Win a $600 shopping spree from Alice.com!

My worst shopping experience was one of those post-Thanksgiving rushes. I’d just moved to Chicago, but was home for the weekend in Nebraska with my family. I needed a new winter coat that I could run in so we headed to the great deal on Columbia jackets near my mother’s home. I realize that people take the post-Thanksgiving thing seriously (I’ve worked as an Assistant Store Manager at a big box retailer), but I couldn’t believe the woman in front of us that was SCREAMING at the clerk because the color and size she wanted were no longer there. This was especially appalling because it was already 11 a.m. — what did she expect? That’s really late for one of these mornings! I felt horrible for the clerk and ended up finding a security guard to help escort this raving lunatic out of the store. I’ve rarely been so ashamed of my fellow human beings before.

http://twitter.com/scarletncream/status/2207420542

Banned Books

Little in this world burns me up more than banned books. I know it is easy to cast stones when I don't have kids of my own that I'm trying to watch, but my parents made financial sacrifices to ensure that we were supervised. Let me tell you -- my mom definitely knew when I started to read Danielle Steele books and quickly put the kibosh on that. But guess what else she did? She explained to me why she thought those books weren't age appropriate for me. And when I did start reading them, she was hardly surprised that I thought most of them were stupid and boring. Though that still doesn't stop either of us from reading her stuff every few years when we need a beach read.

Free TP for a year!

I know I've talked about Alice before -- usually in my attempts to win things. Well, I'll admit I'm doing it again: I want free TP for year! I need free TP for a year because I live semi-communally (a large apartment building). One of my neighbors recently had their apartment broken into and the (allegedly) the perpetrator committed arson (wasn't in the perp's MO -- he had already confessed to the break-in). Well, at 1:30 a.m. on that Saturday night, we were woken by someone knocking on doors as that apartment's smoke alarm beeped. The fire department broke down the door, woke us all up, and then stayed speaking loudly in the hall for a few hours. Well, I don't want to shout "Oh, sheet!" (or something less decorous) at 1:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning and awaken my neighbors. Though at least it would probably be so quick, they'd never what had awakened them in the first place. Either way, I deserve free TP for a year because I don't want to awaken myself more than I need to just to fumble for more TP or worse yet, start looking for the tissues.