1. You can only vote once.
2. If you know the identity of any of the babies, keep it to yourself. It will ruin the fun if it becomes a who has the most friends contest (besides, I would lose hands down).
3. All you have to do to vote is comment on my blog with the number of the baby you think is cutest. It’s easy, and you can comment as a guest on WordPress.
4. At the end of the week (or at when we’ve gotten a substantial number of votes) the winner will be announced and given the coveted title “Cutest Baby” and maybe a certificate or something. We’ll see.

The Babies:

Let the voting begin!

-Val

Before I go any further in this story, I feel the need to explain my bizarre and dysfunctional family tree. Basically, all of my sisters and I have the same mom, but the older three have a different dad, who my mom divorced and then married my dad. She divorced him too, but that’s not really the point. Here’s a picture.

Behold the confusion of my family

Anyway, I don’t remember much about spending time with my older sisters as a kid. That said, I do have a few memories that stand out in my mind as “sister” memories, like the time Danielle and I put Marie’s lipstick on the dog to prove to our dad that she had lips, or the time I snuck into the pantry the night before Danielle’s birthday and ate all of the frosting that was supposed to go on her cake. There are many stories of my sisters and I terrorizing each other as children, but not very many of them involve Misty and I. The following is one of the few that do:

When I was really young, maybe three or four because I wasn’t in school yet, Misty had a couple pets: a crawdad named Fred and a goldfish named Bill. Bill and Fred were tankmates. Misty liked Bill and Fred a lot, which is weird to think about now because she hates things that crawl (like crawdads). Bill and Fred’s tank was in Misty’s bedroom, along with a lot of drill team junk, including a giant ceramic boot full of Tootsie Rolls. This is significant because when I was a little kid, I loved Tootsie Rolls a whole lot. They were up there with dinosaurs and coloring books in my world. So every now and then, when Misty wasn’t home, I’d sneak into her room and eat some Tootsie Rolls. Looking back, she probably knew about it. If not, surprise, Misty, I ate your Tootsie Rolls.

Anyway, one day I went into Misty’s room for my usual Tootsie Roll heist when, horror of horrors, there weren’t any in there. So I recruited Danielle, who was my partner in crime (though I didn’t share the Tootsie Roll idea) and we decided that the cure to our boredom would be to drop a whole bunch of random shit into Bill’s tank. I remember lots of fish food, a deck of cards and probably a bunch of legos and small toys made their way to the bottom of Bill and Fred’s Tank. I don’t know if it was the massive quantity of fish food or just the trauma of having army men dropped on his head, but by the time Misty got home, Bill had gone to the big fish bowl in the sky. She was really, really upset, and she brings it up all the time.

In fact, Misty recently bought a cactus for Danielle (we’re gathering cacti for her. No reason, just because it’s funny) and named it Bill II aka Bill the Survivor- provided Danielle doesn’t let it die, of course. Here’s Bill II:

This is Danielle's "Freaky" cactus, Bill II

So that’s how, at the age of four, I became a fish murderer. Don’t worry, PETA, I’ve yet to live it down.

-Valerie

-I think after eating lasagna and Doritos I may have trouble convincing my coworker that I don’t hate her, but just like putrid smelling food

-I’m friends with a 9/11 conspiracy theorist on fb. Thinking about asking her if she also thinks the moon landing was fake and Tupac’s alive.

-Any time I find change on my floor now, I’m like “WOO! Vending machine Doritos money!”

-Just read the label on my contact solution. Apparently I’ve been wearing contacts wrong the whole time. Luckily, I’m not blind yet.

-I wonder if any woman has ever referred to her own ass as a “juicy double.”

-If Lil Wayne is Young Money then I guess I’ll be Lil Broke.

-I need to stop doing the robot in the mirror and work on the massive pile of homework I have.

-I may not have gotten any homework done, but I taught someone how to do the booty do dance via skype. That’s an accomplishment I think.

-I think that if #okstate tours were done in the style of a cribs episode, everyone that visited campus would go here #wherethemagichappens

-#dontactlikeyounever check out the randos you see on campus. Cause you do.

-”You know what this song needs? More Ke$ha.” -No one, ever

-If you need me, I’ll be processing books and listening to Journey and gangster rap.

-I would rather swim in shark-infested waters than be in the same room as a cockroach. #truestory

-My fortune cookie says “you will make many many changes before settling down happily.” Thanks, douche cookie.

-Shopping for sombreros on amazon. Suggested products are fake mustaches and tequila. #WIN

-How to ruin a good rap song: step 1) say anything 2) add either air horns or Nicki Minaj

-Pink shorts on a ginger man? Check.

-Hey Green shirt cell phone guy- lookin decent

-Definitely just saw a palm tree in the back seat of a mercedes convertible that drove by. Wtf, plano. Wtf.

-Wow, plate tectonics. Why you gotta be like that? Shifting continental plates and junk, causing damage and killing people. Not cool.

-”Oh shit, your handwriting’s cursive!” -my human heredity TA

-For real almost got run over by a tractor. Not my day.

-Hey Sisqo, I’m pretty sure any girl would be insulted if you told her she had dumps like a truck, truck, truck.

-My French professor asked me if I was a dinosaur today. I wish, dude. I wish.

-McLobster and McSushi make me wanna McPuke.

-’Uh, can we have a short class today? I have a frozen lasagna in my bag.’ I swear these things only happen to me.

-So unnecessary, Weeden. People don’t need to know about your panties. It’s not like you’re Dan Bailey or something.

-I throw my hands up at my work sometimes,saying leave ho, we’re trying to close.

-Annnnd there’s a SparkNote for that! Thank you Jesus! Thank you Oprah! Thank you Tom Cruise!

-I wonder if there’s an app called “Myself” for the iTouch. Teehee. Teehehehe.

-Totally just barged into my advisers office to ask for girl scout cookies.

-There is not seriously a mac club, is there? What do they do, sit around and talk about how trendy they are?

-So I just intentionally got water up my nose. Somewhere, there’s a little kid learning to swim that thinks I’m insane.

-Too bad my total badassness isn’t as contagious as the flu I’ve got :/

-Got some Puffs on my left ’cause I’m so damn ill. For real though, I’m going to health services tomorrow. #beingsicksucks

-Who the eff said, “Okmulgee. Yeah. That’s a good name for a town”??

-I wonder if I can put “Res Life Hula Hoop Grand Champion” under the Awards section on my resume.

-Damn straight I just used a semicolon in an email. What, bitches?

-My roommates boyfriend made just enough breakfast for the two of them. What a bacon tease.

-Two hours later and my room is all sparkly clean. You know, except for vacuuming. Screw that.

-For some reason the fact that Dez feels the need to broadcast his waffle consumption makes me happy.

-I think I’ll adopt the shark because less people adopt them. I can send it school supplies and sing Sarah McLaughlin to it.

-If my professor hasn’t graded my essay by tomorrow, I’m going to unleash a pack of badgers unto that class.

-Had a dream I went to a superbowl watch party. There was so. much. chili.

-That’s dumb. You can have ghetto booty without being a chunkalunk. And you are not a chunkalunk.

-Dear frat boy, your shorts are see through. Sincerely, i can totally see your junk.

-Totally got told off by one of my friends for saying that the song “Tipsy” was by Chingy instead of J Kwon. Who cares, neither has a career.

-Pushy-Sucky prevails! All hail the pushy-sucky! Take that, you eight-legged asshole.

-Yo, dawg, I heard you like not freezing your ass off so I put a sweater under your sweater so you can get warm while you get warm.

-I sure would like to meet the kiss ass who invented cover letters and punch them in the face.

-Forget college. I’m either going to become a professional blogger or a pirate.

-Why don’t they make makeup that doesn’t run? Halfway through the day I look like a tired, freckled raccoon.

-I’m just gonna come out and say it: ebooks suck. Cue Pocahontas bursting in and kicking my ass.

I hope you enjoyed my insight into Twitter,

-Valerie

What started out as a regular stalking session turned into a reflection period that made me realize how lucky I was to live in the time period I live now.

Mary was surfing through her news feed looking at status updates when she asked me “Whats with Gamma Phi Beta?”

I had also began to notice peoples status updates related to the local sorority and decided to search Facebook to see what was going on. Apparently one of the members of the sorority was killed in a car accident earlier today. While I was saddened by this news, I notice a story that was shared that had the words “Gamma Phi Beta” in the title and the body.

The story, the link is below, describes a woman’s experience in college back in the 1950′s dating a African American male. The story describes the way the woman was treated by her sorority sisters and dorm mothers.

It made me realize how often I take for granted living in a post-civil rights era that allows me to date and hang out with whom ever I want. While I realize that racism is still alive and well in smaller towns across Oklahoma and the greater south, I am glad that in the larger cities like Stillwater, Oklahoma I don’t have to worry about a cross being burned on my front lawn.

Racism

Ok, so maybe you wouldn’t *actually* make a Kanye joke, but hear me out, because if this isn’t the worst, it’s at least a contender. The “song” comes courtesy of one of my roommates, who had it as her ring tone for a while.  I only ever got to hear the chorus, so I was intrigued. So I looked up the song and discovered exactly what Dr. Dre’s personal hell might sound like. The title of this “song” by the way, is “Bedrock.” Let’s bust out these funky rhymes, shall we? Here’s the music video:

After Lloyd’s unfortunate speech impediment at the beginning of the song, we get on to what is usually the good part, aka Lil Wayne. So I’m like “yeah, Weezy! Drop some crazy ass freestyle and yell “young money” and “Weezy F Baby” and shit!” And he usually does. But not this time. Oh no, instead we get shit like, “I keep her runnin back and forth- soccer team” and “I’m attracted to her for her attractive ass.” Brilliant.

But it totally gets worse, cause now we have to listen to some D bag called “Gudda Gudda,” who not only has the shittiest rap name ever, but has a speech impediment just like his homie Lloyd up there who dropped his vocals on the intro and choruses. I’m gonna go ahead and ignore the fact that he rhymes ‘wonder’ with ‘wonder,’ because that happens with a depressing frequency in rap. I’m just gonna skip right to the crown jewel of, “and I got her n—, grocery bag.”
……
Ok, can anyone tell me what the hell this means? Cause I’m drawing a big ol’ question mark. Grocery bag? Is it from Winn-Dixie? And if so is it the same bag that Lil Wayne wants “full of money right now to the VIP section”? Cause I don’t think it is. I think he cut up her body and put the parts in grocery bags. There is evidence to support this claim later on. Let’s move along to…

Lloyd’s speech impediment! I’m sorry, but if some guy walked up to you in the club and was all, “I-I-I-I can make your bed rock.” You’d be all, “Can it, nerd, go get me a martini,” or something. You know.

Anyway, the next verse is Nicki Minaj, and she bugs the shit out of me no matter what she sings so I’m not acknowledging her. So after her there’s Drake, who has arguably the most idiot verse of the entire song. Here’s a tidbit:

I Love Ya Sushi Roll, Hotter Than Wasabi,
I Race For Your Love,
Shake And Bake Ricky Bobby

…”Shake and bake Ricky Bobby?” Alright, this is getting my first official “what the fuck?” of this blog post. Cause seriously, come on. But then he talks about how they’re going to “disappear” and that “you’ll need GPS to find her. ” IDK about y’all, but I think it sounds like this chick needs to get her ass into the witness protection program, stat.

Anyway, then we get Lloyd’s stutter again and then it’s on to some scrub named “Tyga,” who apparently has a pretty big misunderstanding about how roller coasters work and prefers to say that he “spoke it” than that he “said” it. Then after Tyga is “Jae Millz” who (guess what?) also has a stutter.

The song ends with Lloyd the Stutterbucket’s chorus with a Lil Wayne voice over reading off all of the names of the people in the the song whose careers, from what I gather, are a stipulation in Weezy’s parole that says he has to help the unfortunate. That’s the only legitimate reason I can think of. The song sucks.

-Valerie

So I picked out a logo I liked from the OSU marketing website (they have a bunch of wall papers for people that want to rep OSU on their PCs), put it on the card template, and lo and behold, it looked pretty ballin’. But then I read the terms and conditions (shocking, I know. Who does that?) and it was all like, “blah blah blah do not used licensed material without permission or we’ll throw you in a prison full of fiery doom and OSU will sue your broke ass and your media law professor will come to your hobo box (cause you just got sued for everything you have, duh) and personally kick your ass for being such an ignorant fail job. And no matter how much you protest that you only got a C and you still don’t know the parts of the Central Hudson test, he will continue to berate you coldly. But everything he’ll say will be true because if it were false it could be slander and that’s ALSO against the law, not that your delinquent, OSU Logo thieving ass would know.”

So naturally I was like, “oh dang. I better get permission.” So I asked my PR professor what I should do and he was like, “if you’re that worried, just ask.” And Davod was like, “yeah I’m pretty sure wallpaper is in the public domain or something.” But I think he got a C too, so I decided to email the head of OSU marketing and ask to use the logo. Here is the email:

Oklahoma State Marketing,

My bank is based out of Texas and sadly devoid of any Oklahoma State pride. I was hoping to customize my credit card with the Oklahoma State logo (probably one from one of the wallpaper options). I don’t plan on using the logo for any profit or personal gain- I just want a nicer looking credit card, and preferably one that matches my checks.

Please consider my request and let me know if this is doable. This is probably one of the stranger requests you’ve received lately, but I figured that the saying “it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission” doesn’t really apply when someone might have grounds to sue you.

Thank you for your consideration,
Valerie Pritchard

Now if that’s not the singularly dumbest sounding thing I’ve ever written I don’t know what is. The guy in charge of this stuff probably thinks I have a learning disability or something. Maybe that’ll make him feel bad for me and let me use the logo. Or maybe he’ll laugh and let me use the logo. But he’ll probably just think I’m an idiot with no actual disability, delete my email, and go back to seething and plotting or whatever it is that marketing executives with logo controlling powers do. If he does, I’m going to have to think of something else to put on my card. I’m open to suggestions.

-Valerie

The Tale of the Spider

The other day, I got out of the shower and saw a spider in the corner. I tried to kill it with a shampoo bottle but I failed and it scurried away behind the toilet and beyond my reach. I was a little wary of the whole bathroom situation every time I went in there, afraid the spider would bite my toe or lay eggs on my toothbrush or something. So the next day, before I took a shower, I looked for the spider. I found it in the corner opposite the one it was in the day before. It was in a tight spot, so I couldn’t hit it with a shoe or anything normal. I thought about it for a while, trying to pick the best solution. I thought about plugging in my flat iron and grabbing it, letting it meet a sizzly doom, but then I realized that the gross factor would be on par with spider eggs on the toothbrush. So my solution was to have Andrew (boyfriend) grab it with a paper towel and flush it. I approached him mid zombie raid on Plants vs Zombies. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Honey, when you get to a stopping point in your game, will you kill the spider in my bathroom?
Andrew: Why? What did it do to me?
Me: Nothing, I just want you to kill it.
Andrew: Why?
Me: Because it could bite me or lay eggs in my clothes or unleash spidery doom on us.
Andrew: That’s not a good reason. And I’d rather have spiders than mosquitoes.
Me: I want it dead and that should be the only reason you need. Kill it!
Andrew: I’m not going to kill it.
Me: When I lived at the Villages, I walked across the hall and woke up Alan at 8 in the morning to kill a bug in my bathroom and he did it.
You’re not even asleep.
Andrew: Hmmph.

Finally, I decided that if Andrew was going to sit there and be an ass and not kill the spider, I had to take matters into my own hands. So I went upstairs, got the vacuum out, brought it downstairs, plugged it in, and sucked up the spider with the hose attachment and then my roommates made fun of me. And then I found five dollars.

The Shrieking Toilet of Doom

Every time I flush my toilet, it makes a noise. It’s really hard to describe- it’s like if you fuzed a dog’s whine with a cat’s meow. And it crescendos. Like this:
*flush* ~normal toilet sounds, running water~ eeeeeeeerruuuuuuuuppe eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
It’s really horrible and it keeps getting worse. I’ll probably call maintenance soon.
And then I found five dollars.

Geese

There were geese on library lawn today. I was freaked out at first, and even dropped the F bomb (I believe I said, “WTF??? GEESE!”) but then I realized they were sort of tame and docile and not mean like normal geese. I took a picture. And then I found five dollars.

-Valerie

I’d like to have a life that weekend, so I’ve been trying to get a head start on said paper of doom. The only problem: I keep getting songs stuck in my head. So I’ll be sitting there, on a role, talking about how women were being oppressed and junk, and all of the sudden, mid-sentence, Lil Wayne pulls a Kanye and totally interrupts my inner dialogue and throws off my groove. Allow me to illustrate what this is like for me in my noggin. For your convenience, I’ll write in English instead of the French my paper is in. Here it goes:

“This woman does not defy the laws set by her society. She-

Then this pops into my head.

And I’m like, “That’s great, Weezy. I’m real happy for you. Can I write my paper now?” And the Lil Wayne in my head’s like, “sure, I’ll go away,” and then I write some more and it’s all good again. But then about three sentences later, I get three words in and-

And then this

DAMN IT, LIL WAYNE! SHUT THE HELL UP. It wouldn’t be so bad if I knew more of the words to this song, but these two lines are getting REALLY repetitive, so knock it off, Weezy.

I keep trying to write my paper, but Weezy is not acquiescing to my request. He just keeps on keeping on with his “I’m a fiya man. F-f-f-fiya man. Nuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuh fiya man. You can spark it up and Imma put it ooout. You can spark it up and Imma put it oooout.”

So I decided to call it quits for the night. I’m not getting anything done, and I’m developing a serious beef with Lil Wayne, who I’m pretty sure could pistol whip me or murder me with a glock or something. I don’t even know what a glock is, but I’ve come to understand through my light submersion into the rap music culture that it can eff a mother effer up.

I don’t know if I’m actually going to finish my paper early. It’s going to take some serious inspiration.

Don’t even start, Josh Groban.

-Valerie

**Clearly, I didn’t take these pictures of Josh Groban and Lil Wayne. It’d be cool if I did though. But I’m not cool. I googled them.

You seem to be rather confused as to what my responsabilities as an employee are. Seeing as how one of my responsibilities is to help make your lives easier, I decided to make you a couple of helpful pie charts using MS Paint. You’re welcome.

Note: These are my required responsibilites

Key Word: NOT my job

Thinking I can deal with your fines is completely legitimate, and is the least annoying thing that people mistakenly think I do. What does make me mad is people wanting me to go get their books for them. People call in and are like, “will you pick out four books about animal rights, two books about tofu, and six books about how to stop hating my life and eat bacon again?” And I’m like, “Uhh, I guess,” because I’m actually a very non-confrontational person to people I don’t know. But I totally hate those people.

I think it’s a toss up between whether I hate picking up people’s lunch or the fact that everyone thinks I’m a printer genie. Probably the printer genie thing. You never realize how whiny people are until they can’t print their stuff out. They’re all, “Ummm, there’s something wrong with the printer. It won’t print the thing and the thing says the thing’s messed up.” And I’m all, “ok buddy, slow down on the technical jargon and I’ll see what I can do.” So I go over, look at it, press some buttons at random, and hope it works. Sometimes it does. When it doesn’t, people really get pissed. At me. And I’m all, “Well I’m sorry. There’s a computer lab next door and I suck at technology almost as much as you suck at not freaking out over a printer so you really shouldn’t expect me to be able to fix things. Sorry “Technology Super Genie Wizard Extraordinare” was not in the job description and I got my Nerd Degree in Harry Potter Trivia instead of IT. I’ll work on that.” Jerks.

-Valerie

Yeah. That's a badger. On a horse. Preparing to Joust.

That’s all.

-Valerie