Rules of Halloween

Halloween is among us and our sugar levels are running a little higher than the doctor recommended. In the spirit of the holiday, we've decided to list some of the rules that we think should be implemented for the occasion.

For the Candy Givers:

• If anywhere on the packaging, it is marked, "healthy, fat free, or no sugar, " know that your, so called, "treat" WILL be traded for better candy (or best offer).
• If it's a coupon for a free cone at the DQ or a free hamburger at Mickey D's, the possibility of your house being egged &/or TP'd increases with every coupon given.
• Leaving a bowl on your porch with goodies is a great idea. Marking said bowl with a sign designating one piece of candy per child...that aint gonna happen.
• Box of raisins? Really??
• Candies/treats that make others aware that you purchased the candy less than an hour ago: smarties, good & plenty, jujubes, dots, candy corn, pennies, package of unpopped popcorn, apples & many more.
• It is an unwritten rule & common courtesy to shut off all signs of human life at your house if you do not intend on giving treats.
  
• After about the 5th house, the trick-or-treaters are sick of telling people who/what they are, hearing that they're cute &/or waiting for you to finish chit chatting with their parent. Just make a brief comment, drop the goods and they'll be on their way.

For the Trick-or-Treaters:

• No costume, no candy.
• Wearing normal attire with JUST an eye mask does not make it a costume.
• Say thank you or you will be viewed as an ungrateful little rugrat.
• When given the option to grab your own candy, rule-of-thumb, don't be the first. Let the others take first.
• Don't walk through the yards, that's what the inconveniently routed paths are for.
• The answer is 1. Age 1 is when you can claim that the candy is for your child and not for you. (keyword is CLAIM)
• If you had to hit more than 3 stores to complete your costume, you have put way too much thought into a 2hr outfit that you'll most likely never wear again. (This does not apply to parents. It's a competition to see which parent can create the most bitchin' costume for their kids.)
  

Dear Nanny Diary - Don’t Wear White

Ok, in less than 2 hours I have managed to get blue jello, cough syrup and sassy sauce on my white shirt…let me rephrase that, “THEY have managed”…this has led me to the conclusion that I can no longer wear white whilst watching kids which bites because I like wearing white.

Let me go ahead and tell you the events of the past ½ hour. Nay, FIASCO. Not only did my sister have to come out to separate the two boys because they weren’t getting along, but she also had to help me with a situation of which you’re about to find out. Ian, that little rascal, is sick with the cold so it’s time to take his medication. Ah yes, medication – ALL kids love thick cough syrup…as he is sitting on the couch watching Caillou, one of many annoying fricking cartoons that PBS produces, I get his syrup ready. But being the nice nanny that I am, I also come prepared with a cup of water to wash it down. So I hand him the cup as he is refusing to take it and I say, “it’s either this or sassy sauce, which one do you want?” to which he replies, not with a verbal reply, but a “what are you going to do?” glare AS he pours the red syrup onto the couch…my initial reaction was to yell, which I did as I carried him to the kitchen telling him he was going to get sassy sauce. Imagine the loudest, most high-pitched 13-yr old girl screaming at the top of her lungs at a Jonas Brothers concert, now, imagine tweeking that up a few octaves, turning up the volume to the max and putting that speaker right in your ear - strike that - imagine being INSIDE the subwoofer at a Bon Jovi Concert. Yes yes, and you will only grasp the edge of the pain that I endured as he was screaming bloody murder directly into my Cochlea and down into my Eustachian tube…I wouldn’t be surprised if I am bleeding about the ears as we speak. But that’s not all, as I put him in the high chair to grab said sassy sauce, he jumps out in a hurry which leaves me no choice, I must take him with me to acquire the sauce. Still screaming as I’m filling the dispenser, and ready to dispense, he screams even louder and proceeds to knock the 40 oz. bottle of Sassy sauce onto the counter. I was NOT happy. I yelled at the top of my lungs, “Ian!!! AGHHHH!!!!!” he struggles to get off the counter and I am furious but I let him down and head to my sisters room. “um…we have a little situation out here…” no doubt she heard the screaming. She grabs him and makes him clean the couch, but he does it haphazardly if you ask me, I guess he is only 3... Then she makes him take his medicine which was only about ½ of what he should’ve taken but you know kids…and he spits some on himself so she tells him to take off his clothes to change. You guessed it, he wouldn’t do it. He screams YET again and tries to shimmy free. FINALLY he changes his clothes and now he’s watching Tom & Jerry as if nothing has happened. "can you turn it up? I can't hear it." Almost positive that kids are bipolar & the masters of overreacting...Never a dull moment...


End of Nanny Diary entry October 30, 2009.

She will be missed

C: “my Zune passed away this weekend”

E: “your beloved zune – I knew her when she was a newborn. When you boasted her quality over Ipods. What happened? Or should I say, what did you do to her?”

C: “I accidentally dropped her three times and she hit her head on the elliptical machine every time harder than the last…”

I remember when we met; it was a few years ago and it was then that I knew we were going to be friends for a long time. We were pretty much inseparable. Our favorite pass-time was jamming to classic Justin Timberlake, if you can even consider JT music classic. We went on vacations together, studied together, exercised together, we even had sleepovers and she always knew the latest and greatest songs to listen to before bed. She was always there when I needed to get away. When I was in a bad mood, she found a way to make me forget. When I was angry, she fueled the fire which actually made me feel better. She was always there when I was bored.

Sure we had our spats. I would call upon her and she wouldn’t respond. I would call her names and curse her, banish her from my sight but she handled it like a trooper and remained silent. Eventually, we would take a break from each other but before you know it, things would be ok again.

And then, the day came…she had been in a terrible accident with multiple contusions to the head. I thought she was a goner for sure but she made a seemingly quick recovery; the accident didn’t seem to faze her. I didn’t want to believe that her days were numbered so I chose to ignore it and I took her on a vacation over the weekend. Little did I know that this would be the last vacation we would spend together. There we were enjoying the delightful melodic tunes of Jason Mraz in the car and all of the sudden, she was non-responsive. I did everything I could; I shook her, I tried to revive her but nothing seemed to work. I assumed a little rest would recharge her battery and she would be back to normal in no time. I checked on her every hour or so but it wasn’t looking good. She was drifting away slowly. After an uncomfortable nights rest, I checked on her only to find that she had given up. She was…dead.

I will always remember the good times we had together. Remember when you would go with me to the gym in the wee hours of the morning even though everyone else thought I was insane? Remember all of the vacations we went on? All the poolside tans? The countless hours of studying you helped me through? You were my savior, my companion, my buddy…oh my dear sweet Zune, you will be missed.

Mr. Pink

Searching for love, true love at least, is difficult, almost impossible some may say. It is essentially what the world is all searching for, someone to share their life with. Throughout my love quest I have found very distinct partners. One a musician, one a military man turn prisoner, there was even a furniture salesman somewhere in the mix, all equally short coming with their relationship abilities. Therefore, turning to another supplier, other than father fate, I subscribed to an internet dating site. I know, very Dateline, however, it actually seemed to be worth the $49.95 per month...at first. In the beginning there were scads of eligible young men, all decent looking and seeming to all be searching for "a nice girl to share their life with". Slowly the supply dwindled however, but not before I was matched with a 32 year old sales manager whom we shall call Mr. Pink. This Mr. Pink swept me off my feet not only to surprise weekend get-a-ways and bed and breakfasts but also to be swiftly introduced to his friends, and even his mommy dearest, whom we will discuss in more detail later on in this tale.

Mr. Pink was a very quirky man, he was an amateur golfer in his free time, a sales account manager during the day, and a rock band manager at night. He always wore pink when he played golf, dubbed his lucky color by himself. Mr. Pink also was an extremely clean person, trimmed his entire body of hair so that it was not unkempt and kept his very bachelore-like condo immaculate. His routine was rarely changed, he even laid out his clothing for the next day the night before. His daily scheduled is as follows: Sports center in the morning, cereal, shower, then off to work, after work came his nightly nap, ramen soup and specialty sandwich for dinner which he concoted all on his own, as well as ironing, laundry, then golf practice, e-mail answering, and finally bed. In order to fall asleep, however, he needed his sleep mask and to be lulled to sleep by stand-up comedy playing through earphones from his Iphone. Yes folks, this was indeed a very scheduled man.

Certainly facts about his life made me uneasy, the four visits to the risque resort Hedonism (all visited as a virgin), the loss of his virginity at a ripe old age of 24, and the fact that he had never made love without the use of a condom. All of these painted a troubled picture of someone who was uncomfortable in their own skin, however, he was very put together and stable in his outward life. A home owner with a steady job, no piercings, tattoos, children, or ex-wives I saw him as the unicorn most women seek to find, granted the unicorn had a birth defect and was limping.

Over the course of four months the relationship fizzled out. Not as romantic as once he was portrayed to be, certainly not as caring as I was once told, Mr. Pink fell in ranks from the perfect boyfriend to a very cold fish in all aspects of the relationship. I eventually saw first-hand the entirely too close for comfort of a relationship he had with his mother. The multiple daily phone calls to his mother was sweet, the constant time they spent together seemed suspect, and finally the pinch on the butt he gave his mother on one of our vacations with her sent my gag reflux into overdrive. Suddenly I understood why this now 33 year old man was still unmarried, never once loved a woman, and never had any serious relationships to speak of.

Perhaps fate cannot be toyed with and in the end love cannot be searched for with an online checklist...sorry dating websites, you lose.

Boomerang Beginnings According to E Bandit

Just as C Bandit has her own version of the boomerang beginnings, I do as well.


C Bandit and I met upon her internship with a company I worked at back in '05. Back before facebook was a household name and before myspace became lame.
Let's flashback to when I was first informed about C Bandit's internship, Nick, who was essentially a glorified development intern, began talking about this new intern that, "He himself recruited, with his own intellect, hand picked, from his alma mater, best in the class, soooo talented, blah blah blah." After hearing his endless speech about her talent I assumed he was (a.) trying to 'date' her or (b.) already 'did'. When I finally met C bandit on her first day it was obvious he did not succeed in his assumed pursuits as intelligent girls do not date Nick, well...known...fact.

Picture It...2005

It was early morning and a young girl is sitting in her Chevy Cobalt outside the normally barren G Development office building. As I moseyed around the office, checking the boss' messages, chatting with gossip girl and the little black raincloud (both will be explained further in later blogs), in walks C Bandit with her binder of paperwork- she looked very organized.


I completed her new hire paperwork and sent her for her drug testing. She didn't say much, perhaps why my boss referred to her as the whispering intern at all future company parties. My first impression of C Bandit was that she was and intelligent, quiet girl, who wore a bit too much eye makeup. So she was sent off to do the drug test, and surprisingly passed...like I said she wore too much eye makeup and those girls are T-R-O-U-B-L-E!

Moving on... C bandit and I quickly bonded as the youngest females employed with G Development. We lived in a po dunk town where the only activities included bongs, for beers and other herbal remedies. I actually felt pretty bad for her coming from a larger more urban area up north to the misery that is the rural south. She was my sanity amongst the somewhat quirky environment that was G Development. We put together plan racks, then raced them down the hallways, and wasted time gossiping . The office was extremely large for such a small staff of five. We were sent on missions to collect competitor information together since both of us had nothing to do and the company loved to shred money, no seriously there was an actual employed guy with the title of money shredder who had his own office, next to the office full of free sodas and snacks, which was across the hall from the office we all spent our two hour paid lunch breaks.

During our days working at G Development we had to keep a watchful eye out for Nick, the glorified intern, who claimed credit for every productive thing C Bandit accomplished as well as preyed on young, attractive girls he thought he had a chance with. C Bandit and I developed a system of tracking this douche of a guy. We emailed each other from our two office locations, if C was at one, I was at the other. Our codes consisted of various phrases to track when he left one community to another such as, "The Quail has left the nest". I know it seems to complicated for untrained code breakers to solve, but you should have realized by now that we are geniuses! We also always ended our emails with a code which was 'boomerang' which mean please reply asap. Like I said code words may be too complicated for y'alls so take it in stride. During the tracking of this jerk, we also started sending joke stories which C Bandit quickly started to cartoonify (she's artsy like that) and we somehow developed the most ridiculous material. Later realizing that we essentially had a blog, or at least enough blog material to post this shiz online C began to cartoon some logos, and I began theorizing scenarios of our past that people may actually enjoy.

This concludes E Bandit's version of Boomerang Beginnings. Thank you and stay tuned for more!

Bandit Beginnings According to C Bandit

Before it’s too late in the game and we get too far into blogging, we thought it would be a good idea to give a more in depth history about how the Bandits came to be.  

***June 2005***

After returning to school from an internship in Orlando, I have the option to return to the company, The G Development Company, for a second term but, in a different location on a separate project. Being naive and a little bit greedy with a splash of lazy, I agree. Maybe I’ll actually do something this time. Maybe I’ll learn something and love it.

***Flash forward to August 2005, 9:47 AM - me emailing E Bandit***

I have nothing to do….Dave isn’t here and I’ve been working on this drawing for about 2 weeks now…it should only take me about 2 days but I’m milking it for all it’s worth…I have been zooming in and out for the last 3 hrs I think. That’s a new record.  What should we do for lunch?

***Back to June 2005***

I’m on the road again but this time, to Bonita Springs, Florida just North of Naples. The land where old people go to retire, the only thing to do here is golf and the ENTIRE town is on one huge shutdown switch that is pulled at 8pm, promptly; not a minute later. I’ve been told that I’d be set up on company property. It's beachfront property, I’ll have it all to myself & my friend who I hooked up with a job, let’s call her Mary, and it’s free – SCORE! I won’t describe it because that’s for another post but E & I have nicknamed this place, the Beach Mansion.

So I get there, unpack and get settled. My first day is tomorrow and I want to get a good nights rest. I set out my pink polo and khakis and its lights out. The next day, I follow my printed out Google directions to the office. It says it will take me 8 minutes to get there – god am I lucky. I open the door and there’s no one there…
”hello?” This tall and skinny blonde twenty-something comes whipping around the corner in her high heels and peppy demeanor. Oh god, she’s too smiley for me.
“Hi, C Bandit? Nice to meet you, I'm E, right this way."