I feel as though pet ownership can make or break a person’s prospects when dating. Nothing is hotter than a man who likes to take his lab mix to the beach and throw tennis balls. But there is always an exception to the rule to everything. I once broke up with a guy because of his cats. He had seemed like a healthy, well-adjusted guy until I went back to his place for the first time. Once we stepped through the thresh hold, we were greeted by four long-haired cats with pink bedazzled collars. The guy immediately dropped to his knees to greet Princess, Chloe, Diamond, and Lady Gaga and spent a good five minutes having a one-sided conversation with them in baby talk. Nothing is a bigger turn off than a man who has a long-haired cat named Princess. With that many Persians one would expect to find a barrage of scented candles, dried flower arrangements and Kenny G cassettes littering the owner’s apartment. No one wants to date that. No one.

This brings me to my most recent date last weekend. I went on a date with Gary, a computer designer from Tennessee. I was to met up with him at a local restaurant and as I stood there waiting for him at the entrance, I saw it. A man with a four-foot long iguana in a Baby Bjorn carrier strapped to his chest. He had even cut a hole in it for its tail. It was Gary. Gary had adopted Marshall the iguana from a small pet store in Key West. Since then, they had been inseparable. Apparently he took him everywhere with him, including blind dates with women. We entered the restaurant and Gary asked for a high chair for Marshall to sit in.

My first thought: Is it really a good idea to bring a pet to dinner when they can give your date salmonella? There is a fine line between corky and creepy and Gary had over shot it by a Baby Bjorn. Gary spoon fed Marshall pieces of tomatoes from his garden salad as I attempted to ignore the fact that I was on a date with freakin’ Godzilla. Our conversations consisted of college, careers, and the dietary needs of large reptiles in subtropical climates. I also learned that Gary was looking for a girlfriend for Marshall as well. I guess even lizards need a little lovin’ too. At the end of the date we shook hands and Gary asked me to befriend Marshall on his iguana Facebook page. Yes, his iguana has a facebook page and apparently also Twitters.

Which begs the question, is there really someone out there for everyone? Is there an awkward girl somewhere out there that has her pet iguana strapped in a car seat waiting for true love to deliver Gary to her? Who knows. All I know is that I am not that woman.

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Millions of single Americans use online dating services. I have enjoyed countless hours of entertainment from the many profiles, messages, and dates that I have experienced over the past few years. Some interactions were fun, some were interesting, and some were ridiculous. I had one man message me with an offer to pay me $50 for a vial of my blood. I politely declined. Here are a few funny online dating messages.

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Welcome to my nightmare, I mean life.

The site has not “technically” launched yet and is still under construction, but I have given out the URL here and there to get some feedback and to have some light traffic come thru. Please feel free to subscribe to the blog so that when things get updated you can be e-mailed.  There is some great stuff coming up in the next few months so you will want to check back periodically and to tell your friends.

Definitely check out the extended blog series Dates from Hell and Observations From the Brink under the menu…longer, more entertaining stories await you. If you know me, you may even have a starring role in one of the many ridiculous, true stories that will be making their way onto the site over the next few weeks/months. Please don’t sue me or write me hate mail. Actually, that might be a good idea. Holly’s HateMail…coming soon.

You can also follow me on both Facebook and Twitter at “Did That Just Happen?”

More to come.

Holly

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After months of resisting, I finally decided to do my 14 loads of laundry this morning. I hate doing my laundry. I put it off every chance that I get. I will even go out and buy new clothes, just to escape washing my dirty ones. The major reason for my distain for doing my laundry is because of my building’s laundry room. It always seems to be riddled with cockroaches, crusty socks, and bullet holes. Most of the machines don’t work and the few that do often have pubic hair and gum stuck in the lint trap. Another oddity that seems to constantly be present in the laundry room is a man who wears nothing but a bright red speedo and a sailor hat. He just stands in the middle of the room, dancing to his iPod as if he were having a solo Dance Dance Revolution party.

After washing everything, I put all my clothes into the dryers and went back to my apartment to do a few things. When I went back to retrieve my laundry an hour later I found that all of my underwear had been stolen out of the dryers…again. Someone had stolen some of my underwear out of a dryer a few years ago from the same laundry room. I guess they were in need of some fresh underwear from my wardrobe for the beginning of 2012.

Happy New Year!

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Walmart is ridiculous. It is literally like going on a magical journey to Deliverance, without having to leave my zip code. I always seem to have a run in with a mullet sporting mother of 14 who almost hits me with her 1994 Dodge Caravan before I even make it into the store. Once I get into the store, I am instantly accosted by obnoxious kids, creepy men inappropriately touching themselves next to the cat food, and people unapologetically blocking entire aisles because it would inconvenience them to move their cart full of Mayonnaise and Hamburger Helper out of the way. The check out is probably the worst part of the entire trip. Why is there 20 registers but only 3 of them are actually open at any given time? Nothing annoys me more than the people who go to the “20 items or less” checkout lane with a full cart of groceries. The cashier never says anything and without fail after they have unloaded and bagged their 140 items, they ask to pay with three different forms of payment, one being with a check. A freakin’ check. Who uses checks anymore?  They also always have coupons. Walmart makes me miss natural selection.

I recently went to Walmart to get a few odds and ends. While I was waiting to check out I noticed the women in front of me was eating a roll of raw chocolate chip cookie dough, right out of the package. Her three screaming children were tearing around the aisles, destroying displays and throwing Slim Jim’s at each other, as their mother ignorantly shoveled in her salmonella riddled snack. I was disgusted. I could hear her hairy lips smacking as she softly groaned and licked her fingers clean of any dough remnants.

As she got to the cashier to check out, the women stuffed the remaining dough in her mouth and then slipped the empty package into her purse. The cashier had seen the women eating the cookie dough and asked the woman for the wrapper so that she could be charged for it. The women became belligerent, claiming that she had not eaten any cookie dough and that the cashier was mistaken. Things quickly escalated and within a few minutes security and managers were at our register. The woman was still denying that she had eaten the food and was yelling in protest. “This is harassment! I am suing Walmart for racism,” she screamed as security attempted to lead her and her children away. Then she turned her rage toward the cashier. “This is your fault. Demon. You white devil!” I couldn’t stop from laughing. All this over a $3 tube of cookie dough? The cashier seemed to be offended at the woman’s words.  “I am Puerto Rican, bitch!” the cashier shot back. Eventually the woman was taken away and I got to pay for my 4 items. I hate Walmart.

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I never quite know what I will walk into when coming home. My apartment complex is full of surprises and most likely prostitutes. Between the resident random bum that has constructed a nest behind the dumpster, the two rednecks that are most likely cooking meth next door, or the people behind me that have their own cock-fighting syndicate, I really never know what to expect or when my next appearance on COPS will be.

My neighbor Joe is a 66-year-old man who is pretty much an angry hermit. When I first moved into my apartment a few years ago, he greeted me with a screw driver and a hand shake and I thought “My kind of neighbor!” In the beginning, I liked Joe. I would talk with him while having a cocktail on the porch that we shared together. He had come from a rough background and was basically alone and on his own and I felt bad for him. He has a terminal medical condition so I would check up on him from time to time and keep him company when time permitted.

Over the years I have gotten to know Joe and have found that he is a raging alcoholic, which is fine with me. Who am I to judge? If anything it has become an infinite source of entertainment and an occasional annoyance. I have come home to him passed out in the bushes, passed out on our porch, and to him swimming in our garbage filled pond with ducks that look like they have herpes on their faces. He also likes to say obnoxious things to people passing by the porch after he gets tanked. One time I heard him call an overweight woman a dirty sea cow. I also suspect that Joe may have some deeper, even darker issues than just his alcoholism. He likes to watch Flipper reruns and make inappropriate comments about Sandy in his tight swimming trucks. Also I have noticed that he doesn’t know who Angelina Jolie or Ryan Reynolds is but that he has a giant Zac Efron poster circa 2006 up in his living room.

After a long, slow day at work yesterday all I wanted to do was go home, put my elastic fat pants on, order some Thai food, and sit in front of the flat screen. It was almost completely dark outside when I pulled into my parking spot and walked toward my apartment. As I turned the corner I was greeted by a fully naked Joe sitting on the porch with a drink in hand. The only thing that he was wearing was an old, dirty santa hat. That was it. He didn’t even have his teeth in. “What the hell Joe!?” I yelled as I tried to shield my eyes as to keep them from burning out of their sockets. “Seriously?!? I can see your freakin’ scrotum. You can’t be doing this shit.” Joe looked at me with his usual empty, glazed over stare and attempted to formulate a rebuttal to my protests but all that really came out was a jumble of sounds and words unrecognizable to the English language. I could smell the booze from ten feet away. He was obviously, ridiculously drunk. He reached up and yanked his santa hat off his head and used it to cover his junk as he continued to sit in his chair, unapologetic.

Around this time, three teenagers walked by the porch and caught a glimpse of the shitshow that was unfolding on my porch. They started laughing at the sight of an old, drunk naked man with no teeth. Hell, I don’t blame them. I was fighting back my hysterical laughter until I was safely in my home. At that moment, Joe’s stare shifted from me to the teens and he started yelling obscenities while shaking his fists. This only made them laugh harder. This then caused Joe to angrily rocket out of his seat and off of the porch after the kids. The santa hat lay on the floor of the porch as the three teens took off down the sidewalk with drunk, naked Joe following behind.  Joe only really made it about ten yards before falling over himself and laying spread eagle on a grassy clearing in the complex. I stood there for what seemed like minutes, waiting for him to stumble to his feet. Eventually I saw movement and he army crawled back onto the porch. When he got their, I saw that he was covered in the dog poop that he had apparently crawled thru while making his way back to the apartment. Without much prodding, Joe gathered his cocktail and his santa hat and stumbled back into his apartment.

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