Why Windex smells like VICTORY.

In loving memory of my favorite photo editing playground, Picnik, where I draw all my cartoons, I’m serving up one last Picnik-ified story here, just for YOU. You see, Picnik was hijacked by Google awhile ago and, most sadly and inexplicably, the Google overlords decided to pull the plug on Picnik yesterday. *sniff* So, while I figure out where oh where I will do my cartoons from now on, please enjoy the following tale of Windex, a drunk, and one satanic zebra.



Back in the early 1990’s I worked one summer in a snack hut with several other girls, selling hot dogs, chili, and Slushies to camera-toting, clad-in-plaid tourists.


Oh! And we made ice cream cones……





….for bears.





(Yes, bears.)


(Really.)


(I swear.)


This snack hut sat amid the rock-strewn parking lot of a famous sort of drive-through zoo in Washington State. Since I don’t want to get sued right now (one legal rodeo is more than enough, thankyouverymuch!) let’s not mention the real name of the place and, instead, just call it The Drive Thru Zoo, ‘kay?


People could drive their cars through The Drive Thru Zoo and get all up close with bison, llamas, deer, rabbits, peacocks, and one perpetually pissed off zebra.





(Watch out! He bites!)





There were also bears who lived in pens in The Drive Thru Zoo. These bears would do tricks for their trainers during show times in return for ice cream cones.


(Bears prefer Sherbet.)


(Just saying.)


Anyway, I would show up to The Drive Thru Zoo’s snack hut five days a week in my Depeche Mode t-shirts and Doc Marten boots, munching on Mentos, quoting Seinfeld, and singing Nirvana songs.





(It was the 1990’s. Shut up.)


The job didn’t pay very well ($6.00 an hour, I think it was), but I got all the free food I wanted during my shift which kind of made up for it.


(And which also meant I made sure I ate three meals a day there.)





(Ahem).


Besides the lack of money, I really liked my job. My co-workers were hilarious. The food was delicious. The hours were great. And the animals were fluffy and sooooooooooo cute!





(Well, maybe not the zebra.)





In fact, there was really only one thing I hated there: My manager. Let’s call her, ohhhhh, I dunno…. how ‘bout…. Ann. Ann Ebriated.





Ann’s in-law’s owned The Drive Thru Zoo and she actually lived on the zoo’s property in a house which was sitting smack dab in the middle of the parking lot, right within view of the snack hut. Ann was loud, picky, irritable, and had nothing to do all day but stare out her living room window at us slaving away in the snack hut, just waiting and waiting for someone to do something she didn’t like so she could march on over and yell at us.


Yelling at people was her second favorite thing in the whole wide world. Her first favorite thing? Getting drunk. And if she could find a way to combine the two—well, hello!—then her whole week was flipping made!


It became a regular sight to see Ann stumbling in a drunken rage across the parking lot towards us, shouting to herself about idiotic things. Then she’d burst through the door, yelling and throwing things at us in front of all the customers.





When Ann was drinking, no-one could do ANYTHING right. It was so humiliating. One of the girls once got yelled at for writing a smiley face on the dry erase board with all of the day’s Specials.





I once got yelled at for putting lids on the relish and onion jars on the condiment stand to try to keep the wasps from crawling around inside them.





What truly evil, inept employees we were.


One day, there were three of us working in the snack hut when we saw Ann staggering her way over to us, flailing her arms angrily and hollering to herself. Again. We didn’t know what she was mad about this time, but I noticed that the glass counter top had some coffee drips on it and, not wanting to get screamed at over it, I quickly grabbed the Windex and started frantically cleaning the counter as she bumbled her angry drunk self our way.


I was still scrubbing the counter with the Windex bottle in my hand when Ann came tripping furiously through the door in mid-tantrum.


“You little b*tches!“, she drunkenly boomed and started slurring off today’s list of irrational grievances. But she only got about three complaints into it when suddenly she gasped and stared at me in horror as if I had just sprouted a unicorn horn….





….and then farted a rainbow.





”Is that W-w-windex?”, she said in a raspy voice, pointing at the bottle in my hand. Thinking I was about to get a Mounds bar chucked at me, I nervously nodded. Ann’s bleary eyes flew wide open and then she immediately scampered back out the door and stumbled her way back home across the rocky parking lot without even finishing her tirade.





Bizarre.


The next morning, Ann was there and surprisingly sober this time. She sat us all down to have a serious discussion during which she told us she was “very allergic” to Windex and that we should never, never, ever spray the foul stuff if she was in the room.


Interesting.


Now, Ann mysteriously failed to mention what form her awful Windex allergy took. Perhaps she broke out in hives. Or had trouble breathing. Or maybe her boobs would shrivel like raisins as she involuntarily moonwalked through the bison poo piles and then she’d spontaneously combust while screaming “ayiyiyiyiyiyi” like Xena. (One can hope!) But it didn’t matter, because at that moment we were armed with almighty knowledge, and Windex became our valiant savior.





Whenever Ann came charging towards us like a drunken bull, we knew exactly what to do: hose the place down STAT! We would spray Windex all over the counter top, the door, the fridge, the sink, and even out dang the window while giggling to ourselves maniacally.





It worked like magic every time. Ann would thunder in through the door, take one whiff and then leave again without being able to properly degrade us.





And the beauty of it was that we could always claim innocence later on and say we were just keeping the snack hut sparkling clean, and—please—even someone like Ann didn’t have the gall to berate us for that. Windex was the perfect sauced a**hole repellant!


It’s been nearly 20 years since then, and I still LOVE the scent of Windex. Windex smells like power, victory, and craftiness frosted with a heaping helping of utter jubilation!





*le sigh*


I would totally wear it as a perfume. I’m not kidding…. Y’know, if I didn’t think I would end up in a padded room, listening to Zamfir, and braiding yarn baskets for doing so. Just sayin’.


Anyway….


What became of Ann, you might be wondering? Well, last I saw of her, she was on the local news. Some patrons of The Drive Thru Zoo had their skivvies in a bunch because the evil zebra was biting people, and they had the videos—and scars!—to prove it. Despite the fact that one of the first things Ann ever said to me when I was hired was, “don’t go anywhere near that damn zebra; he’ll bite your arm off,” she was rolling her eyes on my TV and telling the reporters that the satanic zebra was safe and tame and that the zebra's victims were making a big deal out of nothing.





Unbelievable. Did I mention that one of the zebra's victims was a three year old who was yanked right out of a car window and dragged along the ground and had to get stitches? Yep!





I wonder if Windex repels demonic zebras too?....






© Coracabana

Three is a magic number

So.


What were you doing three years ago? Hmm? I was meeting my hubba hubba hubby, Scope, face-to-face for the very first time. He flew 2000 miles from Chicago to Seattle just to meet little ol' me. I met him at the airport and then spent the weekend showing him all around Seattle. And what a weekend it was! He put on a Princess Leia wig/hat and re-enacted a scene from Star Wars outside in front of real live people. And I showed him the life-size Dobby the House Elf statue in my living room.... and he didn't even run away screaming!


It was magic, I swear. And every day since has just been more and more magical. I mean, we STILL haven’t even had our first fight yet—and I’m a redhead AND a Leo! Crazy, huh? I know! Oh, sure, we sometimes have different opinions on things…. like how many pickled jalapenos a person can eat before they should rightfully expect their innards to liquefy and shoot out their bum like jet fuel. (I say zero. Just a whiff of their scent will do it.) (Scope says half a jar…. and then he runs for the bathroom in a panic and realizes I’m right.) But as for a fight or an argument? Nope. Never had one of those in the three years we’ve been together.


It’s been an amazing, wonderful three years! Because Scope makes everything he comes within four yards of amazing and wonderful without even trying to. (Yeah, I don’t know how he does it either, but when I find out his secret, I’ll let you know.)


To my dear, sweet, handsome, sexy** Scope; Happy Anniversary. I love you so very, very much, and I am thankful every single day that you were brave enough to get on that plane three years ago so our paths could cross. You’re my Superman! And I can’t wait to see what the next three (and thirteen!) (and thirty!) years will bring. I bet it will be awesome.... just like you!


Love,
Cora




(**And, yeah, yeah, I know “the censors” have banned me from using words like ‘sexy’ here and I’m not supposed to throw that word around any more or say that I think my husband is attractive in case it somehow “alarms” my teenager (….*confused stare*….), but, frankly, today I really don’t care. At. All. And he IS sexy. Duh. So there.)






© Coracabana

I’m Walking Right Down The Middle Of Main Street USA (Part 2)

[To catch up and read part 1 of this story click HERE.]


Okay. So, when we left off, it was September of 2001. Little four year old Wednesday and I had hoarded every spare penny would could scrounge up for an entire year to afford a vacation to Disneyland and we were sooOOooOOoo excited. But a mere month before our trip (and after we had already forked over $2000+ for it), some jack*ss-y terrorists hijacked some planes and…. well…. you know what happened on September 11th.


About a week after the terrorists attacked, suddenly everyone I knew seemed to come crawling out of a fog of mind-numbing shock and started pelting me with questions: “What are you going to do?”, “Are you still going on your trip?”, “Are you afraid to get on an airplane now?”, etc.


The answers were easy. I knew exactly what I had to do. In fact, the moment I saw the plane smash into the second tower live on TV while eating my breakfast that ugly morning, I knew even then what I had to do: Keep calm and carry on.


(See, these British genes of mine come in handy every now and then.)


Wednesday and I were still going to go to Disneyland, terrorists or no terrorists. I honestly wasn’t afraid. The only other option was to flush away all the money we had saved up for an entire year, teach a four year old that hard work has no reward and your dreams can be stolen from you by jerks, hide under my bed in fear, and let the terrorists win. There was NO WAY that I was going to allow that to happen.


And so, one month later, little Wednesday, my mom, and I found ourselves in the deserted airport where we boarded a nearly-empty plane to California. Wednesday had been on a plane a few times before, but she had no memory of it. She watched out the window, kicking her feet and laughing so hard that she couldn’t breathe as we rocketed down the runway and up, up, up into the Seattle sky.


Two hours later, we landed at LAX. We rushed through the airport, just wanting to hurry to our hotel, dump our bags, and get our rears on over to Disneyland ASAP! Little Wednesday (with her Blue’s Clues backpack—awwww) pushed the luggage cart with my mom while I ran beside them, snapping pictures.





Wednesday and I spent five fabulous days in Disneyland and California Adventure, which had only just opened. I took pictures of almost everything we saw and did. These were the days before digital photography, so at the end of our trip I had twelve rolls of film to get developed. Yeah. Twelve! These are some of my favorites….


DAY 1:


When we arrived at Disneyland, the first thing we did was rent a stroller. Yeah, yeah, Wednesday was four years old and kind of too big for strollers, but all the Disneyland survival guides I had devoured while planning our trip had sworn that renting a stroller was THE smartest move you could possibly make in Disneyland. And, holy heckcakes, were they right! For a mere seven dollars, you could rent a stroller for the entire day. (If you somehow misplaced your stroller, they’d give you a new one for free with no questions asked!) There’s a lot of walking to do in Disneyland (about eight miles a day, I read) and that’s an awful lot to ask of a four year old, so we made REALLY good use out of those strollers each day.     


After snagging the stroller, we had little Wednesday cover her eyes until we got to Main Street USA. She squealed out loud with joy and anticipation with her small hands pressed over her face. Then I got my camera ready, told her she could take a peek, and this is what she looked like when she opened her eyes and got her first glimpse of Disneyland….





She gasped. She laughed like a lunatic. Then she climbed out of the stroller and held my hand as we went walking—no—running right down the middle of Main Street USA. We passed by Sleeping Beauty’s castle and then headed off into Adventureland. The first "ride” we went on was Tarzan’s Treehouse. Little Wednesday LOOOOOOOOOOVED it!








Although, she thought Sabor the Leopard was scary as all heck!





And he was.


*shudder*


Next, we wandered into New Orleans Square where our jaws hit the ground. The Haunted Mansion I remembered from years and years ago had been given an awesome Nightmare Before Christmas makeover for Halloween!





The makeover of the mansion is an annual tradition now, but the year Wednesday and I first saw it was their first year of it. In fact, they had only just re-opened the mansion after decorating it and had Disney employees waiting with clipboards at the mansion’s exit, asking all the guests what they thought of the makeover. Wednesday and I gave them SPECTACULAR reviews—over and over and over again!—each time we went on the ride (which was about 50 times, no exaggeration!)…. and maybe, just maybe, she and I are the reason the makeover is now a tradition, hmm? ;-)


The cruddy little non-digital point n’ shoot camera I was toting around back then didn’t do a good job of capturing pictures inside the dark mansion, but I did get a shot of Jack Skellington’s face grinning down at us from the ceiling of The Stretching Room.





That first day, we also went on the Dumbo ride, where Wednesday got to hold the magic feather.





We met (and got an autograph from) Mickey….





….and Minnie….





….and Pluto….





….and Goofy….





We even got to see a surprise performance of the retired Electrical Parade which Disneyland unleashed as a peace offering to all the Disneyland guests that night because several of the bigger attractions had been closed down for repairs.








And, late that night, in the hotel restaurant, little happily-exhausted Wednesday fell sound asleep against the wall after only taking one bite of her grilled cheese sandwich.





*snicker*


DAY 2:


We met Tigger….





….and Wednesday got kissed by Pooh Bear….





The three of us ran amok in Fantastland. (Yeah, I was a lot heavier back then. Blah.)





We even saw dancing mushrooms in a parade!





DAY 3:


We had breakfast with Eeyore.





Wednesday drove a car like a flipping maniac in Autopia. (Lord have mercy!)





We met Cruella De Vil, whom Wednesday wouldn’t go ANYWHERE near!





And we met Belle….





….and Sleeping Beauty.





We even saw the crashed ship from Pigs In Space!





DAY 4:


Before we set foot in the park that morning, I told little Wednesday I would let her buy one Disney Princess costume to wear in the park. A rabid, drooling fan of both dress-up clothes and all things Disney-ish, this was her reaction to the exciting news….





Wednesday picked out a Little Mermaid costume and—whaddaya know—then we ran into the Little Mermaid.





The Little Mermaid LOVED little Wednesday’s costume and said, “you’re my twin princess” to her…. which resulted in Wednesday not wanting to change her outfit for the next four months!


We met The Mad Hatter….





….and Donald Duck….





….and Snow White….





….and even the Wicked Queen.





*gulp!*


DAY 5:


Still in her Little Mermaid costume for the second day in a row, Wednesday met Daisy Duck….





….and Esmerelda….





….and Cinderella….





….and Aladdin.





She also had a long, lonnnnngggggggg nap in one of those rental strollers.





(See how handy those strollers are?!)


The Haunted Mansion was closed for half the day our last day there, because they were filming some sort of commercial or something. The mansion was all lit up, there was fog all over the ground, and cameras everywhere.











Through the gate, we saw them filming this Vincent Price-looking dude who was welcoming the film crew into the mansion in the swirling fog, ringing his hands shiftily, and laughing evilly like…. well…. Vincent Price.





The last thing we did in Disneyland was watch The Parade Of Stars where we saw Tarzan….





….and Wednesday’s “twin princess” The Little Mermaid.





(I hope there were air holes in that bubble!)


And then our Disneyland adventure was over. We flew home with Wednesday still dressed as The Little Mermaid, and with enough photos to fill two entire picture albums!


Wednesday still remembers our 2001 Disneyland trip as one of the best times of her life, and she is still astoundingly good about saving her money up for things she really wants rather than letting money burn holes through her pocket. She learned a lot of valuable lessons by helping to raise the money for that trip and those lessons have stuck with her all these years.


Of course, it wasn’t too long after our trip that we started feeling the Disneyland fever again and started saving our pennies up for a second vacation. We went back seven years later, and I might dig out those pictures and share that trip with you too one day soon—(trust me, there’s a good, solid reason for all this Disneyland madness here lately, but you’ll have to wait a little bit for that!)—but first bloggy things first: Anybody know what important anniversary this week is in the history of Blogaritaville? Hmm? Anyone? Tune in tomorrow to find out. :-)






© Coracabana

I’m Walking Right Down The Middle Of Main Street USA

It all started with a Disney Sing Along Songs video which Wednesday and I got at a garage sale for 50 cents back in 2000. She was three years old at the time and was enamored with all things Disney-ish, thus we already had over a dozen of those sing along music videos with the bouncing Mickey head ball.


But this one was different.





It was called Disneyland Fun and instead of featuring songs clipped right out of Disney cartoons, this one actually had real people (in REAL embarrassing 1990 clothes and haircuts!) running around Disneyland with Mickey, Goofy, and the gang. Wednesday and I brought the video home and sat down together on the couch to watch it.


At first, once we squinted beyond the bad acting, it was just kind of cute. There was Mickey Mouse washing windows, Chip and Dale sweeping the sidewalks, and lots of other classic characters helping to get Disneyland all spic n’ span for the visitors before the gates opened. Awwww. Wednesday and I looked at each other and smiled. Then the crowd gathered, Mickey welcomed them into the park, and the visitors went dashing for the rides in all directions. Wednesday giggled at the thousands of running people. I giggled at their acid wash denim jackets and Saved By The Bell hair.


But then something happened….


We kept inching closer and closer to our tiny TV to get a better look. Soon, we were both silent, unblinking, on our knees on the floor, with our noses mere inches from the screen. Mesmerized.


I can’t pinpoint the precise moment Wednesday got hooked, but I know exactly when I was: during the song “I’m Walking Right Down The Middle Of Main Street USA” which played as Mary Poppins, Pluto, and Alice in Wonderland, etc, danced in a parade down Main Street. Suddenly—*WHOOSH!*—I was transported back to the three (or was it only two?) (more on that debate in a future post) trips my family and I took to Disneyland in the 70’s and 80’s when I was little. I remembered everything all in one moment: The little ticket books my dad let me flip through! The Dumbo toy I bought in the gift shop! Soaring over Fantasyland in a red Skyway bucket! The fireworks over Sleeping Beauty’s castle late at night! It’s A Small World! Pirates of the Caribbean! The Haunted Mansion! The Main Street Electrical Parade! I swear, I could taste the sweet Disneyland air right there in my living room!!!!


Somewhere in the middle of that “I’m Walking Right Down The Middle Of Main Street USA” song, there was a line, “for the time of your life you oughtta find yourself here.” When they sang that, I heard little Wednesday gasp beside me and, suddenly and most unexpectedly, there were tears. MY tears. Silently, they rolled down my face as I felt the Disneyland fever permeate every pore of my body.


I. 


WANTED. 


TO. 


TAKE. 


MY. 


BABY. 


TO. 


DISNEYLAND.


(And somewhere out there, the Disneyland marketing team hi-fived each other and laughed maniacally.)


By the way, I actually found the first portion of the Disneyland Fun video for you on Youtube, including the Main Street USA song which reeled me right in and made me cry. In fact, it still does! I’ve seen it probably a thousand times over the years (enough to know exactly when Pluto accidentally stomps on Alice’s foot in the parade) (HA!) and the line “for the time of your life you oughtta find yourself here” STILL makes me tear up every time I hear it. Here it is. Pluto assaults Alice at 5:08 and I start bawling at 5:48….







When the video finished, little Wednesday slowly turned her big, blue eyes to me with a dreamy look on her face and a Cinderella crown on her head and said, “Oh, please, please, PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE can we go there someday?” I blinked. Ecstatic, hopeful, happy thoughts chased each other like caffeinated feral cats through my mind.


“Yes,” I squeaked, “someday we will go there, but we will have to work very hard for it. We will have to earn it.” Little Wednesday nodded in acceptance. Even at only three years old, she knew what I meant: Disneyland was expensive…. and money was an evasive, slippery little sucker which often danced sassily just beyond our reach, brattily saying “nyah nyah nyah” at us with its butt cheeks like #&$%ing Jim Carrey.


You see, Wednesday and I have never had much money. In fact, we often didn’t have two spare pennies to rub together. We cut corners a lot and got creative to stretch what we had: We bought most of our clothes and her toys at thrift stores and garage sales, we bought things off season so we would never have to pay full price, we learned to sew, and we rarely ate at restaurants. Wednesday never, NEVER went without or saw herself as poor, but she knew money was tight and that we would need to seriously save up to afford a trip to Disneyland.


And so, we did.


We designated a lidded basket in the corner of our living room as our vacation fund and put all the money we raised into it, nickel by nickel, dime by dime. Wednesday excitedly gathered together some toys she no longer played with and we sold them at a consignment shop—*PLUNK!*—$30 went into the basket. I took a bunch of my old records and CDs and sold them at Half Price Books—*PLUNK!*—$45 went into the basket. We held a garage sale—*PLUNK!*—$200 went into the basket.


Wednesday was sooooooooooooo thrilled watching the Disneyland fund growing. Anytime she found a penny on the sidewalk she would squeal, “DISNEYLAND MONEY!” and hold it up in the air like a trophy—*PLUNK!*—1 cent into the basket. Whenever the basket got full, we would count it up and put it in the bank—*PLUNK!*—25 cents interest. Bigger and bigger the tally got.


While the fund was growing, Wednesday and I bided our time learning everything we could about Disneyland. We kept going to the library where I would check out various Disneyland guide and tip books, while Wednesday checked out Donald Duck and Little Mermaid picture books. Whenever I read something that seemed important to remember in one of those guide books, I would write it down in a little notebook. I had all kinds of stuff in there, including where each and every bathroom was located inside the entire theme park!


It took us about a year to save up enough money. A year. Wednesday was four by then and had been saving up for her dream vacation for 1/4th of her lifetime and Disneyland was pretty much all she wanted to talk about. When it became clear that the dream was actually in reach, we started discussing the reality of it with family and friends to see if anyone else wanted to tag along. We only had one taker; my mom. So, the next stop was the travel agent.


I already knew, thanks to the guide books, which months were the cheapest to travel to Disneyland (October and February, just FYI), and the travel agent confirmed it. She found all kinds of awesome deals for us in October, including free kid’s airfare, free kid’s park admission, and free kid’s meals in the hotel restaurant. Woot! The deal was much better than we were expecting, so we happily signed up for it. We paid for our trip in June of 2001 and then had nothing to do for four months but wait for blessed October and all its Disney-ish goodness.


Or so we thought.


Then some jack*sses did this….






(To be continued….)


© Coracabana