Say "Mattress" 10 times fast

Every where I go, I see a billion mattress stores. I see 10 mattress commercials in a half hour television show. I hear catchy mattress jingles on the radio.
Mattress Firm, Mattress Giant, Mattress One, Sleep Number, Temperpedic...and that doesn't even count department stores and furniture stores that devote entire departments to the sales of mattresses.

Of course there are other things that I'm used to seeing en masse; fast food restaurants, gas stations, drug stores, but these stores all sale things that we buy on a fairly regular basis.

How often do people buy mattresses?

Of all of the people that I know closely enough to have intimate knowledge of their mattresses, I can say with some certainty that my parents were the last people I know to buy brand new mattresses...and that was five years ago. In fact, its common place, at least among the people I know, for them to have 10 to 20 year old mattresses. I think that's disgusting, and terribly uncomfortable but not everyone is as much of a princess as I am. I can also say with confidence that people will go out of their way to not buy a mattress. For instance, my dad who has been sleeping on an inflatable bed for the past year and a half (I know, this seems terribly contradictory to the fact that my parents have a nice, newish bed but I've never explained how my dad works in Memphis and flies home to Tampa every weekend - hence, the inflata-bed)

Seriously. Can you think of anything one might buy less often than a mattress? A car maybe? A house? Even those are debatable.

How do mattress stores sustain themselves? In Tampa alone there are 25 Mattress Firms. If you combined all of the stores in all of the city that sell mattresses, 25 seems like too many. 25 stores of just one of the chains? What am I missing here?

Who is buying all of these damn mattresses?!?!

23

My birthdays suck. I can tell you a story about every one of my birthdays starting when I was 3 and my mom forgot to bring me to my own birthday party up until the crescendo at age 20 when my parents and brother and sister went on a family vacation and didn't even bother to tell me about it, let alone invite me and then the guy I thought I was dating through a "Fuck You Sarah" Party...all on my birthday. Also, see this story.

Seriously, I can make people cry by the end.

Birthday 21 was awesome. birthday 22 wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible, but they both still were extremely anxiety laced. How, I flooded my mind, will karma rear its ugly head and make this years birthday worse than last? So no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that it was just another stupid day that if I ignore will go away quickly, my birthdays have been, for a very long time, emotionally wrenching.

Until today.

I went to bed last night, exhausted from my first week of school and at peace, hardly even thinking about my birthday.

I woke up this morning with no expectations, no fears that I would be let down. I just was.

Sure, I don't really have that "I'm so excited it's my birthday! Yay! Yay! Why can't the waitress notice that it's my birthday and ask me about it?!?! Yay! Birthday!" feeling, but that's a good thing. It's part of why I'm not anxious or having a bad day...I have finally let go of my birthday. For good and bad. It feels like nothing and for that I am grateful.

Getting back in a groove

First day of class today. It was, ya know, first day. Orientation type stuff, these are the rules type stuff, also, I'm pretty sure you guys are all 12 so lets do busy work and go over the mission statement 20 times because I'm not sure if you can really comprehend the mission statement of a salon academy type stuff.

Tomorrow should be better because today was sitting in a big classroom with everyone who started every program today and tomorrow will start the actual classes with just the spa therapy group (all 13 or us!) and we get all of our tools and lotions and goodies and wee! It's like Christmas tomorrow! Or, my birthday, because...ya know...my birthdays on Sunday! Yay! Text books! It's just what I wanted!!!

So, when I was driving home in the middle of rush hour traffic, sitting at the intersection for International Plaza (the big hoity toity to-do mall in Tampa) I was about to drive at the newly turned green light when I noticed an unmarked, out dated cop car was driving across the intersection. Now, it's not to weird to see old unmarked crown vics because when the police are done with them, they will auction them off. This one, however, was peculiar because it had lights and sirens on the top...and they were on.

So, he takes off and stops in the middle of the intersection to let the following items leave International Plaza without having to sit at the red light:
One (1) big chartered bus with no markings other than an orange streak
Seven (7) white "child molester" van with padlocks on the back doors.

All of these cars were unmarked.

They got to the next intersection and when faced with a red light they all stopped and waited.

If this were a work of art I would label it: Sketchy; Personified.

He's on the ten.

Ya'll come back now, ya here!!

In Atlanta now, finishing out the last leg of my road trip before I move permanently to Tampa and start school next week. I promise then that I'll be back in full force.

Memphis was great and included all of the ridiculous Memphisey things you'd expect like an over abundance of bbq, ducks in the middle of fancy down town hotels, bbq, Graceland, sweet southern hospitality, barbecue, beautiful weather and is now a bad time to mention that I really don't like barbecue and would be grateful if you ST OPED TAKING ME TO BBQ RESTAURANT BECAUSE I'M NOT GOING TO SUDDENLY LIKE IT JUST BECAUSE I'M IN MEMPHIS.

I digress.

So yesterday Jeff and I were driving through Mississippi on our way from Tennessee to Georgia. Now, I love to break stereotypes. I like to blow peoples minds when I don't fit in the mold they've tried to put me in and, I am always hoping that people and things will surprise me when they turn out to be different then they are perceived.

I really had these hopes for Mississippi when we stopPed in a place called Peppertown to get gas. Peppertown instantly struck me as dirty and old and I was disappointed when we pulled in the only gas station and the mini mart, or, as it was called, the Minit Mart, was very very tiny and I was hungry so I didn't actually think they would have much for me to choose from. It was only slightly bigger than say, a baseball concession stand. I walk inside and holy crap, it was an entire grocery store. It was no Publix, but it was probably 5 times the size I actually thought it was. It had bananas and onions affectionately labeled "The Produce Department" and had deli meat in a cooler as well as buggies. I'm pretty sure those three features are what push an institution from convenience store to grocery store.

Anyways, the entire population* of Peppertown was in the Minit Mart, either as an employee, customer or loiter. Over at the only checkout counter the cute little cashier girl was fighting with an older woman.

"If you think you're so damn fancy then just move back to Tupalo!"
"I'm just sayin' that we've got a Walmart in Tupalo and ya'll are really missin' out!"
"Not everyone has the lllluuuuxxxxaaaarrryyyy of gettin' to go to Walmart whenever they damn well feel like so if you think you're better than us than you can just leave and never come back"

Everyone got behind the cashier and hooted at the fancy lady for being too hoity toity because she shops at Walmart of a regular basis.

Way to fall entirely into the Mississippi hick stereotype, Peppertown.




*Population of Peppertown, Miss: 17

Queen of the road

Yesterday my mom and I drove 13 hours from Tampa to Memphis with a twin bed and a lot of other stuff in the back seat. It felt like the beverley hill billies.

Some key points-
Puddles, my moms dog, made enemies with a guy on a motorcycle and a collection of orange flashing baracades.

I never knew that Birmimgham, Alabama was so beautiful. It reminded me of German mountain towns with nicer people.

About 100 miles or so outside of Birmimgham we saw a tin shack with "Willie's Boobie Trap Topless Bar".
My life is better now.

So, here I am with Jeff and my parents in Memphis. I'll let you know how bad ass Graceland is in a few days.

yeah, so...

Sorry I've been absent.

I'm at my parents house so not much is happening, also, I don't have my computer so everything that is book marked and the like is hard to get to.

I guess thats it, theres really nothing to talk about...just...um...don't forget about me. I'll be back before long.

edit:
Joanna wrote this on her blog:

Dear Sarah,
Just because you’re home in Tampa doesn’t mean you can slack off on your blogligations (see what I did there?). Playing in the pool and hanging out with Puddles do not count as meaningful activities to substitute writing in your blog entertaining me.
I’m only doing this because I want to help you be the best blogger person you can be.
Love,
Lil Boosie
PS - I just made carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting from (sort of) scratch. I also wore an apron, which makes me officially domestic, and also my favorite new oven mitt (thanks again!). Booya.

To that I say- fuck you, Joanna. If you don't care enough about the delicious yet nutritious berry themed 3 course meal I made you the other night to write about it in your blog then neither do I!

Just kidding, it was delicious and I'm pretty much the shit.