So at the risk of deeply embarassing myself...

Well .. that is, more than I already have of course, I thought I would post a really old picture of myself and a friend (for anonymity's sake I'll call this friend Nelly). The picture itself is quite hilarious, and every time I look at it I can't help but a) giggle and b) ask myself what I was thinking (oh, I believe the answer to that would simply be that I wasn't, or more accurately, we weren't).

Nelly was my childhood best friend, and as a result of that, we got in to loads of shenanigans together (and I mean just absolute buckets of shenanigans!). I'm actually quite surprised that she hasn't been mentioned in a previous story because I sure do have a lot that star her and myself: Oh the things we have done! Sometimes I look back on them and just laugh and laugh for hours.

You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? I would think that for the one that I am about to show you, that is entirely true. In fact, it might even be worth a thousand and one words :o!

Without further ado:



Wow right? Haha.

Nelly and I were basically two cogs from the same clock: the same stupidly weird clock that is. We were both extremely hyperactive with overactive imaginations (really, not a good combination, especially for teachers). As a result, one of our favourite things to do at sleepovers and such was to play dress-up. Oh, our sleepovers were always epic and ... my god, I have so many funny stories about our sleepovers alone to tell.

Anyway, this picture was taken at one of our sleepovers. We were bored so we decided to dress-up as princesses and models, do our makeup and etc.

I know, that picture doesn't look very princessy or modelly for that matter, but that was our original intention (swear)!

You see, he dressing up part was good: we had all these old ballgowns of my mom's. It all went downhill when we put the makeup on.

Basically what had happened was then, for some unknown reason, - possibly because we were not experts at applying makeup (I know, it's hard to fathom that by looking at our lovely skills showcased above) - the theme of our dress-up session changed from princess/models to ... hmm, I don't know what to call it exactly: perhaps Rocker-Biker-Delinquent-Chic?

I know, I was SO cool! (Be jealous, be extremely jealous!)

So why show this to you?

The next - or close to next - post, that is "Ketchup and Mustard part dos", features her and I thought that since a picture is worth a thousand words, why not show you this so you can get an understanding of our innate personalities? Not only that, but I'll probably just have to tell you all the other stupid - but utterly hilarious - things that we've done and I've always liked having a face to match to the characters in stories - no matter how ridiculous that face may be.

:)

PS. If you're wondering, I'm on the left and Nelly's on the not-left (or, as I hoped you have deduced, the right)

PPS. Warning: You may or may not, depending on my mood really, seriously regret it if you ever make fun of me for my amazing makeup application skills. Ok? I may just have to smother you with lipstick galore and take your picture if you do so. :)

Ketchup and Mustard ... Just doesn't work for me! (Part Uno)

Ketchup and mustard.

When normal people think of these two things they think of relatively harmless condiments. One's red, one's yellow and when placed on meat they generally appeal to the eye. One tastes like rotten tomatoes, the other, well I have never tasted anything that comes as close to being as nasty as mustard so I don't have anything to compare it to. Nonetheless, despite my opinions on these two condiments, most people seem to like them.

When I think of ketchup and mustard together, two memories come to mind. One of these memories could quite possibly be one of my favourite memories from when I was an innocent child. The other memory makes me run to my closet, curl up in a ball and stare at the wall while my teeth chatter and tears drip out of my eyes. (I might have exaggerated that last part there by a tad, but not really).

I'll enlighten y'all on the second memory first, just so I can get my feelings out and hopefully move on quickly. Just a note, I'll probably end up just posting the two stories in two different posts because I do have other things to do.. although it may not seem like it :P)

On a side note, what's up with y'all. How is y'all a word? (Seriously, it must be because my spellchecker - in Mozilla - says it's a word. IT'S NOT A WORD! It's two words, and for some reason, people string them together because...? Are they lazy? Do they think it's cool? Does it have some secret hidden meaning behind it? (Oh.. if that's the case we should contact Dan Brown to investigate - it could be the 4th Robert Langdon mystery ;)) Maybe we should start combining more words together: Salad dressing could be sa'dressin, as in, "pass the sa'dressin you crazy mofo for shizzle." Or bank robbery could be ba'robber, as in, "Dude the bad robber just comitted some sick ba'robber foo!" So'we re'ain't gu'be ma'no mo'sense! Really y'all, how hard it is to say you all?

That's just a little ramble/rant. I just despise it when y'all make a mockery out of the English language.

So back to my traumatizing story.

One summer, after I read Sweet Valley (and yes - I read Sweet Valley books!) In fact, I loved loved LOVED Sweet Valley books - I practically devoured them anytime I could - and anyone who says they suck (he-hem, Moe from the Simpsons) is seriously delusional and needs to up their medication by a couple of doses. While reading these amazing books (I still highly recommend them if you're looking for a fun read to relax with and take the weight of the world off your shoulders) I became obsessed with horses (mainly because one of my favourite characters, Elizabeth, was also obsessed with horses).

I know.. As much as it pains me to admit it, I was brainwashed by Sweet Valley. I fell for the subconscious messages lurking within the chipper texts big time - luckily, however, this brainwashing didn't last very long - thank-you to a little nightmare I like to call horse camp! Or more accurately, the horse camp from hell.

After months, ok well weeks, alright, days, of begging my dad to buy me a pony and teach me to ride we reached a compromise: he agreed that he would send me, my sister and my brother to horse camp for one week in the summer instead of buying me a pony at the time. Since I never really wanted a pony in the first place this compromise was fine by me - at first.

It turned out that horse camp was the worst idea that I've ever had (and I've had some pretty gosh darn bad ones.. maybe I'll enlighten you about those ideas later - if you're lucky).

THAT HORSE CAMP WAS THE WORST CAMP THAT I EVER WENT TO IN MY LIFE. By far. And I'd know, I've been to a lot of day camps that I've despised in my life (thanks mom and dad), but this one takes the cake - easily.

The camp itself was run by a fascist she-farmer who got a perverse pleasure out of torturing the campers (a small group of 8 people) with her little tricky mind games. I swear, I have no idea what the hell she was doing running a camp like that because it was incredibly obvious that she did not like small children - with the exception of her own.

Ugh, Cassandra. I still remember Cassandra. I will never forget Cassandra, I don't mean that in a good way. Cassandra was ... ugh, can I just say, a nightmare. She immediately latched on to me, because let's face it, I was the coolest person there (naturally) and as a result we got ... special ... privileges. However, about halfway into the week I had an epiphany of sorts: I asked myself, "Kelsey, what the heck are you doing with this chick (although, in retrospect, when I asked myself I probably didn't use the word chick)? You don't even like her!".

Those who knew me back then, and even sometimes now, I was never one to sugarcoat things, or do anything that I particularly didn't want to do. As a result, I told Cassandra (who constantly complained and made fun of the other campers and was just mean in general) to STFU.

Man, I've never seen anyone go to so nice to so mean so quickly. I swear, it was like as soon as I told her off, bam, a totally different person. A person who, well lets just say, made life extremely difficult for me the last half of the week: she constantly got me in trouble and separated from another girl, Ashley, who I actually did like. (It's weird that I still remember their names as it did happen ages ago, but I don't know, I remember a lot of things about this camp).

Anyway, I kind of got off track there, at that camp, everyday, the fascist dictator, as I will forever remember her as, forced us, the wee little innocent campers, to clean animal shit out of the stalls. This may sound weird and everything, but that's not really my idea of fun! (I know, shocking right?)

Basically, my dad paid a small fortune (which could have been used to buy me a 'little barbie car that goes down the street' like I always wanted) for his three children to muck away in the stalls and clean up horse crap and be treated, probably, more inhumanely than most slaves ever were.

NOT FUN!

Not only that, but the counselors were spineless little jellyfish who knew nothing about riding or speaking up against illegal child labour. Annd (yes, there is more), I still remember the bathrooms from that camp - N-A-S-T-Y! The pleasant (sarcasm) aroma was a cross between old lady urine and a corpse that has been rotting for 324 days. I also got forced to ride Western on this dumb-ass horse and, upon being made to go bareback, I almost fell off.

Basically, at this camp I almost died! And I'm not even exaggerating, much.

Oh, and on another side note (yes there are a lot in this post), I believe that this camp is part of the reason as to why I fear birds so much. Yes it's true. Deep down inside me, part of the reason that I resent horse camp so much is because I was scarred for life there.

How?

Well, it all started on this one warm rainy day. The FD (fascist dictator) didn't want us riding the horses because it was raining - although it wasn't really raining, it was more of a drizzle. So what does one do at a horse camp when not riding horses while it's raining?

The answer, have chicken races! (Yes, that logic was sadly lost on me as well. I don't know how one equates rain + horse camp - horses = chicken races, but maybe that's just me).

Chickens, while they are poultry and do not look so much like most birds, they are in fact birds (or if they're not, they should be - I wouldn't know, I don't really pay that much attention to stuff like that). My logic is, if they have wings and beaks and oddly shaped feet, they are birds.

Anyway, as much I as I didn't want to, FD forced me to participate (I believe that she threatened to take away my riding privileges or something). I was given a ribbon and told to go find a chicken and tie the ribbon around there neck.

Uh, excuse me? You want me to pick up a chicken and hold it long enough to tie a ribbon around its neck? What the hell are you smoking? No, really.

I wasn't afraid of birds at this point, but I wasn't their biggest fan either. I sure as heck didn't want to even touch a chicken, let alone pick it up for what would seem like eternity. But I did.

In retrospect, after horse camp in general, I'm pretty sure that this was the second worst mistake in my life.

I picked up the chicken, fumbled with it, tried to think about my happy place (I don't entirely remember what that would be, but I'm pretty sure that Sweet Valley was involved with in somehow), eventually managed to get the ribbon on it and set it down.

The bird, well, it was ok for the first few minutes, but then it looked a bit .. well lets just say, strange. Being the humanitarian (or is it animalitarian in this case?) I was, and still am, I was worried that I might have tied the ribbon too tight around its neck (I'm an awful judge about things like that - honest, it's not intentional or subconscious - just what I think is good, usually isn't).

I bent down and took the ribbon off. *cue creepy music* As soon as I did, it was like the devil materialized in this chicken. Or that the chicken was just mad. You know, I think it's understandable, if I was a chicken I certainly would get mad if this stupid kid was manhandling me and forcing me to run around like an idiot.

IT ATTACKED ME! The freaking chicken actually attacked me! It started pecking at me and chasing me - This may be hard to picture, but I swear, I'm not making a word of this up.

To get the full effect of the result, I think that you should imagine a young child - scrawny with a mop of blond hair - shrieking girlishly while bawling and attempting to run away, her stickish legs failing her several times, and eventually ending up in the smelly bathroom where she then locked herself in for a good hour or so and sucked her thumb - yep, I'm pretty sure that I just painted an accurate picture of what happened there.

*shudders*

And ever since that fateful day, chickens and birds just give me the creeps. Every time I see a bird, this memory pops up in my head. It's funny, I think I'm cursed: most people, when they experience a traumatic event, forget that it happened or their mind represses it. Not me, no luckily I go the complete opposite way and remember every darn thing that happened, like it happened yesterday. Not only that, but I am also cursed when it comes to birds: I have also been attacked by at least two other birds as well, one of which I told you about in a previous post I believe.

Anyway, back to the ketchup and mustard story (wow, this post is really long - and keep in mind, this is only the first memory that I associate with ketchup and mustard).

One day after I essentially told Cassandra what a tool she was and blah blah blah she got mad at me. I don't remember exactly how I got roped into doing what I did, but there were definitely threats and blackmail involved.

(I know, I told you, this camp was INTENSE - With a capital "I")

You see, by this point I had ditched being politically correct (although, that in itself was a huge headache) and was hanging out with Ashley. I believe that we did something we weren't supposed to do, although I don't remember what it was. Anyway, Cassandra saw us do it (she was incredibly sneaky like that. In fact, I do believe that, when I left, she had a very promising career of being a successful international spy) and being the vindictive little weasel she was, threatened to tell her mother (FD). I had already been in trouble enough that week (I know, it's so hard picturing me actually being in trouble ;), especially because you know, I'm so innocent now, but yeah, back then ... not necessarily the case) so I decided to play along and she what she wanted.

You know, much like how terrorists sometimes state their demands, and you have no choice but to give into them.

Anyway, I'll admit, playing along with her was a big mistake on my part. It was much like a mouse walking right up to a cat and then mooning it or something (haha, I'm tired and that was the best I could think of).

All this was going down at lunch, so when I asked Cassandra what she wanted to keep quiet, she looked around and after a few seconds her eyes landed on what our lunch was (ketchup, mustard, ham, lettuce, bread, tomatoes, etc - essentially a sandwich bar) and a devious smile slowly spread across her face.

Without saying a word, she reaches out, grabs a piece of bread, grabs the mustard and squirts a huge blob on the bread. Then she did same thing with the ketchup. She folded up the bread and told me to eat it.

I believe my reaction was somewhere along the lines of what the hell are you thinking? Oh, and who the hell do you think you are?

I'm pretty sure she was also a mind reader, and she pretty much said, "If you want me to keep quiet, eat this. If not, I'll go to my mom and tell her what you did". (I know that sounds pretty ominous and all - like we did something seriously bad - but we didn't, I just didn't want to get in trouble anymore. Not only did she say that, but she also had that glint in her eye. You know, the one that is daring you to do something.

For those of you who know me, I could never, and still can never, turn down a dare. Naturally I did it. No matter how much my brain was telling me 'don't do it moron, don't do it', I didn't listen to it.

*cue dramatic music*

I flinched while picking up the sandwich, slowly raised it to my mouth, took a bite. AND GAGGED! BLECH BLECH BLECH! It was easily the worst thing that I had ever tasted, and still takes the cake today. I'm pretty sure I turned green, although, I wouldn't exactly know because there weren't any mirrors.

Let's just say then, it felt like I was green. As green as you can get too.

Ashley was staring at me horrified, while Cassandra was smirking. I got mad when I saw that smirk. Because of that smirk, oh and because of the fact that I think I like to torture myself, I took another bite.

It was worst than the first, I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't for my stomach's ability to handle what I did to it, I would have tossed my cookies. I couldn't eat anymore. I just couldn't. I debated hurling what was left at Cassandra in a pathetic attempt for revenge. I didn't. I wish that I could say that I didn't because I was a nice person and would never do that, but I can't(had it been anyone but Cassandra, I wouldn't have fathomed doing it in a million years). No, the reason that I didn't hurl it right back in that biznitch's face was because I was interrupted.

Yep, FD, with impeccable timing I might add, came out right in the middle of my idea and yelled at me for a good 10 minutes about wasting food and then punished me for the rest of the afternoon - thereby making me lose my glorious opportunity for payback. The punishment? Not being able to ride, and having to clean up the chicken co-op *shudders* while everyone else was riding.

Looking back, I don't even know if what I was forced to do is considered legal.

Fun times. Fun times. No wait, who am I kidding?

The moral of this story: do not go to horse camp! Or if you do, do not piss off the organizer's daughter, or you too could be forced to eat a ketchup and mustard sandwich - and trust me, no matter how much you may like ketchup and mustard, you do not want to eat that nasty business.

Blergh. My palms are getting sweaty and my stomach is tinging just thinking about it.

Man, this post has more words than most of my essays do for school, is that bad?

Kudos to you if you managed to read the whole things and sift through the many layers of horse camp horrors that I provided you with (I know, this post especially was SO deep)- hopefully, unlike me, you don't have nightmares about it.

Look for part two soon, although I will try to limit the length of that one just for the sake of your eyes - oh, and my sanity!

PS. Now you see what took me so long with posting another story :P.