s a whole ‘nother ball game.

That put me in a not-so-sparkly mood.

As bloggers, we’re all familiar with spam. I currently have 500 spam comments that are awaiting my glistening eyes to sort through. That’s just from yesterday.

But Band Back Together is different than a personal blog because it’s not just my ass blathering away at you. See, everyone who posts must first create their own account – email, username, password – so really, it’s their blog too. Same goes for Mushroom Printing.

Spam users: joe@teethbrightening.com I expect. Spam posts? Not so much. But these posts just kept rolling in. I deleted over a hundred and thirty of them before installing a simple capcha for anyone registering. (It’s a math problem, not those stupid letters, because those letters are BULLSHIT.)

I was Furious George until I came across this gem in my inbox:

And then I felt my life was, in a word, complete.

Perhaps I should publish it. I’d bet that would help MORE than a few people.

————

I wrote this about Special Needs Parenting, over at Cafe Mom. You should read it.

————

What are you feeling ranty about, Pranksters?

(you can publish any snarky rants over at Mushroom Printing, too)

I’m getting a new central air conditioner today. It’s been dying a slow and painful death since Alex was a wee babe and we’ve put it off because, well, it hadn’t entirely bit the bucket. The guy came to install it and was all, “Holy shit, I can’t believe they hooked it up like this. It could have blown up.”

“Holy shit, I can’t believe XXX” is about what I think when I think back to our old first floor bathroom, so I think he and I are going to get along fabulously.

(yes, yes that’s right, Pranksters. That IS three types of wallpaper in that tiny room. And, why yes! How astute of you to notice that it’s GLUED TO THE FUCKING DRYWALL. GOD, that was a bitch to get off.)

Anyway. I couldn’t be happier to have this installed, even though it’s costing me a couple of G’s.

As I told The Daver this morning, “Hey, it beats the condo.” He laughed knowingly.

Back when I didn’t know better, The Daver and I bought a three bedroom condo in Oak Park. It was a beautiful red brick building, right on the edge of an “up-and-coming neighborhood.” (in this case, “up-and-coming” means “on the edge of the ghetto”)

Our condo was a charming thing, all tall ceilings and dark wood floors. Very beautiful.

Until we moved in.

It was only then when I realized what “vintage” really meant. It meant, “you’re a fucking sucker.”

We had a radiator in the basement, one that heated all of the units, and, well, it was on when it was on and when it wasn’t on, it was still on. Our condo was right below it, so during the winter, it wasn’t uncommon to see me walking around in a tank top and shorts.

We’d gone to a Condo Board Meeting to learn that our poor radiator was on it’s last legs…and there were no funds from our condo dues to pay for it. It cost something like ten billion dollars.

We’d just shelled out five grand for a new back porch.

Great.

And the lead-paint covered windows that may as well have been screens for all the air they kept out? Well, if we wanted to replace those, they were a thousand dollars.

Each.

A thousand dollars.

Each.

We had something like ten windows. Ten grand (plus installation!) for windows. Windows NOT made of solid gold.

See, we needed to get specialty windows – replicas of the original – to match building code.

(fuck you, vintage)

When we added fans (and learned about the faulty wiring that may have killed us in a fiery blaze, had we not gone up and fixed it) in our condo in the summer because it was 8000000 degrees and window AC units don’t work so well when the windows allow hot air to pour in? Well, we were in trouble with the condo board for not using their electrician.

I have never been happier to move back to the land of the pre-fab.

At least now, when our AC unit craps out on us, I can buy a FLOOR MODEL and have it installed. It’s not specially carved by small children in Zimbabwe to match my house. It’s just an AC unit.

And when I decide to recarpet my house, it will be regular carpet, not carpet hand-crafted on the backs of seventeen vestal virgins.

Which is fortunate. I don’t even know what a vestal virgin is.