How bizarre is this quiz?

What Sex and the City character are you?

See which country in South America best represents your shoe size.

How backwoods redneck is your third cousin (who happens to be your sister)?

I know they might be fun. I know they might insight laughter in the slushy brained. I understand they are addicting.

But they're still stupid.

Pointless internet quizzes are popping up left and right and have exceeded the bounds of being ignorable. They weren't so annoying when it was easy to click away or close a window. But now I can't even turn my head away because they literally jump out of the computer screen and onto my literal desktop. In fact, one just landed on my foot right now. Get off!

I closed my laptop the other night and 17 quizzes about the Jonas Brothers and beef jerky fell out. (Apparently, I should date Nick Jonas and eat knock-yo-mama-out-hot jerky, by the way.)

I hate these quizzes. I really do. Maybe I'm a snob. Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe I'm on a one-way trip to being a crotchety old lady. Whatever.

It was fun in high school when we'd email around silly "surveys" (no one kept tabs so they weren't really surveys, hence the quote marks) where we'd try to one-up each other. I probably did it in college, too. Every now and again, my mom or someone who's just getting into the internet will send one and I might humor them.

So I'm not entirely guilt-free on this one. But I'm no where near the legally guilty level either.

What's the point of these quizzes?

Which Sex and the City Character Are You?

I'm not a Sex and the City character and I never will be. I can't dumb myself down long enough to even pretend I'm one. Plus they're all insipid twits and I wouldn't want to be slutty Samantha, crazy Carrie or moo moo Miranda anymore than I'd want my ass tarred shut.

How Redneck Are You?

If there's any chance that I'm redneck, I don't want to know. Sure, I grew up in one of Dallas' less-than-posh 'burbs. And I'm spending the majority of my adulthood trying to rectify that very fact. I'm not going to be outed by some internet/Facebook quiz for the seven seconds it makes me teeheehe.

How White Are You?

I'm still not quite sure what that means, but holding my arm up to a Pantone chip, I fall somewhere near R: 192 G:171 B:108, but it's dark in here and hard to really compare. I didn't need some half-twit quiz to tell me that. Oh, and I'm not racist.

Maybe I'm just too interested in work. Maybe I'm not bored enough. Maybe I spend too much time reading news stories and makeup tips. Who knows? What everyone does know, however, is what type of mystical creature I'd be.

Spider, you’re really screwing up my Zen.

It’s a well-known fact that I am afraid of spiders.

And by “afraid,” I mean frozen-in-terror, gasoline-powered heart, I’m-3-years-old-and-staring-into-the-soulless-black-pits-of-the-boogey-man’s-eyes terrified.

It makes no sense, but it’s a phobia and that’s just how they are.

Anyway, while at yoga the other day, I’m pretzyled into some insane posture when I see a tiny gold something float near my head (near meaning like 3 feet).

Please don’t be a spider, I think. So I squinted and tried to see more clearly.

It was a spider. Naturally.

He swung from an invisible thread and threatened me with his little 8-legged body. I tried to breath more deeply in that yoga way, but I feared inhaling would only swing Mr. Spider in my direction.

And possibly on my face.

So I half-heartedly listened to the instructor and just watched the arachnid taunt me from his invisible wire.

Then the yogi told us to face the opposite direction.

Oh, hell no. I could keep my cool as long as I could see the spider. But there was no way I was going to turn my back on it. Absolutely not.

So I scooted a foot over in what I thought was a subtle manner. But I just couldn’t make myself turn around knowing what lurked to my right.

“Is there a problem,” the yogi asked. That’s when I noticed that I was up off of my mat, on my feet and slowly crossing the room.

A normal person would have answered with, “Yes. I’m just going to the restroom,” then returned and repositioned a different spot closer to the air conditioner. Something clever.

But no. I stare with wide open eyes and meekly whisper, “There’s a spider…,” and point to the empty air like a murder witness.

So class halted. Completely stopped. I tried to tell them that I’d just move my mat. Or go to my car and go home and scrub myself with brillo pads and bleach. But all of a sudden, the yogi and a bunch of guys are combing through the air for a spider smaller than a pencil eraser.

“Where is it?” someone asked. I uselessly pointed from 5 feet away. Eventually, Mr. Spider was captured (in someone’s hands!) and released out of a window. After all, you can’t kill something in a yoga class held above a vegetarian restaurant.

So I reluctantly returned to my space and we all did some calm-down breathing exercises on my behalf.

And now I can never show my face at yoga again.

Cars can think? This is bad.

I love cars. I've always loved cars because my daddy loves cars.

As a little kid, I'd perch somewhere in the garage and watch him remove carburetors, clean out fuel lines and adjust the gaps in spark plugs.

Every now and again, I'd be rewarded with a screwdriver. I'd get to help put the car back together.

Into my teens, I'd help Dad change oil. I'd help my stepdad take my 240 SX's door apart and rewire stuff. I'd impress the boys of my knowledge of what a Hemi engine is.

So I know a thing or two. No mechanic is going to pull one over on me.

So when I suspected that my car needed a new battery, I went to get one.

"I need a new battery," I told the guy at Auto Zone.

"Let me test it first," he responded. We went out into the sun, the hood was popped, cables were attached, and the battery tested well.

The battery tester lied. And I suspected as much.

A month later, my car wouldn't start. I checked the cables, the terminals were a bit dirty, but not dirty enough to keep Baby Car from starting. So I removed one anyway, brushed it out, reattached it. 

Dead. As. A. Corpse.

Chased down a woman with three kids for a jump. Taught her how to use the cables (not a bad payment, right?) and was on my way. 

Having to shut my car off, I worried it wouldn't start again.

It didn't.

After another jump  I went to O'Reiley's.

At the counter, I smiled real big. "I have a Mustang out there that needs a new battery."

"Let me test it," the man told me.

"I don't need it to be tested, I need a new battery. Preferably a charged one since my car is out there dead in your parking lot."

And since no man yielding jumper cables and a battery tester will listen to a woman in designer jeans and heels, I followed him to Baby Car.

"Wow, this battery is dead."

Duh.

Well, turns out it was more than just dead. Since I had unhooked the battery earlier to clean the terminals, the car decided that I was a thief. So there was this devilish red icon on my instrument panel of (I kid you  not) a person breaking into the car with an exclamation point.

My car, my baby, thought I was stealing it. So at this point, a fresh from the factory battery wouldn't even start the car because some hidden kill switch kept the engine from turning over.

Not from blasting my stereo, though. At least a thief would get to listen to Ratatat.

But I can't help but wonder why cars need to think. I got a manuel transmission because I specifically didn't want the car thinking.

I didn't want anti-lock breaks. I didn't want the traction control. I don't like that my car (which, as far as I know, doesn't have eyes) can control shit when it has no idea what's next to, beside, under and above it.

So my car thinks. And it thinks a lot. 

Since when did cars become self-aware? When is Ford changing their name to Sky Net? Why did this have to happen on the hottest day (so far) of the year when I had a contract job interview?

Anyway, Baby Car has since been towed, garaged, reprogrammed, rebatteried, and I've got new keys. And the car only killed 5 of the mechanics at the dealership.

I'll be picking up my Ford Mustang T800 around six o'clock. I'm a little worried cause (I shit you not) I have a friend named Sara Connor.

We're all doomed.

Go read a Stephen King book right now.

It's been far too long since I've picked up a Stephen King book.

So after I finished Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," I decided it was time to reunite with my old friend.

So I plucked "It" off of the bookshelf, started reading page one (of 1,093), and it was like being reunited with a long, lost lover.

That man can string words together like pearls. I don't care if he's writing about scabby aliens drinking milkshakes---it's beautiful. 

He knows just what to elaborate on and just what to leave to the imagination.

One of my favorite books of all time is "The Stand." In fact, that's the first King book I read. I followed the characters across the U.S from my bed. While on an airplane over the Pacific, my throat clogged and I choked with Captain Trips as everyone's fathers and babies did the same. I built my army against Randall Flag from a beach chair in Hawaii. I even used the book in my senior writing class as a literary reference.

In college, my apartment was visited by the Tommyknockers. I visited the Pet Semetary* from my dorm. And I went on countless other adventures with King while I visited my parents.

Every tale is flawless. Perfectly constructed carefully and deliberately. A King book's thickness isn't as intimidating as it is attractive---the longer the book, the longer I can live in this fantasy world.

Now by night, I find myself watching the lives of frightened adults keeping a promise to return to the terror of their childhood town. Where Tim Curry waits in full makeup and floppy shoes. Where IT lives.

And as freaked as I am of clowns and spiders, I'll read until the very last punctuation mark. Because although I might have to turn on every light in the apartment in order to feel safe, I won't be able to put this book down. It's just too pretty.

*The last paragraph of this book is the absolute, living END.

You are my darlin', Clementine.

I awoke this morning to the delightful smell of citrus.

I inhaled deeply and rolled onto my back. The sheets had gotten all twisted underneath my body, so I readjusted. Wait a minute. Sheets don't feel like--

I sat up and looked down. There were peels everywhere. Tiny peels from tiny little oranges.

I threw my feet over the side of the bed and got out. A sad trail of torn citrus skins was leading out the door. I followed with a watery mouth.

Into the kitchen they led, all the way to an empty little crate. Dejected, I went to the pantry to eat some cereal. But there, hiding within the shadows of the pantry, were five more frightened little clementines.

I reached towards them and heard a shrill little cry.

"Please, don't eat us," one of the tiny fruits begged. It tried to say something else, but I was too busy peeling its friend.

"What did we ever do to you?"

Through the juice and torn meat of the chubbiest clementine, I simply answered, "You tempted me with your deliciousness." I chewed and swallowed, looked around and observed. Took another bite.

The four remaining clementines became three as I plucked another one from behind the potato chips.

"Why are you doing this!" they cried. 

I pulled a bit of peel from the bottom of my foot. Maybe I shouldn't leave peels around the apartment.

"You're a barbarian!"

After devouring another clementine, I picked up the remaining fruits as they attempted a roll to safety, not that hiding behind soup cans made them any safer.

As I finished the last one, I became a little sad. The next box of clementines is all the way at the grocery store. Perhaps I should buy two.