my apartment, man repellent

Before I start rambling about my apartment, I'd like to mention that I just experienced The Wedding Singer, the musical. The opening scene featured numerous people in 80's dress clothes, with 80's hair, doing synchronized 80's dance moves, and when the reject table got up and threw in some of the Thriller dance, I knew I was in for a good show.
I looked for a photo to give you a visual aid, but the best I could come up with is this montage here. It really doesn't do it justice though... it makes it look pretty hokey, and that's what you expect right? But actually, brilliantly awesome is a more fitting term. I mean, does it get much better than what I have described? I thought not.
Oh, and Dolly, when a whole group of 'em did the jelly roll in unison, I thought of you and wished you could be there. (Because of that time you did the jelly roll at Hole in the Wall, and the whole place was empty, because it was early, and you were drunk off of that glass and a half of wine? And I only knew it was "the jelly roll" because you were singing about the jelly roll as you were doing it. It was great.)
Anyway, thanks, Leigh, for the tickets. They were much enjoyed.

Back to other meaningless things...

I was taking a look around my apartment the other day, I couldn't help but wonder... am I trying to be scary?

There were two main reasons for this thought. The first is this: I have Strawberry Shortcakes. And when I say I have Strawberry Shortcakes, I mean I have 20 of them. And in case you do not just happen to know this, 20 is the entire collection of standard dolls. I collected them when I was much younger, but several years ago, my then new roommate, Dolly, decided that our new bachelorette pad needed "a collection" of some sort. She was on a mission to find this collection - a mission that ended with her looking under my bed of my old house, and finding the container of dolls. (I couldn't throw them away!) I told her no, they will not be displayed, but she already had a bag about half full, and even though she nearly choked on the dust she got from holding one's head right under her nose and taking a serious sniff, she was overjoyed. So we agreed that the Strawberry Shortcakes could stay on one condition - if asked, she had to claim them as her own. Which turned out to be a jolly good time for me - because she wasn't quite so proud of those dolls in the presence of certain callers.

So, my point is, they looked scary. Well, maybe we liked them, but it seemed that all male people thought they were very scary. I know because more than one gentleman told me so himself. And even my own dear brother suggested that they be put somewhere else - like in a closet. And really, can you blame him? We had them in the middle of our den, under the tv, just like so:

Classy, eh?
In time I became proud of them, though. They were like a test. The way we saw it, if a guy came to pick us up and was scared off by our smiling dolls, that some claimed were "staring at" them, then go ahead and go now. Because if a few (20) Strawberry Shortcake dolls are all it takes to scare you off, you wouldn't have lasted long around here anyway.
Also, if it wasn't for the "they're staring at me" guy, we never would have found out that if you lift up a hat, and then sniff, they still have their berry delicious smells! (I think I should add that he seemed kind of excited to make this discovery, so maybe he shouldn't have been so quick to judge them. Also, I would never tell secrets about old boyfriends, but he knew all the words to all the songs in The Little Mermaid.)

Well, I live in a different apartment now, and to my surprise, my new roommate was quite keen on keeping the Shortcakes around. They're a little less conspicuous now, as they line the ceiling of our kitchen, but they are still there, all the same.


I came home one day and found her on the counters putting them up. I am pretty laid back about most things, but I really had to try hard to let go of the fact that she was placing the pets haphazardly around the Shortcakes. I finally gave in and stated that "these pets aren't with the right people!" and she took a look at my face, and hurried to rearrange them. Yep, I run a clean ship around here...

Now, the second thing that made me reconsider my apartment is my refrigerator. See, several years ago, one of my older cousins had a baby, and I thought, "Every fridge needs a baby picture! Mine will have one of my new cousin!"
Well, about two years later another - still older - cousin had a baby, and I added his photo as well. I mean, I can't just have one cousin's baby's photo displayed and not have them all, right?
Can you see where this is going? There are now 9 baby cousins, and 1 niece. In addition to this, about half my friends decided to simultaneously reproduce about two years ago. All this adds up to this fact: my fridge is wall-papered in baby photos.

It looks like this:


and the side view...


So, what I'm wondering is, which is more scary and man-repelling? The fridge or the dolls? What do you think?

Oh, and let's take a closer look at that bottom right corner of the fridge now...hmmm...

That's my newest roommate.
She's single, boys. Step in line.